James P. Hogan (25 page)

If that were the case, Fuji Warco conceded that he hadn’t fully grown up yet. He found the place stern and exacting – a bit like being in the house of the austere maiden aunt he remembered as a child, with endless incomprehensible rules of etiquette and decorum that he was in constant terror of transgressing. He’d take a fling on Istella with an anything-goes orgy thrown in for good measure, or even a hick-style Plantation dance party with fiddles and farm boots anytime, he decided.

He was on Sarc for a week or two, supervising the fitting out of a new School of Traditional Literature & Arts that they would be opening shortly. His other function, which he didn’t advertise openly, was that of an unofficial agent for Lubanov’s office. The message addressing him in the latter capacity had come without warning and given him such short notice that he had no real idea what was happening. It said that a mysterious passenger, referred to as “Traveler,” would be arriving from Plantation on the next ferry.

“Blue,” another of Lubanov’s people, would approach Traveler at the docking bay and bring him via a roundabout route to be handed over to Warco. How Blue would accomplish this wasn’t clear, but the message implied that Blue had been furnished with information that would get Traveler’s attention. The use of a roundabout route would be to verify that Traveler wasn’t being followed – by whom, the message didn’t say. Warco’s task would be to stay with Traveler and keep him out of sight until somebody from Lubanov’s staff got there from
Aurora
, who presumably would know what was going on. Blue called Warco on audio to confirm the arrangements shortly after the message arrived. The voice hadn’t been one that Warco recognized.

He watched as Kelerosk, the electrical foreman, finished checking connections in the power-and-air-distribution cabinet at the end of a partly finished corridor on Level 3, and set aside the drawing he had been consulting. On Kelerosk’s far side, an indicator light on the maintenance robot that was undergoing training and had been observing came on to signal that it had gone into “rest” mode while it indexed and cross-referenced the actions it had learned and would be required to reproduce.

“All tested and correct, sir,” Kelerosk announced. “Would you be so kind?”

Warco accepted the proffered viewpad showing the certification sheet where Kelerosk had already signed off for the job, and added his own name in the box provided. One thing he had come to respect about Sarc was that things got done right, and people were reliable. “About time for your break, isn’t it?” he said as he keyed in his confirmation. He didn’t think he sounded gruff, but being around Sarcans always made him feel that he did.

“If it’s convenient.”

“Sure. Afterward, we need to talk about the main lighting and ring system in the theater. I think it’s going to need higher ratings on the cutouts.” He waved a hand toward the drawing that Kelerosk was holding. “Here, I’ll take that. I’m going back that way.”

“Much appreciated, indeed.”

Warco almost said “My pleasure,” but changed it to “See you later.” These things could be catching.

He returned to the room that was being used as a site office. Nobody else was there at the moment. Just as Warco closed the door, his phone emitted its audio call tone. He pulled it from his pocket and answered.

“Warco.”

“This is Blue.”

“Okay.”

“Traveler has agreed to meet you and is on his way. I have been observing from a distance, and there is no sign of anyone tailing him. It seems clear to go ahead.”

“Okay.” Warco had suggested that the best place to keep Traveler out of sight until the person or persons being sent from Lubanov’s office showed up would be the lower rooms at the rear of the site, which were just being used for storage at the moment.

“He’s almost there now. He is expecting you to be at the door from the service corridor at the rear, the one you described.”

“Okay.”

“Just one other thing, so that you are suitably prepared. I should tell you that Traveler is a robot.”

It took a second or two for the words to register. Warco blinked. “
What?
”

“Not the kind that you’re used to working with,” Blue said hastily. “Apparently, it’s a research type, far more advanced. That’s really all I know.”

Warco was still trying to collect his jumbled thoughts together. “I was under the impression that they’re trying to keep this low-profile – whatever’s going on. I mean… having a robot walking around loose isn’t exactly the best way to do that. Isn’t it attracting attention out there?”

“It’s disguised,” Blue said. “Very effectively, too. I talked to it at some length, and even then I couldn’t tell.”

Crazier and crazier, Warco thought. “Well, I’d better get on down there. Is there anything else?”

