by Timothy Zahn
“Something like that.”
“And even the physicians are staying an average of a year or so,” Van Proyen reminded him. “Physicians down here are notorious for jumping jobs if their pay doesn’t suit them.”
Sommer chewed at his lip. “Maybe the prestige of working for Soulminder makes up for starvation wages.”
Van Proyen raised his eyebrows politely. “Would it make it up for you?”
“I doubt it,” Sommer admitted, getting to his feet. “Well, whatever they’re doing, at least we know for sure now that the difference is coming out of their half of the pie. I suppose that qualifies as progress.”
“Probably.” Van Proyen got to his feet. “Your man Alverez probably has it all scoped out by now. Assuming, of course, it isn’t buried too deeply.”
Sommer grimaced. “That’s what bothers me. Why it should be buried at all.”
General Diaz had left, they found as they emerged from the Core, but he’d left his car and driver and a message to phone him whenever they were ready to continue their tour.
“Is there anything else to see?” Sommer asked Van Proyen.
“Not really,” the other said. “There’s some administrative stuff, mostly concerned with the Chilean staff and supplies and all, and I suppose if you really wanted to you could hang around and watch another transfer.” He stepped to the Core receptionist’s desk, tapped out a command on her computer. “There’s one going on now, and four more scheduled later today—accident victims, all of them, who’ve spent the last few weeks healing in the hospital.”
Their bodies technically dead, with only full life-support keeping the biological functions going. The whole concept still gave Sommer the shivers if he thought about it too hard. “No point to it,” he told Van Proyen. “We already know that the savings aren’t coming from the transfers. In fact, some of the things they’ve added to the standard procedure are actually boosting the cost.”
“Those silly glucose IVs,” Van Proyen snorted. “Well, the medical part is their business. I’ve known hospitals in the States that were always throwing glucose at their patients, too.” He spread his hands. “In that case, I guess the tour is over.”
“Appreciate your time, Mr. Van Proyen,” Sommer said as they shook hands. “Do me a favor, will you, and keep sifting through those records of yours.”
“It might be interesting,” Everly put in, “to check the Chilean records against those from Argentina, say. Someplace comparable.”
“Good idea,” Sommer nodded. “I’ll talk to Jessica later, see how much trouble it would be to collect those records and download them to you.”
“You get them here, and I’ll run them through the grinder,” Van Proyen promised. “You’ve got me fully intrigued now, Doctor. Good luck, and happy hunting.”
The rest of the day was of the sort that Jessica Sands often referred to as a cotton-candy day: full and rich, but with little substance to it. Rejoined by General Diaz, they made a quick walk-through of the teaching hospital where Soulminder physicians and transfer techs were given the necessary specialized training. Then it was off to a luncheon of Santiago’s business and civic leaders: good food and what turned out to be politely meaningless conversations. Afterwards came a tour of the mainsprings of Chile’s economic revival, including a plant busily turning Chilean copper and yttrium into superconducting ceramion, a computer chip facility using that ceramion, and a technical institute for teaching young Chileans the science and technology they’d need to keep the boom going.
It was a long tour, made even longer by the need to periodically pose for the crowd of tagalong photographers who seemed determined to record the entire thing on film and disk, and it was nearly five-thirty before they were finally able to return to the Interior Ministry and pick up Alverez.
One look at his face was all Sommer needed.
“Well?” Sommer demanded when they were back in the hotel room and Everly had done his maddeningly slow search for microphones. “What did you find?”
“Actually, it’s more negative information than anything else,” Alverez said. “But I guess it still counts as progress. The savings are definitely coming from the actual Soulminder operations.”
For a long moment Sommer stared at him, and the satisfied look on Alverez’s face slowly faded as he belatedly realized he wasn’t getting the reaction he’d expected. “What’s wrong?” he asked carefully.
“You checked the Chileans’ own costs?” Sommer asked him. “Including the salaries they’re paying their people?”
“Of course,” Alverez said, starting to look a little flustered. “With a fine-mesh sifter. Their costs are completely compatible with a Soulminder operation this size.”
Everly rubbed his cheek thoughtfully. “Curiouser and curiouser.”
Alverez looked at him, then back at Sommer, his expression now guarded. “Do I take it,” he asked, “that you’d already decided that it was the Chilean side that had the whittled end of the stick?”
“You take it right,” Sommer said wearily, dropping down onto the couch. “The station chief assures us that everything looks normal from where he’s sitting, too.”
Alverez glared off at nothing for a moment. “Well, then, they’re shifting money from somewhere else,” he said. “That’s the only explanation. They’re fiddling the records, making their Soulminder activities look cheaper than they really are.”
“Then why are they keeping it a big secret?” Sommer demanded. “They have the perfect right to subsidize Soulminder if they want to. Why all the smoke about having a cheaper way of doing it?”
“Perhaps,” Everly said slowly, “it’s because they don’t want us to know where the money’s coming from.”
Sommer’s stomach tightened. “As in, it might be coming from some kind of illegal activity?”
“Military governments have a tendency toward that sort of thing,” Everly pointed out. “Alverez, did you happen to check out their copper production records?”
