Harvest of Stars

by Poul Anderson

  How fast could his double aid his hunters to answer that? When would this resource too be turned against him?

  He swung his stalks toward Lee. “The first problem we have to deal with concerns you,” he went on. “If the cops start to seriously suspect you, and get thorough about it—pointing them at Tahir and his men who rigged our escape would be a shabby return for kindness. Also, a blow to the resistance movement.”

  Lee stiffened in his chair. He spoke as rigidly. “I know. I’ve planned a safeguard.”

  The bag he had brought along lay on his lap. He opened it and took forth a bottle and an injector. “This,” he said. The blood had gone out of his lips. “Lesmonil.”

  “What’s that?” Kyra felt a vein throb in her throat. Sweat gathered in her armpits, cold and rank.

  Lee looked straight ahead, at the nearest of the walls that enclosed him. “A synthetic drug.” His words jerked. “Seldom used. Not just because it’s illegal and hard to get. The immediate effects are ecstatic. But the slightest overdose is amnesiac, like a large overdose of alcohol except that this is total.” He barked a laugh. “Fun that you can’t remember the next day isn’t so hyper, is it? The amnesiac is really powerful. It doesn’t inhibit transfer from circulating to permanent memory, it destroys every trace. That’s why the ban on it is enforced more than on ordinary brain-poison. Even psychomeds who might find it helpful in treating mental patients, even they can’t get any.”

  “Unless they’re government psychomeds re-educating hard-case correctees, I’ll bet,” Guthrie said.

  Lee’s mouth drew taut. “Yes, I’ve heard rumors that it sees a certain amount of use in those institutions. As for what little is on the black market, most goes for pleasure—an ecstatic, remember—but I daresay various criminals have other applications of it.”

  Kyra jumped toward him. “No, Bob!” she yelled. “You can’t—wipe yourself out—like that!”

  He gave her a smile of sorts. “I don’t plan to. Before I traded my informant for this, I tapped the public database. The formula’s not there, of course, but the basic physiological facts are. The stuff attacks recent memories first. I reckon they’re the most accessible, cytologically. For my body weight, I can estimate the dose that’ll eliminate, roughly, the past fifty hours. No more.”

  “And then? And then?”

  “Why, I’ll wake up here tomorrow, sick, puzzled about what happened, but able to make my way home. If I’m arrested soon, a blood test may show I went on a lesmonil binge. No doubt the Sepo will wonder what made me do something so unlike my past life—I will myself—and they may deep-quiz me. If so, they’ll learn that I harbored the jefe, but that’s all they’ll learn, because that’s all there will be to extract. Someday you can explain to me.”

  “If … you survive.”

  He shrugged. “They seldom actually kill the subjects of their ministrations, you know. I expect I’ll go into rehabilitation.”

  Whatever is left of you, after they’ve been through your brain with their chemicals and electronics, Kyra wanted to cry out. And if you go through the years of treatment at a correction center, whatever they finally release will bear only the name of Robert E. Lee.

  She blinked hard, knotted her fists, and stammered, “W-we’ll get you out soon.” Before they can harm you beyond healing, she vowed. And meanwhile, now, she must keep her spirit as high as his.

  Hopefulness wasn’t foolishness. It was a necessity for survival.

  Guthrie, too, must want to stay clear of pity. “That’s a nice theory you’ve got,” he growled. “Listen, though. I didn’t know about this hell-soup either, but I’ve seen what assorted kinds of dope can do to people. Mainly, it ain’t predictable. How close can you gauge your dose? And ever hear about idiosyncratic reactions? You could wake up a drooling vegetable. Or dead, which I would prefer.”

  Kyra saw determination stiffen in Lee. With it went a calm that slowly eased his muscles and brought life back into his face. “It’s a gamble, yes,” he said. “The whole business is. But the odds don’t look too bad, with you two on my side. And, sir, I gave troth.”

  Silence dwelt among them.

  “Okay, son,” Guthrie said at last, most softly. “They’ll honor your name as long as there are free men alive, if we win. But Christ, I wish I could shake your hand.”

