“What kind of values were these people talking about?” Callen asked at length.
“You tell me.” Borland made an exaggerated display of showing both hands.
“What did we get from the SFC?” Callen asked. Since Interworld was a client, the mission would have carried an armed Milicorp contingent for security and defense. The Milicorp Security Force Commander would be able to communicate directly with headquarters at San Jose, independently of Interworld’s regular channels.
“He was a general officer, second star,” Borland said. “Name of Paurus.”
Callen shook his head. “Can’t say I know him.”
“It doesn’t matter much. He vanished somewhere across Cyrene, along with just about all of his unit. It’s lucky for the rest of the mission that the natives don’t seem to have much inclination toward hostilities. The coop’s wide open, and the guard dog has gone AWOL.”
“The whole unit?” Callen looked disbelieving. “You mean it even got to our people too? Along with their officers?” This was serious. That the subject was not general knowledge within Milicorp, and even Callen had not been brought into it before now despite his executive status, was no great cause for surprise. Extraterrestrial development demanded high stakes with a prospect of high returns, at high risk. Information that could deter or unnerve investors was treated as highly sensitive and dispensed strictly on need-to-know basis.
“It gets worse.” Borland moved from the window to his desk, and turned to support himself in a half-sitting position against the edge, arms folded. “A second follow-up mission was thrown together at short notice and arrived at Cyrene on a ship called the Boise a little over a month ago. The Milicorp SFC was Carl Janorski.”
This time Callen nodded. “I know him. He was in charge of the air strikes we ran in the Zaire coup a couple of years ago.” Callen had been there to handle Milicorp’s ground liaison. On that occasion the rebels had been supported by funding from South American drug sources and been able to outbid the government, which had resulted in a regime change.
Borland nodded. “That’s the one. This time we kept careful tabs, and again everything indicated that they arrived in good shape.... And now the same thing is happening again.”
“Even with someone like Carl there? I don’t believe it!”
“He’s still at Revo base, sure enough. But the person they sent as Director — a guy called Emner, who was supposed to find the previous ambassador — is saying he can’t follow the policy directives because whoever dreamed it up at Interworld doesn’t understand the situation. Meanwhile, the scientists have started taking off. It’s the same story.”
“And no one knows why?”
“No one knows why — and Interworld are in panic mode. And since we provided the security on both missions, we’re not only involved contractually but our professional image is at stake.” Borland paused. A big part of Callen’s job was being called in as the Mr. Fixit when regular measures failed. He had already recognized the pattern. There was no need for him to say anything. He nodded resignedly and waited for Borland to spell it out. “A ship called the Tacoma is being made ready for a relief mission to Cyrene to see what can be salvaged. We’re putting together a team to investigate what the hell’s been going on there, and I want you to head it up, Myles. Take a day’s break to unwind after this Tiwa Jaku business. Then we want you back here to start briefing on what’s being put together. Liftout from Earth orbit is scheduled six days from now. What kind of situation you’re likely to find when you get there, I’ve no idea.”
Callen made a face. “If it’s a two-month trip, then if things can deteriorate as fast as you’ve indicated, nobody could have.” He made a so-so shrug and curled his lip cynically. “Okay, apart from the unknowns it sounds pretty straightforward.”
Borland let things hang just long enough to give the impression that it might be that simple. Then, “There’s one other thing,” he said.
There always was. “Of course,” Callen replied.
“Interworld has a considerable investment in the work of a research scientist called Evan Wade, who was one of the scientists who went missing from the first mission.”
“What kind of work does he do?” Callen asked.
“Some kind of physics. He did private work on contract before enrolling for Cyrene, but in years gone by he was with the State University at Berkeley. He got himself a reputation there as something of a subversive with left-leaning ideas. Ran off-campus student meetings, organized demonstrations; that kind of thing. Interworld are concerned that he could be working some kind of deal with the Cyreneans to give away know-how for free that would enable them to develop the resources there themselves, which could undermine investment opportunities here. We need to keep relations with Interworld sweet. I want you to find this guy Wade and bring him back — by persuasion if possible, but forcibly if necessary.”
“It doesn’t sound as if he’s likely to be very persuasively inclined,” Callen commented. “What kind of leverage do I have to use? Anything?”
“Interworld claims that he still has unfulfilled contractual obligations with them,” Borland replied. “The terms don’t say anything about being nullified by jumping ship. You might be able to make something out of that. If not, as I said, do whatever you have to.”
Callen got the impression that Borland held little stock in the first option and had mentioned it merely for form. Giving a direct order for abduction by force was not the approved management style. There was just one small but very pertinent point that hadn’t been touched on. “That’s fine,” Callen said. “But do you have any suggestions on how to go about persuading him, one way or the other, if he’s vanished?”
