Asimov's SF, October-November 2008

by Dell Magazine Authors

  “Is he buying it?” Lanna asked.

  “I think so,” Jason said, walking away from the slums. “He's still following.”

  “Who do you think he's with?”

  “I'm not sure yet.” Jason turned, taking the steps down into an airtrain station. The man followed.

  “If you caught him this quickly, he must not be very good.”

  “He's young,” Jason said. “He knows what he's supposed to do, but he doesn't know how to do it.”

  “A reporter,” Lanna guessed.

  “No,” Jason said. “He's too well-equipped. Remember, he managed to hack into a secure FTL comm.”

  “One of the corporations?”

  “Maybe,” Jason said, strolling into an underground cafe. It smelt of dirt, mold, and coffee. His follower waited for a few moments outside, then walked in and took a table a discreet distance from Jason.

  Jason ordered a cup of coffee.

  “We haven't even discussed how he managed to scan your disk,” Lanna noted. “You're losing your edge, old man.”

  “I'm not old,” Jason mumbled as the waitress brought his coffee. It smelt of cream, though he had ordered it black. He turned his ineffectual eyes on a newspaper someone else had left on the table, but his mind studied his follower. The man was indeed young—in his early twenties. He wore softly humming grays and browns.

  “So,” Lanna said, “do you want to try and get me a visual so I can look him up?”

  Jason paused. “No,” he said finally, taking a sip of his coffee. It had far too much cream in it—probably an attempt to obscure its poor flavor.

  “Well, what are you going to do?”

  “Be patient,” Jason chided.

  * * * *

  Coln Abrams sipped his coffee—it didn't have enough cream. He kept telling himself not to look at his target. He didn't actually need to watch the man to monitor the conversation, he just had to stay within range.

  What are you doing here, Write? Coln wondered with frustration. How did you know the ambassador would be killed? What does this all have to do with your plans?

  Coln shook his head. Jason Write, head operative for Northern Bell Phone Company, one of the most enigmatic people in the Solar System. What was he doing on Evensong? The United Intelligence Bureau knew a lot about the man, but for every known fact there seemed to be two more missing.

  Take, for instance, the Tenasi agreement. Coln had read the document itself a hundred times, and had watched the holo-vids, commentaries, and old newscasts relating to the Tenasi incident over and over. The United Governments military had accidentally shot down a Tenasi diplomatic vessel—thereby initiating a rather embarrassing First Contact. Earth had been thrown into a chaos of confusion and worry. Were they being invaded? Would they be invaded now that they had made such a horrible mistake?

  Then the PC had stepped in. Somehow—using means they had yet to explain—they had contacted the Tenasi. The PC had brought peace to Earth. But in exchange, the company had demanded a steep price. From that moment on, the PC had become completely autonomous—untaxable, unquestionable, and completely above the law. In addition, the PC had secured sole rights to the aliens’ FTL communications technology. And, with those two concessions, the PC had become the most powerful, most arrogant force in the system.

  Coln gripped his mug tightly, barely noticing as the waitress brought his sandwich. He was still listening to the conversation between Write and his Base Support Operative—they were discussing which color roses they liked best.

  Coln had never trusted the PC—and he hated things he couldn't trust. The PC grew fat off its treaties—it held exclusive contracts with all twelve alien races humankind had met. The alien races all refused to deal with Earth unless they went through the PC first. The Phone Company kept humankind locked in space, refusing to share FTL travel technology. It claimed that the aliens had yet to give it to them. Coln suspected he knew the truth. The aliens had FTL travel, that was certain. The PC was simply keeping it from humankind, and that infuriated Coln. He wanted to find—

  Coln froze. The conversation in his ear had stopped mid-sentence. For a panicked moment, Coln feared that Write had slipped out of the restaurant and out of range.

  Coln's eyes darted across the room. He was relieved to find Write sitting in his booth, sipping quietly on his coffee. It had simply been a lull in the conversation.