Alverez frowned. “I glanced at the figures. The industry’s booming, of course, but don’t forget that the unions have the miners’ wages set at a pretty reasonable rate these days. I can’t see them pulling all of the Soulminder shortfall from there.”
“I was thinking more along the lines of whether they might be siphoning off some of that copper,” Everly told him. “Maybe to unlicensed superconductor or chip manufacture. They’ve got the facilities, that’s for sure, and they certainly wouldn’t want us to know about it.”
“But why pour the money into Soulminder at all?” Sommer asked. “It just doesn’t seem consistent for them to steal money and then use it for altruistic purposes.”
“Maybe they want to go down in history as the first nation to offer Soulminder protection to all its citizens,” Alverez suggested. “I can see them doing it for ego.”
Peripherally, Sommer saw Everly stiffen a bit. “Dr. Sommer,” the security chief said carefully, “do you remember the list of people the Chileans already have on Soulminder? It was mostly the military and political leaders and educated classes, but it also included people like Archbishop Manzano who are outspoken critics of the government.”
Sommer nodded. “It was one of the reasons we decided to take their expansion proposal seriously. It implied a commitment to keep their use of Soulminder non-political.”
“Does it?” Everly asked. “What it implies to me is that they want everyone—including their enemies—to have a Mullner trace on file.”
For a long minute Sommer stared at him. “Are you suggesting that they’ve found a way to pull personal information out of Mullner traces?”
Everly’s eyes bored into his. “I think,” he said quietly, “we’d damn well better find out.”
A cold chill ran up Sommer’s back. The vast and intricate tangle of embellishments that made up a human Mullner trace had so far defi
ed every attempt at all but the broadest interpretation. Or at least it had in Soulminder’s own labs. If the Chileans had found a way to crack the code … “Well, whatever’s going on, we can’t do anything about it now,” he said reluctantly. “General Diaz will be picking us up for dinner in an hour, and I don’t want to try to call Washington from here, even with our encrypted cells. Maybe after dinner we can make up an excuse to drop by the Soulminder office and use their satellite link—”
He broke off as the phone trilled. Frowning, he picked up the handset. “Hello?”
“Dr. Sommer?” a familiar voice said. “Hi, this is Martin Van Proyen at Soulminder. Awfully sorry to bother you, sir, but I’m afraid that when you and Mr. Everly finished using the terminals this morning you left them locked into your personal codes. Would it be possible for you to come by sometime tonight and unlock them?”
Sommer’s mouth went suddenly dry. Neither he nor Everly had a personal computer code capable of doing any such thing. But the government people presumably tapping his phone wouldn’t know that. “Sorry about that,” he said, striving to sound casual. “We’ll stop by on the way to dinner tonight, all right?”
“That would be fine, Doctor. Sorry for the inconvenience, but it’s kind of vital that we get the terminals freed up.”
Vital. “We’ll be there in forty-five minutes,” he said. “Good-bye.”
“Sorry to have dragged you back here,” Van Proyen apologized as he escorted the three of them through the Core’s security gauntlet. “I hope the cloak and dagger approach didn’t worry you—after that thing with Archbishop Manzano this morning I thought I should make this sound as harmless as possible. Though, actually, the truth sounds pretty harmless even taken straight. This way, please.”
The Core was nearly deserted, with only a few staff people on hand to keep an eye on evening operations. Van Proyen led them to what turned out to be the main records office. “I was shuffling through the files like you’d told me to,” he said, busying himself with one of the terminals, “when totally by accident I ran into a real puzzler. Let me first tell you that virtually every physician in Santiago is on file with Soulminder.”
“No big surprise,” Everly murmured. “The government’s been concentrating on the educated classes.”
“Right,” Van Proyen nodded, “and that didn’t bother me. What did bother me was that nearly sixty percent of the doctors who are now involved in some way with Soulminder have themselves been through the procedure.”
“They’ve what?” Sommer frowned.
“Died and gone to Soulminder,” Van Proyen said grimly. “Like I said, I’m not sure what it means, but it sounded crazy enough to bring to your attention.”
“Crazy and a half,” Sommer agreed uneasily, hunching his chair closer to the terminal display. “What about the other, non-medical workers? Can we check on those?”
“Already did.” Van Proyen punched up another set of numbers. “You can see that there’s an almost linear progression of percentages from the menial workers up the line to the more skilled, topping off with that sixty percent of the doctors. That number down there”—he indicated it—“is the overall percentage of Santiago citizens who’ve gone through Soulminder.”
A number, Sommer noted, that was reasonably comparable with the percentage of menial Soulminder employees who’d used the facility. “Again, that may not be all that significant,” he said slowly. “The more skilled the employee, the more likely he’d be on file in the first place.”
“Yes, but sixty percent is still way too high,” Alverez said, shaking his head.
“Agreed,” Sommer nodded, thinking back to their conversation back at the hotel. “Can you get me an overall salary schedule?”
“Sure.” Van Proyen bent again to the keyboard. “Remember, though, that the schedule is just a guideline—all the Chileans are being paid directly by the government.”
