A Rumor of Angels

by Marjorie B. Kellogg

  “You can leave anytime you want, Lacey.”

  “Oh yeah?” He extracted a mangled sheet of paper from the bowels of the machine. “And who’d get these flyers out for you?”

  “I would. Somehow.” Verde’s sigh was pained as he wrenched his concentration back to the mail. “What a waste of trees,” he said, crumpling an official-looking letter.

  “Now even you gotta admit that it’d be easier if they could establish a telecommunications link through the Transport Corridor.”

  “Too easy. Terra’s close enough as it is. I’ll deal with the paper, thanks. It’s the content I was complaining about.”

  It was mostly bureaucratic, today and every day. The Terra-based Veterans of Exploration was a management-heavy charity intended to provide food and shelter for the returned expeditionaries, referred to in tourist parlance as the loonies. Verde was its on-site representative, office manager, and general caretaker. Its executives often vacationed in Arkoi, charging their expenses to official business on the strength of five-minute flying visits to the front step of Verde’s office in the Quarter. But for that, his meager salary, and the stupefying amount of printed matter they generated, Verde would doubt their existence.

  “Now here’s something we all need.” Verde waved a bound booklet above his head. “The collected minutes of the year’s board meetings, or The Use of Robert’s Rules of Order as an Offensive Weapon.’ ”

  “File it.” Lacey grinned, wiping ink on his pantleg. “You’re in a great mood today, Mitch.”

  Verde flipped the booklet at the wastebasket with a flourish. “Done.” The basket was full. The booklet slid to the floor. “Wrong side of the bed… I don’t know… the air doesn’t smell right today. Did I do trash yesterday or the day before?”

  “My turn,” the boy replied. “Soon as I finish these flyers. Whaddaya mean, the air doesn’t smell right?”

  “Tension, you know? How you can smell tension?”

  “So what else is new?”

  “More than usual, I mean.”

  Lacey gave the machine a final whining crank. “You want me to deliver these? Maybe I can get Hrin to run them around to the hotels later.”

  “Hrin’s at Stahl House today,” Verde answered abstractedly.

  “Mitch, for God’s sake!” Lacey stalked over to the desk and scribbled on a handy sheet of paper: “This place is probably bugged six ways from Sunday.”

  With exaggerated patience, Verde wrote: “I know, but they wouldn’t know Stahl House if they fell over it. It’s a Koi name.” Then he muttered aloud, “Intelligence is the biggest misnomer ever perpetrated.”

  Lacey grabbed the paper and shredded it carefully.

  “Aren’t you going to eat it?” Verde asked caustically.

  A tall shadow sidled in at the doorway.

  “Well, if it isn’t our star boarder.” Lacey grumped his way back to the mimeo corner. He began stacking and folding with an irritable burst of energy.

  Verde greeted the madman with a smile. “Where’ve you been all day, James?”

  The madman shrugged like an errant child. “Around.” He settled himself on the red-tiled floor beside the wastebasket and began to study the discarded mail.

  Verde returned the shrug, his habitual frown returning as he pulled a magazine from its wrapper. “The Green Monthly is here. Maybe it’s in this issue.”

  Lacey snorted from a distance. “Like it was supposed to be the last three months? Nobody’s going to print that article.”

  “Maybe I should have softened it a little, as Lute suggested,” the little man mused. “I don’t really want some editor hauled up before the censors on my account.”

  “Don’t worry. Neither do the editors. For a smart man, Mitch…” The boy shook his head with an old man’s cynicism. “You know what the Terran definition of conservation is? Moving to Arkoi at the earliest possible moment. You and your endless articles are an embarrassment, Mitch. The last thing your so-called colleagues want to hear is that it’s their duty to the cause to stay away.”

  “It’s the only way to keep Arkoi from becoming another Terra,” Verde defended automatically.

  “No,” commented the madman, as if to the booklet he was reading.

  Lacey rolled his eyes. “I know that, and you know that, but try and explain it to them! You’re here, aren’t you?”

  “I have a job here!… speaking of which, oh, Lord, look at this.” Between two fingers, he held up a single typed sheet, with seal and letterhead, very official.

