He stopped and fixed Jon with a glare. It was like that of some rare, suspicious bird. "But why would the Superior Buro lock away the data?"
John shrugged. "It seems inexplicable on the face of it."
"Obviously there is something they do not want you to know about?"
"Well, Clawenton," said Meg, "that's why we came to you. We thought that perhaps with the historian's perspective you could tell us something."
Clawenton brightened a little. "Well, of course you're perfectly correct. Although the history of gas exploration and storage is my own specialty, I've always maintained a lively interest in the doings of the Panhumanist groups. There are some fascinating cults. Like the Pansperm Sympathoea, an extreme male-supremacist group who have been homosexual with reproductive cloning for forty generations or more. They are said to be radically altered from the human norm in patterns of thought. Their visual arts, for example, have progressed into new, quite bizarre experimentation in the religiosity of sexual depiction." Clawenton's eyes finally alighted on the package in Meg's hands.
"But what is this you carry?"
"For you, Clawenton. I hope you like it."
When he'd pulled off the wrappings his eyes popped quite spectacularly. "Domaine Larose!" he breathed. "Great heavens, a nine-year bottle. How wonderful!" He looked up again with renewed suspicion. "You must want to know an awful lot about the Elchites if you've brought me Domaine Larose."
Jon shrugged. "We have very little information. Whatever you can tell us will be an improvement on that."
"Well, let me think. Here, we'll put this wonderful wine away and I'll go and take a look in the back room."
A few minutes later Clawenton banged a data disc into his old video display.
"Now." His voice slipped back into the didactic mode of the professor. "The Elchite origins date back to the early era of competing nations in space. Several small nations fled to space quite early on. They brought strange, violent creeds with them, like the much-abominated Saudi male cultists."
"Oh, Clawenton! Must we bring such things up? That's just disgusting! Compulsory female circumcision, purdah, and harems! Why, they almost bred themselves into two distinct species, male and female."
"I'm sorry, my dear, but the history of our race is a tragic one, full of dreadful deeds and sad mistakes. One cannot ignore the innumerable crimes committed in the name of religious or ideological frenzy.
"Anyway, the Elchites represent a strange mixture of advanced and atavistic elements in their creeds. There are some very extreme male supremacist practices, for example, but there has also been the growth of the Elchite traders, who first became active about three centuries ago. Most recently a rash of outrages has been perpetrated against the laowon.
"Ah! Now I remember. A few months ago a questionnaire was sent out by the laowon military asking for information concerning the Elchites. It actually emanated from the Illustrious itself, I believe. But I didn't respond to it. I'm afraid I'm one of those who rather applauds the outrages committed by groups like the Elchites. The laowon are a greedy, brutal race. They use their advantages to crush us. I wish to resist." He probed Jon with a cold eye. "Does this shock you, young man?"
"No, not at all."
Clawenton looked to Meg. "I suspected as much when I saw you in the company of my lovely young Testamenter here." Clawenton winked at Meg, who smiled sweetly in return.
"Oddly enough, though, when the questionnaire came, I had just come into the possession of some interesting information concerning Elchites, right here on Hyperion Grandee."
"Oh, yes?" Jon said.
"I was researching the recent records of small- and medium-size gas and water companies in the belt. It was in connection with a government project. I found a reference to an Elchite trader, someone called Ulip Sehngrohn. He came here about thirty-five years ago, traded briefly in gases and water, then left Grandee."
"Do you know where he went?"
"That was the curious part. No boarding docket number existed in Hyperion Grandee records. So we don't even know where he came from. He certainly wasn't born here, however, and I became quite interested in the matter when I discovered that, so I researched it more thoroughly. Amongst other things I became convinced that there is an Elchite temple, all packed up in security crates, right here on Hyperion Grandee."
"Really?" breathed Iehard.
"I found that the Elchite trader took a long lease on a small commercial docking bay, on the high dorsal extender. No gravity, a prime launching place."
