Between the Stars (10 page)

Vladyka left the bar certain that he had found the right woman. All the signs had been there. Even the restaurant she picked had been characteristic. Kornfeld had been raised on Mars and that planet still retained much of the culture of its early Russian settlers. The question now was how to handle the snatch and interrogation. True, his orders concerning Kornfeld had just been to kill her, but he was now certain that the Rhea Object wasn't on Aeaea, but in some secret lab not far away.

He pondered the implications of that. If it wasn't here, why was the Kornfeld woman here? Because, obviously, it was being studied here by remote. It only stood to reason. The ship's captain had said it: Why would they risk such potential danger? Obviously, ranking scientists like Kornfeld weren't about to risk their valuable lives so close to the thing. The risky operations were being carried out by expendable technicians while the big shots monitored the work through instruments. Now all the loose ends were tied up. As always, Vladyka was pleased with his own impeccable reasoning.

Now, how to carry out the interrogation? He had brought along a portable interrogation kit, equipped with drugs and instruments for eliciting information from reluctant subjects. They required privacy for use, and this assignment could be tricky. Sieglinde Kornfeld would be no ordinary subject. He didn't know what kind of anti-drug treatment she might have, but he had some of the very latest pharmaceuticals in his kit and she couldn't have immunized herself against all of them yet.

His first order of business was to arrange for a private location, never an easy task in the Island Worlds. His own ship would have been ideal, but he had been forced to come to Aeaea by commercial transport to avoid jeopardizing his cover. That also meant that he had to arrange for a getaway. It was tricky, but he loved his work.

First, he arranged for a room at a hotel in the older part of the station, where the inner walls were still of concrete. He knew that screams were the sign of a sloppy interrogator, but here he would lack the leisure for artistry. He allowed himself eight hours from their meeting to the finish of the interrogation. She shouldn't be missed by her co-workers for several hours after that. For the room, he used an alternate identity and paid cash.

Then he arranged for passage on a Terran ship, using yet another identity and again paying cash. It was all laughably easy, due to the Island Worlders' sloppy security and reluctance to demand rigorous ID searches. The next day, he transferred his belongings to the hotel room. He was now ready for the evening.

When she arrived, he was at a small table in the lounge with a bulb of Chablis opposite him. "See," he said, "I didn't forget."

"How thoughtful." She smiled, revealing the dimple again, and he mentally castigated himself for failing to check his records for it. Ah, well. Even dimples could be faked.

He made it a point to be especially charming. This was always a good policy, as it softened up the subject for what was to follow. As they walked into the restaurant, he had a moment of doubt. Suppose someone here actually came from his part of Earth? Might that someone note that his accent differed subtly from that of a Serbian from Trieste? Then he relaxed. It would make no difference. No one was looking for him. His cover was thorough. Nobody even knew that Daniko Vladyka was anywhere off-Earth.

During their meal, which she ordered for them, he noticed a certain nervousness in her chatter. Was it passionate anticipation? No, her breathing was wrong for that. It might be discomfort at keeping up her assumed identity. Whatever it was, the hour was getting late, and he had an interrogation to conduct, an elimination to perform, and a ship to catch.

He put his hand lightly on hers. "Giselle, I'm from Earth, where we have a little privacy to compensate for our numbers. It's always so crowded here. Wouldn't you like to go somewhere and talk without so many people around?"

Her hand moved slightly, but she didn't pull it away. "Ah, well, if you'd like to go to my apartment, it's rather a mess, but I'm rooming with only two other women. One of them might be away."

"I have a better idea. I have a room at the Hotel Andalucia. Real privacy. Doesn't that sound better?"

Now she was growing frightened. Even an Earthie shouldn't be so precipitate. The vodka-induced fog cleared swiftly from her brain. Something nudged her memory. Wasn't Serbia near Montenegro? Or was it Romania? Geography wasn't her strong point, but there was no way she was going to be shut up alone with a man who might be a professional assassin.