“That’s all I have. Just keep it out of sight there until you’re contacted again. They should have somebody there in under an hour.”

“Okay. Checking out.”

Warco left the office and made his way down through the rear classroom section, which was still under construction, through the meeting hall and what would be the dining facility behind, to the area at the rear. At least, a robot ought to be easier to hide, he told himself. Just walk it into a closet and tell it to switch itself off.

The door that he had specified opened out into the maintenance corridor and was on the far side of a space being used to store materials. He had barely arrived there, when a couple of raps sounded softly from the other side. Warco checked around to make sure there was nobody in sight, then unlatched the door and opened it. A heavily muffled figure, its face hidden by a hat, dark glasses, and a beard, was waiting on the other side. Warco ushered it inside quickly and poked his head out to look around. A man who had been watching from the corner of a side corridor some distance away sent a quick wave and vanished. Warco turned back inside, closing the door. Even close up, he could have been fooled. It was uncanny.

“I was told that you have important matters to discuss concerning the Dollarians,” Traveler said. “The subject is of extreme interest to me, as you are no doubt aware.” The voice was amazingly realistic, too. It even had a hint of throatiness.

“I don’t know anything about it,” Warco replied. “My job is just to keep you here and out of the way until somebody arrives who does know. It shouldn’t be more than an hour.”

“Very well.” Traveler lapsed into immobility and seemed prepared to remain so for the duration. This really wasn’t the best of places to hope to remain unnoticed for any length of time. Warco realized that telling somebody to walk into a closet didn’t came so easily after all.

“We shouldn’t stay here,” he said. “It gets too much traffic. There’s a place farther along that’s more out-of-the-way.”

“Very well.”

Warco led the way to a little-visited room where drums of sealants, adhesives, and coatings, and lengths of pipes and conduit were stacked. Inside, the air had the sharp tang of a type of solvent that somebody had been working with recently. “This should be okay at this time….” Warco started to speak, then stopped as he saw that Traveler was making strange twitching motions with its head. Then, suddenly, it sneezed explosively, clutching a hand to its nose and in the process dislodging the glasses. Warco gaped in bewilderment. What the hell kind of robot was this? He peered more closely. If that beard was false, then so was Warco’s own head of hair; and the face and eyes were as human as his were.

“So, who are you?” he demanded. “I was told to expect some kind of robot. And excuse me if I sound a bit out of place on Sarc. But just exactly what in hell is going on around here?”

Traveler pulled off his hat and straightened up to reveal himself fully. “I do what I do, in the sacred cause of the Dollarians,” he announced. “It is not my place to question. I merely follow the instructions of ones who are more gifted than I.”

“Oh gods,” Warco breathed. “One of those.” At that moment, his phone announced another call.

“I’m the person that you’re expecting from headquarters,” the voice informed him. “Just to let you know, we’ve commissioned a private hopper since the regular ferry has been delayed, so I might even be there sooner. Is there any sign of Traveler yet?”

Warco gazed at the latest complication to his life and sighed. “Yes, he’s here,” he said into the phone. “So, sure, come on over as soon as you like. But I don’t think you’re going to like what you find here.”

A few agitated steps took Korshak across the tiny living area and to the wall of Lois’s cabin on Plantation. He wheeled around and threw up his hands. “We were set up! They figured somebody might be watching Tek, and sent one of their believers to Sarc as a decoy. The real Tek is probably on Etanne already.”

At the seat behind the fold-down table, Lois finished relaying pieces of the news from her contact on
Aurora
and set down the phone. Korshak had heard enough to get the gist without her needing to elaborate further. “Lubanov’s furious. I guess it all happened too quickly.” She sighed. “He probably isn’t used to losing out.”

Korshak knew the story of Lubanov’s involvement in the
Aurora
’s hurried departure from Earth, of course. He quelled his restlessness sufficiently to stop pacing and sat down on the stool by the breakfast bar in front of the kitchen space. “It was a chance we’ll never get again.”

