Forge of Heaven (39 page)

They had a complete blowup on the Gide affair. Gide was in hospital by now, and Procyon, who’d been an eyewitness, hadn’t answered since the incident.

In desperation he tapped in on Drusus, waking him from off-schedule sleep. “Drusus. Procyon’s in trouble. I need someone who can physically recognize him to get out on the street right now, find him, and walk him home.”

“Yes, sir,”
Drusus answered muzzily.
“But I’m supposed to go on
at noon.”

“Don’t quibble. Auguste can handle it. Just go. Fast. Procyon may be injured. Fifth level, sector 4, section 15, headed toward Blunt, for a start. He’s not answering his tap. The finder works only intermittently. He’s taken some sort of damage. There was apparently an explosion.”

“Explosion, sir?”

“Don’t ask. Just go.”

The whole Project stood on its ear. Interfering with Marak’s taps Fo r g e o f H e a v e n • 2 5 3

wasn’t what he’d like to do, especially now, and he knew Marak was outraged and they would have to calm that situation down, but Drusus knew Procyon socially: Auguste didn’t. Drusus knew Procyon’s body language—stood a chance of finding him on a crowded walk, which his other sources hadn’t done in half an hour of trying. He had three reliable men out looking, now contacting Procyon’s sister, Procyon’s parents, Procyon’s known friends, to advise them where to call if he needed help and contacted them—but Procyon didn’t know any of those agents, and neither did the sister, who might deliberately misdirect them, thinking to protect her brother.

His best hope now was that Procyon might not run from Drusus.

“Sir.”

He read the incoming signal. Jewel. Tap-courier, assigned to tail Governor Reaux. He’d just asked her to approach Reaux, who’d gone to the hospital where they’d taken Gide.

“I’m with Governor Reaux now, sir.”

Shift of mind. Fast. “Are you secure?”

“Yes, sir. I’m at the hospital, in a secure area. He’s anxious to talk
to you.”

“Good. How is Gide?”

“Alive.”
Jewel had amped, at the risk of a painful whiteout.

Reaux’s living voice came through at near ordinary volume.

“Where’s Stafford? Have you got him?”

“I’m trying to find him at this very minute. He didn’t have anything to do with this attack. We’re afraid he’s injured or worse, that he’s been snatched.”

“Who did it? Who attacked the ambassador?”

“It assuredly wasn’t us, Governor.”

“It assuredly wasn’t my office. And I’m sure Earth didn’t try to assassinate its own representative.”

“Stranger things have happened, Governor, in recorded history.

But let’s assume mutual innocence. That leaves us dealing with radical groups, yours or mine. My office is scrambling to find out about the ones on our list. In the meantime, I have a physical search out after Mr. Stafford, in case he’s gotten away on the street.

He may be injured, and it’s possible your police search is spooking 2 5 4 • C . J . C h e r r y h

him to run. Call off your dogs. Let me find him. I have various people searching.”

“I have an armed ship out there asking questions I can’t answer. I have
inquiries from Kekellen.”

“I have no doubt. Count this office a third alarmed source, equally perplexed. What’s Mr. Gide’s condition?”

“A glancing wound to the ribs. Shock. Hysteria. Some inhalation damage. It’s not the physical wound, understand. That’s relatively minor. But
his containment was breached. He can’t go back to his ship. Ever. He insists Stafford set up the attack. The security guards are both dead—hit
with neuronics, I’m told. They didn’t have a chance.”

“Stafford has no weapon. Penetrating the mobile unit can’t be a handheld proposition. Neuronics isn’t a street weapon. We’re climbing the ladder to more than the usual criminal element, Governor.”

“An armor-piercing shell. We found its launcher in the bushes, no
prints, bioerase strong in the area, no trace left for the sniffers.”

“All professional skills. Well-financed skills.”

“How can I be sure they weren’t yours?”

“Not mine. Not Procyon’s, I assure you. I have no interest at all in blowing up the ambassador. Procyon doesn’t even know how to fire a gun, let alone a launcher. Any evidence within the mobile unit?”

