Ecolitan Prime (Ecolitan Matter)

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  “May I help you?” asked a square-faced, white-haired woman.

  “Ecolitans Ferro-Maine and Whaler. We’re here to see Laurence Karl-Abbe.”

  “He’s expecting you.”

  As she spoke, the head banker strode from a door at the back of the main office. “Professors!”

  “It’s good of you to see us on such short notice.”

  “Nonsense…nonsense. This way, if you will.”

  “This looks like a fortress.” Nathaniel stepped into the office behind Sylvia. A broad, old dark wooden desk commanded one end of the long, rectangular office. Behind it was a tall maroon reclining chair, and on the desk was a modern compact console. In front of the desk were three straight-backed plastic armchairs, upholstered in maroon matching the recliner.

  “It was one of the first buildings in Lanceville—the walls are over two hundred years old. The winds and weather were more severe then.” The banker’s eyes twinkled as he closed the door to the office. “We have updated the interior. It’s only a century old. Please have a seat.”

  “We really didn’t have much of a chance to talk the other night,” began Nathaniel.

  “It’s just as well.” Karl-Abbe offered a faintly twisted smile. “I’m sure Kennis has every word on solideo or the latest technology whose name I don’t even know.”

  “He seemed rather charming, in a cool way,” said Sylvia.

  “He is charming, and cool. And very calculating. He got his immigration permit as a major investor, you know. He’s Argenti—that part of the Hegemony really has never accepted the Federation.”

  “He never spoke to Sonderssen the other night,” said Sylvia.

  “They have different views.”

  “One the industrialist, the other the agriculturalist?”

  “There is that,” said Karl-Abbe. “I was actually thinking more about their employers. Kennis works for himself; Sonderssen, for all that he works for AgriTech Galactic, works for the Hegemony, and partly for Tinhorn.”

  “Tinhorn?” asked Nathaniel, surprised in spite of himself.

  “AgriTech is technically an equal partner, joint venture between Agricultural Specialties—that’s the big Hegemony agricultural technology supplier—and Technical Agronomics—they’re a big seed and DNA template firm based in Tinhorn.” The banker snorted. “I know their funds patterns. So do the politicians in Camelot. They lose credits—big credits—every year.”

  Nathaniel nodded. “But no one says anything because it amounts to a subsidy of Artos?”

  “I couldn’t speculate on political motivations. Bankers cannot afford to speculate, but…”

  Sylvia and Nathaniel exchanged glances.

  “You said you had numbers.” Nathaniel waited. “What kind of numbers?”

  “Mostly bankers’ numbers, but a few others. We have to do economic projections for headquarters—probably nothing compared to your sophistication, but we manage. Average monthly pay, deposits, savings, all for the past twenty years.”

  “Those have to be hard to come by,” said Sylvia.

  “Honestly, yes,” answered Karl-Abbe with his round-faced smile. “But statistics aren’t honest, and neither are we. We can tag pay deposits and then separate out the total and average them. Likewise, we can estimate savings, and the changes, from average monthly balances. We do most of the nonmajors’ construction financing—I couldn’t tell you what R-K built, or what’s on George Reeves-Kenn’s spread, but their stuff is big enough that a comparison of any good satellite holos would show that sort of construction.”

  “Confidentiality?” murmured the sandy-haired Ecolitan.

  “Oh, these are all aggregated figures. There’s nothing in them that would reveal anything at variance with the New Avalon commercial code. So…here you go.” Karl-Abbe handed the hardcopy report across the desk. “There’s also a console disk inside the cover, but I didn’t know whether you had access to a console—the Guest House is more private and discreet, but it lacks some amenities.”

  “Discretion is useful,” said Nathaniel.

  “Very useful, but it’s not exactly something that one can count on in our modern age, or for that matter, even in older times, such as those represented by the Guest House.” The banker sat back in his chair. “I don’t know as I can provide any more hard data than you have there. And I certainly am in no position to speculate.”

