Starr Jameson would return to Earth in a few days. She would ask him if she could go home.
Chapter 11
“That’s it,” Jameson said.
The holograph image that seemed to stand in the center of his office moved slowly.
“See the hesitation? Now watch this.”
The image kept moving. The figure tried another step, lurched awkwardly, and fell in slow motion. It was Hanna. Her face was curiously expressionless, even when one elbow hit the floor with a surely painful impact.
Stanislaw Morisz said doubtfully, “I see what you mean. It’s not much to go on.”
“Not by itself, no. But taken as part of a pattern, beginning with that set-up rescue…”
He waited while Morisz thought it over. His theory was far-fetched and he had broached it to few persons besides Morisz. He was not prepared to be laughed at unless it was necessary.
“All right,” Morisz said finally. He leaned back in his chair. The winter day was nearly over, and behind him the river was black except for its edging of ice. “Maybe there’s something to it after all. How’d you spot this?”
“I’ve been looking for…oddities. Anomalies in her behavior, besides the obvious ones. I checked this as a matter of course; it happened to pay off.”
“My people should have caught it.”
That was true, but Jameson said, “She’s very good. It’s hard to be sure even when you know what you’re looking for. But I’ve watched hours of these things. Days. If you run an incident like this against a kinetic model, there’s no doubt she’s faking the falls to hide the other thing.”
Hanna’s insubstantial figure lay before them in a grotesque sprawl. Morisz stared at it, and Jameson, moved by some obscure impulse, touched a switch and said “Endit.” The image vanished. Not that it matters, he thought. She hasn’t had a moment’s privacy in weeks, and after all this is only a picture.
“If she’s supposed to do something—think she’s supposed to do something? Sabotage? Spying? If you’re right—” Morisz caught himself up short. He looked faintly embarrassed by his own half-belief. He said, “We’d better find out what it is, first. Conditioning, programming—we can do things like that too, you know. Shouldn’t be hard to figure it out.”
“She doesn’t remember what they did.”
Morisz answered with emphasis, “She says she doesn’t remember.”
“Tharan would have known.”
“You weren’t too sure about him yourself.”
“I think he reported honestly what he saw. I think he did not see all there was. And of course there is still the possibility Ward suggested—that it’s some sort of hysterical reaction, delayed shock or something of that nature, she’s disguising for reasons of her own. Afraid to admit it to Ward for fear of losing even more autonomy—”
“Doesn’t explain the nights.”
“No. If I’m right she may know—as she says—only that she is tired in the mornings.”
“But the rest of it…”
“She knows she is somehow out of control, of course, and she has spoken of it to no one. And I think Ward is wrong.”
“Well, then?”
Jameson said, “There is only one expert on the aliens, on what happened to Hanna, and on Hanna’s state of mind. I intend to ask her.”
“Sure. And a lot of good that’ll do if she doesn’t remember, or she’s hiding everything she can from us, or both.”
“One can always ask. She’s under a hell of a strain, Stan. She’s frightened. It shows, when she thinks no one’s watching. A direct confrontation might be enough to get a start, at least.”
“So what happens if it doesn’t produce anything?”
“I’ll try to get her to agree to another deep probe. Maybe duplicate the drugs the aliens gave her—”
“You wouldn’t let us do that before,” Morisz said resentfully. “What happened to ‘intolerable’ and ‘inhumane’?”
Jameson said, “They got lost somewhere between expediency and desperation,” and Morisz eyed him doubtfully, not sure if he was joking or not.
“We should have done it a long time ago,” Morisz said. “Six months since they dumped her in our laps. Six months lost, six months without a sign of them when we could have been getting somewhere.”
“Not lost,” Jameson said. “Perhaps if we’d done it at the beginning we’d never have seen what we’re seeing now. I did not and do not think creating an artificial psychosis will accomplish anything except her further torment. I still hope it won’t be necessary.”
“And if it is, and she doesn’t agree?”
“We do it anyway. We can take her into official custody as an intelligence source. You don’t need to remind me how gently she’s been treated so far. We do not have to keep doing that. There is no way for her to stop us from doing anything we want to do.”
It took a greater effort than he expected to say that quite coldly, but Morisz noticed nothing and said only, “You’re sure of this, aren’t you?”
“I’m sure the implications are so important we have to assume I’m right.”
Morisz was thinking ahead. He said, “If we have to go that far, how do we justify it to D’neera?”
“We won’t have to. D’neera is united in nothing, and less than ever now. There will be no protest; except from Lady Koroth, of course, but she’ll be alone. No one else on D’neera is likely to give a damn. Hanna is not exactly popular there.”
“The old story.” Morisz chuckled, but without humor. “After Nestor she couldn’t do anything wrong. Now she can’t do anything right. Yeah.” He got up, stretching. He seemed a little larger than he had when he entered the room. There was a plain course before him, a thing to do. He said, “I’ll get started on it right away.”
“No,” Jameson said. He sounded peculiar even to himself; Morisz glanced at him in surprise. He said, “I’d like to give it a try myself.”
“You?” Morisz said, looking at him too closely. “What for?”
