I shook my head. “That’s my personal vanity, one of the few remnants of self-esteem remaining.”
“That’s hard to believe.”
“If you’re good at what I do, and I’d like to think that I am, you learn as much about people and politics, greed and governance, and just plain hate as you do about the environment. That’s because the environment touches everything and is part of everything. What comprises the environment ranges from the direct and brutal to the five steps removed and equally lethal, yet almost untraceable.”
“I must say I’d never thought of that.”
“Most people don’t.” When she didn’t volunteer more, I went on. “I don’t want compensation. I’d still like to see the forerunner site, and I’d like to have the opportunity to ask for a favor at some time in the future.”
“What sort of favor?” Her words were even, neither sardonic nor skeptical, the words of a powerful person inquiring directly.
“If I knew, I’d tell you.”
She smiled, faintly. “You’re not the person I feared you might be, but you’re a dangerous man in a different way.”
“I scarcely feel dangerous. Just stupid.” And I did. I’d blithely speculated and guessed myself into nearly getting killed without realizing the implications of my speculations.
“I don’t think so. You just weren’t expecting what you ran into.”
I couldn’t help but laugh, almost helplessly. When I finally stopped, I shook my head, then took another sip of the tea. It did help. “That’s the first rule of consulting. Don’t expect anything. Consider everything. Expectations can be deadly.” And nearly had been.
“I have no right to ask it, but I would like a small favor of you.”
“To keep my eyes open, and to think over what I’ve observed as to how it might affect you, your mother, Syntex, and VLE?”
She nodded.
“I can do that.” I offered a smile. “I’ll see you next threeday morning at seven, then?”
“We’ll be expecting you. Wear something you don’t care about or something that cleans easily.”
“Most of my singlesuits do.”
“I can’t imagine they wouldn’t.” Aimee looked at me. “Are you sure you’re up to driving back?”
“Something to eat on the way back, in case I get hungry, wouldn’t hurt.”
“We can take care of that.” She stood. “And I am sorry, but it is a matter of life and death.”
I rose, realizing that my left arm felt a bit sore. So did my right, and I massaged one and then the other.
“One injection was for the truscope. The other was something to help you recover from any otherwise unexpected aftereffects.”
“The way things are going, that might be useful.”
“One way or another, they’ll be beneficial.”
By the time she had walked me to the Survey van, and she did so, another Syntex worker was waiting with a small case, but one large enough for a full meal, I suspected.
“It’s all finger food,” Aimee assured me as I loaded my equipment case into the van.
As I pulled up the ramp and out into the already dimming twilight, I wondered what Aimee’s mother’s real name was … and who was handling the multi with Aimee and “Constantia” off Bachman. But then, whoever was acting as chief operating officer didn’t have to be family … but I would have bet it was, and that it was likely Aimee’s sister, simply because … well, I didn’t have more than a feel for that. But why had they picked Stittara? Because Syntex was the most loyal subsidiary … or for some other reason?
It had to be the other reason, whatever it was.
I thought I’d have plenty of time to think on the drive back, but it didn’t work that way.
The drive back was tiring, and for the last forty-odd kays, a strong wind, with individual gusts of a velocity of close to fifty klicks, blew out of the southwest, buffeting the van and requiring my complete attention, especially after the deep purple darkness settled over the highway and the land. Thankfully, there were no skytubes nearby, but I couldn’t help but worry. With all that, I didn’t even have a chance to eat the sandwich and other items Aimee had sent with me.
32
The spring’s night storms remain unseen, thought four,
Sky swirls come to seek me out once more.
As the sky darkened, Clyann closed the blinds to the armaglass window. “You should sleep below.”
“Not tonight. I want the dark in sight,” replied Ilsabet.
“As you wish. I’ll see you in the morning.”
Ilsabet waited until the door to the lower level closed before walking to the window and raising the blinds.
“Close the blinds or I’ll tell,” announced Alsabet, her screen image nearly identical to that of Ilsabet, save that her hair was blond.
“Tell if you want or will, but I’ll open them till Matron’s ill.”
“You’re talking nonsense again,” replied the screen image.
“I’ll close them before deep night, close them very tight.”
“You promise?”
“I’ll do what I must, so as to keep their trust.” Ilsabet looked into the darkness, as the purple darkened until it was almost indistinguishable from black.
“You said you’d close the blinds,” prompted Alsabet.
“I will; I will. Not yet. Keep still.”
The image in the screen did not reply.
“Winds in the sky, you’ll be coming nigh.”
“Is a storm coming?” asked Alsabet, her voice altered.
“No more than now, as if I could say how.”
“Ilsabet!”
“When the winds come in the night black, I almost can feel myself come back.”
“Come back from where?”
“From where I was so long ago, from the when was not the no.”
For a time longer, Ilsabet looked into the dark, then lowered the blinds without speaking. She avoided looking at the wallscreen as she walked to the couch where she would sleep.
