Forge of Heaven (29 page)

Dianne escorted Magdallen into the office.

The man had clearly responded in respectful haste. The gray coat mostly covered a shirt that belonged on Blunt, the shoulder-length curls were done up in a clip without benefit of a comb, and 1 8 6 • C . J . C h e r r y h

the eyes, brown at their first meeting, were outrageous green, a green purchasable in cheap shops. Brazis didn’t take it for granted those particular lenses were cheap, or without augmentations, or that they were locally-bought lenses, at all. He proved it by a fast tap at a button on his desk.

Clean, however. No transmissions.

“Mr. Chairman.”

“Agent Magdallen. Have a seat.” Brazis waited, and poised himself comfortably backward behind his desk, arms on his middle. “So what’s your news this cheery day? I would expect there’s news for me, with all this going on.”

“Gide is on the station in an unfamiliar containment vessel. I don’t know its capabilities, but the bizarre impression it creates where he travels is surely part of his intentions. To intrigue us. To intimidate. To make maximum stir here on the outer edges of human civilization.”

“And among the
ondat,
a demonstration of technological wonder.”

“Forever the
ondat,
yes, sir. But one doubts they’re awed.”

“Gide has asked to see one of Marak’s taps. The youngest.

Procyon.”

“Procyon.” Magdallen frowned. By his look, he actually hadn’t known about Gide’s summons of the young man, which argued that his major sources tended to be in the environment where that shirt was ordinary.

And one could then hope that Reaux’s office didn’t, at least, leak information too quickly to the Outsider streets, no matter where else it might go, among Earthers.

“Did this Gide give a reason for this request?” Magdallen asked.

“A whim, he would have us think. A five-hundred-light-year whim brought him here to ask for an interview with a, for all practical purposes, junior tap.”

“Perhaps Earth doesn’t like such a young man in the office he holds,” Magdallen said. The man had an annoying habit of not quite looking up when he spoke. “Or perhaps Earth doesn’t like what they hear of
this
young man. Who does have unusual contacts present and past, of which I’m sure you’re aware. He has crossed my area of inquiry.”

“
What
area of inquiry?”

Fo r g e o f H e a v e n • 1 8 7

“Into the Freethinkers. What did Governor Reaux have to say?”

Was he querying the agent, or the agent querying him? Magdallen was quick to provide an excuse for knowing about Procyon’s past.

“What contacts?” he asked Magdallen sharply. “What contacts does Procyon have that possibly concern your investigation?”

“His sister, whose contacts are numerous, some low, some high.

I looked him up, sir, for the Freethinker connection into high places. He is an anomaly.”

“He can’t avoid being that.” Brazis considered the question Magdallen had posed to him, considered the source and the set of motives, none of which he quite trusted in this man who didn’t work for him. Tell him? Encourage confidences? Or slips? “As for Governor Reaux, who just had an interview with young Procyon, we talked. We shared nothing but the basic information. We’re left to assume Gide is putting his nose into Outsider affairs—and through Procyon, possibly into planetary affairs, more critical still.

If not into this Freethinker interest of yours.”

“That is a question.”

“Can you answer it?”

“No, sir, not yet.”

“I don’t take such an intrusion into our affairs matter-of-factly.

But yes. What about this Freethinker connection?”

“I have numerous inquiries going on. None that bear fruit. May I observe, sir,—you had to consent to this interview.”

Brazis rocked his chair slightly, irritated by the stone wall, increasingly not liking that diversion—or the implication of fault.

“Yes. I did.”

“Clearly you have a reason.”

“Curiosity.” Deliberate cold answer to the authority this agent represented. And to any report he might be drafting. “Tell me, Agent Magdallen, what is Earth doing here? Who is Andreas Gide, and does he represent anything legitimate or changing, back on Earth? Unless you have some direct information on that score, which would surprise me and gratify my curiosity, and make me change my mind in a heartbeat, yes, the interview is granted. What in hell do Freethinkers have to do with it all?”

“I don’t know that they do. If I knew anything at this point, I as-

1 8 8 • C . J . C h e r r y h

sure you I’d say it, to prevent this. I’m very uneasy about your consent to this meeting.”