Jameson said slowly, “She knows me. Not well, perhaps, but she respects me and I think trusts me as much as she trusts anyone here. She regards I&S as a threat. The analyses of the direct interrogation sessions made that plain. I should like to see how she responds.”
“It’s irregular,” Morisz said disapprovingly. Jameson folded his hands and waited. Finally Morisz said, reluctantly but with no rank to pull, “It makes sense, though.”
“Quite,” Jameson said, and was shocked at his own relief. The reason he had given Morisz was sound enough, but he had not admitted even to himself, until now, the other reason: that his intervention might, just might, mean that Hanna could be spared some quantity of pain.
Morisz said, “When are you going to do it?”
“I don’t know. Soon. Why?”
“I’ll have to have somebody on the scene.”
Jameson shook his head sharply but Morisz said, “He can stay out of sight. I don’t—I beg your pardon, but you have to consider appearances. I don’t mean to imply anything about anybody, but—we don’t want anybody thinking this is some secret kind of—”
He was talking himself into a corner. Jameson almost smiled. He said, “You mean if Struzik or al-Nimeury were doing this without an I&S representative at hand, I’d bite your head off. I see. You’re right, of course.”
Morisz relaxed visibly. He said, “Anyway, it wouldn’t hurt to have help there. If the worst-case scenario is true she might get violent.”
This was a possibility that had not occurred to Jameson. Whatever his suspicions, he thought of Hanna now as so fragile that a look might break her. Yet the chance existed, and he had finally managed to get rid of his bodyguard, an appendage Heartworld considered a weakness—though the threat of assassination was real enough even now. The tradition of personal courage was strong in his culture, and he wondered what would be said about his accepting assistance with a woman still frail from illness. But Hanna was trained in personal combat and he was
not, and he had not struck a man since early youth.
“All right,” he said finally. “I might as well do it immediately. She’s been asking to see me, in any case. I think I’ll ask her to come to my house tonight. It might be as well to get her out of the medical atmosphere.”
“Soft light and flowers,” Morisz murmured.
“What?”
“I’ve seen the same reports you have. She’s lonely. Vulnerable, maybe.”
Jameson said frigidly, “That was not what I had in mind.”
“Of course not.” Morisz looked abashed. “Sorry. Larssen was after her again the other day, by the way.”
“What do you mean?”
“Said he wanted to try again. I hear she was in tears by the time she got rid of him. I’m surprised she didn’t just break his arm.”
“She would have, at one time.” Jameson had not seen the record of Hanna’s earlier encounter with Larssen and had told Morisz to destroy it. He knew one or two of the Beyle Center’s directors very well; now he made up his mind to see to it Larssen lost his job. Surprised by his own anger, he hardly noticed Morisz getting up until he looked up absently, hearing the man speak again.
“What did you say?”
“I said, I just can’t believe it. It’s fantastic.”
“I know. That’s what the others said. But you are becoming convinced, aren’t you?”
“Let’s say,” Morisz said cautiously, “the evidence is suggestive. It would explain a lot. Are you just going to come out and ask her about it?”
“Why not? It would simplify things considerably if she admitted I could be right. And when she knows we’ve found out her evasions, what would she have to lose?”
“More than you think, maybe. The last man who sold Polity secrets—remember Harrison? He’s still living on Nestor like a king.”
“I don’t think she’s done that. Tharan would have picked it up.”
“Not necessarily. It’s no crazier than what you’re suggesting. If that really was an artificial block Tharan ran into, who knows what they can do? Maybe they bought her and taught her to hide it. Maybe Koroth isn’t enough for her. Maybe they promised her she’d be a queen. Keep it in mind. You can’t leave out the possibility.”
“No,” Jameson said, but he did not mean what Morisz thought he meant. The slight, shivering woman who had shown him her agony at failing had not been bought by anyone; but he would not let Morisz see his certainty.
The evasion left him uneasy, and he was still uneasy when he left his office some time later. He had not spoken to Hanna, only left a message for her at the Beyle Center, but he did not doubt she would come. The interview would be recorded, and one of Morisz’s men would be within earshot.
It was dark on the concourse before the administration complex, and a bitter wind was rising, laced with snow. Jameson suddenly remembered he had not arranged transport for Hanna. He had personally vetoed letting her have access to a credit network, which in effect made her a prisoner under the guise of making her a guest. That meant she would have to be on foot, and he thought of her walking five kilometers on legs that did not always obey her, and winced.
“This won’t do,” he said into the wind, but it was no use. It was too late. His detachment where Hanna was concerned was a poor illusion at best. He could not afford to hide the fact from himself; he doubted his success in hiding it from Morisz; and there was little hope of hiding it from Hanna, who from the beginning had ignored the face he presented to the world.
He had begun by pitying her, an easy thing to do. The wreck Aziz Khan found, considered as a human being, was pitiable enough. Considered as the author of “Sentience,” the lively sharp-edged presence that once was Hanna, it had the impact of profound tragedy, a random discontinuity that mocked human effort to read meaning into the universe. Jameson knew very early that Hanna could be made whole physically. When he learned also that enough of her mind survived to answer questions, that should have been the end of it. It had not been the end; and in the months past, increasingly troubled, he had sought to find out why.