33
By the time I returned to Passova and checked the Survey van back in, I was more than a little tired, especially after everything I’d been through, and it was well after nine. Rather than make a separate trip to the office, I just lugged my equipment case to my quarters and left it on the lower level. Then, rather than make anything to eat, I just sat in the small lower-level kitchen and munched on the sandwich and chips I’d carried all the way back from Syntex.
Once I reached the main upper-level bedroom and climbed out of my singlesuit, I stretched out on the bed, my thoughts still going back to what had happened. Aimee had been worried enough to break just about every law about the use of truscope … just to make sure I was who I said I was. That meant she was convinced that someone on the Persephonya was out to kill her mother, and possibly her. It was also most likely the reason why she had traveled standard class, in an attempt to learn more about the passengers and who might be a possible assassin. While I could have lodged a complaint, I didn’t see that doing so would benefit either me or her … and I might need her help and goodwill later. She had doubtless calculated that as well.
Given the time differential created by interstellar travel, the only reason I could figure for both Aimee and her mother to travel to Stittara was to effectively keep control from other family members for as long as possible. But why hadn’t that been possible under some sort of trust agreement? That was one reason why family trusts were used in the rare instances when multis with interstellar reach were involved—and why controlling family members didn’t take interstellar journeys. But then, maybe the trust was the problem?
I was still trying to figure that out when I drifted off to sleep, my mind still wrestling with what seemed to be pieces of a half-dozen separate puzzles, pieces that swirled into discordant dreams.
Somewhere in the darkness, I thought I heard someone talking about a pressure door, and warnings, and the darkness got even darker, and then the
re was a breeze from somewhere. Then I heard the faintest whistling.
“Structural damage! Structural damage! Evacuate this level! Evacuate this level. The pressure door will be closing in one minute!”
At that … I woke … except the air felt so heavy, and my legs didn’t want to obey, as if they had become totally uncoordinated. Somehow … I managed to grab my link and personal case and get through the pressure door and onto the ramp to the lower level of the guest quarters before the pressure door closed. I couldn’t see anything in the darkness for a moment, until a faint glow appeared along the ceiling, and I stumbled down the ramp to the lower level.
I couldn’t hear anything. The air was still, and I began to cough. That lasted forever, or so it seemed, but it was probably only for a few minutes. When I straightened up, I realized that there wasn’t anywhere else to go. So I made my way, still unsteadily, into the lower bedroom and sat on the edge of the narrow bed.
For some reason, I was exhausted. How had my quarters been damaged? It had to have been a storm, but why hadn’t I awakened earlier? Had there been some pressure loss that had created partial anoxia? I couldn’t believe that Stittaran storms were that fierce, but even if I had been able to access the study console, all systems would have been shut down until the storm passed.
Finally, I lay down on the bed … and a lesser darkness crept over me.
When the lights came back on, I woke up again. How had I managed to sleep after everything that had happened? I checked the time. It was half past six, and that meant there was no way I was going to sleep longer anyway. So I struggled into a sitting position, and realized I was in my undershorts and nothing more … and all my clothes were on the upper level of the quarters. So I went back up the ramp to the pressure door. It was closed, but I could open it, although it shut behind me.
A quick look around confirmed that there wasn’t much left in the upper level. Almost everything small had vanished, and the armaglass window to the outside that had dominated the study was gone … or rather the armaglass was, except for a few sections around the frame, from what I could see, given that the couch had been wedged partway into the opening.
The small bureau that had held my underwear and sundries had smashed against the wall beside the broken armaglass window, and wedged itself against what was left of the couch. The console in the study had fragmented. Not much else there had been left intact. So I headed into the bedroom … initially blocked by what was left of the bed. For some reason, the clothes on one end of the closet were there, but not those on the other end. That left me with two singlesuits and one pair of boots, no underwear except the shorts I was wearing and no toiletries.
I grabbed one of the singlesuits and the boots and went to the lower-level facilities and washed up as best I could and dressed. I’d barely finished when the door opened.
“Dr. Verano! Dr. Verano!”
I recognized Dermotte’s voice. “I’m here.”
“Are you all right, ser?”
“I’m fine. Most of my stuff and the upper level isn’t.”
“I came as soon as I checked the boards. I’m so sorry. I just didn’t think about the guest quarters. I didn’t hurry because I knew it was sixday, and no one was in the offices and laboratories…”
“You couldn’t have done anything,” I pointed out.
“You’re sure you’re all right, ser?”
“I’m fine, but I’ll need to do a lot of shopping.”
“Do you mind if I see what happened? I’ve never heard of an armaglass portal shattering … it was the armaglass, wasn’t it?”
“I have no idea if that’s what caused the problem, but it’s definitely shattered. So are most of the furnishings as well.” I turned and let Dermotte lead the way up the ramp. He stopped at the pressure door and did something so that it stayed open after we passed through it.
“Oh … you really got hit, ser.”
“I didn’t stay to find out.”
“Good thing you didn’t.” He walked over to the window.
I helped him move the couch away from the opening that had held the armaglass. I did note that the outside wall was almost half a meter thick.
