Ecolitan Prime (Ecolitan Matter)

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  “I probably upset him too much. Too pushy for a reserved Avalonian.” Nathaniel glanced toward the east and the advancing gray clouds. Even the light wind was cooler, for once, and a hint of dampness and the vaguely metallic scent associated with water on Artos drifted across the permacrete drive.

  Glubb Bagot hopped from the vehicle, and Nathaniel couldn’t help wondering if the chipperness arose from the young lady at the Evanston’s. Lucky man, he thought, except the finding of the special lady was the easy part. Keeping her was much harder. That he was discovering.

  “What are you going to do?” asked Sylvia. “While I see DeSain, I meant.”

  “Walk. Walk the streets and roads of Lanceville. I need a better feel.” He grinned momentarily. “I might even discover something.”

  “Like the time you cruised the Defense Ministry Plaza?” Sylvia shifted her grip on Nathaniel’s datacase, hers for use in her interviews, since her own had perished in the flitter crash.

  “You weren’t supposed to know about that.” He gave a dramatic sigh as he opened the groundcar door for Sylvia. “Even then, I had no secrets.”

  “You had enough, dear envoy.”

  Bagot looked momentarily puzzled at the reference to Nathaniel’s previous assignment, but then smoothed his face and reseated himself behind the wheel, waiting.

  “Drop me by the piers, Bagot, and then take Professor Ferro-Maine where she needs to go. I’ll meet you two back at the Guest House. There are taxi services of some sort?”

  “Yes, sir.” Bagot grinned. “Pyotr’s. But you’d better plan to wait a while. They don’t hurry.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.” The Ecolitans bounced as the vehicle lurched out toward the main highway.

  “Sorry, sirs.”

  “That’s all right,” said Sylvia.

  Outside of scattered trees, all planted near residences, Nathaniel again was reminded how few he had seen, except for a handful of small wood lots, all with trees that had to have been less than fifty years old. He wanted to shake his head. The more he looked, the more he realized how unbalanced the later stages of planoforming had been—a sure sign of stinginess or lack of funds from New Avalon.

  “Unbalanced planoforming,” he murmured to Sylvia.

  “I wondered, but I’m not an expert. It seems like there’s a lot missing.”

  More than a lot was missing. Could Dr. Oconnor shed some light on that? Oconnor was another contact he’d failed to follow up on.

  “Has anyone ever talked about the problems of planoforming Artos?” Nathaniel asked Bagot.

  “There’s been talk since…ever since I can remember. The big things were trees and predators. R-K stopped the big predators. They said that luxury beef was all that kept Artos going, and they didn’t need anything that killed cattle. The trees…I don’t know. They just talked about it.”

  “Was there anything else?” prompted Sylvia.

  “Water…there’s always something on the vidfax about water. It gets so you don’t pay any attention.” Bagot put both hands on the wheel, but the groundcar still shivered as another big lorry whipped by them, headed away from Lanceville.

  Water? Jem had mentioned the water table. Probably there hadn’t been free water on Artos long enough to build that, not when aquifers and the like took thousands of years to charge and recharge on most T-type planets. Whaler took a deep, slow breath, trying to sort out all the miscellaneous facts that ought to have told him more—and hadn’t.

  He still hadn’t any more answers when Bagot pulled up by the harbor piers.

  “This do, sir?”

  “Fine. Thank you.” He turned to Sylvia, bent toward her, and said, “Be careful.”

  “I’ll be fine.” She squeezed his hand warmly.

  As the groundcar rumbled off, the Ecolitan turned and studied the harbor. All three wharfs were empty, and low waves barely lapped at the stone columns that served as both supports and bollards.

  Dust swirled off the harbor drive, carried by the ocean wind, and the only sound besides the whisper of the wind was the scraping of a small section of plastic sheeting as it twisted along the permacrete.

