Disappearing Act

by Margaret Ball

The famous bacteriomats seemed to consist of two, no, three spots of greenish-grey film, hardly visible against the grey rocks on which they grew. The sparkling glass dishes placed all around them were far more noticeable.

  "Looks like a shrine," Maris said when Benteen paused, evidently waiting for her comment.

  "What? Oh!" He laughed. "No, those are our attempts to find some culture medium that the 'mats will like. You see, we can harvest from these three 'mats, but only when they grow large enough that we can take a ten-centimeter square and still leave something a little bigger. Take a sample smaller than that, and it dies in transit. Leave less than that, and the whole colony dies. We lost two of the five original 'mats learning that." The light shone briefly on a grey rock that had been scraped bare in two spots. "So far they—the 'mats—are still VNC."

  "Meaning?"

  "Oh. Viable but nonculturable." Benteen paused and chuckled self-consciously. "In layman's terms, you might say it means we still haven't figured out how to grow them outside the cave environment. We can keep them alive—in stasis—but they don't reproduce until they're implanted in a human brain." He went on to tell Maris more than she really wanted to know about synthetic media versus complex media, the school of thought which swore by Beccoham's G-22 Fetal Calf Serum and the opposing school supporting RQNJ 554, and the isolated nuts who insisted on using pure red agar with selected growth agents manually added.

  None of which concoctions had as yet appealed to the bacteriomats.

  "It's basically just a matter of trial and error," Benteen admitted. "Even on worlds we've known for centuries, successfully collecting microbes is as much folklore as science. Some researchers even leave vital medium ingredients out of their publications!"

  "No, really?" Maris said, trying to sound appropriately shocked. If it was as hard as Benteen claimed to grow these bugs, and as valuable as they were—well, if she figured out how to do it, she for sure wouldn't be publishing her results for anybody and his brother to copy.

  "Why, when I was in graduate school, I needed to collect some samples of the luminescent strains of Barentsian cyanobacteria for my dissertation research. And I tell you! I tried to grow them on agar, and on Lochinver's LML, and even on Falcon's Medium with glucose, and nothing worked. Finally I got in touch with Professor Benedetti, who had collected the original cultures, and you know what he told me to put into the medium? Paper clips! Old-fashioned, unplasticized, wire paper clips. And it worked!"

  Maris made admiring noises.

  "But the point is," Benteen emphasized, "that so far nothing has worked with the 'mats. They like these particular rocks, right here in this cave, and this particular damp air probably supplies some catalyst we haven't identified yet; and they like human brains. Nothing else! That's why there's such a demand for them, because the supply is limited to what we can harvest from this site and the three other caves we've found with 'mat films. We've got researchers going up and down the coast looking for other cave sites, but for all we know, these four caves may be the only places on the planet where these particular biofilms are found. So you see, it would be impossible for somebody to be harvesting them without our knowledge. We have each growth site mapped before and after every harvest. You think somebody could come in here and cut a ten-centimeter square off one of these babies and I wouldn't even notice? It would be like taking ten square centimeters off my own skin." Benteen thought this statement over briefly. "Worse, really. It's easy to get skin replaced."

  "Then how is it being done?"

  "What d'you mean?"

  Maris thought she'd been clear enough. "How is somebody getting extra 'mats to smuggle off-planet?"

  "They aren't," Benteen said emphatically.

  "Oh, but—" Maris stopped short. Right, scumsucker. Explain to him exactly how you know somebody's smuggling 'mats? Calandra wouldn't know.

  "Oh, you know," she finally said. "One hears rumors . . ."

  "Rumors, schmumors. I can tell you of my own personal knowledge that the supply is carefully controlled and every single bacteriomat sample is accounted for from the moment it leaves its cave until the moment it is shipped to Rezerval."

  * * *

  Fru Stoffelsen was waiting at the dock when they returned. She started talking before Benteen handed Maris up the steps, and she continued talking all through the hot, weary journey to the Stoffelsen chambers. Maris recalled little of the jolting ride but heat, sweat, the ubiquitous white dust, and Ivonna Stoffelsen's voice going on and on, expressing her low opinion of men in general, Barents Trading Society officials in particular and her own husband most of all; fools who thought being a Diplo, sorry, Diplomat meant a young lady was a machine and not a young lady tired out from too many space transfers and in no condition to be subjected to speeches and tours of orientation and all that nonsense.