  “More hate mail from the happy tourists?”

  “Not this time.” Verde stood and began to pace like an angry terrier. “I am reminded by His Nibs Mr. C. Williams Brustein of the Colonial Authority that my employment here concerns the Veterans of Exploration only and does not include—get this—‘fraternizing with the Native population.’ Can you believe it?”

  Lacey made a rude noise. “Good thing he hasn’t taken a look at some of the office staff.”

  “That son of a bitch,” Verde fumed, crushing the letter vengefully.

  Suddenly the madman let out an inarticulate yell. Lacey held up his hand, listening. Muffled shouts and running footsteps were followed by the crash of breaking glass. Verde was on the street instantly. Next door, the window of the Cafe Montserrat lay in shards on the cobblestones. Three panes remained intact, clinging to the frame. Verde groaned as he scanned the now empty square. The cafe’s proprietor ventured out cautiously and joined him to mourn over the broken glass and mullions. He carried a weighted soda can in one hand and a scrap of paper in the other.

  “This was tied to it.” He handed the note to Verde. His smile was a wan light of resignation on his ebony face. “Perhaps they were too young to appreciate the irony.”

  The note read: “Nigger lover!”

  Verde stared at it. “Feels as if I just walked into a time warp.”

  The black man chuckled sadly. “Haven’t heard that word in a long time.”

  “Dirty words never die.” Verde spat. “They just find themselves new meanings.”

  The madman sat on the doorstep with his head buried in his arms. Lacey emerged to kick at the shattered glass. “Damn tourist punks.”

  “Lousy aim,” Verde commented. “Missed my office by a mile.”

  The proprietor sighed, wiping his hands on his spotless apron. “No, I think they got what they were after. Ten years of serving Koi and Terran under one roof, and suddenly Montserrat’s on the shit list. My tourist business is way down, and… well.” He stopped with a weary shrug.

  Verde eyed the black man with apprehension. “Hate mail, Damon?”

  “Some. Recently.”

  Lacey did a sudden angry dance around the broken glass, a clenched fist in the air. “Got to get them out, out, out!”

  “Out,” echoed the madman from the doorstep.

  “Let’s just keep it calm, Lacey,” cautioned Verde, with an eye on the seated madman.

  “Guess I’ll go find a broom,” said Damon without moving. He stooped to pick up a shard. “Lute poured this glass himself.”

  The madman rose, a brilliant smile flooding his face. “Meron,” he said.

  The other three turned to face the empty square. Verde shoved the crumpled hate note into his pocket. A slight figure rounded a corner across the square and hailed them in a musical voice.

  “He always knows when she’s coming,” Damon marveled softly.

  “Yes,” said Verde with a touch of what might have been envy.

  The madman went to her like a happy dog, and she wrapped her tiny arms around his waist in greeting. She could have been a Terran child of ten or twelve, light agile body, angelic face with blond hair as bright as a halo. She was wearing the short coverall common to Terran children. The orange Native tunic was hidden in the Terran satchel on her shoulder.

  She regarded the broken window solemnly. “It was not an accident?”

  “No,” Verde answered tightly.

  She took V
erde’s hand, then went to Damon and laid her shining head against the black man’s big arm. “We’re sorry, Damon.”

  Her presence seemed to energize him. “Hell, little one, nothing a little carpentry won’t fix.” He rubbed his hands together, bent to kiss the top of her head, and disappeared briskly inside.

  “Bad things have twins,” said Meron, turning back to Verde.

  “Oh? What now?”

  “It is hard to understand. I was near the museum this morning, and I saw Ra’an go in, where he never goes. I waited and soon comes the new man from Terran Intelligence, with a woman. She goes inside, and then later, Ra’an comes out and sneaks back to the Quarter. Then she comes out and she and the Intelligence man leave.”

  “Could be nothing,” said Verde uneasily. “Coincidence.”

  “He sneaked home,” repeated Meron indignantly. “The Koi keep their secrets but they do not sneak.”

  “Spy tactics,” put in Lacey. “Your classic clandestine meeting.”

