“Anyhow, she made the Second Level Venus-Terra trip on a regular passenger liner, and landed at the Akor-Neb city of Ghamma, on the upper Nile. There she established contact with the Outtime Trading Corporation representative, Zortan Brend, locally known as Brarnend of Zorda. He couldn’t call himself Brarnend of Zortan—in the Akor-Neb language, zortan is a particularly nasty dirty-word. Hadron Dalla spent a few weeks at his residence, briefing herself on local conditions. Then she went to the capital city, Darsh, in eastern Europe, and enrolled as a student at something called the Independent Institute for Reincarnation Research, having secured a letter of introduction to its director, a Dr. Harnosh of Hosh.
“Almost at once, she began sending in reports to her home organization, the Rhogom Memorial Foundation of Psychic Science, here at Dhergabar, through Zortan Brend. The people there were wildly enthusiastic. I don’t have more than the average intelligent—I hope—layman’s knowledge of psychics, but Dr. Volzar Darv, the director of Rhogom Foundation, tells me that even in the present incomplete form, her reports have opened whole new horizons in the science. It seems that these Akor-Neb people have actually demonstrated, as a scientific fact, that the human individuality reincarnates after physical death—that your personality, and mine, have existed, as such, for ages, and will exist for ages to come. More, they have means of recovering, from almost anybody, memories of past reincarnations.
“Well, after about a month, the people at this Reincarnation Institute realized that this Dallona of Hadron wasn’t any ordinary student. She probably had trouble keeping down to the local level of psychic knowledge. So, as soon as she’d learned their techniques, she was allowed to undertake experimental work of her own. I imagine she let herself out on that; as soon as she’d mastered the standard Akor-Neb methods of recovering memories of past reincarnations, she began refining and developing them more than the local yokels had been able to do in the past thousand years. I can’t tell you just what she did, because I don’t know the subject, but she must have lit things up properly. She got quite a lot of local publicity; not only scientific journals, but general newscasts.
“Then, four days ago, she disappeared, and her disappearance seems to have been coincident with an unsuccessful attempt on her life. We don’t know as much about this as we should; all we have is Zortan Brend’s account.
“It seems that on the evening of her disappearance, she had been attending the voluntary discarnation feast—suicide party—of a prominent nobleman named Garnon of Roxor. Evidently when the Akor-Neb people get tired of their current reincarnation they invite in their friends, throw a big party, and then do themselves in in an atmosphere of general conviviality. Frequently they take poison or inhale lethal gas; this fellow had his personal trigger man shoot him through the head. Dalla was one of the guests of honor, along with this Harnosh of Hosh. They’d made rather elaborate preparations, and after the shooting they got a detailed and apparently authentic spirit-communication from the late Garnon. The voluntary discarnation was just a routine social event, it seems, but the communication caused quite an uproar, and rated top place on the System-wide newscasts, and started a storm of controversy.
“After the shooting and the communication, Dalla took the officiating gun artist, one Dirzed, into her own service. This Dirzed was spoken of as a generally respected member of something called the Society of Assassins, and that’ll give you an idea of what things are like on that sector, and why I don’t want to send anybody who might develop trigger-finger cramp at the wrong moment. She and Dirzed left the home of the gentleman who had just had himself discarnated, presumably for Dalla’s apartment, about a hundred miles away. That’s the last that’s been heard of either of them.
“This attempt on Dalla’s life occurred while the pre-mortem revels were still going on. She lived in a six-room apartment, with three servants, on one of the upper floors of a three-thousand-foot tower—Akor-Neb cities are built vertically, with considerable interval between units—and while she was at this feast, a package was delivered at the apartment, ostensibly from the Reincarnation Institute and made up to look as though it contained record tapes. One of the servants accepted it from a service employee of the apartments. The next morning, a little before noon, Dr. Harnosh of Hosh called her on the visiphone and got no answer; he then called the apartment manager, who entered the apartment. He found all three of the servants dead, from a lethal-gas bomb which had exploded when one of them had opened this package. However, Hadron Dalla had never returned to the apartment, the night before.”
