Forge of Heaven (25 page)

But things were surely all right down there. There was no one more experienced with rotten weather and the high desert than Marak and Hati.

The quake seemed right on that fault that followed the Southern Wall. And right where they
didn’t
yet have a camera. Marak would be very upset with that.

Procyon read, ate his breakfast, waiting for 1000h.

The clock showed two minutes to go. He waited for the final transcript from Auguste before he tapped in.

The last of the transcript came in. He skimmed it—Auguste had gotten a fleeting contact. Marak and Hati were riding off from the camp, pursuing beshti that had run away in panic, all but two of their beshti having taken off. One of the men had a broken leg and cracked ribs.

From falling off? From a kick? Or from an accident with a collapsing tent? The situation was ongoing. The report was unclear.

Not good news at all. The last of Auguste’s report was cryptic, un-refined, from a tap trying harder to listen than to write his transcription, trying to make sense of intermittent contact, unable to maintain a coherent communication. Auguste had spent the last of his watch in contact with the subdirector, who’d shunted Auguste into contact with Ian at the Refuge, regarding Marak’s situation. Hati’s intermittent watcher had been called to duty as backup, but had gained no contact, either. Auguste blamed their distance from a working relay.

He was coming on duty into an outright emergency—well, not a huge one: the communications dropout was surely the storm as well as distance, and Marak seemed to be doing what he had to do, which was to catch the runaways. But certainly it was an exciting event, a chance for him to actually work a situation. In anticipation, he watched the clock tick down the last seconds.

Fo r g e o f H e a v e n • 1 6 1

1000h. He made the slight effort to tap in.

And didn’t make contact at all, not even with the tap.

That was a curious sensation. Just silence. Was the tap-manager wanting Auguste to stay in charge a little longer, still trying to reestablish solid contact?

“Procyon Stafford.”

The Old Man’s voice echoed in his head. Brazis himself. Speaking directly to him. Why did his heart suddenly pound? Had something happened to Marak?

“We have a problem, Procyon. There’s a situation on station and unfortunately you’ve been selected. I want you to report to Governor
Reaux’s office.”

“To the governor, sir?” Total change of direction. Didn’t the director know the staff had an emergency working? Didn’t he know Auguste had lost contact, after an earthquake?

“The governor’s a reliable ally to the PO. Don’t offend him. Do you
know any reason why an authority from that ship out there would want
to talk to you personally?”

“To me, sir? Ship?” He talked aloud in order to talk to Brazis, and knew that
me, sir?
wasn’t an adequate, even an intelligent answer. But
ship
. The docked ship. “No, sir. I haven’t any idea why. I have no idea. I don’t know anybody from Earth.”

“The ambassador’s name is Mr. Gide. Mr. Andreas Gide, from Earth.

He likely views you as new on the job and vulnerable—maybe someone he
can bully for information he shouldn’t acquire. He’s likely interested in
Marak. Needless to say, we’re not pleased at this attention, but we’re curious. And very wary. Don’t take this meeting lightly.”

“No, sir. I couldn’t possibly. Take it lightly, that is. I can’t talk to him, can I? I’m not supposed to.”

“You can. You will. And you’ll do it intelligently and observantly, just
as you do your job. Go to Governor Reaux’s office and get further instructions. He’s managing your visit. I’m sure he has the address.”

He was utterly appalled. “What am I supposed to say to this person, sir?”

“Answer his questions—consider him as equivalent to the governor,
certainly no higher than that, but be very polite. You have skills of observation. He knows who you are and what you are. You know the Project
rules. And you have a proven discretion. Use these assets.”

1 6 2 • C . J . C h e r r y h

“Yes, sir. But . . . you know there’s been a major earthquake down there this morning. Marak’s out of touch. Am I—?”

“Auguste has the situation in hand. The contact is intermittent, but he
has it. Marak’s situation is entirely manageable. Marak is very confident
and Auguste is volunteering to extend his shift to meet Drusus halfway
at noon. Don’t worry about it. Don’t think about it. I want your mind on
the job at hand, which I assure you is far more critical to the Project.”