Borland had evidently been expecting it. “As a matter of fact, I do,” he answered. Callen inclined his head in mild but genuine surprise. “Shortly after the Boise mission arrived — just before Wade disappeared — he filed a request for an assistant to be sent out to work with him at Cyrene. Details of the job spec found their way around the usual circuit, and one of the names that has applied is somebody called Marc Shearer, who as it so happens was Wade’s colleague when Wade worked Berkeley. In fact, Shearer took over his work there after he left.”
“Did they stay in touch?”
“Almost certainly. As a former faculty member, Wade worked out a deal that still gave him access to their lab facilities when he needed them.”
Callen nodded slowly. “It sounds as if Wade and Shearer could have had it set up.”
“Possibly. But that’s beside the point. The point is that he’s familiar with Wade’s work, and they obviously get along. So it makes Shearer a natural to work with Wade on Cyrene. The disappearances on Cyrene haven’t been widely reported, and so there’s no reason for anyone to see anything amiss. A few words from the right people at Interworld will make sure that Shearer’s application is approved, and that he’s on his way a lot sooner that he expected.”
“You mean with the Tacoma? In six days?”
“Sure. The wheels are already moving.” Borland unfolded one arm to make a casual gesture in the air that said it was all that simple. “And when you get to Cyrene, Shearer will lead you to Wade,” he completed.
CHAPTER TWO
Fifty years before, it had been purely the stuff of fringe fiction and far-out-fantasy movies. Now every month seemed to bring news from robot probes reaching a new world, or human follow-up arriving at a previously located one to send down exploration teams and establish a surface presence. There were some that didn’t orbit a parent but maintained a fixed position intermediate between mutually gyrating binary stars. Several examples of prolate forms had poles extending beyond their atmospheres. Some had barely cooled from incandescence, while others were wastes of frozen methane and ice. Those that supported life included low-gravity environments in which gigantic life-forms flourished, comparable to the great reptiles and other fauna that had once lived on Earth but could never exist under its present condition
s. At the other extreme were a high-density microplanet with a species of intelligent insects that farmed fungi plantations and built adobelike dwelling with tools, and a world surfaced entirely by water, where life had moved up onto floating islands formed from coagulated detritus by photosynthetic microorganisms.
And there were some that had types of life very similar to those found on Earth. A few cases included humanoids in various stages of development. Quite how this could be was still a matter of heated controversy within the scientific community as well as between science and such other departments of learning as philosophy and theology, because according to generally accepted theory accumulations of random change should diverge, not progress toward similar endpoints. So evidently, more was going on than generally accepted theory recognized, which was about as far as any agreement went, and proponents of principles that were contradictory all managed to claim vindication. Whatever the explanation, it seemed that evolution in comparable environments was somehow preprogrammed to unfold along comparable developmental paths.
Along with everyone else, Marc Shearer was assured that social evolution everywhere was likewise destined to shape itself toward a world of Hobbesean nastiness and Darwinian callousness in ways that, sooner or later, the laws of nature made unavoidable. He didn’t accept it. It seemed ironic that laws once held to be self-evident fact underpinning the whole of biology should now be admitted as questionable in that field, while remaining immutable with regard to the field of human affairs to which they had been unceremoniously coopted. He didn’t accept the inevitability of a society in which unchecked avarice set the norms, exploitation and injustice were regarded as natural and equated with realism, what used to be called lying formed the basis of well-rewarded professions, and ruthlessness was admired.
As a talented young physicist who could focus on achieving results when he put his mind to it, he could doubtless have secured himself a good job with one of the corporations if he chose. But the lifestyle and conformities that such a move would have entailed ruled it out as an option. He often wondered what nascent alternative patterns might be emerging among those other worlds out there, that the news bulletins reported and scientific commentators babbled on about enthusiastically for hours. In his mellower moments, he would sometimes share with friends visions from his readings of social philosophers of years gone by, and debate the possibility of an order founded on compassion and cooperation, with the longer good taking precedence over short-term gain, and knowledge being sought for its own sake. For the most part they were skeptical and called him a hopeless idealist. Be that as it may, people like Shearer weren’t going to change.
He caught Rogelio’s eye meaningfully for a moment as he picked up the large bag of unshelled hazelnuts from the counter and carried it over to where the other four were sitting around a plastic-topped table in the center of the kitchen. The kitchen was a shabby affair of cheap cabinets, faded wallpaper, and aging appliances, shared between the five rooms which along with one full and one half bathroom made up the basement and ground-level floors of the tenement house. The street and its surrounding blocks were typical of a working-class residential part of south Oakland.
Larry drew his hands back from the wooden fruit bowl that Marc had told him to position in the center. “Uh-huh! Now we get to see the big mystery,” he boomed to everyone. “Okay, Professor, what’s this all about?” Larry was a stocky two-hundred-sixty-pounder with a tuft of beard and a gung-ho politics, who worked as a security guard for a company in Hayward. He and his wife Nancy also managed the rooms, in return for which they enjoyed their own kitchen area in a two-room unit on the top floor.
