James P. Hogan (23 page)

Korshak nodded. “It’s one of Masumichi’s.”

“Of course. You work with him, don’t you?”

“Masumichi took Tek to Istella as one of his mind-broadening exercises.”

Lois couldn’t suppress a smirk. “Istella would do that, all right.”

“They got separated, and Tek went astray. I agreed to help Masumichi try and find it.”

“So how did you track it to Plantation?” Lois asked.

“I didn’t. That was just a hunch. A lot of neophytes who join the cults come here first as a soul-purifying experience. Tek talked to the bunch called the Mediators. Their guru told him to do just that.”

“How come you know that much?” Lois asked curiously.

Korshak smiled mysteriously. “I’ve got my ways, too. But that’s about all I do know. I’m guessing that’s what happened.”

Lois shook her head. “Not quite. The Dollarians got to Tek after that. They probably had someone around when he talked to the ones you just mentioned. I really don’t know. But we think it was they who organized getting him here.”

“Are they going to recruit Tek?”

“That’s something Lubanov would very much like to know, which is why he put Tek under surveillance. But it had to be in a low-profile way. The Dollarians could have eyes around here, too.”

Korshak sat back to think over what had been said. Now the picture was starting to make sense. Lubanov had identified the Dollarians as the political base of a scheme to subvert the existing governing system as part of a move toward an eventual bid to overthrow it. They were planning something significant and imminent, that he needed to know more about. At the same time, a robot shows up wanting to become a disciple on Etanne, and the Dollarians – for whatever reason – intercede to steer it into their own recruitment path. Lubanov arranges to have Tek watched and its movements followed, which explained how Dari came to be involved. With Tek’s looking likely to remain at Bahoba’s, it would only seem necessary to station someone like Lois in the vicinity on some pretext to wait for developments. Keeping a place like Bahoba’s under continual surveillance without attracting attention wouldn’t be practicable in any case.

Korshak stretched his legs out and rested them on his bag. “So Lubanov’s got you tangled up in his line of tricks, eh? I assume Dari must have been under orders to alert you to anyone asking about Tek.”

“You catch on quickly,” Lois said, nodding.

“Magicians are like that.”

“How did I miss you? I figured I’d catch you this side of Huan-ko before you got to Bahoba’s, but you disappeared.”

“I stopped to visit some friends on the way. Sonja and Helmut.”

“Yes, from way back. I haven’t seen them for a while. Are they here now? How are they doing?”

“Just fine. Helmut’s turning into a farmer. Theis – their little girl…”

“Yes, I met her when she was small.”

“She’s shooting up like a beanstalk.”

“How old is she now?”

“Nine or ten, going on twenty.”

“Seriously? I can’t imagine! It doesn’t seem possible.”

A short silence ensued. Lois felt in another pocket and produced a bag of glazed nuts. She tipped several into her hand and offered the bag across. “Plantation home produce. They’re good.”

“So, what happens next?” Korshak asked as he accepted. “The docking port is where I was heading. Tek won’t be able to get off Plantation without being picked up again – assuming that whoever you talked to just now manages to get it covered in time.”

“They will. There isn’t another ferry due out for several hours.”

Korshak had already concluded as much. If there were any doubt, they would hardly still be sitting here talking like this. “Okay,” he agreed. “Then let’s suppose Tek does go on to Etanne. What’s the plan?”

“I’m not sure that there’s been time to work out anything detailed yet,” Lois replied. “It’s only a guess at this stage that the Dollarians are recruiting it. The main concern was to stop you from getting to Tek and persuading it to go back. Lubanov wanted to get one of his people here to talk to it first, before it moves on.”

“Talk to it about what?” Korshak asked.

Lois drew a long breath before replying, at the same time giving Korshak a look that seemed to say,
This wasn’t my idea. I’m just telling it
. “Lubanov has been wanting to put a plant inside the Dollarian Academy on Etanne to find out just what’s going on there. But people like that are suspicious of everyone, and getting caught would mean all kinds of trouble. But who would be suspicious of a crazy robot – especially one they’d invited in there themselves?”

