Forge of Heaven

by C. J. Cherryh

  "And Earth is aware this is going on?"

  "I believe so. Gide wasn't discreet, coming in here. I can only hope if Earth's agents have come in at Orb, that they'll be quieter, or we'll see our operation there blown. I hoped Gide's protection would be stiffer. It wasn't."

  "Damn." Nanisms. Illicits. Smuggling. All the versions of the Movement had that particular focus, the hope of getting some magic bullet, a tap to enable their members to communicate unheard-more, a magic pill to make their members as immortal as the few down on the planet. "A medical nanism. not the immortality nanocele, nothing like that."

  "Not that we know," Magdallen agreed. "Theoretically the Ila has her own reasons to keep that nanocele exactly where it is, so her enemies eventually die and she doesn't, and none of them can get what's her trump card. She's been very careful where she's bestowed it."

  "That's the thinking."

  "An adaptive nanism, however, that could be weaponized. that could be in question at that lab on Orb. Earth is clearly scared. Apex isn't happy."

  Scared? Adaptive nanisms, let loose in a population, let loose on Concord, of all sensitive places in the universe, where it could prove to the ondat that remediation never had been the goal?

  Kiss civilized understanding good-bye. Kiss containment goodbye. The genie could break the bottle for good and all. Ilia Lindstrom, the sole surviving member of the First Movement, sitting in a shelter that had withstood the planet-breakers, would just have to sit it out and wait for her ticket off planet, to take up the war where the Movement had left off.

  They'd always known what the potential game was, in that woman's survival.

  "The lab fire has likely already taken place on Orb," Magdallen said. "If Gide is here, they've probably already moved."

  "So Gide comes here looking for Movement contacts inside my offices. Comes here forearmed with information on Procyon Stafford, so sure he's to blame. If I can be sure of anything, that kid is innocent of any conspiracy."

  "I'm sure so, too, sir. They have dossiers on every tap. I think it was the Freethinker connection that attracted their attention. Mistakenly so, in his case, but right on target in certain facts."

  "And why in hell, Agent Magdallen, didn't you advise me of those facts before I sent that kid in there to investigate Gide?"

  "I'd no way to do that without blowing my cover, which I was under orders not to do. Unfortunately-someone was aware of the Gide situation. Someone disposed of the guards and sat outside waiting there for the door to open, for Gide to be in view. If he hadn't been, they'd have gone in after him. They didn't snatch your tap. I don't think they wanted to. They didn't want him."

  "Why not?"

  "Perhaps because they didn't want you to invoke the police powers you have. They didn't want Project law to activate, and it wouldn't, so long as Procyon got back to us. I don't know, sir. I only conclude that because they didn't take him. They didn't want that train of events to take place."

  "Meanwhile the Project tap has been hacked from down on the world. The alarm system hasn't been functioning for months. Years."

  "The Ila could indeed have passed critical information. Or orders, to persons on this station. Yes."

  The Ila herself could have been behind the attack on Procyon. He weighed the notion. Weighed it twice, and it came up far short. "The Ila doesn't botch her moves. Whoever did this missed killing the ambassador. Possibly the agents panicked. Possibly the result was what they wanted. But if at any moment she'd wanted to kill Procyon, she could have done it outright. Ask her current tap-who can't be asked anything."

  "You say she doesn't make mistakes. Possibly her hands up here did. But as you say, sir, the result fell short of murder. Maybe the result was exactly what someone wanted. Not to kill either of them."

  "Only to penetrate the containment? To strand the man here? To create disturbance between our office and the governor?"

  Magdallen shrugged.

  "You think the Movement wants Gide stranded here?" Brazis asked him. "For what bloody reason? Gide is Treaty Board, almost certainly. And survives, now, as a permanent resident of this station? What possible advantage to the Movement?"

  "I can say I didn't attack Gide. Did you, sir?"

  "No."

  "Because?"

  "Because it would be stupid."

  "Exactly," Magdallen said. "Exactly. Why would the Movement want Gide here? Cui bono? To whom the advantage-in this attack that doesn't kill Mr. Gide?"

  Not to the governor. Not to the Ila. Not to the Project or to Apex. "To his own authority." He didn't like being led. But he followed the logic. Some Earth faction. It made uncomfortably thorough sense.

  "To strand Mr. Gide here. To set him up here, an establishment without the trouble of negotiation against the provisions of the Treaty-negotiations that might take decades, provoke problems, and still be refused."

  It made disturbing sense. Negotiations would be refused. A Treaty Board officer, stranded here, alive, was still a Treaty Board officer. They might not have told Gide what they were going to do. Gide might have been sandbagged by his own authority.

  "Earth does have agents here," Magdallen said, which was an of-course. Then: "Highly placed agents."

  "Specifically?"

  "Dortland, sir, to be precise."

  Dortland. Reaux's security director, in command of all the special agents and all the Earther police on the station.

