I had been slightly surprised that I’d been granted an appointment with Jeromi Grantham, the Eterna facility director, but the fact that I’d been granted time with both Grantham and Edo suggested that my presence wasn’t totally a formality to them, or perhaps that it was a necessary formality. How those visits went might likely tell me how the multi officials regarded my assignment, but then, they might not, given just how talented some of the multi officials I’d met in the past had been.
The odds were very long that Eterna had even minor adverse environmental impacts, but determining even such negatives were part of what I had to do, and the faster I could dispose of the negatives, the sooner I could concentrate on the other aspects of the assessment. Of course, by going to RDAEX comparatively early on, I was breaking my own policies, but what were a few inconsistencies? Better those than foolish consistencies.
Almost two standard hours later, I was stopped in front of a closed vehicle door in a low gray structure, in a space identified as the visitors’ receiving area of the Eterna complex, a much smaller version of Passova, with scattered small structures peering out of the ground spread across an area about a kay on a side and suggesting a fairly large structure or set of structures stretching beneath the service.
I used the van’s comm and pulsed the local system.
“Survey van, request reason for entry.”
“This is Paulo Verano, on Survey business, appointment with Jeromi Grantham.”
“Wait one.” The wording and the clipped tone suggested a military background, either local or Arm military, but that was a guess on my part.
After several minutes I got a response.
“Straight through the entry and down the ramp to the first left. Park the van in one of the visitor spots. Then go through the pressure door to the right.”
Whoever it was didn’t sound pleased, but some people were like that.
I followed instructions, although there were three empty parking spaces, and made my way into the foyer beyond the pressure door, empty of all equipment and furnishings, where a smiling figure in a pale green and gold singlesuit stood waiting.
“Paulo Verano,” I offered, extending the infocard with the government authorization, the one for which Aloris had never asked, unsurprisingly, since she and the local Survey had already known what I looked like and had received my biometrics.
“Jeromi Grantham.” He took the card and passed a pen scanner over it, then returned it to me, almost as if the authentication were a necessary formality. He gestured. “This way.”
I followed him through another pressure door and past a guard in a dull green singlesuit with the style of a security uniform, who took us both in, scanned a display, then returned to whatever else he was doing.
Grantham passed two closed doorways, then stepped through a set of double doors that opened into an anteroom with a single desk console, behind which sat a woman who looked to be my age, if not older, although I could only tell that by the experience in her eyes. “My assistant, Anna DeVerr.”
“Pleased to meet you.” I inclined my head.
“If you need me again, Anna will know how to reach me.”
Grantham led the way into an office smaller and more modest than the one occupied by the executive director of the Stittaran Survey Service. The console desk behind which Grantham seated himself actually showed some wear. I took the seat directly across the desk from him and waited.
“We expected you sooner. You’ve been on Stittara over a standard week.”
“I didn’t expect you to be the one to meet me.”
“Why not? You wanted to see me, and it would have wasted someone else’s time to meet you and then walk you to see me. Why did you wait to start contacting local multis?”
The fact that he knew that, or even assumed it from my timing on contacting Eterna, was interesting. “I thought it might be best to review all your reports to the local Systems Survey before I visited you. That way I wouldn’t be asking for information you’d already supplied.”
Grantham laughed. “It’s easy enough to tell that you’re an outside investigator. Survey investigators would never consider that.”
“I am what I am.” Grantham’s response told me that he’d either received a briefing transmission carried on the Persephonya or that he’d come to Stittara from elsewhere, if not both. “How long have you been here on Stittara with Eterna?”
His brow wrinkled slightly for a moment. “Ten years local.”
“From Bachman?”
“Randtwo, actually.”
I nodded. Randtwo was the most conservative world in the Unity after Bachman, and the home planet for Eterna. That it was the headquarters for Eterna wasn’t surprising. Conservatives always opted for things like wealth, personal beauty, and simple answers.
“What are you looking for?” Grantham asked directly and openly.
“Information as to the impact your operations have on the ecology here on Stittara, both directly and indirectly, in all environmental media.”
“And you don’t think our reports provide that information? That is their purpose, you of all people should know.”
“It’s likely that they do … if what they report is accurate, and the odds are that your reports are accurate. But”—I paused—“it’s very clear from the nature of my assignment that both the Ministry of Environment on Bachman and the Systems Survey Service headquarters there believe that there are impacts that may not be reported … by someone. My job is to determine if such impacts are occurring, and if so, who is responsible. It may be that there are no such unreported impacts, but if they do, my job is to determine who or what is responsible.”
“What if such impacts have been reported, at least locally?”
“That is one reason why I’ve spent so much time studying the reports made to the local Survey. So far as I can determine, the final annual reports do not contain data or observations that indicate adverse environmental impacts. One of the things I hope to do, with your assistance, is to assure that what I have studied in the Survey files matches what you and others have submitted.” I smiled politely.
