His mind made up, he leaned toward the desk touchpad and keyed in Krieg’s number. Krieg’s close-cropped head and craggy features appeared on the screen a few moments later. “I’ve got a job for you,” Callen said. “We need to get this business out in the open and talk to our friends face-to-face. It should have been done long ago. Can you get over here to talk about it?”
For his mission, Krieg used one of the twelve-man RS-17P “Scout” military Survey & Reconnaissance Vehicles provided as part of the standard equipment inventory for rapid response and emergency situations. It carried four nose cannon and a pair of waist laser turrets for ground suppression and Landing Zone defense, as well as various underwing munitions packages. Although the precise functions of these devices would no doubt be lost on the Cyreneans, the overall nature of the craft could hardly be mistaken. The intention was to signal the kind of resorts that the Terrans had at their disposal, and to impress that the matter was serious. To this same end, it was decided to forgo the formality of making advance arrangement with the Cyreneans for a meeting. Krieg’s force would simply drop in unannounced. And since it was close by, and one place that they knew for sure would give access to the local governing system, the place would be Vattorix’s residence across the lake, the same place where they had been received the night before. The choice also represented a mild testing of limits as to how far they could push Cyreneans. If it turned out they had gone too far, it could be written off with apologies and the excuse of newcomers being unfamiliar with native customs.
A group of curious Cyreneans had already gathered outside the main entrance of the house by the time the Scout touched down. Krieg emerged in one of his rare concessions to wearing uniform, flanked by a lieutenant and preceded by a ten-man guard detail carrying weapons but not wearing combat gear, who fanned out on either side with parade-ground precision to present arms. A Cyrenean who introduced himself as Afan-Essya greeted them and stated himself to be a close helper of Vattorix and organizer of day-to-day affairs, which sounded pretty close to “Secretary.” Krieg, assuming a due measure of propriety but at the same time injecting a no-nonsense note, conveyed that he was here representing the new Terran administration in connection with a matter they considered highly important and wanted to take up with the highest levels of Yocalan authority.
It would have satisfied Krieg to deal with Afan-Essya at this juncture; or any other comparably placed official with whom a preliminary discussion would be appropriate. He was therefore surprised and momentarily thrown off balance when Afan-Essya, after a brief consultation with the others around him, suggested that the best person to take it up with would probably be Vattorix himself. But Krieg was if anything a pragmatist, not much given to standing on form, and he certainly wasn’t about to miss an opportunity like this. Recovering quickly, he readily agreed. A messenger was dispatched into the house, and Krieg invited inside to wait. He followed, taking just the lieutenant with him — bringing a whole armed troop into Vattorix’s house would have been pushing things too far, even for Krieg. For a few minutes he was indulged in small talk that revolved around his first impressions of Cyrene and various details of the art and decor in the front entrance hall, where the reception had taken place the previous evening. To Krieg’s relief it turned out that Afan-Essya had acquired considerable proficiency as an interpreter. Then the messenger returned and announced that Vattorix could see the visitors at once.
Afan-Essya, with two others, conducted Krieg and the lieutenant up the central staircase and then via one of the secondary flights of stairs to a gallery lined by pointed windows and ledges of large flower vases along one side, and doors into a series of rooms on the other. They came to the last of these and entered a spacious, sunny room with walls of carved paneling and windows opening to a balcony overlooking the lawn and grounds falling away toward the lake. Vattorix was standing at an oval table near the windows, wearing what looked like casual dress — a plain tan tunic fastened by cord loops and metal clasps over Cyrenean Cossack-style trousers. He greeted the two Terrans affably, indicated two imposing chairs with high backs and wide arms, upholstered in a brown leathery material, on one side of the room, and seated himself on a matching couch facing them from the wall. Afan-Essya remained, while the other two Cyreneans who had accompanied them from below withdrew.
