Asimov’s Future History Volume 9

by Isaac Asimov

  “You’re right, of course,” he said. “What do you propose?”

  “Thales withheld information for some reason. There’s no way that robot could have done anything with Thales knowing.” Derec thought about that. “Scratch that. Without Thales instigating it. Assuming for the moment Thales won’t say anything to anyone but us, then the first opportunity we get to question it alone–”

  “That may be very difficult. Harwol has an agent in the lab at all times.”

  “Hmm. All right, then the first thing we have to do is get some idea of what that thing is we saw in the recovered memories. They all saw that, there’s nothing left to hide from the TBI. Contact Ariel, go over it with her.”

  “You said it’s a cyborg.”

  “That’s my best guess, but I wouldn’t mind being contradicted. If somebody has a better idea, I’d love to hear it.”

  “Assuming you’re correct, though, what then?”

  “Then we have a real problem. Harwol and his people have no idea. If it’s a cyborg, it was certainly not created out of thin air. There’s infrastructure behind it–industry, an impressive application of technology. Which means money. More than likely, if there’s one, there are more.”

  “Whose money?”

  “That’s one good question. The other is, what do they have to do with baleys?”

  “Baleys in general, or those going to Nova Levis specifically?”

  “Right now it could be either one. When you talk to Ariel, find out if Lanra has any statistics on the number of baleys going out each year that arrive dead. Or just disappear.”

  “With all due respect to Mr. Lanra, how would he get such statistics? The Settler colonies are not all willing to provide Earth with data. Census figures alone represent a major problem.”

  “Mmm. Well, maybe he knows someone who can get those numbers. I just need to know if one colony above any other is having a problem with this.”

  Hofton nodded. “I’ll see what I can find out. Anything else?”

  “Can you go in and out of the lab?”

  “For the time being.” He grinned wryly. “I’m a bit of a gray area for them. They don’t quite know how to handle me. I’ve threatened them with Ambassador Setaris.”

  “Then get me an update from Thales.”

  “Yes, sir. Shall I see about getting you out of here?”

  “Eventually, yes. For now, though, I’ve got some thinking to do, and this is as good a place as any.”

  “Yes, sir. Anything else?”

  “Call me Derec.”

  Hofton stood. “I’ll see what I can do. Sir.”

  Hofton placed his hand against the lock pad. The door opened for him; after he passed through, the mesh slid back into place. If Derec had tried to follow Hofton a stunner would have knocked him back very firmly.

  A few minutes later, the main door opened again and two of Palen’s uniforms brought a man into the block. They escorted him into a cell at the opposite end from the main door, locked him in, and left without glancing at Derec or the other prisoner.

  Derec strained to see into the cell of the new inmate, but the man had flopped onto his cot.

  Derec looked across the concourse at the other Spacer.

  “So what did you do that got you thrown in here?” Derec called.

  The Spacer sat up. After a few seconds of contemplation, the man went to his cell door, placed his hand on the lock, and walked out. With a glance in the direction of the newcomer, he came quietly up to Derec’s door, opened it, and entered the cell. The door slid shut and the Spacer sat down where Hofton had been sitting.

  Derec stared at him. “You’re one of Palen’s people.”

  He grinned. “Right on the first guess. They didn’t lie when they said you were bright.” He extended his hand. “Masid Vorian, station security.”

  Derec shook Masid’s hand. “So I suppose you heard everything we discussed?”

  “Most of it. Don’t worry about the TBI, though. The cell monitoring system is keyed to Sipha’s password. She shut it down after Harwol and his eager fools showed up. So they’ll never know what you discussed with your man, or what you and I talk about now.”

  Derec nodded toward the door. “What about the new prisoner?”

  “Must be a legitimate arrest. His escorts would’ve given me some kind of warning if he was a plant or something. Don’t worry–I doubt he can hear our conversation, either.”

  “And what are we talking about now?”

  “The same thing.” Masid leaned forward earnestly. “You need to understand one thing: Sipha Palen is a good cop. She’s honest, dedicated, and a magnificent pain in the ass to work for as a result, but she’s sincere about the job.”

