Carlo’s was down a narrower pedestrian tunnel, what might have been called a side street or a lane, less than a hundred yards away. Unlike Ojolian’s, it was brightly lit, with shimmering off-white plastreen tables, covered with red oilcloth. We ended up beside a fountain set in the middle of perhaps fifteen tables. The antique-looking fountain was a representation of a circular tower, leaning at an angle. Clearly, that was deliberate, but why that might be escaped me.
“What do you suggest?” I asked, leaving it up to the two as to who might answer.
“I like the risotto funghi,” offered Zerlyna
“If you’re in the mood for something solid,” added Aloris, “you might try the kalzone.”
“What are you having?”
“Mixed antipasto.” She paused. “Both the house red and white wines are good.”
In the end, I settled on a kalzone, and the limpid lager that the server immediately brought was nowhere near as good as that at Ojolian’s, which had been barely passable. I realized, belatedly, that Aloris had been offering a veiled warning about the lager. I’d have to keep that mannerism in mind.
As we sipped our various beverages, Zerlyna looked across the circular table and asked, “Are you finding everything accessible?”
“Very much so.” So far as I know.
“That’s Zerlyna’s doing,” explained Aloris. “She’s the data manager … and the one who compiles all the annual budget reports to the Planetary Council.”
“Then you’re the one who could tell me what occupies most of the Survey’s effort here.”
“That comes under operations. It’s keeping the outies under control.”
I hadn’t the faintest idea what she meant. “Outies? I haven’t seen anything on that. Why is that such a big problem?”
“All those entries are under Outland Operations.” Zerlyna paused.
“That’s not under an assistant media director?”
“No. Outland Operations are enforcement, and it’s directly under Jorl.” She paused, just for an instant. “I’m sure you’ve noticed how close Stittara is to T-norm, despite the anomalies. The official population is maybe four million. Half of those are outies.”
Four million struck me as an incredibly low population figure for a world that had been first occupied a thousand years earlier, but that would be easy enough to check. “Meaning they don’t live in places like Passova?”
“That’s right. Their birthrate is higher, too, and where they can crop or herd is limited under the Unity protocols. If we let them cultivate or grow anywhere they wanted, with the storms and winds we have, we’d have ecological disaster in less than two generations. Most of our enforcement personnel are detailed to keep tabs on them, and most of the people who are in rehab or work custody are outies.”
“For ecological and environmental violations,” added Aloris, in case I didn’t see the obvious.
“Speaking of outies,” I commented dryly, “I saw someone outside early this morning.”
Aloris frowned. “I can’t imagine who that might be.”
“White blouse, long skirt, the kind no one wears anymore.” Except in the more conservative communities on Bachman. But I wasn’t going to get into that.
The two exchanged a knowing glance.
“Oh … that’s Ilsabet…” offered Aloris.
Zerlyna nodded. “Had to be.”
I nodded, wondering how the two immediately knew from my sketchy description who the woman was. “Local character?”
“You might say so. She’s been around as long as anyone can remember.”
“She didn’t seem that old.” Especially since even the best combinations of anagathics and genes generally reach their limits around two hundred.
“They say she’s close to four hundred.”
I looked at Aloris. She seemed serious. “How can that be?”
“No one knows,” replied Zerlyna. “Her behavior mimics senile dementia, but there’s no sign of that in her system. When they found her, all she could do was recite nursery rhymes or something like them. Every medical tech and doctor have studied the test results, and every so often someone comes up with another set of tests. Biologically and physiological speaking, so far as anyone can tell, she’s a perfectly normal female of forty to fifty standard years, except for the gray hair, but she never ages, and there’s nothing in her system to explain it.”
“Nothing that hasn’t been observed in other people,” added Aloris.
“And what is in people’s systems here that isn’t in mine, for example?”
“Various local micro and nano compounds and organisms. Some are likely natural anagathics,” explained Zerlyna.
I thought I caught the hint of a frown from Aloris, but that vanished as the server reappeared with our meals. The kalzone was filling and spicy, but I did appreciate the small side portion of truffled risotto that accompanied it.
After several mouthfuls, I asked, “Is this Ilsabet one of those outies?”
“No. She was, according to the records, attached to a research station that was largely destroyed and then abandoned—after whatever it was happened to it and her.”
“Why was it abandoned, and what happened to her?”
“Because, somehow, a skytube ripped open an exposed upper level and sucked everyone and everything out, down to the lowest level. Everything that wasn’t part of the structure, that is. She was found wandering around outside afterward. She doesn’t remember what happened. After that, the multi involved closed operations on Stittara. I don’t remember the name, but it’s in the records.”
In one sense, I could see why neither of them knew the details, given how long since those events had occurred. In another sense, it seemed to me that someone should have pursued what had happened and why, and that there should have been records in Systems Survey Service headquarters. “And that was it?”
“Pretty much. There were investigations. One lasted for years, but they didn’t lead to anything, and the storm’s magnetic field wiped all the data from the systems.”
“It was that powerful?”