  “You’re being very helpful.” Nathaniel understood. Karl-Abbe had said what he was going to say, and his numbers would say even more.

  “What do you hope to accomplish with your study?”

  Nathaniel smiled faintly. “That would depend on others. I suppose those who benefit will try to use it, and those who do not will attempt to have the findings set aside. And if it changes nothing…then everyone will applaud with relief and call it a wonderful study.”

  “You are cynical beyond your face and years, professor.”

  “What do you think the study should accomplish?” asked Sylvia.

  “I am a banker. I would like to see the study show the need for more capital investment in Artos, and the promise that such investment will be repaid.”

  “Artos has become your home.”

  “After thirty years and three children and a grandchild, it has.” Karl-Abbe smiled sadly. “I make no secret of it, and that makes my judgment suspect to my superiors in Camelot. And I worry about the future of Artos, because politicians and bankers are attempting to make decisions on numbers, and numbers, no matter how good they may be, never reveal everything.”

  “No,” agreed Sylvia. “They don’t show dreams or determination, or hatred and hostility.”

  “Or the ambition of outsiders,” added the banker. “Or the temptations placed before outworld systems. Depressing, isn’t it?” His lips curled into an ironic smile, and he stood. “You’d best go, before I really get on my antique soapbox and depress you both. It also might bias your study if anyone found out that you spent long hours with such a hidebound financial antiquity.”

  “Thank you.” Nathaniel stood, as did Sylvia.

  The ride back to the Guest House was quiet, and Bagot left them with a promise to return the next morning—a smile on his face. Nathaniel suspected that the driver and the groundcar just might be visiting a young lady named Anne-Leslie.

  “After we unload this stuff and wash up, let’s take a walk,” Nathaniel suggested.

  “A walk?”

  “I’d like to talk to you, without…”

  “In a moment.” Sylvia smiled.

  After completing their respective ablutions, they walked down the empty stairs and through the empty foyer, across the empty pavement to the empty fields, where they followed the path through the bean plants again.

  “He wanted us to have these numbers, almost desperately,” said Nathaniel. “But he didn’t want to say much. Except about the joint intelligence operation that AgriTech apparently is.”

  “Our briefing materials didn’t show that.”

  “I know, and that bothers me. I have to wonder what else others think is common knowledge that we don’t know.”

  “That’s why we’re here,” she reminded him. “You Ecolitans—we Ecolitans, I guess—can’t know everything in advance.”

  “He cut off the interview pretty sharply,” mused Nathaniel.

  “He did. He said that discretion wasn’t possible even in the most antique of surroundings. What is more antique than that bank building?”

  “Everywhere, the walls have ears.”

  “And eyes.”

  “The more we learn, the worse it gets.” Nathaniel stopped, turned, and looked back toward the Guest House, but nothing moved, not even on the permacrete highway south of the bean field. “Someone wants us dead, and someone else wants our report, badly enough to ensure we get numbers that would be impossible to get elsewhere. I’d guess they’re accurate numbers, too.”

  “They’re accurate,” affirmed Sylvia, “and that’s going to cause trouble.”


  “Someone could charge the numbers are cooked. How would we know? In gross terms, we can provide cross-checks, but for some things…” he shrugged. “Who else would know? I doubt that the Bank of Camelot on New Avalon would fully approve.”

  “They might—if the numbers showed Artos could become independent.”

  “That’s true—because they could cut the subsidy and retain the ties, eventually ask for support for the defense forces…whatever.”

  “Then there was Vivienne’s parting message,” mused Sylvia.

  “I missed that.”

  “She as much as said that we shouldn’t meet again.”

  “Odd…”

  “Not really. She told us a lot, but visiting her again would draw too much attention. Did you notice that the tea table was placed where Bagot could see us?”

  “I hadn’t thought about that either. That is interesting.” Nathaniel blotted his damp forehead. “Nothing like working up a sweat just to get a private talk.”

  “They could use directionals.”

  He glanced around the empty fields. “Even the I.I.S. would have trouble here, I think.”

