Roget thought he could see two large tunnel mouths, both semicircles wide enough to encompass the dropboat, before the wall resealed itself, leaving a seamless expanse. After a moment, he walked up onto the dais and stood next to the access hatch. He rapped on the hatch. The boat was solid, not a holo image as he had hoped. He touched it and used his internals to pulse the craft.
ID response accepted. Interrogative instructions?
“It’s as you left it,” Lyvia said from where she stood by the placard. “We did depower a few items. We preferred that you not try anything suicidal. The self-destruct and control locks are inoperative.”
Roget looked over the dropboat. It wasn’t huge, but it still massed more than ten tonnes. The Thomists had located it, transported it something like two thousand klicks, if not more, in less than a local day, and casually deposited it in an “exhibit” area under the Ministry of Education and Culture. Even if they had used air transport, that suggested, again, more than met the eye. Were his very perceptions being altered?
Why would any perception alteration even be necessary? Any human or alien culture that could do that would have no problem infiltrating and destroying the Federation from within. Or, at the very least, destroying all information on Haze/Dubiety within the Federation archives.
Finally, he stepped away from the dropboat. He smiled politely at Lyvia. “Where do we go from here?”
“I thought you might like to see the subtrans control center.”
Roget stepped off the dais. “Lead on.”
14
24 LIANYU 6744 F. E.
On Friday, Roget spent the morning walking around the center of St. George doing spot monitoring, something he was supposed to do at random at least twice a week. This was the first time he’d managed it since he’d begun the job.
Just before noon, he walked up past the tram station, checking the time. He was earlier than he’d thought. Instead of waiting around the monitoring office until he went to meet Marni, and getting trapped by Sung, or fielding the chief monitor’s questions, he crossed the boulevard and then Main Street to get to the east side of History Square. Glen-David’s was open, and he stepped inside.
“Good day, sir,” said a young woman.
“And to you.” Roget didn’t see the older proprietor.
“Can I help you with anything?”
“No, thank you.” Roget smiled and moved toward the paintings and the few multis hung on the north wall. He kept looking, but the dachshund painting wasn’t there. Finally, he walked back to the young woman. “There was an oil of a dachshund…”
“Oh … that.” The woman looked embarrassed. “That was a terrible mistake. Someone bought an image, and Father almost sold him the original. They didn’t realize…”
“An old master? Held in the family, and the heirs didn’t realize it?” asked Roget.
“Not a master, but very valuable. The appraisal came back at over a hundred thousand yuan.”
“It was a good painting.” Roget grinned. “I bought the image.”
“You’re fortunate. It’s never been made public. It dates back to before the wars.”
“It’s that old?”
“It was nanocoated less than a century after it was painted, Father thinks.” She cleared her throat. “The owners would appreciate it if you held the image privately.”
That suggested the painting was worth more than the appraisal, possibly far more, but Roget hadn’t bought the image for gain, nor would he have bought the original for that reason. Because the image wouldn’t ever have that much value, he did wonder why they wanted it held privately … unless ownership of the painting was in doubt. That wasn’t his problem, and he certainly had no way of pursuing it, nor any interest in doing so. He just liked the image. “That shouldn’t be a problem. I bought it for myself.”
“Thank you, sir.”
Roget couldn’t help but smile as he left. He’d had better taste than he’d known.
He reached the door to the accounting office at one minute before noon.
Marni Sorensen stepped outside before he could open the door. She wore a long pale blue skirt and a deeper blue, short-sleeved, round-collared shirt. “You are punctual.”
Roget inclined his head. “When I have a reason. You’re a very good reason.”
“You’re also gallant.”
“Shouldn’t all men be? Shouldn’t all women be charming?”
“The first perhaps. The second … I’ll reserve my options there.” She laughed.
“We do need to eat. Where would you recommend?” asked Roget.
“Have you been to the Lee House?”
Roget recalled seeing it, but it had looked less than promising. “No. I tried Lupe’s, but my mouth burned all afternoon. I’ve been to the Caravansary and the Frontier Fort.”
“They’re small-town attempts at city cuisine. Do you want to try the Lee House? It’s not far, and the food is better than the ambiance.”
Ambiance? An unusual word for a small-town girl, except she was more than that. “I’ll take your word for it.” Roget smiled.
They walked side by side down the corridor, through the security gate, and out into an almost comfortable midday. High hazy clouds muted the desert sun as they started down 200 East.
“How was your morning?” asked Roget.
“The same as every other morning. Check yesterday’s entries. Run projections against expenditures. Cross-check problem areas.” Marni shrugged.
“You make it sound so fascinating.” Roget kept the irony in his words light.
“I’m not interested in fascinating. Neither is the regional comptroller. Fascinating would mean some sort of budgeting disaster. What about your morning?”
“The monitoring equivalent of yours. Check the anomaly list. Work out the schedule. Then go out and do the random spot-monitoring so that I can have lunch with someone before I go out and take more readings in the afternoon to check the possible anomalies. Most of the anomalies will be either one-time ambient spikes or the results of mechanical failures that people haven’t yet noticed, and they’ll be upset when they discover the costs of deferring maintenance or overworking underengineered equipment.”
