Haze

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  Roget wanted to protest that he had nothing of the sort in mind. Instead, he replied, “Merely an amendment to allow for greater local religious autonomy for the states.”

  “Merely?”

  “So long as everyone’s rights are protected, why should those who believe in nothing be allowed to dictate what those who believe differently can say in public places? Freedom of speech should work two ways, shouldn’t it?”

  “For all your parliamentary and political expertise, Joseph, I’d like to believe that you’re still that young missionary trying to convert the faithless and provide a testimony for those who believe in the irrationality of reason rather than in the irrationality of God.”

  Joseph? Roget knew he wasn’t Joseph, but the words still came out of his mouth. “You, Susannah? You’d like to believe?” He smiled warmly. “You of all people know who I am. You always have.”

  “The nonbelievers won’t support it. You know that.”

  “I do know that.”

  “Then it’s a gesture, a mere political move to solidify your support among the Believers.”

  “Is that really so bad? They need someone behind whom they can unite.”

  “They’re already behind you. Who else do they have?”

  “If I don’t remind them, now and again, they lose total faith in the political system.”

  “You’re more worried that they’ll lose faith in you, I think.” The woman smiled sadly, then took a sip from her wine goblet. “Isn’t it late for gestures?”

  Roget knew she was almost as old as he was, yet there was a beauty, and a melancholy behind the bright and yet deep green eyes. “If we’re being frank … yes. But gestures are all I have left. The Believers want a return to a strong and Christian nation, but they’ll sacrifice strength to hold off the atheist onslaught on religious expression. The atheists want neither a strong faith nor a strong nation, but one where commerce is king and where anything and everything has a price … and where the price for national economic and military strength is too high.” He shrugged. “I’ve said that for years, and I’ve fought for rebuilding our military, especially the Navy. You know I have. What has it accomplished? Until the Democrats retook the House and Senate, I managed to stave off the worst. Now…” He let the silence speak.

  “I would have liked things to have worked out differently,” she said.

  “You know how I feel about you.”

  “I know what you say.”

  “Then I’ll do a riff on old Tom … if we became lovers in more than spirit, that love would die, because where we would be would be what we are not…”

  Her laugh was short, and both warm and bitter at the same time. “You’ve been charming enough that I’ve even accepted the modern equivalent of courtly love for all these years, all because you can be so poetic, you old raven.”

  “Ah, yes … the raven ascending flames the air, for there are no doves in Hell … or in Washington where all are consumed by flame or fire.”

  “Or fire,” she added. “Why is it, as you once said, that the end of all exploring is to find one’s self where one began?”

  “I only repeated what old Tom said more than a century ago.”

  “Oh … yes… the most erudite war hero, the noble Senator Joseph Tanner, who is adept with both his words and those of others.”

  “These days, dear lady, words are all that I have left, and sometimes, precious few of them. Occasionally, they suffice to gain me the votes to plug a hole or two in the dike of our foundering republic.”

  “Oh … Joseph … why … why did it come to this?”

  “What else could we have done? How else should I have presumed.”

  “That is not what I meant, at all.” The words of her reply were coolly ironic.

  “I know that, too.” Roget reached for the wine goblet, taking it and then raising it. “To you, dear one. I have so enjoyed these dinners. They’re one of the few pleasures I have left.”

  As he saw the pain in the woman’s eyes, Roget thought he should say something, anything, any small word of comfort. But he was mute. He struggled again to force the smallest word of warmth.

  With that struggle, the blackness swirled around him, and phrases, strange phrases, rushed through his thoughts.

  “… to lead you to an overwhelming question…”

  “… the art of preparing a face to meet other faces…”

  “… not a hero, nor meant to be…”

  “… the knowledge, the wisdom, and the faith we have lost in gaining information…”

  “… continue the fight against darkness in air and fire, in words and deeds…”

  A cold chill froze Roget’s forehead, and he opened his eyes. He lay on the sofa in his own apartment in St. George, looking up at a junior security monitor. A cold compress rested across his forehead.

  “He’s awake, Inspector Hwang, sir.”

  An inspector? Roget slowly struggled into a sitting position, awkwardly catching the compress.

  A solid black-haired man in the uniform of a Federal inspector walked toward Roget. “Don’t try to get up, Agent-Captain Roget.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The inspector pulled one of the straight-backed chairs from the table and turned it to face Roget. He sat down. “You were found unconscious by the door to that sculptor’s studio. How did that happen?” Hwang’s voice was calm, neither sympathetic nor critical.

  “I couldn’t say, sir, except that it might be an aftereffect of whatever the Danites injected me with in the restaurant on Friday.”

  “You let that happen?”

  “Yes, sir. As I reported on Friday, I didn’t expect the entire restaurant staff to be Danite sympathizers. I hadn’t done anything except my cover duties as an E&W monitor, but they apparently knew who I was from the beginning.”

  “We’ve discovered that,” Hwang said dryly. “Why were the three in the studio dead?”

