by Isaac Asimov
“That’s rather unkind, Mr. Avery,” Eliton said. “I should think I’ve paid for any lapses in judgment, sufficiently even for you.” He looked at Ariel. “At least for the duration of the voyage, a truce?”
Ariel controlled herself and gestured. “Why don’t you join us, then, Senator?”
Eliton sat down between them. “Actually now it’s ‘Ambassador.’ ”
“I’d heard something, but . . .” Derec said, falling in smoothly with Ariel’s decision.
“It’s a convenient way to get rid of me, Mr. Avery. I’m a bit of an embarrassment now. Ambassador to Solaria. I don’t even get to ground on Aurora.”
“That’s too bad,” Ariel said. “Aurora is beautiful.”
“And no one on Solaria would know natural beauty if it swallowed them,” Eliton said, smiling grimly. “So I’ve been told.”
“I’m sure Ambassador Chassik must have told you all sorts of wonderful things about Solaria,” Derec said.
“Did you know Chassik wasn’t born on Solaria?”
“No,” Ariel said, leaning forward. “Keresian?”
Eliton grinned. “Terran.”
“You’re kidding,” Derec said. He laughed. “Well, that certainly explains a few things.”
“Solarians are notoriously antisocial,” Eliton said. “I often wondered myself how they could find a volunteer to serve as ambassador.”
“How did he become Solarian?”
“A father, evidently himself an émigré from Keres. Even Solarians evidently succumb to certain inducements. His mother was Terran. She died when Gale was a boy, and he returned to Solaria afterward. He’s become Solarian to a considerable degree, but not so much that he’s unsuited for his position. A pity he’s been recalled. But at least I shall have one person with whom I can share a meal or a drink while in the same room.”
Ariel exchanged a look with Derec. He doesn’t know, she thought, and saw the same realization in Derec’s eyes. She gave a very slight shake of her head.
“How long is the appointment?” Ariel asked.
“That depends, doesn’t it? Actually, the Solarian government was very eager to have me. There’s no renewal date on the agreement, so . . .”
“From either side?” Ariel asked.
“Unusual, I know,” Eliton said dryly. “I gather Earth doesn’t much care how long I stay.”
The conversation lapsed uncomfortably. Before Ariel could change the topic, Eliton straightened, smiling.
“So,” he said, “what takes you back to Aurora?”
“Recall,” Ariel said.
Eliton stared at her, nonplussed. “That’s . . . I’m sorry to hear that. I mean, unless you wanted to return . . .”
“Do you have any idea what happened this year?” Ariel asked. “Or have you been out of the loop since you lost your seat?”
“Well, I know Alda Mikels was indicted for a number of charges involving conspiracy to defraud, collusion, a variety of other fiscal improprieties. It’s my understanding that this all has something to do with a very large TBI sting against baley-running operations . . . were you involved in that?”
“Profoundly,” Derec said.
Eliton said nothing while he seemed to inspect the ice in his drink. Finally, he looked up. “You may be glad you’re away from Earth after this.”
“You seem better informed than you let on,” Derec observed.
“What do you know about Nova Levis, Ambassador?” Ariel asked.
Eliton’s eyes narrowed briefly as he took a drink. “If the extent of your involvement with Nova Levis ended with that TBI sting, you should leave it at that.”
“You’re going to be on Solaria for a long time,” Ariel said. “Pretty much isolated. Solarians maintain the largest ratio of robot-to-human in the Fifty Worlds. It could be very lonely for you.”
Eliton smiled wanly. “Will you come visit me? In person?”
“I’m suggesting that perhaps the time will come when you might want someone to speak on your behalf for a change of mission.”
“Quid pro quo, ‘Ambassador’?”
Ariel waited.
“Do you know why the Solarians maintain the kind of social structure they do?” Eliton asked.
“They’re misanthropes,” Derec said.
“True,” Eliton said. “But even misanthropes need some human contact from time to time if they’re to keep from going insane.” He chuckled. “History, Mr. Avery. Do you know Spacer history? Probably not. I’ve always been amazed at how ignorant most Spacers are about their own history. Maybe I shouldn’t be, given what it is, but . . .”
“Like all Spacers,” Ariel said, suppressing her impatience, “they’re afraid of disease, only more so. One more thing you have to look forward to. Auroran hygienic prep has become fairly innocuous in the last few decades, but the Solarians still do a full internal purge the old-fashioned way.”
“Do you even know why Spacers are afraid of infection?”
“I’m afraid it’s never really occurred to me to ask,” Ariel said, hoping to deflect the conversation.
“That’s surprising,” Eliton said, “since they once tossed you off the planet for having a disease.”
“Do you have a point to make?” she asked, barely holding her temper.
“Mnemonic plague, wasn’t it? Wiped your memory—permanent amnesia. You were cured on Earth, too. Didn’t you ever wonder why?”
Ariel finished her drink and stood, her legs trembling from contained anger. “I think—”
“No one on Earth gets it, so why would we have the cure and your own people don’t?”
Eliton looked up at her with an expression of mild interest. She sat back down.
