The One-Eyed Man

by Modesitt,, L. E. Jr.

  “I thought you might ask that question. I sent my assignment parameters and authorities to you. I highlighted one section. And, technically, my contract is described as an assessment and investigation.”

  A faint smile of amusement crossed her lips before she turned to her console. After several minutes, she looked up. “That definitely gives you the authority to ask for almost anything you want. Could I ask why?”

  “Every question leads to another question, and being able to search for those I need directly would be helpful. So would having the entire structure of expertise available.”

  Zerlyna didn’t quite conceal her frown, but rather than protest, she turned back to the console, her fingers flashing across and into the projected data matrix. Personally, I preferred the more linear flat displays, but to each his or her own. Finally, she turned. “You now have access to everything but pending enforcement actions. No one has direct access to those, except on a case by case basis.”

  “I seriously doubt I’ll be needing those.” And you hope you never will … because if you do, that will only be the start of your troubles. I smiled. “There’s one other thing. I toured the arboretum on sixday and the public garden yesterday.” I paused to see what her response might be.

  “I haven’t been there in years. I’ve heard that the garden has gotten run-down.”

  “It doesn’t seem as well kept as the arboretum, but there was one other thing. There was a sign posted, warning of allergens, and some of those visiting were wearing masks.”

  “That sign’s been there as long as I can remember.” Zerlyna paused. “Sometimes I got a stuffy nose when my mother took me, but she didn’t make me wear a mask.”

  “Have you been since she took you?”

  She offered an embarrassed smile. “No. The garden never appealed to me.”

  “You never took your own children?”

  “They weren’t interested. They liked outings in the hills better.”

  That surprised me. “I didn’t realize people did that.”

  “Some do. The hills, especially the rugged areas, are pretty safe, even when there are storms around.”

  “You don’t walk out there?”

  “You can rent camping vans.”

  “Do you have any flowers or plants at home?”

  Zerlyna looked surprised at the question, or perhaps at the change of subject. “No … I can’t say that I do. I tried a miniature violet when I was a teener. I had to throw it out. I sneezed any time I was around it for long.”

  “Do you have other allergies?”

  Zerlyna shook her head. “Why do you ask?”

  “I just wondered. I saw all the people with masks, and I haven’t seen that much greenery anywhere.” In fact, I couldn’t recall seeing any T-type greenery in Passova except in the arboretum and the public garden … with one exception.

  “Part of that is the light, I suppose.”

  “Plants don’t do as well under Stittaran light, and the city replicates it?” That didn’t make sense, but that was the implication of her reply.

  “It’s one factor.”

  I nodded.

  “For whatever reason, Paulo, I don’t think we’re flower people here. What’s the purpose of growing decorative plants that don’t flower?”

  “Especially if they make you sneeze.”

  “That’s true.”

  “And if you’re a very practical people?” I asked gently.

  “Too practical, perhaps, but Stittara does have a way of weeding out the impractical.”

  Stittara or Stittarans? I didn’t voice that question. I inclined my head. “Thank you. I hope I don’t have to bother you more.”

  “It’s not a bother. You’re trying to do your work, and we need to give you the tools to do so.”

  “I appreciate it.” With what I trusted was a friendly smile, I turned and headed back to my spaces. I didn’t even have a chance to sit down and start my personnel research when my screen offered a gentle chime and then flashed, “Incoming message from K. Guffrey, Syntex.”

  “Accept.”

  A youngish-looking male with hair longer than I thought either attractive or appropriate appeared on the screen. “Dr. Verano … Khredron Guffrey from Syntex, returning your inquiry. You had asked for an appointment with our head environmental officer. Dr. Tharon has been somewhat tied up, but he will be available this coming fourday or fiveday and hoped that one of those days would work for you.”

  “I have all fiveday available.”

  The young man glanced to the side, then back to the screen and me. “Dr. Tharon would prefer ten hundred…”

  “That would be fine with me.”

  “Then we’ll see you at ten hundred on fiveday.” Khredron Guffrey smiled brightly before his image vanished from my screen.

  I immediately initiated a linknet search. There wasn’t much on a Tharon at Syntex, only a few references to a Dr. Bryse Tharon, with degrees from the Stittaran Unity University in north Passova. He apparently had a daughter who was a star korfball player. That was it. I could see that privacy and personal information were more highly regarded on Stittara, at least so far as the linknet was concerned. Or was it that in a world of a comparatively few million people, individuals weren’t screaming in every way possible for others to notice them? Or was there some other reason?

  I pushed those questions aside. They definitely weren’t in the scope of my assignment, an assignment that I felt was expanding with each new aspect of Stittara that I uncovered. Because my next meeting was with RDAEX, I went back over their submissions, focusing on the sections that dealt with ongoing projects. Most of the multis spelled out their purposes in general terms. Syntex declared that it was investigating the Stittaran biosphere to develop further improvements in anagathic pharmaceuticals and cosmetics. Dyart’s avowed purpose was just what I’d been told—extensive and continuing research on Stittaran flora to determine potential commercial use in the fields of pharmaceuticals and beauty aids. The other multis had comparatively similar purposes, except for RDAEX.

