All My Sins Remembered (5 page)

“They always have seemed hell-bent on working themselves to death. The males, anyhow. Somehow that seems too pat, though—the ones who don’t work in the mines are always charging around, too. But they aren’t popping off early.”

The doctor snorted. “Isaac, go down tomorrow and watch them work the mines. It’s a wonder they even last a week down there. The others look lazy compared to the mine workers.”

“I’ll do that.” How to get the conversation around to the disappearances? “How about the human side of the colony? Changed much since I left?”

“Not really. Most of us got weaseled into twelve-or twenty-year contracts; same people around, only ten years older. Costs a year’s salary to get back to Terra, and you forfeit that one-hundred-percent retirement if you break your contract—so most of us are sticking it out. Had four people buy their way out; I don’t think you knew any of them.

“There’s a new Confederación ambassador—like the three before him, nothing for him to do here. But the law says we’ve got to have one—I understand the Diplomatic Corps considers this the least of all possible worlds; being assigned here is either proof of incompetence or punishment for something. It’s punishment for this one, Stu Fitz-Jones; he had the misfortune of being ambassador to Lamarr’s World when the civil war broke out there. Not his fault, of course, it’s just that nobody understood the natives’ internal politics. But they had to hang it on somebody, so here he is. You ought to drop by and talk to him, he’s an interesting fellow. But go in the morning while he’s still a little bit sober.

“We’ve had six births, half of them legitimate, and eighteen deaths.” Willy frowned. “Rather, fifteen deaths and three disappearances. All the disappearances in the past year. People have been getting careless. Outside the Company city, you might as well be on another planet. But people go out walking alone; prospecting or just getting away from the rest of us. They break a leg or step in a dustpit and it’s all over. Two of the disappearances were brand-new people, probably Confederación agents”—Otto jumped, that was true—“and the other was old Malatesta, the Supervisor of Mines. I think that’s what brought the two agents. They were supposed to be doing mineralogical research, but they didn’t work for the Company. Who could have paid their way? Nobody else can mine on this planet.”

“Could be a university paying for abstract knowledge—that’s how I came here the first time.”

The doctor nodded. “Exactly. That’s what they claimed. But they weren’t scholars, I could tell; I’ve lived and worked with academic people most of my life.

“Oh, they could identify themselves, and they seemed to know their subjects adequately, but… you know that zombie thing the Confederación is supposed to use with its agents?”

“Vaguely—isn’t it just plastic surgery and hypnolearning?”

“Oh, I suppose. Anyhow, that’s what I think these fellows were; a couple of agents they’d made to walk, talk, and act like geologists. But they went to all the wrong places; like the mines—they’ve been analyzed and the analyses published down to the last molecule. And they never stuck to one place long enough to get any serious work done.”

“You’re probably right.”

“You think so? Have another drink. Everybody else around here thinks I’m getting paranoid in my old age.”

“Maybe we’re both falling apart together.” Isaac smiled. “Thanks for the offer, but I’d better pick up the Pandroxin and be getting back to my place before I collapse. It’s been a long day.”

“I can imagine. Well, good to see you again, Isaac. Still play chess?”

“Better than ever.” Especially with Otto’s help.

“Well, drop by some evening and we’ll go a round or two.”

“I’ll do that. Take care.”

5.

Isaac didn’t go to the pharmacy right away. He went to his billet and made a radiophone call.

“Biological lab. Struckheimer here.”

“Waldo, this is Isaac Crowell. Could I ask a favor?”

“Fire away.”

“I’m going down to Dr. Norman’s office now, to get some Gravitol. Those tablets you gave me today seemed just about right—could you look up the dosage?”

“Don’t have to look it up, it’s five milligrams. But look, Isaac, he’ll probably want you on a smaller dose—the older you get, the less they give you.”

“Really? Well, I’ll try to talk him out of it. Seems to me it should go the other way around!”

“You’ll never talk Willy out of anything. He’s the most stubborn creature I’ve ever argued with.”

