Now replacing the puck, he withdrew a set of tools and had an easy time opening the safe. No public official in a government such as Aldra’s could entrust all his wealth to a bank regulated by the State; they preferred not to have to account for it should they be required. With no other knowledge of him save that he was a public official, Alistair knew the man had this safe. It was only a matter of locating it.
There were gold coins, many of them old and most foreign. He helped himself to these, placing them in a small pouch of thin material. When the pouch was full, he drew tight the drawstrings and put it back in his thigh pouch. There was jewelry as well, and he grabbed those items which he could easily carry. His thigh pouch was nearly bulging with new contents.
It was beyond his ability to castigate in exact proportion to guilt. Probably there was any number of guilty parties whom he would never discover, but he was not going to let his imperfect information, a product of the secrecy with which the State conducted its affairs, absolve guilty government parties of responsibility. That some would go unpunished was not a reason for all to go unpunished. That some might be punished in excess of their culpability in the matter was a risk for which they themselves, because of their clandestine manner of operating, were responsible. It was not as if the theft of Nigel’s house and restaurant were the only sin for which they were guilty and indebted to Arcarians in general and Alistair’s family in particular.
As he slipped back out the porch door and clambered back down to the street below, his thigh pouch laden with a more suitable down payment for his father’s restaurant and his body buffeted by the omnipresent wind, he grimly reflected on how most Aldrans would have labeled him the thief and the councilman the victim.
***
Rounding the bend in the road and coming into sight of Nigel’s, Alistair suddenly tensed and his heart pounded. He was in the middle of the street, having grown a bit careless as he neared his destination. Candlelight shone weakly from the kitchen window, despite the hour. It was not unlike his mother to rise in the middle of the night to get something to drink, but she did not bother wasting candles for it. His searching gaze, seeing gray where a normal eye would see only blackness, quickly detected the Civil Guard ensconced in shadow, hiding across the street. Though Alistair must have appeared to him only as an indistinct and dark blur, his gaze was fixed on his form. Alistair could even see the squinting eyes and the way he extended his neck to get a better glimpse.
He darted into a side alley between two houses, knowing the officer would be hurrying to the spot where he saw him. Fortunately, the snow covering the street was so densely packed he left no footprints, and as long as he kept to the shadows in the corners, he was confident no one would catch him.
Tracing a path through side streets, he came to the cliff overlooking the ocean to the south. This was prime real estate and politicians and a few business owners owned most of the houses here. He crept through their back yards, following the cliff, until he came to the back of his father’s property. From his new perspective he could no longer see the kitchen window, and everything in the back was dark. Pausing a moment to scan the area, his keen vision did not detect anyone else, so he emerged from behind a row of bushes and advanced.
As he neared the wall, comprised mainly of the large window of the dining room, Alistair gained a view of the front and saw two Civil Guard, automatic guns hanging from straps on their shoulders, conferring with one another. The wind covered their words, but he already knew the subject matter. He changed his course and instead went behind the building, between it and the cliff’s edge. He passed the dining room and reached the central section where Nigel offered his other entertainments.
The odd construction of the restaurant made his goal easier. He entered a small alley-like opening, the result of two sections built in proximity to each other, and scaled the wall by placing his back against it and using his feet to push against the opposite wall. It was a technique he used many times during his service off, and the Null Suit with its gripping palms and soles made it easier.
He reached the roof of one section in a matter of seconds, and from there he walked to another part, a second story section, and used a similar technique to scale the next wall, although this time the walls were not opposite one another, instead meeting at a ninety degree angle. This was much more difficult, even with the Null Suit, but his finely trained body made the ascent.
Now two stories above the ground, he stood higher than all but the observatory whose hemispherical dome towered before him. This he declined to climb, preferring instead to skirt around it and head for the far eastern section of the complex, which was the Ashley house itself. The going was a bit trickier there, as the roof of the house was slanted and sported some ice, but the surefooted marine made it without incident to his bedroom window.
The lock had broken long ago and never been replaced, so he lifted the window and slipped inside. He did not dare take off his suit in his room, which was no doubt being monitored. Instead, opening his bedroom door, he listened and heard the hum of voices downstairs in the kitchen. As silently as he could, he crept down the upstairs hallway, avoiding the spots he knew would creak, and descended the stairs leading to the family room. The candlelight from the kitchen cast faint illumination, and he hugged the wall to avoid detection. He could hear his mother, father and one other speaking.
“Perhaps if you could tell us why you need to speak to him…” suggested Nigel. There was no answer. “I agree it’s strange he’s not here… it’s not against the law to go out at night. Maybe he just wanted a walk to clear his head.”
The conversation continued as Alistair slipped through the family room and down the short hallway that passed the foyer and led to the restaurant. Passing through the double doors, he turned immediately to his left when he detected the soft sound of treading feet coming down the main hallway. He crept back into the smaller side corridor and waited.
A soft glow of light preceded his sister as she held a lit candle in front of her. Her face was tired, her hair disheveled and she wore only a light nightgown. She passed by the corridor without a glance, went into the Ashley house and was gone.