She pulled her hand back. "
Cheri
, this is a little too sudden. I know things are different on Earth, but here we move more slowly."

Damn! Quickly, he composed himself. The last thing he wanted was a scene here. But he had anticipated this possibility as well. "I am sorry. Of course I don't want to press you. What do you say we meet tomorrow for dinner and I choose the place. Is that leisurely enough for Island World sensibilities?"

She smiled again. Perhaps she was overreacting. "That would be fine. Meet at the same place?"

"And the same time. Until then." He gave a courtly bow, which was a difficult operation in the low gravity. She left and, after waiting a few moments, he followed her. In some area where there were relatively few people about, he would give her a swift injection. Nobody would think it outlandish to see a man helping an inebriated woman home. Many people were allergic to sober-up pills, and in any case, most people averted their attention from such an embarrassing sight.

Giselle's suspicions were almost allayed when she noticed that she was being followed. She had stopped before the holo display of a jewelry shop, and as she turned, she saw a man in the uniform of the physics section stepping suddenly into a doorway. It is not easy to make a swift change of direction in low gravity. She was sure it was Mihajlovic. She had no idea why a spy would be so determined to corner her, but she decided that she had ignored her instincts too many times. She walked on as if she had noticed nothing, but she raised the transmitter she wore on a finger.

"This is Giselle Pellier. I am being followed by a suspected infiltrator. I am approaching subsector G from H in Sector Beta. Would you put a tail on both of us?"

"Acknowledged. Will comply immediately." She felt unutterably relieved.

Vladyka noticed the instant she raised her hand. Inexpertly, she was trying to disguise the fact that she was speaking into a transmitter. Immediately, he faded back. He had no trouble spotting the two security men who emerged from side corridors to fall in behind Sieglinde. It was certainly the Kornfeld woman. Would a mere staff metallurgist have Aeaean security at her beck and call?

He stepped into the first drop-tube he saw. He took turns and tubes at random, keeping to dense crowds, of which Aeaea had a sufficiency. As soon as he was certain that he wasn't shadowed, he bought a civilian coverall and donned it in a dressing room. He next found a pay restroom that featured privacy and set about altering his appearance with the cosmetics in his belt pouch.

Fifteen minutes later he emerged. His skin was dark, his eyes were green and his features had been subtly changed. He didn't have a hairpiece in his kit, but in space, hairlessness was so common that it hardly counted as identification. He moved like a native Island Worlder. No one, not even the Kornfeld woman, was going to identify him by sight. He decided to abandon his belongings in the hotel room. Unfortunately, he had given her the name of the place.

He found a holo theater and settled down to wait out the next few hours in the dimness. There were no alarms, no uniformed men rushing about looking for the intruder. Either they assigned him low priority, or it was another example of these peopled lax police procedures. In a similarly closed environment on Earth, even such an expert as Daniko Vladyka wouldn't have remained at large for more than a few minutes. There were snoops everywhere, and anyone entering a facility like this would have a locater implanted. Well, it wasn't his job to clue them in on how to run a police state.

He was perfectly relaxed as he passed into his ship. Nobody questioned his ID, not even the bored-looking security people at port control. He was disappointed, but far from discouraged. He had located Sieglinde Kornfeld, something nobody else had been able to do. What he had to do now was to find out where the Rhea Object really was. Where the green egg was, Kornfeld would show up sooner or later. He would take a circuitous route back to his ship and put his team on the problem at once. No matter how quiet and secretive they tried to be, such a project would have to leave tracks. As sloppy as these people were, those tracks shouldn't be difficult to find.

NINE

The invitation took Larsen by surprise. His dealings with Mehmet Shevket had always been on an official basis. They had never mixed socially. The majority of Shevket's cronies were in the military, while Larsen's were denizens of the political and business worlds.