“Yes, sir.” He was concerned, humanly concerned, for a man down on the planet who in many ways had grown closer than family, and, no, he didn’t want to be shunted off on any other job, especially one where he could get into politics, where he could make a career-damaging mistake he couldn’t remedy. “Can I come back later and trade shifts with Drusus, sir? I’m sure I won’t be that tired. I want to know how this comes out.”

“You’re to talk to the governor, and then the ambassador. Find out
what Gide wants and why he has an interest in you. And you’ll debrief to
me after that. I’m telling you to concentrate on this job, not the other. I
trust you can use that professionalism.”

Stern reprimand. Refocus. Fast. For his career’s sake. “Yes, sir, but can you tell me what I’m supposed to be listening for with this person?”

“This Earther from way high up in his government has come out here
specifically asking questions he knows he shouldn’t ask—which is interference with Outsider government and interference with the Project and
the PO, of which Apex takes a very dim view. Take mental notes on his
questions, his attitudes, his implications. Forget nothing. Commit yourself to nothing. Give nothing away, the same as to anyone on the street.

Is that a clear enough explanation for you?”

It wasn’t. He felt a rising panic. He didn’t want to sound uncooperative. “Yes, sir.”

“You have an immediate appointment at Governor Reaux’s office, in
person. Dress modestly and appropriately. Don’t contact any friends or
relatives while you’re under that ship’s observation, as I assure you that
you will be for the next five days. Don’t answer questions relating to Project affairs, not with the governor and especially with the ambassador. You
already know what you can and can’t talk about. For all we know there
are a dozen bugs and all manner of truthers inside the governor’s office or
inside the ambassador’s shell, so keep calm. Don’t be overawed by the gov-

Fo r g e o f H e a v e n • 1 6 3

ernor—don’t trust him, either. Don’t talk about your work or your personal life with him and don’t talk about department business, no matter
how nice and social it sounds. And damned sure don’t get friendly with
the ambassador or get led down corridors where no-answer means they hit
something sensitive. If truthers are an issue with the governor’s office, bet
they’ll be in full force when you’re with the ambassador. In short—follow
the rules you always follow, find out what he wants and what he thinks
and admit only to what he brings up that’s within that level of knowledge.

Don’t even think of tapping back to the PO while you’re in either office,
remember every minute detail you’re asked, and don’t tell the governor or
the ambassador a thing of substance. You’re a tap. You know how to do
what I’m asking of you. You have that kind of memory.”

“Yes, sir.” A shiver ran through him, as if the room had gone way too cold. He decided he had the picture as clear as he was going to have it. He couldn’t imagine what the governor or the ambassador would want to talk to him about
except
his work and the department’s business, which he was ordered not to talk about.

And he had no inclination to say anything about his personal life, or the personal associations the department had forgiven him, even to his own department head.

Could it be
that
? Could his assignment to Marak have come into question, because of those old associations, his Freethinker days?

That was a truly terrifying thought. But it was Earth, not Apex asking the questions. Earth couldn’t make any decision regarding the Project. Earth, once he thought clearly about it, wasn’t that big a threat to him no matter how much they wanted information.

“Go,”
Brazis said.
“Say as little as possible, and remember everything.”

“Yes, sir.” He tapped out. He got up from his chair and numbly gathered up the items he’d brought in, to take back to the kitchen.

Breakfast wasn’t sitting at all well on his stomach.

Dress appropriately. That was a major problem, too. He worked in sweatpants, socks, and a tee. His Trendy go-to-dinner clothes certainly weren’t going to impress any Earther at 1000h in the morning.

He did have his reporting-to-the-office suit. The suit his parents wished he would wear every day.

He rode the lift upstairs to deposit the day’s unused snacks back into storage.