Out of habit, Korshak had been about to make one of the nuts vanish before her eyes from between his fingers. In his surprise he dropped it instead, and it fell into his lap. “You mean Lubanov wants to turn it around? To have it working for him instead?”

Lois nodded. “Yes, exactly, Korshak. It was pure opportunism – when he learned that the Dollarians were interested in Tek. And the even nicer part about it all is, if Tek can be persuaded to cooperate, everything it sees and hears when it’s in there can be monitored remotely. A robot as an inside spy. Isn’t that the wildest thing you’ve ever heard?”

There was little more that Korshak and Lois could do until they heard back from whomever Lois had contacted earlier. Korshak had formed no plans beyond heading for the docking port and hoping he would get there before the next ferry left, and the purpose of that had now been overtaken by events. Until they received some news, he didn’t even know how long he might need to remain on Plantation. More animals appeared at the pool in front of the shelter. A goat wandered in and began jostling Korshak inquisitively with its nose – probably as a result of being fed by visitors. Korshak felt that there had to be a better place to wait things out. Lois suggested going back to where she was staying. It was easy to get to, on account of the need to keep a watch on Bahoba’s place.

“Where is it?” Korshak asked. “Down in Jesson? Or maybe somewhere this side of Forest?” In reply, Lois just smiled mysteriously and got up from the bench. Korshak picked up his bag and followed, leaving the goat staring after them indignantly from outside the shelter.

Instead of returning to the track they had followed down from Bahoba’s, they threaded between the rocks around the pool and through a gap opening to a narrow path that Korshak wouldn’t have known was there. It wound its way amid thickets of brush, trees, and formations of boulders that were probably shell forms, to what appeared to be a rocky crag, ten feet or so high, covered with bushes and shrubs, its sides broken into flowery ledges, sloping upward to a flat top. Korshak had seen structures like this high up on the valley sides before. Beneath its screen of greenery, the top was actually the inlet to one of a system of extractor grilles, where air rising from the lower valley was drawn off for processing and recycling. The extractors were popular congregating places for birds, who brought seeds, and the air currents carried spores and microfaunae, accounting for the richness of the plant life.

Hidden somewhere nearby would be a monitor panel that enabled maintenance engineers making their inspection rounds to check the local environmental conditions and adjust the unit’s operating parameters as required. Lois located it at once behind a dummy rock in a crevice, obviously knowing it was there. Then she did something that Korshak had never seen before. After a cursory glance around to make sure they were alone, she entered a code into the touchpad to one side of the panel, responded to a query of some kind that appeared on the screen, and then looked expectantly at a slab or rock alongside. It stood almost vertically, two feet or so wide at the base and tapering toward the top, with a web of cracks choked with flora and mosses patterning its surface. As Korshak watched, it swung inward to reveal itself as a concealed door. He should have been prepared for anything by this time, but even so looked at Lois in amazement. She grinned, obviously enjoying herself, ushered him on through with a wave, and turned to close the monitor panel. Korshak stepped in over the sill running across the base of the door, and found himself in a different world.

Lighting had come on automatically to show the top of a ladder going down a metal-walled shaft. Korshak stepped onto it and descended perhaps twenty feet to emerge from a recess onto a railed walkway running above a gallery maybe twelve feet wide, lined with pipes, cables, and ducting, and curving away out of sight in either direction. Lois joined him several seconds later and took her phone out to enter something before pocketing it again and looking at him.

“It’s just a day of surprises,” he told her.

“Well, it’s a change to see you on the receiving end of them, Korshak,” she replied. Then, indicating the surroundings with a motion of her head, “Beats tramping all the way back down into Jesson.”

“Taxi service?” Korshak guessed.

“Being here on Directorate work can have its advantages.”

They walked a short distance to where stairs led down to the gallery floor. A general-purpose personnel runabout of the kind used all over Constellation arrived minutes later. They ran automatically, directed by buried sensors and transmitters, and carried up to six people. Lois had already given the destination. Korshak settled back and lapsed into thought as the runabout took off smoothly with a low electric whine.

