Farther along there was another open café, this one with an awning, not that any such was necessary, and I noticed a family sitting on one side, a couple with a daughter, perhaps four. Two couples stood beyond the railing. Both of the women outside the café were talking to the mother, but their eyes were on the child.
“… darling…”
“… so fortunate … such a dear…”
I could see that the girl was an attractive child, and well dressed, although a few flecks of powdered sugar had streaked her pink blouse, and I eased around the group, thinking that I really hadn’t seen that many children. But then, that was scarcely surprising, since my walk along the arcade or tunnel boulevard was really the first time I’d been anywhere that I’d have been likely to have seen a child.
Perhaps a quarter kay farther along, to the west, according to my link, I passed another club, with the name Exotia … and it was open, with a beefy hawker/bouncer standing outside.
“See it all! Hear it … you won’t believe your eyes…”
What my eyes had to do with believing or hearing was another question, and I nodded and walked by. He didn’t even try a second time. It could be that my black-trimmed gray singlesuit proclaimed me far too much a straight, if straight even meant what I thought it did on Stittara. But then, I’ve never been one who enjoyed extravagance for the sake of extravagance, unlike Chelesina. Nor was I an exhibitionist. If I had been a performer, I’d probably have opted for conservatively bright vests or jackets over a tastefully sparkling dark singlesuit.
Eventually, even in walking boots, my feet began to get sore, and after consulting my link, I found a tunnel transport that took me back to within a quarter kay of the Survey offices.
Once at my console, I went back to researching, but the first research I did was a search of names—the ones of the passengers with whom I’d talked on the Persephonya. I’d waited almost a week to run the search for several reasons, one being that local sources and media wouldn’t pick up on new arrivals immediately, and second, I didn’t want the search to jump out at Aloris and Raasn—or Zerlyna—whoever was doubtless logging and tracking my data requests and console operations.
Needless to say, my results were rather sparse. There was a listing of all inbound passengers on the Persephonya, or rather all those who had come planetside, and I saved that for future reference. There was also a Planetary Council notice granting residence and permanent employment status to a number of people, including Georg and Holly by Syntex, and Rikard Spek by RDAEX, and temporary residence and employment to others, including me and Rob Gybl. That suggested that Gybl’s trip to Stittara was not so spur of the moment or whimsical as he’d tried to portray, but more thought out. Other multis or institutions sponsoring people were ABP, Eterna, Valior, and, interestingly, the local office of the Unity’s Ministry of Technology, with their new or transferred employee or officer—Torgan Brad—but with no other information. Conditional residence was granted to Julea Sorensyn, for lack of a sponsor. In short, she’d arrived without a sponsor, but had enough assets of some sort, or personal contacts, to be allowed to remain on good behavior, and without being put in detention. There was a listing of twenty passengers who had come under life-suspension, none of whom were linked to government or multis. But there was no mention of Aimee Vanslo or Constantia Dewers, only a note to the effect that four passengers were exempt from public notice requirements as per regulations. Those with power and position usually manage it somehow, if often not quite so obviously.
I was about to close that file when I noted something. For each person granted permanent employment status, the sponsoring organization had been noted, and for Georg and Holly, that was Syntex. I’d known that from talking to them, and from the notice, but what I’d almost overlooked was the phrase following their sponsor Syntex—“a subsidiary of VLE, Bachman.”
I’d heard of VLE, vaguely, an Arm multi of significance, but not among the largest, meaning a market capitalization of hundreds of billions of duhlars, rather than more than a trillion. VLE? Possibly Vanslo Enterprises? I’d have to see. It might just be a stretch or coincidence … or not.
There were no references in any local link or linkpubs to anyone on the passenger list. So, with that taken care of, I went back to reading the last of the more recent reports and skytube observations, not that they were all that recent.
17
The autumn skies spun their storm knots, thought three,
In time-tied eons before you and me.
Ilsabet walked toward the armaglass window, standing there for a time, before turning away from it and the pressure door to the outside.
“You can go outside,” observed Alsabet from the wallscreen.
“I don’t want to. It’s not the thing to do.”
“You always want to.”
“Today is different and ill,” declared Ilsabet. “I’ll stay in and do what I will.”
“Don’t you feel well?”
“I feel fine. The decision’s mine.”
“Can you tell me why today is ill and different?” pressed the wallscreen image, the tone of voice subtly changed.
“No, you can’t make me. It’s different and there for you to see.”
“Well … suit yourself. I won’t unlock the door or send for Clyann.”
“Matron will do what she will. That’s for better or ill.”
“You’re not making sense again.”
Ilsabet ignored the hint of exasperation behind the pleasant voice from the screen. She took a last glance through the armaglass window to the south, trying not to close her eyes. Then she turned and walked back to her chamber. She did not respond to the voice or the image of Alsabet in the screen.
18
By oneday night I’d finally managed to get through the Systems Survey records that seemed to bear on my assignment. I rewarded myself with a solid dinner at Ojolian’s, by myself. I didn’t see anyone I knew, but that meant nothing. After a second lager, which I took my time if not enjoying at least drinking, I took the tunneltram back, then walked the remaining distance to my quarters and got a decent night’s sleep.