1 6 4 • C . J . C h e r r y h

Reaux was going to give him further details when they met: that was simple enough to grasp. The governor, who didn’t—wouldn’t—couldn’t—use a tap, wasn’t going to use the phone to transfer information to him, either, and a personal courier from the governor, coming here to Grozny Close to deliver him a message, would start gossip racing from one end of the Trend to the other.

So it was better, his going there.

And as for the level of what he was allowed to say—
no
had to be his favorite word for the occasion.
No
and
no, sir.
Security wouldn’t allow a member of Brazis’s staff to discuss any sort of Project business, or even what he did inside the Project, outside the department’s secure environs. Brazis was right. That instruction wasn’t hard to fix in his head: it was the rule he lived by. His own father couldn’t get the truth about his job out of him. He wasn’t about to give things away to Earthers, just because they asked.

And for that matter, and a cold second thought—these being Earthers, and neither the governor nor the ambassador having any internal tap, they wouldn’t completely understand the tech involved, its limitations or its abilities, and they wouldn’t like disrespect.

That was what he was dealing with—ultraconservatives. Think of the parentals—and their priest. Black suits and no earring, no flash on the fingers. Like dinner with the parents and all the relatives at once. Like a family funeral.

With the possibility of some really scary, state-of-the-art truthers, constantly reading everything he said and probing for what he might be hiding behind every blink of his eyes.

Don’t even think of tapping back to the PO while you’re there . . .

A hack? The PO’s system being a completely different piece of equipment than the public tap system—that made interference with it a whole different operation than the common variety of tap-hackers, whose routine business contacts—and their customers—ranged from Earth security to the criminal underworld. The public tap system was worm-eaten with hackers—which was why the Project tap absolutely had to be a whole different system on every level.

And because the Project tap was nanocele-based, for all the ages of its existence, it remained unhackable—so the PO insisted. So far, the Project was impenetrable.

But if anybody thought of hacking it—if anybody was going to Fo r g e o f H e a v e n • 1 6 5

try that—that effort, if concentrated on him, might do physical damage. He’d felt overload—he’d felt the tap-output spike when he was recovering from the implant, when it was brand new. He was going where he couldn’t even
think
about using equipment that was supposed to be absolutely secure, equipment that was as natural for him to use now as his sense of sight or hearing. It had bioelectronic components, notably the relays that interfaced with the nanocele. That meant electronics
could
interfere with it. Could attack it.

Scary games he’d been dragged into. Marak’s World held the only politics he ever wanted to study. That world ran smoothly in the hands of those that had managed it forever, and he was at orbital distance. But now if his one teenaged flirtation with Freethinker idiots had somehow attracted the attention of authorities outside the Project, damned right he was upset. He had a right to be upset—and tooth and nail, he’d fight any implication . . .

Only if he had to. He had to remember he
had
Brazis’s political protection. Brazis wasn’t going to have Earthers of any stripe telling him who to assign where, or demanding he fire anybody.

Brazis would hire two more questionables right off the street tomorrow if only to tell Earth to go to hell.

And, always a fact of the universe, always, both inside the Project and wherever the Treaty itself was at issue . . .
Marak
had the ultimate say about his taps. Nobody, absolutely nobody, challenged him to a duel of wills.

No. He was safe. Politics couldn’t remove him, no matter how this went. Earth could throw a screaming blue fit and it wasn’t going to scare Outsider authority, let alone Marak, who could shut down cooperation for a century or two and annoy the
ondat
in the process. Marak’s displeasure could shake an economy. Ruin a career. A dozen careers. Bring down governments.

Which only argued that an otherwise very junior tap should just go in calmly and confidently, do what he was told to the letter, keep his eyes and ears wide open as requested by the only authority he answered to, and do his job without making his superiors any unnecessary trouble. It was scary, but it wasn’t fatal. He just needed to look good, sound respectful, do it and get back.

Dark suit. No flash. He went upstairs, opened the closet, 1 6 6 • C . J . C h e r r y h