“That’s because equipment and energy are so expensive here. People try to get by on as little as possible.”
“They could add soltaic cells.”
She raised her eyebrows. “They’re expensive. What good is all this sunshine if you can’t afford soltaic panels? Most of the smaller businesses are stretched thin as it is. The panels are just too expensive, and they have to be replaced.”
“Not that often.”
“Any replacement is too often in a small town, and parts are sometimes as expensive as the original panel.”
“That’s because of the environmental costs of manufacture,” Roget pointed out.
“Then why are the panels cheaper in Fort Greeley, Helena, or Colorado Springs? Or even in Topeka?”
“Transportation costs, I imagine.”
She laughed. “You have an answer for everything.”
The answer that Roget hadn’t given, and that Marni hadn’t voiced, was that the Federation made living in smaller and environmentally fragile communities almost prohibitively expensive, as well as uncomfortable. That was an understandable reaction to the excesses that had preceded the Wars of Confederation.
When they reached the John D. Lee House, Roget opened the door and held it for Marni before following her inside. The café was as unprepossessing as Roget recalled. An old battered wooden door with tinted windows so old that they were barely translucent was framed by two far wider windows that functioned better as mirrors. The entire café was no more than eight meters wide, with two lines of tables alternating with booths running back some ten meters. In a small open space in front of the door was a dark wooden stand. Both tables and booths were bare dark wood—or synthwood—covered with a hard transparent finish that revealed all the abuses the wood had taken over the year
s. Almost half the tables were taken, mostly by men, but there were several mixed groups, and even one table with three women.
“We just sit at any table that’s vacant and set,” Marni murmured, leading the way to the left and to a narrow wooden booth that could barely accommodate two, one on each side.
Roget gestured for her to take the front seat. That would allow him to watch whoever came in … or left.
Once he was seated, he looked around the booth, then saw the two menus—film-covered paper with a simple listing. He handed one to Marni.
“Thank you, kind sir.” She barely glanced at it before saying, “I think I know what I want.”
“You’ve been here often.”
“There isn’t that much choice in St. George, and it is close to work and not too expensive. I don’t come that often.”
Roget smiled, then studied the menu, finally deciding on Southwestern chicken with Mex-rice.
An older woman in a long skirt and a short-sleeved gray blouse appeared. Her gray eyes were as washed-out as the blouse. “What’ll you be having, Marni dear?”
“The Dutch-oven beef and potatoes. Lots of sauce. Water.”
“You, sir?”
“Southwestern chicken and the Wasatch lager.”
“Be right out.” The woman stepped away, neither rushing nor dawdling toward the serving window at the back of the café.
After a moment, Marni said, “I sometimes have the chicken. It’s not bad for a change.”
Roget looked across the shiny but battered wood booth table at Marni. “You seem rather overqualified to be a finance clerk.”
“It’s about the best a university biology grad can get in St. George. You might notice that jobs aren’t exactly plentiful here. I thought about trying to become a monitor, but I wasn’t that interested in the kind of science you need to know.”
“The kind of science? That’s an odd way of putting it.” Even as he said that, Roget wondered why she hadn’t mentioned her advanced degrees.
“The kind of science that is as much environmental propaganda as science.”
“The Federation does have a certain bias against excessive consumption.”
“Only in Noram and Sudam … and Europe, what of it that’s still livable. I’ve seen the holos and the figures for the Sinese sector. They aren’t stinting in Taiyuan or Peiping or … lots of places.”
Roget didn’t point out that losers didn’t often get to be choosers. “They’re always looking for finance types. You could go there.”
She shook her head. “My family’s here. Besides, it wouldn’t be the same.” She paused. “Have you been there?”
“For training courses.” That was understating matters, but true. “It’s not bad. Different. Expensive on a monitor’s pay. Very expensive.”
“I don’t see how you could stand it, having to spend so much, and especially being so close to so many people…” She shuddered.
“There’s more privacy than you’d think. Most people just aren’t interested in others. We’d like to think so, because we want to believe we matter to others.”
“That’s why I like it here. People share so much, and they do care.”
“You’re fortunate.” Roget glanced around the café. “Who was John D. Lee?”
“He was an early pioneer.”
“I never heard of him.” Not before Del Parsens had mentioned Lee, anyway.
“That’s not surprising. He was tried for murder after he led a troop against early U.S. government infiltrators posing as settlers passing through. He was executed because he was Brigham Young’s adopted son, and the U.S. feds wanted to make an example out of him when they couldn’t get to the Prophet.”
“Oh.” While he didn’t know the history of the area in that kind of depth, Roget had some doubts. “An early Saint martyr.”
“Of sorts.”
At that moment, the serving woman returned with two plates, setting one before each of them and then returning with two glasses, one filled with water without ice and one empty and with an amber container. “There you go.”