* * * *
Verkan Vall was sitting motionless, his face expressionless as he ran Tortha Karf’s narrative through the intricate semantic and psychological processes of the First Level mentality. The fact that Hadron Dalla had been a former wife of his had been relegated to one corner of his consciousness and contained there; it was not a fact that would, at the moment, contribute to the problem or to his treatment of it.
“The package was delivered while she was at this suicide party,” he considered. “It must, therefore, have been sent by somebody who either did not know she would be out of the apartment, or who did not expect it to function until after her return. On the other hand, if her disappearance was due to hostile action, it was the work of somebody who knew she was at the feast and did not want her to reach her apartment again. This would seem to exclude the sender of the package bomb.”
Tortha Karf nodded. He had reached that conclusion, himself.
“Thus,” Verkan Vall continued, “if her disappearance was the work of an enemy, she must have two enemies, each working in ignorance of the other’s plans.”
“What do you think she did to provoke such enmity?”
“Well, of course, it just might be that Dalla’s normally complicated love-life had got a little more complicated than usual and short-circuited on her,” Verkan Vall said, out of the fullness of personal knowledge, “but I doubt that, at the moment. I would think that this affair has political implications.”
“So?” Tortha Karf had not thought of politics as an explanation. He waited for Verkan Vall to elaborate.
“Don’t you see, chief?” the special assistant asked. “We find a belief in reincarnation on many time-lines, as a religious doctrine, but these people accept it as a scientific fact. Such acceptance would carry much more conviction; it would influence a people’s entire thinking. We see it reflected in their disregard for death—suicide as a social function, this Society of Assassins, and the like. It would naturally color their political thinking, because politics is nothing but common action to secure more favorable living conditions, and to these people, the term ‘living conditions’ includes not only the present life, but also an indefinite number of future lives as well. I find this title, ‘Independent’ Institute, suggestive. Independent of what? Possibly of partisan affiliation.”
“But wouldn’t these people be grateful to her for her new discoveries, which would enable them to plan their future reincarnations more intelligently?” Tortha Karf asked.
“Oh, chief!” Verkan Vall reproached. “You know better than that! How many times have our people got in trouble on other time-lines because they divulged some useful scientific fact that conflicted with the locally revered nonsense? You show me ten men who cherish some religious doctrine or political ideology, and I’ll show you nine men whose minds are utterly impervious to any factual evidence which contradicts their beliefs, and who regard the producer of such evidence as a criminal who ought to be suppressed. For instance, on the Fourth Level Europo-American Sector, where I was just working, there is a political sect, the Communists, who, in the territory under their control, forbid the teaching of certain well-established facts of genetics and heredity, because those facts do not fit the world-picture demanded by their political doctrines. And on the same sector, a religious sect recently tried, in some sections successfully, to outlaw the teaching of evolution by natural selection.”
Tortha Karf nodded. “I r
emember some stories my grandfather told me, about his narrow escapes from an organization called the Holy Inquisition, when he was a paratime trader on the Fourth Level, about four hundred years ago. I believe that thing’s still operating, on the Europo-American Sector, under the name of the NKVD. So you think Dalla may have proven something that conflicted with local reincarnation theories, and somebody who had a vested interest in maintaining those theories is trying to stop her?”
“You spoke of a controversy over the communication alleged to have originated with this voluntarily discarnated nobleman. That would suggest a difference of opinion on the manner of nature of reincarnation or the discarnate state. This difference may mark the dividing line between the different political parties. Now, to get to this Darsh place, do I have to go to Venus, as Dalla did?”
