The One-Eyed Man

by Modesitt,, L. E. Jr.

  I pulled up to the entrance door to Dyart with only ten minutes to spare. Unlike at Eterna, before I could pulse or try a contact, the doors recessed, one to each side, and I drove down the ramp, following the “Visitor” arrows down two levels.

  When I got out of the van, a young woman wearing a dark maroon singlesuit with pale green piping stood just outside the pressure door leading into Dyart from the visitor parking. “Dr. Verano?”

  “The same.” I had my Survey ID ready, but she barely looked at it.

  “This way, ser, if you please.”

  I followed her brisk steps into the facility and up a ramp to the level above the visitor parking and through another pressure door into a receiving area. Since the console desk there was empty, I suspected she served as receptionist, security, and escort. Some fifty meters along the narrow corridor, she opened a door. “Ser Vanek’s office, Doctor.”

  “Thank you.” I stepped inside, and she closed the door behind me.

  Pavlo Vanek stood from behind a set of screens, nodded solemnly, and gestured toward the single chair facing his console. He was half a head shorter than I was, probably five kilos heavier, and no broader across the shoulders. The entire office wasn’t all that much bigger than my temporary office at the Stittaran Survey Service.

  “Paulo Verano. Thank you for taking the time to see me.”

  “I don’t know that we had much choice.” His voice was slightly hoarse, or raspy, and he reseated himself as I took the chair. “I was wondering if you’d been held up.”

  “I didn’t realize it would take as long as it did,” I said.

  “Oh … the outie lorries. There are usually more of them on fiveday,” replied Vanek.

  “What were they carrying? I’m assuming they were returning from Passova.”

  “Most are. They carry luxury goods, land-grown produce usually, sometimes furniture crafted from trees felled in their upland woodlots.”

  “Do they supply that much to Passova or the other towns or cities?”

  He shook his head. “Some. They do it for duhlars to buy equipment. They consume most of what they grow. What they send to Passova and other cities or installations might be called frills, things not really needed.” He leaned forward. “What do you require of us?”

  “There’s not much on Dyart in the Survey files beyond the environmental reports, and a page that says you provide unique biologic templates, based on studies of the volent.”

  Vanek nodded.

  I waited.

  “That’s exactly what we do, except it’s not based on just the volent. We’ve moved away from that, although the volents provided the clues. We research every bit of flora that could be called herbal and analyze them, replicate them, and then determine how they might be useful in enhancing various beauty aids.”

  “I have to ask. How much of that is placebo effect?”

  He shook his head. “That’s not our business. We supply the replicas and templates to firms all across the Arm. Along with a complete analysis and evaluation. What they do with them is their determination.”

  “You must be on some sort of continuing retainer then.”

  “It’s something like that, but you’d have to talk to the comptroller about that. I’m the environmental manager and compliance officer.”

  That was a quiet reminder for me to get down to the official reasons for my visit. So I smiled. “As you may or may not have heard, I’ve been sent to Stittara by the Ministry of Environment at the behest of a Unity oversight committee…” I went on and gave him the entire spiel, mainly because he looked like he needed it, and because I wanted to see his reaction, and partly because he was acting like an officious asshole. But I offered it very politely and courteously.

  When I finished, all he did was nod and say, “That was what I heard. What do you need from me and from Dyart?”

  I refrained from sighing and told him.

  In a few minutes he took me to a console where I spent a little more than a stan going over reports. Then I linked him, and we returned to the van where I recovered my equipment case. I didn’t offer him or Dyart any equipment templates.

  Then I spent the next three stans going through the same routine as I had at Eterna, except there were far fewer measurements and samples to take. Dyart was really only a multi by courtesy, it seemed to me. I left Dyart at five-thirty, and since there were no outie lorries on the road, I was back in Passova by six. Still, by the time I had turned in the van to the transport pool and made my way back to the Survey Service, most everyone was gone, except for Dermotte, and he was headed out as I was entering my small spaces. I had to wonder if he’d been detailed to wait for me.

