Forge of Heaven, Page 3

  The button beside the door knew his thumbprint and let him in, and after the security system looked him over and decided he was absolutely the owner, the floor lifted him up to the main level, the middle one.

  It wasn't a huge apartment. It had fine amenities-the wall-to-wall entertainment unit in the main room was his life's greatest extravagance, the one he personally most enjoyed. But, being he'd had a few drinks, it was upstairs that drew him more than the evening news, which he knew was going to be full of speculation on that inbound ship and no real information at all.

  Boring stuff. And he was too tired to order a sim, which cost, and which would run longer than he would stay awake. He took the few steps up, undressed, and slipped into the floating, drifting serenity of his own bed.

  Eyes shut. Perfect. Not a care in the world.

  Except-

  Damn.

  Eyes wide open. His parents' anniversary. He'd forgotten to get the requisite present.

  "Sam," he moaned. Sam was what he called the computer. "Sam, day reminder for 0830h, onquote: anniversary, endquote. Night, Sam."

  "Good night," Sam said sweetly, not questioning the enigma of the note. "Sleep tight."

  His mother had used to say that. Whimsy or guilty secret, it put him in a mind to rest, so he assigned it to Sam. Sleep tight.

  Duty was done. Work tomorrow. Life was very good.

  Morning became a suspicion in the east. The beshti set to munching the nearby brush, a noisy activity, distraction to a man trying to sleep in his tent until after the sun rose. But so was a wife with notions of lovemaking. Hati was determined, and Marak Trin Tain never refused that request.

  That took its time. Hati got her due, and more, and the night watcher politely left them alone, always there, but inattentive. Marak lay afterward with his wife in his arms, eyes shut, listening to the beshti at their breakfast, listening to the boys begin to stir about in the dawn.

  Boys: the young men of this generation, two of them with well-grown beards. Young blood was anxious for adventure, willing to cook and pack and heft the big tent about. Marak could show them what they couldn't learn in the Refuge. He could show them the old skills, the knowledge that had kept their ancestors alive. He could tell them about the desert as it had been and as it was, and they drank in such stories.

  Young people nowadays were ambitious to recover the world, living in notions the old stories gave them. A few, yes, wanted to be technicians and stay in the halls of the Refuge forever. But a good many more wanted to go adventuring and slip the well-thought law of the Refuge for the absolute freedom of the horizons.

  They would not, however, escape the watchers in the heavens. Their reach extended and extended, aided by new relays, and the watchers often foretold events that had used to surprise the world. Part of what the young men loaded onto the beshti with the tents this morning was, in fact, another relay tower, which, unfolded to the sky, anchored to the rock and powered by the sun, made contact with such adventurers as themselves much more dependable. And that made the Refuge much less worried about them.

  Marak himself had watched the hammer fall, when the ondat had brought retribution on the world. Hati had seen it. The two of them together had seen the rain of fire in the heavens, had seen ice fall in the desert, had seen the heavens wrapped in the smoke of volcanic fires beyond the sea, and the air turned to suffocating poison.

  Through all of it, they lived.

  They lived, while the earth and even the sea died and stank of corruption, deprived of light and clean air, leaving life only in the depths of vents and the cracks the hammerfall had made.

  They had lived to see the first rockets go out, bearing spores on the raging winds and landing the first relays.

  They had seen the rains fall and the air begin to clear. They had seen the desert change and flow with water, seen volcanoes belch out molten rock, seen the world crack and new rifts begin to move.

  They had seeded the land and shed life into the waterways that ran down to the sea.

  And, eventually, chafing at the restrictions of the Refuge, they had saddled up the beshti and gone out to see their handiwork. To this day, when something was in the offing, he and Hati found themselves a handful of willing young people to go with them-not that they needed the help, but company on the long treks was welcome. and safer. And it passed on the knowledge into the generations that lived and died around them. The two of them were immortal, for all practical purposes, immortal as the Ila, who shut herself among her records and dealt in knowledge for what she wanted; immortal as Memnanan, who served her with remarkable patience and remained mostly loyal. immortal as Ian and Luz, who were older than the fortress in the sky, but not as old as the Ila. Ian and Luz ruled the Refuge, and their word was law, though they spoke very seldom in matters that regarded the tribes.

  They, themselves, Marak and Hati, ruled all the tribes. There were long periods of dull routine in the camps around the Refuge; and there were times when they shook the dust of the ordinary off them and rode out into the world.

  But whatever they did, they had the watchers in the heavens with them, in their heads, hearing what they said, making records. Ian and Luz could speak to them, through that means.

  And they had that other observer, the Ila's au'it, the recorder of their travels, herself both old and young. She slept, or not, in the shadows of the tent near them.

  But from the caravan master to his boys, the younger company was awake and rolling up their mats. The youngest boy began to make tea, while the master packed for the day's journey.

  There was enough light now to claim it was daybreak. A great event was imminent in the south. The Southern Wall had grown fragile, and lately trembled with quakes. Consequently they hastened to extend the relays toward that region, widening their view of the world in that direction.

