Isaac Asimov's Aurora

by Mark W. Tiedemann

  “That Spacers must themselves have suffered some sort of plague.”

  “We did. Burundi’s Fever was one of them. It came out of the very grasses we transplanted to take over the native ecosystems of our new worlds. There were others, but Burundi’s was the worst. It emerged long before the plagues on Earth began and, in fact, was the first cause of a quarantine movement. On Earth’s part. We suffered it in successive waves for centuries. No Spacer world was immune. After Earth’s plagues, we finally were able to control it, but not before it virtually remade our sense of who we were, our history. We came out of the plagues reborn, a sharp wall between what we once were and what we have now become.”

  “I don’t quite follow.”

  “History is a fiction and memory cooperates most of the time, espe­cially when it concerns something as unpleasant as this.”

  Coren considered for a few seconds. “You mean Spacers just don’t remember?”

  “Most don’t. Those who lived through the last waves of all this have been privileged to suffer a case of Burundi’s. Even before that, so many people were infected that it’s amazing there is a history at all.”

  “A whole society . . . amnesia . . .” Coren frowned. “Then how is it any of it’s remembered?”

  “Unlike Earth, we didn’t get rid of our robots.”

  “Uh-huh. So how come the robots don’t remind you?”

  “Why? The question is not asked. And it’s consistent with the Three Laws. At this point it would serve no useful purpose.”

  “I don’t—”

  “You see, once we got control of the disease, we didn’t simply elimi­nate it, like Earth has done with a number of its ancient killers.”

  “You used it. On purpose.”

  “Very much on purpose.”

  “And the robots know.”

  “Some do, the older ones. Our planetary RIs know.”

  “And at the risk of violating one of the precious Three

  Laws—”

  “—it is not spoken about.”

  “Unless doing so will be a worse violation.”

  “Which may be what we’re facing on Nova Levis.”

  They sat in silence for a time, not looking at each other. Coren wres­tled with his impressions and conclusions. He wanted to ask if that had been the case with Ariel. What had she done to be sentenced to the eradication of her memory?

  But finally, Coren did not ask that question. Instead, he looked at Hofton, and asked, “So how come you remember?”

  20

  MASID LEFT the apartment dark. He checked the pale glow of his watch occasionally, but did not move from the high-backed chair he had moved into the corner, farthest from the front door. Vague light from the unevenly lit city outlined the windows and gave enough illumination for him to make out the lumpy shape of Marshal Toranz propped in a chair in the center of the room. He had taped her mouth and cuffed her ankles. As an added measure, he had given her an anesthetic hours earlier.

  He glanced toward his cabinet. He wanted anxiously to respond to the message he had received from the blockade. Someone up there had cho­sen to recognize him and reply, an Internal Security Officer named Dav­entri, a lieutenant, not even the highest rung of his or her own special ladder. That fact alone told Masid a number of things about the situation, the most important of which was that the blockade was compromised at the command level at least. He had guessed as much, given Tilla’s aban­donment and the subsequent failure of any other team to reach the sur­face of Nova Levis. He wondered how many agents had been caught and killed over the last year trying to infiltrate the network here. If he had told anyone above him what he had intended to do, he now doubted he would have lived past the first baley ride.

  The bulk of Daventri’s message was both cryptic and plain: SITUATION FLUID AND UNRELIABLE. DIRECT LINK EXISTS BETWEEN BLOCKADE AND NOVA CITY. WORKING ON IT. WAIT FOR FURTHER COMMUNICATION FROM ME BEFORE SENDING ANOTHER MESSAGE.

  So, badly as he wanted to send back “What do you mean? Who’s compromised? Where should I go?” Daventri wanted him to maintain, do nothing till he replied.

  Which might never happen. For all he knew, his message had been intercepted—or Daventri’s had—and right now his one contact was being eliminated.

  One thing at a time, Mas old son, one thing at a time. . . .

  An hour past midnight, he heard footsteps on the landing outside his door. He tensed, his hand curling around his blaster.

