Echoes of an Alien Sky (18 page)

Jenyn sat at his work station in the Linguistics offices of the ISA laboratory complex at Rhombus, contemplating a screen showing the translation of a Terran political tract that he had worked on during the time he had spent in the Americas. It was the President of that region's exhortation before the final war that had followed the Central Asian War. The words were stirring, a call to unite a nation that had inspired millions to courage and duty and sacrifice. Their cadences reverberated in his mind, bringing visions of huge armies mobilizing and moving to their positions, formations of aircraft sweeping across the skies, ships putting to sea. "We will defend our freedoms and our honor to the last one of us that is left to stand. We will never surrender." How could such passions and determination be instilled into dull Venusian minds? he asked himself. There had to be a way. His being thirsted and cried out for it. He felt the natural instinct for power in his veins. The great Terran leaders had faced the same challenge and risen to it.

It needed organizing and direction. As with the cutting edge of a tool, or the combined work of the swing of a hammer and the point of a nail, the secret lay in concentrating all effort on the place where effect was to be achieved. Every distraction and diversion of a resource was to the same degree to detract from the plan and render attainment of the goal that much less likely. It really was as simple as that. The pusillanimous Venusian reluctance to resort to force would have to be overcome. His shock troops would be the disaffected and envious, who, once they were awakened, could always be spurred to demand as rights what the traditional anarchic ways of undirected individuals muddling through had failed to confer. The scattering of loosely affiliated Progressive initiatives behind the labor strikes and student demonstrations that the news channels were reporting from Venus were groping around the right idea, but in their implicit expectation that they themselves only partly recognized, that energy and direction would somehow emerge under its own dynamic, they were adopting the same assumptions as the system they criticized. It needed a
Leader
, who would
make
it happen. In some ways, the time he had been obliged to spend out here at Earth while the fuss at
The Commentator
cooled down had not been a bad thing. It had given him time to reflect and to plan. Like a general from a distance, had been able to see the full scheme of the battlefield with all its strongholds, weaknesses, and openings for opportunity. By rallying the young and adventurous, undulled minds that he had found here, far from home, he could light a flame that would ignite the world when he brought it back to Venus.

But first there was Gaster Lornod to think about. While Jenyn was on the far side of the planet, Lornod had come to the fore in Rhombus and among the professional cadre up on
Explorer 6
as the prime contender for coordinating the Progressive groups on Earth. He called himself a Progressive Moderate, taking the position that the traditional system had grown complacent in some ways over the years, and perhaps some looking to itself to put its house in order would not be a bad thing. The pure meritocracy upon which it was based was a fine thing in theory, he conceded, but it left many ways whereby deserving people were being left behind through no fault or failing of their own, creating needless personal distress and a loss of their services to society as a whole, which society had within its power to put right. It was a soft line which, while possibly effective in attracting initial support, missed the whole point of power by mistaking the means for the ends. Even the name "Progressive Moderate" was a contradiction of terms. But it was getting attention, not only from intellectualoid invertebrates who would never show strong Progressive mettle, but now also among the younger contingent, eroding what Jenyn had looked to as his potential recruitment base. Even Sherven was on record as remarking that the Moderates might have some valid points.

Yes, he would have to do something about Lornod.

Elundi Kasseg, who worked in the same room, in his own niche on the far side of a large, shared table covered with papers, file folders, and references, interrupted Jenyn's thoughts. "Got a second, Jenyn?"

"What?"

Elundi gestured at the screen that he was using. "This latest that's come through from
E6
. I need an opinion."

Jenyn copied the text to one of his own screens. It was another search request from the group at Triagon on lunar Farside. "Okay," he said.

"The name Oxstead is rare enough, but there aren't any hits. Robert & Vera are too vague. We can forget them. But it's some up with a number of Gormans."

"Wasn't that a pretty common Terran name too?" Jenyn queried.

"True. But look at number twenty-eight. It has an association with Terminus.

Jenyn followed the link and read the reference. It was to an indexed catalogue of

names that listed a Herbert Gorman as a New Washington journalist. Several entries related to him. The one Elundi had highlighted described him as having written some articles on the mysterious disappearances of a number of scientists, senior administrators, and other key figures."

"This one, about the missing people?" Jenyn checked.

"Yes." Elundi leaned across the table separating them and passed over a hardcopy of a file from one of the big translation faculties on Venus that included a piece by Gorman restored and scanned from a Terran periodical called
Insider
. Jenyn read through it quickly. The official story was that the names Gorman had drawn attention to had been commandeered for secret work relating to the war that was threatening—other sources said impending. Gorman wasn't convinced by the explanation. He didn't see how many of the skills and background represented were relevant to such ends. Power and influence seemed to him to be a more significant common factor.

"I'm still not seeing the connection," Jenyn said.

"Here." Elundi handed him a further sheet that he had been holding. It was a letter from Gorman to somebody called Kathryn—the translator had added parenthetically "Barnes"—asking her if she knew anything about a code word
Terminus
. He thought it might refer to a secret evacuation center somewhere for the privileged. "This isn't out of any published document," Elundi elaborated. "It's just from some private papers found in a different city. So the connection is pretty thin. Just the name, Gorman, and the mention of Terminus." He looked across dubiously. "What do you think."

Jenyn read over the letter again. "Did Gorman ever get an answer, do we know?" he inquired.

"There's no way of telling. The thread ends there. He was killed shortly afterward."

"How?"

"There's one mention of it being an assassination by some Asiatic terrorist organization, but no further details."

Jenyn sighed. Everything that was wrong with the world was due to people being too timid and cautious. He was in a mood for playing the odds today, he decided. "I think it's good," he pronounced. "Yes, send it up to the people on Luna."