  “But what about? Ra’an meeting in secret with a Terran? Ra’an hates Terrans.”

  “We did think so,” murmured Meron, her face clouding at the possibilities her imagination suggested.

  Verde’s unconscious pacing began again. “Meron, isn’t there anyone who can get through to Ra’an? Even a little?”

  The little Koi lowered her eyes. “He closed himself off to us a long time ago.”

  “Ra’an,” repeated the madman, now down on his haunches reading the broken glass as if the shards were a thousand crystal balls. “Ra’an is my brother.”

  Verde glanced at him, frowning. “You know, I saw Clennan a while ago, in a restaurant. He did have a woman with him, and it was the damnedest thing. James was wandering off the beaten path, and zeroed in on her like a homing device. He was acting very oddly, as if he had some big secret.”

  “James sees many things,” offered Meron enigmatically.

  “So you keep telling me. It’s just that he’s been a little odder of late than usual, even for him.” Verde shoved his hands into his pockets as if to keep them from untoward nervous gestures. “I spoke to that woman briefly, as I was pulling James out of there. She’s not exactly your prototypical Intelligence op, if that’s what she is. She looked as if she hadn’t eaten in months.” His hands came out of his pockets and began to tug at his gray scrawl of hair. “What do we do?”

  “We watch. What else is there to do?”

  “There must be something,” Verde fretted. “If he tells them about the Wall, we’re done for.”

  Lacey made a noise, then shut his mouth abruptly, kicking again at the glass shards. He did not see the look the madman threw him, a lightning strike of ferocious anger that vanished as quickly as it came.

  Verde paced. The hate note weighed heavily in his pocket. “Meron, we’ve got an ex-Intelligence man in our own camp. He and Lacey can keep an eye on goings-on outside the Quarter. I don’t like the idea of you running around alone out there anymore. It’s not safe.”

  Meron laughed, a soft gurgle like a running stream. “Mitchell, you worry too much. The tourists are easily fooled. Without the orange, they do not suspect. Today a man came up and asked, ‘Do you know where your mommy is, little boy?’ ” She smiled up at Verde luminously. “Sometimes I think you forget yourself that this is not really a ten-year-old!” Then she went to the madman and took his hand. “James will eat his supper with me tonight.”

  Verde waved them off and stood pensively chewing his lip. Finally he turned to Lacey. “Close up the office, will you? I’m going to talk to Lute.”

  Lacey lounged with his back against the whitewashed cafe wall, his eyes lidded. “We ought to be doing a lot more than talking and watching, Mitch.”

  “Such as?”

  “Such as a little return action. You know, guerrilla-style.” Verde faced the boy irritably. “Where do you think we are, some twentieth-century jungle? Our worry right now is Ra’an.”

  “Mitch, we could scare the tourists away. The Colonial Authority has already put the tool in our hands by encouraging the Dark Powers bullshit.”

  “Just what did you have in mind?”

  Lacey’s tone was elaborately casual. “A taste of what the ‘Dark Powers’ can do—a few jinxed com networks, blackouts here and there, water-supply problems. Kid’s stuff, really.”

  “You can say that again.” Verde found himself beginning to sweat. “We’d all be hauled in for heavy questioning, and the Lord knows we won’t keep our secrets then. It’s not worth risking for a few guerrilla games. The service robots would have it all repaired within minutes and we’d be in cold storage for life… or worse.”

  “They’d have to catch us first.”

  “How many wardbirds have said that? Look, kid, it’s no, you hear me? Absolutely no.”

  The boy glared at him sullenly, rubbing a foot along the worn paving stones. “You’re always playing God, Verde. You think you’re the only one who knows what’s best to do!” Then he tossed his head. “Okay. Forget it. Forget I even said it.” He turned away abruptly and stalked toward the office. “I’ll close up. See you tomorrow.”

  Verde, hoping he had heard the last of guerrilla games, hurried off to confer with Lute.

  Chapter 9

  Jude awoke from a restless dream of seagulls. Mingling in her ears with their wheeling cries was music, drifting and alien, the trill of white mornings and clear lavender evenings spiced with salt air. She lay still, groping for the words she had been singing a moment before waking. She had never had so vivid a dream before.