  “I never doubted it.”

  Masid nodded once. “But it gets her in trouble. That’s the reason she’s up here and not running a department on the ground.”

  “Honest to a fault.”

  “She doesn’t always know when to shut up.” He grinned. “In certain circles, it can be a real deficit.”

  “She planted you in the lab.”

  “No, I was already there. I’m a turned agent. I used to work for Settler security. Sipha found out and made a deal with me: work for her, at least part-time, or she’d expose me.”

  “Forgive me, but you look like a Spacer.”

  Masid made a mock bow. “Native of Proclas.”

  “Then how–?”

  “It’s a long story. The short version is, I was trained as an information specialist, but, frankly, it’s boring work. Proclans are agrarian by temperament, but you can’t maintain much of a civilization growing vegetables. I started freelancing. The government called it treason and I had to leave. I ran an independent merchant ship for a while, then went to work for the Theian intelligence service on Pax Commari–”

  “That’s a Settler colony.”

  “Yes, it is. Theia sponsored it. Anyway, I decided that what I was doing was crass and unethical, so I turned myself in to the local intelligence people. They had absolutely no use for me, but–lucky me–,.. they knew someone who did. I ended up working for the Settler Coalition.”

  “I didn’t know they had an intelligence arm.”

  “Not very many people do. Their biggest concern is smuggling. Post to post to post, I ended up here. “He raised his arms. “That’s the short version. Some day when we have time and a good deal to drink, I’ll give you the full version, which is a lot more interesting.”

  “So you work for Palen part of the time.”

  “At this point, I’d have to say I work for Palen all of the time. She made me a good deal. Over the last few years, I’ve found myself with a growing case of loyalty to her.”

  “That impressive?”

  “I respect her,” Masid said.

  The way he said it, Derec got the immediate sense of a vast and profound commitment; that respect was something Masid Vorian esteemed above all else.

  “All right,” Derec said slowly. “I presume that the arrangement is, you work with the Aurorans for a time and when you have something to report you get yourself arrested.”

  “Basically. Most of the time information is easily sent through a secured comm channel. But sometimes something comes up that requires a personal meet.”

  “What prompted this one?”

  “Baleys. Lots of very dead baleys.”

  “There’s a regular route, always has been,” Masid explained. “The bays change, but usually they’re Settler. Baleys have been leaving Kopernik for years via the same avenues–fifty, a hundred years. We estimated that on an average year maybe five, six thousand people leave Earth through clandestine channels. Occasionally, the number goes as high as ten or twelve thousand. ITE cracks down periodically, the numbers drop to less than a thousand, then pick back up.

  “A couple of years ago we started seeing a massive surge: twelve, thirteen, fifteen thousand a year. I think this had to do with the politics, Eliton’s whole Concessionism kick, and t
hen the collapse of talks last year. I think a lot of baleys are afraid all the avenues are about to be shut down.

  “In the middle of this frantic running, though, we started hearing rumors from some of the Settler crews that a number of shipments went missing. I started doing a little digging among my old Settler contacts. I found out that transfers were being made mid-journey by certain ships–destinations changed, baleys offloaded and sent somewhere else. Too many claims to ignore.”

  “Pirates?” Derec asked.

  “That’s an easy accusation to make. Tell me, what is pirate? Black market, certainly. But fine, let’s assume for the sake of this discussion we’re talking about pirates. Then what are they doing? A lot of so-called pirate ships are already dealing in baley running. A lot of them have quasilegal status and come into port regularly. No warrants, no evidence to hold them, we let them go. The ships offloading the baleys aren’t doing so under duress, so it’s a business deal. But for who? The money being paid by baleys and some of the recipient colonies is a lot, but I don’t see how the margin makes it worthwhile stealing the baleys after they’re already en route. So where are they being taken?”

  “You found out?”

