The Book of the Ler

by M. A. Foster

  “No, inattention to the main issue. The committee system doesn’t seem to save us from serial obsessions of our own, for which I thank Klyten for reminding me. We have been reacting to the wrong stimuli all along. We may be seeing too much, and becoming bemused with the process. We’re looking at details, trying to run an investigation . . . and the real events are flowing along and jumping up and biting us on the asses, now almost daily. We are looking bad, may I remind you. We simply have to get on top of this thing, and quickly, too.”

  Parleau stopped, and looked up at the distant ceiling. He mused, “Now here we have a girl who most probably has something to hide.” He shot a quick glare at Eykor, then at Plattsman. “And don’t try now to figure what. And by contrast, we have a group of ler who ostensibly have nothing to hide, in fact, one is certified clean by our own Control. But the first, the girl goes passive and loses her mind, and the latter fight like a regiment of devils. Now what in hell are we dealing with? Answer me that.”

  Klyten said, “The girl knew escape was improbable. The group was close to the fence.”

  “Hmph. That tells the obvious. It doesn’t explain the severity of the response.”

  Eykor said, “There was a man-loss in that.”

  Parleau responded, “I hardly need reminders of that, either. What I am after is why they were so aggressive.”

  Klyten said, “Defense, revenge, who knows. We can’t even determine who made the first move.”

  Eykor interrupted, “They made the first move! They fled, they evaded, they . . .”

  “They would possibly have done neither had not Errat set a goonsquad on them,” commented Parleau. “So now let me summarize where we are. All this time we’ve been playing it close to find out, to see, to know. And with this we get behind. And so we now find ourselves being put in an increasingly defensive position in regard to Appalachian and ConSec. I can well imagine what will be next: Piedmont will start agitating for a piece of the action, on some shabby pretext—they always wait for someone else to stir up the muck, and then they try to scoop up whatever they can.”

  Eykor asked, “Then what are we to do, different than we’ve been doing?”

  “I have the plan, suggested by this very meeting. First: Control and Security, get Errat, and I don’t care how you do it. Alive. I want him interrogated, no restraints, and I want everything out of him. But especially what in the hell was he trying to do and for whom. Second, I want to go back to the original incident, the girl. The instruments. Make up some working models. Eykor and Security do both; the rest of you do what he asks. I’m beginning to think we were right in the beginning. That’s what comes of second-thoughts. And now,” he said, wagging his index finger pedantically, “I have to leave, for a conference call with ConSec. I hope what I have to say will satisfy them for the moment, buy time, until we can get a basic handle on this. I hope that we all have this reasonably straight. And if you have any further business, feel free to continue. I’m off to the Communications Center.”

  Parleau stood, as did the others in deference to him. He gathered some notes from his desk, and left the office without ceremony.

  The others who were left were silent for a time, but that was only for the moment, and shortly the old free-for-all resumed. The clerk, who had sincerely been trying to keep up with the discussion, now gave up in consternation and elected to sit back and wait until his services were called for. They were not. After an hour, he discreetly left the table, and then the office, and returned to his shift assignment. They didn’t even know he was gone.

  The members of the Regional Board of Inquiry, occasional though the Board was, were creatures of ingrained habit and products of a unique environment. That this environment included in its capabilities the ability to monitor and observe distant events through electronic relay systems and Controllers was taken for granted by all of them. But the very ease with which they monitored distant events and made decision upon that which they saw, tended to build in them a habit of overconfident insularity, of projecting pseudorealities that possessed the disturbing habit of coming unglued, without existential reference and constant updating.

  Thus, in their analysis of the event that occurred near Complex Ten, they were basically correctly oriented to the most pressing problem: Errat. But lacking data, they all too hastily were willing to accept the assumption that he was running. He was not. Or that he knew a lot about what the planner behind him was after. He did not. Errat was content to act, as if alone, on a set of internal directions. He was, in essence, inertially guided, rather than controlled, by Command or exterior reference.