Grantham nodded. “You don’t trust anyone, do you?”
“I neither trust nor distrust. I don’t know. I’m here to find out.”
He offered a sardonic smile. “I can’t argue with that approach. All our records are open to you. They wouldn’t be on Randtwo or Bachman, but we’re a research facility, and we don’t have to worry about profit margins, marketing strategies, or actual product development.”
“I’m most interested in your sampling techniques and anything that deals with interaction with the local ecology.”
“That’s what we’d expect from a Systems Survey investigator. I had Ripley Weavar pull together a guide to those files for you. She’s our expert on alien biology,” he said with a laugh, “except, after generations here, we don’t really regard it as alien.”
“From your reports to the Survey, the local biology would seem rather alien.”
“Some is, and some isn’t. It’s all carbon-based, of course, but you really should talk to Ripley about that.” Grantham rose.
In minutes I’d been escorted through two open pressure doors and down a short corridor to a space about the size of my guest quarters’ bedroom.
There, Grantham gestured to the woman who had risen from behind a small console. “Ripley, this is Paulo Verano, the Systems Survey ecologist and investigator sent here.” Then he turned to me. “Ripley can answer your questions far better than I, and doubtless much more quickly.” With that, he was slipping out the door.
Ripley Weavar was as tall as I was, with short black hair, a slightly oblong face, and a no-nonsense manner about her. “You don’t look like a Survey ecologist.”
“I’m not. I’m an independent consultant on assignment.”
“You’ve still been foisted off on us.” Her voice was quiet. Not soft, just quiet.
Not only were her words judgmental, b
ut the way she studied me, if just for an instant, was more like I were an alien, an animal, or a piece of meat … if not all three.
“And on every other research installation on Stittara,” I said mildly.
“The only real research installations are our two and the one RDAEX established 150 odd years ago. Well … maybe Syntex. They keep things very quiet.”
RDAEX was established here only a 150 years ago? “What about the others?”
“Pallias closed up shop two years ago. But they hadn’t produced a new insight in a century, not since they developed a spin-off based on the chemistry of the wiggler worms that are part of the lichen grass biological cycle. Dyart … they claim they’re close to something with the volents…”
I’d read about the volents—the term being a cross between a vole and a rodent—small four-legged hairballs that lived off various insectoids that otherwise might overwhelm the spore-seed reproductive capabilities of the lichen/grass.
“On top of that?” She shook her head. “ABP … who knows what they’re doing? They send sealed crates back to Bachman on every ship, and they get significant duhlar credit transfers, and no one looks too closely because every transfer from out-system helps keep things going … GenArt … they’re still twiddling with that proprietary nail additive, and I doubt they’ll ever go beyond that.”
“What else about Syntex?”
“You mean … their investigation of the forerunner site? They’ve been at that for five centuries, looking for some clue to the technology … as if they’d find it on-planet anywhere after more than two hundred million years when there’s been no trace in any of the deep-space finds. Vacuum preserves things far better than a geologically active planet.”
“Geologically active … that’s another thing…” I waited.
“Oh … you mean the fact that the core is as molten as it is?”
“Compared to other T-type worlds, you have to admit that it’s an anomaly for a planet this old.”
“In a vast universe,” she said, “there will always be outliers.”
That may have been, but outliers always made me suspicious, usually of the data, rather than the object being studied or analyzed, but there was far too much data on Stittara for it to be younger than what the other data, besides core activity, revealed.
I smiled, waiting.
“Where do you want to start?” she finally asked.
“I’d like to begin by reviewing your copies of your annual submissions to the local Survey.”
“Haven’t you already read them?”
“I’ve read what’s in the Survey files,” I said blandly.
She just barely blinked, but I could tell that surprised her. “Then I’d like a tour of all the points where you measure influent and effluent—after I reclaim some equipment from the van. I also would like to see your analysis on ambient air—outside, received inside, treated, and discharged.”
“You may have better measuring accuracy than we do.”
“That’s possible. I’ll make the templates of my equipment available to you. Call it a value exchange.”
“At what cost?” Her voice was wary.
“No cost, except whatever it costs you to copy them and produce the equipment.” That wouldn’t be cheap, even for a research multi, but it would be easier and cheaper than if they had to license the templates from the Planetary Council or its agents. “Oh, and I have template release documentation from both the Unity and the Ministry of Environment. So you won’t have to pay licensure fees.”
She didn’t bother to conceal her surprise, although it was only a moment before she asked, “Are you going to want to visit the Conduo facility as well?”
“I may have to,” I pointed out. “We’ll see.” I couldn’t see not doing so, but I’d learned it was unwise to make firm commitments without as much information as possible. “We can work that out.”
She nodded. “Any other questions before you get your equipment and start your tour?”
