“I’m afraid so,” Lee admitted. “A special computer.”
Tahir nodded. “I thought as much.” He pursued that no further. Instead: “Bueno, perhaps I can arrange for something plausible that will screen it. Meanwhile, you two must plan. We brothers cannot do more than convey you to someplace nearby. Consider what your moves after that shall be.”
“We will,” Kyra breathed. “Oh, yes.”
“It is wise that you wait secluded,” Tahir counselled. “I regret that this establishment has but a single guest room, with just one bed. If you wish, Pilot Davis, we can put you in the harim.”
Kyra started. He grinned. “That means my wife’s domain,” he said. “My only wife.”
“But how can we talk then?” She met Lee’s eyes. He half shrugged. “No, gracias, sir, but better we share that room.” Recollection stirred. “Uh, if you don’t mind too much.”
Tahir’s amusement continued. “We are no Wahhabis. It is reasonable that a young couple who have been separated should desire a night’s privacy.”
He’d better give his household more of a story than that, Kyra thought. Unless he simply told them this was none of their business, and they accepted and kept their mouths shut.
Lee flushed to the tips of his ears. “I can behave myself, consorte,” he promised her.
Comic relief. Laughter whooped from Kyra. “I’ll try!” she answered. Did Guthrie guffaw to himself?
Tahir rose. The fugitives followed suit, Kyra picking up the bag. “A boy will shortly bring you a meal,” the sheikh said. “He will knock and wait until you admit him. If you want anything else, press zero-three on the telephone. That will activate my informant. Otherwise you will be strictly isolated. May I someday be able to offer you better hospitality.”
“You c-couldn’t better this, sir,” Kyra vowed.
The room was down a short hall. Tahir stood aside and beckoned his guests in. “Yerhamak Allah,” he said low. Kyra guessed that was a blessing. The door shut on him.
She looked about her. The chamber was of modest size but decently equipped. Behind panels, a minibath adjoined a closet with drawers. A multi stood beside a table which accommodated a basic computer terminal. Two Western-style chairs suggested that others from her milieu stayed here occasionally. The floor was luxuriously carpeted. Although the walls were plain white, a viewscreen beneath the ventilator showed palms and jasmine around a pool. She couldn’t tell whether the scene was real or synthesized. It seemed too pretty to be true, but tightly managed nature tracts did exist. The bed—the bed was wide enough that two could lie well apart.
Not that she expected anything carnal, under these circumstances. Certainly she felt no such urge. As tension ebbed, weariness flooded up through her marrow.
Lee saw. “Me too,” he said, “and I didn’t travel through six time zones before this chase began.”
“Should we take Sr. Guthrie out?”
“You bloody well better,” rasped from the pack.
Lee drew the case forth and placed it on the table. The eyestalks emerged and swung to position. Kyra thought of aimed guns. Warmth took her by surprise: “You done fine, you two. Now relax, why don’t you? No booze handy, I guess, but a hot shower could work wonders.”
A tingle ran the length of Kyra’s spine. She groped for something commonplace to say. “Aren’t you pretty high-wired too, sir?” After lying helpless in the blackness of a sack while his fate played itself out.
A wolf might have laughed. “What’s a spook got to be scared with? No glands, remember?” Softly: “Do slack off, lass. You’re bushed, as well you might be. We’ll talk later.”
“I—” A sense of how thirsty she was overran everything else. “Bueno, gracias, sir.”
In the bath cubicle she swallowed three tumblers of deliciously cold water and splashed more on her face. Besides towels, she noticed, toothbrushes were provided, manual but new in their plastic cases. Yes, and a comb, a shaver, mouthwash, mild stimulants and painkillers. She’d found a good dock. Refreshed by the knowledge, she postponed showering and returned to perch on a chair. Lee followed her example.
“We’ve lucked out, haven’t we?” Kyra said. “For the time being, anyhow.”
“Luck’s not a function just of chance,” Guthrie replied.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean there hadn’t been intelligence.” Kyra straightened where she sat. By all accounts, the jefe máximo despised sycophants. “But we are lucky in having Tahir on our side. He’s quite a man, isn’t he?”