  Errat knew these things both from his long association with Controllers and his experiences as an agent for Continental Secretariat; especially that the key personnel of Seaboard South Region would make those assumptions, or something very close to them. He also knew that the successful undergrounder did not so much physically hide or run, as he relied upon flaws in the perceptual field of his opposition. He had not been in the field for some time, but the old skills did not die out, being founded upon universals about behavior, and he found them coming back easily. And his feedback told him that, at least to date, he had been completely correct.

  Nor did Errat trouble himself overly with deep self-analysis. He was in the field primarily because he enjoyed his work in that environment. Perhaps it would have been more correct to venture that he was addicted to it, and had been away from it so long now that he had been playing a very minor game in his own right, just to keep the hand fresh, so to speak. Then this had come along and offered a fine opportunity to work on a project, and, as a fine, artistic flourish, betray them all, and vanish, letting both parties go down locked in a death-grip; he felt only contempt for both parties, the secretive contact who had intercepted him, and the Region authorities alike. He thought of an aphorism to cover the situation, as he often did: the conspirator(s) were secretive because they were weak and ineffective; the Region authorities were weak and ineffective because they were secretive.

  Hando Errat was not under any illusion that he was secure, however much contempt he had for Seaboard South Region. Indeed, the greater part of his camouflage was based upon constant mobility, lack of fixture and base. This, admittedly, was somewhat a challenge in a society that placed a premium on lack of movement, but that only added spice to it. And wasn’t particularly difficult. He had been prepared for it. That, indeed, had been one of his first lessons, one that had enabled him to survive—that a good agent is not necessarily the one who gets quick results and promotions, but the one who survives to come another day. He had reflected on that lesson often, since this contingency had begun. Perhaps they would be interested to learn just how easily one could move around, when one could anticipate. After all—after Al Qahira, Esh-Sham, El Kuds the Holy, Jidda, Aden—Seaboard South had been a piece of cake to penetrate.

  Errat had affected the appearance of a maintenance man in this phase of his movements, and it had been a good disguise. He would hate to give it up. The fastidious avoided his grimy coveralls, and the local precinct Controllers and Security men never looked twice; maint-techs were considered the most conservative and habit-bound members of society, stable and fixed, beginning one day, ending it, always in standard time.

  He was engaged in moving his location again, but still within Region Central. He had never left it; indeed, he had not properly even left the sight of an observer perched atop 8905 . . . had there been such an observer knowing what to look for. They would expect him to make for the northern border of the Region, toward his ostensible home. But there was only a cubicle in the public dormitory there, and he could give that away without a thought. No, he had remained in Region Central. Later, he would drift to the south. They expected him to run, and he was standing still. And why chase him at all? He had left deliberate traces of himself at the last, so they would; he had even used his own programmed name, rather than an alias.

  Of course there was real danger; but for now he d
iscounted the possibility that Seaboard South would call in operatives from ConSec, some of whom Errat had first trained himself. No, they wouldn’t do that; they were too tied up in their own embarrassment to call them in, and by the time they came in on their own, he would be long gone. Let them look for him! But of all things, he was not worried about what Eykor might think of doing; the man had the imagination of an earwig, and in that hadn’t changed since Errat had first seen him as a Security man, way back when, in Alexandria, posted there from somewhere in Europe. His handling of that mutant girl had been typical: doing a halfway job, depending on machines, and then half-covering it up, protecting department hands. Contemptible all across the board! He knew that if he had got hold of her, she would have spoken, indeed would have begged to sing. And when they had got what they wanted out of her, it would have been worth sweeping it under the rug and to hell with the protected people, the Muties and their fine little country farm. What did they have to enforce it with? A pack was only as good as the arms that backed it . . .

  Errat walked through the rainy streets of the night, all in all, not too apprehensive. Alert, but by no means paranoid. Nobody seemed to be following him that he could detect, although a couple of incidents had cast some suspicions that way and sharpened his senses. Nothing he could put his finger on, though, and there were none of the follow-on betrayals of presence. He had highly sophisticated means to spot trackers. No, he had written it off as a symptom of his being out of practice. He felt completely in control of the situation, and being out in the open, on the street, actually gave him a feeling of exhilaration.