The lager was cold; the glass was cool, but not chilled. Roget poured the pale amber liquid into it but did not drink, waiting for Marni to sip her water or take a bite of her food.
She sipped the water first, then began to cut the beef, covered with a reddish-brown sauce. “I wonder if grass-fed meat tasted that different.”
Roget shrugged. “Supposedly, high-end replicated beef is no different.” He cut a thin slice of the chicken and then ate it, finding it moist and tangy.
“How would we know? There are only the control herds anymore.”
“Maybe that’s why I prefer chicken. It makes more sense to grow it than replicate it.”
“How do you like it here?”
“It’s better than the Fort,” he said.
She nodded emphatically. “The Caravansary isn’t bad, but you pay less here. You might try Vhasila’s some time, too.”
“What kind of food do they serve?”
“Old Mediterranean.”
Roget took a swallow of the lager, then concentrated on his meal. He enjoyed the rice even more than the chicken and did not speak for a time. The lager was surprisingly good. He’d have to remember the brand, except it would doubtless be prohibitively expensive outside the region.
As he finished the last bits of rice and chicken, at the clank of crockery clashing, Roget glanced toward the rear of the café. There, a heavyset young man was clearing dishes from a table.
“Ernest isn’t always as coordinated as he should be,” observed Marni.
“Do you know everyone in town?”
“Most people do, after a while.”
“Where else would be a good place to eat?”
She frowned, thinking, before replying, “I told you about Vhasila’s, and the Desert Grille is good if you don’t want another replicated breakfast.”
The busboy stumbled, and the dish tub he carried jolted into Roget’s shoulder.
“Sir … I’m sorry…”
Roget blinked. For a moment everything went black.
Then he was sitting at the table, as if nothing had happened.
“Keir … are you all right?” Marni’s voice was urgent. “You looked so strange for a moment.”
“I’m so sorry, sir,” repeated Ernest.
“I’m fine,” Roget said. He wasn’t sure he was. His internal monitors indicated that he’d lost a full minute of consciousness, but there were no recognized toxins in his system. Not yet. He’d known Marni wasn’t trustworthy, but he hadn’t expected her to attack or do whatever in a public restaurant in the middle of the day. Still, he seemed to be all right. So far. Did he accuse her? He almost smiled. Of what? Even as a security agent he had to have some proof.
He took another swallow of the lager.
“You looked dizzy there for a moment,” Marni said, guilelessly.
“I was. It could be that I got dehydrated.”
“That can happen. Every so often, visitors wander out into the hills and die because they don’t bring enough water.”
“I’ll remember that,” he said dryly. Then he finished the last swallow of the lager. “I suppose we need to return to our various routines.”
“That might be best. Adabelle will be getting nervous.”
“Your superior?”
“She’s been here forever. You hang on to good jobs here.” Marni nodded toward the front of the café. “We pay at the stand.”
Roget rose, checking his internal monitors again. Nothing. As he followed Marni toward the front of the café, their server hurried to the wooden stand.
“For both,” Roget told the woman who had served them, “and 15 percent.”
“Yes, sir.”
Roget extended his CredID, checked the total appearing on the small screen, then thumbed the scanner.
Once they were outside, walking north on 200 East, Marni said, “You didn’t have to pay, but thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” Roget smiled. Paying for being attacked was something that hadn’t happened before. He had the feeling it might not be the last time, assuming he survived. He was getting worried. Why didn’t his system show whatever they’d done to him? What had they done? They couldn’t have brain scanned him, not in a minute and without equipment.
“How long have you been working at the FSS?” he asked.
“Eight years.”
“Do you think you’ll stay?”
“With what else is available here, where else would I go?”
Roget nodded, although he sensed a certain falsity behind her words.
“What about you?”
“They don’t like monitors to stay in one place too long.” Nor security agents. “We’re not supposed to get too close to too many people, and it’s hard not to in places like St. George. In the cities…” He shrugged, noting a faint twinge in his upper right arm. Should he go to the local med-centre? He almost shook his head. His internals were better than the local diagnostics. They’d find nothing.
Neither spoke as they crossed St. George Boulevard.
When they finally reached the FSS building and the door to the accounting office, he stopped and smiled. “You’re a very surprising woman.”
“Any woman can be,” she demurred.
“We’ll have to have lunch again. It will be my choice.”
“It’s always the man’s choice in the end,” she replied lightly.
“That’s what all women say.”
“What else could we say?” She paused, then added, “I need to get back to work.” She slipped into the accounting office.
Roget returned to the monitoring office, sitting down at his own console. He checked his internals again. So far, so good, but there was always the possibility of something delayed, and he needed to take care of that. He created a brief report on his personal monitor, including Marni Sorensen and the restaurant incident, then encrypted and burst sent it to his controller.
He hoped nothing would happen, but if it did … someone needed to know, and a report before something like a poisoning was a form of proof he hoped the Federation didn’t need to follow up on. Then he stood and reclaimed the bicycle.
Haze and the Hammer of Darkness Page 12