“What sort of environmental impact do you think the outies have?”
She snorted. “It can’t be good. The Survey’s enforcement people are always shutting down something they’re doing. Half the public works projects in Passova, Dualle, and Trieste have been built by outies under work detention. A few outie troublemakers have suffered accidents on those projects as well.” She shook her head. “Can’t say I blame the enforcement types.”
“Have you ever had any occasion to measure something they might have affected?”
“That’s not something that we’re required to report.”
“I know. You’re not responsible. But … if there is an outie impact … any measurements or observations … well … if it turned out all the multis were doing what they were supposed to…”
Ripley’s smile was almost enigmatic. Almost. “There aren’t any outie communities or licensure areas near us here. There’s one near our Conduo facility. If there are any records … they’d be there.”
That made sense, in a way, but I wasn’t about to question that. Not yet.
“Are you ready to start looking at reports?”
“No.” I laughed. “But that’s where I have to start.”
22
Fourday had been long … very long, and I hadn’t gotten back to Passova until close to eight that evening, or twenty hundred hours. As I’d suspected, I’d found absolutely nothing out of order or even suspicious at Eterna. Their reports appeared identical to what the Survey had on file—I’d copied those into my link so I could compare. My somewhat better sampling gear had measured things to more decimal points, but really hadn’t shown any deviation from what Eterna was reporting.
I did find one interesting thing. Eterna didn’t scrub the ambient air coming through their intakes. They just screened the air drawn into the facility for potential chemical contaminants, then scrubbed it of all potential chemical pollutants before releasing effluent air, but left any airborne biologicals largely untouched.
The other unusual aspect of matters was more disconcerting than interesting, if I happened to be reading things right. For all her apparent initial hostility, I’d felt that Ripley Weavar had been looking at me when she thought I wasn’t noticing, and I didn’t think that was just because I’d supplied the sampling and analytical equipment templates, although she did seem appreciative. That was disconcerting because I’d known for years that while I wasn’t ugly, and might even have been termed decent-looking, I wasn’t the type of man on whom women’s eyes lingered. Even Chelesina hadn’t doted on my appearance. But feeling that kind of scrutiny again, and even the muted reactions from both Aloris and Zerlyna … and those of the young woman in the café on sevenday … all that definitely left me disconcerted.
There were far too many things that weren’t adding up … and I had no way of determining, yet, which unusual aspects of Stittara were just native to the world and disconcerting to an outsider and which might bear on my contract assignment. And the only way to find out what was which was to plow ahead, keep my eyes open, and try to keep my back covered.
For an ecological assessment? Except I should have realized that anything for which I’d been paid as much as I had wouldn’t be simple. Then again, getting clear of Chelesina was worth it.
Fiveday morning I was in my Survey office early, loading the Survey’s copies of the Dyart reports into my link. After that, I thought about making follow-up calls to Valior, ABP, and Syntex, but decided to wait on that until oneday. It wasn’t as though I could do anything about meeting them immediately.
Then I did some more background research of a general nature on Stittara itself, looking at the location of the various cities and communities, about which I could see nothing that stood out. After that, I looked at the population figures, beyond the current levels, all the way back to the beginning. Population growth had averaged roughly one percent per year for the first five hundred years, and then had begun to decline, if slowly. At present, it was just slightly
above replacement value. That was particularly interesting. While I was an ecologist, not an economist or a sociologist, those figures weren’t anything like the way most human populations grew. In fact …
I didn’t want to even voice that suspicion before I did a bit more research and recollection, but by a stan later, I was convinced. The human population was more like that of an invader species moving into an established ecosystem and reaching what might be called the ecological carrying capacity. But I wasn’t aware of any other system where that had happened, not with a human population. There were systems that would-be colonists had abandoned, and colonies that had died out, but one like what the Stittaran population figures suggested?
What also bothered me about such a conclusion was that there weren’t any large predators, and there hadn’t been virulent small ones, either, such as killer viruses or bacteria. I’d checked mortality rates, and they were abnormally low, as were birth rates. Could that be just because so much of the population was in underground cities? Other artificial habitats, such as deep-space stations and military posts on airless worlds, generally had negative population growth, requiring immigrants.
That was where I had to leave my calculations and speculations because I had to go check out the Survey van I’d reserved for the trip to Dyart … and I needed to load my equipment.
Almost three-quarters of a standard hour later, I was on the permacrete highway headed south. Dyart was the closest of the multis to Passova, a mere thirty kays due south, but the drive took somewhat longer because the road was narrower and toward the end I had to guide the van around some rather large and almost crude-looking lorries. I didn’t have to wonder where they were headed for long, because there was an even narrower way that forked off to the southwest about a kay before I got to the turnoff for Dyart. I saw two more of the purplish-gray lorries headed farther southwest on that road.
The One-Eyed Man Page 11