“Most people don’t. They see logistics as supply.”
“In a conflict, if you know the enemy’s logistics, you know what they can do, and what they can’t. The same is true in planning security, I’d imagine.” I tried to ignore the stares of the blonde.
I tried to concentrate on Kali, but I could feel the blonde’s eyes, and it made me uncomfortable. I couldn’t help wondering if women felt that way when I’d looked at them, except I didn’t think I’d stared the way the blonde was.
Abruptly Kali turned her head and looked at the blonde. I don’t know what was in that look, but the blonde immediately rose and moved away, catching a server, clearly protesting. The server looked at Kali, then back at the blonde, and said something. The blonde walked away, clearly upset … and shaken. I had my suspicions about what had happened, but I was glad it had.
“Thank you,” I said. “I didn’t know what to say without being really rude.”
“You were actually squirming.” She offered a friendly and sympathetic smile. “I’ve seen it here and there on Stittara before between local women and offworlders, but you handle it better, I think.”
“It’s happened to me before,” I admitted. “What is it? Do you know?”
She shook her head. “You’re the ecologist.”
“Can you tell me why you’re in Passova this time? Not that I’m not happy to see you.”
“The official reason was to order some special templates.”
“From Valior?”
“Who else?”
“You had another reason?” I managed to keep my face as guileless as I could.
“Paulo.” That was all she said.
“Yes … I did read some intriguing information that came my way. Fragmentary information about a research project that appears to be more than it has been represented as…”
“And?”
“I couldn’t say why, but it scares me to hell, screaming the entire way, so to speak.”
“Theoretically, why might that be?”
“The way I interpret it … the intersection of high-energy penetration tools with a high-energy barrier field suggests the possibility of an even higher energy reaction. I’m no physicist, but…” I shrugged. “There’s also another matter that might bear on it as well. There was one person I never met and barely saw onboard the Persephonya. I don’t know if he has anything to do with your concerns, but when RDAEX hires one of the top scientists in high-energy photonics and sends him to Stittara—”
“How did you know that?”
“The fact that he was hired is public knowledge. All disembarkations are available. Some of his older publications showed up in the Unity data dump … and RDAEX wouldn’t hire any but the best … and they certainly wouldn’t send them here unless it was vital.”
“Go on. I’m sorry I interrupted.”
“As I was saying…” I offered what I hoped was an embarrassed grin. “When the Ministry of Technology then sends a special assistant on the same ship … and when there’s absolutely no information about him, except his name … well … what do you think?”
“The same as you do, I’m afraid.”
For a moment, looking at the chill in Kali’s eyes, I wondered if I were about to follow “Sinjon.”
“It’s not you,” she said quickly, then stopped talking as our server and two tureens of mushroom bisque arrived.
We both tried the soup. Then we more than tried it.
“What do you think?” asked Kali, after setting aside her spoon.
“Excellent.” I did notice the faintest hint of the heathery scent or flavor I’d experienced now and again. “What were you thinking a moment ago … when you looked ready to do battle?”
“About the Ministry of Technology.”
“Has RDAEX experienced trouble there?”
“Belk told me to expect it when he learned Dr. Spek was arriving.”
“Did he say why?”
She shook her head.
I didn’t press her.
After several minutes, and several sips of her wine, Kali went on. “I’d like to ask a favor of you.”
“If I can,” I replied cautiously.
“If … if you find out anything about the skytubes that’s not known, would it be possible to let me know?”
“For your benefit … or for the benefit of Belk or Haans?”
“Call it … my benefit … and possibly yours. I won’t pass on anything you tell me unless you agree.”
“Would you like to tell me why?”
“It would be far better for both of us if I didn’t. I think you can guess.” She straightened and lifted her goblet again as the server removed the tureens, then replaced them with our entrees.
I had to admit that the curried mango fowl pasta was excellent, even if my appetite had been considerably dulled by the implications of Kali’s words. I ate several bites, small bites, before speaking. “I was wondering if the RDAEX purchase of the Pentura lands and facilities included any equipment and data. Would you happen to know that?”
“I do. It did, but there wasn’t much, I was told, because the Rikova site was strictly secondary, and not even a full backup. Actually, it was the older facility, and Pentura built a newer and larger facility for their project, whatever it was.”
“That’s interesting.” I nodded. “I imagine forensic engineering has as many challenges as forensic ecology. Isn’t that one of the RDAEX specialties? I mean engineering.”
“All engineering requires something along that line, I understand. Executive Edo is reputed to be quite good at reverse engineering and associated skills. Don’t you apply a similar approach in determining how an ecology came to be?”
“Whenever possible.”
She smiled, warmly, but I wasn’t so sure that there wasn’t steel beneath her mouth and eyes. “We’ve talked about work, but there’s so much I don’t know about you.”
“I think you have my complete dossier.”
“Dossiers contain only the facts. They conceal as much as they reveal. Tell me about how it was to grow up on Bachman.”