  Kyra stooped over Lee and cast her arms about him. “Gracias, mil gracias,” she said through sudden tears.

  He rose and returned the embrace heartily. It became a kiss that went on.

  “Ay,” she murmured, gaze upon gaze, after they drew a step apart, “you’ve got surprises in you, you do. Let’s investigate this further when we get the chance.”

  His mouth quirked. “You’ll have to remind me. I sure hope you will.”

  Guthrie’s basso brought their heads around to him. “Sorry, kids, we’d better stick with immediate business. Bob, you’re doubtless better informed about things local than Kyra or me. What’s our least dicey way out of here, would you say?”

  Lee blinked and responded like a man roused from dream. “Oh. … Oh, yes. Bueno, I think … I think you should leave the area pronto. Train and bus stations—” His voice quickened. “They don’t have detectors like airports, and they probably aren’t under surveillance as yet. The sheer numbers of passengers ought to help too. But don’t travel in plain sight. A general alarm could be broadcast, maybe. Take a train, Kyra, a private accommodation. Not a room, certainly not a suite. Too expensive and conspicuous. A recintito. They’re fairly cheap, but almost always available, what with the depressed state of the economy. Pay in cash dollars.”

  “Good!” Guthrie exclaimed. “I said it before, you’ve missed your calling. Next time I need a conspirator I’ll contact you.”

  “But where should we go?” Kyra asked into the air.

  “I have a notion,” Guthrie said. “Fireball consortes aren’t safe and, given the threads the Sepo may have collected, I no longer trust what few Chaotic plug-ins I know about, either. But if we buy a ticket to, hm, Portland—”

  “Stop,” Lee snapped. “Be on your way.”

  “But you, you are going to forget,” Kyra said.

  “The sooner you lift off, the better. My absence has them excited, doesn’t it?”

  “Yeah,” Guthrie said. “When they’ve heard from the other sites they’ve raided, they’ll tighten the net in this region. If they trace your movements back, they’ll find the clerk here, who’ll remember Kyra. That should take a few days, but you’re right, we’ve got to weigh anchor.”

  Lee drew breath. “Besides,” he told Kyra, “I’d rather be alone when I take my injection and fall into my rapture. I’ve gathered that it isn’t a dignified spectacle.”

  She had no words. Guthrie rumbled, “So long, son. Vaya con Díos,” before he retracted his eyes and she slipped him into the pack. She slung it on her shoulders and took the clothes bag in her hand. Ludicrously, she thought of other things she needed, a comb, a toothbrush—The terminal would have automats. She laid her free arm around Lee’s neck. “Oh, damn,” was all she could find to utter. This time the kiss was brief. You might call it chaste. He stood in the doorway and watched her go down the stairs.

  8

  WHEN THE MESSAGE reached Director Engineer Pierre Aulard at his laboratory in L-5, he had sat for a long while thoughtful.

  It had arrived over a long-established Fireball communications line, secret, independent of any net, so safeguarded in every way that nothing transmitted had ever been tapped. The keys to the encryption were in the possession of very few persons indeed; those associates of Anson Guthrie who were his oldest and most trusted. Though brief, this dispatch was in his personal style, the like of which had not otherwise been heard for long lifetimes, and it made passing reference to bygone days that brought a momentary smile to Aulard’s lips. The burden was: “Prospects are more than hopeful, if we handle it right, but it’ll be tricky. I need my old camarilla with me, the gang of you in person. Together
we’ll buck things through, the way we did when you were young. Remember? Say absolutely nothing to anybody except that you may be gone a fairish while.” There followed instructions for making contact.

  His first feeling was immense relief. He had exploded in protests when Guthrie proposed to slip into that crazy North America and manage operations against the Avantists on the spot. What if they came to suspect his presence among them? What if they tracked him down? By comparison, his Alpha Centauri junket had been commonsensical to the point of stodginess. Guthrie hadn’t listened. After he departed, Aulard took refuge in work. Design problems of new spacecraft, they were something a man could give himself to without fear. Even the endless, niggling demands on him as an executive suddenly became almost welcome.

