Conversation had more than lapsed in the cart. It had expired. For a long while all that could be heard was the panting breath of Yaffak, and Gazz’s and Ermatage’s ta-tumpa, ta-tey.
Baro leaned toward Imbry. “Something weighs on my mind,” he said. “I must tell someone.”
“I am someone.”
“While I slept, I uncovered a forgotten memory.”
“I thought that you forgot nothing.”
“So did I.”
“Then it must have been unsettling,” Imbry said. “What was this memory?”
Baro shifted uncomfortably. “It was the last time I saw my father. We had quarreled. I told him that I wished he would go away and never come back. That day, his flyer crashed into the sea.”
“Ah,” said Imbry. He thought for a moment, then said, “Before that, had you wanted to be a scroot?”
“I was very young.”
“But ever since?”
“Yes.”
Imbry nodded. “Do you recall a conversation we had about those who are driven and those who are called?”
“Word for word.”
“Should we remove Baro Harkless from the category of the called and place him among the driven?”
“Yes.”
There was a silence between them for a while, intruded upon only by the rush of wheels on stone and the chanting of Gazz and Ermatage. Then Imbry said softly, “You did not kill your father. You were a child and spoke as a child.”
Baro said nothing.
“Ask yourself this,” the fat man said, “would Captain Harkless have held little Baro responsible for his death?”
“Of course not.” Baro remembered his father’s face on the archetypal Father, and the look it had given him before he sliced open the dream-earth and entered the Old Sea: You can do it.
“And, in your eyes, is your father the measure of what a man ought to be?”
“He is.”
“Then I think you ought to do no less than he would have, and forgive a little boy for doing what little boys do.”
Baro blinked and looked out at the vastness of the Monument. It struck him that there were so many directions in which he could go. He turned back to Imbry. “You defended me earlier,” he said, “even though I have spoken unkindly to you since we were assigned to work together.”
The other man shrugged. “It takes a certain span of time for my better qualities to be appreciated.”
Baro also spoke to Bandar. “I am sorry to have offended you. I wonder that I attracted the Hero archetype, when obviously I have spent my life playing the Fool.”
The historian’s icy demeanor had thawed as he had overheard Baro and Imbry talking. “Nothing that you did was illintentioned,” he said. “It may be that I have become too rigid in my thoughts. Perhaps the Predilective School overstresses its regard for orthodoxy.”
“If you would consider it,” said Baro, “when this assignment is completed perhaps I might study with you. I confess the nob-sphere draws me.”
“You would give up the scroots?” said Bandar.
“Despite what my partner believes, it is better to be called than to be driven. I will give up the scroots and spend my time exploring the Commons.”
Bandar pulled his nose and looked thoughtful. “If you can truly move between Commonses,” he said, “there opens a wide vista of exploration. We might even found a new school.”
“Was it not you who maintained that nothing new can be done on Old Earth?” Imbry said.
“Our young friend here has the courage to admit to a life built on false foundations,” said Bandar. “I can budge an minim or two in his direction.”
There was a peculiar noise from the other end of the cart. Ule Gazz was clutching at her throat. Her mouth was open and she was straining to chant the ta-tumpa, ta-tey, but all that emerged was a rasping croak.
Pollus Ermatage had also ceased chanting. She was staring at the Lho-tso practitioner in horror while her hands probed first the soft tissue beneath Gazz’s chin, then her own throat. “She has the lassitude,” the Fasfallian said in a fading voice. “And so, I fear, do I.”
Imbry swore softly and took out his plaque. He manipulated its symbols, then said, “We are less than two hours from Victor. Perhaps something can be done there.”
“One thing we know,” said Baro, “that the affliction can be cured. Trig Helvic would not have spent a fortune on this expedition if he had not seen his daughter temporarily restored to health.”
“True, he is not a man to be fooled,” Imbry agreed. “But it is a disheartening thought that to believe in Helvic means having to believe in Horslan Gebbling.”
“I have come to accept that my deepest convictions may be founded on quaking ground,” said Bandar.
“There are quakes,” said Imbry, “and then there is Gebbling.”
The town of Victor was believed by its few hundred human inhabitants, most of whom mined for brillion, to have once had a much longer name. A heraldic shield prominently displayed in the town hall declared the original designation to have been “The City of the Honorable Fergus Suvanandan, Beloved Victor over the Abominable and Detested Invader.”
However, the shield’s provenance was suspect, it having been “discovered” in a dusty storage locker in the town hall’s basement by Honore Suvanandan, whose family had supplied the community with most of its mayors for more generations than the citizenry could remember. The find occurred at a crucial point in a bitterly contested election in which the central issue was the unacceptable depth to which then Mayor Suvanandan had plunged grasping fingers into the civic treasury. The shield had not turned the tide for the incumbent; he was not only defeated at the polls but subsequently arrested after it was learned that his golden chain of office had somehow metamorphosed into a base metal copy covered in gilt paint.
The town of Victor was a little east of the monument’s larynx, a collection of drab, squat buildings connected by a few paved streets and a webwork of dirt tracks where the grass had been worn away. The only tall structures were the frameworks of two mine heads whose shafts reached far down to a subterranean warren of tunnels and stopes where once there had been rich deposits of red and blue brillion.
