“Hell, no—I hadn’t heard that. I know about the heart monitors, though, because when off-duty crews leave the spaceport, we have to wear badges that signal we’re exempt. Otherwise we’d be picked up by the ambulance police if we were spotted.”
Terry swallowed. He’d overlooked that possibility. He’d pictured himself getting access to the hospital by blending into a crowd. Evidently he would need more help from Captain Garick than he’d planned on asking for.
“Look,” he said, “I’m familiar with the Estel myth and I intend to pass it along wherever I think it might encourage people to question authority. But I’m not going to lie to you—I’ve got a personal agenda besides that, and it involves breaking the law. I won’t tell you how because if I’m caught you’ll need to say you didn’t know. But it’s harmless. You have my word on that.”
“Okay,” said Garick slowly. “I don’t know why, but I can tell you’re more trustworthy than the average guy in the smuggling business. You can go to the surface with us, and I’ll say you’re part of the crew; but we have to keep to our schedule. If you’re not at the spaceport when our last shuttle leaves, you’ll be left behind.”
“That’s fair,” Terry agreed. “But I want your word that if I get into trouble and don’t show up, you’ll take care of my crew. See that they get my share of the sugar sale proceeds. What’s more, my second in command isn’t a jump pilot; he’s only flown in normal space, mining asteroids. If our shuttle’s not allowed to land, they’ll be stranded without life support unless you bring them aboard.”
“How many are you carrying?”
“A man and two women.”
“No problem. Hell, I could bring your whole ship aboard—we’re at the end of our freight run, so the cargo bay’s empty till we reach our first stop on the way back to Earth. But I hope it won’t come to that.”
“So do I,” Terry said fervently, “but it’s good to know. I love that ship and I’d hate to think of it being abandoned for salvage.” At least in another colony Jon and Alison would be able to sell it. He pushed away the thought, stricken by what it meant. He might be stuck forever in a colony with tyrannical laws under which his body would no longer be his own. Was he crazy, risking the loss of his freedom, of Alison, of Estel in a venture unlikely to succeed that wasn’t even essential?
Perhaps. Yet it came to him, suddenly, why getting the helmets mattered. He needed proof that the future he was encouraging people to believe in—perhaps endangering them by his encouragement—wasn’t just talk. If his own crew couldn’t be given the mind-powers he said were latent in everyone, then he couldn’t be sure that the hope he was trying to arouse was valid.
By its very nature the life he’d chosen demanded risk; he couldn’t pull back or he’d never accomplish anything. And besides, Terry realized, he did feel an obligation to the present inhabitants of the Maclairnans’ ancestral world.
~ 29 ~
As Peregrine’s shuttle circled Undine, Terry was first aware of what a beautiful planet it was. Though he had known it was a water world dotted with small islands, he hadn’t pictured the vivid green-speckled blue expanse as seen from low altitude. It had been terraformed, and the islands were covered with the genetically-engineered trees common in all colonies where they could be made to grow. Most of it was uninhabited, however. Only a small region was occupied, and as they approached the spaceport he saw that the islands near the center of it were devoid of everything but stark, tightly-packed buildings.
At the time the Maclairnans escaped there had been only one city, filling a single island, with mines, farms, and a few private settlements on others nearby. Now, two centuries later, there were several. On some islands the buildings were low, probably factory farms; but on the residential ones most were tall. Two islands in particular stood out, the first of them covered with high boxlike structures arranged in neat rows with virtually no space between them, the function of which was a mystery. And then the main island where the port was, laced with canals in lieu of streets and dominated by a vast cluster of glaringly-white skyscrapers. He realized at once that this must be the hospital.
Even in the earlier era it had been huge, and since then the population of the colony had grown. As everyone was required to have regular high-tech examinations, it was in no way comparable to hospitals elsewhere that merely served the sick, especially since its interconnected towers housed the entire administrative branch of the colony’s government as well as medical facilities. Its bulk was monstrous. No doubt it contained fast-moving walkways so that people could get from one part of it to another in a reasonable length of time. And, Terry recalled with a shudder, a significant part of it was devoted to the vaults where dead bodies were kept in stasis. . . .
But even a vast complex such as this surely couldn’t hold all the people who had died in the past two hundred years along with the generations before them. Since procreation was strictly controlled the colony’s population increased slowly, but still. . . . Abruptly it dawned on him what the boxlike structures on the other island were for. They contained more stasis vaults.
Or did they? The machinery and consumables required to keep hundreds of bodies “alive,” even considering the reduced oxygen supply required for stasis, had always been prohibitively expensive by the standard of any other colony; but by now the cost would have grown past all reason. Surely the authorities could not have kept up the system this long.
But they might say they had. The general public did not see the maintained bodies; they were merely told about them. So it was possible that as people died and were placed in the hospital’s vaults, older bodies were moved to the other island—and that the structures there were not stasis vaults at all, but tombs.
