"I don't think we can," Raffa said. "We need to take this evidence back to Lord Thornbuckle first, and—"
"He needs it, I agree. But we can't add anything to it. None of us are chemists; we don't understand this stuff." He patted the hardcopy. "If we sent it—by several routes, to be sure it got through—that should be enough."
"Certainly Ottala's friends are more likely to figure out where she's hiding than someone who doesn't even know her," George said. "Not that we're friends, exactly—even I thought she was an awful prig sometimes."
"Besides, we have a flair for it," Ronnie said. "Look at what we accomplished here. It could have been a very sticky situation indeed, even dangerous, but we all came out of it with what we needed to know and no damage done."
Raffa had her doubts about that. Those two unhappy young clones would have more trouble than they thought adjusting to life as independents. Their new faces—whatever they were—would not change their natures. A fragment of poetry her Aunt Marta quoted swam into her mind. "No thing, neither cunning fox nor roaring lion, can change the nature born in its blood," she said.
George looked startled, but Ronnie grinned at her. "Exactly. You and I—and George of course—are good at this sort of thing. Besides, think what will happen if we go back home. We'll all be wrapped away in protective familial swaddlings. Whereas, if we solve the whole rejuvenation problem for them—well, the drug part anyway—they'll have to recognize that we really are adults, and let us make our own decisions."
"I don't know, Ronnie," George said. "Raffa's not enthusiastic about this, and if it's dangerous . . . she shouldn't go, perhaps. She can explain to Lord Thornbuckle what we're up to, in case we need backup or something." In his tone, Raffa heard She's not Brun. And he thought Ottala was priggish; did he think the same of her?
"Don't be ridiculous," she heard herself saying. "If you'll remember, I did quite well on the island. Just because I can be prudent doesn't mean I'm timid."
The com chimed; Raffa, who was nearest, answered it. "Dama—a Venezia Glendower-Morreline se Vahtigos wishes to speak with you."
"Oh—of course." Raffa held up her hand for silence, then said, "It's Ottala's Aunt Venezia again." Ronnie and George nodded, and settled back into their chairs with the clear intention of letting Raffa deal with it.
"Raffaele—" That was Venezia. "My dear, it just occurred to me—there's something you could do to help me."
"Yes?" Raffa was not about to commit herself.
"It's Ottala. You were her friend in school, I know." Raffa tried to stop that train of thought.
"Not a close friend, really."
"Well, I remember your name." In auntian logic, that seemed to be enough. "I'm worried about her," Venezia went on. "She missed her brother's seegrin, and her parents keep telling me not to worry, that she's a wild girl still under the influence of schoolmates such as yourself, my dear, and that blonde girl—Bubbles or whatever her name was. Do you know where she is?"
"No," said Raffa, leaning heavily on her minimal knowledge of sophistry. She didn't know where Ottala was, even though George had seen something which reported that Ottala had gone missing on Patchcock. Perhaps George had misread it, or the report was wrong, or she wasn't still there.
"I thought she told me she was going to visit Patchcock, such a silly idea because there's nothing to see, but her parents insist that I misunderstood, that I must have had my head in the kiln. Of course they don't know that I don't do that anymore, and I couldn't explain—" She paused. Raffa could think of nothing to say; she had to clench her teeth to keep her jaw from dropping open. "I wanted to go look for her," Venezia went on, "but they made it quite clear that I was not welcome to do so. Silly, really, because I own enough stock in the company that I should be able to do what I want. I had to help Oscar and Bertie out a while back, and they repaid me in shares. Not that I care, you understand, but . . . anyway, whatever they say, I think that's where she went and she should have come back by now. I thought that you—that perhaps you, having gone off with a young man, might know if that's what happened to Ottala. Because if it is what happened, then I could tell the family and they'd quit worrying."
Raffa found her attention caught by details that bobbed past in the torrent of words . . . that connected with other details from the earlier conversation. Suddenly the somewhat scatty aunt who created—or faked creating—the ugliest pottery objets d'art she had ever seen began to look like someone else—like the investor, perhaps even the major stockholder, who was being kept away from the business while nefarious activities went on. What if Ottala had suspected as much?
"If I could just come up and talk to you," Venezia said. "A bright young girl like you . . . and with a young man like Ronald Carruthers, you couldn't come to any harm."
"Harm?" Raffa managed to say past the whirling in her brain.
"Could I? We could have tea, or—" The thought of tea with Venezia made for a quick decision.
"Not tea," Raffa said firmly. "Why don't you just come up and we'll chat."
"Wonderful," said Venezia, and before Raffa could mention that she had other visitors as well, the connection blanked. Quickly, in breathless phrases, she told the other two what she had heard.
"And so, if she wants us to go to Patchcock, it gives us the perfect excuse."
"To be thrown out by her family," Ronnie said glumly. "I suppose she's going to tag along, too, just for decency's sake."
He was interrupted by a tap on the door. Venezia, looking more auntlike than ever, floated in on ripples of sheer lavender that seemed to drape her from head to heel. Scarves competed for space on her shoulders, and strips of lace fluttered in her wake.