After a few minutes of opening pleasantries that Krieg managed to get through without giving vent to his rising impatience, Vattorix asked the reason for their visit. Despite his responsibilities, he had evidently devoted some effort to schooling in the language of the newcomers. His eyes were deep brown but with a strangely orange tint around the pupils. He regarded Krieg with a steady, penetrating gaze, his head tilted, causing his chin and beard to jut forward in a way that could have signified defiance or just simple curiosity. Never having had much need or bent for the fine art of reading subtleties in his fellow humans, let alone aliens that he had only met for the first time yesterday, Krieg decided that the best tack was simply to plunge in.
“Two ships from Earth came here before the Tacoma....”
Vattorix looked questioningly at Afan-Essya, who held up a hand. “Can you explain Tacoma?” Afan-Essya said.
“That’s the name of our ship — the one we came here in. Like my name is Krieg.” Krieg wasn’t in the habit of expressing himself simply for the convenience of foreigners. The conversation was going to have to rely heavily on Afan-Essya.
“Very well,” Afan-Essya said, and conveyed it to Vattorix.
Krieg resumed, “A lot of the people from those ships have gone missing.”
“How are we to understand ‘missing’?” Afan-Essya asked.
“They’re not at the base anymore.”
Vattorix and Afan-Essya looked at each other in a way that said yes, they both followed that, and then back at Krieg expectantly. Krieg waited for them to figure the rest out for themselves, but they continued looking, apparently waiting for more from him. Eventually, Afan-Essya said, “So we take it they have chosen to live somewhere else.”
“Yocala has many nice places,” Vattorix put in. “I would go too if I were Terran, I think. The base with the fence around it is like living in... “he said something in Yocalan to Afan-Essya.
Afan-Essya turned back to Kreig. “Where you keep animals inside fences. Is it ‘farm’?”
“Farm.” Vattorix nodded. “Who would want to be an animal in the farm?”
They weren’t getting it. “They don’t have leave to quit the base,” Krieg said. “There was never any official approval given.”
The two Cyreneans frowned and exchanged some words between themselves. “Are you saying they are escaped?” Afan-Essya asked, looking back. “That they are crime persons? No, they couldn’t be. Not so many of them.”
“Maybe the reason for the fence?” Vattorix suggested.
“The base is not a prison, yes?” Afan-Essya checked with Krieg.
“No, no.” Krieg glanced perplexedly at the lieutenant. “How can I put this? They come here on a contract.... Savvy? It’s like a promise. They’re brought here to do work for the corporation that runs the show. Like a government. The people who make the rules.”
“It sounds like a prison,” Afan-Essya commented. Vattorix nodded his head in agreement.
“Not at all. They’re free to choose what they do,” Krieg insisted.
“Then why can’t they choose where they want to live?” Afan-Essya asked.
“I already told you, because they’re under contract. They have a duty to the corporation.”
Another brief dialogue between Afan-Essya and Vattorix ensued, punctuated by shrugs and rubbings of chins, and ending in an exchange of nods signifying agreement. “Then that is a matter between your corporation and its prisoners,” Afan-Essya told Krieg. “It seems a strange organization for living. But it is not our affair to question the ways of others.”
“I cannot be surprised that they wanted to leave their farm,” Vattorix remarked. He gave the tw
o Terrans a long, dubious look, as if to say that they really ought to try thinking it through.
“Right, it’s our business,” Krieg agreed. Now they seemed to be getting somewhere. “But, as I don’t have to tell you, Cyrene is kind of a big place. It’s a question of finding them.”
“They have the bird-ships and the talking-seeing glasses,” Vattorix said, speaking to Afan-Essya. “I suppose so they must do their own way.” He made it sound like a fact of life that they had to live with, but not a thought that he found appealing.
“But this is where we think you can help,” Krieg said. Callen had briefed him not to make any direct or implied accusation that the Cyreneans might have played an active part in spiriting Terrans away. “There can only be so many places where someone can go. Many of your people must know where the Terrans are. They can’t be living out there invisibly.”
