by Isaac Asimov
“I’m inclined to think that he’s going along with what he’s being handed by everyone else,” Ariel said. “I’ve known him a long time. He’s not fundamentally a bad man.”
“Whatever.” Mia shrugged. “But which one is the prime mover? They still all look like parts of the conspiracy to me. Which one came up with the plan and initiated the operation and organized it?”
“Cupra says it’s Mikels,” Derec said.
“I don’t think Cupra knows. Why should he?” Mia shook her head. “Mikels makes a good figurehead for something like this, but the primary? I don’t think so.”
“Sounds like your One could do it,” Derec said.
“At first glance, but why would the Solarians listen to him? For that matter, why would he listen to the Solarians? And why would either of them listen to Alda Mikels? Money? Does Gale Chassik need money? Influence? What could Mikels offer the head of Special Service?” She shook her head. “Something’s missing.”
“What about Golner?” Ariel asked.
“No, he’s just muscle.”
There was a knock on the door. Ariel turned in her chair. “Yes?”
Bogard entered the room.
“Your pardon, Ms. Burgess,” it said. “I have a question.”
“Yes, Bogard?” Derec said.
“I would like to know if your investigation is concluded.”
“We’re determining that now, Bogard,” Ariel said.
“If I may offer my help. I have concluded that the conspiracy is composed of a pyramidal arrangement of persons. Several were hired for specific tasks without knowledge of the whole plan. Tathis Kedder, for instance, and Shor Udal. I imagine that many of the actual assassins knew little of the overall strategy. Above them were Agents Cupra and Gambel, who knew more but still not everything. Their counterparts would be people like Bok Vin Golner. At least three knew the entirety of it.”
“We’ve just reached the same conclusion, Bogard,” Mia said. “Our candidates are Ambassador Gale Chassik, Alda Mikels of Imbitek, and the head of Special Service, One.”
“I concur,” Bogard said. “With the arrest of those three, the entire conspiracy should be exposed. That being the case, I must ask if I may be allowed to resume my primary obligation.”
“Which is what?” Derec asked.
“I was assigned to protect Senator Eliton.”
“Senator Eliton is dead, Bogard,” Ariel said.
“Your pardon, Ambassador, but there is no evidence on which to confidently base that conclusion. My assessment is that a high probability exists that Senator Eliton is still alive, and it is my duty to find and protect him. If it is all the same to you, I would like to pursue that responsibility.”
Thirty
AMONG THE WEAPONS we confiscated at the garage,” Bogard explained, “we recovered two sets of personal documents. I have run a check through civic records and determined that they are forged. However, both also included passes for above-ground access to the Manassas Preserves.”
“Cupra said something about Manassas before you rescued me,” Derec said.
“There is a section of the Preserve operated by a Settler colonial recruiting organ and leased by OSMA. They run a nature camp. There was a report filed the day after the Union Station assault that the OSMA camp was investigated and searched. Nothing was found.”
“Who filed the report?” Mia asked. “Agent Gambel.”
“Imagine that,” Ariel said.
“So why do you believe Eliton is there, Bogard?” Derec asked.
“It is a matter of probabilities. Managins, apparently under control of Bok Vin Golner, staged the assault at Union Station. During the aftermath, Senator Eliton’s body was switched and the legitimate one was taken to the garage where you found the ambulance used, contraband positronics, and were then taken as prisoner by the very same Bok Vin Golner. The Managins run a camp in the Manassas Preserve, which was investigated by one of the corrupt agents who have exerted an inhibitory influence on this entire matter. Obviously, there is something there they wish to keep undiscovered. Given all the possibilities, it is the most likely place to begin a search for Senator Eliton.”
“Why hold him prisoner?” Ariel asked.
Derec shrugged. Mia pursed her lips.
“I have no conclusion on that matter, Ambassador Burgess,” Bogard said.
“Call me Ariel, Bogard. ‘Ambassador Burgess’ is clumsy and, right now, problematic.”