“I know; we were good friends. Maybe he’ll have pity on a fellow geriatrics-ward case.”

“Well, good luck. See you again soon?”

“I’ll be down your way tomorrow, checking out the mines.”

“Stop in for a beer.”

“Glad to.” They rang off.

Crowell emptied his suitcase and flipped up the false bottom. He selected a stylus that was an ordinary ball-feed pen on one side and an ultrasonic ink eradicator on the other. Luckily, the doctor had used a black ball-feed to write the prescription; he wouldn’t have to forge the signature.

He practiced writing “5 mg. Gravitol, quant suff 30 days” a couple of dozen times, then buzzed the Pandroxin prescription into invisibility and scrawled the counterfeit one over the signature.

The Company store was dark except for one light over the prescription desk. The front door was locked and Crowell dragged himself over to a side door. It slid open when he put his foot on the treadle-mat, and a bell rang.

A clerk came from behind the shelves of reagents, rubbing sleep from his eyes. “Something I can do for you?”

“Yes, I’d like this filled, please.”

“Sure thing.” The young man took it and walked back behind the shelves. “Say,” he yelled back, “this isn’t for you, is it?”

All Otto now. “Of course not. I use Pandroxin. That’s for Dr. Struckheimer.”

The clerk came back in a minute with a little green vial. “I could have sworn Waldo was in here for Gravitol just last week. Maybe I ought to call up Dr. Norman.”

“I don’t think these are for his own use,” Crowell said slowly. “They’re for some experiment on the natives.”

“Okay. I’ll just put it on his account, then.”

“That’s funny. He gave me cash to pick them up.”

The clerk looked at him. “How much?”

“Eighteen and a half credits.”

Crowell extracted his wallet and counted out nineteen credits. Then he laid out a pink Cr50 bill next to it.

The clerk hesitated, then picked up the Cr50, folded it, and put it in his pocket. “It’s your funeral, old-timer,” he said as he rang up the purchase. “That’s a young man’s dosage.”

Crowell took the half-credit change and left without a word.

6.

The next morning, feeling human again, Crowell went out to the mines just after sunup. He checked at the dome, but Waldo wasn’t there, so he ambled on down to Mine A.

A long line of Bruuchians at the entrance to the mine danced and waved their arms as if they were trying to keep warm. Their animated conversation got louder and louder as he approached the front of the line.

A human in white coveralls was examining the lead Bruuchian. He didn’t notice Crowell until he was standing right next to him. “Hello there!” Crowell shouted over the din.

The man looked up, startled. “Who the hell are you?”

“Name’s Crowell—Isaac Crowell.”

“Oh, yeah—I was just a kid last time you were here. Watch this.” He picked up a megaphone and shouted in Bruuchian (informal mode): “Your spirit/ disrupts my spirit/ slowing the progress/ of this line and your way to stillness.” The conversation quieted to a low murmur. “See, I read your book.” He continued making passes over the Bruuchian’s body with a gleaming metal probe.

Is that the diagnostic machine?” Crowell indicated a featureless black box clipped to the man’s belt, with a cable leading to the probe.

“Yeah. It figures out whether anything’s wrong with the beastie and tells Doc Struckheimer.” He clapped the Bruuchian on the shoulder: the “beastie” ran off into the mine. The next stepped up and presented his foot, his knee bending in an unkneelike manner. “It’s also a microphone,” he said, peering at the number tattooed on the Bruuchian’s foot. He read the number off in slow, clear tones and began running the probe over the brown fur in a regular pattern.

“Ne can figure anybody gettin’ off this planet, wantin’ to come back. How much they have to pay you?”

“Well, there’s a new printing of my book coming out. The publisher wants it updated.”

The man shrugged. “Long as you got a ticket back, guess it’s not so bad.

“If you wanta take a look downstairs, go ahead. But watch your step… they run around like crazy down there—keep away from the elevator and they probably won’t trample you.”