On the opposite side of the table, Brad smiled faintly in a way that said they would find out soon enough. He was one of the house residents, an Army Reserve veteran whose disability benefit had failed to materialize despite his suffering a dragging leg and a knee that would only half bend. That had been in the Secessionist Rebellion, when the southern parts of California, Arizona, and New Mexico had broken away from the original Western Federacy under immigrant pressures to join the Greater Mexican Union. The remainder, comprising central and northern California, Nevada, northern Arizona and Utah, parts of New Mexico and Colorado, and territory west of the Rockies up to Alaska, had renamed itself Occidena.
“Nuts,” Ursula said. “Hey, I hope this isn’t your way of telling us this is all we get to eat tonight.” She was a social worker — blond, intense, inclined to be defensive.
“What a thing to say to a friend.” Larry looked around imploringly.
The fourth, called Duke, was black and in his early twenties. He was one of those who hadn’t migrated to Martina, which extended from Louisiana to the Carolinas but excluded the lower end of Florida, now affiliated with Cuba. He also lived in one of the rooms above and had a musical talent that he was having trouble getting recognized. Shearer had been trying to introduce him to the right people at the university. “We’re going to play the nuts game,” Duke told everybody. Rogelio moved around to the far side of the table, watching Shearer, who had taken off his wristwatch.
“Yes, that’s right, Duke,” Shearer said. “And the nuts game is this. I’m going to pour a quantity of nuts into the bowl. When I say ‘Go,’ the idea is for each of you to end up with as many as you can.” They looked at each other as if searching for hints of things to expect.
After a few seconds, Larry said, “That’s it? We just go for broke?” Ursula frowned, glancing up at Shearer suspiciously as if to say, It can’t be that simple.
“There’s just one other thing before we start,” Shearer told them. “Every ten seconds, I’ll stop you to check the bowl, and I’ll double whatever the number is of nuts remaining there, by replenishing from the bag. Everybody got that?”
“The aim is just to get as many as we can,” Ursula repeated.
“Exactly right,” Shearer confirmed.
“And whoever ends up with the most wins,” Larry checked. Brad shrugged in his easygoing way and said nothing.
Shearer didn’t answer, but held his watch up in readiness. They waited, tensing almost palpably. Duke bit his lip, thought for a moment, then looked at the other two, seemingly about to say something.
“Go.”
Larry dove in with both hands. Ursula, anticipating him, moved the bowl away before plunging in herself, in the process of which they tilted it, causing nuts to spill out onto the table. Brad helped himself to a share obligingly but didn’t seem able to muster the same zeal. Duke hesitated, shaking his head; then, seeing the contents of the bowl diminishing rapidly, he succumbed to the pressure and grabbed into it, at the same time scooping up strays on the tabletop with his other hand. The combined violence of all their hands upended the bowl and turned it over, spilling nuts out onto the floor. Duke consolidated his take, while Larry went down with a whoop to sweep the ones on the floor together into his other hand. Ursula followed him with an indignant shriek and managed to salvage the few that he had missed. Brad was unable to reach the floor due to the stiffness of his leg but found several nuts that had remained underneath the dish. When Shearer called “Time!” they had all completed scavenging and were guarding their collections protectively.
“I win!” Larry announced triumphantly. He had both hands cupped around his pile. There was no need to count. Ursula and Brad were next, with about the same amount each — Ursula had been more energetic but Brad had bigger hands.
Shearer leaned over and righted the bowl. “Let’s see now, there doesn’t seem to be anything left in there, so I guess that’s it. Game over.”
“You’ve gotta be fast, guys,” Larry said as Shearer slipped the watch back onto his wrist.
Ursula was looking perplexed. “Well,” she said, shaking her head, “I guess that was supposed to prove something. Don’t ask me what, though.”
Duke seemed to want to say something again, then dismissed it with a sigh. He stared down at the nuts in front of him. His initial moment of hesitation ha
d put him clearly behind the others. “Like I said, you should have gone for it,” Larry told him. He cracked one of the nuts with his teeth and looked up at Shearer while he separated the shell. “Okay, Prof. Look, I won. Do I get a prize? So now tell us. What was it all about?”
“I never said anyone had to win,” Shearer replied. “I just said the objective was for all of you to end up with as many as you could.” He glanced again at Rogelio, who was staring at him fixedly, and winked. “Now, I’m going to keep you all in suspense and not say anything more about it right now. What I want you to do is think about it, and then we’ll talk some more when we next get together. Okay?”
“No, not fair!” Ursula protested. Brad accepted it with a shrug.
Larry flipped the kernel of the nut into the air with a thumb and caught it deftly in his mouth. “Oh, this is the mystery man!” he exclaimed. “Hey, these are good. What say I open a few beers to go with the rest of them?”
“I thought you’d never ask,” Ursula said.
“Great idea,” Duke agreed.
“I’m not starting any partying tonight,” Rogelio warned. “I have to meet someone back across the Bay at eight.” He looked over at the clock readout on the microwave. “In fact, I’m gonna have to be leaving pretty soon.”
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