Seeds of Memory

by J. Richard Jacobs

  “Did you see that in a dream?” Shan queried nervously.

  “No, Bo, I didn't—Twenty-three told me about it."

  “Oh, fine—dreams and talking shuttles,” Shan muttered as he fell to his knees and began groping about in the slime.

  Had there been adequate light, Niki would have been pleased by the expressions of calm confidence on the faces of his little band of unarmed commandos. All, that is, but Shan, who was absolutely terrified.

  The search for the opening continued for over an hour before Shan proclaimed proudly, and a little too loudly, that he had found it.

  “Shh,” Luto hissed. “Remember what you said—you don't want to be termed along with the rest of us. The people on the other side of that grate would be more than happy to do just that."

  The noise of the hatch opening wasn't particularly loud, but Niki's perception of it gave him the feeling it could be heard throughout the shelter. He wanted all his men in under that room before a search of the shafts could be launched.

  “Everybody, into the core chamber—quickly."

  Niki waited until everyone was below, then clambered down the ladder into a cavernous room with forty-five raised, circular lids dimpling the floor. At the base of the ladder he tapped a pad, and the hatch over his head closed, the muck on the floor above flowing slowly back in to cover any trace of their having been there.

  * * * *

  The High Council members, all wearing exaggerated frowns, sat behind a long bench on the dais, while on the floor before them stood the tribunal judges in a ring around Harko, the accused. They, too, wore expressions of extreme disapproval as they exhorted him for his use of drugs without the express permission of the LIC Council representative in his sector.

  “You must bear in mind, investigator Harko, that we are a civilized society that operates under the strict code of the Book of the Law. The Fathers did not want us to treat our citizens with such blatant—"

  An insistent beeping echoed through the Council hall and one of the tribunal judges glowered at Harko.

  “You must refrain from having your com interfere in the administration of justice, Harko. Interruptions of this nature are ... well, they are impudent and rude, that is what they are. Now, are you going to answer that infernal thing, or not?"

  His eyes were reluctant, his head refused to move off the pile of papers, so he fumbled blindly until his hand found the key pad and stopped the beep.

  Lousy, rotten dream.

  “Yeah,” he mumbled, his face still buried in papers from the files scattered over his desk.

  “Chief, we have the three men you wanted.” He paused briefly, then said, “None of them are the man you were looking for. Chief? You all right?"

  “Yeah. Yeah, I'm just trying to wake up. Are they in the building?"

  “No, sir. Should be here in about five."

  Harko struggled into an upright position to have a look at the officer on the screen. He appeared to be concerned.

  “There's more, Chief, and I hope I did the right thing. I had an air patrol make another sweep of the area, and he reported five large rovers moving into the region from the north side of the forest. I ... I pulled all the surface patrols out of there, because I didn't know what those rovers were up to or where they had come from, sir."

  “It sounds to me like you exercised good judgment. I would have done the same. These rovers ... did the pilot say how big they were?"

  “Yes, sir. That's why I pulled everybody out. He said they were twenty-four meters by sixty-five. I've never heard of any rovers that big, sir."

  “Neither have I. Thanks ... and you did the right thing. I'll be going over to Interro now to wait for our trio. If anyone needs me, route it through."

  Big rovers? Harko didn't know they made them that big. Sure, the mining outfits had some, but they were on the order of half that size—and none of them were anywhere near New London. So, what were they doing around his sector and to whom did they belong?

  The three men were wheeled into the interrogation room about twenty minutes after Harko arrived. They were strapped down on the interrogation tables, and the doctor in charge started each of them on an IV of truth juice, which would find its way into their bloodstream and take effect quickly. Oh, one could beat the juice a little, but not enough to keep the truth from being dragged out of even the most well-guarded recesses of the mind.

  As the drug trickled through the tubes, tissue was taken from each of the men for analysis in the Genlab where their identities would be determined. Harko moved to the table where the largest of the three lay motionless, looked down at his blank expression and chuckled as the tribunal scene from his dream replayed.

  Well, here's hard evidence for the tribunal.

  “Can you hear me?"

  “Yeah,” the big man said, his eyes reflecting the patterns of the ceiling tiles in his enlarged, black pupils.

  “What is your name, friend?"

  “We're not friends, and I'm not telling you anything, you untrac scum. I don't have to give you anything but ... William Malrabi. My name is William Malrabi."

  “Ah, that's much better.” Harko smiled and softened his voice. “Now, William, what were you and your friends doing in the forest by the museum tonight?"

  “Sleeping. That's all. We were sleeping ... watching the ... what the hell are you doing to me? You can't do this, you know? This is against the ... this is ... we were watching the women to make sure they didn't get away."

  “The ... women? What women, William?"

  “No. Not going to tell you ... not going to ... two in the ... two women in ... the shuttle. We were watching to see that they didn't get away."

  “The shuttle? One of those at the museum, or was it something else?"

  “You lotless maggot of a bloodworm. You ... in the museum. Yeah, in the museum. They got in ... got in the shuttle. They got inside ... to hell with you."

  “William, William, you don't need to be so angry now. I'm here to help you, but I can't if you don't help me. So, how did they get into the shuttle?"

