Tepper,Sheri - After Long Silence

by After Long Silence(Lit)

  Don Furz looked down on the Redfang valley from a high pass, her head barely lifted above the line of crystal prominences, swiveling slowly as she examined the lowlands with a pair of excellent glasses. She stopped several times and stared intently, adjusting the glasses for focus, then moved on. When she had scanned the entire valley, she wriggled back down the pass to join Tasmin and his acolytes, who were lying beside the trail playing with Clarin's crystal mouse.

  "They're there," she said crisply. "At least two bunches of them."

  "The same ones as last night?" Tasmin asked, handing the mouse to Clarin and getting to his feet.

  "They look the same. Who knows? One group is right down at the bottom of the trail, as though they were waiting for us. The other one is moving along down the center of the valley, as though they don't even know the other one is here."

  "Did you see robes? Tripsinger robes?"

  "In the group moving down the valley, yes. Two of them. But no robes at the bottom of the trail."

  "Which way is the 'Singer group headed?"

  "There's a passworded trail east of them. It'll take them in behind the Redfang range, about five miles south and east of us."

  Tasmin frowned. "We can wait until the 'Singer group goes on into the range, then we can cross their trail behind them and out of sight of the ones below us."

  "There's a route I know." She nodded. "If we can get behind the 'Singer group, I can get us into a fast north-south corridor."

  Tasmin nodded approval. "Then once we're far enough south to avoid immediate trouble, we can split up. Some of us need to get to Thyle Vowe. I wish his message had been just slightly less enigmatic, that he'd told us just what it is he's aware of, but we have to operate on the assumption he knows or at least suspects what's going on. Whether he does or not, we need help and there's nowhere else to get it."

  "I never intended to involve others," Donatella complained. "It makes me feel hideously responsible."

  "You didn't involve us, not purposely. The acolytes and I have talked this over, Explorer." He rose and stretched, the full sleeves of his robe dropping back to his shoulders as he reached for the sky. Then he turned to her, shaking his robes down around him. "We … or I should say, I started this journey to solve a couple of personal mysteries—things I needed to know about Lim, about my wife. I still want answers to those, but right now there are more urgent things." He turned away. It seemed a desecration to stop his search for the cause of Celcy's death, and yet he could do nothing else.

  "First things first," Clarin said encouragingly, filling the silence and giving him time to recover. She had pocketed the mouse and was now assembling her gear.

  "Right," Tasmin agreed, attempting a rather weary smile. "We've talked it over, and we want to help you do precisely what you were trying to do. On the face of it, telling all Jubal that the Presences are sentient is the most important thing we could do just now."

  Clarin nodded, running her fingers through her short, curly mop. "We agree about that. However, Tasmin and Jamieson and I—we all feel the need to be prudent. Once the CHASE Commission meets and reports, there will be no time for other efforts. The case has to be airtight. We have to be able to prove everything we allege. And so far, as Jamieson mentioned, we have only your word for everything. There could be another explanation for the attack on you, and that's the only thing we've seen with our own eyes." She shouldered her pack and went off to load it on the waiting mule.

  "But I told you … " Donatella interrupted.

  Jamieson said firmly, "You've told us about your arrangement with Lim Terrée, but there could be other explanations for that as well." He went up the trail to load his own mule.

  "I've played you the Enigma cube!" she protested to Tasmin.

  "You have no witnesses to making that cube, and it could have been faked," Tasmin replied in a sympathetic tone. "And quite frankly, it is … well, enigmatic." Seeing her expression he added hastily, "We don't disbelieve you! You're right, they are words, and they are sequential words. They just don't seem to be substantially responsive to what you were saying. Or thought you were saying."

  "I was scared to death," she admitted. "I hurried more than I should have. There were these constant tremors. And the Enigma's words sounded … well, they sounded a little hostile."

  Tasmin nodded. "We thought so, too, which is actually one of the best arguments there could be that the thing isn't faked. Presumably, a fake would have made better sense and have been more ingratiating. For the record, we believe you. Others won't, not necessarily. There has to be proof. It has to be as obvious to the people we will give it to as it is to you." He walked over to the mules where Clarin and Jamieson waited, listening attentively. "We have to have more than your word. There need to be witnesses."