  RDAEX listed one objective—the investigation of self-organizing microorganic structures under variable atmospheric conditions. As if all microorganisms weren’t self-organizing and all atmospheres weren’t variable. But what did that purpose have to do with a space-based power and resource multi?

  26

  To get to the dropport by 0600 hours on twoday meant rising no later than 0430, dressing and eating, and then meeting Dermotte, who had to drive me there, because, given Stittara’s weather and the limited number of Survey vehicles—and the few underground parking spaces at the dropport—Aloris didn’t want any vehicles left there. I didn’t stagger to the Survey vehicle spaces, but I felt as though I wasn’t at my best, especially carrying the case with my equipment in one hand and a kit bag with clothes and personal items in the other. Dermotte took it from me and stowed it with ease, then closed the back of the van.

  I climbed into the front passenger seat and fastened the safety harness. “Sorry to get you up so early, Dermotte.”

  “Not a problem, ser. One of the things I get paid for. At least once a week someone’s heading somewhere.” He eased the van up the ramp and out into the purple darkness before sunrise, although it was more like before the eastern sky lightened.

  “Oh … where do they go?”

  “Conduo or Contrio. Mostly, the enforcement folks. Dealing with the outies, you know. That never stops.”

  “I’ve heard some people say that, but no one really says why. Do they steal? Or is it just because they’re different?”

  “They’re different, all right.” Dermotte shook his head. “They even smell different.”

  “Why is that, do you think?”

  “Wouldn’t know, sir. Might be because they live on the surface more.”

  “Do they have dwellings in the open?”

  “Nope. They’re not that dumb. They dig down, not so far as the towns and cities. Been told every outie fami
ly has their own hole.”

  “Could it be what they eat?”

  “Might be. They don’t like synth or tank foods.”

  “Where are these outie settlements? I tried to find maps of them…”

  “Might find locations in enforcement, sir. Director Raasn says there are too many that are too small to map them, except for the largest.”

  Except for the largest? I hadn’t found mention of any on the maps of Stittara, but maybe the maps didn’t distinguish between underground cities and outie settlements. Every mention of the outies suggested in some way or another that there were far more of them than anyone in Passova wanted to acknowledge. That raised an interesting possibility. I’d been given the assignment for doing an ecological assessment with the belief that the underlying question was whether the multis were interfering with the ecological balance … but the more I heard about the outies, I couldn’t help but think they might be the problem. Human agriculture changed planetary ecologies far more than most industry, and seldom was that ever acknowledged. The classic case was that of Old Earth, where agriculture totally changed the cyclical pattern of global warming and cooling, and kept doing so even while politicians and industrials fought over industrial emissions practices and policies.

  Could something like that be happening on Stittara?

  I wanted to take a deep breath. I’d barely started, and I wasn’t feeling in over my head. I was beginning to feel as though I were at the bottom of the ocean.

  For the rest of the drive from Passova, I offered leading questions to Dermotte, although I didn’t really learn much more, but it did pass the time, because for most of the way, the purpled darkness was so pervasive, especially with neither stars nor moons in the sky, that there was little to see beyond the beams of the headlights, which revealed only the permacrete highway and its shoulders. The lowlight panel display had a wider range, but still didn’t show anything except grass and low bushes.

  By the time we neared the dropport, the eastern sky was lightening, and I could make out the outline of the single low building—and one shape on the permacrete strip. Dermotte drove me right up to that shape—a lifting body bearing the insignia of a lightning bolt superimposed on a stylized solar system on the rear of the fuselage.

  “Here we are, ser.”

  I’d expected a long-distance flitter, rather than a magfield suborbital lifter, but the young man who’d confirmed the arrangements had clearly said “shuttle.” It made sense, in a way, given Stittara’s strong magnetic field, but the initial cost of a magfield shuttle dwarfed that of even the largest flitters, and the maintenance costs were anything but insignificant.

  I hurried out of the van, but Dermotte was even faster and had the back open as I reached it, handing me my gear, beginning with the equipment case. “Here you go, sir.”

  “Thank you.” Then I turned and walked toward the shuttle.

  A crewman in a dark green singlesuit appeared as I neared the extended ramp. He held a scanner. “If you wouldn’t mind, ser.” His words weren’t a question.

  I set the case and the bag on the bottom of the ramp and stepped back while he scanned both.

  Then he turned the scanner on me, waited a moment, and said, “You can board now, ser.”

  I nodded, picked up my gear, and walked up the ramp and through the hatch, taking a quick look around to see what I was supposed to do with the case and the kit bag.

  “The baggage lockers are aft, at the back of the cabin.” The voice came from a woman almost my size, clearly in fighting trim, and wearing a black security suit, with a belt stunner and a few other items I didn’t recognize. From her voice, equipage, and posture, I had no doubts that she could have turned me into raw meat without using any of that equipment. She stood beside a luxurious padded acceleration cradle that seemed unnecessary, one of ten in the cabin, five on each side, with a wide aisle between them.

