Forge of Heaven

by C. J. Cherryh

  In three more days, when Mr. Gide's ship was a blip outbound and out of his life.

  7

  0837h. Procyon dressed in the sober shirt, the solemn coat. Breakfast wasn't sitting any better on his stomach than the 0400h caff had done, and he tried not to think further ahead than he had to.

  0842h. He checked the mirror in the bath and had a wild moment's fantasy, as the Old Man had suggested, of calling in sick-sick with something disgusting and of at least a week's duration. The way he felt, he could almost qualify. His head felt fuzzy. He wanted to go back to bed and try for the several hours' sleep he hadn't gotten. But he wouldn't sleep if he did, and he was in it too deep to try to dodge it now.

  On the other hand, he promised his bleary-eyed reflection, if he got through early with this interview, he could take this one day, maybe tomorrow, satisfy everybody, make the Director very pleased with him, try to settle the mess with Ardath, and maybe be back where he wanted to be, in his own downstairs office, by the time this ship left port-maybe even late-shift tomorrow if the report was what they wanted and if he could keep his eyes open. If he just got through this one day without knocking into politics he didn't want to know about, and lived through the debriefing, then he could tell Brazis all about his sister's visit before Brazis told him. He could put it in the best light, and come out clean. It was all he asked. Just back to the job and no blowup.

  He was about to go down to the door when he noticed a blinking light on the entertainment unit.

  Messages. Physical line. He didn't have Sam report on them-usually they were social messages coming in from that source. He'd get the list when he had time to handle it, see if it was anyone he wanted to talk to. His friends all accepted that he was rotten about messages. It wouldn't be anything.

  No. He couldn't stand it. This morning, of all mornings, he had to be sure. He punched the button to get the ID.

  His mother.

  The anniversary call had ricocheted. The crystal egg and his excuses had, two of them, and nothing had dissuaded her.

  Or it could be an emergency. A problem. A health problem. He punched in.

  "Jeremy, dear, thank you so much. I know you're busy, but you have to eat. You don't have to bring anything. Aunt Melody is bringing that fruit salad.

  "Do you suppose you can get your sister to come?."

  God. It was 0858. He had two minutes to get to the lift station. He left the message still playing.

  "Down, Sam."

  He descended. He walked out his door and lit out of the close at high speed, down Grozny and up Lebeau. He didn't need to run, quite. But he couldn't slow down.

  He was out of breath when he arrived at the lift station, so out of breath he leaned a hand against the wall beside the lift call, in among half a dozen others waiting for a car.

  One of the crowd was an Earther, in a plain gray suit.

  "Mr. Jones?"

  "Yes," he said, appalled that the man going through this clandestine charade of code words hadn't bothered to look other than what he was-Earther to the core, and near the Trend.

  "We can take the number 4," the man said, punching in a code on the nearest bank. And said, blocking with his hand an annoyed woman who tried to input her own destination, "Sorry. This car is locked. Maintenance."

  Damned sure the Earther didn't look like maintenance. He was as conspicuous as a missionary in a Blunt Street bar. Procyon looked a mortified apology at the woman, at two others watching the embarrassing little scene.

  The car came. The escort waved him inside. He went, and the escort followed.

  The door shut. The car moved.

  "I want to see the badge," Procyon said, furious, and the agent reached to his pocket and flashed it. "Up close, please."

  The man gave him a slower look at it. The badge had a number, a photo ID, and the governor's seal. James Peter Fordham was the name. The number was 980S. Procyon logged that to memory, leadoff to a day he was sure was going to be excruciating. The Old Man would want detail. He logged every detail to memory, including that number, in case even getting there went wrong.

  "Why don't you walk on ahead down the street when we get out and I'll follow you?" he suggested to the cop.

  Fordham wasn't, surely, entirely unaware of his appearance. "I'm supposed to take you to an address."

  "Just head right, and I'll follow you," he said. "I've no interest in losing you. I'm clearly not Earther. You clearly are. I'm afraid there are already questions." His sister's visit last night loomed like a bad dream. He'd been public, getting into the lift. Someone in the crowd might, worse, know his face. He hadn't been looking around. But he wasn't exactly incognito on the street, and when Earthers came throwing police authority around to get a lift car, it made noise. If anyone had noticed him, gossip would say Procyon had been in a suit a second day in a row and that a government slink had put him in a lift car. And he was going to have to live with it.

  Ardath would get up to face her own day, usually noonish. Everybody in her circle might know about his doings by then. If they did, they'd tell her. And damn it, then there'd be another round of chatter and gossip.

  She'd follow through with the program they'd agreed on. She'd say he'd been stupid, and that he'd gotten himself in trouble.