  “Have a good weekend, ser.”

  “Thank you. You, too.”

  I stowed my cases in the locker and sat down at the console. There were no messages from any of the multis I hadn’t yet heard from. Somehow, that didn’t surprise me. I put it on standby and left, deciding that I’d go to my quarters and then head out for something to eat at Rancho Rustico, since I hadn’t been there except once.

  After washing up and putting on a clean singlesuit—black with gray trim, rather than the other way around—I made my way back into the tunnel maze, noting again that the Stittarans never changed the light levels in their tunnel ways, whether it was morning, noon, or night. I would have thought that they would, but obviously they didn’t.

  There was actually a waiting list at Rancho Rustico, something I hadn’t thought about, but that made sense, given that it was a fiveday evening. There was what they called a lounge, where one could get a drink and wait, and I did, settling myself at a small raised table. The table was of distressed wood framed in what looked to be wrought iron and wasn’t. I would have preferred a quiet table along the wall, but the tiny high table with two stools was the only vacant one, empty because a couple had just left.

  The table to my right held two women, engaged in an intense but quiet conversation, one holding a beaker of something pale orange in a death grip. To my left was another couple who looked to be younger than I. The man was about my size, but wore a skintight royal-blue front-pleated formal shirt and tight white trousers. She was a redhead with her hair drawn back and pale slightly freckled skin, wearing a tailored forest-green singlesuit with a pale green vest.

  She looked in my direction, pausing for an instant and smiling. I offered a pleasant smile in return before turning to the server. “Pale lager, the least bitter that you have.”

  “Yes, ser. That would be Zantos.”

  “Fine.”

  I glanced toward the restaurant area, hoping it wouldn’t be that long before I could be seated and order.

  “Your Zantos, ser. You’re waiting for a table for dinner?”

  “I am.”

  “I’ll put that on your tab.”

  “Thank you.” As she moved away, I tried the Zantos. I had to admit that it was the best lager I’d tasted so far on Stittara. I took several sips, trying not to gulp it down simply because I was hungry.

  When I set down the lager glass and looked to my left, the redhead was smiling at me again. I had to admit she was good-looking, but she was with the young man who seemed to think that having muscles was unusual rather than a normal mammalian trait. I smiled briefly and looked back toward the bar.

  “You!”

  I couldn’t help but turn at the vehemence behind that single word. “I beg your pardon?”

  “Yes … I meant you.” The young man was clearly angry. “Don’t need any hot straights like you coming on like I wasn’t even here.”

  I hadn’t the faintest idea what he meant, except that it had to do with the look his woman friend had given me, and he was the kind you couldn’t back off from without encouraging them. But the last thing I wanted was to get into a fight, especially after what Zerlyna had suggested about the anger and paranoia under the polite surface.

  “I honestly have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Sure you
don’t.” He turned on the stool as if getting ready to stand.

  At that moment a tall and muscular man in a dark gray singlesuit appeared, as if from nowhere. He looked at me. “I believe your table is ready, ser.”

  As he said that, a petite woman appeared and beckoned to me.

  I looked at the security type and nodded. “Thank you.” Then I slipped off the high stool and followed the hostess.

  I only heard the first few words from the security type. “That was unnecessary … might be more comfortable elsewhere…”

  I didn’t immediately glance back, but did so when we turned into the restaurant area. Both the table where I’d been sitting and the one where the couple had been were empty. I still couldn’t say what had set off the stud in tights. I’d exchanged two glances with the redhead. She’d looked interested, but I certainly hadn’t encouraged her, and I’d had no intention of doing so. While I’d recalled what Zerlyna had said, apparently people were even touchier than she’d suggested and I’d need to be even more careful, it appeared.

  Still … I was looking forward to having a good steak … and I intended to make sure I didn’t look directly at any attractive women.

