Forge of Heaven

by C. J. Cherryh

  "Brazis," Procyon said under his breath, and tried the tap, an effort that dizzied him, as a hand-Magdallen's-slipped inside his elbow. "Sir. Brazis. We need help here."

  The man in the suit had one hand inside his pocket. He removed it carefully, and with the same slowness touched a communications unit on his gray collar. "I hear you," the man said to someone, and then, no happier than before, signaled the uniformed police to stand down and put away the guns. To move back. Outsider police stayed, still moving about inside, still mopping up.

  The girl didn't budge.

  "Procyon," his tap said suddenly.

  "Sir." His voice shook. It was surreal to speak to Brazis here, in public, with armed confusion around him. He wasn't safe. He might never again be safe. "I've got a passenger. Another tap. I think, sir, I think it's the ondat."

  While it said, in the same ear, "Brazis, Braziss. Hello."

  "We thought so," Brazis said. We thought so. We thought so, jarred through him, an of-course acceptance that left him not a known fact in the universe. Marak, was what he wanted to ask, the only thing he wanted to know about, for himself. And couldn't. Dared not.

  "This is Antonio Brazis." The voice wasn't in his head, it was in the air, thundered like God from speakers all over the area. "We have visual identification of all persons in the area, with nine active warrants, two of which have already been served by our personnel moving through the vicinity."

  Several individuals in the crowd melted away, fast. Another took out running down the middle of the street.

  Then a quieter voice, through the Project tap: "Report to the office, stat. No delays, no fuss. Just move. Now. No one will stop you."

  "Yes, sir," Procyon said, and turned to the man who had taken his arm. Magdallen, his sister had called him. Slink. High-powered, deadly-armed slink, who'd quietly removed the knife from his hand. "I'm called in. I'm called in, sir." He suspected a slink knew where, and why. Magdallen let go his arm, at least. "Let my sister alone."

  "Your sister has no problem with us," Magdallen said quietly, and Procyon turned, threaded his way through a crowd that melted away in front of him, disheveled, coatless-cold, now that the adrenaline had run out.

  "Procyon!"

  He looked back at Ardath. "Love you. See you." He didn't believe it. He fixed that sight of her in memory, hoping he'd have a memory by tomorrow.

  He turned and walked, then, the object of stares and hasty avoidance, and the three bots that dogged his steps zipped and dodged along with him. He couldn't do anything about that. He didn't know what choice he had. Report, not home, but to the office.

  The office, he said to himself, and, walking down to the corner of Blunt and Grozny, turned onto Grozny, a very long way from the office, and just kept walking in the right direction.

  He heard a hum behind him. An open Council police cab showed up and wanted him to get in.

  "Go Braziss," the voice in his head said, and he tapped into the office. "I've got an escort, sir. Bots. I don't know if I dare take a cab. I don't know what Kekellen will do if I lose them."

  "Can you walk?"

  "I'm doing all right so far, sir," he said, looking down that long, long street, Grozny, that eventually, under various names, led everywhere on the deck. It curved up as it reached a point of in-distinction, floor becoming horizon.

  It was a long way. But the police made no objection when with a "Sorry," he wandered on. The police just trundled along in his neighborhood, like the three bots, and he kept moving.

  Setha Reaux sat in his chair looking at the life-globe, watching a lizard catching gnats. Kathy was alive. He didn't know what condition she was in. But Kathy was alive.

  "She doesn't want to come in," Dortland had advised him, the dark spot in that most welcome news. "I tried, sir. I was confronted by an Outsider riot. She's with Procyon Stafford's sister-who does have a clean record. There's another matter-"

  Dortland talked about Freethinkers. About the Movement suspects, both of whom were dead, with bots occupying the place, ripping up evidence, even taking the bodies apart, annihilating traces. Unprecedented. Unsettling to contemplate. He had had a call from Brazis, who had visual surveillance down there, and who proved a far more exact source of information.

  Kekellen had answered their request. Hadn't he?

  He never wanted to admit to that message he'd sent. Never wanted to, and hoped he never would have to. Whatever those dead bodies contained-Earth authority wouldn't get hold of them, not now.

  But Kathy was safe. With Stafford's sister. Safe, with someone who might possibly talk cold sense into her stubborn young head. Kathy had refused to go anywhere with Dortland. Good sense in his daughter.

  Dortland was only anxious, he suspected, to be told he was off the hook.

  "You did your best," Reaux said. Time to make peace with this man. To warm the atmosphere, at least enough for polite lies to take root and grow. Dortland in his debt might be useful and informative. "She'll call. She'll call when she's ready. Come back to the office. I count it a success."

  He hung up. He sat waiting, wondering if he should call Antonio, if he dared call Antonio.

  The phone beeped. "Sir." It was Ernst. "The Chairman's courier."

  He jabbed a button. "Send her in."

  Ernst let Jewel into the office.

  "Are we safe here?" he asked, incongruous question, and she looked about her, seemed to take the local temperature.