  A beshti complained to the coming sun, protesting its day's work.

  "If we get up," Marak murmured into his wife's ear, "the boys can strike the tent."

  "If we refuse to get up," Hati said, "we can strike it after morning tea."

  "The Wall may break, and us not there to see it."

  Hati sighed. And sighed again, and sat up, her dark braids, gold-banded, falling loose about her face and swaying against his cheek as she leaned to kiss him. "Up," Hati said. Hup. That word they used to the beshti. And he gathered himself up. A clean, cold wind was blowing. It would turn hot by noon.

  The ship inbound was the Southern Cross, Constellation class, Earth origin. That meant weapons, which meant enforcement, which sometimes meant a political presence that outranked a system governor. Routine ship-calls from that distant source arrived only once a year. And their current year was far from up.

  Setha Reaux, who was system governor, consulted his records, anxiously searching for something regarding that ship, its recent business, and its possible reason for showing up all the way to Concord, to this most sensitive post outside Earth itself. where, if a ship arrived, it was not just passing through.

  The Outsider Council was clearly tracking that arrival. Reaux had a call from Antonio Brazis, Chairman of that body and director of Planetary Observations.

  The resident ondat official, Kekellen, had likewise noticed it, and sent one of his or her enigmatic queries, which had gone to technical committee for analysis, and a careful answer.

  Setha Reaux, consequently, had spent last night in the office. He had a call from his wife backed up among the queries from various departments right now. He had postponed dealing with it, as one more straw on his back, likely the breaking point. He'd made over ten drafts of a message to that inbound ship, but, unable to find the right words, had sent nothing to it as yet. Now he feared his failure to salute that ship at first sight might in itself be seen as arrogance or cowardice, and he increasingly believed he had to do something.

  A massive globe-garden sat cradled in the corner of the office. Most such globes were small, islands of pure Earth genes, a few algaes, a little wisp o
f life. Add a moving creature, and complexity increased. Add light and warmth, and life carried on, microcosms of Earth's evolution, from salt seas to life on land. His globe, imported at great cost from Earth itself, involved anoles, quick, flitting creatures that fed and mated, birthed and died and fed the plants that fed the creatures that fed them.

  Concord Station itself was such a bubble, not as successfully self-contained. They had governments that came from the outside and, if not carefully managed, fed on Concord itself.

  He drafted another message. He stripped it to the bare, necessary bones: Setha Reaux, Governor of Concord System, to the captain of arriving ship Southern Cross:

  Welcome. We look forward to receiving you, and hope that this visit will be enjoyable.

  There. Less was more. No speculation, no apology for delay, just general good wishes, his willingness to cooperate, his total blithe innocence of threat. or the fact he should have said something eight hours ago.

  And he was innocent of wrongdoing, damn it, except a few questionable items some real stickler for accounting might fault, if an audit started looking for excuses. There were the sports arena solicitations, but they were entirely legal-he was sure they were legal, and he and the board had made peace last year.

  Nothing that piddling small could have brought an Earth ship out here.

  Promotions came out of such unscheduled visits, but his governorship was already the highest rank a man could attain. Some aspirant in some lower post, but with high connections, might, on the other hand, get a promotion upstairs, to his doorstep-Reaux's perpetual nightmare: that the urgent need to move somebody's nephew out of a sensitive spot, reasonable enough at the other end of the telescope, could eventually get said nephew promoted upstairs to trouble his life-or even to replace him, since his political connections had been in the prior, more reasonable administration.

  Never say absolutely it couldn't happen. Governments did incredibly stupid things at long distance, and this one had certainly done its share, but his displacement was unlikely. The fact that Concord was the most sensitive spot in the immediate universe-the one in direct contact with the ondat, who could still, in a misunderstanding, devastate human civilization-meant that Concord's governor most often rode through governmental changes untouched, no matter what craziness-even minor wars-convulsed and overthrew the Inner Worlds.

  As for the arena controversy, and all of local politics-silly small issues obsessed Concord's local news services precisely because Concord had no close connection with events outside its own perimeter. That insularity was why a stupid social tempest in the sports club blew all out of proportion and bounced through every governmental department. It was why the president of Concord Bank and Trust, Lyle Nazrani, had fired the head of the CB&T's corporate finance department, and then was all over the media in a campaign of high-profile interviews laced with innuendo.

  Stupidity. Lyle Nazrani might even try to lodge charges, but Earth wouldn't give a damn about the luxury seating in the arena or the ownership of the suppliers. It would never question the finance: more to the point, Lyle Nazrani, colony-born, didn't have the personal connections on Earth to make that issue a threat. The ship had certainly stirred the local rumor mill, made a major to-do in the media, and unsettled the markets. That was the sort of collateral damage this ship could produce just by its appearance, trouble for him to deal with long after it left with its own business settled. But of all possibilities, Lyle Nazrani's political ambition surely wasn't why they were here.