"Will do," Elundi said.

By the end of the day, Jenyn was still in a restless, unsettled mood. Here he was, still nurturing plans for building and controlling a political movement that would take over a world. Yet he had been unable to assert his will with one obstinate female who couldn't see what would be best for her in the long run. The power of a strong team working together scaled much faster than the sum of its number. The team would need a solid nucleus to form around. Lorili and he could provide such a nucleus. They had proved it years ago, on Venus. He wasn't going to let this beat him now—the first major target he had set himself since arriving back in Rhombus.

He went down the corridor to an empty office, closed the door, and called her number in the Bio Sciences complex. She didn't look pleased when she answered.

"Yes, look, I know," he told her before she could say anything. "I'm sorry that went the way it did, too, okay? We both lost it a bit. I'm not saying it was all you. I'll meet you half way over the bridge. How's that?"

"What do you want?" Lorili asked tightly.

"Just to talk. I just want you to hear me out. We could still do such a lot together. Out here . . . its a huge opportunity that I think maybe you don't fully understand. I just don't want to see it thrown away, that's all. I know I made mistakes before, but all that's changed now. I've got great plans that I want you to hear about. We could still go places when we get back home. Big places, big time."

"I think it's you who doesn't fully understand, Jenyn," she said. "I've already told you all I have to say. I have plans of my own now, and my own life. And right at this moment, I have my work to do."

"I just want to talk, that's all."

"I don't think that would be a good idea."

"An hour. It doesn't have to be anywhere private, if that makes you uncomfortable. I could meet you somewhere in town."

"Please stop bothering me."

For a moment Jenyn felt an impulse to lash out about the man he had watched her seeing off at the launch port, but he held it in check. "Look, Lorili, you know me," he said. "I don't quit. If you're really serious about ending this, the only way will be to hear me out."

"It's already ended."

"Not on my terms, it hasn't."

"Still laying down the conditions. You just have to be in control, don't you? Oh boy, yes, you've really changed."

"I could make you one of the best-known names on Venus one day."

"
You
could
make
. Is that all you think people are? Thing to be put together and used and thrown away."

"You know what I mean. . . ."

"Goodbye, Jenyn."

He was still in a sour mood when he came back into the office. Elundi was backing up files and tidying papers in preparation for going home. "You were right on with that piece about Gorman," he greeted. "I got a reply straight back. It was just what they're looking for. They asked us to look out for anything more on the survival center angle."

Jenyn nodded but his mind was elsewhere. "Got any plans in particular for tonight?" he asked?

"Not really. I was thinking about dropping by a couple of friends who are into Terran chess, but it's no huge thing? Why?"

"I feel like hitting a couple of bars down in the Center. Could use some company. Interested?"

Elundi rocked his head first to one side, then the other. "Sure, why not?" he said finally. "In fact, the more I think about it, the better it sounds." He shut down the system, stood up, and took his jacket from a hook behind the door. Jenyn retrieved his own coat from his side of the table.

"Ever try it?" Elundi asked as they came out into the corridor.

"What?"

"Terran chess."

"Can't say I did. Never had the time."

"One of the kinds of games I like. You can learn the rules in ten minutes. But it'll take the rest of your life to learn how to use them. You know . . . the opposite of these games where they spend all their time looking up more rules and tables than there are in the Terran translation libraries."

"I think there are better things to do in life," Jenyn said.

"That's a shame," Elundi told him. "The Terrans called it the Game of Kings. Apparently, it was devised as a stylized form of warfare in miniature. I would have thought you'd have loved it."

The Magic Carpet bar-restaurant in Rhombus's Central District took its name from an old Terran fairytale relating to the region. It was reasonably busy that evening. The dining area at the back was doing a brisk trade with its mixed menu of traditional Venusian food and a choice of Terran dishes based on foods from different climate zones. The dance floor to one side of the bar was starting to warm up with couples from the younger set working through the latest crazes with the added dash and daring that comes with being a long way from home. Alcohol was an accepted relaxant on Venus, along with other stimulants comparable to ones which for reasons the psychologists had never quite been able to explain, had driven the Terran authorities into fits of repressive hysteria. The general rule on Venus was that what a person did with their own body in their own time was their business, so long as the effects didn't spill over the line of harming or endangering anybody else. Maybe the difference had something to do with the Venusian reliance on internally assimilated disciplines to curb excesses of behavior, rather then having to resort to external means. It was unusual for them to take things to the kind of extremes that seemed to have caused social problems among Terrans. Human nature being what it was, and nothing in the real world being perfect, infringements of custom nevertheless did occur, of course. An assortment of uniformed national organizations known as provosts existed to step in on such occasions as circumstances required, but their role was essentially one of passive response to transgressions of a relatively few limits that few questioned. There was nothing resembling the attempts at thought control and forcible imposition of others' creeds and personal tastes that seemed to have been practiced by most of the Terran "police" forces—the term "force" said a lot in itself. Being a diverse social organization in its own right as well as a scientific and exploration endeavor, the Earth mission also operated a modest-scale Office of Provosts, headquartered in Rhombus.

The company in the bar area was the usual evening mix of workers from the ISA labs and the town unwinding with one or two before going home; early stalwarts set to make a night of it; and couples and groups meeting and planning what to do from here. Although locales on Earth offered virtually unlimited space for expansion compared to the restricted niches typically occupied by Venusian towns, Rhombus's growth had reflected the pattern and ways that were familiar: functional; ugly; and crowding lots of variety and activity into a small space. That was a part if its legacy from being one of the first bases. Some of the newer habitats in places like Europe, the Americas, and Asia were starting to spread out more and find time for experimenting with airiness and aesthetics in the ways that Terran environments seemed to call for.