  “What do you think he'll do when he realizes his cover is blown?” the Base Support Operative, Lanna, said in Coln's ear.

  Coln paused.

  “I don't know.” Jason Write's voice was firm. Arrogant. Coln could see Write's lips moving as he spoke. “I suspect he will be surprised. He's young—he assumes he's better than he really is.”

  Write looked up, his sunglassed eyes looking directly at Coln's face. Horror rose in Coln's chest, an emotion quickly followed by shame. He'd been discovered.

  “Come here, boy,” Write ordered in Coln's ear.

  Coln shot a look at the door. He could probably get away—

  “If you leave,” Write said, “then you will never discover why I am on Evensong.” His voice was sharp and businesslike.

  Coln regarded the man indecisively. What should he do? Why hadn't any of his classes covered situations like this one? When an agent was discovered, he was supposed to pull out. But what if his target seemed willing to talk to him?

  Slowly, Coln rose and crossed the cafe's dirty floor. Write's sunglasses watched him quietly. Coln stood for a moment beside Write's table, then sat stiffly.

  Don't reveal anything, Coln warned himself. Don't let him know that you're with the—

  “You are young for an UIB agent,” Write said.

  Inwardly, Coln sighed. He already knows. What have I gotten myself—and the Bureau—into?

  “I wonder,” Write said, taking a sip of his coffee. “Is the Bureau growing more confident in its young agents, or am I simply slipping in priority?”

  He doesn't know! Coln realized with surprise. He thinks I'm here officially.

  “Neither,” Coln said, thinking quickly. “We weren't ready for you to leave. I was the only field agent who was unassigned at the time. It was simply poor luck.”

  Write nodded to himself.

  He accepted it!

  “I must say,” Write said, setting down his mug. “I am growing tired of the UIB. Every time I think that you people are going to leave me alone, I find myself being followed again.”

  “If the PC weren't so untrustworthy,” Coln said, “its Operatives wouldn't have to worry about being followed.”

  “If the Bureau wasn't so poor at investigation,” Write said, “it would have realized by now that the PC is the only company that the Bureau can trust.”

  Coln flushed. “Are you going to say something useful, or are you just going to insult me?”

  “A clever man would realize that my insults contain the most useful information he'll likely receive,” Write said.

  Coln snorted, rising from the chair. Write had just invited him over to gloat, and Coln had ruined his own career for nothing. He had been so certain that he could tail Write, that he could figure out what the man was doing, discover the truth behind the Tenasi Agreement....

  “You may accompany me,” Write said, finishing his coffee.

  Coln paused mid-step. “What?”

  Write set down his mug. “You want to know what I'm doing? Well, you may come with me. Maybe this will finally alleviate the UIB's foolish suspicions—I'm tired of being followed.”

  “Jason,” Lanna said in Coln's ear. “Are you certain—”

  “No,” Write said. “I'm not. However, I don't have time to deal with the UIB right now. This is a simple mission—the boy may come with me if he wishes.”

  Coln stood, dumbfounded. He couldn't decide what to do. Could he really trust a PC operative? No, he couldn't. But, what if he learned something important? “I—”

  “Hush,” Write said suddenly, holding up a hand.
r />   Coln frowned. Write wasn't looking at him, however. He was staring straight ahead, his face confused.

  Now what? Coln wondered.

  * * * *

  Something was wrong. Jason ran his mind around the room, trying to Sense what was bothering him. The cafe had about a dozen other occupants, all eating quietly. Most of them were in workers’ clothing—flannels and denim that pulsed an irregular symphony in Jason's mind. He studied their faces, and recognized none of them. What was bothering him?

  A line of bullets blasted through the window just beside Jason. They came far too fast for his body to react or dodge, moving with the incredible speed of modern weaponry.

  As fast as the bullets were, however, Jason's mind was faster. He whipped out, a dozen invisible mindblades slashing through the air. The force of his attack slapped the bullets backward as well as sliced each one in two. There was a series of audible clicks as the pieces bounced back off the window, then fell to the cafe floor. All was silent.