  One surety was that if this off-schedule visit had disturbed the ondat, that was a problem with far-reaching repercussions, a problem that concerned more than Earth's authorities. Foreseeing uneasiness in the Outsider offices, he sent Chairman Brazis one very short message; in effect, call me, stat.

  He had answered Kekellen, sent a message to the inbound ship, and invited consultation with Brazis. Now he had to feed something out to the news services, whose initial clamor for interviews had now devolved to half-wit speculations on the incoming ship. So-named well-placed sources had leapt up to recall every forgotten piece of business in his administration and the prior administration that might be at issue-including the construction of the new station and the sports arena, damn them one and all. One news broker in particular he had marked for his personal wrath when all this blew over. And the news had to be diverted. Given something else to cover. Some other headline. We have sent a welcome to the inbound ship, and anticipate a constructive meeting: constructive was a good, a positive word. Let the commentators gnaw on that one. He sat at the center of an informational web and managed it as skillfully as he could.

  He'd stayed at his desk, he'd ordered supper and now breakfast in. The news services were lurking out there to catch him on any transit he made between home and office. He had three different terminals active, heard reports from various agencies, went over the last six years' tax records, and wondered extraneously if he could call in a personal favor from an editor to keep a certain senior reporter's series on finance from airing. He didn't want any current quotes floating through the news services.

  Chime of an incoming contact from his secretary's office. the uninvited input passed through Ernst, and most minor nuisances stopped at Ernst's desk. The major ones, unfortunately, didn't.

  Reaux unhappily pushed the button. "Yes?"

  "Your wife's on, sir."

  He'd called and told Judy he'd be doing an overnighter. He had called.

  Hadn't he?

  "Put her through." Deep breath. He heard the click. "Judy?"

  "Setha?" There was upset in that voice. "Setha, she's blond!"

  Their daughter's hair. He dimly recalled an argument. Kathy's desire for a new haircut. An appointment at Whispers, begged for by his wife.

  All of which was a thousand k from current reality.

  "Judy, have you looked at the news since yesterday? There's a ship from Earth coming in."

  "It's platinum blond!"

  Kathy had gone blond. He couldn't imagine Whispers doing something like that without consultation.

  "Judy, just calm down. It's just hair. It's not a mod. It grows out."

  "I want your support in this! I don't want you making any more excuses for her!"

  "Not a single excuse. Didn't the shop call you first, for God's sake?"

  "She didn't go to Renee! She ducked her appointment and went to one of those walk-in places!"

  Their daughter Kathy, blond. Olive skin, dark eyes, and the best shops-and blond. It was an appalling thought.

  But not a thought on a scale that could engage his attention today.

  "Judy, just calm down. Take her to Renee and get it fixed. Buy her a new outfit." So his fifteen-year-old daughter bleached her hair. It was one more shot fired in a generational war. His wife, a queen of society whose conservative taste ran to pearls and gray suiting, hadn't radically changed her hairstyle in twenty years. Now Judy ran up against a daughter who had her mother's iron will and a dose of free spirit from God knew where. Kathy's ideas came bubbling up in color combinations that-her mother's words-belonged down on Blunt Street. Kathy thought that was a good thing. Judy didn't. The argument was loud. Judy's demand for obedience in matters of reputation and appearance was inflexible.

  Personally, he felt sorry for his daughter.

  On an ordinary day.

  "I can't just take her to Renee! Renee has appointments! And I can't take her into Whispers like this, in public!"

  "Renee can come to the apartment, can't she? Just explain the problem, pay the woman off-buy her theater tickets. It can be fixed, Judy. Just use your imagination. And don't call me with the details. I have a serious problem here. We all could have a serious, career-ending problem if dealings with this ship blow up, and I can't think with the two of you going at it. Just take care of this yourself. All right?" Calm, quiet voice, against Judy's panic. It was a secure line. Security saw to that, constantly. "Take a deep breath. You have my complete support. Call Renee. It
won't take that long. It'll all be fixed."

  "I don't know why she does these things!"

  "It can be fixed. It's not an illicit. She's not pregnant. Go do it, Judy. I love you."

  Click. Judy hung up, not happy. Judy was going to go have herself a cry and call Renee, and cry some more after that.

  Trendy, too-tight clothes. Too much makeup. Kathy was fifteen-going-on-twenty, and Judy was trying to keep her socially respectable in a crowd Kathy had the brains and the family connections to rule with an iron hand, if she ever set her mind and her energies to it. Notably, Kathy could toss Ippoleta Nazrani and her little fuzzy-sweatered clique into social oblivion in another year, if Kathy didn't squander the social capital she had before her taste caught up to her budget.

  He relied on his wife to bring on that day. He detested Lyle Nazrani. He truly detested Lyle Nazrani, and particularly Lyle's wife Katrione, without whose vitriol the whole arena scandal would never have existed. And he extended it to their social queen daughter, the bane of Kathy's young life.