Haze and the Hammer of Darkness (6 page)

The Federation understood that most people just wanted to live their lives, to work at what they could, enjoy what they could, and live without fear or insecurity. Anyone could follow any belief system or religion he or she wanted—but only where those beliefs did not conflict with the rights and health of others or contradict Federation law.

For those who didn't want to follow the laws, FSA had very simple rules. Concentrate on the top, and eliminate those few who ignored or flaunted Federation law. Keep the eliminations to an absolute minimum and do it without publicity or notice. Relocate and reeducate all others involved, especially the flunkies of the lawbreakers, wherever possible, and send them to locales and situations where they had to work to follow the rules. If that didn't convince them, implant location monitors and nerve-blocks that did.

Roget began to manipulate the board to learn all the local coordinates and match them to the scanned images and maps. He wondered whether the dead agent had been killed by some Saint underground or because he'd uncovered commercial corruption.

Roget would find out.

In time. He was in no hurry, not with intermittent residual nerve soreness.

 

7

17 MARIS 1811
P. D.

Roget woke early and uneasily, sore from lying on the hard bunk shelf, barely cushioned by his jacket. For a moment, he had no idea where he might be because the cabin was pitch black. He eased halfway off the bunk shelf where he sat and pulled on his boots, then sealed them. He walked to the door, unbolted it, and opened it a crack, listening intently, and letting his internal systems scan the area.

He could sense no energy radiation of any sort, and he heard nothing except insects—or their equivalents. He opened the door more widely. It was before what passed for dawn, but the sky still held a hint of amber radiance, and to the east he could see a faint brightening. With a nod, he turned back, leaving the door open for light. For breakfast, he drank the last from his water bottle and chewed field rations. He had enough for another three days at full diet, but he had the definite feeling he wouldn't go undetected for anywhere near that long. He supposed he could, if he headed out into the wild, but that wasn't what he'd been sent down to do. He couldn't really assess the culture without getting into it—and that meant he had to meet the locals … and risk internment or incarceration.

He stretched enough to loosen tight muscles. After that, he left the cabin as he had found it, the small amount of trash he had created tucked into his pack. He covered close to two klicks before the sky brightened fully and amber light filtered down through the dark-needled pines and onto the needle-covered ground and the trail. Twice he glimpsed something that looked to be fast and yet rodentlike. It wasn't a rabbit but resembled a miniature kangaroo, except with shorter legs and tail. He also saw more of the large pawprints in places beside the trail. One set looked to belong to a creature larger than a wolf. Possibly much larger. He checked his sidearm and stunner. He didn't see or sense anything like squirrels or ground rodents, but he did see a few small holes that looked like possible burrows. He also caught sight of a number of large raptor-looking birds from a distance and got a close look at a flock of tiny gray and brown birds that could have been ground-feeding bushtits.

About an hour after what might have corresponded to dawn, he walked over a low rise in the trail and saw what looked to be a small pile of blue and gold leaves a meter or so to the right of the path—scores of the butterflies, their wings moving slowly. Did they sleep or gather in piles?

He stepped toward the pile. The butterflies rose in a cloud that split into lines and then vanished into the overhanging branches. Roget looked down and swallowed. Lying on the carpet of evergreen needles were the remains of a ratlike or squirrel-like animal. What little fur remained was shiny, but mostly all that was left were bones. Were the butterflies carnivorous or scavengers, or both? He couldn't help but wonder what else lay in and around him in the trees. The heavily scented air didn't seem quite so much perfumed as holding a hint of sickly-sweet decay.

By late midmorning he had covered close to ten klicks along the trail. He'd seen no aliens or people, but he had found a small fountain. It was simple enough, just a spout in the middle of a circular stone basin forty centimeters across from which water flowed over a lower section of the rim into a stone drainage sluice that fed a stream perhaps half a meter wide. The stream looked clear, although it was hemmed in by low brush and grass.

A small splash downhill caught Roget's attention. He watched the area for several moments but couldn't tell what had made it—a fish, an amphibian, or an oversized arthropod. He filled his water bottle from the fountain and returned to the trail.

Less than an hour later, passing through a small clearing, Roget glanced uphill. He thought he saw another trail, just below the top of the ridge line. That might give him a better view. In any case, higher was probably better.

He started uphill through the trees. It was pleasant walking on the needle carpet, and the trees were far enough apart. There was also very little brushy undergrowth—only in places where there was a break in the evergreen canopy.

The distance uphill was farther than he'd thought, and after a time he paused to catch his breath. He judged he was still half a klick below where he thought the trail might be.

“Hello, there!” The voice came from higher on the slopes.

Roget froze. He couldn't see anyone through the pines, widely spaced as they were.

“Did you have difficulty coming through the shields?” came the second inquiry. “Your descent was steeper than optimal.”

Then he smiled wryly. The words were in Federation English, and well-pronounced, with a feminine tone. That implied continued observation of the Federation and considerable technology. If whoever she represented had detected his dropboat coming down, there wasn't much point in trying to evade her. Not obviously. He didn't want to walk right up to her … if the caller were even female … or human. But he didn't see any realistic alternative. While he couldn't sense any broadcast emissions, that didn't mean that she didn't have reinforcements. Or that she or it or they were friendly. On the other hand, it didn't mean they were unfriendly. Her words did suggest that there was little use in activating the singlesuit background blending camouflage.

“Some,” he called back.

“I'll meet you up ahead at the rest stop. When you get to the trail, turn to your right. It's about half a klick ahead on the trail.”

Should he take the caller's word? He could attempt to escape, but they'd found him in the middle of a forest, and not even on a trail—and they knew standard, including measurements. Thomists? That was looking to be the most probable conclusion, but anything was still possible.