  It seemed minutes before his door inched open. Masid watched the thin light of paler darkness outside grow to a wedge. Then a human-sized shadow filled it. The shape entered quickly and closed the door behind itself.

  A flashlight winked on.

  “Shit!” someone hissed.

  The light shifted toward Masid. He raised the blaster.

  “Do we talk or try to shoot it out?” Masid asked quietly.

  The light winked off. Masid followed the sound of movement to his left and fired. The crimson bolt threw the room into sudden relief, freezing action for that moment. He saw a man jumping for cover.

  The bolt splashed against the wall alongside the door with a loud crack! and a slow, sizzling after-hiss. Acrid smoke filled the air.

  Masid rolled to the floor and touched the wafer in his pocket.

  The room lights came on brilliantly to his dark-adjusted eyes, and he squinted as he rose to a kneeling posture.

  Opposite him stood Kar, his own weapon raised and aimed.

  The door banged open. Both men looked. Filoo stood there, Tosher behind him, as well as two others Masid did not know. Muscle, by the look of them.

  “Well, well,” Filoo said, smiling. “Isn’t this lovely? What an interest­ing spectacle.” He stepped into the room and stopped in front of Toranz, frowning. “Berit?” He snapped his fingers in front of her face, then shrugged. “I would be most happy to have an explanation.”

  “This is your thief—” Kar began, stopping abruptly at Filoo’s raised hand.

  “Let me finish,” Filoo said. “I said I would be most happy to have an explanation, but I would want the right one. The truth. I rather doubt I’m going to get it. Not all of it, at least. So I’ll settle for guessing all by myself.”

  Filoo sighed and went to the sofa. His muscle ranged quietly out across the front of the room. Masid noticed then that each one held a blaster.

  “Would you mind if I put this away?” Masid asked, waving his own weapon. “You seem to have the situation stabilized.”

  Filoo smiled. “I think that’s a fine idea. For both of you.”

  Masid holstered his blaster. A few seconds later, clearly unhappy, so did Kar.

  “It would be easiest,” Filoo said with mock gravity, “to kill you both. Maybe Berit, too, while I’m at it, since her presence here raises several annoying questions. But healthy employees are hard to come by. I’m sure you noticed,” he said directly to Masid, “how sick everyone seems to be. Those few who aren’t are worth a small fortune. So it’s a fool who kills them without good cause. The question is, what cause is good enough?” He looked from Kar to Masid. “Suggestions?”

  Masid folded his arms. Kar glowered at him.

  “I followed Toranz here,” Kar said. “He’s your leak—or she is, and he’s the one buying from her.”

  Filoo seemed to consider that and nodded. “That’s a plausible expla­nation, Kar. Do you have anything to say in defense?”

  “No,” Masid said. “He’s right. In the last three weeks I was able to seduce Marshal Toranz into throwing over a solid income from you on the off-chance that I could successfully steal enough of your supply to not only replace what you pay her, but to increase it. I told her I could unseat you within a month, and that her best chance of survival would be to deal with me. I’m caught, obviously.”

  Filoo frowned. “What could you possibly have offered her as proof that you could do that?”

  “Oh, I forgot. She’s in love with me. The seduction was on all levels.”<
br />
  Filoo burst out laughing. He craned his neck to look at his bodyguards, all of whom were stifling laughter. Filoo’s eyes teared up, and he walked around in front of the still-unconscious marshal.

  “She’s likes it rough, I gather,” he said, lifting her cuffed hands, and laughed louder. He sat back down and wiped at his eyes. “I must say, you’ve got carbon, gato.”

  “Boss—” Kar began.

  “Shut up!” Filoo snapped, all laughter gone. “Tosher, search the place. You know what I want.”

  Tosher pulled a scanner from his coat and began a slow circuit around the apartment. It began chirping near the cabinet. Tosher tugged at the doors.

  “Locked,” he said.

  Filoo looked expectantly at Masid. Slowly, Masid crossed the room and unlocked the cabinet. The pack of ampules lay on the shelf. Masid waited for Tosher to start poking at the false back that hid the hyperwave unit, but all the man did was bring the scanner closer to the ampules.