The old-fashioned card lay on his desk, its flowing black script embossed on the costly, cream-colored paper: "His Excellency General Mehmet Shevket requests the honor of your company at his lodge in the Camargue."
There followed date and time. It seemed that there was to be an intimate gathering for relaxation and socializing at the general's beautiful country estate. The smell of conspiracy drifted like perfume from the card. Larsen liked that smell. Conspiracy was the fabric of his life. He keyed his social secretary. "Send a formal acceptance to His Excellency."

From the air, Shevket's estate looked merely picturesque, a Gothic fantasy of curtain walls, towers and buttresses. He had bought the ruined chateau and had restored it to his own taste, discarding its original name and calling it Kara Kum. Its archaic defenses masked modern, sophisticated security systems. As the executive hoverer descended, Larsen could see small herds of animals fleeing in panic. Shevket had appropriated a huge parcel of land for his self-bestowed fief, had depopulated much of it, and had stocked it with game animals. A passionate hunter, he enjoyed pursuing the beasts on horseback, killing them with arrow or spear.

The craft settled on the flat roof of a tower and Larsen descended its carpeted ramp. Shevket was there to greet him, resplendent in his customary black leathers. This time he wore a scarlet scarf to match the coral handle of his dagger. The two men shook hands as the hoverer lifted away.

"How good of you to come," Shevket said.

"Very kind of you to invite me. I confess it took me by surprise. We've never met on this—basis, shall we say?"

"No time like the present. I think, if we're to work together, we must get to know one another better. And I have other guests here I would like you to meet—people who will be important in our future activities."

So this was the reason for the invitation. "I look forward to meeting them. This is a lovely estate, General." They walked to the tower's parapet and looked over the unearthly Camargue landscape. It was low and swampy and looked like nothing that belonged in Europe.

"Do you know why I like to own flat land?" Shevket asked. "It's because, from a height, I can see so much of what is mine." He laughed, and Larsen realized that it was the first time he had heard such a sound from Shevket.

"Reasonable, but hardly humorous, General."

"Not humor, but pleasant anticipation. It just occurred to me that someday we'll need homes in orbit, to see all we own. Come," he gestured grandly, "dinner will be served soon. Allow me to show you my chateau." They stepped into a small elevator.

"Tomorrow," Shevket said as they descended, "we shall go hunting on the heaths. My stable is peerless and I've brought in some magnificent beasts for the hunt."

"I'm afraid hunting isn't one of my favored pastimes," Larsen said. "And I have never ridden a horse and have no interest in such primitive locomotion. I fear your no doubt lavish indoor delights will have to suffice."

Shevket's look was superior. "As you wish. As my honored guest, you shall have the best I can offer." The door slid open. "And now we have arrived in the great hall."

They stepped into a chamber of disorienting vastness. At first glance it appeared to be a typical baronial hall, until the eye began to pick up strange details. The walls met at odd angles. Above, the beams of rough-hewn wood slanted and met in ways that did not seem structural. Peculiar catwalks crossed the open area, going from nowhere to nowhere. Light from high, slit windows slanted across the hall, and it took the eyes a moment to adjust to the fact that it was coming in at subtly differing angles, unlike real sunlight. It was definitely unsettling.

"It is, ah, unique, General. Rather like Piranesi's
Carceri
."

"You recognized it. Congratulations. My designer is enamored of that artist, as am I."

"A most unusual choice, but effective." Piranesi's enigmatic series of drawings had always struck Larsen as depicting torture dungeons, where shadowy figures flitted on sinister missions amid surroundings of demented architecture that dwarfed human scale.

A Romanesque arch carved with grotesque figures led to an art gallery that further revealed Shevket's taste for the lurid. The works on display ranged from classical to modern, but the entire collection positively vibrated with blood, death, sex and domination. Many were unabashedly pornographic. There were battle scenes by Gericault, harems by Ingres, slave markets by Gérôme. There were holosculptures so shockingly violent that Larsen paled. Even more upsetting was Shevket's unselfconscious delight in the collection.