“A leo,” Guthrie agreed. “I’ve considered Islam to be one of the human race’s bigger mistakes, but he might change my mind for me.”
“He doesn’t seem like a, a Low World leader.”
“He isn’t, really,” Lee said. “Besides being a councillor and judge in this community, he’s the purchasing agent for whatever supplies that its industries need from outside sources. That involves him with high as well as low tech, and everything it implies.”
Kyra hesitated. “I don’t rightly understand,” she confessed. “That is, I know a little about the economics. People, the majority on Earth, those who haven’t the skills or abilities that the forefront of the world wants—of course most of them don’t struggle along in some kind of primitive self-sufficiency. It isn’t that simple. But I’m not sure how it does work.”
“No reason why you should be,” Guthrie said. “If you’re a space pilot, you’ve had plenty else to occupy you. And you spend your Earthside time in High World enclaves, don’t you?”
“Bueno, I—”
“Judas priest, woman, don’t feel guilty about doing what’s sensible!”
Lee brought Kyra back to her question. “It doesn’t work in any single fashion,” he said. “It’s as varied and variable as the groups involved. In fact, ‘High World’ and ‘Low World’ are a false dichotomy. They not only interact in countless ways, they shade into each other.”
She frowned. “Can’t you give me some specific data, though? For instance, Tahir’s society. If it needs something more than basic citizens’ allowance, it has to pay. That means it has to produce and sell something for which there’s a demand. What, in this case?”
“No one specialty. Assorted goods and services. A little tourism and entertainment, though mostly these people are too proud and clannish for that. Handmade items—mainly curio value, because North Africa floods the market with the same kind of art.” (Yes, Kyra thought, each piece unique, individually machine-made according to a self-diversifying program.) “But most of the men here have outside jobs, some fairly high-tech, some not. Gunjins, for instance. This culture has a martial tradition.”
“Where did it come from?”
“Part old American. There was a wave of conversions to Islam in, uh, the twentieth century. Especially among afros, I believe. But the ancestors of these folks were mainly Near Easterners, refugees from the Holy League, after the Befehl broke down and the Europeans pulled out. Muslims were already unpopular in the West, often discriminated against. This immigration made matters worse. Things got really horrible during the Grand Jihad—segregation, restriction, outright persecution. They were driven in on themselves, their own resources. Naturally, they reacted by emphasizing their cultural identity; you may think they’ve exaggerated it. By the time they could mingle freely, many didn’t want to. Also, by then the tech development curve was rising too fast for a lot of them to catch up. The end result was communities like this.”
“You do like to hear yourself talk, don’t you?” remarked Guthrie.
“I’m sorry, sir.” Kyra heard the hurt in Lee’s voice and felt a twinge of resentment on his behalf.
“Oops,” said Guthrie. “I’m sorry. No insult meant. When I haven’t got any effectors, just this damn box, it’s hard to make plain I’m twitting you. You’re a scholar by temperament, you want to explain things in full, sure, fine. I’m an occasional motormouth myself, they tell me.”
Kyra straightened on her chair. “Maybe
we should concentrate less on the past and more on the future,” she snapped. “Our future.”
“If we aren’t too nervous to make sense,” Lee said unevenly.
“I don’t think you are,” Guthrie told them. “You’re both first-chop people, with more reserves than you know. Anyway, thinking about things before going to sleep, you’re apt to wake up with a few solutions to your problems.”
Even he, Kyra thought, required a strange kind of slumber. Certain lines rose through memory to chill her.
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil—
The prosaic voice hauled her back: “Assume Tahir can get us smuggled out. He warned us that’s about all he can do. We’ve got to plan beyond then. First we’d better review the situation as she is. What should we warn Tahir about? What spoor are we leaving for the cops, and how might we cover it?” The eyes swiveled toward Lee. “Bob, they’ll soon pull your lock code from the file and let themselves into your place. I’m sure you weren’t so stupid as to have an unregistered code.”
