The Devil's Eye ab-4

by Jack McDevitt

  "We think they're worried about the economics," said Peifer. "It would scare the hell out of people. The economy would collapse. It might be hard to hold society together if you have to take a short-range view." "Short-range?" I said. "Three centuries?" "They're probably right," said Alex. "It wouldn't be the short-range view. It would be that there's no future." I thought about Wexler selling his property. Cashing out while he could. "What would happen," Alex asked, "if it arrived in this area? How big is the damned thing?" "That's anybody's guess." "Why do you think it's coming here?" Saberna crossed his arms. "I think the government went out and looked. And they didn't like what they found. Vicki Greene found out about it somehow, and they had to keep her quiet. Why else would they have done the lineal block?" Alex was rubbing his eyebrows, staring down at the floor. "How would they even have known where to look?" Saberna was having trouble keeping the exasperation out of his voice. "It would be a very easy threat to check. You would only have to be concerned if it were coming in this direction, is that not right? Yes. They could have found out its theoretical velocity. And they knew it was out near the Lantner world thirty-three years ago. After that it would simply have been a matter of doing the math." Alex shook his head. "That can't be right," he said. "Why not?" "If you're correct, what's the point of building the shelters?" Saberna held out his hands, palms up. Wasn't it obvious? "It's a distraction. They know rumors about the distortion have gotten out. They're trying to sell the Mute story." I hadn't heard any of the rumors. "The mainline media stay away from them," said Peifer. "But we've been hearing them for the last two months. I think this is exactly what's happening. Global has been reporting that some people near the top of the government have been divesting themselves of holdings and converting their wealth into Confederate currencies. The sort of thing you might do if a major catastrophe was on the way. But on the other hand, economists are talking about a downturn, and they say divestment routinely happens at such times." "You think it gives credence to Ecco's ideas?" "I don't know. Maybe it just means stormy weather ahead, and they're putting their holdings in the vault. But hell, if the end of the world is coming, then yes, I'd expect the people who know about it to be trying to get clear. And take their money with them." His eyes grew hard. "And they'd have every incentive to keep it quiet."

  Despite their name, the Starlight Suites had no suite. The proprietor seemed to think that a suite was a room with an elegant name. So we had separate quarters. I retired to mine, got ready for bed, killed the lights, and took a minute to look down at the street. We were on the top floor, the fourth. There were shops across the way, a legal office, a landing pad. I half expected to see someone watching us. But it was quiet. Maybe we were safe. Nevertheless, I didn't unpack my bag, other than to hang up the new clothes I'd bought. This was my first experience being on the run, and I can't say I cared for it much. I was still pumping too much adrenaline, I guess, to sleep well. I watched the HV for a while. Finally, toward dawn, I drifted off. We went to breakfast at a place called Bandy's, where we both grumbled about inedible food and avoided talking about interspatial rifts. "We'll keep the hotel room here," Alex said. "But I think it's time to head for the asteroid." I thought so, too. But on the way back to the Starlight Suites we saw a guy coming out of the building. He paused on the front steps, gazed across the street, and walked away. There was something of Agents

  Krestoff and Bong in the way he carried himself. I steered Alex into a turn. "Stay away from the building," I said. "I think so, too." "Give me your key." He produced it. "What are you going to do?" "Make sure we don't get picked up again. You go back to Bandy's and have some coffee. I'll come get you when I'm sure it's safe." The Starlight Suites lacked a rooftop parking area, but there was a connecting walkway with the Weidner Building, which housed several business offices. I left Alex and walked into the Weidner Building. Rode the elevator up to the fourth floor and climbed a set of stairs to the roof. The door was locked. But my room key opened it. I let myself out onto the roof, and crossed to the Suites in the connector. It was cold. I hurried down to ground level, keeping to the staircases. I took a good look around the lobby before I showed myself. When I was satisfied no one was there except the bot at the desk, I walked over to her. "Hello, Dale," she said pleasantly, using the alias we'd given the hotel. "What can I do for you?" "Has anyone been asking for us? Either me or Henry?" The bot nodded. "Um, yes. A police officer was in here a few minutes ago. He showed us pictures of you and the gentleman." "What did you tell him?" "That I'd never seen you. But I don't think he believed me." I gave her some money for the owner. "Thanks, Hass."