  Masid shook his head. “Not exactly. A lot of talk has them going to Nova Levis. Of course, that’s quarantined, so it’s not likely we’re going to find any ship’s owners willing to admit they’re making runs there. The pirate ships taking the baleys on never come to Kopernik. But let’s assume that one or two colonies have hired mercenary shippers and are paying premiums to steal baleys. Why? What do baleys have that could be marketable under illicit conditions?”

  “Labor. Possibly blackmail of family.”

  “No blackmail, not a single demand. Labor, sure. But you can buy cheap labor from companies like Imbitek and Morris and some of the others. There are some colonies buying robots from Spacers. So, if it’s not labor, what is it?”

  Derec shook his head.

  “Bodies.”

  “Organs?”

  “What else? On spec I recommended that a shipload of baleys be traced and intercepted en route. A joint Auroran-Terran venture was set up. It took four tries to find a transfer, but we found one and the ship was taken. The baleys were already dead, in stasis. Medical quality stasis. Eighty-three of them. We had a few arriving shipments intercepted here and at least three of them contained already dead baleys.”

  “Why didn’t you shut it all down if you knew about the shipments?”

  “Two reasons: we don’t know about all the shipments, and we still don’t know who’s killing them and selling the corpses. Ongoing investigation; we need to keep it quiet till we can shut down the source. I know, it’s terrible. People are dying. But that’s the way it is.”

  “How many?” Derec asked.

  “So far, three hundred plus. We’ve been trying to infiltrate baley groups, see where they’re going. Our agents have been turning up dead, too. Some of them in very unpleasant ways. The worst was Chiava.”

  “Chiava?”

  “The Brethe dealer you heard about. Right here, in her holding cell.”

  “Chief Palen worked her the same way she works you?”

  Masid nodded. “She worked dockside vice mostly, not this. She found something related to my investigation.”

  “Did she have time to tell Palen?”

  “No. She was brought in while Sipha was away. By the time Sipha returned...”

  “What I don’t understand,” Derec said, “is where the market for this is. Organs can be grown–you don’t have to do gross transplants.”

  “Spacer medical tech is expensive.”

  “That’s facile. It’s also safer. The only reason...” Derec caught his breath. “The baleys in question. You identified them?”

  “As many as we could. Some had bought very expensive privacy locks on their pasts.”

  “How many of them were orphans?”

  “Orphans?”

  “Yes, orphans.”

  Masid blinked and shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  “Find out.”

  “You have an idea what’s going on?”

  “Just an idea. A very tenuous idea.”

  Masid nodded. “You look like you hope you’re wrong.”

  “That, too.” Derec studied Masid for a time. “So what are you still doing in here?”

  “Oh, that. Well.” Masid smiled sheepishly. “I’m bait.”

  Twenty-One

  “I’VE CALLED FOR an embassy limousine,” Ariel said. “It should be here shortly.”

  Ree Wenithal gave her a gloomy look, as if now regretting to go along with them. He had drunk four cups of coffee and swallowed a stimulant pill, and his mood had grown ever more somber.

  Coren scowled at him. “Don’t tell us you’ve changed your mind and don’t want to go. Would you rather wait for Tresha and Gamelin?”

  Wenithal looked startled. “Who?”

  Coren almost smiled. “Your collectors. The ones you’ve been waiting for.”

  Ariel watched them regard each other, Ree Wenithal clearly unsettled and Coren smugly observant.

  “We standing around playing Who Knows,” Jeta Fromm asked, “or moving somewhere safer?”

  Coren laughed. “Come on. Is there anything else you want to bring?”

  “No,” Wenithal said grudgingly, and stepped to the door.

  Ariel touched Coren’s elbow. When he looked at her, she pointed to his shoulder. “Are you all right?”

  “I could use some painblock and a stimulant right now,” he said, “but I can move.”

  They exited onto the balcony warily, Ariel coming out last. Third shift was still a few hours from ending and the quiet made the warren seem deserted. Coren led the way down the steps to the courtyard and out to the avenue. Ariel went last, glancing anxiously over her shoulder, trying unsuccessfully to see into the shadows. She gripped the stunner in her pocket, knowing it would be next to useless against the thing that attacked them earlier, but unwilling to release its illusion of effectiveness.