“They’re the most powerful recorded on any T-type world.”
That was hard to believe, but that wasn’t something Aloris would have lied about. It was too easy to check, but it was another fact that hadn’t shown up in my briefing materials, which were turning out to be rather selective. I had to wonder if they’d been edited by a staffer who’d swallowed the Denier line.
“Has Ilsabet been reported to the Unity?” From my research on Bachman, I was fairly certain that there were no open references to this Ilsabet or such an event. That meant that they’d likely been deleted or remained classified. And since part of my assignment dealt with the skytubes, that was more than a little interesting. Of course, it might not have been a Denier plot—I was skeptical of great conspiracies and those who believed in them—but not of something as simple and nefarious as the multis getting the references removed or classified so that nothing interfered with the profits and demand for continuing anagathic products. That, unfortunately, suggested just how impulsive I’d been to take the contract.
“The destruction was certainly reported, and the reports on Ilsabet go back over three centuries. I assume someone on Bachman has read them by now.”
“How did this all happen?”
“It’s all in the records,” said Zerlyna. “Just keyword Ilsabet.”
I didn’t ask any more questions while I finished the kalzone and the risotto, and the lager, out of necessity.
With the slightest hint of a smile, Aloris looked at me and asked, “You’re going back to work, aren’t you?”
I nodded.
“I know you’re on contract,” Aloris went on, “but sixday afternoon isn’t a work time.”
I managed a grin. “So far as I know, none of sixday is.”
“Since it’s not,” Aloris added with a smile, “we’re going shopping. Don’t work too hard.”
“It’s not that
hard when you’re having fun.”
They both shook their heads.
Then Aloris picked up the tab, over my protests, although I didn’t protest too much, and the two of them left.
Once I returned to my spaces, I keyed in Ilsabet. The summary entry was short.
Ilsabet [presumed to be Elisabetta Vonacht, based on survivor accounts. Early records destroyed in storm of 651…] … woman of approximate chronological age of 40 standard years, with the exception of prematurely gray hair, no apparent physiological aging during extended periods of observation. Mental age of 8+, but advanced mathematical capabilities, not of savant profile.
The pages of detail that followed, along with the references to physiological and psychological studies and more studies, ran to more pages/words than I wanted to count or read. I did skim through them, but nothing ever changed, as if the woman had been frozen in metabolic time, so to speak. I didn’t know how that was possible, and neither, apparently, did any of the doctors and researchers who’d examined her over the centuries. No one knew quite what to do with her, because there was always the possibility that someone might unravel the puzzle and potential she represented.
But there was one question I had—why hadn’t she been removed from Stittara?
To find out that took another hour of digging, which was probably wasted, since she certainly didn’t bear directly on my assignment, but I was intrigued. The answer to the question was simple. She was a ward of the people of Stittara, and the Planetary Council had refused to allow her to travel off-planet. Given the precedent set by the Assemblage Genocide, that was that. Ilsabet wasn’t going anywhere. Researchers could visit her, test her, whatever, but not remove her from Stittara.
Yet … If, if that profile was correct, Ilsabet, or Elisabetta, since the early records used both, was not only more than four hundred years old, but more than five hundred, since the station had been obliterated 474 years earlier. Yet she moved like a girl, apparently thought like an eight-year-old, and could handle mathematical problems with the best of graduate doctorates—provided the problems were presented in formulaic format.
The more I studied the files on Ilsabet, the more I knew I was missing something, but at the same time I hadn’t been assigned to handle missing and seemingly impossibly long-lived women, and I did tend to be task-driven. Of course, that also might be another reason why Chelesina had left … but I wasn’t going to look too deeply into that. Not at the moment.
What I did begin to investigate was the material the Survey had on the storm that Ilsabet had survived … and it was indeed some storm. The estimated wind velocity, and it was estimated, because no instruments survived, exceeded eight hundred klicks.
I read that again. Exceeded eight hundred klicks. From what I recalled, the highest wind velocity ever recorded on a T-type planet was somewhere around five hundred klicks. That had to be a typographical error or an incorrect estimation of wind speeds. I wondered what else was inaccurate in the report, but continued to read.
The residual energy and magnetic distortions suggested that the magnetic field associated with the storm was immeasurably larger than the planetary magnetic field.
I had to stop again. That didn’t make sense. The magnetic fields associated with storms on most T-type worlds were low, usually creating variances from the planetary magnetic field of not more than ten to twenty percent, and those with high variance were associated with tight and intense storms, such as tornadoes, rather than tropical cyclones or hurricanes.
Still … the skytubes did look like tornadoes …
I shook my head.
Still …
I put those files on hold and searched out recent storm reports, those made with current instruments and containing multiple inputs and measurements. I read the most recent report, and then the one before that, and the one prior to that … until I’d found myself back almost twenty years, with a stunned feeling and a tightness in my guts.
For several moments I sat back in the standard Survey swivel. Not only were the storm numbers for the storm associated with Ilsabet unprecedented on an inhabited T-type world, the measurements associated with the “average” storms, although far less impressive, were as well. And I’d run across nothing mentioning them in any of the background material made available to me on Bachman.