  “Especially the I.I.S. Its charter is restricted to the Empire, and the eagles make sure of that.”

  “I suppose we should head back. We can split up the data, see what we can find, and then trade.”

  The dark-haired serving woman—was she the entire staff of the Guest House—greeted them at the door. “Port Chief Walkerson wanted you to call him, sirs. He said it was urgent. The codes are on the pad by the unit.”

  “You come, too.” He nodded at Sylvia.

  Sylvia sat out of sight of the screen while Nathaniel inputted the codes. Walkerson was waiting for Nathaniel.

  “Whaler…have you heard?”

  “Heard what?”

  “George Reeves-Kenn—he was out riding this afternoon, and someone killed him. I thought you might like to know.”

  “Forest lord! No…we didn’t know. That’s not good,” mused Nathaniel. “Not good at all. Does anyone know who did it?”

  “Long-range military needle. Looks Imperial.”

  “That means it’s not.”

  “I know that, and so do you, but most people don’t, and even if they do, that only leaves local dissidents, business rivals, and about four major outsystems that flank our starspace.” Walkerson cleared his throat. “I don’t expect you to do anything, Whaler. I hope you won’t. But you also deserve to know. I hope you can wind up your study before long.”

  “We are progressing, and we may be able to do that in another week.”

  “A week?” Walkerson’s face sobered.

  “Perhaps longer. We will do as we can.”

  “Do that. I need to go.”

  As the screen blanked, the Ecolitans looked at each other.

  “Not a dull moment,” he said slowly.

  “Around you, no.”

  They both glanced toward the foyer and stood, silently.

  “We should get ready for dinner.”

  XIX

  THE I.I.S. DIRECTOR surveyed those around the conference table before gesturing at the hard-copy reports before each person. “This is a report on an attempted murder on New Avalon. It bears on our problem with the Coordinate and the Empire. This trade factor Bannon took a needle through the lungs, a second one through the shoulder, and a third along the side of his skull. Enough blood to make anyone think he was dead.”

  “What kind of needles?” asked the dark-haired assistant director.

  “Imperial military issue, of course,” answered the Director.

  “The same kind that was used on Whaler?”

  “You have to ask?” The Director’s eyebrows rose.

  “Who wants to pin the blame on Defense? And why?”

  “Only about half the known Galaxy.” The Director’s voice was dry. “The picture’s getting clearer. Every intelligence service knows ‘we’—the Empire, that is—tried to assassinate the Accord negotiator who made a fool of us, and to kill the Imperial agent he seduced.”

  “We didn’t, though,” pointed out the redhead leaning back in the chair across the table. “Neither did Defense, even if the Admiral would have liked to.”

  “Everyone also knows this Accord agent-vanished on some other mission, along with the Imperial agent. In the meantime, this synde bean plague is rampaging across almost all the planoformed Imperial planets, and anchovy kills are beginning as well. Both are spilling into other systems. The Matriarchy is marshalling a fleet, and we’ve gotten a stiff note from Orknarli. The Senate is talking about sending the Eleventh Fleet to Sector Five. What’s the impression?”

  “That Accord and the Empire are teetering on the fringe of an all-out war.” That came from the blond who sat beside the redhead.

  “Right. We know that. We’ve been fighting that impression for weeks,” said the assistant director, “but why did you bring up this report on a minor importer/fixer from New Avalon? Why would anyone want him dead? And how do we know? We don’t even have any firm links there.”

  The Director held up a thick envelope. “We have this. I think it came from F.U.I.—Frankan Union Intelligence. It’s a complete file on New Avalon and Artos, a recently planoformed colony planet. Whaler and Ferro-Maine are doing an economic infrastructure study on Artos, by the way.”

  “The Frankans—they wouldn’t share solid information with us.”

  “Not with D.I., but occasionally we do share material. We didn’t ask for this. I’ve been able to verify some of the material independently, and it seems genuine.”

  “Oh…” murmured the redheaded man.