  “Found ‘em,” he announced.

  “Bring them,” Filoo said.

  Tosher handed Filoo the pack. After a moment, Filoo took out his own scanner and ran a check.

  “Now I must ask myself,” he said then, “why a man would leave something he stole not a day ago lying around his apartment, especially after he knew someone was coming to ask about them.”

  Filoo looked at Kar, who seemed puzzled but worried.

  “Would you care to try again?” Filoo asked him.

  “He’s had this stuff at least five days,” Kar said. “Look at the marker!”

  “Mm. Yes, the marker.” Filoo held the ampules up toward Masid. “You may have noticed, we mark our product with a date stamp. No? Well, it’s one thing to do business illegally, it’s another to do it stupidly. No one anymore would be so careless as to aggravate an epidemic through sloppy distribution. That’s why I train all my people to know how to give the proper advice, and I never sell impotent product. We tend to deal harshly with newcomers who try cutting their product to increase profit. Not many do, contrary to popular misconception, but a few have tried, and they don’t survive. It’s not altruism, it’s self-preservation. We date stamp to ensure the quality of what we sell.” He tapped the markers on the ampules. “This tells me that this stuff ought to have been sold, at the latest, three days ago. If it were still in my warehouse, we’d destroy it. But it’s here. I wonder how?”

  “Obviously, it was stolen four or five days ago,” Kar said, though Masid detected doubt in his voice.

  “That’s one possibility,” Filoo said. “The other is that someone thought I was sloppy, leaving old product lying around.” He looked at Kar. “Used to be, when you appeared before a magistrate, they’d say something fatuous, like, ‘If you confess and show remorse, the mercy of the court will be entreated and things will go easier.’ We don’t have any magistrates like that now. Things are a bit more basic. For instance, entrapment is not allowed in a proper court as evidence. If you lay out something you know will be stolen and it’s then stolen, you can’t use that against the thief. Silly, in my opinion, but it has something to do with mutual collu­sion. I never quite understood it.”

  Filoo stood and turned toward Kar. “But I like this way of doing things fine. I understand it. I change the date stamp on some brand new product and leave it where I know it’ll be noticed and probably stolen, and then follow it to the thief. A court might say it’s entrapment, but to me it’s just proof.” He smiled thinly at Kar. “So, do you want to try ask­ing for mercy?”

  “Boss—”

  “Don’t lie. Toranz is too stupid to take advantage of a plant, and too lazy to think of a scam like this, anyway. This one—” Filoo jerked a thumb at Masid “—doesn’t even know where our warehouse is. Inviting him in was just an opportunity for you to do one more stupid thing yourself.”

  Kar’s face darkened. “If you knew—”

  “I didn’t. Till now, you’ve been very good. You got sloppy. I don’t know which I hate more, the theft or the slop.” He shook his head. “What a waste.”

  “Boss—”

  Filoo stepped back. “Remove him.”

  The two muscle Masid did not know came forward. Kar’s face flashed his fear as they grabbed him and dragged him from Masid’s apartment.

  “What about her?” Tosher asked, waving at Toranz.

  “Her, too. We need a new sheriff.”

  With deceptive ease, Tosher picked Toranz up from the chair and draped her over his shoulder.

  Filoo closed the door after Tosher and turned to Masid. “Why didn’t you just kill Toranz and dispose of the ampules?”

  “You said you wanted your leak found,” Masid answered. “Not that I have any particular reason to do you a favor, but when I caught Toranz in here, I realized that sooner or later Kar was going to set me up in something I couldn’t get out of.”

  “You couldn’t get out of this one.”

  “Not without Kar’s help.”

  “If he hadn’t come to check himself—probably when Toranz failed to report to him—you’d still be the only suspect. But you didn’t say any of that.”

  “You’re smart. You figured it out.”

  “It didn’t make sense that a newcomer like you would be as successful as Kar stealing from me. Besides, this has been going on a long time. And none of your product has had my markers on it.”

  “You mark the product itself?”