  Now it seemed the jefe was at least partly safe and making ready to strike back in earnest. How, though? And what possible use could an aged technologist be? “The old camarilla—” why, that included Juan Santander Conde, retired with the honorific of Director Emeritus. God’s name, had the summons also come to Juan in Quito? And to whom else?

  Nervous again, Aulard began to realize how little he knew of the situation. He had never been one for politics or any similar monkey antics. The business on Earth infuriated him, but he had followed events only in the sketchiest fashion. Seeking understanding, he went to his computer terminal and keyed for a précis. As it unrolled on the screen, from time to time he retrieved data concerning specific aspects. Finally he sat back, closed his eyes, and arranged the information neatly in his mind.

  —After the Union government occupied and began to search Fireball’s North American headquarters, business was allowed to resume, under supervision. Company facilities elsewhere in the country functioned nearly as usual. Communications and personnel moved about, nationally and internationally, as needed. Meanwhile public disputation went on between the two sides. Likewise, but not covered in any detail by the news media, did negotiations.

  Fireball wanted the militia and the detectives out of its main offices, immediately and unconditionally. The government insisted that it had taken action with the greatest reluctance and desired nothing more than to vacate. First, however, it must satisfy itself that dangerous subversives, perhaps terrorists, had not wormed their way into company employ. This was not a question of ideology but of prudence. In an era of fusion-powered engines, molecular engineering, and potentially lethal industrial materials, fanatics with access to the resources of an interplanetary organization could commit genocide, whether or not that was their intent. Fireball should not obstruct the investigation; for its own sake, it should cooperate. And since matters had come to a head, a number of long-standing issues had better be settled too. … The parleying dragged on.

  Then things began to deteriorate. Service to North Americans was cut. Shipments went elsewhere. Proffered contracts that would routinely have been accepted were refused. Protests brought the response that it wasn’t surprising if the present circumstances caused a certain loss of efficiency. Fireball officers stationed within the country explained, quite honestly, that they had nothing to do with this. Theirs was not a joint stock company, it was a privately owned corporation. Most of its important divisions were affiliates or independent contractors, but only technically so. As close-knit as all were, by tradition and emotion still more than by spelled-out agreements, the ultimate governance was highly personal. Sr. Guthrie could doubtless set everything straight whenever he chose. But after issuing a pungent statement at the time of the seizure, he had apparently left the problem to his people in situ and their superiors in Quito. Such was his normal practice; he was no micromanager, but encouraged individual initiative. He had since withdrawn, and not yet been heard from. His whereabouts were unknown. This too was not uncommon.

  When informally talking with government agents, company representatives grinned and said words to the effect of, “Certainly he’s putting pressure on you. What did you expect?” The measures were uncannily well aimed. The Security Police failed to smell out the source of those occasional commands. Fireball’s lines of communication were cunningly laid out.

  Increasingly, voices rose, urging a break of the deadlock, even if the settlement meant the Union authorities must yield on every significant point. The voices were not simply those of businessfolk and ordinary citizens who suffered inconvenience—in several cases, financial disaster. Politicians spoke, and various high-level bureaucrats. Contrary to claims made by some of its enemies and many of its proponents, Avantism was not in monolithic unanimity. It never had been, quite. If nothing else, opinions often differed about the interpretations and the practical uses of Xuan’s equations; these arguments could develop into contests for power. As the years went by and the disappointments multiplied—goals unmet, economic difficulties, corruption, unrest, outright defiance, widespread indifference, spiritual secession—factionalism waxed. No public figure still resident within the national borders had, thus far, openly proposed scrapping the entire system; but more and more of them were saying, less and less circumspectly, that it seemed in need of modification.

  Making peace with Fireball could well open a way to improving foreign relations generally and thence to internal reform. Three successive members of Congress said this from the floor and were neither denounced nor arrested.

  Proceedings of the Advisory Synod were never public. Nonetheless, word leaked out that some members now favored such a policy. …

  There the matter stood, aside from whatever Guthrie was doing. Evidently his direction from his secret lair had been successful thus far. Did he now mean to arrange for some spectacular action that would carry Fireball to victory?