Before he could absorb the implications of that, the shuttle was above the spaceport; it hovered, then settled gently to the surface. Only one other ship was visible; Terry realized that this small base possessed only a few and they had all gone to get cargo from Peregrine. The ground crew started loading bales into the trucks that were waiting to move them to the port’s warehouse, where they would be picked up by city buyers. The sugar wasn’t included; it would be retrieved from Estel with Jon’s help and brought down by Captain Garick later, surreptitiously, after he’d made arrangements with a local dealer.
The half-dozen men and women aboard the shuttle were officers on shore leave, except for the pilot who would go back for another load; fortunately they wore civvies so Terry wasn’t conspicuous. They had been told by the captain not to question his presence and of course they knew why, but nothing was said about it. Garick had arranged for him to share a room with Lt. Harris, as he could not register at a hotel himself—his name wouldn’t be recognized here but to allow his ID to be scanned would reveal that he wasn’t employed by Fleet and was thus on the planet illegally. They boarded the bus for the city together; it left them at the small park in its center, to which Terry returned after getting his keycard from Harris. He had three days to do what he had come to do and be back at the spaceport in time for departure.
The park ran along the sides of the city’s main canal, lined with docks for water taxis—there were no ground vehicles on Undine except for trucks. Across the canal from where he stood was the hospital, looming against the sky and blocking the sunlight, dominating everything within sight as it dominated the lives of Undine’s citizens. Terry did not plan to enter it. He’d read too much about it on Maclairn not to be repelled, and in any case he would have no way to locate neurofeedback helmets once inside. He would have to make contact with someone who worked there.
On his side of the bridge was a strip of small stores plus an attractive café that was undoubtedly frequented by hospital workers. If anyone was in the market for a few bags of illegal sugar, it would be the proprietor of a popular café; fingering the badge that exempted him from heart monitoring, Terry went in. To pay for food he would have to present his ID, but a restaurant’s scanner, unlike a hotel’s, probably wouldn’t check
anything beyond the validity of his credit. He had no choice, since there was no way to judge whether the proprietor would be receptive without lingering awhile over a meal.
The café was crowded. Terry ordered the most promising item on the posted menu—a tasteless synthi-chick sandwich on what proved to be dry bread—and sat at the table furthest from the counter. If anything containing sugar was being served it wouldn’t be done obviously, though it was unlikely that health police would be watching the diners; they would inspect only the kitchen. He, on the other hand, could sense telepathically if any people around him were enjoying illicit snacks.
Some were. There was no mistaking their emotions—pleasure at the taste mixed with the thrill of getting away with something they knew was not allowed. Since their government treated them like children, the adults of the colony felt childlike excitement about disobeying the rules. Small crimes like eating sugar, Terry decided, gave them an outlet for repressed resentment over having to submit to invasive and unnecessary surveillance of their bodies.
He went back to the counter and ordered what passed for coffee, first removing the badge that identified him as an offworlder; it would protect him from electronic monitoring even when hidden. “The bran muffins on the menu don’t appeal to me,” he said to the server. “Have you got anything that’s not listed?”
The woman smiled knowingly. “Maybe. I could check with the kitchen. Sometimes things with scarce ingredients aren’t posted, so as to avoid disappointing people when we run out of them.” She made no move to do it, but simply stood there.
It didn’t take telepathy to know what she was waiting for. Terry extended his arm to be scanned, saying, “Five times the top price I see for the regular ones, is that right?”
She deducted the credits without comment and retreated into the kitchen, returning with a box containing a small thinly-frosted cupcake. Turning his back on the other customers near the counter, Terry bit into it to be sure it was genuine. He waited until the server was free and then said in a low voice, “You ought not to be selling these; someone might report you. I think I’d better speak to the person in charge.”
“He’s not available right now,” she declared firmly.
“Tell him to make himself available. I’m sure he wants to avoid trouble.”
After disappearing again briefly she beckoned to Terry from the kitchen door. From there he was ushered into a back office.
“Are you the owner?” Terry asked the dark-haired man seated at the desk. “If so, I have a proposition that’s in your best interest.”
“If you’re trying to muscle in on Paco’s territory, forget it. Paco doesn’t like competitors.”
The man wasn’t nervous; evidently the health police didn’t work undercover. “I’m not acquainted with Paco,” he said “but I doubt if he’d ever hear about a small transaction on the side.”
“What, are you from Verge Island or something? He hears everything in this city and if you tried to turn me in he’d come after you; he guarantees I’ll never have to pay anyone else.”
For not exposing him, no doubt. “I’m not what you think,” Terry said. “I’ve gotten hold of some white stuff and I’m looking for someone interested in acquiring it.”
“Well, that’s different,” said the man. “How much?”
“Five, maybe ten kilos. I’m not a supplier; this is a one-time offer.”
“How do I know it’s not been cut?”
“I can tell you it came straight from New Afrika. You’ll have to take my word.” Terry hoped this man had enough latent telepathic ability to sense sincerity; he had no other proof.
The café owner nodded. “What’s your asking price?”
“Here’s the thing,” Terry said. “I’m not asking for money. I want a favor. Nothing that will cause trouble for you, just setting up a contact for me.”