“A body inside the Dollarian Academy that nobody would have suspected,” Lois agreed. “I’d like to know why Lubanov is so concerned about them. Do you think…” She saw that Korshak was only half listening, and got up to retrieve their coffees from the autochef, which she had ordered just before her phone rang. “What are you thinking?”

Korshak accepted the mug absently and took a long sip before answering. “If Tek is on Etanne already, maybe there’s still a chance. If we could just get the right message to it somehow.”

Lois waited.

“The Dollarians have done half the work for us already…. There was that other aspiring miracle-worker up at the animal reserve, that Bahoba talked about. What did he say the name of the warden there was? Jor-Ling, that was it.”

“Korshak, what are you talking about?”

Korshak returned gradually to the present. “When I was at Bahoba’s, he told me there’s an animal reservation not far away along the ridge, managed by somebody called Jor-Ling. Apparently there’s another Dollarian hopeful there, waiting for the call to move on to Etanne, just as Tek was.”

“So, what about him?”

“We can’t talk to Tek directly, because it’s shut off its communications. But another Dollarian rookie who was in there with it could.”

“To get Tek to agree to being an inside spy for Lubanov?”

“Yes.”

Lois shook her head perplexedly. “I’m not with you. Why would a rookie hopeful want to do that?”

“
He
wouldn’t. But someone else taking his place, who got brought into the Dollarian Academy instead, might.”

“An impersonator, you mean? But who…” Lois’s voice trailed off as she realized what Korshak was driving at. “You mean
you
?”

“Why not? I’ve done worse in my time.”

“How do you even know you look like him?”

“I don’t. But how do we know that whoever’s expecting him on Etanne knows what he looks like? In any case, there’s only one way to find out, isn’t there?”

Lois ran through it in her mind again and shook her head firmly. “It’s got too many unknowns, Korshak. The people on Etanne might not have met him yet, but he has to have some kind of contact here on Plantation. Even if you managed to do a credible job with makeup and disguise, you still wouldn’t know enough background to pass yourself off – things they’d talked about, what the arrangement is.”

“Unless he filled me in on all that,” Korshak said, but the enthusiasm was already fading from his voice.

Lois pressed the point. “But why should he? Why would he agree to step down, when this is probably a big moment in his life? All it’s likely to do is raise questions and make things difficult for him to get back in line again afterward. I can’t see what line you’re going to take that will persuade him.”

She was right, Korshak told himself. He’d spoken before thinking it through. He drank from his mug and frowned as he searched for a different angle. “Okay,” he announced finally. “I agree. There’s no good reason why he should make way for a substitute. But it doesn’t have to be either him or me, does it? Why can’t we both go?” New light crept into his eyes as he warmed to the idea. “I turn up as another Dollarian wannabe who’s heard that he’s got a ticket to Etanne, and figured maybe I could string along, too. All I’d need is for him to point me to whoever the contact is here, and I can play it myself from there. What do you think?”

Lois faltered. “Shouldn’t we clear this with Lubanov’s people first?” she suggested.

“I don’t see why. What are they going to contribute? How long would it take, and how long have we got? We’ve already seen what happens when too many coordinators get involved. I say we handle it ourselves. Contrition is easier than permission.”

“But do you know enough about the Dollarians to come across as a believable believer?” Lois persisted.

Korshak grinned, his normal level of self-assurance now restored. “That’s the next thing we have to work on,” he told her. “You’ve got a screen over there, and I assume it can access the general Constellation web. Do you feel like being a research assistant for the next few hours, Lois? It’s time for me to take a crash course in the ancient world religion of the sacred Dollar.”

A long time had gone by since Andri Lubanov walked out of the Sofian military’s Internal Security Office and drove south to the launch base at Yaquinta to shuttle up to the
Aurora
. In the years since, he had never changed the name of the vaguely delineated “Research Section,” adopted as a provisional measure to accommodate him into Ormont’s Command Directorate staff. The nebulous title could conveniently cover virtually any activity that might be expedient to preserving the smooth running of the complex web of conflicting human perceptions and interests that the
Aurora
mission was turning into, without need to seek formal approval.