  Aulard sighed, shook his head, rose, and went off to make his preparations. That evenwatch he left the orbital colony aboard a regular shuttle to Kamehameha Spaceport. Arriving, he called the number that the message had given him, and in response got the address to which he should go. As ordered, he had traveled under an assumed name with appropriate identification material such as was kept in reserve for possible use. He went inconspicuously from the terminal, without a word to anybody who knew him, and took a cab to his destination.

  Some fifty hours later, the Union government occupied every Fireball property in its jurisdiction. It announced that new discoveries about the extent of the danger made necessary this move and other emergency measures, but it trusted the crisis would soon be resolved to the satisfaction of both parties and of the human community at large.

  On the following day, three officers of the Security Police escorted Pierre Aulard to their Northwest Integrate headquarters and a sanctum within it. As the door behind the anteroom retracted, they stepped back. He passed through and it closed after him. Of course, they would monitor what happened, visually if not with audio, and surely equipment elsewhere would record in multisense detail.

  A viewscreen gave a broad outlook over the city, as seen from the roofport. Clouds scudded on a wind whose boisterousness Aulard had felt when he left the flitter that brought him here. Sunshine and shadow raced beneath them, down the streets and across the towers. The bay sparkled. No noise penetrated to the office, though, and its air stirred merely to the ventilators, temperature so well controlled that it seemed as devoid of heat or cold as it was of odors. Aulard barely glanced at the image before he focused on the desk and what stood behind.

  That was a general-purpose robot, wheel-mounted. Its four arms ended in flexible hands but most functions were inside the boxy body or connectible to external devices. The turret had been modified, apparently a special job since marks of hand work were visible. Eyestalks protruded. When it spoke, the sound was not a standard tenor or soprano but a rough bass, English with an archaic American accent. “Hi, there. Welcome.”

  Aulard’s fists knotted at his sides. “W’at are you?” he snapped.

  “Anson Guthrie—who else?—currently wearing this chassis for lack of anything better. Good to see you, man. Care for a drink? I ordered Scotch.” The
robot gestured at the contents of a tray on the desk. Aulard shook his head. “Well, whenever you like, help yourself. Meanwhile, sit down, do, and let’s talk.”

  Aulard went to a flexchair. The robot noticed his slight limp and exclaimed, “Hey, you weren’t mistreated, were you? If anybody hurt you, tell me and I’ll have the sanamabiche strung up by the balls.”

  “No. It is only sat at my age, one creaks under Earse gravity.” Aulard seated himself. “I did not make a fight. Sey ’ad guns, and no witnesses.”

  “Pierre, I apologize. We had no choice, but it was still a stinking way to treat you. Please let me explain, and then I’ll fall on the face I haven’t got, making it up to you. Are your quarters okay?”

  Aulard shrugged. “As prisons go.”

  “Look, I can arrange you a house off by itself—among trees, Pierre—with good food and wine, every kind of entertainment piped in, women if you want. Yes, and equipment too, within reason. You’ll have a chance to work on whatever you’ve been itchy to get at. Nobody and nothing to bother you.”

  “Because I am cut off from everybody and everysing, hein?”

  “Not for long. It shouldn’t be for very long at all.”

  Aulard sat silent the better part of a minute, until he raised his white head and asked stonily, “W’at about Santander?”

  “Well—” The synthetic syllable trailed away. The robot itself never stirred.

  “If you did not lure ’im ’ere too, sere is no sense in ’aving me. ’E will soon suspect, and act.”

  The reply grated. “Well, sure, we did bring him in. You’re right, we can’t, for now, have anybody running loose who knows … what you know … about the two of me. If that word escaped, all hell would let out for noon. I’ll explain why, and hope you’ll then agree this, uh, underhanded proceeding was necessary.”

  Aulard looked into the lenses as if they were human eyes. “Nordberg is dead, Santander and I are prisoners,” he said, “but are you quite certain sere is nobody else? One of us could ’ave made provisions.”