Alistair continued down his corridor until he came to a large metal door locked with an electronic system. He typed in the code and opened the door before slipping into the supply room. After grabbing a length of rope, he left the room and relocked the door. As he made his way back to his room, he heard his sister speaking.
“I can’t say for sure he isn’t here; it’s a big building. But I can’t find any trace of him. He’s usually in the observatory if he’s not watching a 2D.”
He ascended the stairs as quickly as he could without compromising his silence. Back in his bedroom, he grabbed his clothes and stuffed them into a sack. Reaching under the bed, he grabbed his precious bars of gold and put them in the sack. He grabbed the gold coins from his thigh pouch, as well as the folded and now wrinkled documents, and tossed them in, as well as some books from his dresser. Then he tied one end of the rope around one of the thick wooden bedposts at each corner of his mattress and chucked the other end out the window.
Once outside and on the ground, he scampered to the cliff’s edge and got down on his belly, letting his legs slide over the side. When his searching toes found their familiar foothold, he descended the face of the cliff until, several meters down, he came to a ledge wide enough to stand on. He shuffled east until he came to a cave whose entrance was difficult to detect even in sunlight. It was small, too small for a grown Alistair to fit in comfortably, but it did afford an ideal hiding place for his valuables.
First taking his clothes out of the bag, he doffed his Null Suit and stood naked in the freezing air as he placed the suit in the bag. He paused only a moment to glance at the tattoo on his left pectoral before putting the bag of valuables into the small cave. The tattoo was an ornately drawn circle with eight regularly spaced points around it. Above each point was a small star, also ornately draw
n. He considered the tattoo with his usual mix of pride and regret. He had not wanted it, but it was not optional in the program in which he participated.
A sudden gust of wind reminded him how cold it was and he quickly threw his clothes over his freezing skin covered in goose bumps. When he was dressed again, he clambered back up the cliff face and back to the rope hanging from his bedroom window. He blew on his now cold hands before grasping the rope and climbing up. No sooner had he reentered his bedroom and, after untying the rope, tucked it neatly under his dresser than the door burst open and in charged two Civil Guardsmen.
“Alistair Ashley 3nn?” asked the one who had come in first.
Looking past them, Alistair saw the concerned faces of his father, mother and sister still in the hallway. “That’s me,” he confirmed, fighting to make sure his breathing was steady. “Who else would you find here in the dead of night?”
“Would you mind explaining where you have been?”
“I would actually. It’s not really your concern where I was or what I was doing.” So saying he tossed his shirt into the corner and, sitting on the edge of the bed, took his shoes off.
“I’m going to leave here either with a good explanation or a prisoner in handcuffs,” the officer informed him.
Tossing a shoe into the corner with his shirt, Alistair replied, “I was out doing some exercises. As you may know, I was off for the last four years with the marines on Kaldis. I’m no longer in the service, but I would like to maintain—”
“I know all about your service. Your mother has been explaining it to me for the last hour. I don’t believe you were out doing exercises.”
Alistair tossed the second shoe at the first and stood up to take his pants off. “You can believe what you like. When I break a law, feel free to come and arrest me. Until then, perhaps you’d care to leave me in peace so I can get a good night’s sleep. Why the hell do you care where I was?”
***
Stephanie was startled out of sleep by the ring of her communicator. She rolled over in her bed, grabbed it off her bedside table and put it up to her ear.
“This is Stephanie,” she said with more of a croak than a voice. She listened without speaking for a moment and then sat up, fully awake now. “What do you mean disappeared? … Why the hell did you go in the house? … Because he knows he’s being watched now… Did you find anything in his room? …”
Stephanie sighed and got out of bed, setting her feet on the cold floor. “He’s obviously smuggled something from Kaldis.” She listened for a moment more before grimacing in defeat. “Fine. Keep close watch… it won’t be in the house. They’ll be moving out soon, so he’ll likely try to get it then… No, nothing else. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
Sighing again, Stephanie hung up and tossed the communicator back onto the bedside table. She went to the bedroom window of her tenth story apartment and pulled back the curtain. There, off to the south, was the dark hulk of Tanard’s Mountain. The lights from the space port at the top shown several different colors, but no ships were taking off or landing. Below the space port all was darkness. The so-called mountain was discernible mainly by the stars it blotted out from the sky. Somewhere, nearly halfway up and on the far side, was a friend whom she would soon put in jail.
If the thought made her sad or hesitant, her blank expression did not reveal it.
Chapter 13
When the long awaited supply ship finally arrived, it was with great disappointment that the workers unloading the vessel noted how little food there was. While the ship was docked at Avon, the mayor skimmed off a portion of the cargo. The men doing the skimming had helped themselves as well. When all was said and done, only about a quarter of the food meant for Arcarius actually reached the hungry population.
At the same time, a rumor spread among Arcarians that a great quantity of food was stored at the Mayor’s Palace. The source of the rumor was unknown, but it turned out to be true. A large and unruly crowd gathered outside the Palace and grew in size and animosity until the right spark set them off. They stormed the Palace, swept in like a flood and quickly discovered the stored food. What was not immediately consumed was taken. Order was eventually restored, though not without considerable casualties, and ill will festered in the city.