Jon and Meg exchanged a look. The Domaine Larose had paid for itself.
"Of course you have to wear a space suit up there, but I went out to check anyway." He paused for effect. "You know, that lease is still running and you can't get anywhere near the place. The accessway is secured with a steel gate. The locks are armor plated too. It's a Baltitude Security Company warehouse. They have a good reputation for security."
"Who is listed on the lease?"
"Interesting part that. Lease is held by a wholesale gas company with an address on Sooner."
"Sooner?"
"Small wanderer. Orbits way out past William and then shoots in all the way through the hot stuff."
"Asteroid?"
"Comet. The first settlers made a fortune—cheapest gas and water in the system for a few years. This is way back, in the earliest days of Nocanicus system. Before the laowon."
"That must have been an exciting find," Meg said.
"Well, I never found a departure code for Sehngrohn, but I doubt that he's still in the system. The Elchite traders mostly came from Aldebaran and they were real star hoppers, roving as far as the human hegemony runs. Of course, why he should maintain such secrecy concerning his movement is a matter that perhaps the Superior Buro knows more about than we do, eh?" He gave them a thoughtful glance.
"But I remain convinced that there's a chest full of genuine Elchite ceremonial vestments, objects, maybe even an altar of Earthstone! right here on Grandee. Just think what a sight it would make. Our Panhumanist exhibit in the university museum would finally look like something!"
"Yes, indeed," Jon murmured.
After absorbing as much information on Elchitism as they could, they copied some of Clawenton's disk onto a data module and left the ancient historian gleefully examining his bottle of ninth-year Domaine Larose, Cabernet Sauvignon, from the near-legendary agrihabitat Gloaming Splendor.
They chose to walk together through the park. The day was entering the evening hours. Jon could sense that Meg's mood had lifted considerably. "Because you outwitted them?" He hazarded an easy guess. She fairly skipped along like some gray-haired, fifty-year-old girl of ten.
"Of course, what do you want me to do? Think about poor Sha? No, I prefer to concentrate on our victory. To hell with the blueskins, we found out all we need about Elchitism. In addition we may have a lead of some kind. I say 'hooray, and let's skip to the May.'"
On the park mall they passed licensed stands where magicians, jugglers, and mimes exhibited. Small crowds were gathered around the performances.
They paused beside one quite remarkable display set up beneath a pole with a bright green banner. "Fabulous Fara's Template Show," said the illuminated sign that was set before a small booth beside the stand. A woman in a blue wig and a dress of white sequins stood on the dais.
Her show consisted of the production of exotic bubbles from a strange template, a device resembling a loop braided of several colorful threads. To produce the bubbles Fara simply passed the loop over a customer's head and down to his or her shoulders. When she removed the template and held it still, the bubbles floated from the center, up to a half dozen per person, each a unique size, anywhere from that of a pea to a large orange. All swirled with magically bright color patterns that changed constantly.
The bubbles seemed indestructible too. Fara demonstrated this with a blowtorch and a power tool that she brought out of a chest in the booth. Nothing could even mark them.
No two bubbles were ever the same; some were multicolored, some predominantly of one shade or other. The variety seemed endless as they watched her pass pet animals, a cat and a laowon pesski, and then some houseplants, through the hoop of colored wires.
The cat produced a single, glittering scarlet bubble. The pesski produced small, clear bubbles. Those produced by plants were tiny, opaque globes rather like pearls.
An oddity of the process was that it could be performed only once on any particular living thing. Subsequent attempts to obtain more bubbles produced nothing.
As she worked, Fara kept up a constant harangue of the crowd, drawing customers forth. For a fee of twenty credit units, anyone could have a set of fabulous Fara's bubbles.
While Jon and Meg watched, a few people came forward, a party of tourists from the watermoons in typical loud mooner shirts. Fara's harangue continued into a brief history of the template, which was clearly not from any known human science. She held it up so everyone could see it clearly.