At the far side of the town, where the flatland began anew as a long, flat-topped berm of packed tailings from the brillion diggings, here the Orgulon stood at rest. South of the dock was Rovertown, a ragtaggle collection of huts and stables in which the Rovers and their shuggras lived.
The passengers examined the view with interest, after so many miles of gray rock. But Yaffak sniffed loudly and growled something. Bandar said, “He says those are sting-whiffles ahead.”
As they descended the ramp back onto the Swept, they could see a swirl of the leather-winged carrion eaters circling something that lay in the grass not far off the track that stretched between the Monument and the mining town.
Haj said, “That is where the tents and tables were. When I left, they were about to begin a ceremony.”
Yaffak pulled up at the edge of a trampled space littered by overturned trestle tables and torn fabric. Food containers and serving utensils were scattered widely, the buffet board tipped on its side.
The security officer dismounted from the cart and said, “It looks as if a whirlwind tore through.”
Baro, Imbry, and Bandar stepped down. The historian gestured with his head to the sting-whiffles and put a question to the Rover, but Yaffak signaled a negative and remained in his seat. His muzzle lifted and his slitted nostrils flared as he turned his head to several directions, and Baro saw the muscles in his shoulders twitch.
“His fur is standing on end,” the young man said.
“As would mine be, if I had any,” said Imbry.
Haj raised her pistol and swept a bright beam through the cloud of carrion feeders. Two of them fell smoking to the earth while those that had been tearing at the thing on the ground erupted into the air and flapped off on leathery wings amid squawks of protest.
“What is it?” said Bandar, and Baro’s first inclination was to answer that they were making an unnecessarily cautious approach toward a heap of discarded clothes. Then he saw the white hair and a glint of blue-fire stones.
“It is that fierce woman,” he told the historian. “The one who hectored you the first night.”
“It was,” said Raina Haj, kneeling to examine the corpse.
Bandar must have seen enough horrors in the noösphere to harden him, Baro thought, because the historian gazed down at the red and bleeding flesh without flinching and said, “Those marks were not made by sting-whiffles.”
Haj agreed. “See the long, deep gouges to the torso. And the head is half torn off. I would say woollyclaw but how could that happen so close to the town?”
Baro looked toward the huddle of buildings. “This could not have been done without shrieks of fear and agony,” he said. “Where are the Victorites?”
“A worse mystery is this,” said Luff Imbry, who had moved a little way off into the long grass. He stooped and lifted with two hands what looked to Baro like a bag of cloth or soft leather.
“Is it part of her?” said Haj.
“No,” said Imbry, suppressing a retch. He pulled his hands apart and now Baro saw that he held an almost complete human skin, split down the back of the torso and head, with raw strips dangling from the ends of legs and arms. “See the birthmark on the neck.”
“Her husband,” said Bandar. “I never knew his name.”
“No woollyclaw did that,” said Haj. She looked through the grass. “Here are scraps of his clothes. But where is the rest of him? And why is there no blood?”
“We had better get into town,” said Baro. “This place cannot be safe.”
Imbry dropped the skin and stooped to wipe his hands on the grass. Rising, he looked toward the empty streets of Victor and said, “I don’t like the look of the town. They are supposed to be hardy folk, used to dealing with feral beasts. They should be out here with weapons and alarms. But all is still and silent.”
“I am senior,” Haj said. “I will decide.” She took the second pistol from her belt and offered it to Imbry but the fat man declined.
“Give it to Baro. He is expert.”
She looked askance at Baro. “He left it for Flix to seize.”
“You did not tell him she was unreliable.”
Haj faced Baro. “Can you handle this?”
“I will show you,” the young man said and when Haj handed over the weapon he checked its settings, then spun and shot two sting-whiffles out of the air.
“Good enough,” she said. “I will contact the Orgulon. The captain should be able to tell us if anything untoward has occurred since I left.”
She had one of the landship’s communicators and now activated it and worked its controls. A frown drew down the corners of her mouth. She pressed its studs again but the frown only deepened. “No response,” she said, “not even from the ship’s integrator. It’s as if the signal is blocked.”
Imbry suggested she try her Bureau plaque. “The scroot communications matrix should be more difficult to interfere with.”
But when the security officer tried connecting to the Bureau’s net there was no contact. Baro’s and Imbry’s plaques were likewise useless.
“Our plaques are only strong enough to connect. to a nearby amplifying ground station,” Baro said. “There will be one in Victor. If our signals are not getting through it means that something must have happened to that installation.”
“If it’s equivalent to what happened to the people whose remains are at our feet,” said Imbry, “then Victor seems a good place to avoid.”
There was a shout from where they had left Yaffak and his cart. When they hurried back to the vehicle they found the noise was coming from Mirov Kosmir, who was protesting as the Rover hauled him from the cart. The other four lassitude sufferers were already lying in a row on the grass.