  "At the moment, sir. Sir, I'm in contact."

  "Antonio," Reaux said. "Antonio. What news?"

  "Moderately good," Brazis said. "I can report your daughter is in a safe place. But you've heard that. The young woman is well reputed. A positive influence."

  "Is she safe there, from retaliation?"

  "I have a close watch on her vicinity. There may be a few survivors still crawling the corridors, but I think their real desire now is to lie low and wait for a ship bound for Orb or anywhere else in the universe. We're going to watch such ships very closely."

  "My full cooperation," Reaux said earnestly. "But my daughter-forgive me: forgive me, sir. Is there any indication-of her health?"

  "If there should be anything untoward, she's with someone who can get her expert help. The boy who was with her, likewise. An innocent. Relatively speaking, if stupidity counts."

  "Thank God. Thank God for that."

  "Algol is dead: he was a known problem. Typhon, likewise dead-an import from Orb, capable of handling exotics, I'm told. Not now. He's done, and every trace of biologicals with him."

  "You're sure."

  "I hesitate to claim the pieces have all gone into recycling. I think Kekellen's taken them for his own investigations."

  "Even the-" He hesitated at the question. "The remains."

  "That first. Cleaner-bots have fairly well demolished the place, and police aren't going in there, not yours and not mine."

  Bots, for God's sake.

  "Kekellen is involved to the hilt," Brazis said through Jewel's lips. "The fact the local street moved to reject this illicit cell-I think that may have communicated to him. A demonstration of honesty. Kekellen's extremely keen on honesty."

  It was the theory-that Kekellen had settled on Marak for that reason. "The honest man," Reaux said.

  "Kekellen's seemed to have picked out a locally honest man, too-if the notion holds up."

  Astonishing that he couldn't think of an honest man. Not offhand. He certainly didn't think it was Brazis. Or himself. "Who?"

  "Our young fugitive."

  "Procyon?" He was a little stunned. In their interview, he could say he'd been impressed, at least, of a certain character.

  But he didn't like the ondat's honest man being an Outsider.

  "He's not the only one." Brazis said further. "If we can count Mr. Gide."

  "Mr. Gide? Oh, I doubt that."

  "But there is a tap. A nanocele tap. Hospital could tell that in two seconds. The question is, whose. But I think it's much the same as Procyon's
situation, however delivered."

  Reaux's heart sullenly doubled its beats. "But why?"

  "My young gentleman, Mr. Stafford, hasn't gotten to the office yet, and I don't think he'll have any clearer idea than I have. I've been a little careful about contacting him by tap, speaking quite frankly, because we very surely have an intruder in our system, including the one I'm using now."

  "An-"

  "Listen to me all the way on this one, Setha, and take it for what it is. Cleaner-bots. The bot system comes and goes, does it not? Our friend Kekellen has inserted his own robots through his own system of accesses, bots to mix with ours. Young Mr. Stafford is wearing a mark that we may not be able to purge, and he's attended particularly by a repair bot that won't leave his vicinity. I had the tap system completely shut down for a significant period of time, and we're still getting information on a rogue tap somewhere in the system. I'm convinced he's part of it. And I'm suspecting fairly soon we'll have a second one."

  "Mr. Gide."

  "He's not savvy of it, not yet. He won't be, for a while. Procyon's fairly expert at handling complex taps, and he's bringing sensible communication through with far less trouble. But that's not the whole point. Kekellen himself seems to be communicating through those two taps-having one internal to himself."

  "Good God," Reaux said, appalled. "What do we do, then?"

  "Wait and see. That's all I can recommend."

  "But Kekellen-"

  "He's had abundant reason to complain. We may have settled it. The street may have settled it. And if that fails, Mr. Stafford may be a valuable asset in settling the difficulty. We've never had direct communication with the ondat."

  "And Mr. Gide? He's not qualified. He's not prepared for this."

  "In a sense it's what eight-year-old kids get done, in our society. Well, excluding the alien intelligence aspect of it. Mr. Gide should find it an interesting experience."

  "If you can say so," Reaux said with a shudder. In the life-globe, an anole had climbed the highest branch, lording it over the others. "Intimate contact with Kekellen isn't what I'd call an interesting experience."

  "Another tap system. We share one with pop culture. One with the planet. One, it seems, we now share with the ondat, in the head of a Project tap. We're in for a period of adjustment. I think Mr. Gide may be able to communicate a new fact of existence to the authorities that backed this venture."

  "If his sanity holds out." He remembered a recent communication. "I've received an official protest over Mr. Gide's transfer to your hospital. Shall I relay your advisement to his ship, about his condition, and its probable source?"

  "Oh, by all means. I think it's time to do that."

  It was going to be a tense moment, as that ship realized that, with all he knew, Mr. Gide had had a tap implanted, and not by Outsider choice, and not in contact with humans.