Afan-Essya shrugged as if agreeing the obvious. “Well, yes, I’m sure that’s true,” he replied.
“Then there you are!” Krieg sat back and regarded them triumphantly. This was the key admission that he had been after. He’d had no idea that eliciting it would be so easy. “What we need is your cooperation in tracking them down. The directors of the corporation would be very appreciative.”
Vattorix, however, frowned and said something to Afan-Essya in the unmistakable tone of one asking if he had understood correctly. The Secretary nodded and replied at some length in a worried voice. Vattorix’s expression darkened beneath his shaggy mane of hair, and for a moment he looked as if he might explode in anger. Krieg’s smile faded as the realization seeped in that perhaps this wasn’t going to be so easy.
Afan-Essya cautioned, “You are telling Vattorix that his nation is a prison, of which he is the... “he sought for a suitable word, “director.”
“No, you’ve got it wrong,” Krieg protested. “I’m talking about cooperation between authorities that have interests in common. The Directorate at the base; your government in Yocala. We want to see a future relationship that will benefit all of us. Right?”
Vattorix raised a restraining hand before Afan-Essya could answer. He wanted to take this one himself. “Yes, we are the government in Yocala. So what does this mean? It means that our... what was the word you said, ‘duty’?” Krieg nodded. “Our duty is to serve the people of Yocala. What is serve? Serve means we protect their right to decide how they will live. The Terrans from your base choose that they will live as Yocalans. This means they are my people now. My duty is to protect their right to say where they will live. It is not to serve your corporation.” Afan-Essya made to interject something, but Vattorix waved him down and went on, “But you would use your weapons to make the people serve government. Is wrong way up, like house with roof built under bottom. If is so on Earth, then okay, your business. But here, Terrans from base are our people now. So we should protect their right against you!”
“But they’re in breach of contract,” Krieg retorted.
“Is contract with you, not with us,” Vattorix answered.
“Don’t governments here enforce contracts? Isn’t that supposed to be a big part of any government’s job?”
Afan-Essya took a few moments to communicate the gist to Vattorix. “One that was made here, on Cyrene, yes,” Afan-Essya agreed when he turned back. “But this was made on Earth. No contract like the one you describe would ever be agreed on Cyrene.”
There was an odd look on the Cyrenean’s face that Krieg found puzzling. “How can you be so sure?” he demanded.
“Until you learn to know, there is no way I can tell you,” Afan-Essya replied. “And when you have learned, there will be no need to tell you.”
Callen sat in his office listening sourly to Kreig’s conversation as recorded by the compad that the lieutenant had been carrying in his breast pocket. When it was finished, he replayed a few salient parts and then sat staring vexedly at an image of the center of Revo city on one of the side-panel screens, coming in from a reconnaissance drone. No signatures were being returned by electronic ID or tracking devices. Without help on the ground, there was no way they would ever get a lead in that tangle of streets and alleyways, markets and squares, all teeming with people. And there was no guarantee that Shearer had gone into the city anyhow. With a reception organized and waiting, he could have been whisked away in any direction up or down the coast, inland, or even westward and out to sea.
Very well. So the Cyreneans weren’t going to help. The time would come later when they would regret that decision. But in the meantime Callen had to consider his other options. He thought for a while longer, then touched in a code that would alert Dolphin to call him back when it was safe to do so. The call tone sounded less than a minute later, and the screen presented the face of Dolphin, real name Michael Frazer, current field name Jeffrey Lang.
“Seven this evening,” Callen told him. It meant they were to meet then in a storeroom by the staff kitchen at the rear of the Administration Building. They never let themselves be seen together openly. “There’s going be another defection to the Cyreneans. But this time we’ll be the ones arranging it.”
“Who this time?” Dolphin asked, looking puzzled.