  “They all had some sort of suicide implant as a reaction to paralytic darts. They carried antidotes, but they’d tried to use them last night on Smith—he was the one who died in the EES shop—and I could only find one injector, and that was the one I used on Sorensen.”

  The inspector nodded. “He suffered considerable brain trauma. We may not get much from him either. He’ll end up in a low-function security colony.”

  Roget had the feeling that he’d botched just about everything.

  “You smoked out this cell, and that’s what single agents are supposed to do. You even saved us the trouble of dealing with most of them.”

  “I overheard them saying that there are more, all over old Deseret.”

  “There always have been. There probably always will be. True Believers never understand the need for secular rationality. That’s one of the reasons why there’s a Federation Security Agency.” Hwang paused. “Your cover is gone, and you’ve got medical problems. We’ll send you to Cheyenne for rehab and recovery. Don’t worry about anything but recovering.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I’ve sent for a lorry to take you and your personal effects out to the local airfield for air-evac. It should be here before long. There will be two guards outside until you leave.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  Hwang nodded, then rose.

  After the inspector and the junior monitor left, Roget couldn’t help but wonder how he could not worry. The memory sequence had been so real… so very real.

  Joseph Tanner—had Tanner been real? That was certainly something Roget could research. But then, what if the senator had been real? What did that mean? How had Marni ever captured those memories? Would Roget ever be able to escape the memory flashbacks? But then, there had been something about memory selection … but how?

  There were so many questions he’d not had a chance to think through … so many.

  He swallowed, sitting on the couch, not knowing when his transport might arrive. His eyes flicked to the projection of Hildegarde, still looking up expectantl
y. Just looking at the small black-and-tan dachshund helped, even if Roget couldn’t have said why.

  23

  22 MARIS 1811 p. d.

  Nine in the morning, local Skeptos time on Tuesday, found Roget and Lyvia seated around the same conference table where they had been the day before, with Roget again facing Director Hillis.

  “How was your visit to Manor Farm cottages?” asked Hillis.

  “Instructive and depressing,” replied Roget.

  “Why did you find it depressing?”

  “How could one not?” countered Roget. “With all those dysfunctional individuals whom you’ve left with no hope?”

  “They are provided with comfortable quarters, ample food, medical attention if they’ll only seek it out, clean clothing if they choose to wear it, full incoming communications, not to mention considerable freedom to move about. What else, exactly, would you suggest that would not result in harm to other innocents?”

  “What about curing them?”

  “We cure those where, first, it is possible, and second, where they wish it. Those in the cottages have chronic conditions where any treatment would impair their intelligence.”

  There was no argument to the conditions stated by Hillis, not one with which Roget would have been comfortable or could support logically.

  “You, Agent Roget, are afflicted with the old American illusion that insists, when you are faced with a difficult set of choices, all of which result in unpleasant outcomes, that there must be a better way. It’s always useful to explore the possibilities, and even to give them a trial, but it’s also bullheaded stupidity to insist that there must be a better way if you and other intelligent individuals cannot find such a way.”

  “How do you know there isn’t a better way?”

  “From what you’ve seen of Dubiety, if we’d discovered one, don’t you think we’d have tried it? Do you really think that any one of us likes the cottages?”

  Roget had seen Lyvia’s reactions, and he had to admit that Hillis’s words also sounded truthful. Somehow, that also bothered him, but more than a few things about Dubiety concerned him, and every day there seemed to be something else. “So when will you reveal to me your awesome military prowess so that I can report to my superiors that the Federation should leave you well enough alone?”

  “Even if we showed you a battle fleet twice the size of any Federation fleet, they would not take your word for it. We will be allowing you to return with documentation and descriptions of technology the Federation does not have, and I will wager that it will be dismissed as irrelevant, insignificant, or a complete fabrication.”

  “So what’s the point of allowing me to return?”

  “I think we’ve already shown you that,” replied the director, “if you will just think about it. I won’t spell it out, because your superiors would then believe that you will have parroted our words.” She rose and looked to Lyvia. “Perhaps a tour of the capital building would help.”

  “Yes, Director.” Lyvia stood, almost wearily.

  Roget stood and inclined his head politely.

  Selyni Hillis nodded. “Tomorrow at nine thirty.” Then she left the conference room.

  Roget waited for Lyvia to lead the way to wherever the capitol was, although from his recollections of the maps Lyvia had provided, he thought it was north of the central square as much as a klick, if not farther.

  Lyvia said nothing until they were outside the ministry building. Then she stopped and fastened her jacket against the chill wind before she spoke. “The capitol is about ten blocks north. We can walk back to the square…”

  “I’d just as soon walk if that’s all right with you,” he replied. “If it’s not too cold.”

  “I’d prefer walking.” Lyvia started out. Roget matched her quick steps.

  After two blocks, he had to admit that he was happy to have his jacket, which had vanished from his pack and then reappeared in his guesthouse closet when the gray singlesuit had been returned and cleaned. He wondered what had been added that had taken the extra time.

  “The capitol isn’t exactly in the center of Skeptos,” he finally said.

