Haze and the Hammer of Darkness (15 page)

Hillis smiled. “I don't believe I ever said or intimated that.”

“So you have a fleet hidden somewhere, ready to smash any Federation forces?”

“Such a fleet would be a terrible waste of energy and resources. We avoid that. We'd prefer just to be left alone. We're hoping you'll be as helpful as you can in assuring that outcome. It would certainly be best for all concerned.”

“Why should I?”

“Look at it this way, Agent Roget. We knew that the Federation would attempt to insert an agent through the haze before finalizing its options. They operate according to well-laid plans, and they have for a millennium. We knew those agents would be predominantly male. Federation agents always are.”

Roget frowned but did not speak.

“The Federation is a stable patriarchal culture. Techno-reinforced stability doesn't allow much change. It's the high-tech equivalent of the ancient water empires.” Another smile followed.

“That suggests that the Federation has known about Dubiety for a time as well.”

“That is highly likely, but I wouldn't claim to know what information is available to the Federation.”

“You knew how the Federation would approach Dubiety.”

“That was scarcely difficult. The Federation is predictable. We predicted five dropboats, and five were released. You can take my word for that or not.”

Roget stiffened inside. “What about the other scouts?”

“We tracked five dropboats. One other made it through the shields. He's in Aithan. His landing site was somewhat more remote than yours. Sometime tomorrow morning, local time, he'll be interviewed, just as you are now.”

“And I have your word for this? I can expect that, sometime tomorrow, I'll be told that he's told you everything, and that there's no reason for me to withhold anything.”

“That would certainly be your expectation. The conventional reasoning—and the Federation is nothing but conventional and oh-so-logical—is that we have no reason to keep you alive once you're no longer a source of information. Therefore, the less you tell us, the longer you have to live. If … if we were conventional, that might well be true.”

“I'm glad to hear that you recognize that.” Roget didn't bother to keep the irony out of his voice.

Abruptly, Hillis stood. “That's all for today. Lyvia will show you more of Skeptos and give you some more information on Dubiety.”

Lyvia rose from the table, and after a moment so did Roget.

“So soon?” Almost before the words were out, Roget wished he hadn't said them.

“There's no point in continuing until you see more.” Hillis nodded to Lyvia. “You can leave as you came in. Take him to the second level map room and then down to the new exhibit. Your codes will grant you both access.”

Lyvia nodded.

Hillis smiled, then turned and left.

“What is her position?” asked Roget.

“Director of External Affairs.”

“And what do those duties entail?”

“External Affairs. We need to go to the map room.” Lyvia stepped away from the table and headed back up the corridor toward the reception area.

Roget could sense both displeasure and exasperation … and perhaps resignation. The thought of resignation bothered him.

From the reception area they descended one level. After passing through another door, another reception area, and then into a corridor that appeared identical to the one on the third level, they walked almost to the end, passing two men and a woman in singlesuits. All three nodded politely but did not address either Lyvia or Roget.

The map room appeared to be little more than a blank-walled, semicircular conference room with a table set forward of the flat rear wall and four chairs behind it. On the table was a small console roughly forty centimeters by twenty. Lyvia settled herself behind the console and touched it. The room darkened, and a map appeared on the circular wall.

Roget turned and began to study the map.

“This is the southern hemisphere, centered on the continent of Socrates,” began Lyvia. “The area highlighted in the brighter golden light is the capital district … Skeptos in the center … to the left you can see the Machiavelli Peninsula.” A point of light appeared. “That's about where you landed your dropboat and where I met you … there's Avespoir.… The next map is a topographic view of Socrates … next is Thula … northern hemisphere and farther to the west than Socrates … and to the east along the equator is the continent of Verite…”

“It's rather small.”

“So is the truth.”

Roget glanced sideways at Lyvia.

“Great illusions are always spun out of the smallest grains of truth,” she said. “All empires and bureaucracies know that.”

Roget continued to study the maps. From the planetary gravity—so close to T-norm as not to be that easily distinguishable, except at the end of a long day—and the maps, it appeared that Dubiety had slightly more land area than most Federation water-worlds and that it was older, with less tectonic activity and lower mountains and shallower seas.

After the maps came a series of real-time images of cities and towns. At least Lyvia assured him that they were real-time current images.

“… Petra … in the hills of Cammora … Aknotan, overlooking Lake Theban … Solipsis … Zweifein … that's where Northern University is…”

Finally, the lighting came up, and the curved front wall blanked. Lyvia stood. “Now for the exhibit area.”

“I can hardly wait.” Roget's tone was ironic. “What exhibit are we going to view?”

“I'd rather not say.”

“Whatever it is, you clearly want a reaction.”

“Of course. We're providing you with information. It's only fair that you provide some for us.”

“I'd be delighted.”

Lyvia ignored his words and stepped from the map room and back out into the corridor.

Once more Roget accompanied Lyvia to the ramp, where they headed down, all the way to the level below the ground floor, although the ramp looked to descend two more levels below the one where they walked off. There was no reception area beyond the ramp door, just an antechamber with two corridors branching from it. Lyvia went right. They only walked ten meters before they reached another door, which opened as they approached.

Roget managed to keep abreast of Lyvia, even as he caught sight of his dropboat, or a remarkable reproduction. It sat on a low black dais in the middle of a large chamber.

Roget glanced around. He saw no obvious bay doors large enough to afford the dropboat passage. He also saw a simple placard in a stand before the dented and battered nose. He walked toward it and read:

Federation Dropboat [Model 3B, developed circa 6699
F. E.
(1760
P. D.
)] Used for dropping agents or couriers onto planetary surfaces in unfriendly locales or those without orbital elevators or normal orbital-attaining conveyances.