  The UIB kid plopped into his seat, his face horrified as he stared at the window and its holes.

  “Jason?” Lanna said urgently. “Jason, what happened?”

  Jason Sensed out the window, but the sniper was already gone. “I don't know.”

  “Someone shot at you?” Lanna asked with concern.

  Jason regarded the bullet holes—they ran in a small circle in the window just beside the UIB kid's head. “No,” he said. “They tried to kill the kid.”

  The cafe's patrons were running about in fear, some calling out, others hiding beneath benches. The UIB kid was looking down at himself with surprise, as if he couldn't believe that he was still alive. “They all missed,” the boy whispered with amazement.

  Jason frowned. Why would someone try to kill a UIB agent? Why not focus on Jason? The PC was a far more dangerous threat.

  “How did you let him sneak up on you like that?” Lanna asked.

  “I wasn't expecting to be shot at. This was supposed to be a simple assignment.” Then, turning to the kid, he nodded. “Let's go.”

  The kid looked up with surprise. “Someone tried to kill me! Why?”

  “I'm not certain,” Jason said. He ran his Sense over the room one last time, memorizing faces. As he did so, he noticed something. While most of the people were hiding or quivering in fear, one didn't seem to be concerned at all. A solitary form sat quietly at the back of the cafe. He was a nondescript man with a long nose and a firm body. He watched Jason with interested eyes—eyes that seemed slightly unfocused. Almost as if...

  Impossible! Jason thought. Then, without bothering to see if the UIB kid followed him, he left the cafe.

  * * * *

  “You must take the apologies of us,” Sonn urged. The Varvax Foreign Minister's words were delivered by a translating program, of course—the Varvax language consisted of clicks and snaps mitigated by hand gestures. The figure on the holo-vid screen was large and boxy, and its skin shone of quartz and granite. That was, of course, only the exoskeleton—the Varvax were actually small creatures that floated in a nutrient bath sealed within their inorganic shells.

  “Sonn,” Jason pointed out, sitting back in his chair, “your people were the victims here. Your ambassador was murdered.”

  Sonn waved a claw-like hand; a symbol of denial. “You must understand that he knew the risks of living in an undeveloped civilization. Creatures of lesser intelligence cannot be held responsible for their acts of barbarity. You have not yet learned a better way.”

  Jason smiled to himself. Comments like that one were what earned the Varvax, and most other alien races, humankind's disgust. It didn't matter that the comments were true—in fact, the truth of such statements only enraged humankind more.

  “We will return what is left of the body as soon as possible, Minister Sonn,” Jason promised.

  “Thank you, Jason of the Phone Company. You must tell to me—how go your efforts at civilization? Will your people soon raise themselves to Primary Intelligence?”

  “It will take some time yet, Minister Sonn,” Jason said.

  “You are an interesting people, Jason of the Phone Company,” Sonn said, his claws held before him in a gesture of supplication.

  “You may speak on.”

  “You have such disparity amongst what you are,” Sonn said. “Some of Primary Intelligence, some of Third—or even Fourth—Intelligence. Such disparity. You must tell to me; are your people still convinced of the power of technology?”

  Jason shrugged an exaggerated shrug—the Varvax liked to watch and interpret human gestures. “Humankind believes in technology, Minister Sonn. It will be very difficult for them to accept another way.”

  “Of course, Jason of the Phone Company. We will speak to each other again.”

  “We will speak again,” Jason said, shutting off the holo-vid. He sat for a moment, Sensing the room around him. He couldn't just relax completely anymore—he missed that. If he let his concentration lapse, the darkness would come upon him.

  “They certainly are confident, aren't they?” Lanna asked in his ear.

  “They have reason to be,” Jason replied. “It has always happened as they expect. A race discovers FTL Cytonic Transmission at the same time it achieves a peaceful civilization.”

  “If only they weren't so cursed ingenuous,” Lanna said. “A part of me kind of wishes I had three Varvax diplomats, a card table, and a host of ‘useless’ technologies I could cheat out of them.”