"This remarkable device is one of the so-called templates that are found on the planet BRF, or 'Baraf' as it's popularly known, a planet covered in the ruins of a long-dead civilization." Jon looked up with renewed interest; the half-believable tales of Baraf had always fascinated him.
"My father, Finius the Bold, was the man who found this template. He spent the family fortune to go to Baraf and mount a prospecting expedition to the Baraf city sites.
"The expedition spent days on the dangerous trails. They fought off marauding mutants. Then two hovercraft fell into a crustal pit and thirty people lost their lives. However, Finius the Bold survived, and in one of those strange ancient places that they call the Boneyards, he found this template."
There was a little spatter of applause.
"He returned from Baraf forty-eight years ago and we have been producing these bubbles ever since. We estimate that it has produced nearly one hundred million bubbles in that time. During the entire period the device has absorbed no known energy or material of any type.
"So where do the bubbles come from?" Fara asked the crowd. She laughed. Fabulous Fara had a great laugh, lots of white teeth. The crowd laughed too, a mite uneasily at first, and then quite happily.
"From out of thin air!" Fara roared. There was more laughter and a little applause. More tourists stepped up to have bubbles made and photos taken.
Moved by curiosity, Jon stepped forward.
"Twenty credits is rather a lot for just a few bubbles, isn't it?" Meg said.
"After one thirty-two for a bottle of wine, it seems like nothing at all, Meg."
Jon's turn came. Fara lifted the template and settled it around his head. As it did so Jon sensed an odd twinge, a palpable pressure on his psi sense, and when the template lifted, a gasp of surprise arose from the onlookers.
Jon looked around. Floating down on the air current was a small, highly unusual bubble—a silvery cube the size of a grape. It shimmered oddly on each face.
Fara reached for it, but Jon was faster and he gathered it into his hands and stared at it. It was light, and cool to the touch. The reflections were buried in a kind of moire pattern.
"Something has happened. I shall have to investigate it." Fara tried to take it from his hands.
"No, wait, I paid for it, I get to keep it," Jon protested.
And a fierce protective urge suddenly welled up in his heart. It was his cube! No one would touch it. He put it away and refused Fara's entreaties.
"But never before has the template produced anything more than spheres. This is the first cube! You must donate it to science." Her voice had become a wail.
But her complaint only stiffened Jon's determination to retain the cube. It was his, something told him that it was uniquely so and that no one else should have it. "I will consider your request, but for now I will retain possession of the cube."
Meg eyed him strangely as they walked on down the mall and across a wide lawn toward the Hyades Monument.
"It is mine. I paid for it!" he said fervently. She laughed then, much amused.
They parted at the monument and Jon headed for the Olde Shrub Bar and Grille, which was set in a dugout in a forested section of the park. It was one of his favorite haunts.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Although it was sunset hour and the long golden beams produced by the engineers were ricocheting through the habitat, the park was barely crowded. Too chill for sunworship so close to Winterfest, and with the shopping frenzy in full fury, all card colors were allowed entry and the card cops weren't even in view.
The cops were struggling instead with the mass of shoppers over in Octagon Seven, all in search of that unique something to enliven their winter outfit.
Being noncorporate and uninvolved in Masque rather left Jon out of the social life of Hyperion Grandee. Sometimes he found this an acute blessing.
Down the avenue of ancient hemlocks he walked with a cheerful stride despite the slight chill in the air. Sunbeams caromed through the trunks. Through some inscrutable foul-up in their own bureaucracy, the laowon had set him a problem, and he and Meg had neatly sidestepped the problem. He already had his next moves mapped out and was wondering if the case might be wrapped up before bedtime.
As soon as he'd eaten, had a chance to shower and put on clean clothes, he was going to the high-dorsal extender to look at the Elchite warehouse and docking bay.
A little breeze stirred a few fallen leaves across the path. He could almost feel 5,000 credit units sitting in his account. Meg, of course, would get her split.
He made a note to check in with Coptor Brine and discuss what might be landing on his plate the next morning, back at the squad.