Ule Gazz was grunting and struggling to rise, while Pollus Ermatage lay inert. The other two, Ebersol and Sooke, had sunk to that stage of the disease where they were starkly rigid, their skins showing a waxy sheen, as if they had been polished and set out to dry. Their eyes were dull.
Yaffak set Kosmir on his feet and reached in for the two come-alongs that were stored under the seats. He tossed them on the ground, then shut and latched the cart’s tailboard.
“What do you intend?” Raina Haj said. She stepped close to the Rover and stared directly into his eyes. Yaffak looked away and took a step back. He said something and the woman looked to Bandar for a translation.
“He has had enough,” the small man said. Yaffak made more sounds and Bandar said, “Everything smells wrong, he says. He will not enter the town, nor will he stay.”
“Tell him we are going around to the landship.”
“It makes no difference.”
Haj drew her pistol.
Yaffak looked her in the eye and spoke. Bandar translated. “He says there are worse things than being shot.”
She put the weapon away. Yaffak turned to mount to the driver’s seat, then stopped and faced Baro with lowered head and upturned eyes. He said something that Bandar rendered as, “He again invites you to come with him.”
The idea had a surprising appeal to Baro. He could see himself roaming the Swept, out under the immense sky with every direction open. The vision had a poignant appeal, like a memory of a happier time.
But something inside was reshaping Baro. He could feel it. He did not yet know what he was being refashioned for, but he knew it was not for wandering at random, even with a good companion. His life was being pulled toward a specific point, though what waited for him there was yet to be revealed.
He shook his head. “I cannot,” he said. “I am called to do something else.”
The Rover’s expression of sympathetic regret was almost human. Then he turned, mounted the cart, and flicked the whip at the muttering shuggras. The animals’ murmurs deepened to growls but they set their shoulders into the collars and pulled the cart forward. Yaffak put them into a wide turn that led back to the Monument. Baro saw the long muzzled face come around the side of the canopy to regard him one more time, then the Rover snapped the whip and the shuggras picked up their pace.
“We cannot leave these sick people unattended,” Haj said. “Whatever killed the man and woman might come back. But with only two come-alongs and no cart we cannot take them with us. If we carry them we will be too slow.”
“We should take them back up on the Monument where there is no tall grass to conceal an attacker,” Baro said.
“Someone must also guard Kosmir,” Haj said.
“He is your prisoner, not ours,” Imbry said. “Baro and I are still charged to apprehend Horslan Gebbling. In my own case, failure to pursue him assiduously earns me an extended stay in a Contemplarium. Are you empowered to relieve us of our assignment?”
“No,” said Haj.
Baro said, “The manual on field operations allows a senior agent to reassign personnel temporarily in an emergency.” He quoted the appropriate regulation, adding the page number on which it appeared.
“I still smell a whiff of politics about you,” Haj said. “I do not wish any of it to become attached to my record.”
“I propose that you officially relieve Luff Imbry of his assignment,” Baro said. “I will take responsibility for my own actions.” He realized he did not care if he breached Arboghast’s instructions. He no longer wanted to be a scroot.
“All right,” said Haj. She accepted Imbry’s plaque and spoke the appropriate official phrases into its intake. “Now,” she told him, “you are free to accept my orders and I order you to remain here and guard my prisoner.”
“Bandar and I will look after the sick,” Baro said.
Bandar agreed. “I would be of no use in town.”
They carried the lassitude sufferers back up the track. Ule Gazz made guttural protests when Baro swung her up over his sho
ulder. “I cannot understand you,” he said, “but I choose to believe that you are encouraging me in my efforts to save your life, since that is what someone capable of gratitude would do.”
Pollus Ermatage made no sound as Raina Haj hoisted her into a carry position. Bandar and Imbry towed the other two lassitude sufferers on their come-alongs. Kosmir was made to walk in front, his hands still bound.
From atop the Monument, they had a wider view of Victor. The streets of the town remained empty and no sound could be heard. Baro touched his plaque’s controls, transforming it into a long-distance scan. He methodically inspected the silent streets, then said to Haj, “Regard that dirty white building with the wood-frame porch.”
Haj was gazing through her own plaque’s viewing aperture. “I see it,” she said. “What of it?”
“Just where the shadow fills that corner,” Baro said.
Haj adjusted focus. “It is a foot,” she said. “And beyond it is a severed head.”
“The wall behind is charred.”
Haj put away her plaque. “This changes things. Something has happened to the people of Victor and probably to the passengers and crew of the landship,” she said. “It looks to be more than one agent can handle, even with the support of an auxiliary and the Archon’s favorite cadet.”
There had been a time when Baro would have protested that he was no cadet, but a full agent. He would also have been cut by the dismissive tenor of her words. But that time now seemed remote and the wound a trivial scratch.
“We could enter the town and try to revive the communications amplifier,” Imbry suggested.
“Too many opportunities for ambush,” Haj said.
“What about the landship?” Guth Bandar said. “It operates far out on the Swept and must have a more powerful system.”
Raina Haj made up her mind. “You will remain here with Kosmir and the sick. I will skirt the town to the south and approach the landship. I know my way around it and can reach its communicator. I will call out an armed reconnaissance team.”
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