  Nathaniel edged over toward the white-and-red square of plastic. Then he had to run as a sudden gust of wind lifted the sheeting past his extended arm. He finally grabbed the errant plastic in the middle of the deserted highway, a good thirty meters west from where Bagot had let him off. The plastic looked to be a fragment of heavy-duty shrinkwrap, the kind that was proof against the cold of space, and bore a part of a logo—the stylized initials SAI, and, underneath the initials, some jagged points of black running from one ripped edge.

  “SAI?” The initials sounded vaguely familiar, but he couldn’t place them. So he folded the roughly oblong sheeting into a small packet and slipped it into the hip pocket of his greens, checking the hidden loops in his belt that held the dart gun and the miniature stunner. Then he walked back across the permacrete highway, clearing it just before a small lorry with the name “Evanston Electric” rolled past in the general direction of the Blue Lion.

  As he neared the center piers again, he walked past a small square building with barred windows and two locked roll-up doors for tractors or loaders or the like, and then strolled down the empty central pier, past the empty kiosklike watch post and the sign that read, “No Entry Without Permission. R-K Ocean Enterprises.”

  Black marks on the permacrete slabs that comprised the top of the piers testified to the recent presence of some vehicles, probably loaders.

  At the seaward end of the pier, the Ecolitan looked for a time at the ocean with but a trace of whitecaps and waves, despite the darkening clouds that filled more and more of the eastern sky. The sea breeze smelled faintly metallic.

  Finally, he turned and surveyed the waterfront and Lanceville beyond. Outside of the blue rectangle to the north that was the Blue Lion, the buildings that fanned out along the main highways that converged on the harbor were all low. And all were sand colored or brown, with generally the same red tile roofs. Not more than a handful of trees even reached much above the equivalent of two stories.

  The Ecolitan took a deep breath and began to walk back in from the end of the pier toward the southernmost highway—empty except for a few vehicles moving there intermittently.

  Immediately back from the harbor drive, the grayish ground was bare for almost a hundred meters. Nathaniel lengthened his stride, but found himself breathing heavily even before he reached the first set of buildings, a line of windowless bricked structures with heavy synthplast doors large enough to accommodate trucks and loaders—warehouses of a sort. But the Ecolitan did not discern many traces of recent use.

  With a shrug, and a few deep breaths, he continued following the southern highway, past another line of unused warehouses and an empty cross street. He looked both ways, watching as the light breeze skittered sandy dust across the permacrete.

  The next cross street contained a half-dozen squat houses. A bent old man sat on the steps of the second, perhaps seventy yards from the Ecolitan, and stared at him. The windows on the nearest house were open a crack, to let in the breeze, but Nathaniel could hear nothing from within.

  The next cross street contained a larger building, what seemed to be a small market. A twenty-passenger electrobus was pulled up by the entrance, just beyond a bicycle rack that held nearly twenty bikes. A woman pushed a wheeled plastic basket-cart down the street away from the Ecolitan. An ancient electrocar whined jerkily into the carpark.

  Nathaniel kept walking, and, slowly, the structures he passed became better kempt and larger, but he saw very few people about—except for the playground of the school where the shouts and calls of more than a hundred children echoed through the cloudy afternoon.

  In time, he reached a solid, three-story structure on the corner of another cross street. He paused, taking several deep breaths, trying to flush the carbon dioxide from his system while he studied the building. It was almost as far south from the high
way that led from the shuttle port and split the town as the Blue Lion was to the north. Although the structure was clearly new, it was built in the same fashion as the Bank of Camelot—stone and solid, with barred, small windows. The glittering plaque on the left side of the covered, arched entryway bore the intertwined letters LN. That and the two guards uniformed in bright blue told him more than enough—Landis-Nicarchos. Without looking back toward the building and the guards, he crossed the broad street after waiting for a single battered groundcar to pass. On the other side was a series of smaller shops. The first, on the corner, held a small bakery. The name “Aimee’s” was stenciled on the wide glass. A faint smell of pastries seeped outside. Nathaniel found his mouth watering, and he checked the time—actually past noon. How far had he walked? He turned and looked back—probably three or four kilos.

  The second shop was vacant, with off-green plastic sheeting covering the windows. The third was a small eating establishment. “Jerry’s Grub” was burned into the plastic simulated-wood sign which swung slightly on plastic brackets outside the scarred door.