Eventually the friendly red sign of the Shrub poked into view. A squeaking hinge tape played under the bushes and topiary masterpieces that clustered around the Shrub's low-slung structure, deep-bermed into the park ground. With stone floors, woodlook walls, and low ceilings, the place was modeled on a fourteenth-century English tavern.
Jon passed through the "Jolly Miller" linnet bush, a ten-meter-tall gesture of virtuosity on the part of the park staff, and swung into the Shrub. It was pleasantly empty. He ordered a hot freef sandwich, some salad, and a mug of ale.
The freef was done perfectly, and he always liked the Shrub's style of ale, dark and bitter.
He paid with his card in the table slot function box and tapped out a tip. In some contentment he leaned back in his booth and stared out the window illusion, on a panorama of ancient Earth. That week the Shrub was running a series called "Great Metros of Old Terra." Jon watched in fascination as vistas of romantic ancient cities—Vancouver, Miami, Glasgow—flitted by. He felt again the romance of Old Earth, by which was meant any time previous to the atomic age.
When he turned back to his beer, a very attractive young woman in a tight silk suit was standing close by. Her golden hair tumbled down her shoulders. She smiled, looked away. They were virtually alone.
"Hello," he said. She turned him a friendly glance. Something was decidedly strange: A prostitute of her caliber would not be working the Shrub Bar and Grille. He finished his ale, and she came closer.
"How nice to find someone who isn't out shopping tonight," she said gaily as she sat down opposite him. "What were you drinking?" She wrinkled her pretty little nose at his mug.
"The ale. Alas, I can't have more than one on this occasion, but thanks very much anyway. Do you come down to the old Shrub often?"
"Not much, just now and then."
It was like something out of his favorite sex fantasy. The lovely girl from nowhere. They were alone—well, virtually—and she was eager to talk to him. Eager to get to know him, and he felt his cheeks harden as he nodded slowly to himself. Superior Buro at work. "Subtle they are not," as Meg always said.
He opened his psi sense out as much as was possible under the influence of a pint of ale. There wasn't much happening. Perhaps she'd had training in psi suppression.
Sh
e was so beautiful, he felt a surge of disgust. She'd sold herself to the aliens. How many men had she approached for the blues? She was astonishingly glamorous; most men would find it hard to refuse her.
He stood up and leaned across and quickly kissed her on the lips. She didn't slap him, or protest more than mildly, confirming his suspicions.
"You're lovely. I just had to steal one kiss," he said in a calm voice. "I'd love to stay and get acquainted, but as you probably read in your brief on me, I have good psi sense."
Her face registered a pout of disappointment. "What do you mean?" she said rather plaintively.
"Sorry, but I have to go now." He headed out and back across the park to his home ramp.
When he reached his apartment door his neighbor Onliki popped out of his own door calling Jon's name. Surprised, he looked up to find Onliki wearing an unprecedented smile. Onliki, it seemed, wanted Iehard to come to his next party, to be held on the upcoming festival weekend. A realgoodtime, interesting sex people would attend. Iehard boggled. He and Onliki had barely exchanged words except when Jon complained about Onliki's loud and vulgar audio excesses.
"Onliki!" he said sharply, cutting through the exhaust.
"Whad?"
"Tell the Buro that I don't buy this kind of stuff. I'm not interested, all right?"
Onliki was downcast.
"I sympathize with the loss of this source of easy credit, Onliki, but you will have to explain it to them yourself." But before Jon could escape, the cover had evaporated and the little eyes were narrowed and vicious. "Look, Iehard, I know what you do! So like I intend to get the ramp association together and have you evicted, laoman. You're not the kind of person we want living on this ramp. You shouldn't be living with normal people, you stink of blood. Killing innocent people..."
Jon shut the door, then leaned against it. Sometimes it was good to see the hatred out in the open; it made him feel perversely better. But now he would have to move; the apartment would be dangerous.
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