“Yes, Ariel.”
“So,” Mia said, “we go look and see. Bogard, are you game for a little open-air field work?”
“I am prepared to do this alone,” Bogard said. “This is my responsibility, the risk is high, and I am capable of–”
“Bogard,” Derec interrupted. “We’re going.”
“We?” Mia said. “Me and Bogard–”
“Of course we’re going,” Ariel said. “There’s no question. It would make me crazy now to sit and wait while you two thrashed around in the woods.”
“But–”
Derec shook his head. “Don’t bother, Agent Daventri.”
Mia looked at them, then shrugged. “I won’t argue too much. Let me brief you on the weapons. Ariel, we’ll need Hofton to get us some things. Bogard, whether you approve or not, we’re going with you.”
Bogard bypassed the security lock on a Solarian embassy transport. They loaded a pair of packs in the back and piled aboard. Mia programmed the vehicle for their destination and sat up front during their exit from the garage.
“I only see one TBI vehicle,” she called back as they rolled onto the main avenue. “There are more, I’m sure.”
“If everybody keeps a level head,” Ariel said, “we might get through this without starting a war.”
The transport left the Anacostia District unchallenged. Mia came back and started changing her clothes, pulling on the same nonreflective, graphite-black suit they all wore, Bogard’s surface was even less reflective; it made an ominous, cloudy presence by the rear doors.
“Anything else you need to go over about your weapons?” Mia asked. “The suits are invisible to most sensor arrays and give back no heat or light. If you’re standing in the open under bright illumination you will be visible, but if you keep to shadows, close to larger structures, and avoid direct line-of-sight, we should be able to get in and out without being seen. I’ve set all your sidearms on heavy stun.”
“What about yours?” Derec asked.
“Never mind that. If any killing has to occur, it’s on my head.”
“I thought with Bogard–” Ariel began.
“Bogard can’t be everywhere at once,” Mia interrupted. “We learned that. It also has limitations that we don’t have; we found that out, too. I won’t risk any of us over an ethical qualm. But it’s my decision.”
“How are you doing?” Derec asked. “Your leg–”
“Hofton got me some painblock that makes me feel like I could run a marathon. I feel wonderful.”
“All right,” Ariel said, “one more time. What is it we’re looking for?”
“Any place where someone might be hidden or confined that wouldn’t be obvious on a casual visit. So I’m thinking a storage facility or an underground bunker of some kind. We have the ground plan from the camp’s registration file, but obviously that’s not going to have anything new or illegal. We’ll just have to do a thorough sweep.”
“Bogard could do it a lot faster,” Derec said.
“Bogard will do it, but I want us in there looking as well. Bogard might miss something we wouldn’t.”
“Unlikely.”
“What I really want Bogard to do is sweep the perimeter, nullify as much security as possible, and plot us an escape route. Can you do that, Bogard?”
“Of course, Mia. That was my first intention.”
“Excellent. Getting out might be a lot harder than getting in.”
“You sound like you expect this to be an armed camp,” Ariel said.
&nbs
p; “If Golner had any say in setting it up, it will be.”
“Overtly?”
“At night, what difference would it make? We assume the worst and hope for the best. Now, until we reach the transition point, go over the maps, memorize them.”
The Manassas Preserve occupied a vast area of land roughly fifty kilometers from the heart of D. C. Townships once dotted the countryside, all of them now gone or abandoned to wilderness. Densely forested, the Preserve had been one of the surface areas set aside for the Settler’s program. Over time, other groups interested in “open” experiences had come to use it, and a couple had requested and received special licenses for continual use. To most Terrans, those who chose to spend long stretches of time outside the warrens of the cities were weird. They were watched occasionally, but largely left alone.
A main throughway, a major traffic artery that connected D. C. to Cincinnati, ran just north of the Preserve. A trunk line split off for the few transports that went directly to Manassas.