“No. The Outtime Trading Corporation has transposition facilities at Ravvanan, on the Nile, which is spatially co-existent with the city of Ghamma on the Akor-Neb Sector, where Zortan Brend is. You transpose through there, and Zortan Brend will furnish you transportation to Darsh. It’ll take you about two days, here, getting your hypno-mech indoctrinations and having your skin pigmented, and your hair turned black. I’ll notify Zortan Brend at once that you’re coming through. Is there anything special you’ll want?”
“Why, I’ll want an abstract of the reports Dalla sent back to Rhogom Foundation. It’s likely that there is some clue among them as to whom her discoveries may have antagonized. I’m going to be a Venusian zerfa-planter, a friend of her father’s; I’ll want full hypno-mech indoctrination to enable me to play that part. And I’ll want to familiarize myself with Akor-Neb weapons and combat techniques. I think that will be all, chief.”
* * * *
The last of the tall city-units of Ghamma were sliding out of sight as the ship passed over them—shaft-like buildings that rose two or three thousand feet above the ground in clumps of three or four or six, one at each corner of the landing stages set in series between them. Each of these units stood in the middle of a wooded park some five miles square; no unit was much more or less than twenty miles from its nearest neighbor, and the land between was the uniform golden-brown of ripening grain, crisscrossed with the threads of irrigation canals and dotted here and there with sturdy farm-village buildings and tall, stacklike granaries. There were a few other ships in the air at the fifty-thousand-foot level, and below, swarms of small airboats darted back and forth on different levels, depending upon speed and direction. Far ahead, to the northeast, was the shimmer of the Red Sea and the hazy bulk of Asia Minor beyond.
Verkan Vall—the Lord Virzal of Verkan, temporarily—stood at the glass front of the observation deck, looking down. He was a different Verkan Vall from the man who had talked with Tortha Karf in the latter’s office, two days before. The First Level cosmeticists had worked miracles upon him with their art. His skin was a soft chocolate-brown, now; his hair was jet-black, and so were his eyes. And in his subconscious mind, instantly available to consciousness, was a vast body of knowledge about conditions on the Akor-Neb sector, as well as a complete command of the local language, all hypnotically acquired.
He knew that he was looking down upon one of the minor provincial cities of a very respectably advanced civilization. A civilization which built its cities vertically, since it had learned to counteract gravitation. A civilization which still depended upon natural cereals for food, but one which had learned to make the most efficient use of its soil. The network of dams and irrigation canals which he saw was as good as anything on his own paratime level. The wide dispersal of buildings, he knew, was a heritage of a series of disastrous atomic wars of several thousand years before; the Akor-Neb people had come to love the wide inter-vistas of open country and forest, and had continued to scatter their buildings, even after the necessity had passed. But the slim, towering buildings could only have been reared by a people who had banished nationalism and, with it, the threat of total war. He contrasted them with the ground-hugging dome cities of the Khiftan civilization, only a few thousand parayears distant.
Three men came out of the lounge behind him and joined him. One was, like himself, a disguised paratimer from the First Level—the Outtime Export and Import man, Zortan Brend, here known as Brarnend of Zorda. The other two were Akor-Neb people, and both wore the black tunics and the winged-bullet badges of the Society of Assassins. Unlike Verkan Vall and Zortan Brend, who wore shoulder holsters under their short tunics, the Assassins openly displayed pistols and knives on their belts.
“We heard that you were coming two days ago, Lord Virzal,” Zortan Brend said. “We delayed the take-off of this ship, so that you could travel to Darsh as inconspicuously as possible. I also booked a suite for you at the Solar Hotel, at Darsh. And these are your Assassins—Olirzon, and Marnik.”
Verkan Vall hooked fingers and clapped shoulders with them.
“Virzal of Verkan,” he identified himself. “I am satisfied to intrust myself to you.”
“We’ll do our best for you, Lord Virzal,” the older of the pair, Olirzon, said. He hesitated for a moment, then continued: “Understand, Lord Virzal, I only ask for information useful in serving and protecting you. But is this of the Lady Dallona a political matter?”