“If you’ll tell me the same about growing up on Teppera…”
“We’d better start with the short version, then,” Kali said. “I’m the middle of three. My older sister left when I was barely eight. My younger brother is a doctor in Sheritown, but from the time I was little I was interested in being a deep-space pilot. I’d look at the stars at night and think about what it would be like to travel between them. I wondered if the stars moved when you looked at them in trans-space…”
In the end, we talked for almost two hours. After dessert and more talk about matters unassociated with either of our work projects, Kali paid for dinner. I did walk her to the Passova quarters maintained by RDAEX, not all that far from Boudica, and not that she needed my protection. If anything, I probably needed hers, especially after the events at Syntex. She kissed me chastely on the cheek, and no objects passed between us. I was more than a little wary on my return to my quarters, but no one even came physically close to me.
What she’d revealed … or hinted, assuming I understood what she had intimated, was frightening. Yet I had not a single shred of anything remotely resembling proof, just scattered pieces of information, and the only thing constructive I could do was to push on with my own assignment and hope that certain aspects of it might lead me to proof from another angle … and quickly, before RDAEX fully employed Rikard Spek’s expertise to launch their full-scale implementation of their deep-drilling project.
I wasn’t that hopeful, but I didn’t see any other options for me.
43
On threeday morning I thought about not going in to the Survey before my interview with Ilsabet, but the habit of duty dies hard, and I went. Once there, I checked to make sure I still had a Survey van reserved for later. I did.
Then I did a Stittaran-limited search on Pentura … and found almost nothing. There were historical mentions, and a few references to the
fact that Rikova had originally been created by Pentura and later purchased and expanded greatly by RDAEX. That was it. A Unity-wide info search, obviously based on the periodic information transfers from Bachman and other worlds, was extensive enough that it would have taken a full day, if not longer, to read it. Interestingly enough, when I tried to limit it to “research,” there were only a hundred or so entries, and all of them were so general as to be useless, largely with such phrases as “research has always been one of the highest priorities” or “continuing research is the key to success.” There wasn’t a single technical article or one that revealed anything about any line of research, even in the most general terms.
By the time I finished a quick scan of those, it was time to leave for my interview.
It took less than fifteen minutes to reach the interview address, which, had I been able to walk from my quarters window to it, would have taken perhaps three minutes. A dark-haired young man wearing a medtech singlesuit greeted me.
“Dr. Verano?”
“That’s me.”
“I’m Clement Ideo. If you’d provide a handprint…”
I did, and it verified that I was indeed me and that I was firmly in the planetary ID bank.
Ideo then asked, “What do you know about Elisabetta?”
“Only the basics … that she is thought to have been the only survivor of the Pentura disaster, that she’s believed to be Elisabetta Vonacht, that she’s shown no sign of aging, and that she has the emotional age of an eight-year-old, but access to what amounts to a savant mentality for anything that can be expressed in formulaic terms.”
He nodded. “From here on, everything you say will be recorded and archived. So will Elisabetta’s responses. Clyann will be observing the interview, and so will I, if from a slightly remote location. Why do you wish to interview her?”
“I’m here on Stittara at the behest of the Ministry of Environment to do a periodic ecological assessment. Elisabetta has been alive longer than most, if not all, inhabitants of Stittara. She visits the outside regularly. I would like to ask her about what she has observed over the time she has been alive. I won’t be cross-examining her or anything like that, just asking her about plants, grasses, the sky, anything that she’s seen that fascinated her or seemed to have changed…”
When I finished, he nodded. “She may not be as much help as you think, but you’re welcome to try. Please read the conditions.” He motioned to a screen.
I moved over and read them. They were identical to those Zerlyna had already provided, largely standard, except for the provision that forbid questions involving the destruction of Pentura or what had happened to make her the way she was. “I accept.”
“Good. You have one hour … unless she becomes agitated, or says that she is done, in which case Clyann will notify you. Oh … and she only answers to Ilsabet.” He stood. “This way.”
He gestured toward a pressure door, which opened as we approached. I stepped through it and up the ramp beyond. He followed. The pressure door at the top of the ramp was open, and I stepped into a small chamber. A muscular woman in a dark gray security singlesuit with a wide belt sat in a chair just beyond the door. I recognized her as the guard/guardian who had always accompanied Ilsabet outside.
“Dr. Verano, this is Clyann. Clyann, Dr. Verano. He is to have an hour with Elisabetta. Under the usual conditions.”
Clyann nodded.
“I’ll introduce you to Ilsabet,” said Ideo, “then I’ll leave. She prefers to talk to one person at a time.” He walked through the archway into a long room.
Ilsabet was looking out the wide armaglass window, her back to us.
“Ilsabet, this is Paulo,” said Ideo gently. “He’d like to talk to you for a while.” He nodded and then slipped back through the archway.
Ilsabet turned. She was taller than I’d realized, only a few centimeters shorter than me, slender, but muscular rather than willowy. Outside of her hair and eyebrows, both a solid purpled gray, she could have been in her early twenties, with the clear skin of someone barely out of childhood. Yet her hair had the luster of a young person’s. Then I saw her eyes, also purpled gray with overlarge pupils, or perhaps a black ring on the rim of the iris around the pupil.
