The Companions (16 page)

“The females have a large and capacious organ which will serve to hatch up to twelve of our eggs at a time, thereby freeing Orskim incubators for more rewarding work. The larger males will make good laborers, and we have many other ideas. They are a particularly valuable race to us, inasmuch as they can survive wide variations in climate, adapt to a great variety of tasks, and apply intelligence effectively. Unfortunately, we have not yet learned how to retain the intelligence while removing all independent thought. We are, nonetheless, continuing the effort.”

“And the Derac? Will we use them as well?”

“We are using them, to start the great war. When that is finished, those who are left will make good warriors. The young ones are almost brainless, even now, so there will be little adaptation to do…”

Reabsorbing its probe, the observer on the roof beam added this bit of conversation to everything else that had been collected during the past several days. The information was scanned to remove duplication while assuring that nothing was lost or understated, then the information, already translated into Tharstian and Earthian, was encoded and compressed. When the observer was fully satisfied, the information was spurted on the first step of its journey, to the hidden amplifier and accelerator here on this world. From there it would be sent out to the Tharstian spy ship, hidden in
a crater of a small and unimportant moon, where it would be amplified once more and sent from that ship to Tharstian headquarters and eventually, the observer inferred—for it was capable of inference—it would be relayed to Earth Enterprises and the office of Gainor Brandt.

Gainor Brandt, who would receive it and show it to me, too late, far too late to do any good at all.

Though Dame Cecelia's harassment was not resumed after I returned from Baja, other forms of persecution were directed at all sanctuary workers, and we had, therefore, learned to be as unobtrusive as possible. We used different robes and veils to make ourselves unrecognizable; some with pads to give the impression of greater bulk, some with raised crowns to increase apparent height. Whenever I left the apartment, I reminded myself to be alert to possible followers.

The day following my agreement with Paul, I intended to visit both Gainor Brandt and the sanctuary, but I did not go directly to either. First I stopped at my medical center on the mercantile floor for the usual travelers' kit of preventives and treatments, then went on to a few import shops in various towers for supplies I would be unlikely to get through agency supply routines on Moss. Whenever I boarded pods between towers, I noticed who boarded after me. Given that the purpose of robes and veils is to guarantee anonymity, it is difficult to identify individuals, but I had acquired some skill at recognizing details: the way a seam lay on a shoulder; how a person walked and moved; the little nervous movements people make without knowing it.

Each time I depodded, the same two figures depodded after me. Though they wore the sort of masks worn by a great
many others, one mask had a frayed place at the corner and the other had the eyeholes widened, allowing me to see a mole beneath the eye. I took covert note of both, thinking they were probably IGI-HFO foot soldiers. Next stop was the storage garage, where I made arrangements for storing Paul's flits while we were away, as his garage space in the tower would be subleased with the apartment. That long-ago journey to Baja had taught me several tricks that had proven useful over the years: accordingly, I left the storage garage by descending to the fifth sublevel and exiting into another sublevel sector from the lift, thereby losing my stalkers.

Backtracking in another pod, I took a flit to Area Government Center, a tower at the urb's edge, surrounded by many-leveled terraces with some plants and trees, the only trees to be found in the urb outside the park floors. I asked for a landing on a fortieth-floor flit lobby, a little-used landing, some distance from Gainor's office. Though the lobby was virtually empty, I still took a circuitous route via lifts and moving walkways to reach the office of the general manager, confident at last that if I'd been followed, it had been by someone invisible.

“General Brandt, please,” I said to the young man at the reception desk as I removed my veil.

“Citizen Delis,” the general boomed through his open door, sounding forbiddingly formal. “You are very punctual. Do come in.” He bowed me into the room, then shut the door and closed it before pressing the lock plate to be sure it stayed that way.

“New person out there,” he said softly. “Jeffry somebody. Goes all giddy with authority. Doesn't know when to listen and when to stop listening. Could be a spy, but I don't think he's smart enough. How are you, my dear?”

I gave him my hand, then my cheek. “Gainor, I couldn't wait to tell you. Our
moon
project? Garr'ugh 290? It seems you have an ESC team on the third planet.”

“Yes,” he said, puzzled. “Both ESC and PPI are on planet. I was talking to Botrin Prime about it just last night.”

I felt my nostrils lift at the mention of the name. “How is nasty old Prime? Aging fast, I hope.”

Gainor pursed his lips reprovingly. “He hasn't forgotten you, if that's what you mean. He needles me every now and then, asking about you. I always say I haven't seen you, have no idea what you're doing. Boaty has a mean streak, and I wouldn't suggest running afoul of him.”