  And yet this Dwendle Stoffelsen seemed to be a very important member of the Society. He certainly acted as if he ranked all the others, just as Johnivans ranked everyone else in Tasman's underworld. Maris tried to imagine what would have happened if she or Nyx or even crazy Daeman had brushed Johnivans out of the way and countermanded his plans, and looked at Ivonna Stoffelsen's buxom form with dawning respect. Either these people had a very strong tradition of courtesy to women, or they had some very egalitarian customs. Either way, Maris thought she could learn to like it here, and even felt a slight pang of regret when she remembered that she needed to sneak off as soon as she was left alone for a minute. But there was really no alternative. "In-depth discussion," ha! Even if she got a chance to look at Calandra Vissi's official orders, she had a feeling Dwendle Stoffelsen was going to want more information about her plans than that. A lot more.

  Fru Stoffelsen's nonstop chatter was at least giving her some idea of what kind of world she'd stumbled onto. From the complaints interspersed between pointing out landmarks, Maris began to understand why life on Kalapriya reminded her of a holo about brave pioneers settling a new world. There had already been a civilization on Kalapriya when Barents "discovered" the planet: First Wave colonists, so long separated from interstellar civilization that they had developed their own culture and primitive technology. Due to previous disastrous encounters between long-separated First Wave cultures and the modern world, the Federation had protocols for minimizing the culture shock and easing these cultures into modernity. The state or world or confederation of planets that claimed rediscovery of a First Wave world was allowed to govern that world as a colony and to exploit its natural resources, but only subject to severe Federation restrictions. Technology beyond the level attained by the indigenous culture had to be necessary, approved by the Federation as necessary, and restricted to small enclaves that could be strictly segregated from the indigenes.

  In some sense, Maris had known all this, known that much of Johnivans' income derived from smuggling prohibited technology onto Kalapriya. Since Tasman was the one point through which all Kalapriya traffic had to pass, and since Johnivans had a lock on Tasman's underworld, the pro-tech smuggling business was a very profitable one indeed.

  And, of course, things that were smuggled onto a planet were not displayed openly. Maris would have said she knew that too, if anybody had questioned her. Only, just as the burning globe overhead was so excessively large and real compared to the suns she had seen in holos, the reality of Kalapriya itself far outstripped what she might have imagined a low-tech planet to be like. No visible technology higher than the best indigenous level meant no climate control outside of a few strictly guarded Trading Society official buildings, no powered walkways, no transport at all other than these boxes-on-wheels, no servomechs in homes . . . Ivonna Stoffelsen enlarged on these and other restrictions which, she felt, made the lives of Society officials and their families little more than one long sacrifice to the economy of Barents, and in so doing, gave Maris a better idea of what to expect on Kalapriya than any number of training vids could have done.

  By the time the jolting box turned in at an avenue sha
ded on both sides by trees as high as any three levels of Tasman, Maris thought she was beyond surprise—but the gracious white structure visible at the end of the avenue took her breath away. "Your—the Stoffelsen family chambers—are in that?" She'd seen holos of a palace, once. Three-level columns holding up shaded porches, walls pierced with viewing vents a level high and a grown man's armspan across, billowing swathes of flowered fabric . . . this seemed to have no relation to the squalid living conditions Fru Stoffelsen had been complaining about all the way from the meeting hall.

  "This," Ivonna Stoffelsen said with pride, "is House Stoffelsen at Valentin. Nothing to compare with the home House on Barents, of course, but . . . the Stoffelsens are Old Trader Family, you understand? "Those lindenbaumen"—she waved at the trees shading the avenue—"were put in by old Joris Stoffelsen himself. Not really lindenbaumen, of course. Not allowed to plant anything from Barents. Natives call 'em something else, one of their unpronounceable outlandish words. But they have flowers that smell just like linden, so we call them lindenbaumen. Makes us feel we've got a little bit of Barents with us in our exile."

  Faundaree made an odd strangled noise at this and Maris glanced anxiously at her, wondering if the girl was choking. "Ma's never been off Kalapriya in her life," Faundaree whispered under cover of Fru Stoffelsen's monologue. "None of us have. We're fourth-generation Society. She just likes to put on airs about being an exile!"