Mia directed their vehicle off the trunk line and into the service tunnels alongside. Most of the traffic here was automated and sparse. She found a garage for local technical vehicles and parked the transport among them. Unless an audit occurred in the next few hours, the system would log their vehicle and file the data, but would alert no one.
Bogard unfolded from the back of the transport. A jagged patch of night, he looked menacing and unpleasantly efficient. The white line of the optical array dimmed to a smokey grey.
Mia pulled her night veil over her face and the others did likewise. The garage sprang into full detail from the combination of radar, infrared, and neutrino–shadow-amplification the veils interpreted for them. Even with all that enhancement their suits showed almost no detail; Bogard gave even less.
“Ready?” Mia asked.
They nodded.
Bogard led the way back into the trunk line and they headed south.
The road ended at a vast parking lot. Several transports clustered against one end, but it was mostly empty. Steps led up to the entrance to a wide pavilion in which booths and galleries provided a history of the area and related data. During normal hours, it was easy to imagine tours coming this far, people winding their way through the displays, still safely under a roof, and going no farther, retreating to the safety of the warrens after a brief, dissociated brush with wildness and the Outside. A few, perhaps, might later come back to take the last few steps into the open air.
But now it was deserted, testament to the circadian of day and night from which the retreat underground had failed to free humans.
“Do we just go through the front door?” Derec asked.
“There is an employee entrance,” Bogard said and moved off to the right, skirting the wall of the garage.
They had no cover now, but had to rely on the suits Mia had obtained for them to hide them from any surveillance. They followed Mia’s lead and scurried along quickly in Bogard’s wake.
The door Bogard opened for them led into dark corridors that connected a set of offices, a food service plant, a machine shop, and laboratories. One of the labs offered access to a tunnel that ended at a door marked CAUTION: BEYOND THIS POINT IS UNCANOPIED AREA.
“Nice of them to let us know,” Derec said. “Bogard, is the door keyed to an alarm?”
The robot pressed itself against the door for a few seconds. Suddenly, it slid open. “No, Derec,” Bogard said. “Thanks,” Ariel hissed.
Beyond, a poured concrete apron ended at dense underbrush, through which a ground stone path led into a tangle of towering trees. Mia sucked her breath loudly.
“What?” Derec asked.
“Nothing,” she said. “It’s just... been a while. It’s beautiful.”
“The OSMA enclave is this way,” Bogard said and headed for the trail.
After walking for nearly a kilometer, Bogard stopped.
“We should leave the path here,” it said. “There are sensors further along.”
“How far from the camp?” Mia asked.
“Three hundred meters.”
“Find us a way in first, Bogard. Let’s go.”
They plunged into the woods, off the trail. The foliage stood out sharply in the general wash of sensor impressions. Without the depth provided by the radar it would all have appeared to be a senseless array of meaningless detail–wrinkles and lines and textures cobbled together with only a kind of vertical tendency to suggest any order. It was easy to imagine people who had spent all their lives in artificial environments–the tunnels, chambers, and warrens of Earth’s cities–becoming instantly and horribly lost out here simply because nothing made visual sense. It was not only the agoraphobia that came with vast, open spaces that hobbled Terrans–there were large spaces within all Earth’s inhabited areas–but the fear of disorder, the unpredictability of organic chaos, the alienness of the life of their own world which they had so carefully built to deny.
And yet there were parks within the cities, though they were tame places, manicured and confined. This wilderness overwhelmed and obeyed no geometry.
Bogard seemed to shift between obstacles, the shapes oozing around it as if they did not exist. A mirage, like heat rising off a flat surface, looked like that, rippling and indistinct. Bogard made no sound, disturbed nothing, passed through like a breeze. Derec had not known such movement was possible. Then he realized that Bogard’s amalloy body was twisting and distorting and reshaping constantly to accommodate its passage. He glanced toward Ariel, but he could not see her face through the night veil. He imagined her staring at Bogard, impressed and a little frightened.