It had nothing to do with her beauty, as he half-suspected at first. It was true that as he watched the ruin of her face take its old shape under the physicians’ hands, he understood at last why on each meeting he had the sense of seeing her for the first time. She was lovely, a fact he had ignored as best he could, and one which was the more piquant because she was entirely without artifice or seductiveness, unaware of her own impact and seeming not to care. But it was not that that affected him. Desirable women were everywhere, and all his adult life he had taken for granted the attraction his status and wealth exerted. He had been immunized to beauty more years past than he cared to remember.
Nor was it Hanna’s personality that drew him, the antithesis of his own. Impolitic, honest, direct, she had ambushed him more than once into responses he did not want to make; it was a warning clear as a spoken word, and he had intended to heed it. He could have done so easily; could have put the attraction aside, ignored the flattery of her half-sensed interest, regarded her as valuable in her way, useful, nothing more—
Until now. Until her destruction; until it was likely (said Melanie Ward, citing the long-term effects of torture) she would not be the same woman again.
He had gone to the Beyle Center often when she could not see him, nor know in any way he was there. He felt no revulsion at her rebirth. Instead it seemed he watched a metamorphosis; that her steel-framed chrysalis was midwife to something new and, perhaps, rare. For what had she been before, after all? A girl becoming woman; a bright child who had never been hurt, defined and circumscribed by qualities he had named at their first meeting. What would she do, now that youth and luck and brilliance had failed her all at once? —Not through the slow pressures of time, the series of defeats that forced men and women into courses they did not choose, but with a single blow that tore her loose from every anchor she had known and left her harborless. It disturbed him that she had so accurately, in their brief meeting, perceived that he might allow her to turn to him, and her willingness to do so disturbed him even more. She had been kept deliberately—not maliciously, but coldly—from everything and everyone who could give her comfort; and in his occasional, erratic impulses to provide it, Jameson recognized the uncertainty of his own balance, which he had once thought so secure.
The cold truth was that he faced the ending of his own life, as he defined it and had chosen to live it. It was not only that there would be no more Endeavors. What was left was perilously fragile. His associates were slow to forgive mistakes, and his prestige had not recovered from the blow the aliens had dealt it. He had never walked such a tightrope. If he fell now there would be—nothing. Only the broad fields of Arrenswood, the life of a country gentleman in which he would dwindle and waste and grow old too soon. The miracles that gave men twice the lifespan they deserved were capricious, and unkind to him. There would not be time enough to wait for Heartworld to forget, not time enough to forge his career a second time. There would not even be another Henriette, because his pride, next time, would revolt. Hanna might recover from what had been done to her, in spite of Ward’s opinion. Jameson might not.
For weeks now he had watched Hanna move against the backdrop of such thoughts. She did not know he watched her; she did not know he saw her uncertainty, and later her fear and despair. He knew her intimately, without her knowledge and against her will, and it seemed to him the aliens had created no crueler disjunctions than those that faced both of them now. For despite his intense familiarity with every terror that touched Hanna’s face, she still held a final secret; and though his wish was to let her seek shelter, necessity demanded that he take from her the last hope of it.
* * *
It was a pleasant house, set among trees that were bare and frosted now; in summer it would be heavily shaded. It was faced with some wood Hanna did not recognize in the gathering darkness and looked old, old, like something from a more primitive cultur
e than Earth’s. Even through the leafless trees she could see no other buildings, privacy unheard-of in the heart of a Terrestrial city. She remembered the house belonged to Starr Jameson, not to Heartworld. He must have wanted this solitude very badly, she thought, to spend what it must have cost him when there were no guarantees he would last even this long on the Commission.
She went slowly up the long hill before the house, stumbling once. The spasms that racked her when she was alone had mercifully spared her during her long walk, but her coat was light and its thermal control had failed, and she was frozen and exhausted. He has to let me go, she thought. I can’t take much more of this; it gets worse every day; but D’neera was a blur in her mind and all that was clear was the space she must traverse to get there, the freedom of the void. That would be safe.
She touched the front door’s beveled glass curiously, and jumped when the house spoke to her. Mr. Jameson was not yet home, it said. She was expected, however; would she come in? She did so, grateful for the warmth, and followed directions to a softly lighted room that was sleekly paneled and breathed subtle woodsmells. The furniture was big and comfortable and there was a working fireplace. A faint tang of smoke hung in the air.
The house did not speak to her again. She took off her coat and sat down uneasily; something shifted a little with her presence and fell softly in the fireplace. The silence was profound, and for all the need she felt to be alert it seeped into her, and her mind drifted. This happened often now, and she floated on drowsy waves of images that had to do with Earth or D’neera or places she had never visited, half-formed glimpses of worlds she did not know. An occasional gust of fear shook her, but most of the time she was too tired to be afraid. If I do not get to a mindhealer soon there will be nothing left of me, she thought, and terror woke her; the thought was too reminiscent of The Questioner.
The D’neeran Factor Page 23