  The Ecolitan stepped off the street and into the dim room.

  “Drink or grub?” The warm voice came from a hard-faced woman in a brown singlesuit, her white-streaked red hair in a tight bun.

  “Grub, mostly.”

  “Any of the empty tables on the wall. Menu’s posted. Keep away from the rockfish.”

  “Thank you.” The Ecolitan took a small table for two covered with a clean but faded blue synthcloth, next to the larger vacant table in the back corner. He squinted for a few moments while his eyes readjusted and he could read the single-sheet menu.

  “What would you like?” The trim older woman in brown stood by the table.

  “What would you recommend?” he asked.

  “The meat pie. There was a big to-do over at the Lion, and Jerry got a quarter of the good beef.”

  “Fine. I’ll try the Grawer.”

  “You’re new here.” A smile traced itself on her lips.

  “The Grawer’s that bad?”

  She laughed gently. “No. Best brew we have, but I know everyone, just about. Lived here for…let’s say long enough. I’m Elna, short for Elinor.”

  “I’m Nathaniel. No one ever shortened it, and you’re right. I’m new. I was walking around, feeling things out.”

  “Sooner or later, everyone comes here.” Another quick smile flitted across her lips.

  “Elna!”

  “I’ll get your brew.” In three long strides, Elna stood by the table where a white-haired, balding man held up a teapot.

  The Ecolitan studied the room. Besides the older man, the various heavy-formed plastic tables held a young couple, two men in grease-spattered blue singlesuits, a mid-aged man in Avalonian dress shorts and high socks, two graying women, and three blue-clad security guards.

  “Here’s the brew.” Elna set the teapot and a mug before him.

  “Thank you.”

  “Be a bit for the pie. It’s worth the wait.”

  The three blue-uniformed guards sat at the front corner table. One continually looked toward the LN building. Nathaniel listened.

  “…think we were real groundpounders…”

  “…Girhard…says…doesn’t want…empty uniforms…do what he wants…”

  “…been sore for weeks…training never ends…”

  “…better pay than in the marine pens…bastard Sebastion…bleed dry…”

  “…say we’re…heavy weapons…”

  “…careful…careful…”

  “All right. Swarzee…really marry Elise?”

  “…figured she’d get someone…”

  The three laughed, then stopped as one rose. “Greener’s car…let’s go…take a bit for him…”

  The three were still laughing as they left Avalonian notes on the table and hurried out, talking, without even a look in the Ecolitan’s direction, striding quickly toward the heavy-walled building.

  The beef pie was worth the wait, almost as good as the marinated beef at George Reeves-Kenn’s, and the heavy sconelike biscuits were hot.

  Nathaniel discovered how hungry he was only after he looked at the empty plates.

  “Need any more, Nathaniel?”

  “No. I probably ate too much, but it was good.”

  “Isn’t always, but I told you.” Elna smiled, then left the paper check on the table. “Come again.”

  “Thank you.” He didn’t want to promise too much, but he did leave a hefty tip—the Artosans had kept that Avalonian custom. Then he used the public comm to call the taxi. He waited for a time even for the comm to be answered, but was assured Pyotr was on the way.

  The Ecolitan burped, as quietly as possible, as he stood outside Jerry’s, waiting for Pyotr’s taxi, ignoring the mistlike rain that intermittently fell. On the far corner, one of the security guards in bright blue studied Nathaniel for a time before retreating back into the two-story building.

  The multicolored, multipatched groundcar that growled up to the restaurant sported a hand-painted starburst in the center of which were scrawled orange letters spelling out a ragged “Pyotr.”

  “You the fellow who called?”

  “That’s me. The Guest House.”

  “The Guest House—the one on the highway to the shuttle port?”

  Nathaniel slipped into the plastic-covered rear seat. “That’s it.”

  “That’s five.”

  “Fine.”

  “You’re the chief.” That was all the driver said, and the Ecolitan left the window open, out of self-defense against the odor of rancid spices emanating from the driver and ill-burned hydrocarbons from the engine.