  “I don't know. We didn't see them do it—just saw them in there, that's all."

  “All right, William,” Harko said smoothly, gently coaxing information to the surface. “It's all right, my friend. Now, I need to know who you're working for. You can tell me that, can't you, William?"

  “That's none of your concern, damn you. No, I won't tell you that. I'm a Gamma man. You know that? I'm a Gamma, and we don't ... Cadre, damn it. Paz Cadre. I am Paz ... can't tell you any more. It'll end me. No more. I ... won't say any more."

  “William, please. What will end you?"

  “None of your business. I can't tell you that."

  “Who are the women in the shuttle, William? What are their names?"

  “No. No. No. Shagrat son of a ... aaaaaah. No more. Please, no more. Too hot."

  “William, I need to know the names of the women in the shuttle. Who are they, William?"

  “One is ... no. No ... no ... no ... I'm not going to ... Generation and Twelve Points ... gone together. Won't be long now. Won't be long."

  Malrabi's head was moving wildly from side to side as if he were in tremendous pain. Harko had never seen anything like it. Then he noticed the other two. They were writhing similarly, convulsing, and his first thought was that something had gone wrong with the juice.

  “Hey, Doc,” he shouted at the com. “Get in here, quick."

  Harko spoke softly to Malrabi again. “Who are the women in the shuttle, William? I need their names."

  “One is Pash ... aaaaaah. No—” Malrabi's body began convulsing with sharp movements as though someone were administering shock.

  The doctor entered the room and stood near Malrabi's head.

  “What the hell's going on with—"

  He didn't get to finish his question. The top of Malrabi's skull came off and disemboweled the doctor instantly. There were three muffled pops and the interrogation room was sprayed with bits
of bone and brain tissue. The three decapitated bodies twitched a few times, then lay death still while the doctor, who had been standing in the spot where Harko had been only seconds before he called for help, lay on the polished stone floor with both hands held tightly over a wound that refused to stay closed enough for him to get his breath.

  In his earlier days, Harko had worked the same crummy details as anyone else, starting from a lowly officer on the square, progressing to I-team detective, then on to an Enforcement Investigator. He thought he had seen all there was to see. But nothing in his experience came close to paralleling what had happened in the interrogation room. Happily, the doctor's wound was not as severe as it appeared and, for that, Harko felt slightly better, but the other despicable act of cold carnage made him sick. He wondered if the Cadre planted explosive charges in the skulls of all their people as inducement to loyalty. Or was that pleasantness reserved for operatives such as the three messily beheaded individuals in there where the orderlies were cleaning up the gore? At that point it didn't matter too much—he had to get a grip on himself and move before it got to be too late, if it wasn't already. Too late for what he couldn't be sure, but time slipped by, and if there were any truth at all in what Malrabi had said—and the juice made sure there would be—things could get very much out of hand in a hurry if he hesitated.

  He dispatched I-team units from Enforcement to investigate the possible presence of two women inside one of the shuttles. The officer to whom he gave the order smiled at him from the monitor and looked like he was about to make some comment when Harko's expression hardened. He cut the connection at the end of his crisp, “Yes, sir, Chief Harko."

  The information Harko had extracted from Malrabi was disjointed, incomplete, and nebulous, but, working at the intuitive level, Harko figured that whatever the Cadre was contemplating would be put into practice—and soon. As for there being any alliance between the Generation and Twelve Points, he remained skeptical. Why? What would cause them to unite when they were as dissimilar as Echo and Almug? The only sensible reason he could come up with that had any merit at all was that they had been forced to enter a mutual protection pact, the Cadre having already eliminated several members of the Generation. But that, too, blew off on Halfyear wind, because none of the Twelve Points people were being subjected to the Cadre's brand of affection. It didn't sit well in his mind. No, there had to be something else at work—something to do with Kaznov, perhaps?"

  * * * *

  “Pasha."

  “Yes, Twenty-three?"

  “Eight individuals are approaching."

  “Let me see them."

  A small monitor over her head flickered to life, and the eerie greenish images of eight armed men in Enforcement uniforms appeared. They were moving straight for the lift.

  “Twenty-three, security mode, please."

  Pazians were not accustomed to such profound darkness. On Paz there always was some light—sometimes faint, like during the Days of Disturbance, but there was light. Inside the shuttle there was none as Twenty-three darkened the windows, blocking the metallic glow from a nearly overhead Vegamtu, then darkened all the instruments and devices inside the cabin, leaving Pasha in a totally black void. She felt alone and terribly naked to a danger she couldn't name as she groped and stumbled her way back to the passage, then dragged her palm along the partition, counting doors until she reached eighteen. She tapped lightly on it with a fingernail, and the door opened to reveal Antaris, silhouetted in dull red, standing with one hand planted on her hip.

  “Now what is happening? Twenty-three refuses to give me any light but this awful red thing, which makes me look ... grotesque."

  Pasha squeezed past Antaris and pulled the door closed.

  “Enforcement people are here.” She moved across the small compartment and took a seat on the netted surface of the sleeping flat. “I put Twenty-three in security mode so we don't have to worry about them—I don't think we do, anyway."