“Not from our side,” Verkan Vall told him. “The Lady Dallona is a scientist, entirely nonpolitical. The Honorable Brarnend is a business man; he doesn’t meddle with politics as long as the politicians leave him alone. And I’m a planter on Venus; I have enough troubles, with the natives, and the weather, and blue-rot in the zerfa plants, and poison roaches, and javelin bugs, without getting into politics. But psychic science is inextricably mixed with politics, and the Lady Dallona’s work had evidently tended to discredit the theory of Statistical Reincarnation.”
“Do you often make understatements like that, Lord Virzal?” Olirzon grinned. “In the last six months, she’s knocked Statistical Reincarnation to splinters.”
“Well, I’m not a psychic scientist, and as I said, I don’t know much about Terran politics,” Verkan Vall replied. “I know that the Statisticalists favor complete socialization and political control of the whole economy, because they want everybody to have the same opportunities in every reincarnation. And the Volitionalists believe that everybody reincarnates as he pleases, and so they favor continuance of the present system of private ownership of wealth and private profit under a system of free competition. And that’s about all I do know. Naturally, as a land-owner and the holder of a title of nobility, I’m a Volitionalist in politics, but the socialization issue isn’t important on Venus. There is still too much unseated land there, and too many personal opportunities, to make socialism attractive to anybody.”
“Well, that’s about it,” Zortan Brend told him. “I’m not enough of a psychicist to know what the Lady Dallona’s been doing, but she’s knocked the theoretical basis from under Statistical Reincarnation, and that’s the basis, in turn, of Statistical Socialism. I think we’ll find that the Statisticalist Party is responsible for whatever happened to her.”
Marnik, the younger of the two Assassins, hesitated for a moment, then addressed Verkan Vall:
“Lord Virzal, I know none of the personalities involved in this matter, and I speak without wishing to give offense, but is it not possible that the Lady Dallona and the Assassin Dirzed may have gone somewhere together voluntarily? I have met Dirzed, and he has many qualities which women find attractive, and he is by no means indifferent to the opposite sex. You understand, Lord Virzal—”
“I understand all too perfectly, Marnik,” Verkan Vall replied, out of the fullness of experience. “The Lady Dallona has had affairs with a number of men, myself among them. But under the circumstances, I find that explanation unthinkable.”
Marnik looked at him in open skepticism. Evidently, in his book, where an attractive man and a beautiful woman were concerned, that explanation was never unthinkable.
“The Lady Dallona is a scientist,” Verkan Vall el
aborated. “She is not above diverting herself with love affairs, but that’s all they are—a not too important form of diversion. And, if you recall, she had just participated in a most significant experiment: you can be sure that she had other things on her mind at the time than pleasure jaunts with good-looking Assassins.”
* * * *
The ship was passing around the Caucasus Mountains, with the Caspian Sea in sight ahead, when several of the crew appeared on the observation deck and began preparing the shielding to protect the deck from gunfire. Zortan Brend inquired of the petty officer in charge of the work as to the necessity.
“We’ve been getting reports of trouble at Darsh, sir,” the man said. “Newscast bulletins every couple of minutes: rioting in different parts of the city. Started yesterday afternoon, when a couple of Statisticalist members of the Executive Council resigned and went over to the Volitionalists. Lord Nirzav of Shonna, the only nobleman of any importance in the Statisticalist Party, was one of them; he was shot immediately afterward, while leaving the Council Chambers, along with a couple of Assassins who were with him. Some people in an airboat sprayed them with a machine rifle as they came out onto the landing stage.”
The two Assassins exclaimed in horrified anger over this.
“That wasn’t the work of members of the Society of Assassins!” Olirzon declared. “Even after he’d resigned, the Lord Nirzav was still immune till he left the Government Building. There’s too blasted much illegal assassination going on!”
The H. Beam Piper Megapack Page 14