Forge of Heaven (28 page)

“Thank you, Mr. Stafford. I very much appreciate your cooperation.”

1 8 0 • C . J . C h e r r y h

“Sir.” He rose and gave a little bow, understanding he had just received his cue and the interview was over. “Tomorrow. 0900h.”

Trouble now, trouble of all sorts if he didn’t handle this well, and meanwhile all hell had broken loose on the planet, and he only hoped Drusus had told Marak it wasn’t his choice to be absent right now. But he couldn’t even choose his own cover story: he’d have to learn it from Drusus, and he’d have to live with it. Business behind the security wall wasn’t something he could explain to Marak later—since they weren’t supposed to inform the planet about the station, or about its politics, and this certainly fell under business behind the security wall. If Drusus didn’t handle it right, he could find everything on end and Marak mad at him when he did get back on duty.

But it was no place to think of that. He paid his courtesies solemnly, received the governor’s polite acceptance, and made his exit past the secretary, not happy, no.

He walked out down the corridor and into the general administrative zone, where he thought there might be tap relays if there were any on this level. There he made the blood shunt in his skull, the coded single long effort that contacted Brazis’s office.

Brazis himself had several aides who shared one of his tap codes, aides who took notes and handled what amounted to nuisance calls from workers who didn’t quite have the level of emergency they thought they had—or sometimes handled real emergencies that Brazis couldn’t get to fast enough.

“I want to talk, sir,” he said to the empty air, conscious as never before that there might be physical eavesdroppers or lip-readers around him, picking up his side of any conversation. “This is Procyon.” He walked quickly for the lift, and then thought that, too, was audio- and video-monitored, particularly if the governor was tracking someone. Computers once set on his trail could track him through every common tap relay in the station. Whether that had any physical connection with tap relays that weren’t supposed to be operating up here, he had no way of knowing. “I’m going to the lift, now. I’m anxious to talk about this. Instructions?”

No answer. Either he wasn’t getting through because there wasn’t a Project relay in this area, or nobody in Brazis’s office wanted to talk to him here. He caught the lift down to more general Fo r g e o f H e a v e n • 1 8 1

territory, changed to a common public lift where he knew for a certainty there would be secure relays and little likelihood of spybots.

But he didn’t make a second try at Brazis’s office until he was safely down in the thick foot traffic at Seventh and Main, on his own level, where Outsiders alone maintained everything that needed maintaining, and where any Earther attempt to bug the place would meet quick detection and entail nasty repercussions.

Then he didn’t have to try to reach Brazis. Brazis found him.

“Procyon.”

“Sir.”

“Good job up there.”

“Thank you, sir.” His heart pounded.

“What he requested you, do. This constitutes your confirmation. I did
hear the conversation—mechanically speaking.”

“Yes, sir.” Considering there was still a danger of lip-readers or listeners, he just listened to the tap, which no one without a tap from the same source could get into.

“This isn’t a situation you asked for by word or behavior. It’s political,
and I’m relatively sure it’s Earth pressing for some advantage, and using
any anomaly they can find to justify whatever they’re after. It’s far from
certain you’re in any sense the real center of this inquiry. You’re going to
have to use all your wits on this one.”

“Yes, sir.” God. How had he gotten involved in this? Why him?

And he desperately wanted a briefing on the downworld situation.

“Quick question, though, sir. I’m not going to relax this evening.

Would it remotely be possible for me and Drusus to switch shifts?

Or at least let me have the current transcript. I don’t want to raise questions with Marak that I can’t—”

“Use your wits, I say, or a missed session could be the least of your
worries. Concentrate on the business at hand. I applaud your devotion to
duty, but Ian knows exactly where Marak is. The new relay’s working.

We’re in reliable touch with him and with his camp. Ian says the camp is
geologically sound despite the shaking. Drusus has explained your absence to Marak. You’re covered down there. Concentrate absolutely on
what you have to do in this interview. If you make a mistake of any kind
with this man, let me make it clear to you, you’ll hear from the High
Council, the Chairman General, and from me, personally. Do you understand that?”