  23

  Sixday morning, I woke a bit later, exercised, lingered over tea, and watched Ilsabet dance over the grass on the low ridge south of my quarters. As before, she was accompanied by a woman guard or security officer in a singlesuit the same shade of gray as that worn by the security type who’d intervened at the bar the night before. That had to be coincidence because the one at Rancho Rustico had offered a table and a hostess had been ready to escort me. I didn’t see any skytubes, and Ilsabet was still outside, with her guard, who was looking at everything but Ilsabet, clearly conveying that she was protecting Ilsabet and not confining her—or that her principal function was protection.

  Because I couldn’t link to my Survey Service console, I made my way to the office, leaving a trail of lights from the tunnel-way doors to my space. Once there, I sat down and cross-checked the records on Dyart. As had been the case with Eterna, all the reports matched and provided absolutely nothing new or anything that might have pointed the way to some ecological problem or oversight.

  The next thing I did was look into the information on the outie settlements. There were listings for established and approved settlements, as well as maps and even directions to each of them. I quickly found the one near Dyart, called South Centre. It was listed as the first open land cultivation center on Stittara. After reading through the entire summary file on the others, more than five hundred, I found a notation at the end. “Other outland settlements may exist, but information on any settlements not approved by the Unity’s Systems Survey Service and the Planetary Council of Stittara is enforcement privileged.”

  Enforcement privileged? I had the feeling that meant such settlements existed at their peril.

  It took me some doing, and some tricks I’d learned years before, but I finally got into the Stittaran Survey’s enforcement records. I’d hoped to find some statistics, but if they existed, they were buried somewhere. Oh, there was a long listing of enforcement proceedings and the justiciary result of each, but I wasn’t in the mood to try to add up all the names involved, not over even the last twenty years, except to note that there were hundreds, possibly thousands, and most of them had been sentenced to “work release” under the supervision of the enforcement director of the Systems Survey Service on Stittara. That meant Jorl Algeld, or his predecessor, from what I could tell.

  While that might not exactly square with sentencing guidelines on Bachman, the proceedings had apparently been open, since I’d heard two cases on the linknews. Also when people talked openly about problems, usually, but not always, I reminded myself, that meant that they were seldom the worst kind of abuses. After noting the access points and copying some of the records, I left the enforcement records and sat back, thinking.

  Based on what I’d learned—or not learned—at Dyart and Eterna, I had the feeling that any ecological or environmental problems that might exist wouldn’t be showing up in any of the official records. They usually didn’t. Anything that fell within the scope of laws and regulations was usually worked out. It often took years, hundreds of millions in fees to consultants and advocates, and often a great deal of political effort, but some resolution was reached.

  The more I’d searched, the more I was convinced that there just wasn’t much information on the skytubes … and that whatever existed, beyond the basics, had been destroyed, hidden off-system and off-link, or carefully never been pursued—possibly all three. I could even think of a motive for that. Stittara existed to make duhlars for the anagathic multis and to keep the most affluent citizens of the Unity young and beautiful-looking for as long as possible. Anything that threatened those two purposes would be stopped, one way or another.

  That also meant, so long as I discovered nothing and did nothing beyond going through the motions, I was more or less safe—maybe. My calculation was based on what I’d observed on Bachman. Murders of people carrying out government business upset the politicians. But murders more than 73 light-years and 150 years later might not.

  I took a deep breath.

  What next?

  I shook my head. I was tired of statistics, records, and reports. I’d also been on Stittara almost two weeks, and I hadn’t seen anything that looked like a tree, not even a bonsai or a potted tree. I frowned. Come to think of it, I hadn’t even seen a live flower. I wasn’t sure I’d even seen an artificial one. Were there gardens anywhere?

  I tried a search and discovered that Passova had both an arboretum and a public garden, just one of each. The arboretum was on the far west side of Passova and the public garden on the far east. After a moment I turned off my console and stood, then made my way out of the Survey Service offices, turning off the lights as I left. I walked about three blocks and then took a ramp down four levels to the tunneltram.