The tour of the art gallery at an end, Shevket excused himself to make some last-minute arrangements for the evening's banquet. A servant guided Larsen to his suite. There was no sign of robots in the chateau, only human servants. They went about their duties silently and all of them, male and female, were of striking beauty.

Like most Earthmen of his generation, Larsen was unaccustomed to menials. Aside from the occasional waiter such as those in the U.N. palace, he had encountered few in his life. The world viewed service work as exploitation, and most people preferred living on the edge of starvation with government welfare to accepting menial employment. Where had the Turk found these exquisite creatures?

The one assigned to him was a young woman with olive skin and chestnut hair. Her flowing scarlet gown was of some sheer fabric, almost transparent. A light chain of chromed steel closely encircled her neck. As he noted it, Larsen remembered that all the servants he had seen so far had been wearing such chains.

"What is your name?" he asked.

"Natasha." Her voice was barely audible, her eyes downcast.

"Do you live nearby?"

"I live here."

She was certainly unforthcoming, but her accent was reasonably cultured. "Is seeing to the comfort of the guests your specialty, or have you other duties as well?" He wasn't sure how a household with human servants operated.

"I am yours while you are here." That seemed an odd way of phrasing it. To his utter astonishment, she knelt and remained in that pose, hands on knees, head lowered.

"You mean you are to take care of my quarters and see to my needs?" Her pose was so alluring that it ruffled the self-composure in which he took such pride.

"I am yours to command as you will, while you are here," she said.

"I see. How very—archaic." This was something unexpected. He should have been shocked, but there was very little that could shock Aage Larsen. He examined his reactions and decided that the situation was quite pleasurable. It could be that Shevket was setting him up, but for what? Political blackmail? Larsen was unmarried. The popular press was well controlled and a liaison with an attractive young woman would do his reputation no harm among the people that really counted.

Gently, he touched her hair. She made no move to draw away. Larsen had always been contemptuous of men who could not keep their sexual urges under control. Such preoccupations seemed to him to be trivial and adolescent compared to the pleasures of power. He wondered what made this different and he decided that it was the woman's obvious posture and attitude of submission. It was as if this relationship were ordained by nature.

Whatever the explanation, he had no intention of acting on any hormonal impulse until he had some clearer idea of what Shevket's scheme was. Quickly, he changed clothes and renewed his cosmetics. Satisfied with his appearance, he left the room and descended a wide staircase to an elegant salon. Here the decor was Louis XIV. How typical, he thought, that Shevket's choice of setting always ran to things regal and dynastic.

There was a sizable gathering in the salon. All the guests were male, most of them in uniform. There were some exceptions. Larsen noted a pale, thin, almost languid young man in tight trousers, his arm draped over the shoulders of a servant boy as if for support, a fishbowl-sized glass of maroon wine in his free hand. Nearby stood a cold-faced man dressed like an executive and wearing the sort of light-filtering spectacles favored by media people. Larsen remembered vaguely that the variable filters on the spectacles somehow aided holographers in their work.

Shevket strode superbly across the room to greet Larsen. Everyone in the Turk's path managed discreetly to step out of his way. Larsen had a freakish impression that water would have parted before the man, allowing him to cross dry-shod.

"Come, Aage, meet my other guests. Here is Colonel Manuel Murieta, of the Earth Land Forces."

"Honored, your Excellency." He clicked his boot heels as he held out his hand. His uniform was similar to Shevket's, but of green leather with crimson facings. The man was dark with a drooping black mustache.

"I'm sure you've met Under-Admiral von Gruenwald?"

"At several functions," Larsen said, shaking hands with a tall, thin man in the rather old-fashioned uniform favored by the space forces.

"I am delighted to see you here, sir," said the Teuton. His head was clean-shaven and Larsen thought the man looked incomplete without a monocle. "It's good to know that some of the civilian political sector are in agreement with the general's vision. "

Larsen let that pass without comment. "The general is a remarkable man." Such noncommittal but inarguable statements were a politician's stock in trade.