“Thanks.” Crowell walked down the corridor to a small open elevator. Inside, one Bruuchian was doing an impatient little dance. Over the elevator, a sign said T
WO AT A
T
IME
. Bruuchians had no written language, but this one must have known the rule; as soon as Crowell had strapped himself in, the native pushed a big red button and the elevator fell abruptly. Crowell hung on while Otto counted dispassionately. Twenty-two seconds passed before the repulsors cut on and the machine squeezed to a halt. Even allowing for air resistance, they must be over a kilometer deep.

It was very dark, but then the Bruuchians didn’t need as much light as Terrans. He could hear activity all around as the Bruuchian shouldered past him, but he couldn’t see any thing.

“Ah, Isaac,” said a human voice three or four meters away. “You should have warned me that you were coming.” A flashlight snapped on and the light bobbed up to Crowell.

“Here, put these on.” He handed Crowell a pair of goggles. Nightglasses: the interior of the mine suddenly appeared, a ghostly green and gray video image.

“Things have certainly changed,” Crowell said. “Why is it so dark?”

“They asked for it, said the light slowed them down.”

“Good Lord.” Crowell stared at the flurry of activity. “Makes me tired, just watching them.” The mine was a roughly square cavern the size of a large hall. Some fifty Bruuchians, working in pairs, hacked away at three walls with vibropick and shovel. There was a barrow serving each pair of teams; as soon as the barrow was full, the Bruuchian who had been fidgeting beside it would zoom off to the fourth wall, where Crowell and Struckheimer stood, and dump the ore onto a conveyer that took it to the surface. Then he’d return and pick up a shovel; the former shoveler would get a vibropick; the pickmeister would fidget beside the barrow.

In the midst of all this activity, a small Bruuchian scurried back and forth scattering what appeared to be a mixture of sand and sawdust on the damp cave floor, narrowly escaping collision every few seconds. There was a zany order to it, like children knocking themselves out in a complicated relay race.

“You know,” Crowell said, “Willy Norman thinks the decline in life expectancy is due to simple overwork. Looking at this, I’m inclined to agree with him.”

“Well, they do work harder at this than at anything else I’ve seen them do. Especially since we turned out the lights. But I’m allowed to adjust their work hours to compensate for the increased activity—how long a workday did they have when you were studying them?”

“Eleven, twelve hours, I guess.”

“It’s down to six and a half.”

“Really? You have that much power over the Company?”

“In theory, yes; they should jump when I say ‘rabbit.’ Since their contract here is at the sufferance of the Confederación Public Health Commission, and I’m the only PHC representative. But I don’t overdo it. I have to depend on them for manpower, supplies, utilities, mail. It’s a pretty cordial relationship—but they know that there are five or six other concerns ready to snap up the contract if they make a mistake. So they’re pretty good in their treatment of the natives.

“Besides, they haven’t lost anything in terms of overall productivity. They can only run one mine at a time; they have two shifts now, with no overlap, and the mine is actually open longer. Total yield is more than it’s ever been.”

“Interesting.” Welcome to the suspect list, Waldo. “So they’re actually working
less
than they did when their life expectancy was higher?”

Waldo laughed. “I know what you’re thinking. No, it can’t be a case of atrophic degeneration; that would show up in the lab tests—besides, they work less in the mines now, but more in the village. You wouldn’t recognize the place. Skyscrapers and—”

“Skyscrapers!”

“Well, that’s what we call them—mud and straw buildings two, sometimes three stories high. It’s another mystery… they have all the room in the world to expand their village radially. But somewhere they got the idea to go up instead of out. And it’s quite a job; wattle and daub isn’t supposed to take that kind of stress. Now, when they build a house, they have to reinforce the whole thing with ironwood; it’s almost a wooden building covered with a layer of mud….

“Say—maybe
you
can find out why they’re doing it. Nobody here’s been able to get a straight answer out of them. But you can speak the dialect better than any of us. Besides, you’re kind of a folk hero to them—even though I don’t think any of them were alive last time you were here. They know you were responsible for a lot of the changes in their lives, and they’re grateful.”