  But if the governor wasn't more careful than he had been, then the rumor would get out that he'd met with Gide. He hadn't even thought of the timing involved. His sister denied everything, and then the governor's handling of this whole affair let the big news hit the street. He'd be notorious by suppertime. Ardath would have to disown him for real. He might not be able to venture onto the Trend for weeks without drawing comments behind hands, and catcalls in some of his old haunts. It was more than inconvenient. It was a disaster, before the day even started.

  And given the meeting with Algol, and Algol's going to his sister with gossip-hell, he didn't know what to do.

  The lift took a turn, dived, and zipped along. Probably it would have been common sense to sit down during the gyrations. Fordham didn't, so he didn't.

  The blue panel light flashed imminent arrival at their destination. The car slowed to a stop, and Fordham keyed the door open on one of the really high-priced locales-up in the official residencies, near where the governor lived, Procyon guessed, if not in the same neighborhood. He doggedly didn't gawk at the decor, just took in the fancy windowed balconies, every one jutting out further toward the street than the one below, until the green and white hanging plants dripping off those balconies closed in the overhead. He'd seen this place in vids, he realized. It was Concord Street, the heart of the Earther sections. Lights embedded in the tiles came up from the centerline of the deck to make the plants grow. You could walk on those light-circles, and they did, crossing the street, a moment of intense warmth and illumination that came and went, in the heat-budget of this sector. Foot traffic moved slowly along these streets, sparse, concentrated around a handful of corners. No shops. No eateries. Just a handful of clustered gardens and fountains.

  They turned down a side street where balconies were slanted in the other direction, and brilliant sim-sun filtered down from above, past rising curtains of vines, sheets of flowers. The plants shed a few leaves and dead petals onto the walk, and a small dome-shaped cleaner-bot idled along, nabbing the recently fallen detritus as prey and reward.

  Another turn, to a nook not that different from Grozny Close, except the garden enclosed here held sizable trees. What was truly remarkable to his eye-there was only one door in this whole close, with numerous off-ground windows.

  Ultimate luxury, Procyon said to himself. Real privacy. Huge premises and a private courtyard. Could anybody have more than that?

  Fordham led him up to the door in question and punched the button. "Mr. Stafford to see Ambassador Gide."

  "Alone," the door speaker said ominously. And the door opened.

  Fordham, duly advised, stayed back. Procyon took a deep breath and walked into an inside foyer decorated in plants, gla
ss, and polished stone.

  The door immediately hissed shut behind him. He hadn't been that worried about his physical safety until he heard that door seal. The governor's man was outside, but he was completely on his own in here. And his heartbeat raced.

  He walked forward a few steps, where the foyer gave a view of two side rooms and a hall ahead. He looked to the left. Fancy cream-colored furniture, pale arabesque tilework. Potted palms, each with a growth light.

  Machinery whirred behind him. He looked back toward that other room, and met the gold, tear-shaped containment that he'd seen on the news.

  "Mr. Ambassador?" Trembling with fear never helped. He took a deep breath and tried a deeper, steadier voice. "I'm Procyon. I'm told you want to see me."

  "I do see you." The voice came from the containment, deep and rich in proximity. The machine trundled forward with a soft whirr of gears. So positioned, it occupied the foyer and blocked the way out. "Mr. Jeremy Stafford. Young. Outsider. And of course highly modified."

  "Yes, sir." A little nod. He felt a cold regard all over his skin. "That's who I am."

  "You certainly look human."

  "I am human, sir."

  "A point of controversy, where I come from. But all the same, you present a decent appearance." The gleaming gold surface fumed, condensing a fog around it, and acquired blue tones. It deformed, and astonishingly extruded a bubble that became a face, a head and shoulders as large as life.

  And it thought he was an oddity.

  "Procyon. That's the name you prefer, Mr. Stafford?"

  "Yes, sir. I rarely use my registry name."

  The machine rolled closer. The head was eye to eye with him, now, and he didn't like it.

  "You work with Marak. You're his personal observer."

  Attack. Straight to the issue. "I can't discuss my work, sir. I'm sorry."

  "Well, well, and also working closely with Chairman Brazis."

  "I can't discuss my work, sir. I truly can't. I'd like to help you, but there's no way I can talk about that."

  "You know the Chairman, and you work directly with Marak. No need to discuss it. We know. We know, for instance, that Marak is in some immediate danger down on the planet. A sea is pouring into a very large basin and he's on a rather precarious neck of land chasing after his missing transportation."

  He was disturbed that this creature knew things he didn't-the ship must have gotten into ordinary communication flow, likely from Earther sources-and he was even more disturbed that Marak might be in danger he hadn't known, but he tried not to react.

  "I'm sure I have no idea what's going on there at the moment."

  "Odd. I do."

  The Earther ship was definitely monitoring conversations.

  And this Mr. Gide sounded primarily interested in Marak. Why? was the salient question, beyond the obvious, that Marak always had that kind of importance to Earthers, to Outsiders and ondat alike.