“Does this have anything to do with Nova Levis?” she asked.
“Everything. Your entire history is on that planet. Maybe your future, too. You might ask yourself what the purpose of the blockade really is. To keep things out? Or keep them in?” Eliton swallowed the last of his drink and got to his feet. “I’m sure we’ll talk more before you debark.”
“Ambassador,” Derec asked. “Do you mind answering one question now?”
“And that would be . . . ?”
“Why did you do it? Turn on us last year.”
“You deserve an answer to that. Unfortunately, it would take longer than one conversation.”
“Try,” Derec said.
“Power. What other reason is there to betray people?” Eliton flashed a grin. “See you around.”
Derec watched him walk away, through the crowded lounge, and shook his head. “I don’t think I’ve ever despised anyone before. Hated, sure. Distrusted—often. Despise? I think this is the first time.” He scowled. “It’s a grimy feeling.”
Ariel stared after Eliton, her mind busy with questions and suspicions. She stood. “I have something to do,” she said. “I’ll see you later.”
She made her way out of the lounge and down a broad corridor until she found an orderly.
“Excuse me,” she said, “could you direct me to the communications room?”
Mia stepped into the small cell. Ensign Corf lay on the too-narrow cot, one arm draped over his eyes.
“I already checked the biomonitor,” Mia said. “You’re awake, so sit up.”
“I’m no longer an officer,” Corf said in a slow drawl. “So kindly decompress, Lt. Daventri.”
“That’s not a very good attitude to take toward anyone who might be able to ease your problems.”
The arm moved up and Corf’s eyes locked on her. “You mean a deal? Like what? I heard you’re a strict by-the-code type. You don’t deal.”
“Normally. Normally I have everything I want, so a deal is superfluous.” She sat down on the fold-out seat opposite the cot. “You know what that means, don’t you? Someone as well-read as you.”
Corf shifted his bulk and swung his legs off the cot. He sat up, propping both hands on the edge of his bed, hunching his shoulders. “What do you want?”
&n
bsp; “I want the one who’s running you.”
Corf shook his head. “There’s no deal in that, just death.”
“Not if you give me enough to cut off the head.”
“Not possible.”
“Don’t you know I’m Internal Security?”
“Not possible,” Corf said. “Besides, if I told you, all that would happen is what would happen if I never told you.”
“Tell me about the books.”
“What books?”
“Don’t,” Mia said. “You have to know I went through your cabin. What did you think, I’d only search your desk? The books, Corf. Where did you get them and who were they for?”
“They’re mine.”
“You don’t strike me as the scholarly type.”
Corf shrugged.
“All right,” Mia said, “let’s take it from the other end. Who’s your source?”
“You’re not very bright, Lieutenant. I don’t have to tell you anything. You don’t have anything to offer me that might make me.”
“Your career?”
Corf grunted.
“Your life?”
“I’m already taking care to keep that, thank you.”
Mia studied the man. He did not act like a prisoner, like someone caught. He seemed to be waiting for an inevitable and not undesirable next step, as if his arrest had merely interrupted a process that would shortly resume.
“Those books were nearly three thousand years old,” Mia said. “Ancient. It doesn’t seem likely that they’d have much to say to us now.”
Corf’s smiled knowingly. “You should read them.”
“Humanity hasn’t changed that much then, that thirty centuries might make us incomprehensible to ourselves?”
A flicker of interest showed in Corf’s small eyes. “Maybe . . . or maybe we need to remember.”
“Remember what?”
“Who we were. You can get lost without that memory.”
“Even if it doesn’t matter?”
Corf leaned back against the bulkhead, folding his arms across his chest. “It always matters.”
Mia sensed the sudden opening, though she did not understand it. She pressed. “Most of the people I know do well enough without reference to the past.”
Corf’s expression bordered on contempt. “Most people let others do their remembering for them. They have machines, libraries, leaders. They trust that the memories are kept.”
“You don’t?”
“I’m learning.”
“What?”
“That memory shouldn’t be left up to others. You have to do it yourself.”
“What happens to you if you don’t?”
“Do you know any Aurorans?”
“As a matter of fact, I do,” Mia said.
“That’s what happens. They forget where they came from, forget who they are, forget why other people matter. They stop being . . .” He looked away.
“Stop being what?”
“Human.”
“And the Keresians? You have Keresian friends, don’t you, Corf? What about them?”
“They understand. They’re trying to get back what’s been lost.”
“And you’re helping them?”
He shrugged.
“How?” Mia asked. “Getting them old books?”
“It’s one way.”
“How do you know what titles to pick? I mean, weren’t there a lot of pretty worthless books printed back then? And what’s wrong with new work?”
Corf’s contempt showed more clearly. “Did you handle them? Did you open the covers and smell them? Did you look at the words on the pages or did you read them? New work is all about what’s now. What matters is the connection.”
“To the past.”
“That’s right.”
“So who makes the selections? You?”
“No, I’m still learning.”
“And if I wanted to learn?” Mia asked.
Corf stared at her, then slowly shook his head. “You’re working me. You don’t want truth, you want details. You don’t understand.”
