Harvest of Stars (15 page)

“Why days?” wondered Kyra.

Guthrie formed a chuckle. “Innocent lass. Well, for your information, though I imagine you’ve guessed it yourself by now, an active underground, a resistance movement, does exist. People who don’t just daydream about bringing the Avantists down and setting up a free country again, but will risk their necks for it. They’re not many, and in public they are impeccable citizens, but they’re well disciplined and little by little they’ve accumulated weapons. Yes, they know they haven’t a prayer of mounting a revolution by themselves, but they want to be prepared should a chance ever come along and meanwhile, now and then, here and there, some among them can quietly do something.

“Like other such folk in the past, they’re organized in cells of a few persons each. No member of any cell knows for certain that more than one in any other belongs to the outfit. That way, if the Sepo catch somebody, even if they deep-quiz him, he can’t guide them to making a clean sweep of the camaradas. But it does slow down communications.”

Kyra’s spine tingled. “Just the same, there
are
Chaotics in the government—in at least a few useful positions?”

“Uh-huh. I don’t know the details, nor should I.”

Lee stared into the lenses. “How do you know what you do, sir?” His voice trembled a bit.

“Obvious, I thought,” Guthrie answered tartly.

Yes, Kyra thought, now it was, after what she had seen and he had related. Over the years, Fireball must have developed some connections, however tenuous, with the
secret force. For instance, individual consortes who helped smuggle political fugitives across the borders would hear things, and the knowledge would eventually come to Guthrie.

He might or might not be in direct touch with the junta. Probably not, she reckoned. That could be dangerous both to them and to Fireball. Besides, in spite of Avantist accusations, the company never had been in the business of overthrowing governments. Even now, she supposed, the jefe would settle for a return to the status quo.

But still, cautiously, indirectly, Fireball and the rebels maintained a degree of rapport. Once in a while, one party was able to do the other a favor.

The question leaped into her. “Has Fireball infiltrated too?”

“Not worth mentioning,” Guthrie replied. “Most people we could engage and trust to do that have backgrounds that’d rule them out. Besides, their kind seldom make good government employees.” His tone harshened. “On the other hand, it seems clear that the Avantists have planted some agents among us. Not family members, probably not trothgivers, but hirelings in a position to spy, if nothing else. That may well be how they learned Jonas Nordberg would be worth kidnapping and wringing dry—my friend, who turned out to know where my duplicate was stashed. It also means that we can’t just phone Quito from a public booth. We don’t know what the enemy’s interception capabilities are. They must be fairly good, or the Avantists wouldn’t have felt confident enough to try this stunt.

“And, positively, my alter ego knows what I knew about Fireball’s arrangements in North America at the time he came back. They’ve developed since then, but he’s got leads that the Sepo won’t be slow to follow. I’d better not use what lines into the government I’ve got, nor rely on what information I have about it. All can go to trace and trap me.”

What lines might those be? wondered Kyra. He’d seen Avantism coming. He’d made preparations against it, and done more after it arrived. Did that include slipping
worms into essential computer programs? How much of Anson Guthrie lurked in the brains of the state itself?

How fast could his double aid his hunters to answer that? When would this resource too be turned against him?

He swung his stalks toward Lee. “The first problem we have to deal with concerns you,” he went on. “If the cops start to seriously suspect you, and get thorough about it—pointing them at Tahir and his men who rigged our escape would be a shabby return for kindness. Also, a blow to the resistance movement.”

Lee stiffened in his chair. He spoke as rigidly. “I know. I’ve planned a safeguard.”

The bag he had brought along lay on his lap. He opened it and took forth a bottle and an injector. “This,” he said. The blood had gone out of his lips. “Lesmonil.”

“What’s that?” Kyra felt a vein throb in her throat. Sweat gathered in her armpits, cold and rank.

Lee looked straight ahead, at the nearest of the walls that enclosed him. “A synthetic drug.” His words jerked. “Seldom used. Not just because it’s illegal and hard to get. The immediate effects are ecstatic. But the slightest overdose is amnesiac, like a large overdose of alcohol except that this is total.” He barked a laugh. “Fun that you can’t remember the next day isn’t so hyper, is it? The amnesiac is really powerful. It doesn’t inhibit transfer from circulating to permanent memory, it destroys every trace. That’s why the ban on it is enforced more than on ordinary brain-poison. Even psychomeds who might find it helpful in treating mental patients, even they can’t get any.”