  Back at the Guest House, for a time he sat in his room, going back over the figures from the conversion plant, then taking those from Karl-Abbe and running some correlations and drafting some rough tables.

  He rubbed his forehead and studied the hand-drawn tables again. He’d have Sylvia look at them, to make sure, but even from the outdated published figures on Artos, from the plant numbers, from the Bank’s financial assessment, and from what they’d seen, the ConOne hydrocarbon facility not only had the capacity to process double its current output, but current output was somewhere well above current Artosan fuel needs—unless the ag sector on the outcontinents were disproportionately large—and the facility on ConTrio was supposed to handle such needs.

  He shrugged. Right now, the figures were too rough to be absolutely conclusive in the economists’ sense. But no manager/owner anywhere ever overstated capacity or output—especially to government overseers. So that meant that the numbers were conservative, that they had been exaggerated for other reasons, or that he and Sylvia had gotten cooked numbers.

  The banking figures were worse. Free credit balances were building, even as average wages were almost stagnating. And where had Karl-Abbe gotten the import duty figures? Was the bank the holder? Someone was importing a lot of something, but the aggregations didn’t say what.

  He blinked and rubbed his forehead. He’d seen enough. Every number looked worse, and they all felt like they were in the right sector—and that gave him a uneasy feeling. All of Artos gave him a very uneasy feeling.

  He snorted. How much of that was because someone had tried to kill them three times? He stood and checked the time. Fifteen hundred.

  Sylvia should have been back earlier.

  Finally, he stacked up folders and papers and went down to the empty foyer. No Sylvia. No messages on the comm unit. He called Detsen Oconnor at the New Avalon Monitoring Laboratory and got his assistant, but managed to set up an appointment for the next morning. After he broke the connection, he wanted to shake his head. He should have done that earlier. He should have tried to understand Sylvia earlier. It was hard to remember that she came from a far more repressed background than he did, and one where everything was involuted and convoluted. Add to that his own reserve. He shook his head. He should have done a lot of things earlier—that seemed to
be life.

  After pacing the foyer for a good fifteen units, he went outside under the portico and watched the misting clouds drift land-ward over Lanceville. Still no Sylvia.

  When studying the rain palled, he went back and checked the comm unit. No messages.

  He went back outside and watched more rain and clouds, until the rain dropped out to a trace of mist, and even less, and the clouds thinned.

  A distant purr-rumble pricked his ears. Finally, out of the mist rising from the permacrete, the green groundcar lumbered in under the portico.

  Sylvia smiled as he opened the door for her.

  “I was getting a little worried.”

  “I’m fine. Keiffer DeSain is talkative.”

  Nathaniel nodded and stepped up to the groundcar window. “Bagot?”

  “Sir?”

  “Where’s a good place to eat? Not as fancy as Elizabeth’s and not as crowded as the Blue Lion? Someplace you’d like to go.”

  “Well…there aren’t many places. The Old Tower used to be my favorite, but old lady Tuer died last spring, and they closed. Jerry’s is all right for lunch, but they close early. Faro’s, I’d guess.”

  “Well…you’re our guest for dinner, and, if you like, you can invite a friend, as well.”

  “Sir…I wouldn’t…”

  “You’ve been very kind, and very helpful, and it’s the least we can do.”

  The driver looked toward Sylvia. She smiled. “It’s little enough.”

  “And you can tell the chief that we insisted.”

  “Sir…”

  “Anyone you’d like—brother, friend, lady—and we’ll see you at eighteen forty.”

  “Yes, sir.” Bagot grinned. “Yes, sir.”

  “A walk?” Nathaniel asked as the groundcar roared off and as they stood before the Guest House doors.

  “It’s a little damp, but we don’t have much choice, do we?”

  “Not really.”

  As they stepped out from the covered portico, a light breeze ruffled the summer-weight greens.

  “It won’t be bad.” He glanced toward the west, where the heavier clouds that had passed the Guest House earlier had almost reached the horizon.