On the national level, it was announced that the draft would be expanded to choose from all able-bodied citizens between the ages of eighteen and fifty-five. The government also announced its privatization plan. Transportation, communication and media, health care, education, law enforcement, national defense, minting and science/research and development would continue under the government’s control. Most of manufacturing, agriculture and resource extraction would be privatized with State regulation. Severe penalties were prescribed for any black market activity, and a new secret police force, to be called the Aldran Regulators and Overseers, or ARO, was formed. Those industries too small to come under national control, mainly service providers such as repairmen or landscapers, were left to the cities to regulate. Most of the municipalities created Independent Contractor Guilds, and all independent workers were to register with the appropriate local Guild.
Finally, and perhaps most stunningly, Rendral announced that for the first time in decades, trade with other systems, a supervised trade under strictly regulated terms, would resume. Aldra would trade its surplus for what the planners deemed it lacked. Also, the Incarcerator would be allowed to return to Aldra.
The Incarcerator was a company that ran prison ships that took a planet’s hardest criminals and deposited them on Srillium, the prison planet, an unindustrialized world the company made sure stayed that way. President Mortimer Duquesne explained that too many resources went into the prison system, that exporting the prisoners would free up manpower and other resources for the war with Kaldis.
***
“I think these are revolutionary times,” Elizabeth declared by way of a summary of the discussion she, Alistair and Oliver were having.
Alistair found himself, for the first time in a long while, in a booth at a restaurant not his father’s. Not blessed with the same prime location, it nevertheless had a view of the harbor to its south. On the other side of the restaurant one could see the taller downtown buildings. The three friends, however, were in the noisy and crowded central section, bombarded by a coarse, electrified music and without a view of city or harbor.
Elizabeth continued, pointing a finger at Alistair, “And I don’t care what you think. These are important times and big happenings.” She sipped at her drink with a stubborn look on her face.
“What do you mean by that?”
“Oh, you’re always a contrarian. You always have some story about how this and that has happened before a dozen times on twenty different planets.”
“How could it happen a dozen times on twenty different planets?” asked Oliver.
“You know what I mean,” was her response along with a slap on his shoulder.
“Well, this time I agree with you,” said Alistair. “Although it has happened before. And more than a dozen times.”
“See what I mean?”
“But I agree,” he hurried on. “This is, unfortunately, a momentous event.”
Elizabeth picked at her food with a self-satisfied expression. “It actually makes sense from an astrological point of view.”
“I doubt that very much.”
“Still a contrarian. I mean it. I was reading yesterday how… I forget… something about the Terran moon being aligned with one of the constellations or something. Anyway, the last dynasty of the Terran Empire fell during the same alignment.”
Alistair snorted. “The Hopfeldt dynasty fell during a currency crisis brought on by decades of inflation brought on by decades of warfare. I don’t think the stars—”
“This is exactly what I’m talking about. Stop showing off,” she ordered and threw a crumb at him. Oliver laughed. “And by the way, how many times do I have to flick my hair back before you notice
my new earrings?”
“One more time, at least.”
With an exaggerated sigh, Elizabeth flicked her silky brunette hair back again and exposed the earrings to Alistair’s view.
“OK. I noticed them.”
“Do you like them?”
“No.”
Elizabeth collapsed in defeat and Oliver broke into uncontrollable guffaws.
“Alistair, at some point you are going to have to learn how to please a woman,” she admonished.
“How do I please a woman?”
“You can start by complimenting her clothing and jewelry.”
“Even if I don’t like them?”
“It doesn’t matter whether you like them or not. Just say you do.”
“If it doesn’t matter if I like them, why are you asking my opinion?”
Oliver’s laughter redoubled in intensity. Fixing a stern gaze on the jolly giant, Elizabeth warned, “There are consequences for this sort of behavior.” She turned back to Alistair. “Be polite and diplomatic for once. Just say they look nice and make me happy.”
He frowned as he reconsidered the earrings. Finally, he said, “I think that never in human history has an earring had a nicer place to hang. In truth, if an earring’s job is to enhance the beauty of her who wears it, there is very little any earring could accomplish given such a task as these two are saddled with. I pity their inadequacy.”
Oliver brought his heavy open palm down on top of the table. “That was excellent! God damn, that was excellent!”
Elizabeth brought her cup to her lips and drank once more. Upon setting it back down, she said, “That will do.” She leaned in and gave Oliver a kiss on the lips. “I’m going to leave before he starts showing off again.” Elizabeth leaned forward and gave Alistair a kiss on the cheek and then got up and made her way through the rows of tables and booths to the exit. More than a few male heads turned to watch the sway of her hips.
“The only good thing about her leaving is watching her go,” Oliver wistfully commented and the two friends shared a chuckle. “OK, you can hide it from her but not from me. What’s bothering you, and why are we sitting here in the middle of all this noise?”
Withûr We Page 12