  I went back up to the rooms, grabbed my bags and Alex's, and dragged them up onto the roof, across the walkway, and down through the Weidner Building. I hauled the two bags out onto the sidewalk, flagged down a land cab, went to the restaurant, and picked up Alex. Twenty minutes later we were at the train station.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  "It is not true, Mirra, that anyone who walks through that door simply vanishes. Walks out of the world and is never heard from again. It's true of some. I, however, would be perfectly safe. In fact, virtually anyone you brought in from the street would be perfectly safe." "Who then, Professor?" "Only those you love, Mirra. Only they are threatened."

  - Midnight and Roses

  We rode the train into Marinopolis. On the way, Alex asked me to make a shuttle reservation. For one. Uno . "How come?" I said. We were seated in a compartment, just back from the dining car with sandwiches. He looked out at a large patch of farmland. "Chase, we both know they'll probably be waiting for us at either the terminal or at Samuels. Probably both places." "I know." "We can't afford to have them take both of us." "So what are you suggesting?"

  "I'm going up alone. If I make it okay, I'll look up your friend Ivan and see if he can be persuaded to take me out to the asteroid. I won't try to get Belle because I'm pretty sure Wexler'll be watching it." He took a deep breath. "You think Ivan would go along?" "Maybe," I said. "Well, we'll have to give it a try." "Alex, I don't like this." "Neither do I. But we have to play our best shot." I did what he asked. But I also went into a sulk. "I know how you feel," he said. "But we're going to do it this way. Now, before we get to the station, I have something to show you." He drew the blinds, took out a notebook, and killed the lights. "I don't think we need be concerned about a rift." "Good," I said. "Why?" He activated the notebook. It gave us a soft glow. "I think Saberna's a guy on a mission. I checked him out. He's been trying to make the case for spatial rifts for years. It's his pet project. If he finds one, maybe they'll name it for him." "So we're, what, back to the Mutes again?" "I don't think so. We talked about the Calient mission." "Yes." "Watch." He primed the notebook. A yellow globe appeared in the center of the room. "Seepah," he said. Eight smaller lights, representing planets, were circling it. "Okay, let's look at the position of everything when the transmissions stopped." The orbiting lights glided to a halt. "The monitors that shut down were on the third and seventh worlds." "Okay." He paused. "Notice anything?" "Just lights." "The third and seventh worlds are on the same side of the sun." "So's the fifth world. And for that matter the outermost." "The fifth world was already shut down. That's the one with the failed transmitter." "But the signal from the eighth was still coming in, right?" "Yes. Maybe it was too far out." "Too far out for what?" Alex is a decent-looking guy. Especially when he gives you the big smile that always indicates he's figured out where the Ibritic tomb is, or some such thing. I got that smile then, underscored by the half-light. "I don't know yet." I took a bite out of my sandwich and chewed slowly. It was good. "Alex, what are you trying to tell me?" "The transmissions stopped six centuries ago. Six hundred fourteen years, to be exact." "Standard years?" "Yes." "Okay. So what's the point?" I took another bite. Chewed some more. "Let me show you." Seepah's system blinked off. Callistra appeared. A bright azure light near the window. Then a dim yellow star near the door. Seepah. And, finally, off to one side and still farther away, almost flat against
the door, a tiny red light. The asteroid. "I'm going to draw an arc around Callistra, at Seepah's range," Alex said. He pressed a pad on his notebook and the arc appeared, to the extent the dimensions of the room would permit it. It passed through the dwarf star. Next, we got a second arc, drawn through the asteroid. "The distance from Seepah," he said, "to the asteroid is more than two thousand light-years." "Okay." "But the distance between the arcs is only five hundred eighty-one light-years." "Alex, you say that as if it has some significance." "The Lantner incident occurred thirty-six years ago. The loss of the Seepah signal happened six hundred