  In the quarter in which he was now walking, there were fewer lights and less traffic. He could see very well, however, by the sky-glow, the city light reflected from the low clouds. December, Twelvemonth. In this part of Central, the buildings were still the pastel-stained blocks of the newer parts of the city, but this was not a part of the city devoted to plazas and terminals. Rather more like the warehouse quarter, local supply depots and the like, mixed with shabby rooming houses, trans-dorms, workers’ godowns. He listened to the sounds of the city at night: distant machinery sounds, relaxed and unhurried, muted. Water gurgling in drains, splashing from vehicles. The humming of a hovercraft. There would be few out on a wet night like this. He listened carefully, for this was his environment, as some ancient predator might have listened to the sounds of the jungle. The predators were gone, but their example remained for the last predator, Man. The world was City, denser or less dense. The pattern of sounds now completely reassured him; things were normal, and exactly as they should be.

  Errat reached his destination, a down-at-the-heels roomer, used mostly by assistance-recips, itennies, retired laborers, and taxmen, all of whom had never made it to secure a family license. He looked it over carefully with his practiced eye, verifying what he had thought of the place earlier. A safe place for a couple of days, from which to put out his sensitive antennae into the grapevines of the neighborhood, time to watch the vidcasts and read between the lines. Then, thus reoriented, to move from once more.

  There was a doorman, as he expected, but this one did not seem either alert or zealous in his duties. In fact, he seemed half asleep; perhaps more than half.

  Errat approached the doorway, feigning a slight confusion, a hesitation, all the time watching the doorman for signs of betrayal. There were none. The man was becoming aware of him, but there was no alarm in his manner, just a slight annoyance, countered by a desire to interact with someone while at his post. And a sense of superiority, out of the position of doorman, while the stranger in the street, in the rain, had nothing, no place, no peers. He could afford to be haughty, but not so much that the stranger would become angry. A delicate balance of pecking orders. The doorman thought he knew his game well. Errat was a player of the same game who was leagues ahead of him.

  Errat greeted him, “Evening.”

  “Yourself,” answered the doorman. “Need in, or just visiting?”

  “Like in if I can.” Errat set down his duffel, which looked as if it contained tools, but which in reality contained clothing and makeup.

  “Bag?”

  “Corrosion-controlman, me. Hell of a job.”

  “Looks like. Where ya been? In the sewers?”

  “ ’Bout. Workin’ the cableways. You’d think they’d make ’em so’s a body cud stand, but no, ya haf’ta crawl.” As Errat registered the doorman’s speech patterns, he swiftly and subtly aligned his own speech patterns to fit them. Nothing worked so well as a properly reproduced local accent.

  “ ’Ja see any?”

  “See any what?”

  “C’rosyun.”

  “Shee-yit.”

  “Looks like. Well, what’s yur name and number?”

  “Tanner, twenty-four-A—Wait a min’t, I’ll dig those papers out, they’re aright here. . . .” Errat fumbled for something in the deep pockets of the coverall, a prolonged process.

  The doorman, convinced of his sincerity, watched him fumble for a time, and then said, “Man, there’s no need, there. Bugger it! Hold on, the nightmon’s out, but I’ll get you something. We got empties.”

  “No, no. I’ll need ’um for the ledge.”

  “Na, na, bugger the ledge, the ledgerkeep, and the ’orse ’e sat ’is arse on. We’ll get to it, by and by. How long ya be?”

  “Semipermer, me. Working this sector.”

  “Well, then, all right! No prob, come on.” And he lurched off his stool, opening the outer gate for Errat to enter. Now together, they walked down a drafty, damp, poorly lit hallway, arriving at a board beside a small window in the wall. The window was closed. From the board, the night watchman now removed a key, fumbling and deciding, handing it to Errat. There was a tag attached to the key, with a piece of dirty and frayed string.