“Slagged. Slagged, completely, likely a command from the ship. If Gide
hadn’t gotten out of it—”

“Kind of them, though I can understand it. So they’d have killed him if he were still lying there unconscious. Neat and tidy, isn’t it?”

“I don’t like this. I don’t like it at all.”

“I’m not fond of it either, let me assure you. His shell was breached, and they didn’t give a damn whether he lived or died.

Can my people get access to that unit, slagged as it is?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know its status at the moment.”
Reaux sounded completely rattled. Likely he wasn’t lying about his being out of touch with elements of the situation, not having the advantage of a tap, and had no idea what disposition his police had made of the unit.
“I’ll try to find out.”

“I’ll try to find Stafford in the meanwhile.”

“While I have a ship out there questioning whether it can believe my
office in any particular.”

Fo r g e o f H e a v e n • 2 5 5

“That ship has no choice but take your word for what happens here, since its precious occupants won’t come on board station, will they? They can threaten. But they won’t use the ship’s guns on Concord with the
ondat
sitting here, assuming they’re not stark raving crazy.”

“No, but they can use agents embedded in the population.”

Threatening Reaux’s life. “So can we, if they try. We can defend ourselves, and we extend our protection to our governor. Breathe easy. They don’t want that kind of trouble. We’re not an easy target.”

“Antonio—”
Quieter. Realizing, perhaps, the enormity of the promise he’d just extended. So law-abiding. So careful, this governor. Reaux would never think of defying assassins sent after him . . . not to the extent of having them shot on strong suspicion.

His
agents certainly would take care of such a problem, if he spotted it. “Is Mr. Gide conscious at the moment?”

“I think he’s under sedation.”

“Get to him. Wake him up. Talk to him. Convey my extreme sympathy for his situation and make him believe it. Suggest it was some underworld agency, hitherto unsuspected, which probably covers the situation entirely. I’ll send a personal letter to him and another to the ship out there, expressing my outrage at this situation, my intent to cooperate with them through your office, my intention to preserve peace and tranquillity on the station, all the appropriate phrases. Which also happen to be the truth, if they’re listening. Find out what the ambassador’s really been tracking. Why he came here. Our key to what we’re facing is very likely in that.”

A small silence. Then:
“Antonio. Antonio, I confess I may already
have your answer. Gide said—Gide told me he was tracking the possibility of banned information escaping the planet. Via the taps.”

Brazis drew a deep breath. The universe reconfigured itself.

“Well, that’s an old one. What makes him suspect so? What information does he have?”

“Apparently something about First Movement tech and the Ila, something about nanoceles getting off the planet.”

“
Not
the case, I can tell you.” He was disappointed. Frustrated.

“You knew this was the nature of it? And didn’t say? Setha, Setha, I’d hoped for more honesty.”

2 5 6 • C . J . C h e r r y h

“I knew it only after I led Gide to his apartment. I didn’t count on it
becoming critical information, at least . . . at least yet, and by no means
after this fashion. I believed your young man could get through the interview if he was innocent. A misjudgment on my part. A complete misjudgment. I hope you can understand, Antonio. I thought we had time to
work this out. At this point—I can only apologize for the situation.”

He could understand Reaux’s holding back information at Gide’s request. A man with a constituency to protect was honor-bound to protect those core interests against his allies as well as his enemies. Reaux had believed if he kept things quiet, he might find out something, and have a chance to sort this out.

But now he had a crime on his doorstep and the real possibility of a major blowup in international politics.

Maybe it was an intended outcome. Gide wasn’t the only Earth-based interest that might have an agent or two loose in the governor’s territory. He hesitated to suggest Earth as the culprit in assassinating its own representative, but the high-priced tech involved suggested very ample funding and concealment, far beyond the usual underworld operation.

“Setha, my friend, I understand your reticence. But now that we’re in this very delicate situation, believe me absolutely on this one: there is no First Movement tech, informational or otherwise, that has ever escaped the planet—not to my knowledge, and I sit on all the conduits. If there is anything loose, I don’t think it originated here.
Why
did Gide pick this particular tap to interview about this problem? Does Earth particularly suspect him of passing information?”