“You,” Callen said. “Lang wants to follow after his friends. We already have you set up with a temperament that will make it believable. I want you to go out there and pick up the trail. There has to be some kind of contact or network among the Cyreneans that knows which way they went. I’ll have an operational profile put together by the time we talk.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The apartment on the top floor above the drapery store looked out over a busy square in the center of Revo. On the far side, steep-roofed buildings of typically Cyrenean solid appearance and vertical accentuation stood over an arched, cloisterlike walkway extending the width of the block, lined with street vendors’ stalls and tables. Apparently the steep roofs were for throwing off the heavy snows when winter came. The upper parts of the structures were staggered back into terraces somewhat like ancient Sumerian ziggurats but with less regularity and symmetry, with many balconies displaying the ubiquitous profusion of plants and flowers. In some places, bridges at various levels connected across the side streets entering the square.
The place belonged to a Cyrenean called Soliki, who was at present attending to his business downstairs. Shearer and his companions had been brought there late the previous night. The Cyrenean who had been waiting with Uberg’s bag by the carriage had traveled with them and seemed to have been assigned as a guide. His name was Chev. He had left again after delivering them to Soliki’s, and said he would be back the next day, when he had further information on the “arrangements.”
While Shearer stood at the window in the spacious kitchen and stared out at the town, Soliki’s wife, Antara, clattered around the wood-fueled range, preparing a stew-and-pastry dish of some kind. She was a buxom woman with a reddish, chubby face, and wore an open loose, vestlike bodice over a loose white shirt, and a full calf-length skirt. At the large table occupying the center, their daughter Evassanie, who looked to be in her early-to-mid teens, was kneading bread dough. In addition to a loose single-piece garment hanging to the knee and open sandals, she was wearing one of the Terran NIDA mesh caps on her head. She had become instantly fascinated with it, and hadn’t taken it off since Uberg invited her to try it out an hour or more previously. To let her explore her newfound interest, the three Terrans were still wearing theirs too. Jerri was seated at the other side of the table, cleaning and slicing a mix of vegetables that she had offered to help with, and Uberg on a seat by the wall next to a wooden dresser filled with dishes and knickknacks. Nim had found a spot on a rug near the range and was dozing, chin on paws, every now and again opening an eye and moving it from side to side to keep check on the unfamiliar surroundings.
Shearer’s general impression confirmed what he had read and heard about Yocalan culture being at a stage roughly comparable to Europe in the eighteenth century. Jeff said
it was estimated to have taken only somewhere around the equivalent of two hundred years to progress from the Cyrenean counterparts of Aristotle. And yet the remarkable thing about it was that, as far as Shearer had been able to make out, anyway, the Cyreneans didn’t seem to posses any marked aptitude for analytical thought or what would normally be viewed as “scientific” thinking. It seemed an odd contradiction. He commented on it again to Uberg as he stared absently out at the town skyline with its towers and domes rising behind the facade opposite,
“That’s true,” Uberg agreed. “You won’t find elaborately developed systems of formal logic like the ones the medieval Scholastics wrestled with. But it also means that the Cyreneans didn’t spend a thousand years splitting hairs before realizing that deductive arguments are only as good as the assumptions and can’t tell you anything about reality.”
“Excuse me, what does law-abiding numbers mean?” Evassanie broke in. “I can’t make anything of it.”
Or at least, that was how Shearer’s NIDA set translated it. By now, he thought he knew what had happened. “Formal,” in the mind of someone like Uberg, in the sense he had meant it, would have a strong association with rigid systems of rules as pertaining to logical and mathematical derivations. In a Cyrenean mind, however, the notion of sets of rules would more naturally connect to civic laws regulating personal behavior. So what Shearer had heard was the net result of Uberg’s utterance being processed twice through the NIDA loop: from Uberg into whatever Evassanie had heard, and from that back into an interpretation in Shearer’s own style of English. All things considered, it didn’t do a bad job at all, he had decided. But the system developers back on Earth still had some work to do.
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