  Then Clennan was on the phone with her wake-up call. Six o’clock. Jude moaned. He’d had her up late the night before, drilling her in metals prospecting, pushing, pushing, to the limits of her endurance. Does he actually hope III find gold Out There? His debauched choirboy face materialized in her head, and she smiled sourly. He was disgusting. He even made her eat properly. Often she hated him, but she was dependent on him, and occasionally his boisterous humor could distract her.

  And with the Guardians looming each morning out her hotel window, she needed distraction.

  That afternoon, in the steamy gym, Jude stood panting, laughing a triumphant laugh. That felt good!

  Bill Clennan groaned from the floor in comic exaggeration.

  “Okay, okay, so you’re finally getting yourself into shape. Second time won’t be so easy. I’ll be ready for you.”

  “You ought to be glad I’m a quick learner.”

  “I ought to be glad I’m a good teacher,” he retorted, pulling himself to his feet and hitching up his sweatpants. “Remember that familiarity with your opponent’s body is an advantage you won’t often have.” His brown eyes smiled suggestively, then sobered. “Always study him carefully, even in the last few seconds before an attack.”

  As he took a long swig from the water jug, she studied her trainer. A muscular body fighting a tendency toward pudginess. He’ll be a portly old man, if he lives that long. Intelligence men seldom do. She guessed him to be a man of strong appetites who prided himself on controlling them, to whom exercise was part of the job, not the luxury it was for most people. Jude guessed he could survive well enough out in the wilds, at least against the natural adversaries of weather and terrain. As for the other adversaries, whatever they were Out There, who knew? Only the returned madmen, and they weren’t telling. It didn’t bear thinking about.

  “Do the Koi practice any martial arts?” she asked to distract herself.

  “Don’t know. Why? You afraid your pal the alien might attack you?”

  “No, I was just…”

  Bill wagged a finger. “All the more reason to get busy and apply yourself.”

  “I can’t figure out whether it’s me he dislikes or Terrans in general. He’s not very… pleasant, you know.”

  “Too bad. He’s all we got.”

  “Are you sure he’s in this for the money?” She didn’t add how unlikely that seemed now that she had met the alien in question.<
br />
  “You and I could live happily ever after on what he’s getting for this caper.” Clennan grinned slyly. “Maybe I should go instead. Be nice, just you and me out there in Nature’s wonderland.”

  Jude eyed him with mild suspicion. He stared back, handsome, flushed, still grinning. “Well, how ’bout it?”

  She drew a cautious breath. The room smelled of bodies and stale sweat. “Bill, you promised there’d be none of this.”

  “And I haven’t forced it, have I? Hell, it would have been easy enough.” He threw up his hands. “I just can’t help thinking it’s a stupid waste, you going home to an empty bed every night.”

  “It’s not empty. I’m there.” Me and my dreams…

  The dreams. Since they had begun, sleeping alone had new drawbacks. Sleeping alone she was used to, but the dreams… They were not exactly unpleasant—unsettling, rather. Definitely creepy. Not your usual nightmares of knives or suffocation or falling. These dreams were like a psychic invasion, either too primal for her to grasp, or too alien.

  Clennan pitched his voice soothingly. “Babe, no threat implied. Just to let you know I’m available.”

  “Of course you’re available. I’m just not interested.”

  He had not expected an abrupt refusal. “Why the hell not? You got something better going at the moment? All that time in the women’s ward stacked up against a good-looking guy like me? I’d think you’d be grateful for the offer.”

  “Gods, Clennan,” she yelled, “did Ramos promise you that as part of the deal? Don’t you people own enough of me as it is?” She dropped her voice, fingers clamped around her thumbs. I must not shout. Between anger and fear was a thin dividing line. Shouting could lead to hysteria. Fleetingly she wished for the familiar security of the Wards and their tranquilizers. She leaned back against the grimy wall, pulling at the sweatsuit that clung so damply to her. “Look, I don’t blame you for wanting to have a good time on the job, but it’s just another job to you. To me, it’s my life you and your boss Ramos are throwing around so casually here!”