Then I recalled that Aloris hadn’t mentioned what multi had operated the station that had been destroyed, and I went back and checked. It was Pentura—one of the largest and oldest of the fusactor producers and operators in the Arm.
Fusactor producer? What the frig had they been doing on Stittara … and why? And why had they abandoned operations?
There was certainly no way for me to find that out, not when they’d closed up operations 470 years earlier.
Then I recalled Zerlyna’s offhand comment about anomalies. I’d already checked into that. Stittara was slightly smaller than T-type, but the gravity was close to the same because the core was slightly larger. It was farther from its sun, but the sun was larger and hotter than the “standard” K, but the unique nature of the Stittaran atmosphere and the greater distance tended to cancel out the effect of the greater solar energy. The only anomaly I could see was that the core was larger and hotter, but the planet was older and less seismically active than predicted—except there were vast lava traps created less than two hundred million years ago. The seismic reports suggested that Stittara was a planet where plate tectonics operated more gradually, punctuated by occasional “excessive” readjustments.
I couldn’t help but hope that such readjustments came with some advance warning.
All in all, the more I found out, the less I liked it … and I hadn’t even ventured out of the local Systems Survey Service offices in Passova.
16
As on almost all Unity system planets, sevenday wasn’t a workday, unless, of course, you were in food service or entertainment or a few other occupations. I wasn’t including places like Salem, where nothing happened on sevenday, except endless worship and religious studies, something that continued to amaze me, given that no one had ever found proof of a deity in all the time humans had possessed interstellar travel. But since it’s impossible to prove a negative, and since faith provides comfort, I understood, intellectually, the appeal.
While I had work to do, I didn’t rush to get started, but let myself have the luxury of sleeping in before working out, and then sipping morning tea while scanning the local news. The stories were the same as those in Smithsen, if with far fewer killings. In fact, the newslinks reported none. For a moment I wondered about that, then nodded.
There wouldn’t be many because the population was so low, and I had checked, and it was officially 4,102,155 people, with the notation that there could be a three percent error due to “uncertainties in the outland population census.” Because all the cities on Stittara were comparatively modern and underground, every public space was monitored. Homes wouldn’t be, and it was likely most violent deaths were either the result of bad tempers, excessive stimulants, or domestic violence.
Still, there were the food poisonings at an unlicensed café in Boito, wherever that was; the boy whose legs were crushed by a tunnel lorry malfunction; a dozen outlanders sentenced to some sort of work program for illegal cultivation, presumably some of the outies mentioned by Zerlyna; crop and environmental damage from a storm on Conduo at an unlicensed agricultural plot—doubtless one of those that Aloris or Zerlyna had mentioned—and the results of the regional scholastic korfball competition, whatever that happened to be. As I watched, I kept glancing at the sky, which seemed darker, yet without clouds, but I didn’t see a single skytube, and I had no idea whether that was good or bad, although the darkness seemed closer when I looked out from the upper-level study windows just before leaving.
When I entered the Systems Survey Service spaces, they were dark, and I had to turn on the lights as I went, unsurprisingly. Since I still hadn’t finished plowing through all the background do
cumentation on the skytubes, I set aside my curiosity about Ilsabet and concentrated on what I felt, at least for the moment, should be one of the initial focal points of my assessment and evaluation.
Around midday, I took a break and left the Survey offices. I walked through the tunnel ways, finding myself after a time in what almost seemed an arcade, except on both sides were all sorts of small shops, bistros, and cafés, and most of the eating establishments had plenty of patrons. From the noise level, most of them seemed to be having a good time. Near the middle of the arcade, there was one entrance that was closed. Over the archway was the name INVIREO. While it was hard to infer much from merely an entry, the shimmering midnight-blue floor tile, outlined in a dark gold, and the maroon wall tiles, as well as the fact that there were no suggestive holo displays, or even concealed projectors, from what I could determine, suggested that it was neither a sleazy dump nor a club so exclusive that I’d likely be turned away.
Then again, I still might be turned away, simply because I wasn’t the target audience, although, from what Amarios had said, there were different audiences at different times of the evening.
“Yeah … it’s a shame Aelston’s such a straight,” came a voice from a table at an open café to my right. “Never open on sevenday. Still the best live music in this part of Passova. You ever hear Amarios?”
I turned and shook my head at the all too happy young man holding a beaker of something that was purplish. “Met but not heard.”
“Man … you’re the lucky one … She’s something … you should hear her…”
“Let the poor guy find out for himself, Pons.” Those words came from a most attractive blonde seated beside the happy drinker.
Her eyes met mine, and I could sense … interest. That definitely confused me, but I managed a pleasant smile and nodded to the pair, then turned.
“She’ll find out about him … she should…” Those words from the blonde, and the feeling that her eyes rested on me gave me a clear sense of disorientation.
I kept walking.
The One-Eyed Man Page 8