“I’ll talk, and you’ll speak. The words are hide and seek.”
Her voice was that of a young adult, the intonation that of a child, but the words suggested a vocabulary wider than that of someone with a mental age of eight. Then I corrected myself. An emotional age of eight didn’t mean a mental age that young.
“I was hoping you could tell me about the plants and the grass. You’ve been watching them for a long time.” I gestured toward the chairs.
She ignored the gesture. “The grass is grass. It’s not-green. There are no plants to be seen.”
“You’ve seen the grass for a long, long time. Has it always been the same color?”
“Green is green. Grass is down. Always purple-green-brown.” Suddenly she dropped into the chair nearest to her, in the thoughtless way children sometimes have.
I took the chair facing her. “Were there more plants when you first came here?”
“No plants, no place. Flowers have a face.”
“There aren’t any flowers outside, are there? I haven’t seen any.”
“I love daisies, daisies in the spring. They’re like everything.”
“Does Clyann bring you daisies from the public garden?”
“Daisies are the perkiest flowers, don’t you think?” Ilsabet looked past me to the blank wallscreen, her face open and guileless. “Petals of sun and light, centers of ink.”
That brought me up short. Ilsabet hadn’t actually seen a sun in hundreds of years, if ever. But I wasn’t supposed to ask about that period. “What about the sun?”
“Stars like sun, their courses run.”
I was getting a very uncomfortable feeling, but I managed a smile. “Do you like to run on the grass?”
“The grass is there. The grass is fair.”
“What about the sky? What color is it?”
“Purple like the night, brightened by light.”
That was a fair description, but it also chilled me. I wanted to look to Clyann, but dared not, besides she was out of sight range.
“Has the sky changed since you first saw it here?”
“North was south then, south north again.”
“The sky or the skytubes?”
“All turning around, with blare and sound.” Her face momentarily twisted into terror, but the expression vanished so quickly I almost missed it.
“Do you like to watch the skytubes? What do you think they do?”
The guileless look vanished, and she spoke clearly, like an adult. “What is life? What is art? Is greatness strife? Are fingers smart?”
Then the childlike expression reappeared, and she looked past me. “Can I go out and play? I haven’t been out today.”
“In just a moment.” Clyann moved out past the archway and looked at me. “I think she’s done. She talked to you much longer than most, Dr. Verano. I think she likes you.”
“She’s quite something,” I replied. More than something … “Thank you very much, Ilsabet. Have a good time outside.” I stood.
So did she, her eyes on me. “I’d like to play, but I’d have to go away.” Her face was serious, in the way that children’s faces often are.
“How far would you have to go?”
“Very, very high, up beyond the sky.” She paused. “Good-bye.” Then she turned and walked to the pressure door that led to the grass beyond.
I watched as she stepped out, then turned to leave.
Ideo was standing there. “I listened to what you were trying to do, Doctor. Did you get any hints that might prove helpful?”
“Given her way of answering, it’s hard to tell, but she did seem to indicate that there haven’t been any plants in the grassland in her life. She also seemed to indicate that the grass hasn’t changed, a
nd that skytubes were more prevalent in the north for a time, and then switched. Twice, possibly. No one’s mentioned that in any of the meteorological data, but that’s something I can check. There might be an environmental link. It’s worth looking into.” I inclined my head. “Thank you for letting me talk to her.”
“Thank you for your kindness to her. She’s always happier after she chats with someone new. It doesn’t happen often these days.”
I tried not to shiver after I left and walked back to the Survey to recover my measuring gear before heading to the Survey vehicle bay. One of Ilsabet’s phrases echoed in my mind. “What is life? What is art? Is greatness strife? Are fingers smart?” The look with which she had delivered the words had said as much as the words themselves.
I was all too worried that it meant what I thought it did … but, again, it didn’t constitute proof.
Once in my office, I did a quick check of messages, but there weren’t any. It was a bit of a pain to have to be in the Survey to get official messages, but I could live with it while I was on Stittara.
Zerlyna met me as I was leaving my office. “Where are you off to now?”
“To take some measurements at nearby outie communities.”
“Did you talk to Jorl about it?”
“I did. Aloris recommended that.”
Zerlyna nodded. “How did your interview with Ilsabet go?”
“Rather strangely. She talks in rhyme. She did suggest that there’s a regular shifting in the positioning of the skytubes. At least, I think that’s what she meant.”
“I recall something about the rhyming, but not the details. I don’t know about the skytubes.”
“When I get back, I’ll see if Raasn can look into that for me. If it’s a regular meteorological event, there should be records, even if no one noticed the pattern … assuming there is one.”
“If there’s a pattern, once you’ve alerted him to the possibility, he’ll find it.” She looked at my equipment case and then back to me. “Have a productive trip.”
The One-Eyed Man Page 26