  But there wasn't a thing a political faction on distant Earth could do about the situation except keep quiet and study the damage a stranded Mr. Gide could do to their political secrets, in close communication with colonials, Outsiders, and ondat.

  "I'll take care of it," he promised Brazis.

  Jewel gave a little nod, indication the interview was over.

  "Thank you," Reaux said to her, but he wasn't sure she heard, on her way to the door.

  He didn't know what he was going to tell Judy. It wasn't hair color they were talking about, now. It was a daughter down on Blunt-a daughter on Grozny, if they were lucky. A daughter who wasn't going to go back into the best schools.

  A daughter who was very soon going to be notorious in her former social circles.

  But still his daughter. Kathy. Mignette. He didn't know about Judy, but she was still-after all-his daughter.

  Rain sheeted, poured down sandy washes, spattered off the rocks, soaked wherever the rain-skins failed to protect-a modern convenience against a modern nuisance, these brown plastic covers, and Marak, disdaining a good many of Ian's conveniences, was glad to have warmth and dryness about them, glad to have the saddles under them kept dry, along with the girths, which took a deal of stress on their slow climb.

  They moved, with occasional encouragement from the long quirts. They had moved all through the night, having the young fool ahead of them, driven upward by the wrath of the old bull Marak rode, and the disgruntled females following their laborious path up the cliffs. following, because beshti stuck together, give or take riders' intentions, in a vast and otherwise empty land.

  And gradually the rock and sand that had appeared only in lightning flashes began to be visible between flashes. It became a sullen sort of morning, gray, wet and noisy with the boom of thunder and the rush of the deluge. Water still poured in diminishing torrents from above, newborn streams rushing down channels in the sandstone toward the pans, which still were dry enough to drink them up. No bright beam of morning sunlight got through the clouds.

  But they were alive, and they kept moving to keep warm and to keep safe, climbing up the way they had come down, or finding new ways, where rain had badly channeled the sand slips.

  Up by the difficult series of three terraces, while the light grew, with a little rest, then, sheltered from the wind by an outcrop of basalt.

  Marak had no watcher at all this morning. Neither did Hati. But they had Ian, who inquired frequently and cautiously after their progress.

  "As good as might be," Marak said, informing Ian as little as possible. He was still angry, still asking himself what he would do in response.

  Ian would make peace with Luz. Possibly they would become lovers again, possibly not. How both of them would regard the Ila for the next while was a matter of concern, until matters settled out. He was closely evaluating his opinion of Brazis.

  "Procyon is safe and asleep," Ian told him finally. "The ones responsible in the heavens are dead."

  "Is Brazis?" Marak asked harshly. He by no means exonerated Brazis, among others.

  "Brazis is still directing matters. He asks me to relay his profound apology, and his gratitude for your patience."

  "Patience." He was very long on that virtue, where mountains were concerned. Human beings were another matter. "I will have the boy back, Ian, and I shall have Drusus, and Auguste."

  "That seems likely," Ian said, "but, Marak-omi, the ondat seem to have assisted in the fight. And, it seems, they have slipped a maker into Procyon, with which they can contact him-and, through him, you-at will. They have entered the downworld system through this boy. Brazis counsels us all to be watchful, and patient."

  There was no answer to that situation. He was silent for a moment, simply trying to understand what was a very significant move. The ondat would touch the world. A change. Another change in the world as it had been.

  "This boy is under my husband's protection," Hati said angrily, in his meditative silence.

  "And continues to be, Hati-omi. The ondat have always shown the greatest respect for your husband, above the rest of us. I am somewhat optimistic about this move. The ondat protected this boy."

  "It is worth seeing what will happen," Marak said. He was disturbed, but not angry. The blood moved quicker in his veins. He was not accustomed to think beyond the sky. He might have to learn new thoughts, become adept in new horizons. "Where have they gotten this maker, Ian?"

  "A very good question," Ian said.

  "Indeed," Marak said.

  "I have other news," Ian said. "Your man Fashti broke camp when he heard you were coming up. He is proceeding down the ridge to intercept you."

  "Meziq?"

  "They are carrying him, as I understand. And the tent, the essential poles, the tack, and considerable supplies. The going is very slow, and they are dragging most of it, but they are making progress."

  They were going home. And they could ride up the spine to meet the retreat, load up the beshti, and send a party back to collect what they had had to abandon.

  "I can send a plane," Ian said, "to meet you at the edge of the plateau."
r />   "You can send your plane to bring Meziq out," Marak said. "If the weather settles. If you wish to take the trouble. If Meziq himself wishes it. He may not. We will tell you which." He broke off the contact, determined to get under way now, the last climb up to the ridge, where the boys and a majority of their equipment would be a welcome sight.

  A great deal of help Ian's machines would be, bogged in mud or swept away by torrent in this shift in the weather. But he did not open that argument with Ian, not yet.

  Had Luz, meanwhile, apologized for the situation her schism with Ian had created? He heard no hint of that from her.