“Don't intend to. Did he tell you his PPI team on Moss has asked for a linguist?”

“He did not!” He stared at me for a moment before it clicked. “You mean Paul?” He lowered his voice. “And Paul wants you to go along?”

“How could he live otherwise? Why, he'd have to arrange for his own laundry! And feed his own concs! I told him I wouldn't go unless he let me take some trainers and dogs, for my amusement.”

“Good heavens,” he murmured, grinning. “What a stroke of luck. What marvelous timing! We couldn't have planned that if we'd tried.”

“I'm sure you could have, Gainor, if you'd thought of it, which I certainly hadn't. I had no idea there was any question of intelligent life anywhere in Garr'ugh 290.”

Gainor took a deep breath. “Did he agree to your taking the animals?”

“I think he's counting on my being discouraged by the bureaucracy. He told me to take care of details and said you'd have a fit.”

He sat back, beaming. “Well then, I shall. A small but stormy one. Can't have anyone thinking I'm easy on animals! Who's the PPI contract officer?”

“It's a joint contract through your office. Somebody named Eigverst.”

He thought a moment. “Not a man I know well. If he follows procedure, he'll kick up about your entourage. I'll give you a note for him advising immediate compliance in the furtherance of the contract. No, no. I won't give it to you. Don't want to give him anything to talk about. I'll send it to
him directly, saying I've been advised they want a linguist, linguists are notoriously picky, we're already over contract time, so let the linguist's party have anything they ask for; I want the work expedited and no logjams in acquisition! Now, who are you taking?”

“I've spoken briefly to Adam. The six big dogs and three trainers were intended for the moon, weren't they? I know it isn't quite far enough along, but the job on the planet, Moss, should take up to three years, by which time…”

“By which time it should be ready,” he mused, eyes fixed on thin air. “Especially if we double up on prey seeding. Oh, my. I'm glad you want Adam. All this iggy-huffo stuff is tearing him apart. He'll want his brother Frank with him. Clare Barkley should be your third; she and Frank work well together. And of course the six big dogs we planned for that moon anyhow. I wish you could take some of the others, the smaller ones, but they aren't nearly so far along, and I'm finding places for smaller animals among the arkists' holdings. Several arks are ready for birds, two are ready for cats. Ark keepers are eager to have small dogs, particularly since we don't allow children on ark planets. Oh, by the Great Mahalus, Jewel! This solves so many problems.”

“You're calling on Tharstian gods these days?”

“I have it on good authority, from the Tharstian High Priest himself, that the Great Mahalus listens to humans. I say, as he does, ‘Hai-bo! Any deity who'll help.'”

I surprised us both by hugging him, then sat in a visitor's chair, pulling him into the one beside it. “Paul says we'll be living in the PPI installation, and they mustn't know why I'm really there, that is, any reason beyond my being a silly, animal-loving, nonproductive hobbyist who happens to be taking care of details for Paul. I'll need an intro to your ESC people, Gainor, if there's anyone there you really trust to be sympathetic and close-mouthed. AND, I beg you to keep the ESC people there for a while. Paul says they're pushing to leave.”

He frowned, his fingers making a drumroll on the arms of
the chair. “They're impatient, yes. Normally they stay as long as PPI does, but absolutely nothing is happening with PPI, and we have other calls on our time. It might raise eyebrows if I delayed them…”

“Not if you had a good excuse.”

“Such as?”

“There are two huge plateaus that make up about a third of the landmass,” I said. “You could always have those explored and surveyed.”

“I could probably think up a way of doing that, yes, if I had a reason to…”

“Paul says they found old Hessing-Hargess ships on the plateaus.”

“Did they, by heaven!” He mused doubtfully for a moment. “Abandoned?”

I shook my head. “I don't think anyone knows.”

“I suppose one could look for survivors, or bodies…”

“Would it help if the Hessing family asked you to?”

He grinned at me. “Wouldn't that fluff Boaty's pillow! But how would that come about?”

“I thought I might speak to Myra, Witt's sister. Moss is in the same system as Jungle, which you may recall was where Witt disappeared.”

He frowned at me. “Might be wisest not to attract Dame Cecelia's attention to yourself!”

“She won't know I have anything to do with it.”

He stared at the wall for a moment, abruptly shifting subjects. “You want contacts in ESC. Well, you'll be traveling on an ESC ship because we do supply for both teams, and our ships go back and forth fairly regularly. On the ground, however, who's best?” He spoke to the wall: “Bessy!”