Magdallen
was uneasy, as if
Magdallen
had an opinion of his own that overrode his authority. Forget the Council, if he’d ever suspected it. Magdallen wasn’t a Council spy. This was one of the CG’s personal agents, one trying to find something very specific.

Hell,
yes,
it was political. “Procyon is a trained observer with a good memory. An extraordinary memory. I will expect your support in protecting him, Agent Magdallen.”

“I’ve said I wouldn’t have recommended your agreement. I can’t promise . . .”

I, I,
and
I.
Deeper and deeper. And this wasn’t a fool: Magdallen surely saw what the other side of the desk could read into it, the implication of a real authority backing him, on Apex. He
meant
to convey that impression.

“Frankly, Agent Magdallen, I can’t see letting Gide leave this station without knowing what he represents and what he’s going to report, and I can’t see letting him draw more extravagant conclusions from what he wasn’t allowed to see, to fester at distance.

I say again, if you have more information on the precise reason he’s here, if it has any connection to anything you know, my decision can be modified. The young man can break a leg. Develop acute heat rash. But talk fast, or stand back and keep quiet, and don’t tell the CG that
I
was the stubborn one, holding back information that could have bearing, because I’m recording this session, and I’m not hesitant to bring it and you and
him
before the Council.”

“I don’t have more information,” Magdallen said. “Clearly what Gide represents has force, transport, and finance at its disposal.

That’s
all
I can say.”

Confront the man? Demand under threat of arrest to know what he was and what he was investigating?

He wasn’t ready for that. This day’s disaster had gathered passengers enough. “It’s all I can judge by, either, and I take decisions as I can, with what information I have. Earth is Earth. It organizes itself, and then it fragments and shoots its own citizens for centuries on end. One last appeal to reason. Does this request of Gide’s possibly, remotely agree with anything untoward that you know, Fo r g e o f H e a v e n • 1 8 9

Agent Magdallen? Any scrap of a scrap of a rumor down on Blunt or even far off in Council halls on Apex that you really ought to tell me at this point?”

“I’m not convinced this arrival does involve Blunt—at this moment. About the other I’m not in a position to say.”

Damn him. Damn him.

“So we have Gide. And the visible anomaly in Procyon is, as you say, his youth and his former affiliation . . . down on Blunt Street.

Tell me, Agent Magdallen, might
you yourself
be an item of their interest?”

“I would very much doubt it, sir.”

“Is smuggling illicits actually your concern down there? Or the Council’s? Or do I draw conclusions that Council might somehow have foreseen this ambassador’s arrival and sent you here? Might I hazard the remotest guess that your business here was
always
the chance something like Mr. Gide might show up?”

A moment of hesitation. Magdallen looked at his own hands. “I will confess that Mr. Gide has suddenly become a concern to me, sir. What motivates his interest, and who sent him, I do intend to learn if I can, since I’m here. I report to the Chairman General personally. I’m sure you know that by now. I’m sure if there are issues surfacing on Earth that we haven’t picked up—I’d be very glad to pick them up, if I can, and I’m sure the CG would be grateful if I can. These I would report to you, if I knew them, but no, that isn’t my mission here.”

“Don’t stir the broth, Agent Magdallen. Get your information on Gide directly from me and tell me what you hear from other sources. This business is delicate enough without your personal intervention to complicate my life. Let’s minimize the number of vectors in this mess.”

Eclipse of the remarkably green gaze, a downward glance. And glance up. “I’m a model of discretion. No one in my line of work ever wants to create issues, I assure you, Mr. Chairman. My job is simply to report them where I’m scheduled to report.”

There. He’d thrown out a rational appeal for cooperation and Magdallen’s answer was a standoff. He restrained his temper. “I’ll share information with you as it becomes clear. Stay out of the collection business in Gide’s vicinity.” Conversation with Magdallen 1 9 0 • C . J . C h e r r y h

had to be bounded by prudence—defense of the Project’s preroga-tives as independent from Apex governance, even while the general conduct of civil and international affairs he handled as Chairman
was
answerable to the Council at Apex.