“Unless they’re government psychomeds re-educating hard-case correctees, I’ll bet,” Guthrie said.

Lee’s mouth drew taut. “Yes, I’ve heard rumors that it sees a certain amount of use in those institutions. As for what little is on the black market, most goes for pleasure—an ecstatic, remember—but I daresay various criminals have other applications of it.”

Kyra jumped toward him. “No, Bob!” she yelled. “You can’t—wipe yourself out—like that!”

He gave her a smile of sorts. “I don’t plan to. Before I traded my informant for this, I tapped the public database.
The formula’s not there, of course, but the basic physiological facts are. The stuff attacks recent memories first. I reckon they’re the most accessible, cytologically. For my body weight, I can estimate the dose that’ll eliminate, roughly, the past fifty hours. No more.”

“And then? And then?”

“Why, I’ll wake up here tomorrow, sick, puzzled about what happened, but able to make my way home. If I’m arrested soon, a blood test may show I went on a lesmonil binge. No doubt the Sepo will wonder what made me do something so unlike my past life—I will myself—and they may deep-quiz me. If so, they’ll learn that I harbored the jefe, but that’s all they’ll learn, because that’s all there will be to extract. Someday you can explain to me.”

“If … you survive.”

He shrugged. “They seldom actually kill the subjects of their ministrations, you know. I expect I’ll go into rehabilitation.”

Whatever is left of you, after they’ve been through your brain with their chemicals and electronics, Kyra wanted to cry out. And if you go through the years of treatment at a correction center, whatever they finally release will bear only the name of Robert E. Lee.

She blinked hard, knotted her fists, and stammered, “W-we’ll get you out soon.” Before they can harm you beyond healing, she vowed. And meanwhile, now, she must keep her spirit as high as his.

Hopefulness wasn’t foolishness. It was a necessity for survival.

Guthrie, too, must want to stay clear of pity. “That’s a nice theory you’ve got,” he growled. “Listen, though. I didn’t know about this hell-soup either, but I’ve seen what assorted kinds of dope can do to people. Mainly, it ain’t predictable. How close can you gauge your dose? And ever hear about idiosyncratic reactions? You could wake up a drooling vegetable. Or dead, which
I
would prefer.”

Kyra saw determination stiffen in Lee. With it went a calm that slowly eased his muscles and brought life back into his face. “It’s a gamble, yes,” he said. “The whole
business is. But the odds don’t look too bad, with you two on my side. And, sir, I gave troth.”

Silence dwelt among them.

“Okay, son,” Guthrie said at last, most softly. “They’ll honor your name as long as there are free men alive, if we win. But Christ, I wish I could shake your hand.”

Kyra stooped over Lee and cast her arms about him. “Gracias, mil gracias,” she said through sudden tears.

He rose and returned the embrace heartily. It became a kiss that went on.

“Ay,” she murmured, gaze upon gaze, after they drew a step apart, “you’ve got surprises in you, you do. Let’s investigate this further when we get the chance.”

His mouth quirked. “You’ll have to remind me. I sure hope you will.”

Guthrie’s basso brought their heads around to him. “Sorry, kids, we’d better stick with immediate business. Bob, you’re doubtless better informed about things local than Kyra or me. What’s our least dicey way out of here, would you say?”

Lee blinked and responded like a man roused from dream. “Oh. … Oh, yes. Bueno, I think … I think you should leave the area pronto. Train and bus stations—” His voice quickened. “They don’t have detectors like airports, and they probably aren’t under surveillance as yet. The sheer numbers of passengers ought to help too. But don’t travel in plain sight. A general alarm could be broadcast, maybe. Take a train, Kyra, a private accommodation. Not a room, certainly not a suite. Too expensive and conspicuous. A recintito. They’re fairly cheap, but almost always available, what with the depressed state of the economy. Pay in cash dollars.”

“Good!” Guthrie exclaimed. “I said it before, you’ve missed your calling. Next time I need a conspirator I’ll contact you.”

“But where should we go?” Kyra asked into the air.