“You know, I can’t say I’m totally comfortable about this idea,” he announced after a while. “You’re right. I’ve worked with Masumichi and his robots on and off ever since we left Earth. The research models are still not reliable enough for what you’re talking about, Lois. You can never be sure what one of them might do next. You don’t know what you could be getting into.”

She made an empty-handed gesture. “As I said, it was a question of seizing the opportunity while it was there. There’s no clear plan yet as to how to exploit the situation. If we can get a hookup into Tek, the direction might be handled remotely.”

“If it will let you,” Korshak replied. “They have an override that lets them shut down external links. That was why Masumichi couldn’t find it on Istella.”

“And that’s why we need to talk to it before it gets to Etanne,” Lois said.

They seemed to be heading generally downward, toward the valley floor. The gallery terminated in a large, brightly lit space of machinery, tanks, and pipework extending through several levels, where technicians in white coveralls and hard hats were attending to various tasks. The runabout halted by a door on one side, and they disembarked to enter a short corridor flanked by instrumentation bays and a control room full of screens and consoles. This brought them to another door, and beyond it, a further change of scenery yet again.

It felt like the crew quarters in some of the large ships that Korshak remembered in the port of Belamon, or some kind of hostel. From the small hall that they were now in, two passages led away on one side, with doors at intervals, while the sounds of kitchen clatter came from somewhere nearby on the other. “Plantation probably has as many people down here as on the surface,” Lois explained. “Maybe more, for all I know. I have a cabin for however long I’m here. We can go there for now. Or maybe you’d like to eat?”

“I had something at Sonja and Helmut’s,” Korshak said. “But after trekking up to Bahoba’s and developments since, a coffee would go down well…. And maybe a sandwich or something, sure.”

Lois indicated a set of double doors ahead. “We could probably find you a place down here, too, if you need one. Will you be wanting to stay on?”

“I don’t know yet.”

The double doors brought them into a cafeteria area, with long tables by the walls, several smaller ones in the center, and a serving counter at one end. Maybe a dozen people were scattered around, eating and talking, one or two reading. Lois went to the counter, while Korshak headed for an empty corner where they would be able to talk. Lois joined him minutes later with two coffees and a cheese sandwich on a tray, along with a small salad for herself. “Plantation grown,” she explained as she sat down. “There is a difference.”

“Enjoy it while you can,” Korshak told her. He had been looking around while he waited. “It’s like one of my illusions, only more elaborate. Nothing you see up there is what it seems. I’ve been coming to Plantation for years, and even then I never really realized.”

Lois drank from her cup, set it down, and began eating. “Well, the people who built it evidently thought it was worth the effort. And a lot of others must have supported them. I guess a one-way ticket from Earth can do strange things.”

“Mirsto would love it,” Korshak said. “He’s fascinated by things like this.”

“You mean the underworlds that you don’t see?”

“Exactly. We have to use the deep-level maintenance tubes when we go anywhere on
Aurora
.”

“So, is he going to be an illusionist, too?”

“I don’t think he knows yet. He’s into robotics as well. His closest friend is one of Masumichi’s tribe. Masumichi is working on a way of tapping straight into the operator’s sensory system for controlling his robots, instead of going through regular interface channels the way they do with telebots.”

“Direct neural coupling?” Lois nodded. “Yes, I’ve heard about it. It’s not exactly new as a concept. But it’ll be neat if he can do it.”

“Mirsto has a new sister, too. Did you know?”

“
Really?
Well, congratulations! No, I didn’t.”

“Kilea. Coming up to three months.”

“Is she doing okay?”

“Just fine.”

“And Vaydien?”

Korshak sighed but returned a smile. “It’s a very different life from being a princess in Arigane. But she makes the best of what it offers.”

“Do you think she misses her old life?”

“Oh, parts of it, I’m sure. Don’t most people? But she wouldn’t go back. She’s every bit an
Auroran
now. She even did a spell of EVA work out on
Envoy
– earlier on, before the pregnancy slowed her down.” Korshak was about to bite into his sandwich again, when another thought struck him. “I suppose they have regular communications down here below the surface?”