"Ah, my dear Raffaele. So like your dear Aunt Marta. She used to wear just that color—"
"You know Aunt Marta?" Raffaele asked, only slightly startled.
"Long ago," Venezia said. "She was more serious—she even took a doctorate in synthetic chemistry, did you know that?" Raffa hadn't; while she digested this surprising fact about her favorite aunt, Venezia looked around. "Ronald—George—where are the other two?" Ronnie's attempt at a smile froze into position. Raffa leapt in.
"Other two—oh, the young men at the tram stop? Just some boys Ronnie and George met in a bar one night."
"Locals?" asked Venezia, but without waiting for an answer she launched into her plan. "I'm glad they're not here, dear, because I would not wish to discuss family business in front of strangers. I know I can trust all of you." She favored them all with a bright little smile that made Raffa's teeth ache. "Have you explained about Ottala?"
"Not . . . really. I thought you—" With that, Venezia interrupted to go over the whole thing again, this time with additional commentary on Ottala's scholastic record, the errors in judgment that had made it necessary for Bertie and Oscar to ask for her financial assistance, her opinion of men in general and her family in particular . . . on and on, until Raffa felt that she would doze off in sheer self-defense.
"And what you would like us to do—" she said, in one of the rare brief pauses for breath.
"Oh. Well. What I'd like you to do is go to Patchcock and find Ottala. If, as I suspect, she's living some kind of adolescent fantasy of being a hero of the working masses or something, let me know that she's safe. I'm quite willing to pay your expenses—" She slowed here, eyeing George in particular as if his expenses might well run over budget.
"We couldn't possibly ask that of you," Raffa said, with all the charm she could muster. "Besides, suppose your family noticed something. We all have ample allowances; it's really no problem." Ronnie stirred; she ignored that. If they were going to be partners for life, he would have to learn to use her resources as she intended to use his.
"I insist," said Venezia, with a touch of color to her cheeks. "At least the tickets there."
"All right," Raffa said. "But we must make our own reservations. In case your family is hiding something from you, it will be easier if they don't make the connection.
"
Passenger service to the Patchcock system routed through Vardiel and Sostos. Vardiel, Raffa remembered, was the ancient seat of the Morrelines. Ronnie, poring over the display in his copy of The Investor's Guide to Familias Regnant Territories (a guidecube purchased in the Guerni Republic), commented that it was a roundabout approach. "I'll bet they don't ship freight that way," he said. "If this is accurate, there are two near jump points, with easy vectors to Brot, Vesli, Tambour. And Tambour's a direct to Rockhouse."
"Morrelines like control," George said. "But why not? It's their investment base." He glanced around their cabin and shrugged elaborately. Raffa glared. If they were being monitored, his glance and shrug would look as stagey to anyone else as it did to her. They had agreed not to discuss their plans once on board the ship to Patchcock. The system itself, yes, since none of them had been there.
The other passengers were all on business transfers, older men and women whose conversation was full of technical detail. Raffa strained her ears and memory to interpret them, but the veneer of chemical knowledge she'd picked up on Music didn't help her penetrate the dense thickets of jargon. They had dropped into the Patchcock system before any of the other passengers spoke to the young people.
"Are you in Bioset or Synthesis?" an older woman asked Raffa in the lounge. Raffa noticed that the nearest group of older people paused in their conversation.
"Neither," Raffa said. "I don't even know what they are. I'm just a tourist, really."
"Ah." A little pause, during which Raffa could almost see the cascades of decision points in the other's mind. Then, "You're with a Family?"
Though the words were polite, Raffa heard the faint sneer that meant "rich, spoiled, idle." But that was the most harmless hypothesis, so she didn't react. "Yes," she said. "My aunt's trying to get me involved in business, and I told her I needed to travel more. I'm hoping to visit some of the pharmaceutical facilities here."
"Here? Where did you hear about them?"
Raffa tried for the offhand tone that would disarm suspicion. "I went to school with Ottala—Ottala Morreline."
"Were you planning to visit her?"
"Is she here?" Raffa raised her brows. "I thought she lived on Vardiel—at least when she was in school we visited there—"
"No—I mean, yes, she still lives with her family, the last I heard. I just wondered why you were here."
"Well, Ottala bragged about the facilities—my aunt, you see, has investments in pharmaceuticals, so I told her I'd like to see these—and others—"
"A good excuse for traveling, then?"
Raffa smiled, and leaned closer, confiding. "Yes . . . and you see, my family doesn't approve of . . . of Ronnie. This way they think I'm traveling on business for Aunt Marta; Ronnie and I met a long way from the capital."
"And the other young man?"
"Ronnie's friend George. Well, of course I know George, too. But everyone knows Ronnie and George travel together, so it's less obvious that I—you know."
The older woman smiled. "I think it's incredible that you Family people go through all these maneuvers . . . why not just take your shares and go live with the boy, if that's what you want?"