Shevket introduced all the military men first. Larsen quickly noticed a pattern: None of them were of the highest rank. Most were colonels, some mere majors or captains. Larsen knew his history, and he knew these ranks to be the classical breeding ground for coups. In any corrupt system, the highest ranks were given to the cronies of the ruling powers. Those high generals in turn give the next lower positions to their own favorites. They never retire from their lucrative postings, and a mass of younger officers are left knowing that the field grades are as high as their careers will ever go. Unless, of course, they conspire to oust the old appointees.

"This," Shevket said, introducing him to the man in the filter spectacles, "is Julian Norwich, the media specialist." He pronounced it British-style, as "Norrich."

"I think I've studied some of your work, Mr. Norwich. Didn't you write
Popular Media in Political Life
?"

Norwich allowed his face to show pleasure. "I did. I trust you liked it?"

Shevket broke in. "It should be required reading for anyone with political ambitions."

"I agree," Larsen said. The work had been devoted to the belief that propaganda was the ultimate reality of political life, that objective reality meant little or nothing. Everything in Larsen's political career supported the thesis.

"And this," Shevket brought the languid young man forward, "is Cesar Favre, poet extraordinaire."

Extraordinaire was hardly the word for it. Larsen had heard of Cesar Favre, leading light of the Neo-Decadents. He was all the rage among the artistic set. They affected to despise popular media such as holography and called for a return to the earlier arts, including poetry. Favre's reputation for degeneracy was the wonder of those people who still bothered to read.

"I have heard wonderful things of you," Larsen said.

"A diplomatic way of saying you haven't read my work." Favre's hand seemed to be performing a sexual act with Larsen's own.

"On the contrary, I've read most of your published works. I found
Dialogues of the Cannibals
quite powerful, but I thought
The Feast of Vlad Tepes
perhaps a trifle shrill. There is such a thing as straining a metaphor to the breaking point." He was rewarded with a look of surprise in the young man's washed-out blue eyes.

"What a wonder! A politician who reads! Most of the critics who delight in savaging my verses don't do as much."

"If you two would excuse me," Shevket said, "I have some things to attend to." He spun on a shiny heel and strode from the room.

"Isn't he magnificent?" Favre said. He took a sip from his huge balloon glass. Larsen caught a pungent scent of some drug. "I'd thought that such men were an extinct species." His eyes grew vague and he twirled his fingers in the servant boy's hair.

"How so?" Larsen asked, fascinated and repelled in equal measure.

"How long has it been since we've seen a true superman who looked like one? The great monsters of recent history have been godlike only in their deeds. Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Napoleon," he gestured limply with his wineglass, "they were all such commonplace-looking men. Mussolini was all style, no substance. Kemal Ataturk came the closest, but his arena of operation was too small. Where are the truly spectacular and flamboyant
übermenschen
of the past? The Alexanders, the Ramses Thirds, the Ashurbanipals, the Tchaka Zulus? We live in an age of small events and small men."

This was certainly an original interpretation of history. "Well, perhaps things shall look up soon."

"Oh, I do hope so," Favre said. "Life shouldn't be so dull and respectable."

"You seem to have ably surmounted the obstacle of respectability, Monsieur Favre." Larsen seriously thought that, should the boy step aside, the poet would collapse bonelessly to the floor where he would then melt through minute cracks in the polished parquet.

Favre surprised him by showing a flash of humor accompanied by a rather engaging smile. "We have both risen above the handicaps of our origins, your excellency. I have defeated the spectre of bourgeois respectability, you of bourgeois morality and niggling scruples."

"You do me a disservice," Larsen said. "I am well known for my compassion and humanitarian ideals."

The poet raised his glass in ironic salute. "I acknowledge a superior performer, sir. Never could I have spoken such a line with a straight face."

"Each of us acts in accordance with his gifts." Larsen kept his face carefully composed.