“Make me understand.”
“I’d have to change you. You’re not willing.”
“If I talk to Illen Jons, will she tell me the same thing?”
Corf winced as if she had threatened to slap him. “Who?”
“Your connection. Lt. Illen Jons, the Keresian liaison. I would never have expected someone in her position to be running contraband, but maybe I shouldn’t be surprised. But what really surprises me is the Keresian component. Are they buying the contraband? Part of it? It’s not all going through the blockade, is it? Some of it’s coming in and going back out. I should have thought of that before—maybe I might have found the conduits quicker.”
“She’s not—you have it—”
“I have it what? Wrong? Then correct me. Is Lt. Jons important to you? Do you want to save her some grief?” Mia stood and stepped closer to Corf. “All this philosophical banter is fine, Corf, but I frankly could care less. After you’re in prison together you can discuss dialectics all day long. Right now I want to know about the real world. If I arrest Lt. Jons, will I be getting the same from her, or will she have more to say about where the books came from?”
“She’s not involved in this!” Corf’s face reddened.
Just as suddenly as he had become agitated, he calmed. The color left his face, his expression returned to one of indifference, and his voice lost its anger.
“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “Arrest her. She can’t tell you anything. I won’t tell you anything. And when the day is done, you’ll be with us or dead.”
Mia waited. Corf stretched back out on the cot, covered his eyes with his forearm, and the interview ended.
Outside the cell, she joined the technicians who had been monitoring.
“That was strange,” one of them said. “Psychometrics showed no change from his baseline until you brought up Lt. Jons.” He pointed at a screen showing EEG and Cortical Activity Patterns. “Then the entire brainwave began to match what you’d expect from someone under the kind of pressure he was under.”
“What happened then?” Mia asked.
“It just changed,” the other tech said. “The whole eruption of normal emotional response faded right back into the previous baseline.”
Mia stared at the readings. “Why?”
“A couple of things maybe,” the first tech said. “We’ve seen a little of this in some of the pirates we’ve scanned, just nothing so dramatic. You see this kind of thing in certain cognitive disorders, but we checked his history. Nothing. So that leaves us with cortical implants—the kind they use for controlling chemical imbalance—or extreme conditioning.”
“Conditioning . . .”
“That sounds more ominous than it is,” the second tech said. “What we call True Believer Syndrome. Zealots, religious fanatics, or people who have studied various trance practices. Highly developed personal control over mood states.”
“What’s not ominous about that?” Mia asked. “Any indication that Corf has an implant?”
“None we’ve seen so far.”
“Check it.”
“He threatened you, Lieutenant,” the first tech said. “That qualifies for additional charges. Do you want us to file the report and append the recordings?”
“Not yet. I don’t want his status officially changed.”
The tech nodded and worked his board briefly. “Filed in a hold buffer. We can do it later if you change your mind.”
“Great.” She began to leave, then paused. “I want to know if he gets any other visitors. Anyone. Understand?”
Mia went back to her cabin.
Zealots, religious fanatics . . . great. What was that he said? “When the day is done, you’ll be with us or dead.”
She pulled up Corf’s file again and checked his religious affiliations. That section was blank.
Speculatively, she checked Lt. Jons’ file.
&
nbsp; “No current affiliation,” the box said. “Parents not recorded.”
Scrolling down, though, she stopped at the section on politics. Jons had no comments, but her parents had been arrested eighteen years ago at a rally that had turned violent. At first glance, it seemed to be just a routine mass arrest, where the police took everyone in and released them later after inspection. It did not necessarily mean her parents had been active participants, just present when it turned bad. But the rally stirred her interest. Order for the Supremacy of Man Again.
She went back to Corf’s jacket. After a search, she found a distant relative who had been an active member in the Order, a professed Managin.
Which did not mean Corf was a Managin—indeed, he must have been cleared of that, or he would never have gotten into the military—but it might have explained his lack of promotion.
Illen Jons’ parents had not been listed as active members, but the coincidence bothered Mia. Managins had since become a fringe group drawing active police surveillance and a tag in law enforcement circles as a dangerous, militant organization.
A little more than a year ago she had investigated several of them in connection to the slaughter at Union Station in D.C. on Earth.
They had also been ex-military . . .
Mia opened her datum and entered in a new search. They had arrested nearly thirty contraband dealers since she had been on the blockade— thirty in eleven months. She pulled their jackets and initiated a search to find a Managin influence in any of their backgrounds.
Then she initiated the same search on the three names Sturlin had given her who had purchased books from that bookseller on Earth.
She felt excited. Always there came a moment when it seemed she had stumbled on the thread that would lead her to the heart of the maze where the answers were kept. She knew she should be patient and wait for the searches to produce results.
Instead, she headed for Lt. Jons’ cabin.
Jons was stationed in the next base habitat. Mia wound her way through the decks and corridors, her mind running the interview with Corf like a tape, over and over. He had wanted to brag, she had sensed that, but he was more disciplined than she expected. He was part of something he thought was really important, and he hungered to boast and let her know how helpless she was in the face of the larger plan.