He turned to Lyvia. “How did you get it in here?”

“There are doors in the south wall, and the freight lifts are beyond that.” She pointed her belt-tube, and the wall split and recessed on both sides, leaving a blackness beyond.

Roget thought he could see two large tunnel mouths, both semicircles wide enough to encompass the dropboat, before the wall resealed itself, leaving a seamless expanse. After a moment, he walked up onto the dais and stood next to the access hatch. He rapped on the hatch. The boat was solid, not a holo image as he had hoped. He touched it and used his internals to pulse the craft.

ID response accepted. Interrogative instructions?

“It's as you left it,” Lyvia said from where she stood by the placard. “We did depower a few items. We preferred that you not try anything suicidal. The self-destruct and control locks are inoperative.”

Roget looked over the dropboat. It wasn't huge, but it still massed more than ten tonnes. The Thomists had located it, transported it something like two thousand klicks, if not more, in less than a local day, and casually deposited it in an “exhibit” area under the Ministry of Education and Culture. Even if they had used air transport, that suggested, again, more than met the eye. Were his very perceptions being altered?

Why would any perception alteration even be necessary? Any human or alien culture that could do that would have no problem infiltrating and destroying the Federation from within. Or, at the very least, destroying all information on Haze/Dubiety within the Federation archives.

Finally, he stepped away from the dropboat. He smiled politely at Lyvia. “Where do we go from here?”

“I thought you might like to see the subtrans control center.”

Roget stepped off the dais. “Lead on.”

 

14

24 LIANYU 6744
F. E.

On Friday, Roget spent the morning walking around the center of St. George doing spot monitoring, something he was supposed to do at random at least twice a week. This was the first time he'd managed it since he'd begun the job.

Just before noon, he walked up past the tram station, checking the time. He was earlier than he'd thought. Instead of waiting around the monitoring office until he went to meet Marni, and getting trapped by Sung, or fielding the chief monitor's questions, he crossed the boulevard and then Main Street to get to the east side of History Square. Glen-David's was open, and he stepped inside.

“Good day, sir,” said a young woman.

“And to you.” Roget didn't see the older proprietor.

“Can I help you with anything?”

“No, thank you.” Roget smiled and moved toward the paintings and the few multis hung on the north wall. He kept looking, but the dachshund painting wasn't there. Finally, he walked back to the young woman. “There was an oil of a dachshund…”

“Oh … that.” The woman looked embarrassed. “That was a terrible mistake. Someone bought an image, and Father almost sold him the original. They didn't realize…”

“An old master? Held in the family, and the heirs didn't realize it?” asked Roget.

“Not a master, but very valuable. The appraisal came back at over a hundred thousand yuan.”

“It was a good painting.” Roget grinned. “I bought the image.”

“You're fortunate. It's never been made public. It dates back to before the wars.”

“It's that old?”

“It was nanocoated less than a century after it was painted, Father thinks.” She cleared her throat. “The owners would appreciate it if you held the image privately.”

That suggested the painting was worth more than the appraisal, possibly far more, but Roget hadn't bought the image for gain, nor would he have bought the original for that reason. Because the image wouldn't ever have that much value, he did wonder why they wanted it held privately … unless ownership of the painting was in doubt. That wasn't his problem, and he certainly had no way of pursuing it, nor any interest in doing so. He just liked the image. “That shouldn't be a problem. I bought it for myself.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Roget couldn't help but smile as he left. He'd had better taste than he'd known.

He reached the door to the accounting office at one minute before noon.

Marni Sorensen stepped outside before he could open the door. She wore a long pale blue skirt and a deeper blue, short-sleeved, round-collared shirt. “You are punctual.”

Roget inclined his head. “When I have a reason. You're a very good reason.”

“You're also gallant.”

“Shouldn't all men be? Shouldn't all women be charming?”

“The first perhaps. The second … I'll reserve my options there.” She laughed.

“We do need to eat. Where would you recommend?” asked Roget.

“Have you been to the Lee House?”

Roget recalled seeing it, but it had looked less than promising. “No. I tried Lupe's, but my mouth burned all afternoon. I've been to the Caravansary and the Frontier Fort.”

“They're small-town attempts at city cuisine. Do you want to try the Lee House? It's not far, and the food is better than the ambiance.”

Ambiance? An unusual word for a small-town girl, except she was more than that. “I'll take your word for it.” Roget smiled.

They walked side by side down the corridor, through the security gate, and out into an almost comfortable midday. High hazy clouds muted the desert sun as they started down 200 East.

“How was your morning?” asked Roget.

“The same as every other morning. Check yesterday's entries. Run projections against expenditures. Cross-check problem areas.” Marni shrugged.

“You make it sound so fascinating.” Roget kept the irony in his words light.

“I'm not interested in fascinating. Neither is the regional comptroller. Fascinating would mean some sort of budgeting disaster. What about your morning?”

“The monitoring equivalent of yours. Check the anomaly list. Work out the schedule. Then go out and do the random spot-monitoring so that I can have lunch with someone before I go out and take more readings in the afternoon to check the possible anomalies. Most of the anomalies will be either one-time ambient spikes or the results of mechanical failures that people haven't yet noticed, and they'll be upset when they discover the costs of deferring maintenance or overworking underengineered equipment.”

“That's because equipment and energy are so expensive here. People try to get by on as little as possible.”

“They could add soltaic cells.”

She raised her eyebrows. “They're expensive. What good is all this sunshine if you can't afford soltaic panels? Most of the smaller businesses are stretched thin as it is. The panels are just too expensive, and they have to be replaced.”

“Not that often.”

“Any replacement is too often in a small town, and parts are sometimes as expensive as the original panel.”