1 8 2 • C . J . C h e r r y h

“Yes, sir.” Soberly. Heart pounding harder. “I do. I’m frankly scared.”

“Understandable. Are you at all flattered this Mr. Gide came here asking for you?”

“No, sir. I’d rather he hadn’t. I’ve thought and thought. I can’t imagine a reason.”

“Don’t be overawed by his attention. The man is a diplomat. He may
be exceedingly gracious. Don’t go off your guard. I’m sure he can
threaten. Don’t be spooked.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I wouldn’t send you into this if I didn’t have confidence in you. You
want to know why I agreed to this.”

“I do wonder that, sir.”

“Consider. He’s here at extravagant difficulty, making an extravagantly provocative request, which he knows I could say no to, absolutely.

Probably I should refuse him, and I think Reaux expected me to. But he
failed to get an issue on that. And we know one thing: we’re not talking
about a fool arriving here on a personal whim. This will be a very clever
man with an agenda we don’t know. He comes with Earth-based credentials, not just Inner Worlds, intruding into Project business, which
means he and whatever he represents have stuck his neck way, way out.

Earth has very many institutions. We don’t know which one this Gide actually represents, and we may never know. But if there’s a clue to be had
as to which faction is sticking its nose into our affairs, I want to know it.

It could be someone looking for an issue to raise back at Earth, to reinforce
their politics. It could be a legitimate anxious inquiry into your background, which we both admit has a shadow on it.”

“Yes, sir.” He was beginning to have fears that ran under doors he couldn’t possibly open.

“Expect state-of-the-art truthers, which I can guarantee were running
all the time you were talking to Reaux. Are you in fact up to this, or do
you need to have an attack of something contagious?”

“I’ll do my best, sir.”
I don’t know
didn’t get you points in the Project.
I can’t
might lose them.

“Observe, don’t interpret, just as you do on the job. You don’t want to
know too much about this. Deeper knowledge could very easily bar you
from places you want to go in your life. Let me play politics. That’s my
job. Yours is to go on being innocent, and in that innocence, to protect the
Fo r g e o f H e a v e n • 1 8 3

Project from an inquiry Earth isn’t allowed to make. A further piece of information. You’ll continue to be shut off Marak’s tap for the duration, for
security reasons, not because we don’t trust your integrity, but because
we don’t want them probing it.”

He was appalled. “Can they possibly
do
that?”

“The signal’s within the electromagnetic spectrum, and they can certainly try it. If it happens, don’t cooperate and get out of there fast. You
know the rules. I don’t want to frighten you further, but if they physically
grab you, don’t cooperate, and leave if you can, with whatever force you
need. If worse comes to worst, trust absolutely that we’ll get you out. I’ll
contact Marak if I have to. It’s one reason I dare send you in there. I have
no doubt we’ll get you back safely. Just don’t make me have to do that.”

“Yes, sir.”

Brazis tapped out. Gone.

My God, Procyon thought. He felt sick at his stomach. He didn’t know why this business had arrived in his lap, except his teenaged stupidity in getting into a questionable group, in listening to ideas different from what he’d heard before—it was his only real sin in his whole life, politically speaking, in any sense that would ever reach to Earth’s files. One mistake, and it came back to haunt him.

He wished this business were all over with, and for the rest of his life after, he swore he wanted to live as far away from Earthers’ notice as he could get.

We’ll get you back safely
, kept ringing in his ears. And,
Mr. Jones,
for God’s sake.

What did Brazis think he was going into?

M AG DA L L E N H A D S H OW N U P —on time for his appointment, give or take five minutes, but Brazis was in a touchy mood at the moment, touchy enough to keep an Apex agent waiting in his outer office. Several reports had flashed across his desk in the last while, most notably Marak’s irritated reaction to Procyon’s continued absence.