  “Thank you.” I eased past her and the first two cradles to the rear of the cabin and slipped the equipment case into one locker, the kit bag into another, and closed both, then walked forward, stopping short of the woman.

  “What do you think of our shuttle, Dr. Verano?”

  “I was initially a bit surprised.”

  “Good. I’m Kali Artema.”

  “You’re obviously security.”

  She smiled, an expression with the amused arrogance of a large feline predator. “You might say that. I’m the assistant director of security for RDAEX. I had to meet with the Stittaran director of security yesterday, and it wasn’t feasible to return last night. So we could offer you transport.”

  “I’m very grateful. I’d prefer not to take long flitter trips.”

  “No one in her right mind would.” She stepped toward the forward bulkhead and gestured toward the cradle away from the hatch. “Just the two of us on this trip.”

  I wasn’t about to refuse that invitation and eased into the cradle. Artema must have signaled somehow, because the crewman hurried up the ramp, and it closed behind him. He disappeared through the door in the cabin’s forward bulkhead, and Artema took the forward cradle next to the now-closed hatch.

  I had the feeling Artema wasn’t a Stittaran native. Even in the comparatively short time I’d been planetside, I was beginning to sense a difference between those born on Stittara and those who had immigrated or been transferred by multis. And her parents, assuming they’d named her, had a very nasty sense of humor. I wasn’t about to guess at her gender preferences.

  “Is RDAEX the only multi on Stittara using magfield shuttles?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why is that? I’d think some could afford them.”

  She laughed softly. It wasn’t a gentle sound. “The ones that could use them don’t want to pay what it costs.”

  “False economy?”

  “That’s not for me to say. Security is my concern, and a magfield shuttle is far safer on Stittara than a flitter.”

  “Because of the storms and skytubes?”

  She didn’t answer immediately because someone announced, “Secure for liftoff.”

  I straightened in the cradle and looked for whatever it took to activate the restraints.

  “The red square on the armrest.”

  I pressed it and waited. In instants, I was fully cradled and restrained, not that it was likely necessary, since I understood magfield drives didn’t require terribly high initial acceleration.

  The shuttle seemed to lift, and I got a sense of gentle movement. Then I was pressed firmly but inexorably against the cradle. The pressure continued for a good fifteen minutes, before slacking off, at which time my guts protested the sudden weightlessness. I swallowed hard, and they subsided.

  “I hadn’t expected quite so sudden an acceleration,” I said.

  “Stittara has a strong magnetic field. That allows greater acceleration and a quicker trip.”

  “Where are you from originally?”

  “Teppera.”

  That figured, in one way, although I wondered why a woman from one of the systems only loosely allied to the Unity would be employed by an Arm multi.

  “Technology transfer,” Artema replied to my unspoken question. “We serve ten-year contracts in return for local licensure privileges.”

  “I take it that the question I didn’t have a chance to pose is asked all the time?”

  “No. Most don’t even know where Teppera is. It was the look on your face.”

  The look on your face? That told me she was linked to all the shuttle surveillance systems … and that she was likely at least slightly cyborged, with psych profile recog background.

  Artema laughed again.

  “I’m glad you find me amusing, Director.”

  “Assistant director.”

  “You’re director in everything but name.”

  “You understand some … matters. That’s why I’m enjoying having your company.”

  “Because I know a bit more than most?”

  “You k
now a great deal more than most, and if the Stittarans understood what you know, Doctor, you might have a hard time returning to Bachman.”

  Or anywhere else, from the way you said that. “Unfortunately, I don’t know as much as you think I do.”

  “Then you’d best discover it before they discover you can.”

  “Knowing that about me, you’re going to let me come to RDAEX and depart?”

  “RDAEX has no problems with your visit. I don’t either.”

  “You just like to watch the more intelligent male rodents struggle through the more complex mazes. Especially political and bureaucratic ones.”

  “You could put it that way, but … give yourself more credit.”

  Our conversation, such as it happened to be, was cut short.

  “Stand by for deceleration.”

  Smoothly, but quickly, the cradles swiveled so that we were looking at the rear of the cabin, and once more I was pressed deeply into the cradle, although the deceleration didn’t seem to last quite so long as the acceleration had, but I could sense we were still airborne.

  “No low-level sonic disruptions?” I asked.

  “Not here on Contrio. It doesn’t matter so much over Conuno.”

  “To RDAEX or to the Planetary Council?”

  “Either.”

  I could feel the shuttle descending, then moving on a level, before slowing and turning, apparently air-taxiing toward wherever we would disembark. I felt the craft tilt forward just slightly, as if we were headed down a ramp.

  “Underground hangar and reception area?” I asked.

  “It makes more sense, don’t you think?”

  “It does, but why doesn’t the Planetary Council do that for the dropport at Passova?”

  “Why is anything not done? They don’t want to spend the duhlars to do it. They have an underground hangar for the two drop shuttles, but they’re strictly for protective storage, and a few underground spaces for the well connected. Also, we seem to have far more storms here. That’s why RDAEX is positioned farther underground and has almost no surface access except through heavily reinforced doors with multiple pressure seals.”

  “Has anyone determined why there are more storms here?”