  “There’s no reason for it to be. It has its own local subtrans station under the plaza.”

  “Was it planned that way?”

  “It was.”

  “How many tribunes are there?”

  “Two hundred and one, and the representation is by population in geographically cohesive districts. We don’t allow gerrymandering.”

  “And those in the House of Denial? What are they called?”

  “Popularly, they’re the deniers. Technically, each has the title of reviewer. There are usually around fifty, but the number can vary. The limits are no less than forty and no more than fifty-nine. No reviewer can serve more than five years without remaining out of office for the same time.”

  Roget didn’t pretend to understand how the Dubietans made a system like theirs work, but, from what he’d seen, it seemed to … at least for them.

  Two blocks north of the Ministry of Education and Culture, the officelike buildings gave way to structures much more like the guesthouse where Roget was lodged, but sections of the ground level right off the walkways were given over to various shops. One featured a range of athletic gear, and he saw a display of the basket-sticks, similar to lacrosse sticks, that he’d observed in the games in the parks over the weekend.

  Then, after they walked past a two-level apartment-style dwelling, there were no more buildings immediately before them.

  “There’s the capitol and the square,” announced Lyvia, stopping and gesturing at the green-tinged marble structure set on a low rise in the middle of grass, knee-high hedges, and gardens. The square looked to be half a klick on a side, with the capital a low two-story structure some hundred meters across the front and half that in depth. The only adornment was a low silvery dome in the middle, topped by the silvery hazy sphere that represented Dubiety. Three sets of pale green marble steps rose from a wide but narrow plaza. “The center steps are to the Judiciary, the ones to the left are to the House of Tribunes, and those to the right are to the House of Denial.”

  Roget saw only a handful of people on the plaza below the building, and all those were in the center, below the steps to the Judiciary, several of whom emerged from circular stone kiosks that doubtless were where the tunnels emerged from the subtrans.

  Lyvia led the way toward the plaza, following a wide but winding stone path through the gardens that generally angled in the direction of the House of Tribunes. Most of the flowers had wilted or dried up, and those that had not looked as if they would not last all that long. The amber light that filtered through the orbital shields seemed less intense as well.

  “How much colder does it get?” he asked.

  “It stays close to freezing for around six weeks in winter, but you’ll be gone before that happens. Then we’ll be into spring, and that is long and chill but not freezing.”

  Roget hoped that meant he’d be on his way back to the WuDing, rather than permanently gone.

  The west end of the Plaza was empty except for them, as were the green-tinted marble steps leading up to the simple arch that was slightly trapezoidal. The south facade of the capital had no columns, no ornate decorations, just sheet walls of marble, interspersed with long narrow windows. At the top of the steps was a set of greenish translucent doors that opened as they approached. Inside was a foyer stretching a mere ten meters on each side of the doors and extending back six meters or so. On the north side of the foyer were two sets of double doors, wooden doors, rather than the translucent automatic ones.

  Roget glanced around, but he saw no one in the foyer.

  “This way.” Lyvia walked toward the right-hand doorway. The old-style wooden door actually had brass handles. She pulled on the handle, and the door swung toward her. Inside the chamber, the lights flashed on. She left the door open until Roget took it when she walked inside.

  As he release
d the door, letting it swing closed, Roget followed her into the chamber, a half-amphitheater with true wooden desks set on tiered daises, all facing a raised podium. Behind the podium was a holo projection—a starscape of some sort. Roget moistened his lips as he studied it. He couldn’t be absolutely certain, but the image appeared to have been captured from orbit above Dubiety facing outsystem. It was a true image, not exaggerated, because there was only one disk, and that was tiny, most probably the nearer of the three outer gas giants.

  Most government assemblies featured flags, or seals, or symbols designed to create a sense of unity and/or patriotism. The only decoration in the House of Delegates was a vast projected hologram of the endless universe. Otherwise, all the walls were bare.

  “Is that the only hologram projected?” he asked.

  “There are three others, but they’re all starscapes. Each is from a different quadrant of Dubiety’s orbit. They change seasonally.”

  “This is the winter one, then?”

  Lyvia nodded.

  Roget continued to survey the chamber before finally speaking. “This whole part of the building’s empty.”

  “Both ends are,” replied Lyvia. “Neither House is in session. The Judiciary operates year-round.”

  “What about staff?”

  “The Tribunes don’t have official staff. Each has a small office on the upper or lower levels. It’s just large enough for them.”

  “Are any of them around?”

  “I couldn’t say for certain, but I’d judge not. Anyone who has a problem with existing law or wants to propose legislation can comlink those problems or suggestions to their representative. That doesn’t require that they be here.”

  “No one wants to meet face-to-face?”

  “They very well might, but it’s frowned upon, and in certain cases cause for dismissal from office.”

  “What?” Roget had trouble believing that. Dismissal for meeting with citizens and constituents? And she had called the Dubietan government representative?

  “The right to personal representation is highly overrated, not to mention one of the greatest contributors to corruption in governments that are theoretically democratic and/or representative.”