  But for what purpose?

  "He's in a difficult position, at the moment," Gide said, "while the land is shaking itself apart. The Refuge would like him to return to camp and wait for rescue. He refuses and seems intent on risking his life. Do you think if you were on duty, you could persuade him to return to camp and accept rescue?"

  "I can't discuss my work, sir." He had to use his head, get something out of this Gide, and not give anything away. "You haven't created this situation, have you, sir?"

  "Cause an earthquake? Split a continent? Hardly."

  "I have to take your word."

  "Impertinent fellow."

  "Not intentionally, sir. If you can do it, if you did do it, I'm curious to know how."

  "Are you tapped in? Is that how you say it? Are you tapped in right now, spying for Brazis? Are you asking his question?"

  "Not at the moment, no, sir."

  The shell moved, a whirr of gears. A hand extruded and gestured toward the elegant reception room, beyond two broad, white-columned arches. "A chair. Do sit down. Make yourself comfortable. Let's talk frankly about the situation down there."

  He didn't budge from the hallway, maintaining his avenue of escape. "No, sir. I've said as clearly as I can that I can't talk about it. I know you're comfortable. And I'm comfortable standing."

  "Obstructionism can't improve relations."

  "I'm not obstructive, sir." He remembered his instructions. "I'd be quite happy to take all your questions and see if I can get permission to answer."

  "Permission from the Chairman."

  "Yes."

  "Not from the governor?"

  "I take orders only from the Chairman, sir. Chain of command. I'm here as a courtesy. An offer of good faith."

  The arm and hand retracted, resorbed. The face frowned. "Well, let me be honest, and you can relay this to your Chairman. We've heard claims the remediation is actually making progress, that this prospective sea will issue forth new changes, a shallow sea, where life can breed in abundance, flowing out onto the land. That global weather will change, bringing rains to the arid midcontinent."

  "I can't talk about that, sir."

  "Oh, but I'm sure you've heard such speculations."

  "That falls under the job prohibition, sir. I can't discuss it."

  "Changing the world. But it might allow nanoceles that may have survived the hammerfall to proliferate and modify themselves again."

  "I couldn't predict, sir, but again, I'm not-"

  "Yet such nanoceles remain in the environment down there. And up here. Even in you, for instance."

  "I don't understand the biology of it, sir. But I'm not like Marak."

  "Not immortal."

  "Far from it, sir."

  "Yet Marak himself and his generation. are immortal."

  "So far, the nanoceles just keep repairing them, whatever goes wrong. But that's what I hear. I don't know."

  "So Marak and his generation now pose one of the chief sources of recontamination in this new remediated world, don't they? Yet we understand the plan is never to do away with them. Is this true?"

  "I have no idea about that, sir." All that was, in fact, way over his head. There was no way to scrub out a nanocele. None that he knew about. And terminate Marak, and Ian, and the rest? Unthinkable. "Immortals do die of accident. I understand no few have died."

  "Mostly by mental collapse, so I hear. Suicide." The shell moved, started forward, went through that arch between the columns, spun about. "But even given that slow purge of the world, a written archive remains. And a living example of that technology, even beyond Marak and his relatives, in the person of a First Movement survivor with no motive to love her containment. A treasure-house of survivals, and a library with the informational key to its data, all of it in reach of Outsider researchers who themselves contain those pre-Hammerfall nanoceles. Is that a good situation? Has that ever been a good situation?"

  "I have no idea about such matters, sir." Not a brilliant answer, but it was all he had.

  "Listen to me, boy."

  "I assure you I'm listening very closely, sir."

  "You know it's against the Treaty to lift that technology off the planet. Don't you?"

  "I'm very sure it's against the law, sir. I can't imagine anyone doing it."

  "What if I were to tell you I can prove your associates in the Project have illegal information? That data of that kind is being rescued, illicitly, from the planet?"

  "I don't know any such thing, sir." He was cold clear through, half understanding what the man was talking about, as if all the words were there, hanging in the air, but they just wouldn't make sense in the real world. "I don't know about any such thing, but if there is proof, I'm sure the Chairman would like to hear it."

  "Are you sure he would? Are you in any position to be sure?"

  "Only the position of someone who's grown up here, who can't imagine anybody doing that or wanting to do that for any sane reason. I never heard of anybody smuggling data, sir. I don't think they could, physically."

  "Unless it w
ere officially sanctioned."

  "I'm sure not, sir. Work is monitored to the hilt. I can't think how anything of that sort could ever go on without somebody knowing. Management wouldn't. They wouldn't. There's just too much at stake."

  "Oh, a great deal is at stake. You're quite right in that. But we're not necessarily dealing with you and me, are we? Marak dates from the foundations of modern civilization. How do we possibly say we understand him?"

  "I can't say anything I know, sir. It's a restricted area."