The wall replied. “Yes, sir.”

“Find me the ESC roster for Garr'ugh 290.”

“One moment.”

In that moment, the paneling slid aside to reveal a data screen and the roster heading.

“Read,” said the general, rapidly scanning the faces that flicked by. “Stop.”

“Who is it?” I asked, looking over his shoulder. “He looks like a Himoc priest, all sensitive and repressed.”

“Started out wanting to be one,” grunted the general. “Good man, though, unflappable and totally sympathetic to our cause. His name is Lethe, Ornel Lethe.” Then, to the screen. “Print Lethe, burn-book.” He searched further and had two other files printed: Wyatt and Durrow. “Sybil Wyatt, age nine, was the sole survivor of our colony on Holme's World after that inexplicable attack.”

“By the so-called Zhaar.”

“That's the rumor at IC. One day they tell us the Zhaar are all gone, the next day they tell me the Zhaar wiped out a planetful of people. Could be an attempt to turn our attention in the wrong direction, but the only other IC members known to have that kind of power are the Phain, who pay no attention at all to anything we do or don't do.”

“The Phain wouldn't do a thing like that,” I said, firmly. “Did you ask them?”

“No. It wouldn't have been tactful to ask. But the subject was discussed in the presence of several Phaina at IC level, and they said they had foreseen the happening but had been unable to avert it.”

“Avert it how?”

“That was the point they didn't wish to discuss. We got the impression they'd issued some kind of warning to Holme's World, but no warning was found in the records.”

I stared at him for a long moment. “When I was on Phain, you thought I carried a warning to the Earth ambassador. Did you have any record of it besides my memory of it?”

He looked startled. “That was years ago, Jewel!”

“So was Holme's World, years ago. All I'm saying is, perhaps the warning wasn't official. Maybe it didn't go through official channels.”

He went on staring at me, his face gone blank, his eyes fo
cused on something I couldn't see. Eventually, he snapped back into the present, saying, almost casually, “Not for the first time, I wish we knew more about the Zhaar.”

“My mother obtained a translation of ancient Martian by way of the Zhaar language. It was done by a worker in some special IC archives.”

He sighed heavily. “You're speaking of the Archives of the elder races. I happen to believe that the elder races have neither departed nor gone extinct. They simply don't want to be bothered with the politics and maneuvering we younger races seem to find necessary. They've lived long enough to know what works for them, individually and collectively, and they have no interest in wasting their time reinventing systems they know aren't useful.”

For some reason, the subject was making me extremely itchy. I said in an irritated tone, “So, if they're not extinct, one of them might have wiped out the people on Holme's World.”

“That's possible. All we know is, something vanished every person on it except one little girl of nine and her pet, whatever it was. Sybil was brought back to Earth. When she was twelve, she joined the ESC preparatory corps. She's a twenty-year veteran and a driven woman so far as interspecies relations goes. Abe Durrow's been her partner for most of that time. Except for one another, they're both loners, the kind of people who gravitate to ESC. They tend to be a little odd, but they're perfectly trustworthy…”

I gave him a look.

He flushed. “That is, those who aren't a member of Botrin Prime's clan! Tell the people on Moss check your credentials with my office, and don't tell them anything until they've done so. I want them to know that discretion is essential and ordered from this office.”

The file-prints popped out of the desk slot, already assembled in a self-disposing burn-book. He handed it to me, saying, “The captains of any ESC ships in the area will be told to offer all possible assistance. As for this, learn and let dis
pose promptly, particularly if your brother is still going through your belongings.”

“Paul hasn't done that since I first came back from Baja, though he used to do it all the time when we were children. As though he thought I knew something he didn't or had something he didn't. I don't think he does it now, which doesn't mean he won't if he feels like it.”

“Strange worlds can exacerbate neurosis—if that's what we can call it. Be careful around him. We'll be in touch before you go, and if you need anything, just call me!”

From Gainor's office, I went directly to the sanctuary, where I found Adam looking somewhat better than the last time I'd seen him. “More bad news?” he asked as I approached.

“You tell me. Just listen for a minute.” Taking his grudging nod for consent, I went on. “My brother Paul is being sent to Moss as attaché for linguistics to the Chief Emergence Compliance Officer of PPI.”

“Who's the CECO?”

“The planetary commander of PPI, a man named Drom. Paul wants me to go along, as usual, hostess duties, catering, laundry…” I made a disgusted face.