Worse, Marak, having followed the trail of the runaways to the brink of the ridge, was now well down on eroded terraces and sand slides, stubbornly proceeding where, Drusus informed him, underlying sandstone could crumble without warning. Marak had 1 8 4 • C . J . C h e r r y h

a few notorious flash points: deception in his contacts, mechanical devices in general, and Ian second-guessing his firm decisions at the head of the list. Left to his own devices, Marak might have given up the pursuit and come up again to take other measures; but then
Ian,
who had his own flash points, had gotten hot about Marak’s decision to go down off the ridge, Drusus had seen fit to relay that to Marak, Marak had gotten hot in return, refused Ian’s help, saying he had the beshti in sight, and now it was clear that hell would freeze over before Marak gave up and retreated.

It was already a delicate business, keeping what happened on Concord away from Marak’s lively and very experienced interest, while pursuing an investigation about Earth’s poking about in matters it should never touch—that was one thing. But Drusus, damn him, had straightaway committed them to a particular line of explanation that involved Earth—admittedly within the allow-able degree of latitude, but letting Marak know that Earth was an issue in Procyon’s case. And if Marak did find out what was going on up here, he’d find it out while he was already feuding with Ian, again thanks to Drusus’s decisions.

The juxtaposition of issues was like fire near explosives. The very last thing any of them wanted now was Marak, already in a temper, conveying to the Ila, whose relations with Earth were ancient, unpleasant, and always full of acrimony, that Earth was now interfering with their taps, potentially including hers.

That
would fry the interface. Absolute disaster. He wanted to strangle Drusus, who hadn’t been aware how dicey things were.

Ian and Luz, meanwhile, already quarreling with Marak over methodology, were monitoring the aftermath of a second very strong quake to the south. Everything Marak had come south to observe was now in full career, a spectacle that had the geologists glued to their posts in anticipation. Over a matter of hours two high salt waterfalls had sprung out on the inward face of the Southern Wall, white threads presaging a far greater flood. Icy polar water was tearing itself a wider access to the hot southern pans of the inhabited continent. Marak had lost his bet with fate—source of half Marak’s temper, Brazis had no doubt. Ian had proven right: they should have used the rocket in the first place, and now Ian rushed to get a backup relay soft-landed on the Wall Fo r g e o f H e a v e n • 1 8 5

itself, a tricky bit of targeting, while the landscape out there was changing by the hour.

The northern end of the basin itself might have dropped another half meter relative to the Southern Wall in the last strong aftershock, which had the geologists on station scrambling to revise their predictions both of the extent and speed of the event, and of the consequences to anybody in that region, notably Marak and his stranded party. A major inland sea was arriving in what had long been mountain-shadow desert, deepening over an unknown amount of time, depending on how much that sand soaked up, for starters. The mountains in the northern part of the basin were predicted to become islands. The frozen southern sea, a weathermaker for the southern hemisphere, was in the process of acquiring a shallow, sun-heated annex, which, the meteorologists said, was going to mean fog. Mist. Rotten visibility, that was already obscuring the site of the break in the Wall.

And as for Marak, the need to reassess his party’s situation and cope with the aftershocks
might
distract him from asking more closely about Procyon for the next couple of days; but it wasn’t going to improve Marak’s mood or the ease of dealing with him.

Meanwhile
he
had the inquisitive ambassador
and
Francisco Magdallen to deal with. An Apex Council agent poking about in the usual habitats of trouble was a common enough nuisance throughout the territories, just the Council keeping tabs on Concord Station to confirm what the Chairman of Concord and the director of the Project patiently and correctly told the CG was the truth.

And to top things off they had the arrival of this Andreas Gide, who wanted Marak’s tap for a face-to-face interview. So to speak.

Did he now believe that Magdallen’s presence was coincidence?

Trouble didn’t just come in threes: it gathered passengers as it went, and crashed nastily into bystanders.

He deliberately calmed himself. Had a few sips of caff, which had cooled enough by now not to scald his mouth.

He tapped in, a simple contact with his aide, Dianne, outside.