"I couldn't do that," Raffa said. "It's just not—not done." She had never thought of it. The idea sat in her mind staring back at her; she forced herself to ignore it.
The Guernesi tourist cube had an account of the Patchcock Incursion (under "investors' warnings: possible political instability") far more extensive than what Raffa remembered vaguely from school. Ronnie read the section and nodded. "Captain Serrano told me about that. I wonder how the Guernesi found out about the terms of the Gleisco contract?"
"They said they'd bought raw materials from the Patchcock system," Raffa said. "They probably had agents of their own poking around."
"I suppose—in the aftermath of the incursion—it would've been easier to start manufacturing the drugs here—retooling the lines wouldn't be as obvious if they needed complete rebuilding anyway."
"How are we going to approach this?"
"Didn't you hear what I told those people in the lounge? My Aunt Marta has pharmaceutical investments; she's asked me to gather background . . . she has," Raffa said, as the two looked at her in disbelief. "I was in the Guerni Republic, and heard about Patchcock . . . that's all I have to say. We'll see where it goes from there."
"Something's going on," George said. He had finally seen Raffa's point about the way Venezia's family treated her. "I'm just not sure Ottala's aunt is as stupid as she pretends to be."
"I don't think she's stupid at all," Raffa said. "But she may be baffled by the family. And if they're manufacturing illegal pharmaceuticals, perhaps they're even drugging her."
"If they could do that, they could get their shares back—"
"Wait—" George looked excited suddenly. "It's—it's all about the rejuvenation process. And the legal changes—what do you want to bet that Ottala's aunt hasn't had the new one? Maybe none at all, but if she did, it was the Stochaster."
"How do you figure that?"
"Because it changed the inheritance laws, and it's going to change the laws about cognitive competence. The ones that caused your aunt so much trouble, Ronnie."
"Huh?" Ronnie looked confused. "I don't see how the kind of rejuvenation someone has matters that much."
"Weren't you listening to them at all? Because the Stochaster procedure couldn't be repeated—but people kept trying it and going bonkers. First they made it illegal to do repeats, and then they changed the laws so that a crazy senior couldn't tie up a family's assets forever."
"Yes, but now it's not illegal. The new procedures—"
"Can now be legally repeated, yes. And we have laws about how competency affects inheritance, but no laws dealing with indefinitely extended lives. Think, Ronnie. Suppose your father, or mine, lives . . . well, hundreds of years, if not forever. Those of our class who've been expecting to inherit a tidy living will wait . . . having our own rejuvenations . . . until they finally die."
"But nobody's going to live that long," Ronnie said, frowning.
"Are you sure? I'm not. The oldest serial Rejuvenants are now in their nineties—the oldest people now alive used the Stochaster, which they can't repeat. In the next decade or so, the balance will shift, until all the Rejuvenants are repeats. Maybe the first generation of them will be content with only a few rejuvenations . . . but someone's going to want to live a lot longer. Will your father give up his position in the family business just because he hits eighty, or a hundred, or a hundred and twenty? I doubt it. And the law is set up to test competency, not age."
"But—but no one is . . ." Raffa's voice trailed off.
"And if the Morrelines think they have a corner on the process, they're not going to want a nosy old aunt—whom they cannot control, because she can't rejuv anyway—poking around in their business backyard."
"Even if they're manufacturing the drugs illegally," Raffa said, "does this mean they're adulterating them? I don't see that it follows. . . ."
"Perhaps not," said George. "But if you wanted to control a good bit more than one end of the pharmaceutical industry, wouldn't you be tempted to slip a few attitude adjustments into the mix? Lorenza certainly did."
"We are going to be very careful on Patchcock," Raffa said slowly. "Very, very careful."
* * *
Patchcock would never qualify as one of the beauties of empire, Raffa thought as she watched the dull gray-green brush slide past the windows of the commuter train from the shuttle port. Vagaries of geology and terraforming had resulted in low-relief landmasses and a monotonous climate. Irrigation freshened the vast fields of staple grains and root crops that fed the planet's work force, but beyond the fields—whose bright greens and yellows seemed almost garish—the vegetation consisted of many varieties of thorny scrub between three and six meters high. When the wind blew, which it usually did, the sky hazed with grit; when it rained, erosion scoured the thin, loose soi
l into twisting arroyos. The train racketed across a bridge over one of these, and Raffa noticed a pile of construction waste that looked as if someone had thought of damming the dry watercourse. It hadn't worked; a deeper channel cut around one end of the pile.
Twoville, almost as dull as its name, was a low-built compact city on the coast itself. Raffa had arranged rooms at the one real hotel. Ronnie and George would share a room in a hostel for transient workers. They were in the car behind her, carefully separate.
When she reached the hotel address, she was startled to find herself facing a small one-story cube with a single solid door. Had someone made a mistake?
Inside, she realized she was at the top of a well, looking down into the hotel. Across the gap, a waterfall poured over a tiled edge to fall . . . she felt dizzy when she looked over the edge.
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