The salary schedule appeared on the screen. Sommer frowned at it, trying to make a quick estimate in his mind—
“You thinking blackmail?” Everly asked.
Sommer shrugged. “Why not? If we assume that the government’s learned how to read a person’s innermost secrets from their Mullner trace, blackmail becomes trivial.”
“Except that all they have to do then is hire people who are on file,” Everly pointed out. “Going through Soulminder itself would be a waste of money.”
Sommer wrinkled his nose as the idea evaporated beneath the logic. “You’re right,” he admitted.
“Besides,” Alverez put in, indicating the numbers, “even if you put everyone who works here on starvation wages the savings wouldn’t add up to more than twenty or thirty percent of the shortfall they’ve got in Soulminder costs.”
“Well, it was a thought,” Sommer said.
“On the other hand … ” Alverez said thoughtfully, his voice fading away.
Sommer looked up at him. “Something?”
Alverez was frowning off into space. “On the other hand,” he repeated, “it might be instructive to run a quick check on the other Soulminder patients. See what’s happened to them afterward.”
“You’d need access to Santiago’s city records for that,” Van Proyen pointed out.
“I know,” Alverez said. “I don’t know about the whole city, but I think I can get you into the government employment roster.”
Van Proyen cleared his throat. “Yes,” he said, striving to sound casual. “Of course, breaking into their files is highly illegal.” He looked questioningly at Sommer.
Sommer pursed his lips, then stood up and gestured Alverez into the chair. “Try not to get caught,” he said.
Visibly bracing himself, Alverez sat down in the vacated chair and got to work. “I just hope they haven’t changed any of the passcodes since this morning … no, I guess they haven’t.”
“It’s getting late, Dr. Sommer,” Everly reminded him. “The driver’s going to wonder what’s going on.”
Sommer glanced at his watch. “Yes. I suppose we should get going.”
“If you don’t mind, sir,” Alverez said, his eyes still on the screen, “I’d like to keep going on this.”
“All right,” Sommer said. “I’m sure we can make up some excuse for you. Frank?”
“Yes, sir,” Everly said. “But I’d like to make a quick call first, if I may. To the States, on the satellite link.”
“There’s a phone in the next office,” Van Proyen offered, pointing.
“I’ll wait for you in the car,” Sommer said.
“I’d rather you wait here,” Everly said, his voice oddly dark as he headed for the door. “If I’m right … I’d rather you weren’t out of my sight, sir.”
Sommer swallowed. It took a lot to make Frank Everly nervous. If he was nervous, it was probably time for Sommer to be nervous, too. “All right,” he said. “Make it fast.”
The dinner and its accompanying niceties fit easily into the same lavish mold as had the previous night’s dinner. But now, with the mystery of the Soulminder employees nagging at him, Sommer found that his perception of the Chileans’ activities had drastically changed. The luxury of the meal was an attempt to put him subtly in their debt, the complimentary speeches a trick to lull him into complacency, the round of social events themselves a means of keeping his attention off the real purpose of his trip. He could feel his conversation becoming guarded, his eyes and ears probing for nuances and hidden meanings in even the most casual of remarks. He was acutely aware of General Diaz’s movements and comments, and nearly had a heart attack when the other was called from the room for a few minutes.
Only when the general returned and nonchalantly resumed his meal did Sommer finally realize just how far into paranoia he had slipped. It was a sobering thought, but it did little to help.
Eventually, the festivities came to an end.
“Perhaps you’d like to join me for a tour of Santiago’s night life,” General Diaz suggested as he guided Sommer and Everly down the steps toward the waiting car. “We’re very proud of the variety of entertainment available here, and I think you would find it most enjoyable.”
“Thank you,” Sommer told him, “but I’m afraid business once again calls. I need to get back to the Soulminder office—there’s some kind of flap going on up in Washington, and I need to sit down and get the complete story.”
“I understand,” Diaz said, with no hint of suspicion Sommer could detect. “There’ll be a car waiting whenever you’re ready to return to the hotel.”
“Thank you, but that won’t be necessary,” Sommer said. “One of the Soulminder employees can give us a ride.”
“I insist,” Diaz said firmly. “You’re our guests—we’ll not have you hitching rides like peasants.”
Sommer gave up. “In that case, thank you.”
Van Proyen had been alerted by the main reception desk and was waiting for them at the entrance to the Core. “Get a grip on your vitals,” he warned as he ushered them in. “This one’s going to bounce you off the ropes.”
The security clearance seemed to take forever, but at last they cleared the inner door. Alverez was waiting in the records office, looking both tired and oddly disillusioned. “I think we’ve found it, Dr. Sommer,” he said, waving vaguely at the terminal in front of him. “Take a look.”
With Everly at his side, Sommer stepped over and peered at the screen. “What is it?”
Alverez pointed to the top of the screen. “That first number is the overall percentage of government workers who’ve been through Soulminder. This is the breakdown by profession and current position, with real salaries before and after entering government service. And this is the record of how many of those switched to their government jobs only after going through Soulminder.”
For a long minute Sommer stared at the numbers. “There’s no chance of a mistake?” he asked at last.