  “That's the problem,” Jason said. “There's a little of that in all of us.”

  “What if they're wrong, Jason?” Lanna asked. “What if we do get FTL travel before we're ‘civilized'?”

  Jason didn't reply—he didn't know the answer.

  “I looked up the kid for you,” Lanna offered.

  “Go on,” Jason said, rising and gathering his things. The attack the day before still had him worried. Was it an attempt to scare Jason off? From what?

  “The day you left, a young UIB agent named Coln Abrams disappeared from the Bureau's training facilities on Jupiter Fourteen,” Lanna said. “He stole some sophisticated monitoring equipment. The UIB put out several warrants for him, but they aren't looking this far—apparently they didn't expect him to make it all the way to Evensong.”

  “It isn't exactly a prime vacationing spot,” Jason noted, strolling over to the window and trying to imagine what the city would look like to normal eyes. It would be dark, he decided—most of it didn't vibrate very much to him at all. Dark and tall, like a city constructed entirely of alleyways. Lights were sparse and insufficient, and the air smelt musty. It always seemed to be a few degrees below standard temperature, too—as if the vacuum of space were closer, more ominous, than it really was.

  “So,” Lanna said, “we've got a wanted felon. Can we turn him in?”

  “No,” Jason said, turning from the window and putting on his suit-coat and sliding on his dark glasses.

  “Come on, let's turn him in,” Lanna said. “In fact, it was probably the UIB who tried to have him killed yesterday.”

  “They don't work that way,” Jason said, walking to the door. “Do you have my permits secured?”

  “Yes,” Lanna said.

  “Good. Turn the kid back on and let's get going.”

  * * * *

  The image was blurred and poorly exposed. Unfortunately, it was the best he had. Coln walked around the large holo-image, studying it as he had hundreds of times before. The answer was before him; he could feel it. The image held a secret. Yet Coln, like thousands of others, was unable to determine just what that secret might be.

  The image had been taken by the only spy to infiltrate the PC's central headquarters. It was a picture of a simple white room with an apparatus lining the back wall. That apparatus, whatever it was, powered all of humankind's FTL communications.

  It was the greatest secret of the modern age. Humankind had been trying for nearly two centuries to break the PC's monopoly on FTL communication.
Unfortunately, no amount of research had been able to duplicate the PC's strange technology—and, until someone did, humankind would be indebted to a tyrant.

  It has to be here! Coln thought, staring at the unyielding image. He walked around it to look at several angles. If only it weren't so blurry.

  He looked closely at the holo-image. A security guard sat against the right side of the room, staring in the photographer's direction. There seemed to be several cylindrical outcroppings on the far wall—relays of some kind? One was larger than the others, and dark in color. Was it the answer?

  Coln sighed. Men far more technologically savvy than he had tried to dissect the image, but none had been able to draw any decisive conclusions. The picture was just too fuzzy to be of much use.

  He had spent the entire morning trying to decide why someone would try to kill him. He had only been able to come to one decision—that for some reason, Write had ordered him assassinated. The PC agent had been the one who had coerced Coln over to sit beside him, in the place where the assassin had shot. The PC was behind it somehow.

  Except the assassin missed, Coln thought. He must have done so on purpose. Write wanted to scare me off. He acted like he didn't care if I followed him, then he tried to frighten me away.

  Coln nodded. It made sense, in a twisted PC sort of way. And if Write didn't want him along, then Coln had to make certain he stayed.

  “Wake up, kid,” Lanna's voice crackled suddenly in his ear.

  “I'm awake,” Coln said, bristling at the reference to his age—twenty-three was hardly young enough to earn him the title of “kid.” At least the other two had stopped feeding him dummy conversations—when they didn't want him to listen, they simply shut him out completely.

  “The big guy's leaving,” Lanna said in her pert voice. Coln was beginning to wonder why Write put up with her. “He says you can go with him, but only if you can keep up.”