“N-no, sir, of course not,” Lee said. “I’d have been in trouble in case of a spot check or, or anything unusual.”
“Once upon a time in this country, some men composed a fairy tale and called it the Bill of Rights. It said something quaint about the right of the people to be secure against that kind of thing.”
“I know. I was educated in a company compound.”
“Me too,” Kyra murmured.
“Yeah,” Guthrie said. “One point of friction between Fireball and the government. We resisted having our kids dragooned into the public school system. Well, never mind now. I get grumpy, that’s all.
“The point is, the Sepo will make a fine-filament sweep of your quarters. Have you left anything to indicate I may have stayed there? Be honest, and don’t be bashful. I won’t think the less of you because you aren’t a cloak-and-dagger pro.”
Lee frowned, stared into space for a few seconds, then shook his head. “I don’t believe I did. They may find the safe, though it’s pretty well screened, but in that case they’ll see it was installed long before my time. I recorded nothing germane to you. The communication lines you used also go back to well before I moved in. You know better than I how safe they are.”
“Quite safe, as far as detectors and taps are concerned. When they’re not in service, they cut themselves off without trace from the rest of our net. Okay. You’ll need an explanation of why you were absent, one they’ll accept without much inquiry. That wants corroboration. Think. What might you have been doing? Having a fling in a Low World den of iniquity? I’ve got the connections to arrange for witnesses to that on fairly short notice, if you’re willing.”
Lee’s scowl darkened. “I don’t know, sir. I mean, I don’t care if they snicker. But if they ask around, they’ll learn that sort of thing isn’t in character for me. That could be hard on … your friends too.”
“Any better ideas, then?”
“No, I’m afraid not. At first, you said I should simply play ignorant. It doesn’t look so straightforward now. Let me think more.”
“Do.” The lenses focused on Kyra. “Your turn, Pilot Davis. Any reason for them to suspect you’ve had a hand in this?”
“No,” she said. “I’m just a spacer who chanced to be at Kamehameha when Dr. Packer needed couriers.”
“Anything in your background that might single you out?”
“Bueno—bueno, I’m third-generation Fireball, but that’s common enough, isn’t it?” Kyra paused. She must force herself a little. “My parents are North American born, but they’ve lived in Russia the past, m-m, fourteen years. They didn’t want to move, but the company transferred them, actually to better positions—for their safety, I suspect. You see, Dad’s fierily anti-Avantist. He grew more outspoken for every new law and regulation the Synod got passed.” A smile twitched. “Mother’s a cooler head.”
“I see. Yours isn’t the only family we’ve had to move. What do they do?”
“Dad’s an analytical physicist.” She heard the pride rising. “These days he works on antimatter, designs for improving the large-scale production of heavy nuclei. Mother’s a biotics programmer. I have a younger brother in the Academy.”
“Wait. Those Davises?” Guthrie was still for a moment. “Damn, I know I’ve met their names before, but most of my memories are banked elsewhere. I’m sorry.”
It was decent of him to apologize, Kyra thought. “Not your fault, jefe. You can’t store everything in … your personal database.”
If he were hooked to his main hypercomputer, she thought, he could summon anything in Fireball’s files, including detailed recollections of his direct experiences. He’d need less computer capability than that to project a face of his own into a multi, a human play of expressions, instead of having to speak from within a blank box.
“Thanks,” he said. After another silence: “Close-knit family, eh? I daresay you’ve spent a lot of your Earthside time in Russia with them.”
“Yes. And otherwise, oh, sightseeing, vacationing around the globe. Hardly ever in the Union, except Hawaii.” Mountain, forest, strand, surf, reef, ocean, remnants of a past that had been wonderfully alive; a hula, a luau, done for the tourists but still remnants of a past that had been wonderfully human; the Keiki Moana, graceful, wistful, remnants of a future that had failed. “Otherwise this country is depressing.” How sour that word tasted. “Not that I’ve been much on Earth at all since getting my captain’s rating. I’ve had some long hauls.”