Bogard stopped a few meters from a break in the tree line.
“Wait,” it said, and oozed slowly forward. It returned in less than a minute. “The boundary is a perimeter sensor. There is no physical barrier, but the sensor will trigger an alarm. It is possible that it can also release a mild electrical shock, but it seems unlikely. Please wait one full minute, then follow me out.”
Bogard faded through the underbrush again. Around them, the forest hummed with rhythmic, organic sounds. Derec’s pulse pounded in his ears.
“Now,” Mia said quietly and he started.
They came out of the trees at the edge of a cleared strip of land. Across from them stood prefab barracks in neat rows. Walkways ran among them. A larger structure dominated the center of the compound–a kind of community center, Derec thought–and glowed more brightly than any other building, most of the windows illuminated from within.
Bogard was wrapped around a post. At five-meter intervals stood identical posts, each with a knobby crown–the sensor array–and all of them giving false readings back to whoever monitored them. Bogard was using its body to deflect and reroute connecting signals.
“Make sure you pass below one-point-seven-five meters,” Bogard said. “I am maintaining a carrier signal above that height.”
Mia crouched low and sprinted across the invisible boundary. Derec and Ariel copied her and hurried after. A few moments later, Bogard was among them, a silent, lithic presence.
“All right,” Mia said. “Take your sectors of the camp, do your search, and rendezvous at the main building. Bogard, do the perimeter, secure what you can, guarantee us a way out.”
Bogard vanished.
“I wish it wouldn’t do that,” Ariel said.
“Go,” Mia said and scurried away.
“Good luck,” Derec said.
“Be careful,” Ariel answered.
tactical parameters, standard field sensor perimeter, motion sensor capacity damped to ignore thirty kilograms and below, internal monitoring at entries and exits only, two human patrols walking perimeter equipped with nightvision, limited to infrared only, armed with stunners, garage containing five unmodified terrain vehicles, no surveillance, six barracks, three unoccupied, three containing eighteen individuals each, one barracks provisioned with supply of lethal weapons, three blasters and eight projectile rifles, all personnel in b
arracks currently asleep, monitoring links fed to each barracks, connections to perimeter sensors, patrols, and main building, generator housed in main building supplying camp power, dedicated line to feed shock field keyed to perimeter sensor, thirty-thousand volts, zero amperes, non fatal charge, direct line disconnected, monitor connection to barracks’ disconnected, patrols tranquilized, UTVs depowered by removal of battery packs, internal security nullified, external security unknown, potential estimated low threat
I must locate Senator Eliton
Primary responsibility, automatic reset
I must locate and secure Primary
I must locate Senator Eliton
First and Second Law violations minimal, camp secured, risk potential low, competency level, Daventri, Mia, sufficient, competency level, Avery, Derec, sufficient, competency level, Burgess, Ariel, unknown, tentatively assigned sufficient based on available data and observation, threat manageable
I must locate Senator Eliton
Aside from the barracks, the camp contained a communal shower, a communal mess with its own kitchens, and a supply shed. Ariel had checked the shower and mess. The supply shed did not appear locked.
She had passed two guards not fifteen meters back who had been tranquilized–by Bogard, she hoped–and she had removed their stunners and tossed them into the trees, over the range of the perimeter. She did not know where Bogard was and wished she did, but she did not risk calling for it.
She adjusted her grip on the stunner. The blaster nestled against the small of her back, but she did not want to pull it yet. If it came to that, then they would probably have to bum the entire camp down, and she did not know if she could do that.
She pushed open the door of the shed and a light winked on inside. She pulled it shut immediately, pulse racing, and surveyed the camp, waiting for a rush of angry Managins. When they failed to materialize, she slipped quickly into the shed.
On one wall hung a variety of hand tools, most of them worn and dirty from use. Against the opposite wall stood boxes of pamphlets. She opened one and pulled out the slim sheaf of paperlike plastic, amused at the novelty.