  Far to the right, at the end of the avenue, music and laughter reached them from a bar; otherwise, the area was still. They pressed back against the wall and waited in silence.

  Ariel jumped when the limousine pulled onto the avenue. The long black vehicle stopped and the rear door slid open. As they neared the vehicle, two men emerged and quickly flanked Wenithal and Jeta. Wenithal stopped short, but Jeta whirled around, glaring.

  “What is this, gato?” she demanded.

  Coren stopped before her. “It’s for everyone’s piece of mind... Tresha.”

  She frowned at him. “My name is Jeta Fromm.”

  “I doubt it,” Coren said. “But we can sort it out later, when we’re in comfort and security.” He looked at Ariel. “Is this going to cause problems?”

  “Nothing I’m not used to,” Ariel said. She addressed the guards. “Screen them.”

  One of the men took out a pad and walked around the pair. He reached inside Jeta/Tresha’s jacket and removed a pistol. “That’s all, Ambassador.”

  “Good. In the limousine, please.”

  The guard took Tresha’s pack, then Wenithal and Tresha were ushered into the capacious backseat. The guards watched them from the facing seat. Ariel went around to the passenger side front and got in.

  Coren closed the door and leaned against the jamb.

  “I’m going somewhere else,” he said.

  Ariel wanted to protest, but held back. “I see. I’ll stay with these people, then, and set them up at the embassy.”

  He nodded. His eyes shut briefly. “When I get there, I think I’d better sleep.”

  “You wouldn’t want to tell me where you’re going, would you?”

  “Not now.” He smiled wearily. “Deniability and all that. Besides, I really don’t know just exactly where...” He shook his head. “Get them to the embassy and safe. I’ll comm when I’m finished.”

  He pushed away from the limo. The door closed
. Ariel watched him walk wearily away. She felt a sharp reluctance to let him out of her sight. For a moment she wanted to get out of the limousine and go with him, trusting the limo and the guards to get her passengers to the embassy.

  Not very responsible, she thought peevishly.

  Coren rounded a distant comer, disappearing from sight. Ariel leaned back in the seat, wondering at her uneasy mix of emotions.

  “Embassy,” Ariel said. She glanced over her shoulder at Tresha and Wenithal, and wondered idly how much of a diplomatic mess she had just created. Only i/they complain, she thought.

  “Yes, Ambassador,” the car replied and rolled on.

  “This is nonsense,” Wenithal said.

  “What’s changed?” Ariel asked. “You were prepared to shoot whoever came through your door earlier.”

  He glowered, then let his head fall back. Within a couple of minutes his eyes closed and his breathing deepened. Ariel wondered just how much alcohol he had drunk before they had arrived. Then she wondered how often people had thought that about her.

  Tresha glared at Ariel, straight-backed and on edge, hands pressed against her thighs. Her backpack lay on the seat between the guards.

  “That looks heavy,” Ariel said. “What do you have in there?”

  “Why?”

  “Just curious.”

  Tresha frowned. “My chops. Code bummer, datum, decrypter. Some clothes.”

  Ariel waited to see if Tresha would volunteer more. When she remained silent, Ariel asked, “Why Nova Levis?”

  “Time. There’s a list and a schedule. Nova Levis had the earliest opening. Besides, you hear there’s a lot of tech there.”

  “You do?”

  “They say, sure.”

  “It was an agrarian colony, started up by the Church of Organic Sapiens.”

  Tresha blinked at her. “They changed, then.” She shrugged. “So, do you believe Mr. Lanra? That I’m not who I say I am?”

  “Does it matter? Either you are and you need our help, or you aren’t and we need to keep you under guard.”

  Tresha shook her head. “Meddling. Spacers are always meddling. Why is that? What’s all this to you?”

  Ariel considered giving Tresha a glib answer, predigested and politic. It’s my job, I was ordered to help. True as far as it went, but Ariel had never done anything purely for surface reasons. In this case, she felt she would have been justified to tell Setaris no and let herself be rotated back to Aurora as she expected to be.