  "Are you entirely sure of that?"

  "Apex is sure of that."

  "What agency is he?"

  "That, we're not sure. But by the direction things are taking, someone who wants the Treaty Board to have an office here."

  "Damned little use if Dortland already is a Treaty Board officer."

  "If he can preserve his clandestine nature, that would be useful. And he may not be of Mr. Gide's intellectual level. But I'm relatively certain Apex's suspicions are correct. It's suspected in certain underworld quarters that Dortland is slinking for some agency or another, that he's just too well networked to be the usual governor's security appointee. He's suspected of having his fingers on the pulse of Blunt-having contact with persons who, if picked up for any reason, don't stay arrested. Persons that don't form part of the ordinary criminal element, persons that make the criminal element very nervous. I personally wonder," Magdallen said, "if he's been not chasing the same thing Gide is chasing."

  "And then attacks Gide, establishing him here?"

  "There are rival agencies," Magdallen said.

  "None that would want a Treaty Board office here, none except the Treaty Board itself."

  "There is that point."

  "And the governor?" Brazis dreaded to learn. He had come to like Setha Reaux, in a limited way. "Is he in on this notion?"

  "Certainly due to be watched by this organization, which holds a power quite outside the authority that appoints governors-an organization that doesn't accept policy directives from the Earth Authority. Possibly they're ambitious to expand their office. Gide will run an aboveboard operation. And Dortland will remain in the shadows as a countercheck on Gide, never informing him that he was the one to strand him here."

  That theory was worth examining. It wasn't the first time he'd wondered about Reaux's staff. "His secretary, Ernst Albers?"

  "Loyal, as far as I know, but Albers moves outside my circle. There's another point, however. Reaux's daughter. Her friends have friends on Blunt. Her situation is worrisome. She's run away to Blunt. She's certainly vulnerable. Therefore, so is the governor, who may be asked directly for favors."

  "I doubt Reaux is part of this. He predates this mess."

  "I happen to concur, sir, for what it's worth. But Earth may know about the contact you have with him and take a dim view of it, to Reaux's great detriment."

  Damn. Damn. Warn Reaux about Dortland? Or not? Ask Magdallen's opinion on the matter? Or not?

  "You do have heightened security, sir," Magdallen informed him. "Also from Apex. Word's come down, through
channels not unrelated to my presence here, that your personal security should take every precaution against your untimely demise. Don't leave the offices unguarded. Don't meet personally with Reaux. Apex had rather Reaux than, for instance, the governor's opposition. Lyle Nazrani, the financier, isn't personally eligible for the office, not being Earthborn, but he's certainly apt to be a prime source of information for this new Treaty Board installation, much of it aimed at Governor Reaux. Most significantly, Apex had rather have you over the PO, rather than wasting your time with the civil politics of the Council at this point. They wish you would resign the Council chairmanship forthwith in favor of your proxy and concentrate entirely on the PO. They assure you of their protection should you do so."

  For a moment it was not Magdallen speaking. It was a set of voices he knew, and little liked. An old argument, that he should remove himself farther from politics and controversy. But Magdallen managed to raise it not offensively, but as a matter of logic.

  The Chairman General would love to have him out of the political arena.

  But this time, in such grave circumstances, he found himself actually listening to the proposal and considering the step that would set his proxy in the station administrative post for good and all. His hitherto placid PO domain had several major crosscurrents he hadn't been able to monitor-one of which, the condition of the alarm system, might well have predated his administration. That had to be fixed. That was going to take some serious attention in the process.

  But protection? Damned if he liked Apex meddling with his security. He had to accept the security arrangements that both watched the Project and protected him, but he didn't want them triggered from Apex without warning, and he certainly didn't like clandestine operations that came tramping through here, provoking reactions-knowledge that a stranger was on the tap system could itself have triggered the Ila to act.

  And at the same time, Magdallen had failed to pass vital information to him. Advance information might have preserved the Ila's tap, the one person who could have informed them on the Ila's guilt or innocence. But that person was now in hospital and not likely to recover.

  Magdallen had been investigating him, to top it off, and very embarrassingly finding holes in Project security.

  A fool would get mad about that situation and not listen to the information that came from the investigation. A fool would react more to his own embarrassment at being outmaneuvered than to the fact of who had actually bypassed the alarms and what it meant.

  "I'm going to warn Reaux about Dortland. I see no benefit in keeping him in the dark. The governor may become more valuable, given the situation you project. Do you have any advice about that move?"

  "No, sir. That's entirely within your discretion to do. I'm not qualified to make that decision."

  "I've done your kind of work. I've been in your position, Agent Magdallen, as you may have learned. It's a lot easier to find out things than to know that things are found out. I know the uncertainties in your job, and I know our own limitations in security. Some classified data may have gotten out under our noses. Now we know. If the Ila's involved, I assure you this present affair's not a life's work for her, but an hour's amusement. Her senior tap is not likely to survive in any conscious way. The woman will not likely be able to answer the questions we'd like to ask-ever. So we have the ambassador about to set up a subversive office here to watch us, the governor's daughter has gone missing, Dortland's doubled, every tap working has a headache, and Procyon is wandering somewhere on Blunt with minimal awareness where he is. Is there any other piece of bad news you'd like to tell me?"