  Despite Fru Stoffelsen's words, Maris had been escorted halfway through the sprawling house before their meaning dawned on her. This wasn't the building where the Stoffelsens had chambers—this whole building was theirs! Interior space such as she'd never dreamed of in her life: high-ceilinged, white-walled rooms, their shadowy darkness a relief to the eyes after the glare of the Kalapriya sun. One room opened off another in a seemingly endless procession, all with wide windows and some sort of mechanical flappers overhead creating an artificial breeze, all furnished with tables and chairs and shelves made from real organics. Maris knew the material was organic because Fru Stoffelsen complained endlessly about the ban on high-tech imports that made it impossible for her to offer her guest a suite with proper self-molding chairs and an autobed.

  "I think this is beautiful, Fru Stoffelsen, honestly," Maris told her, standing in the center of one of the three spacious rooms that constituted her guest suite. "The space, and the quiet, and this wonderful furniture . . ." She ran her hand gently over the satin-smooth top of a chair back, appreciating the deep glow that emanated from the reddish-purple wood. "I've never seen anything like it."

  Ivonna Stoffelsen bridled with pleasure. "Now that's real courteous, coming from a young lady that's likely already seen more worlds than you've had hot dinners, Faundaree! You could learn some manners from the Diplomat, Faun, instead of standing there gawking like a great country girl with nothing to say for herself, as if you hadn't been educated on Barents and everything! Now over here we have the washing facilities, such as they are, Fru Vissi, and poor makeshifts you'll likely think them—"

  "Please, call me Mar—uh, Calandra," Maris caught the slip just in time, and let Fru Stoffelsen go on to explain away her awkwardness with the porcelain washstand and the bathing tub as the natural confusion of somebody used to the latest in high-tech refinements. "Really, after the tube-showers on Tasman, this is luxury," Maris said with perfect honesty. "All of House Stoffelsen is perfectly lovely, you have nothing to apologize for, Fru Stoffelsen, it's me should be apologizing for imposing myself on you this way. I could have stayed at a public—"

  "Not one of them shelters the Society puts up for officials in transit, wouldn't be proper for a young lady on her own," Ivonna cut her off. "And what are you giggling for now, Faun?"

  Faundaree hastily straightened her face and begged pardon. "It's just that the lady sounded almost like one of us for a minute, and then she slipped back into that awful Tasman twang, Ma."

  "Uh—automatic mimicry," Maris improvised hastily, hearing the echo of her own unfortunate words. Impowsing meself this wye. She strove for an effect similar to the Stoffelsen ladies' broad, slow vowels. "I'm afraid it's one of the hazards of the profession; I seem to pick up the speech patterns of anybody I'm with." She gestured vaguely toward her head, as if to implicate one of the embedded microchips that were said to give Diplos such amazing powers.

  Fortunately, the Stoffelsens didn't seem to know much more about what Diplos actually could and could not do than Maris did; in any case Ivonna was more interested in castigating her daughter for rudeness than in accounting for her visitor's slipping accent. Finally she allowed as how "Calandra" might want to rest before that evening's banquet and ball, chastized Faundaree again for standing there chattering when any fool could see the young lady was tired from her trip, and moved toward the door. Maris privately thanked the God of Looking After Unimportant Persons. If she could just be left alone for a little while, long enough to figure out how and where to disappear to—it was going to be more of a problem than she'd realized, with her olive skin and black curls she'd never be able to blend inconspicuously into a population of red-and-white-complexioned blond giants.

  "Bless me, what was I thinking of?" Ivonna exclaimed, halting her progress toward the suite door. "You'll be needing proper clothes for the ball—die of the heat, you would, in something like you've got on now, Fru Vissi—I mean, Calandra. Didn't your bosses warn you about us having no citywide climate control?"

  "Don't be silly, Ma," Faundaree interrupted, "Diplos know everything about everywhere, all planted in machines in their heads."