  Donatella Furz looked from one expectant face to the other, uncertain and angry. "How do you expect me to … "

  "Oh, very simple," said Jamieson with a radiant smile. "We're going to talk to the Enigma, too."

  11

  Harward Justin made his home in a luxurious apartment on the top floor of the BDL building. At one time he had considered living elsewhere, but he had rejected the idea. It was convenient to be able to call upon BDL service employees when one needed a cook or housekeeper or cleaning crew. With BDL people, he need not concern himself with maintenance, discipline, or remuneration, though he occasionally intervened in such matters. Justin was a believer in the stick, rather than the carrot, and the personnel department's idiot insistence upon paying people more than they were worth often stuck in his craw.

  Still, using BDL services people worked well enough for his day-to-day needs. Since they did not live in, he was not required to feed them. When they were gone, he had a great deal of privacy. And it was in privacy that he indulged the needs that required other and very special servants.

  A neighboring windowless space had been walled off and cut up into two corridors of apartments and cubicles. This warren was connected to his own rooms with a locked and guarded door. Justin's personal servants lived there—the ones provided for him by Spider Geroan.

  Most people feared and hated Spider Geroan. Justin found him both interesting and admirable. He detected in Geroan's manner a kind of kinship. Even Geroan's face, which Justin had always felt resembled the face of a recent corpse, devoid of all life though not yet noticeably decayed, pleased Justin. He saw in that face a reflection of himself as he willed himself to be, remote and implacable. He found in Geroan a depth of silent understanding he had never received from any other human being. Justin suspected that others—"them," the world at large—would consider his amusements childish, on a level with cutting up live animals or terrorizing smaller children, the things boys did and then grew out of. However, Geroan did not seem to think him immature in his pleasures. Geroan knew all about the servant's quarters. Geroan had recruited most of the inhabitants. Geroan knew exactly why Justin wanted them. Or one of them, from time to time.

  Tonight, Justin was considering a particular one as he waited at the connecting door while the guard unlocked it. Inside this door to the left, another door led to the apartments of the professional servants: the doctor, the masseuse, the four social courtesans who acted as hostesses when Justin entertained, each with private and well-equipped quarters. To the right were the cells, tiny cubicles provided only with basic sanitation equipment. At one time he had thought to fill this corridor, but he hadn't done so. Many of the doors stood open, revealing empty rooms. He went to a closed door, third on his left, and thrust it open. It was numbered with a "6," and it opened only from the outside.

  The occupant was huddled against the wall.

  "Stand up," he ordered her.

  She did not seem to have heard him. Cursing, he pulled her to her feet and she swayed against the wall, almost falling. She was dressed in filthy veils which left her breasts and crotch uncovered. At one time she would have tried to cover herself. She did not, any longer. She did not need to, any long
er. The once voluptuous body, the once shapely legs were now mere bony caricatures. What had been a wealth of mahogany hair was now a greasy mop, hanging in lank strings.

  "Beddy-bye," he said to her, his code word, the word he had made her fear.

  There was no response. No movement in the dull eyes. No twitch on the face.

  Cursing again, he struck her and she fell against the wall to lie there without moving.

  "They're not going to come after you, you know!" he shouted. "They all think you're dead. They've thought so for months. The same night I brought you here, we got a body that Geroan had worked over and put it with your clothes out behind the Priory. Everyone thinks it was you!"

  There was not a flicker of response.

  Harward stormed out of the room, letting the door lock itself behind him.

  He let himself into the other corridor. The doctor's apartment was second on his right. This time Harward made a perfunctory gesture of knocking before he entered. Professional servants worked better if one allowed them a pretense of privacy.

  The man inside rose from the chair he had occupied, a finger marking his place in the book he held. He was neatly dressed in Justin's livery, a gray-faced man of about thirty-five. His hands trembled. "Yes, Mr. Justin," he murmured.

  "Room number six," Justin demanded. "What's the matter with her?" Part of the doctor's duties was to provide medical attention to those in both corridors.