  The Director nodded. “They see trouble. Enough trouble that they’ll contact the I.I.S. That means they know the Empire’s being manipulated.”

  “Doesn’t that solve the problem?” asked the blond. “If we know and they know…”

  At the sounds from the others in the conference room—snorts, guffaws, and a bitter chuckle—the blond flushed.

  “The Admiral knows,” pointed out the Director, “but she’ll still have to send the eagles where the Senate demands. The Senate Intelligence Committee knows, but with starvation and energy shortages on two dozen planets, they have to do something, and that something may well be military action against Accord. What else can they do politically, with over five million dead on Heraculon? The Matriarch knows, but she’s got problems with all the fish kills and hungry people and economic unrest, and that means Halstan will jump to whichever side is advantageous.”

  “That still doesn’t say why the Frankans alerted us to an attempted murder in Camelot.” The Director leaned back in her chair. “And, according to these background reports, about half of New Avalon would weep crocigator tears if Flash Bannon died.”

  “It doesn’t make sense. This Bannon has to be more than a minor importer,” mused the dark-haired woman.

  “He is. He’s almost interstellar class as a keyboardist, either directlink or manual. He’s got a doctorate in infrastructure economics from ChicLandan University, and he owns the seediest Cuberan pub in Camelot. He’s also the head of both a trade factoring firm and a consulting firm.”

  “That makes him hated? Or a target?”

  “Besides the fact that he’s big, belligerent, and nasty to anyone he doesn’t like, and doesn’t like anyone for more than a standard week? He uses his consulting firm—and that’s an economic consulting firm in only the broadest sense—as an intelligence brokerage. Except we can’t call it that. He knows everything about everyone.”

  “What about the factoring business?”

  “That seems legitimate. So legitimate that what exists in his consulting firm is probably fine rice compared to the trade business. He has tech and ag transfer lines with all the major outsystems from Tinhorn to Accord, from Orknarli to Anarra.”

  “Agriculture?”

  “Interesting, isn’t it?” asked the Director. “That seems to be the common thread. Even to the Federated Hegemony.�
��

  “You think Bannon became a target because of agriculture?”

  “That’s the implication. He either knows something or shipped something or both.”

  “His firm ships everything…”

  “Makes it difficult. I’ve asked stats to analyze the cargo manifests we got earlier, but I wanted you all to think about it. We’ll meet later.”

  “New Avalon—they’re pretty repressed there. They make the Halstani matriarchs look like extroverts.”

  “This is getting nasty,” added the redheaded man.

  The Director held up the hard copy of the file. “This just might be the reason why—if we can figure it out. Except we don’t have ships and outsystem operatives.”

  “Sylvia?”

  “She’s committed to the Institute. Let’s hope she can help them.”

  Several heads nodded.

  “Or we’ll be facing a bigger mess than the Secession. Even the Grand Admiral would wish it were just the Secession.”

  XX

  NATHANIEL AND SYLVIA walked slowly toward the front doors of the Guest House.

  “I still worry…especially after yesterday,” said Nathaniel quietly.

  “The flitter ‘accident’?”

  “I meant Reeves-Kenn’s murder. That means, I think, that someone decided since they couldn’t set George up for a fall, they needed him out of the way. I wish we knew who…or why.” Nathaniel looked around. “You be careful.”

  Sylvia nodded. “I’ll be careful. You, too.”

  “I will.” For some reason, one he couldn’t put a finger on, he worried more about her, and it wasn’t just male protectiveness. At least, he didn’t think so.

  “DeSain seemed willing enough to see me…”

  “I would hope so. Ravishing you look.” Nathaniel mock-leered at her as he held the door. “And smell.”

  “And he hinted at having lunch.”

  “I don’t know. Perhaps you should go now.” Nathaniel frowned, then shrugged. “I still worry.”

  “So do I, but we can’t find out things without going out.”

  “No,” he agreed.

  “It is nice to hear you care.” She touched his arm as they walked toward the groundcar. “Hailsham begged off seeing me. He pleaded the press of an ongoing urgent project.”