  The trams were spotless and cramped, basically silver-gray composite shells with darker gray bench seats on each side running the length of each car, with barely enough space for one person to walk between those sitting on the seats. Fortunately, they were seldom crowded, although there was no charge to use them. I wondered if they’d been designed to be not terribly comfortable just so they wouldn’t be overused.

  I was the only one to get out at the stop nearest the arboretum. Following my link directions, I did have to walk down three more levels. The tunnels were narrower than those around the Survey offices and on the east side of Passova, suggesting that the area to the west was older—or that the deeper levels had narrower tunnels for structural reasons. While the walls were smooth and clean, they had more of a feeling of age, and I didn’t see nearly as many people around, even after walking almost a half kay farther west before nearing the arboretum. Those I did see quickly and carefully looked away, especially the few older men … which I found disconcerting.

  An open space, something like a small underground square, roughly fifty meters on a side, fronted the entrance. As I walked toward it, I could see a handful of people, several with small children, standing before the linkiosks with lettering above—“Admission: ten duhlars.” That didn’t bother me, and once I reached the linkiosk, I used my link to transfer the funds. In turn, the linkiosk pulsed the admit code to my link, and I walked toward the pressure doors.

  Once through them, I got my first surprise.

  On the other side was a second pressure door that led to a boxlike structure. Beside the second door was a guard, an older man in a brown singlesuit with an insignia of a tree in green upon each shoulder. He wore a stunner as well, the first I’d seen in a while in public—except for the one worn by the woman guarding Ilsabet.

  I just stood there for a moment.

  “Please step into the decon chamber, ser. Let it cycle. Proceed when the arrow turns green.” He sounded as though he’d repeated those words thousands of times. He probably had.

  I
followed his directions and stepped into the decon chamber, where I was subjected to a brisk breeze and likely several forms of decontamination. But decontamination to enter a T-type arboretum? The arrow next to the pressure door on the far side turned green, and I stepped out into another open space with a fourth set of pressure doors in the wall presumably separating me from the arboretum.

  Ahead of me, a woman bent over to talk to a child.

  “All the doors are to protect the trees. They’re like all the other pressure doors. There are just more of them.”

  That apparently reassured the boy, and the two walked toward the last doors. I followed them, but not too closely. Beyond the doors, there was a wide stone terrace, and beyond that, everything opened up. The arboretum was huge … a good two kays in length … and close to a kay in width, and the ceiling, if the arched overhead some fifty meters above qualified as a ceiling, radiated the yellowish light of a G-class sun. That stunned me, and I realized, belatedly, that the light in Passova and all the installations replicated the ambient light of Stittara. That made sense, but I just hadn’t really noticed it—until now. What I also realized was that the light in the arboretum wasn’t brighter—just … yellower.

  There was a stretch of grass beyond the terrace and two pathways, one from the right end of the terrace and one from the left. I took the left one, simply because the two women with children took the right one. Just at the edge of the terrace was a sign.

  STAY ON THE PATH!

  VIOLATORS WILL FACE CHARGES

  AND WORK RELEASE PENALTIES.

  That was very clear. I resolved to stay firmly on the path. That shouldn’t have been hard to do because on each side of the synthstone path was a pseudostone wall slightly above knee height.

  Beyond the stretch of grass, I passed through a grove of terrestrial-type oaks, and then some maples, some with dark red leaves, a variety I hadn’t seen. Through an opening between the maples, I thought I saw the straight trunk of a linden. As I walked, keeping on the path, as requested by the signs, I noted that there were guards in brown singlesuits stationed at various points along the path. I also noted a slight breeze that seemed to flow toward me, or down the pathway. It took me longer than it should have to realize that was because there was directed barrier airflow and that the pathway was designed as a return airflow. That flow wasn’t to protect the viewers, and that meant it was designed to keep the viewers from contaminating the arboretum. But what sort of contamination from people could harm trees?