  seventeen years ago. As the good Professor Saberna would put it, do the math." It didn't take a genius. "But it can't be the same thing happening in both places," I said. "They're too far apart." "I'll tell you something else: The Lantner and the Origon didn't disappear. At least not in the way we've been led to believe." "Explain." "The ship that was sent to look around found something other than what was reported. That's why it blew up a couple of days later. So nobody would be in a position to contradict the official story. It's why the captain who carried Vicki out there disappeared." "They saw something?" "Yes. The second vehicle would have been manned by Nicorps people. It was a cleanup operation. They got rid of whatever was left." "So what actually happened? Was it the Mutes?" "I doubt it. But the answer is out at the asteroid."

  The train pulled into Marinopolis. We grabbed our luggage and headed for the doors. I was still not happy as we climbed down onto the platform. "Don't be angry," he said. "You know we have to do it this way." I noticed a uniformed police officer watching us. Looking down at a notebook. He started in our direction. Alex saw him, too. "Split," he said. He grabbed his bag, gave me a shove, and hurried off in the opposite direction. The officer began talking into his link and took after Alex.

  I waved down a taxi and went for a ride. I didn't have a destination. "Just take me to the spaceport," I told it. Then I tried to reach Alex on his link. An unfamiliar voice answered: "Ms. Kolpath, is that you?" Damn. They had him.

  "Please answer. We're not trying to hurt anybody. This is the police."

  I broke the circuit and called Peifer. "Rob, they took Alex."

  "Damn."

  "Can you do a story? Put some pressure on Wexler?"

  "Sure. Give me the details. What's going on?"

  "I don't know."

  "That's not easy to write."

  "I know."

  "Okay. Look, I'll check the police reports. We should be able to find out what's happening with him, anyhow."

  "Maybe." I didn't know where to go from there. "Rob, I need to get out to the asteroid. Can you make me part of a news team or something? And we both go? If we did that, I could probably get through. And you might get your story."

  "But why, Chase? We keep going around in a circle. Did you guys find evidence of the rift?"

  "There's no rift, Rob. At least, I don't think there is."

  "What, then?"

  "I don't know. Alex thought we'd find out if we could get to the asteroid."

  "Great."

  "So can you help, Rob?"

  "Let me see what I can do. I'll get back to you."

  I moved into a hotel in the center of the city. And I sat in it, watching newscasts, watching talk shows, and I saw nothing about Alex. Heard no mention of him. There were reports, though, of another

  encounter with the Mutes. The administration announced that plans were going ahead to increase "substantially" the size of the fleet. And work had begun on another group of shelters. Administration officials appeared everywhere and were reassuring. "We're protected by a cosmic ocean," one of them said. "The Mutes are coming out here because they think we're an easy target. We're going to fix that." "Then why," asked an interviewer, "do we need all those shelters?" "We're sending a message," he said. "If they come here, we'll stand our ground and go to all-out war if need be. Once they see that, once they see we aren't going to just sit here and let them run us off, we're confident they'll understand that this Administrator is not going to tolerate recurring attacks."

  I don't usually drink alone, but I had a couple that night, in my room, while I wondered what was happening to Alex, where he was, whether they were trying to press him to find out where I was. Eventually Peifer called. "Sorry, kid," he said. "But it's no go." "Which part of it?"

  "All of it. When I told Howie-my editor-he ran it past the fifth floor. That's our senior people. I'm not sure what's going on, but somebody up there vetoed it. They told Howie we weren't to touch any part of the story. The official line is that it's pointless, that nobody knows anything, and to just let it go away."

  "Rob- "

  "Chase, if you can come up with something solid, I'll do something with it. But I can't hang everything out there when we don't even know what it's about."

  "Okay."

  "Also, I checked on Alex."

  "And- ?"

  "The police claim they released him an hour after they picked him up. They're saying it was a case of mistaken identity."

  "Rob, he'd have called me."

  "And he hasn't?"

  "Not a peep."

  "Well, maybe he-"

  "What?" "All right, look: I'll keep checking. If you hear from him, let me know." He looked tired. "Do you need a place to stay? We've got a spare room."