He was increasingly uneasy in his dual role. Second-guessing said he might have made a mistake in his decision to allow Procyon to take the chance, that he ought to have hammered Magdallen for information before he ever agreed to send the boy into either interview, little as he’d gotten from the Council ferret before now or in this interview.

And still—still he hadn’t learned anything he hadn’t expected from Magdallen. He hadn’t yet had Magdallen’s complete cooperation, and he still very much wanted the benefit of knowing what Gide was after . . . which might well be what Magdallen himself was after.

Sitting back, letting Earth affairs develop without learning what was going on—Apex wouldn’t thank him or respect his authority for letting events slide on their own. Politically immune he might be, at least as director, but revolutions on Earth and in the territories involved untidier and more dangerous situations than orderly elections and quiet political cabals: assassinations had happened, covert removals had happened. Untidy political actions notoriously annoyed the
ondat,
who were always an issue. He didn’t intend to be removed—for the good of the Project and the health of humanity he didn’t intend to be removed.

Others, then, might have to be.

“I appreciate your full cooperation, Agent Magdallen.” He rose and held out his hand, ancient gesture, deliberate and provocative gesture in a world of potential contaminants and infection. “Your cooperation and your reports, as you’ll choose to give them to me. I know you’re not legally bound to report to me, but I shall very much appreciate your opinions and your advice. And your alert observance on the street. I expect to have it, under present circumstances.”

“I appreciate the warning, sir,” Magdallen said, shook his hand, and immediately left—taking himself and that extravagant shirt back, the report of his own agents would suggest, to a certain apartment on Blunt—to leave the coat in yet another apartment he maintained in a very seedy neighborhood on 2nd Street.

Fo r g e o f H e a v e n • 1 9 1

It wasn’t to say he didn’t wipe down his hand thoroughly after Magdallen left, and he was confident Magdallen would hasten to do the same, probably going straight to a washroom. It remained a visceral comfort, the lemon-scented wipe washing off the memory of a foreign, off-station contact, not that he truly dreaded foreign contamination from Apex. The new scent, primeval cure, canceled the lingering presence that could convey viral intrusion or—in this hotbed of politics that Concord always was—things far more elaborate and damaging.

Being remote cousins of Earth, even knowing there were remediations, Outsiders had never quite cured themselves of fear.

They didn’t go so far as to use robot interface. Outsiders traf-ficked with other worlds, observing sheer bravado in their personal contacts—but still, for psychological reasons, scrubbed such contacts off, frequently kept packets of wipes or Sterilites in their pockets, quite, quite silly as the action was. If Magdallen had brought any engineered contagion aboard, the whole station was already at risk. Always was. Always had been. Always would be. Far more threat than a sensible, well-paid agent from the central authority, the station had its biocriminals and its active nethermonde, that element that had threatened, and acted, usually for petty profit, sometimes for political reasons, on numerous occasions that the Office of Biological Security had had to scramble into action.

As for their ambassador from Earth—forget any trivial threat of germs from them. Earth wasn’t a threat: they feared biotech too much. Hence the containment unit.

One always, always, worried about one’s internal security, however, when the likes of Magdallen showed up, as Magdallen had, two years ago, about the time Procyon had risen to his rank, about twice the time ago this ship from Earth would have launched. Or a complete cycle, if something had reached Earth and bounced back to them, in the form of Mr. Gide.

Right now he was more than worried: he and Magdallen had bumped spheres of authority, and the air still crackled with the static.

Handle this. Handle it well, they’d challenged each other.

1 9 2 • C . J . C h e r r y h

Neither he nor Magdallen could afford a mistake in the next several days, and now they both knew it.

T H E L A N D G AV E A N OT H E R S H I V E R , sending little stones and slips of sand down the long face of the terraces, warning that massive slabs of Plateau Sandstone that had sat for millennia overhead might grow uneasy in their beds. Marak cast an anxious look up, as sand slid down to cross their intended path.

Wandering terraces a mile above the pans, the fugitives had stayed out of sight, now, behind the spires of rock. They might have delayed, eating the new growth that still grew atop old sand-slips, but a relentless series of tremors had spooked them onward, down and down toward the bitter water pans.