  Maris smiled weakly. "There are an awful lot of exaggerated rumors about what we know," she said. No need to mention that in her case the rumors would be more than just exaggerated. "And your mother's right. A sudden posting—I didn't even have time to pack appropriate things for this climate." That at least she knew was true. None of the high-tech, high-fashion outfits she'd raided from Calandra's closet would be suitable here. Given the restrictions on inappropriate technology, they were probably illegal. "You know how these bureaucratic offices are, Fru Stoffelsen . . ."

  "Don't I just! No consideration for anybody anywhere, and that's the truth! How much notice did you get, anyway?"

  "This time yesterday," Maris said with perfect truth, "I had no idea I was coming to Kalapriya."

  Ivonna Stoffelsen clucked some more about the well-known inconsiderateness of all bureaucrats everywhere and finally, half towed by her daughter, left with promises to send her second daughter, Saara, up with some suitable Kalapriyan-style clothes.

  "Not too soon, I hope," Maris muttered as soon as Ivonna and Faundaree were out of sight.

  "The Fru desires—?" piped up a fluting voice behind her.

  Maris gasped and whirled to see a squatting form where she'd thought there were only shadows. The form elongated, fluttered, moved forward and became a slender-boned person even shorter than Maris, bowing deeply.

  "Who the—who are you?"

  The small person looked up at Maris. Its dark face was placid. "This one called Kamnan, set here to serve Fru because speak ver' good Galactic. But could not understand what Fru said just now."

  "Oh. Um. It doesn't matter. I don't want anything, could you just go away for a while?"

  "Not speak good enough?" Dark, liquid eyes became even more liquid with welling tears.

  "Speak great, Kamnan, you probably speak better bunu Galactic than me, but I—don't—want anything right now, understand?"

  "Understand. Will wait." Kamnan sank back down into her—his?—corner, and Maris stifled a sigh. She hadn't figured on having to know how servants worked on top of everything else. Even in the holos, nobody had servants, not even toppies, except . . . well, except those old story-vids about pioneers. Okay, it made sense. If you couldn't have so much as a dust-sorber, let alone a molecular clothes box, then somebody had to push things to clean the floor and do whatever you did to get clothes clean without a moly-box, and it was probably not the most interesting
work in the world, so if you were a toppie—and the Barentsians seemed to think they were all toppies—you got some lower-level type to do it for you. Which, in this case, probably meant a native Kalapriyan.

  Maris felt quite proud of herself for working all this out unassisted. There hadn't been much call for thinking things out in Johnivans' gang; Johnivans himself did all the thinking; what he wanted the others for was to carry out his plans.

  I was a servant, she thought suddenly, his servant, and so were all the rest of us. I thought he was my friend, but he wasn't; he was my boss. He didn't save me from working the corridors because he cared about me, but because he thought I could be useful. All he ever did was use me—use all of us.

  That thought made something deep in her chest hurt; she felt more alone than she had since her days as an orphan without a gang, roaming the lowest levels of Tasman and stealing or begging just enough to keep alive. Don't think about it now, think about practical things; think about where you are now. There was certainly enough of that to keep her newly discovered intellect busy! This Kamnan, who couldn't be sent away, who acted so subservient and looked so different from the other people she'd met, must be a Kalapriyan—all right, she'd already worked that out, but what she hadn't seen at first was how useful Kamnan could be. She could tell Maris all about Kalapriya; maybe she could even teach her enough of the language to cover up Maris's total lack of Diplomatic language implants.

  "Kamnan—" Maris began, and then was interrupted by a flurry at the door.

  "Masaidtobringyousomeclothestotryonyou'reaboutmyheighttheyshouldfit. You'reFruViissiright? I'm Saara."

  "Huh?"

  "I said," repeated the pile of light-colored organic fabrics filling the door, "I'm Saara."

  The long bare legs under the fabrics moved forward; a cloudburst of lightweight white fabric covered with tiny flower prints billowed over the bed, and a girl just a little taller than Maris looked her over gravely.

  Maris returned the assessing look. Not a giant like the rest of the Barentsians she'd met, this Saara, and instead of a wreath of yellow braids her hair was cut short and brushed up in a sort of defiant crest. And it wasn't yellow, either, but a mix of pink and turquoise stripes. The girl was so slender that she gave an impression of being extremely tall, but it was really just long graceful bones and a way of carrying herself, that boss-of-all-the-world look all Barentsians seemed to have.