  "No. Thanks."

  "What are you going to do?"

  "I don't know. Get your story, I guess."

  "What do you mean? How are you going to do that?"

  "I'm going to the asteroid. And find out what this is about."

  "Yeah, good. How are you going to manage it? Grab a taxi?"

  TWENTY-SIX

  There are times when you must stand in the night with no place to put your feet.

  - Love You to Death

  Maybe Peifer had something. My father always said, if you're serious about getting somewhere, take a taxi. There was, of course, no way I could ride a taxi to a destination thirty-three light-years out. But I might be able to use one to get to the space station. Okay. Cabs will take you up to a couple of kilometers, but they aren't designed for high-altitude flights, let alone one that that would run out of the atmosphere altogether. But it was an option. I'd have to wait until the sun went down. Most people would think that, if you went up in the daytime, up to orbital altitudes, you'd freeze. But in fact, the sun would turn the taxi into an oven. So I waited until late afternoon. Then I went over to Central Mall and grabbed a sandwich and a fruit drink. And some dessert. Wasn't sure when I'd eat again. Afterward, I stopped by a general supply shop and got some tape. I went shopping for a plastene jacket and settled on one that looked almost airtight. It wasn't something I'd want to wear in public, particularly, garish green with a salacious dragon on the back. But it was exactly what I needed. Next stop was home furnishings. I browsed among the window curtains and bought a tieback, a soft strip of blue-green fabric that would have been perfect for my living room. I carried the jacket and the tape and the tieback to the roof and picked out my cab, a late-model Karaka that looked sturdy and well maintained. It waited patiently for me, and I climbed in. "Taxi," I said, "let's go fill up. I'm going to ask you to take me to Quahalla. And bring me back." Quahalla was halfway across the continent. "I have adequate fuel, ma'am," she said. "I get nervous about long trips. Humor me. Let's fill up anyhow. I'll be much more comfortable."

  "As you wish, ma'am."

  It takes next to no fuel to keep the antigrav unit running. The jets, of course, were another matter. So the plan was to leave them off. What I needed was to get to the right altitude and stay there. I wouldn't be able to go anywhere once I'd arrived. But that was okay.

  "Where in Quahalla do you want to go?"

  "I'm still deciding. I have several errands to run." "Very good." We pulled into a depot and filled the tank. The antigrav unit and the jets used the same fuel. I'd have liked to fill two or three extra tanks and put them in the cab, but I'd have no way of getting the fuel into the s
ystem. When we'd finished, we rode over to Kreitzel's Sea Sports and picked up an oxygen tank and a mask. Next I needed two blankets. When everything was on board, I asked the AI whether the taxi was safe at higher altitudes. "Absolutely," she answered. "No leaks?"

  "None."

  There are rules everywhere about how high skimmers can go. In most places the limit's about three klicks. Although they are by law restricted to low altitudes, they're nevertheless equipped with a life-support system. Any piece of equipment with an antigrav unit can go pretty high if something unforeseen happens, like a drunk, so an air supply was standard. It, plus the tank, would give me roughly six hours, but if I didn't get rescued long before that, I would be in deep trouble. I connected the mask to the oxygen tank and tied everything down so it wouldn't float around in the cabin when we lost gravity. I put one of the blankets on top of the tank and tucked it in so the tank wasn't visible. Then I put tape around doors and windows and anywhere else I could find where air might escape. When I'd finished, I told the AI to take us up. We lifted off, but the taxi immediately started asking questions. It was designed to refuse foolish instructions in any case, so I disconnected the AI and took over manual control. That's illegal, too, of course, barring an emergency. I suspected it had automatically sent out a signal to law enforcement, but I didn't see anybody in the area. We rose gradually out of the traffic streams and headed for the clouds. I took it easy, in order to conserve fuel. I was going up to thirty-one thousand kilometers, the altitude of the space station. Once I reached it, I would need as much as was left to keep me up there. The sun was beginning to sink below the horizon when a red light began blinking. The radio burped and came to life. "You in the taxi: Please answer up. Push the black button to the right of the meter to reply."