“Really? Where?”
“Asteroid and cometary prospecting tours, as far as the Kuiper Belt. Outer planets, ferrying for the scientific stations. Once on Taurid work, emergency call.”
Muy bien, she was bragging, and quite aware of Lee’s awed stare. But the idea was less to impress Guthrie than to give him an estimate of her potentials.
“Whew!” exclaimed the artificial voice. “You’ve put yourself in my everyday memory for certain, Pilot Davis, and when I consult your file, that’ll also go permanently into this can. God damn, in the old days I’d’ve met you personally and congratulated you. In my flesh days I’d’ve given you a big wet kiss as well. Fireball’s gotten too mucking huge.”
Virtually a nation in its own right, Kyra’s mother had remarked once. It is a nation, her father replied, more so than most that bear the name nowadays.
Oh, yes, he added for the benefit of the child who was listening (as she understood later), legally it’s nothing but a privately held corporation, chartered in Ecuador, carrying on a variety of enterprises across Earth and throughout the Solar System. Their importance gives it nothing but enormous wealth and influence—legally. In fact, though, it provides most of its people with most of what they need, from homes and schools and medical care to help against the governments that claim them. If we choose to swear full fidelity to it, Fireball will pledge us the same; and then we are no longer just employees, we are consortes. That’s no mere contract, that’s a constitution. And think about our customs, generations-old traditions, everything we share, far over and beyond any material treasures—A nation, I tell you.
That wasn’t quite correct, Dad, Kyra now thought. The nation, that’s us, and our sovereign territory is all of space.
Yet through his computers and his communication lines, a single ghost was still able to rule it, keep it together, stave off its foes, set it reaching for the stars. How much longer could he? Already his grip was loose—No, wrong. He had always left the members as independent as possible. That was the real wellspring of Fireball’s strength.
Guthrie recalled her mind to him. “Okay,” he asked, “what brought you to Earth this time? Vacation?”
“Not really,” Kyra said. “I was in L-5 while my ship got a routine overhaul. A special cargo was going to North America, organic cryocells. That meant regulations called for a human pilot. The usual man had taken an accidental radiation dose and was
in DNA therapy. I offered to substitute and they agreed.” Why not, given a person of her qualifications, humdrum though the flight was? “Turn-around time would be about three days, because unloading that stuff is finicky. It’d allow me to visit my parents or maybe get in some surfing.”
“In short, you arrived by pure happenstance, and if the cops play back the log, that’s what they’ll confirm. Your family’s dossier might raise eyebrows, but I doubt they’ll check that. When you don’t report back for liftoff, they may wonder. On the other hand, they’ll have a lot else on their minds. Besides, once the clampdown on the company has been announced, it’ll seem perfectly natural for you to sit tight wherever you are.”
“I’m safely anonymous?” Excitement fluttered. “I can walk right out of this place?”
“Um-m, maybe not that easy. Let’s double check. How’d you travel here?”
Led by sharp questions, Kyra described her itinerary. With dismay she remembered the bubbletrike, locked in a time-expired rack and traceable through her thumbprint.
“What about the rental period?” Guthrie demanded.
“I entered that I might return today or it might be tomorrow. I didn’t know which, you see.”
“Smart girl. Well, if you can’t spring the vehicle tomorrow, I don’t suppose anybody will notice the unpaid meter right away, and then the matter will be for city maintenance, not the cops—at first, anyhow.”
“You can do better than that,” Lee proposed. “Call on a public line once you’re outside, tell the agency you had to go elsewhere because of an emergency and they should send somebody to pick up the trike. It’ll carry their code, which the lock will open for. Charge the extra expense to your credit. I daresay that sort of thing happens every once in a while, and they’ll think little or nothing of it.”
“Hey, Bob, you have the makings of a pretty slick desperado,” Guthrie said.
“Bueno, then,” Kyra said gladly, “I can leave you in a safe place, sir, and convey in person whatever message you want to send Dr. Packer. Or someone else?”
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