“A contact with who?”
“Some person who works in the hospital. Employees come in here all the time, you probably know one to recommend. I need somebody willing to lift a couple of small items from a lab and pass them on to me. They’ll be only for my personal use.”
“Drugs? I steer clear of that business.”
“No, not drugs. Some electronic equipment I can’t find anywhere else.”
“That’s theft. You’d be sentenced to the psych ward if I reported you.”
“But you won’t, considering what I know about your menu. I could talk before Paco finds out I exist.” At the man’s hesitation Terry went on, “There are two ways of thinking about the hospital. Some people accept the official story—they assume the administration cares only about their well-being and all the laws should be obeyed. I don’t think you’re one of them.”
“Hell, no. There’s no harm in sugar; I wouldn’t serve it if there were. And there are a lot of other laws I know are stupid. But I don’t steal.”
“Yet the government steals from you. You don’t think all the taxes it collects for health care are spent on curing sickness, do you? Some of the money goes to enforcing stupid laws and some gets into the pockets of the bureaucrats, and one of the ways it does is through kickbacks from importers who sell more equipment to the hospital than it has any legitimate use for. A few excess items more or less will never be noticed.”
“You’ve got a point.” The café owner hesitated again and then said, “Okay. I know a guy there who’s always bitching about corruption. Just last week he told me they made him put through purchase orders for stuff he knew damn well would never even be delivered. Next time I see him I’ll sound him out.”
“I have to meet him by tomorrow night, or the deal’s off.”
“That’s not much notice.”
“I can’t help that; I won’t have access to the sugar beyond the next day.”
“How much of it are you offering him?”
“That’s between the two of you. You get the sugar; you can share it with him or pay him in credits—or in hard metal, if you’ve got any.”
They agreed on a meeting time and shook hands. Terry knew the night and day of waiting would be nerve-wearing.
~ 30 ~
With Harris off someplace in the company of fellow officers, Terry spent the evening in their room alone, investigating the local Net. He went to bed late and rose early, for he wanted to do more on Undine than acquire the helmets. This would be his only chance to spread the Estel symbol to its people, who were more desperately in need of real hope than they knew.
At first he planned to do his hacking from a bench in the park, but it was a bright sunny morning and he longed suddenly for a closer look at the sea. So he took a public water taxi to the island’s waterfront, where a wide esplanade separated a long row of well-kept historic homes from the low concrete wall at the water’s edge.
Boats and seaplanes, bright-colored ones, were moored at piers for as far along the esplanade as could be seen. He had been told that many people on Undine had private planes because the islands were too widely scattered for quick boat trips to be practical. Ian Maclairn had owned a lodge on one of those islands, where mind training had been given and where some of his group had spent leisurely weekends. It no longer existed, for they had destroyed it when they left to prevent the smuggled equipment it contained from being traced to their offworld contacts. Maclairn’s founders had grieved over that, and had built the Council Head’s house on their new world in its image. Thinking of it, Terry was struck once more by the vivid memory—it was where he had gone through the Ritual. . . .
Maclairn would always be a part of him, no matter how deep his love for Alison, however happy he was to own Estel. Being on Undine brought it all back. Had the founders felt nostalgia for this world in later years, knowing that they would never see it again? They’d hated its government and ugly city, but the sea and the islands had beauty—and they, too, must have felt pain at exile from the place where their first Rituals had been held. What had it been like, remembering when they were old?
Hack
ing Undine’s Net was not difficult; Terry knew the Group had done it routinely even for altering hospital records. He set to work with his tablet, inserting his usual texts in places where they were likely to be noticed, including oblique references to the ship Estel. Here, more than anywhere else but Ciencia, the idea of the mind having power over the body was foreign. Some of the Ciencians, starved for the mythology to which they had never been exposed, had taken to it like caged birds to free air; but here the worship of bodies was tied to the denial of death.
He found himself thinking again of the island full of unacknowledged tombs, which he’d learned from the Net was called the Isle of Sleep. The citizens of Undine were assured that they would “live” forever. Even government officials had once believed this, but at least some of them must now be aware that it was a false promise, whether or not they thought the bodies in actual stasis were still alive. Yet if people were allowed to stop believing that the restrictive health laws of their colony led to immortality, they might start objecting to them. They might become unwilling to pay exorbitant taxes and vote those who imposed them out of office. The medical administration and the bureaucracy that supported it might be endangered.
The prospective Maclairnans had defied the stasis system and buried bodies in the sea at the risk of arrest for “murder,” yet they had not been able to convince more than a handful of people that calling permanent stasis “life” devalued the real thing. That a human life depended on a mind—whether conscious or unconscious—and not just a brain-dead body. But their contemporaries had known nothing of death. The natural cycle of life and death had not been part of their experience. What, Terry wondered, would have happened if they’d been aware that permanent maintenance of the farce was impossible, that death occurred sooner or later no matter how hard society tried to deny it?
The Rising Flame: Box Set: Defender of the Flame + Herald of the Flame Page 63