He leaned forward and began to study the sections of the frame where the armaglass had been sealed in place. Finally, he stepped back. “I don’t see anything in the frame. It just must have been old, or weakened in some way that wasn’t obvious.”
“Is it my imagination, Dermotte, or did the outer layer break first?”
“It’d have to be the outer layer, ser. But…” He shook his head.
What he wasn’t saying was that both layers had to be old enough or weakened enough for something as tough as armaglass to fragment, even in a huge storm. But I didn’t see a single fragment inside the quarters, and armaglass was heavy.
I kept looking at the composite window frame or bracket, but it showed no sign of bending or stress. Then I squinted, trying to make out something, a protuberance, under the study window, and I was certain it hadn’t been there when I’d first looked over the quarters.
We both looked up as a chime rang.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“Someone’s at the door. Might be Director Raasn. I left a link for her when the alarms rang.”
“Wouldn’t she have back-linked?”
“She told me to make sure everything was right for you, ser.”
The chime sounded again. I turned and walked back down the ramp and to the door on the lower level. I eased it open, only to find two men and three women with linkcams, all aimed at me.
“Dr. Verano! Dr. Verano…”
For a moment I didn’t know what to say. How did they know my name?
“Are you Dr. Paulo Verano?”
“Yes, I am.” I couldn’t very well deny that.
“The city monitors showed a storm breach…”
“Are you the Survey investigator from Bachman?”
“Tell us what happened…”
I decided to ignore the “investigator” question, although I wondered who had planted that idea and who had set them on me. Instead, I answered the last question, possibly because the woman who had posed it had asked it in a factual way. “I went to sleep. The alarms on the upper level went off, and I grabbed a few things and hurried through the pressure doors. I don’t know whether the storm hurled something into the armaglass window or whether it failed, but the upper level of the quarters is a mess. I waited out the storm on the lower level.” I offered what I thought was a rueful smile. “I’m happy to be in one piece, but I am going to need to replace most of my wardrobe and a few other items.”
“How did it happen?”
“I have no idea. I’m sure the maintenance people will be able to tell me after they look things over.”
“Are you really an investigator?”
“No. I’m an ecologist here on contract from the Systems Survey Service on Bachman. I’m doing a periodic environmental study.”
“Isn’t that an investigation?”
“No. Studies deal with the environment. Investigations deal with the people who oversee environmental matters. I’m here to study the environment.”
“You’ve been meeting with multis. That sounds like an investigation.”
“It’s not. I meet with environmental professionals to take measurements and review data. I’ll be doing field studies before long.”
I must have deflected some variety of “investigator” questions a good dozen times before I finally held up a hand. “If you’ll excuse me … it has been a long night.” Then I eased back and closed the door.
“You were real patient, ser,” said Dermotte, who’d obviously followed me back down to the lower level.
“I didn’t feel patient, but doing anything else would make them think I was hiding something.” I shook my head. “What do we do now?”
“We’ll have to move you to the guest tech quarters, until we can have the damage repaired and the seals retested,” Dermot
te said. “They’re not as spacious.”
“I’m certain that they’ll be adequate.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” he said.
“I’ll gather my stuff and wait.” And look into a few things in your absence.
After Dermotte left to make those arrangements, I gathered myself together and headed back up the ramp. I wanted another good look at the bottom edge of the window and the frame.
What I’d thought was a protuberance turned out to be a long and narrow canister-like tube with a narrow nozzle at one end. Half the nozzle had been ripped away, presumably by the wind, but I could see embedded printed circuitry. I would have bet that the canister had been linked to a pressure switch … of some sort, and that device had been rigged only to release the sleep gas, or whatever it was, with a pressure drop, and that the window had been weakened so that the pressure drop would be gradual for a time.
I heard voices … from outside.
“… whole portal’s smashed…”
“Looks like it blew out from inside … all the armaglass fragments out here … those that are left…”
“Lucky bastard…”
“… still say he’s an investigator. Why else would the Unity send someone here?”
“Because they like to waste duhlars, Lukan … that’s why. Just like the Planetary Council…”
I flattened myself against the wall and eased out of the study so that the linksters didn’t see me, then crept into the bedchamber to gather the few personal belongings that remained at the one end of the closet. Then I retreated to the lower level, thinking.
The blowout of the widow hadn’t been an accident, but I wasn’t certain that it had been only a deliberate attempt to kill me, either, because no one could predict when a storm would hit. What it did suggest was that whoever had set it up knew I’d be in the quarters for a long time, and it didn’t matter whether I was killed or even in the quarters.
In a way, that impersonality chilled me more than a verifiable attempt on my life might have, because it signified that I was a pawn, if not less than that, in some sort of power play.
Yet … what could I say? All that was left was an empty canister or case. Hell! It could have held air freshener, for all I could prove. But I didn’t think so. I also thought that whoever had set it up would have been happier if I had died … but that my death wasn’t necessary for them to gain something. That also suggested that there might be other “accidents” waiting, and that definitely worried me.
The One-Eyed Man Page 19