  “Absolutely. Inventory control is the first step in guaranteeing quality.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  “You better if you’re working for me.”

  “Am I?”

  “The offer is still open,” Filoo said. “Just remember, I don’t ever trust anyone.”

  “How do you sleep at night?”

  Filoo grinned. “That’s how.”

  “All right,” Masid nodded. “But I think you should know one thing. I do know where your warehouse is.”

  Filoo blinked, surprised, then laughed quietly. “I’m sure. Get some sleep and come talk to me tomorrow—” He glanced at his watch. “No, this afternoon.”

  Masid watched Filoo leave. The door clicked shut, and he let out an explosive breath. “Damn.”

  He pulled out a scanner and went over the apartment for bugs. He found one, in the couch where Filoo had been sitting, and promptly destroyed it with a burst from his stunner.

  He sat down on the sofa and stared around. Evidently, he was in. Two people were now, or soon would be, dead. The price of admission. Masid shuddered. He pressed the tab in his pocket, and the lights died. Blaster on his chest, he stretched out and fell quickly to sleep.

  Teg Sturlin smiled when Mia stepped into her office. “Daventri,” she said, reaching for a bottle.

  “Still on duty,” Mia said.

  Sturlin scowled.

  “For,” Mia made a show of looking at her watch, “another ten minutes.”

  Sturlin laughed softly and put the bottle back. “It’ll be just as good then. What do you need?”

  “I have a tracking log for you to pull up for me.”

  “Ah. Your books?”

  “Hopefully.” Mia handed her a disk.

  Sturlin carefully inserted it into her datum and opened the files. She sighed comfortably and sat back, reading. Slowly, her eyes narrowed, then she frowned darkly. “These are from the source, through Earth Cus­toms, and out. How did you get these?”

  “I have resources.”

  Sturlin gave her a dubious look, but did not comment. She reached for her keypad and began entering instructions. “You’ve got the entire transit route here . . . and there is the point where it was ‘lost’ . . . hmmm . . . so that’s where it’s coming through.”

  She turned to another screen and brought up a flowchart. Mia watched her work for several minutes, eager to ask questions, but know­ing better than to interrupt Sturlin.

  Finally, Sturlin shook her head. “Special Requisitions and Discre­tionary Stores,” she sai
d. “The carbon!”

  Mia cleared her throat. “Excuse me?”

  “Oh. The route is circuitous off Earth. It leaves—at least, this shipment does—as a legitimate order, and then becomes contraband when it reaches the quartermaster inspection station. I had to backtrack from here to see how it links up. It gets moved into a different queue, the manifest is changed, the object simply disappears until it arrives here bundled with what we politely term ‘exotic material’—everything from liquor to bedsheets to colognes.”

  “I don’t understand. That stuff is allowed in, why smuggle in basically the same thing?”

  “It all has to be accounted for. Command wants a record of what comes in and goes out and who uses what. Some of it, obviously, is con­sumed—but it’s tracked so, if need be, we can go to the officer consuming it. The rest actually has to be returned. This system is in place as a cour­tesy, so our fine officers don’t have to pay for their own imports and transit fees. But it’s a loan service for the most part. Your books never got logged in. When they went out, they never came back.”

  “Not just books, though, certainly.”

  “Oh,” Sturlin nodded, “I’m sure a lot of this ends up down on Nova Levis. That’s why it has to bypass accounts. Routing it through Special Requisitions is very risky—but very clever. It’s probably the one place we might never inspect—and if we did, we’d get tangled up in what’s legiti­mately out and what might not even be here. We’d have to turn the entire officer corps on its head to trace all the might-bes.”

  “Okay,” Mia said, shaking her head. “Then if someone here orders something and it’s never logged as being received, what happens to the order?”

  “The system makes a follow-up interrogatory, then waits for a human to request another.”

  “And if no further interrogatory is made?”

  “It goes into a file and waits for review. Every six months, the system purges its own records.”

  Mia pursed her lips. “So is there a way to generate a list of officers who made special orders that were never filled?”