  "Gretl?"

  "Number six," hissed Justin.

  "She's dying," the doctor said, his voice quavering. The quaver irritated Justin. If she was dying, it was her own fault. He had intended her to be one of his courtesans, but she'd failed to please him.

  "Why? What's the matter with her."

  The doctor's voice became calm and quite emotionless. Only the trembling hands betrayed him. "She's half starved. She's been repeatedly raped and abused, and she wishes to die."

  "Stop her."

  "I'm afraid there is nothing I can do. I can force feed her if you like, or put her on euphoric drugs if you wish. She might go on living then, at least for a while. She'll never look like anything much, of course."

  Justin curled his lip in irritation. Of course he didn't want the woman on euphories. The woman's happiness was not what he had in mind.

  "Get rid of her," he said.

  "I can't … I can't do … "

  "You can. Or I'll have someone call on your wife, Doctor Michael. Maybe you'd like to have her in room six?"

  The doctor was silent.

  Justin turned to go.

  "Mr. Justin … "

  "What!"

  "I've been here for a year … "

  "So?"

  "You told me after I'd been here for one year, you'd consider letting me see the children … " Now the face betrayed the man. A certain liquid glaze of the eyes. A quiver at the corner of the mouth.

  Justin's lip curled once more, this time with a deep and abiding satisfaction.

  "Yes," he assented very softly and lovingly. "I certainly will do that, Doctor. I certainly will consider it."

  The man's face broke. "Are they … are they all right?"

  "Why wouldn't they be?"

  "Please, Sir—"

  "Doctor!" The voice was a whip crack.

  The man bowed his head, wordlessly.

  "Your being a good boy," said Justin, licking his lips, "is what keeps your family the way it is."

  There was no response. Justin left him there, shaking very slightly, his finger still in the open pages of the book.

  Justin talked to himself, quietly and convincingly. He was well rid of the woman. She'd been a disappointment, so forget her. What he'd really wanted to do was prove a point, and he'd done that. Nobody said no to Harward Justin and got away with it. As for the doctor, he would give the man a little hope. Not much, just a little. Make him think his family's life was connected to what he did, how he acted. Make him believe that. Maybe show him a holo of his wife and kids. It would have to be faked, of course. Since one didn't want wives running around asking inconvenient questions, the doctor's wife had been dead since the day Geroan had picked the doctor up. As for the children …

  His ruminations were interrupted by the murmur of a well-known voice coming via annunciator from the reception hall, four stories below. Justin started and swore. Think of the devil. The voice on the annunciator was that of Spider Geroan. He was on his way up.

  "Well, Spider." Justin greeted him with a twisted smile and an affable squint of his slushy toad's eyes. "Nice of you to come and let me know the job's done."

  "Unfortunately, no."

  There was a silence, more uncomfortable than ominous. Spider Geroan had no fear of Justin's displeasure. A physical anomaly made him immune to pain, and he could not remember ever having felt affection or feared death. He was proof against threats. His only pleasures were both arcane and agonizing for others; his only reason for living was a narrow but persistent curiosity. His motionless face betrayed no interest in what he had just said, but then it never betrayed any interest in anything. It was one of the things Justin liked about Geroan.

  So now, Justin asked in the sympathetic tone one might use in inquiring after the health of a dear and valued friend, "I'm sorry to hear that, Spider. What happened?"

  "You wanted Don Furz's killing to look like a Crystallite attack?"

  "I did. I do, yes. She's very well-known, something of a cult personality. Her killing will be the final outrage that will move the Governor to lock up the Crystallites."

  The assassin nodded. "I sent a small group of well-trained men armed with knives. Your little man in the Priory boggled a set of orders, just as you directed, and got the Explorer sent up into the Redfang. My men were ready to take her as soon as she got far enough out that she couldn't retreat back among the Presences. While we waited for the appropriate moment, someone else went for her. Four of them. My men joined in, but a bunch of armed Tripsingers came along and drove them off."

  "Tripsingers! Armed? How many?"