Twoday morning started as had the other mornings, and although I kept an eye out for Ilsabet, or Elisabetta, while I cooled down from my workout and sipped my morning tea, I didn’t see her. I checked several times before I left the guest quarters and walked to the laboratory. When I stepped through the pressure-seal door into the Survey spaces, I saw Raasn Defaux and Dermotte hurrying away, both moving almost stiffly. I couldn’t help but think of the difference between Raasn and Rahn Zeglar, one angular and almost stiff, but very bright, and the other warm, friendly, and graceful, probably politically cunning, but devoid of any real depth.
The laboratory seemed empty, in that I didn’t see anyone else, but that had happened on several occasions. As I settled into my chair, trying to consider how I’d approach the field aspect of my investigation, the part I usually enjoyed, I realized I could feel what I could only describe as a tingling, a feeling that slowly intensified.
Abruptly alarms sounded from everywhere, and from hidden speakers came the announcement: “Storm warning! All pressure doors are sealing. All nonessential power will be secured in one minute. All personnel remain in secure areas. Storm warning!”
Before the power was cut, I accessed the system and tried to call up an outside view, only to get a message on the screen: All direct vid-feed outlets are now shuttered. Close all applications to avoid information loss.
Shuttered? For a storm? When almost everything was underground and the few aboveground windows were of armaglass?
As the announcement repeated itself, I closed down the console, finishing just as all the lights cut off, leaving only one small emergency lamp on the ceiling of my space. At the same time the tingling continued to build until it was close to painful.
More than two hours passed before the power was restored, and the pressure-seal doors opened. The viewers were unshuttered, and everythi
ng outside looked just as it had the day before. I didn’t even see any gouges in the grass, and that told me just how tough it was.
Then I accessed what data I could get from the system on outside atmospherics. The first was wind velocity—in excess of 550 klicks. I sat there and reviewed the storm, or rather what data had been gathered that revealed what I had not been able to see directly, or even in real time through the console. The atmospheric pressure varied tremendously, at one point dropping some forty percent below ambient norm.
The wind velocity of standard hurricanes on most water planets seldom exceeded three hundred klicks, and such velocities didn’t last more than half a standard hour in most cases. The outside wind velocity remained above five hundred klicks for close to three stans, and the tingling continued even longer. All that definitely explained, in technical as well as emotional terms, why Passova, and everything else on Stittara, was essentially underground.
At that point, Aloris arrived and peered into my spaces. “What did you think of our little storm?”
“Little? Or is that sardonicism?”
“We’ve seen storms that have lasted five hours. One even shattered shutters and armaglass ports.”
“I do see why you build the way you do.”
“You ready for a late lunch?”
I discovered I was when I joined Dermotte, Zerlyna, and Aloris at another place I hadn’t visited—Rancho Rustico—that claimed to feature the most authentic T-beef anywhere, authentic presumably referring to the closeness of the steak on my platter to what used to come only from horned bovines.
I also discovered that no one even mentioned the storm after the first few moments, when Dermotte said, “That was a quick one.”
“It’s been a good half year since a skytube storm came over Passova,” replied Aloris.
I couldn’t help but ask, “Did the name come from the fact that storms pass over the area?”
Zerlyna nodded. “The original name was just Baseuno. According to the stories, the location was picked because so few storms hit here.”
“It turned out to be wrong, eventually,” added Aloris. “Over the past four centuries or so, we’ve had a significantly higher percentage of storms than the other towns and cities. Not outstandingly larger, but significant. Those things do even out over time.”
She was probably right about that, and I nodded, then addressed the T-beef sandwich, which tasted authentic. By the time I’d taken a bite, the conversation had turned to Planetary Council elections.
“Cloras Dulac would raise conapt taxes by ten percent, and that’d just be the beginning. We need larger assessments on the outies. They take a disproportionate percentage of planetary government spending,” Zerlyna declared.
“They claim that doesn’t take into account that the Unity subsidized building Passova and that they have to provide their own services…”
I just listened.
When I returned to my spaces, I tried to push away my thoughts of the storm, for the moment, although I wanted to look more into the dynamics behind such violent localized weather, because I needed to get on with my specific assignment. But I did take a moment to use the console to determine where the Planetary Council met … and discovered that there was a government enclave north of Passova proper, accessed by a separate tunnel, under which was, of course, a tunneltram.
Then I got back to work. After having read all the data submissions in the local Survey files, it was clear enough that I wasn’t going to find answers there, and it was time to visit the various “research” installations.
I needed to talk to and gain access, if I could, to the environmental documentation of each of the multis with operations on Stittara. All of them, except one, were involved in biologics or anagathics in some fashion or another. The one that wasn’t happened to be RDAEX. When I’d run across Rikard Spek on the Persephonya, I’d been intrigued and puzzled as to why a physicist, or someone with that kind of background, was being sent to Stittara. Then when I discovered he’d been sponsored by RDAEX, I was especially puzzled.