  "No, sir, to my knowledge, no."

  "Can you lay hands on this stray daughter?"

  "I can try. I have limited physical resources."

  "Just get the daughter off the list."

  "Her street name," Magdallen said, "is Mignette."

  He was forming a new category for Magdallen-not trusted, but possibly an asset. He'd just laded Magdallen with various tidbits of information the future vector of which he wanted to test. a trick which Magdallen might see through. Or not. There was no way to query Apex about Magdallen's credentials: he had to find out for himself whether Magdallen had been feeding him a string of lies-or not.

  Clearly Magdallen was wishing he were somewhere not laced with tap relays and in proximity to the Ila.

  So was he. But that was where they all lived.

  He had to pull Drusus back off the search for Procyon, if he could find Drusus, no matter if he had promised Procyon Drusus would find him. They need him in contact with Marak to prevent that situation blowing up. Time to get every tap they had off the street. The chance that Earth might have meant to kidnap Procyon was nil. If they didn't want Gide back aboard, no chance they'd want a kid with mods shedding skin cells and breathing into their systems. Earth's agents getting their hands on him, here on Concord-that was, operationally speaking-entirely possible; but if they hadn't done it by now, they likely didn't want to do it. If Procyon could just get off the street, get to somewhere safe, where some unlucky cop might nab him and create a real mess-

  He was hesitant to make a committed move in any direction. He had too little sure information. But the consequences of inaction were as dire as those of a mistaken trust.

  "The daughter's safety," he said to Magdallen, "the particular people you're watching-all these things I lay in your lap, since you've clearly formed an informational network of some useful sort. But let me warn you-look at me, Agent Magdallen; look at me for a moment, and know very clearly that there is one authority on Concord, and only one, bottom line. If the Ila is acting in her own interests, those interests include infiltrating the PO and taking over this administration by remote, which will touch off the ondat. The only defense against politics erupting down on the planet is not to alienate Marak. I can tell you he's the one true moderating influence down there, where Ian and Luz have their differences. He's one human influence even the ondat regard as honest, for whatever reason proceeds through their alien brains, and if we lose him-if he's been harmed by this venture of the Ila's, which has affected his taps-or if he just gets mad enough to go walkabout and damn them all for the next hundred years-we'll have to come to him confessing everything that's going on, abjectly begging him to straighten things out and only hoping the Treaty with the ondat survives the incident. Treaty law, Agent Magdallen-as we have it fairly well established that's what Gide represents-offended Treaty law is a danger I don't want to risk. I want Procyon back, sane and in one piece, and I want him soon, without their hands on him. So if you see him, get him here alive and whole. That's number one on the list. The daughter's number two."

  "I'll try," Magdallen said somberly-indeed, looking him full in the eye for at least five seconds. "The daughter and your missing tap both. It's a difficult order. But I'll do my best."

  Brazis stared back at him. Magdallen's stare back was a window into flat dark. There might be one loyalty for this man, but it wasn't to him.

  Mark down a heavy score against the Chairman General at Apex. There were so many.

  It might finally be time to call in old favors at Apex. He hated like poison to involve himself in Apex politics, which he foresaw would take years to evolve and dangerously distract him at a time when he most needed to repair damage to Project systems.

  But if even a fraction of what Magdallen had spun for him was the absolute truth, he might have erred dangerously in letting the situation with the Chairman General ride all these years. The CG had launched a major investigation to participate in a question Earth also was investigating, instead of just posing the question and asking him for a response, as the Apex authority on scene; and in doubt of him, and evidently believing Earth's suspicions, the CG had let a delicate matter reach a white heat, let the Ila blindside them all and destroy the evidence, then sit smugly by and watch the pieces fall.

  The CG didn't personally like him. So the CG had primed Magdallen not to trust him. And Magdallen, if ho
nest, still wasn't sure what he was dealing with.

  "Yes, sir," Magdallen said.

  "Good. Go."

  The CG might indeed have overstepped his limits this time, he thought, staring at Magdallen's black-coated back. This man was not stupid. This man was going to think, and think for himself.

  A blink as the door shut. He activated his tap cautiously, contacted security, asked:

  "Can the Ila's tap be questioned?"

  "Brain-dead, sir. They're attempting restoration. They say the outlook isn't at all good."

  "Understood." He tapped out in disgust.

  For the rest. he punched physical keys, glossed through the med reports that flitted across the desk, one in front of the other. Every tap on duty had been affected, and that included Auguste, who was suffering blinding migraine and who, despite valiant efforts, couldn't find Marak. Or Drusus.