“The Freethinker connection. He was a Freethinker. They don’t like that.”

“Is that where they think the problem has its base? Among the Freethinkers?”

“You know his sister visited him last night. Clandestinely. I think Gide
could have found that out. I know that contact would be suspect.”

“I knew. You know. They know. I’m sure any interested party alive knows by now she went there. It wasn’t the brightest damned thing Procyon’s ever done, but it didn’t seem to be his idea. He threw her out and kept his conversation more or less honest, and I know precisely what they said. Do you?”

Fo r g e o f H e a v e n • 2 5 7

A pause.
“My intel isn’t that specific.”

“Mine is, I assure you. I’ll go over that transcript again, but I don’t recall any part of it that could implicate him or her in any nonsense among the taps. Gide could have asked for the
Ila’s
taps if they’d thought something underhanded was going on.”

“I don’t think they’d want to touch her off.”

“Touch off is a fair description. But do they think bothering
Marak’s
is without consequence? Tell Gide that the Outsider Chairman is as interested as they are, if they’ve got any solid information about a breach of security regarding First Movement tech. But I doubt it. It’s the oldest crock in the book. It surfaces periodically.

I strongly doubt it.”

“I’ll relay that if I can. If I can find a politic way.”

“You say you’ve heard from Kekellen this morning?”

“He’s asking what Gide wants and about activity in the systems.”

“Their damned probes.” He wiped his face, trying to think.

Dealing with Kekellen required an extreme mental shift, a maze of do’s and don’ts, and consequences far more alarming than an ambassador in a hospital bed. “I trust you to handle it. You’re the associated party.” Coldly put, meaning he didn’t want his own administration in any way dragged into question. Let Earther authorities answer Kekellen’s queries about these goings-on. “Meanwhile, get all your people off my man’s trail. He’s got orders to report to me to debrief. He will as soon as he can. But it’s very likely he’s going to run if you’re behind him. And, not to cast a pall on our working partnership, but I have to assure you, just for the record, that you don’t want the trouble that will follow if you do lay hands on him and don’t tell me. That’s not a threat. It’s a fact of my administration. I can’t stress enough how serious that is. If anyone has laid hands on him, I
will
take action.”

“The law moves under its own direction. He’s a material witness, at very
least, in something that impinges on our constitutional authority. He has
to give us at least a statement to satisfy procedures. That ship out there—”

“That’s all well and good, you and your constitution. But don’t arrest him. We’ll get the truth out of him. We’ll share it, and you’ll get your statement. Chasing him is a waste of your police time, while the actual perpetrators may be running loose up there in 2 5 8 • C . J . C h e r r y h

your areas, armed. If they’re not our domestic sort, I’ll be frank about it, I’m concerned you’re the next likely target on their list.”

“I take that as a friendly wish.”

“It is. I assure you, we did not do this. We would never put a tap in reach of your authority if we had arranged this. There are people we would risk.
Not
a Project tap. That’s a fact you can rely on.”

A pause.
“Antonio? I think I know what Gide is. A theory . . . a theory that I can’t support. I think Gide is from the Treaty Board.”

“The Treaty Board?” That ancient body, bestir itself out of its torpor?

Credible, though, if there actually was a security breach, and there actually were First Movement tech in question.

Reaux had reason for his hesitance to breach Gide’s confidence.

“Setha, fear of data transmission from the planet—that crock’s as old as Concord itself. I admit the Treaty Board’s not going to involve itself on a whim, but whatever Gide came here for didn’t come up through the taps, I’ll just about swear to it.” He trusted Jewel to assure her surroundings, not to tap in where she hadn’t checked for bugs or eavesdroppers, but he didn’t want to lean that hard on Jewel’s ability. “This discussion in depth isn’t appropriate for your present location. Just take extreme care for your own safety. I’m ending, now.”

“I’ll get back to you. I’ll try to talk to Gide in the next few minutes.

Can this lady stay available to me?”

Meaning Jewel.

“Jewel, stay with him, wherever he wants you to be. I’m going out.”