  “Here y’are, two-oh-one. Up the stairs and to the right; ya can’t miss it. It’s the only one to the right, har, har. Say, want a sip a’ caffers?”

  “I’d like, but I gotta bag. I mean, the sheets are really barkin’. Been a long un. How ’bout tomorra?”

  “Ya off?”

  “Can take it.”

  “Well, all right! Say then, see ya then, um?”

  “Will do, there. What was your name?”

  “Bork, me. Paulie Bork.”

  “See ya then, Paulie.”

  Errat turned to the stairwell and started up, feigning tiredness and an older, hard-worked body. He reflected as he did so that he didn’t have to fake too much; he actually was tired. Letdown. He was past the last event of the day. This place was going to be perfect, perfect. Shabby and forgotten, except in the mind of some renewal planner, who would replace it with something no less trashy. How else keep the proles busy? But it was no matter tha’. He found himself slipping unconsciously into the gutter idiom as he climbed the narrow stairs, unable to resist the temptation to fall completely into the character of it. No doubt about it, he was tired, but it was also good to be out in the field once again, out on the killing floor, on the line.

  Errat found the room, unlocked the door, and entered, relocking it as he closed it. He let his bag settle to the floor, quietly. In the dimness he could make out a bed, a wash-stand. The bed was small, probably too soft and too lumpy. Where was the chair and desk? There was usually one. Yes, there it was; by the window he saw an outline of a chair, his eyes adjusting. He smelled deeply, sifting the odors of the room, waiting for the expected odor of transient old rooms, of musty sheets and smoke-abused curtains. Yes, just like he expected. And Errat’s skin crawled.

  There was something else in the odors of the room. He reached for the light switch on the wall behind him by the door, felt for it, fumbled, fighting panic generated by something he could smell but not see, found it, flipped it. Nothing happened. He tried to recover quickly, get control of the situation. He admitted to a moment of fear. He cursed the slowness of night-vision, trying to see into the furry shadows, backlighted by the window. Yes, the desk. On the d
esk. It was between two windows, and the backlighting had obscured it. Something bulky and body-sized on the desk. He inhaled deeply and slowly, trying to catch the elusive scent, muttering under his breath about faulty lights, emitting minor obscenities, reaching for his throw-knife at the same time. A heavy plastic, it could not be detected by the finest weapon-detector, and could even be bent, slowly, to fit. He also had a gun, made of similar material, but he knew he’d never reach it. But he knew one thing; he had time. If it was here to kill and ask no questions, they would have already tried.

  He felt the reassuring warm solidity of the throw-knife. What was that scent? Wet clothing. Somebody had been out in the light rain, with him, for the rain had only started less than an hour ago. Ergo, following him. Hmph. Damn skillful job, that. ConSec, already? No, darkened rooms weren’t their game. And under the wet clothing, a warm body, also damp, a little sweaty, a little nervous. Still. There was another scent, an adrenaline odor, and something else, something tense that made him tense in turn. And there was more, too, female, perhaps, and something more.

  Errat took a chance. “Zandro? Zandro Milar?” That had been the name of his elusive contact through this whole thing, the contact who had sought him out, found him. The one who made payments, advised, called, always by maddeningly indirect methods. All Errat had managed to discover about this contact was that the owner of the name was probably female, and younger than himself. He had further suspicions, but they made no immediate sense, and he needed additional data. He breathed again, trying to get a bearing on the source of the odor-presence. No luck. Whoever had come in had been in long enough to muddy the air. He watched the bulk on the desk intently, watching for movement. He could not tell. His eyes were still adjusting.

  A voice emanated from the desk, much like the one he had heard before. Female, throaty, almost hoarse, but with the betrayals of youth in it, too. “Indeed. Speak quietly, there may be monitors.” Yes, the same. And what an odd accent. Errat plumbed his encyclopedic memory, trying to place the accent. He couldn’t. It didn’t register at all. It continued, “Yes, you were correct. I am Milar. And you certainly have stirred up the anthill.”