RDAEX was a space-based resource extraction and refining operation. Why would a resource extraction concern with subsidiaries in most Arm systems even be interested in Stittara? It was the only habitable planet in the system, with a population so low that it would be centuries, if ever, before it would need off-planet resource augmentation. And why had a space/vacuum mining concern built a planetside research facility on Stittara, rather than elsewhere in the system? The most obvious conclusion was that RDAEX was interested in some aspect of the planetary-based skytubes. Given that, and given that one of the earlier reports had noted that nothing short of military weaponry was likely to penetrate a skytube, the arrival of Spek, a specialist in high-energy physics, was more than a little disturbing. And, for that matter, so was the arrival of one Torgan Brad, and his assignment to the Ministry of Technology and Transport. I had my doubts as to whether that was coincidence, but then … at times life was indeed stranger than any holodrama.
I would certainly approach RDAEX on the grounds that to do a thorough assessment of the ecological situation on Stittara, I needed input from all the multis on the planet. None of them, unfortunately, were in any way compelled to provide such information, but I doubted that any of them would attempt an outright refusal, especially since I was in fact a temporary employee of the Systems Survey Service conducting Survey business. I suspected that any refusal would consist of either not providing data or providing only limited data on the grounds that more data would reveal proprietary technology, knowledge, or research not relevant to an ecological survey.
Even so, I’d have to contact each one … and see what happened.
19
Threeday morning, I looked for Ilsabet, but did not see her before I left my quarters for my Survey office. As I turned to depart, I paused. There was something … something I’d seen … that hadn’t been quite right, but I couldn’t remember what it was, only that it wasn’t her, not exactly. But I couldn’t remember, and I needed to get on with what I feared would be time-consuming efforts to obtain interviews with the appropriate people at the various Stittaran multis.
Once I was at my console, I called up a series of maps of Stittara, continent by continent, looking at both topographical and then geologic versions and then what passed for an ecological version, finally overlaying each with the map showing communities, facilities, and highways, such as they were. Perhaps I was stalling, just a little, but before I started making contacts I wanted a better “feel” for Stittara.
After I checked the map locations of all the multis, one thing became very clear. RDAEX was an outlier in more than one way. All the other multi headquarters were within roughly 150 kays of Passova on Conuno, although several had outlying facilities on Conduo or Contrio. RDAEX had one location, and that was in the middle of Contrio, the smallest of the three major continents, and that location was at the foot of a mountain range called the Triad.
Before I made any arrangements or commitments, I decided that I’d best discuss transport with Aloris, and I didn’t want to do that on a link. I missed too many subtleties that way. I walked back through the laboratory spaces to the administrative section, but she wasn’t there. Dermotte was in the corridor outside.
“Have you seen Aloris?”
“She said she’d be back soon. That was … well, about a quarter stan ago now, ser. She didn’t say where she was going.”
“Thank you.”
Since she wasn’t in her spaces, and I didn’t want to reach her through her personal link, not immediately anyway, I asked him, “Do you know anything about RDAEX?”
“No, ser. Not really. I’ve got a cousin that works there. He says they’ve got a right nice place, all the things we’ve got here in Passova. Just not so many of them. They take good care of their folks.”
“What does your cousin do there?”
“Oh … he’s a maintenance tech … he says he can’t talk much about it, except tha
t it’s some sort of drilling project…”
Drilling project … from a deep-space research multi? “That’s different. All the other multis are into biologicals.”
“So they say, ser.”
“Have you ever thought about working somewhere else?”
“Me, ser? No, ser. I’ve enjoyed working at the Survey. Good folks, all of them.”
“How long has your family been here on Stittara?”
“From the beginning I guess. I wouldn’t know. I leave the genealogy to my sister.” Dermotte looked up. “Here comes Dr. Raasn.”
“Thank you, Dermotte.” I turned to watch Aloris striding toward me with a firmness of expression that suggested she was less than pleased about something, although her expression softened, if only slightly, when she caught sight of me.
“I was looking for you.”
“I’m here. Come in.” She gestured toward her spaces.
I followed.
“What do you need?” she asked, not seating herself.
“I think I have enough background on what the Survey has done and accumulated in data so that I won’t be totally lost in meeting with environmental people and their superiors at the various multis. There is, however, one possible problem…”
“It wouldn’t be the location of RDAEX, would it?” She actually offered what could only be called an impish smile.
“It would indeed. How does one arrange transport?”
“You can fly on the scheduled flitter to Contrio. Your contract covers local transport. It flies out on oneday, threeday, and fiveday, and back on the even numbered days.” She paused, then added, “It takes seven hours. RDAEX also operates its own shuttle service.”
“And if I’m polite and charming, that might be offered? Especially since it’s likely to be better.”
“RDAEX tries to be very accommodating, Paulo. We’ve never had any difficulties with them … unlike others.”
I understood both messages in her statement. “I will endeavor to be polite and charming and to convey my interest in being as open and as fair as possible.”
The One-Eyed Man Page 9