  “The only thing I can say about that is, relax. People have been picking, probing, and trying to cut their way into these machines since the last of the Fathers went term, and they are not going to be able to do it tonight, either."

  Antaris moved over to a small panel on the forward bulkhead and turned to face Pasha. She was right, Pasha noted—the red light didn't do her any favors.

  “I have made a marvelous discovery, Pasha. Do you want to hear what I found while you were up there talking to your new friend?"

  “Sure I do—what is it?"

  “I do not know, exactly. Music, but nothing like what we have here. You may not be ready for this."

  “Trina."

  “Well, all right, since you insist."

  “Well?” Pasha said impatiently.

  “Twenty-three."

  “Yes, Trina."

  “Entertainment, please."

  “State desired category from the menu."

  “Music. Classical. Bach. All selections to be historically sequential and set the volume at two."

  “Volume two is not possible in secure setting. Will one suffice?"

  “Yes, yes—just do it."

  The compartment filled with sound—beautiful sound—sound like Pasha had never heard. She sat, spellbound, her body involuntarily trembling as rich musical tones caressed her and flowed into the depths of her.

  “Trina ... that's ... that's wonderful. Why don't we have anything like this? Those sounds, they're so ... so smooth, so ... I can't tell you what I mean."

  “I could not find the words for it, either,” Antaris said with a smile. “Now, if we had some water I would make us some massak, if we had some massak."

  “Massak is the surname of Science Officer Addler Massak. He is not available. There is currently no water on board, but it may be extracted from the atmosphere, if you wish."

  The two women stared at one another as the strains of Bach continued to wash over them. Outside the shuttle, Enforcement officers milled around looking for any signs that someone had entered the craft, and all of them took turns shoving their faces against the glass of the forward compartment windows while others aimed powerful lanterns inside. There was nothing to be seen—and nothing to be heard.

  * * *

  Chapter XVII

  Harko slammed his transport onto the eastbound track and pushed the throttle past the forward detent. I-team reports indicated there was nothing—no one inside the shuttles and nothing out of order, but he knew the juice always worked—that's why they used it—so he had to satisfy himself by taking a personal look. Malrabi might have been able to lie under other circumstances, but not when in the clutches of the drug. Harko was being haunted by vivid flashbacks to the incident in the interrogation room and some time out of the building could help that, as well. He had to get some sleep—he was beginning to hallucinate. He thought he saw a deep shadow moving against the darker backdrop of gnarled trees in their winter nakedness, scratching at the dark sky with skeletal fingers north of the track, but when he looked in that direction there was nothing but Vegamtu's whiteness reflecting off the thin layer of ice collecting on the tortured, bare branches.

  He shrugged and bore on down the track. Ten seconds later his transport's radar alarm growled and he was thrown forward against his shoulder restraints as the computer automatically seized control and went into collision avoidance. A black on black apparition shot across the track from his left and disappeared into the jumble of trees to his right. The earlier report had been correct because Harko had just seen one of them close up—huge and moving at high speed in the general direction of the museum.

  “One to Central."

  “Central."

  “Do we have any air patrols near the museum complex?"

  “No, sir. Both are down in Southwest Sector, and it'll take half an hour to get them out there."

  “That'll have to do. Tell them I want a light sweep of the entire area made every thirty minutes—and tell them to contact me directly after they've mad
e their first pass. One out."

  From now on he wanted to know where those rovers were. He was certain they were Cadre, and they weren't out for a casual drive in the country—they were out there in the forest because of what Malrabi had said about watching the women—women who were supposed to be inside one of the shuttles, shuttles no one had ever been able to penetrate.

  * * * *

  The aged curator of the museum tottered up to Harko in an imitation of running and breathlessly addressed him.

  “You are—you are the man from Law Apps? The man in charge of those mindless, barbaric savages?” he said, pointing a quivering, crooked finger at the shuttle display doors.

  “Yes, I'm Chief Harko, and those are my mindless barbarians."

  “Well ... sir, will you please tell them to stop?"

  “Stop what, friend?"

  “They are in there with a Barnet laser attempting to cut into shuttle number twenty-three, and they are ruining our display. Just you go in there and look at what they are doing."

  “They're only following orders, sir."

  “Orders? Orders? Whose orders?"

  “Mine."

  “Yours? You know they cannot be cut. That has been tried before.” The old man was nearing a state of hyperventilation as he continued, “They are making marks on my display. We had the only pristine display on Paz, and now—now they are ruined. Look at them. They are using a Barnet on them. What gives you the authority to destroy a Pazian treasure?"

  “I've been authorized by the High Council to do whatever is necessary to further the investigation of a crime we believe to be in progress—a crime involving things much more important than those shuttles—and we believe some of the perpetrators are in that shuttle."

  The curator, half crying, half laughing, shouted, “Someone inside the shuttle? That is blatantly absurd. The best scientific minds on Paz have tried for two centuries to find a way in and have met with total failure. How is it even remotely possible someone has entered one of them now?"

  “I can't answer that—but we have credible cause to believe someone has done it. Now, sir, I have to tell you to take whatever people you have out here and go home. This facility is officially under Council control."