“I have a notion,” Guthrie said. “Fireball consortes aren’t safe and, given the threads the Sepo may have collected, I no longer trust what few Chaotic plug-ins I
know about, either. But if we buy a ticket to, hm, Portland—”

“Stop,” Lee snapped. “Be on your way.”

“But you, you are going to forget,” Kyra said.

“The sooner you lift off, the better. My absence has them excited, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Guthrie said. “When they’ve heard from the other sites they’ve raided, they’ll tighten the net in this region. If they trace your movements back, they’ll find the clerk here, who’ll remember Kyra. That should take a few days, but you’re right, we’ve got to weigh anchor.”

Lee drew breath. “Besides,” he told Kyra, “I’d rather be alone when I take my injection and fall into my rapture. I’ve gathered that it isn’t a dignified spectacle.”

She had no words. Guthrie rumbled, “So long, son. Vaya con Díos,” before he retracted his eyes and she slipped him into the pack. She slung it on her shoulders and took the clothes bag in her hand. Ludicrously, she thought of other things she needed, a comb, a toothbrush—The terminal would have automats. She laid her free arm around Lee’s neck. “Oh, damn,” was all she could find to utter. This time the kiss was brief. You might call it chaste. He stood in the doorway and watched her go down the stairs.

W
HEN THE MESSAGE
reached Director Engineer Pierre Aulard at his laboratory in L-5, he had sat for a long while thoughtful.

It had arrived over a long-established Fireball communications line, secret, independent of any net, so safeguarded in every way that nothing transmitted had ever been tapped. The keys to the encryption were in the possession of very few persons indeed; those associates of Anson Guthrie who were his oldest and most trusted. Though brief, this dispatch was in his personal style, the
like of which had not otherwise been heard for long lifetimes, and it made passing reference to bygone days that brought a momentary smile to Aulard’s lips. The burden was: “Prospects are more than hopeful,
if
we handle it right, but it’ll be tricky. I need my old camarilla with me, the gang of you in person. Together we’ll buck things through, the way we did when you were young. Remember? Say absolutely nothing to anybody except that you may be gone a fairish while.” There followed instructions for making contact.

His first feeling was immense relief. He had exploded in protests when Guthrie proposed to slip into that crazy North America and manage operations against the Avantists on the spot. What if they came to suspect his presence among them? What if they tracked him down? By comparison, his Alpha Centauri junket had been commonsensical to the point of stodginess. Guthrie hadn’t listened. After he departed, Aulard took refuge in work. Design problems of new spacecraft, they were something a man could give himself to without fear. Even the endless, niggling demands on him as an executive suddenly became almost welcome.

Now it seemed the jefe was at least partly safe and making ready to strike back in earnest. How, though? And what possible use could an aged technologist be? “The old camarilla—” why, that included Juan Santander Conde, retired with the honorific of Director Emeritus. God’s name, had the summons also come to Juan in Quito? And to whom else?

Nervous again, Aulard began to realize how little he knew of the situation. He had never been one for politics or any similar monkey antics. The business on Earth infuriated him, but he had followed events only in the sketchiest fashion. Seeking understanding, he went to his computer terminal and keyed for a précis. As it unrolled on the screen, from time to time he retrieved data concerning specific aspects. Finally he sat back, closed his eyes, and arranged the information neatly in his mind.

—After the Union government occupied and began to search Fireball’s North American headquarters, business
was allowed to resume, under supervision. Company facilities elsewhere in the country functioned nearly as usual. Communications and personnel moved about, nationally and internationally, as needed. Meanwhile public disputation went on between the two sides. Likewise, but not covered in any detail by the news media, did negotiations.

Fireball wanted the militia and the detectives out of its main offices, immediately and unconditionally. The government insisted that it had taken action with the greatest reluctance and desired nothing more than to vacate. First, however, it must satisfy itself that dangerous subversives, perhaps terrorists, had not wormed their way into company employ. This was not a question of ideology but of prudence. In an era of fusion-powered engines, molecular engineering, and potentially lethal industrial materials, fanatics with access to the resources of an interplanetary organization could commit genocide, whether or not that was their intent. Fireball should not obstruct the investigation; for its own sake, it should cooperate. And since matters had come to a head, a number of long-standing issues had better be settled too. … The parleying dragged on.