  "My men said six. I doubt that. There were probably three. From the descriptions, one of them was likely Tasmin Ferrence, from Deepsoil Five. He was in Northwest City just hours before, and he mentioned to a truck driver that he wanted to meet Furz. There were two acolytes with him, probably his own. They were carrying at least one rifle. I don't know how or why they were armed, not yet, but I'll find out."

  Justin sucked on his teeth impatiently. "So, what happened?"

  "Several of my men were killed; the rest were driven off. Furz and the Tripsingers retreated into the Redfang Range."

  "She got away again!"

  "They got away." There was a slight emphasis on the they. Geroan had been paid to get the woman, but now he wanted them all. "Only temporarily."

  "You sent someone after them?"

  "Of course. You've paid to get rid of her, and you'll get what you paid for, Justin. It's ridiculous that it should be requiring so much effort. I've already sent some of my people into the Redfang after them, along with a couple of hired Tripsingers."

  "If you get to Furz, you'll have to kill Ferrence, too, and the Tripsingers won't stand for your killing their colleagues."

  "They won't be asked for their approval." His voice was almost weary, as though the subject bored him. No muscle of his face quivered, and Justin found this stoniness admirable. Still, he persisted. Justin sometimes dreamed of evoking surprise on that face, just once.

  "They may attack your people."

  "If they do, they'll be disposed of."

  "Then your men won't be able to get out!"

  Geroan turned his back. So, the men wouldn't be able to get out. They were expendable.

  Justin subsided. "Who were the men who beat you to it?"

  "One of them lived for a short while. I asked him."

  "And?"

  "He said he got his money from the Crystallites, but it came originally, so he understood, from Honeypeach Thonks."

  "Thonks's w
horelady? Why would Honeypeach want to kill Donatella Furz?"

  Geroan had wondered the same and had been sufficiently curious to institute a few inquiries. "I'm told the Governor's lady was enamored of one of the Top Six 'Soilcoast singers."

  "Rumored, hell, man. Honeypeach was and is enamored of all six of them and any twelve other men, women, or mules, anytime, anywhere. You mean Lim Terrée? The one who died? You're right about part of it at any rate. He did die while using a Furz score. Still, isn't it farfetched to think that was the reason?"

  "Perhaps. Her motivation could be mere pique. During a big reception here in Splash One some months ago, Donatella Furz introduced Honeypeach as Gereny Vox."

  Even Justin could appreciate the humor in this. He barked, "So? A slip of the tongue? You have people who would report a slip of the tongue?" He shook his head, wonderingly. Spider Geroan was the best in the business, and his success was known to be based on detailed and accurate intelligence, but could he really place credence in such tiny things?

  "Perhaps her own self-esteem is as important to her as your secrets are to you, Justin."

  Justin snorted. It was hard enough for him to imagine how an ex-erotic dancer and part-time prostitute on Heron's World could get pregnant by an ambitious bureaucrat, bear him a son, and end up displacing the Governor's well-bred wife to become the first lady of a not inconsiderable planet. That the same woman would be particularly jealous of her reputation surpassed belief. "I don't think it's a question of self-esteem, Geroan. It's a matter of vanity, plain and simple. Honeypeach believes everyone on Jubal knows her and either admires or envies her or both. If they don't, they should. She doesn't give a damn about her past. It's her present and future she cares about, and having people look at her is important to her. That's why the 'Soilcoast singers are almost her private property—vanity. It's why she makes the honorable Wuyllum keep his pretty daughter tied down—though I'm trying to talk her out of that." Justin licked his lips. "The woman wants no competition. Sometimes she has to be encouraged to allow a little."

  "Well, we'll soon eliminate whatever competition Furz may offer. If my men don't catch up to her within the next two days, I'll go after her myself. I cannot remember an occasion on which someone escaped my efforts three times. It cannot be allowed. My sense of what is fitting will not permit it to happen again." The words were like drops of water falling onto stone, emotionless, without particular force, and yet the will behind the voice would eat away just as the drops of water would, forever if necessary. If Geroan ever brooded, which Justin doubted, he was perhaps doing it now. "Just as a sop to my curiosity, Justin, how did you find out the woman is a danger to you?"