He continued making his way uphill. He came to the trail after less than a hundred meters, although he hadn't been able to see it until he was almost upon it. Again, it was a manicured and wood-fragment-mulched walkway. Roget stopped, then looked north and south. He saw no one. He turned north, walking at a deliberate pace.

The rest stop was little more than two benches on the uphill side of the trail, with another stone fountain on the downhill side. A woman wearing a long-sleeved green shirt, gray trousers, and gray hiking boots sat on the bench nearest Roget. There was no one else in sight except the two of them.

She stood as he approached. She was a good thirty centimeters shorter than Roget, and muscular, but neither slender nor stocky. Her hair was white blond, and her face was oval with deep gray eyes, wide cheekbones, and a jaw that was just short of being square. Her skin was either lightly tanned or that shade naturally. With the planet's shields, how could he tell?

He stopped a meter short of her but did not speak. He saw no obvious weapons.

“I'm Lyvia. I'll be your guide to Dubiety.”

“That's what you call the world?”

“Officially and unofficially. What does the Federation call it?”

“Haze.”

“You haven't told me your name. Or the cover name you've adopted. Either will do.” Lyvia smiled.

Her expression was fractionally warmer than polite, and slightly amused, Roget noted. “Keir. Keir Roget.”

“We have a hike ahead of us, Keir. It's a good twelve klicks to the trailhead station. I'll explain a few matters along the way, and you can ply me with questions. Some I'll answer. Some will have to wait, and some you'll be able to answer yourself in time.”

“All your responses will be Delphic, I'm certain.”

“Only if you take them that way. We try to be factual. Oh, and I'd ask that you be careful with the weapons and those powerpacks built into your suit. Matters could become difficult if you hurt anyone.” She turned and began to walk.

Roget had to take three quick long steps to catch up with her. The trail was wide enough for two to walk comfortably side-by-side. As he matched her pace, he couldn't help but think that she'd shown no surprise meeting him, and no fear and no hesitation in turning her back to him. It hadn't been a bluff. Nor had it been naiveté. Haze—or Dubiety—knew where he'd come from and had been prepared to meet him within a day and a half of his landing in what appeared to have been a relatively remote area … or at least an area removed from easy transport access. That raised the question of how much more the Federation knew than he'd been told. It also suggested just how expendable he was.

“This is one of the Thomist worlds, I take it?” he finally said.

“Thomists settled Dubiety. You should be able to tell that once you've seen more.”

“What sort of commnet do you use?”

“There's a full planetary net.”

“You don't care much for the standard broadcast spectrum. Why not?”

“Broadcomm has definite physical and physiological effects. We've avoided those.”

“Such as?”

“Both implants and hand-held devices have adverse impacts on brain physiology. That's especially true for certain genetic profiles. Overall, the economics don't work out, either.”

What did brain physiology have to do with economics? Roget was getting the feeling that all her answers might hold the same sort of non sequiturs. “Would you mind explaining that?”

“Any answer I give,” replied Lyvia, “would be either simplistic or wrong. It's not my field.”

“It might give me an idea, at least,” said Roget mildly.

“That's exactly the problem in too many high-tech societies, even in some that are not so high-tech. Simplistic and wrong ideas lead to simplistic and wrong public opinion and wrong-headed public policies. That retards progress far more than is gained by so-called open dialogue by those who don't understand. Generalizations breed misunderstandings, and misunderstandings lead to greater problems in maintaining an orderly society.”

“But most people don't want long and technical answers to simple questions.”

“That's their problem.”

“How do you keep people from giving those simplistic answers?” asked Roget.

“Personally, in conversation, and privately, they can say what they want. Anything meant for public communication falls under the libel and slander laws.” She laughed. “That's what keeps most litigators in business.”

“They can get damages if someone says or writes something factually inaccurate?”

“Exactly. One of the factors in governing the award is the number of people to whom the inaccuracy was conveyed.”

Roget was both intrigued and appalled. “What about the use of accurate facts or figures to misrepresent?”

“If it's by a public figure, either a representative of an organization or elected official, and it's bad enough, it's a criminal offense.”

“How can anyone determine that?”

“The test has to do with relevant information withheld or omitted.”

“In a noncriminal case, what if they can't pay?”

“We have a great number of public service positions, both for criminal and civil offenders. We've found that well-compensated litigators, solicitors, business directors and managers, and elected officials have a great aversion to maintaining trails such as this one or handling sanitary duties in the subtrans system or working land reclamation and enhancement … or any other number of equally necessary and not always tasteful tasks.”

Roget kept a pleasant expression on his face and asked, “You mentioned elected officials. What's the governmental structure?”

“Nothing too unfamiliar to you, I'm certain. Representative democratically elected lower House of Tribunes. The upper chamber—that's the House of Denial—consists of those with specific areas of expertise. They're elected from nominees from various occupations and subjected to denial by the House of Tribunes.”

“Do you have political parties?”

That brought another laugh, one more rueful. “Oh, yes. At the moment there are seven.”

“Proportional voting of some sort?”

“It's not quite that simple. I'll have to get you a copy of the constitution.”

For roughly three hours, Roget asked question after question. The answers provided by Lyvia were as satisfactory as her first replies. That is, they answered almost none of his real questions. Dubiety was sounding more and more like a fascist state run by environmentally-oriented lunatics. Yet, he reminded himself, lunatics didn't create orbital shields that could shred dropboats and keep the Federation at bay.

As the trail came to the top of a low rise, the trees ended abruptly. Lyvia gestured at the low circular grassy depression ahead. “There's the trailhead station.”

A columned portico with a domed roof some fifteen meters across stood in the center of the grassy swale. Trails radiated from the circular stone walk that bordered the structure. All the stone was of a pale gray that was probably almost white but looked faintly rosy in the amber light that filtered through the orbital shields.