James P. Hogan (32 page)

For the citizens who existed in those times, their religion had dominated every aspect of life. No transaction was made, nor sphere of activity proposed, without a consecration ritual submitting it to the valuation and approval of the Supreme Arbiter. To be judged unworthy of a Credit blessing was one of the gravest failings, a condition deemed to be insoluble. Many sects of specialized priesthoods, some of whose orders were recalled in the titles of the Dollarian ecclesiastical hierarchy, devoted their lives to mastering the Church’s secret rites and counseling the faithful.

The door ahead was opened, and the file of solemn figures emerged to walk to their accustomed seats. Tek could almost feel the eyes and attention of the hall palpably as it faced the stage, and couldn’t resist turning up its hearing sensitivity and performing a quick scan of the surroundings to pick up what others might be remarking on the entrance of itself and the Genhedrin. Surely they would be overcome by awe and reverence.

“Are you serious? My grandmother could have thrown a shotball farther than him. Three to one, you say? You’re on….”

“And you left it on Plantation? Sure, I know someone there who’d be interested. How much are you asking for it?”

“We both saw him coming out of her place on Istella. But for Dollar’s sake don’t tell anyone….”

Ah well, Tek thought, it was probably early days yet for some when it came to inner advancement, even if their formal ranks might suggest otherwise. In time they would rise beyond such shallowness and awaken to the enlightenment that comes from within.

Tek felt bodings of great events soon to unfold as Banker Lareda mounted the rostrum steps to lead the hall in the Dollarian anthem. Exhilaration surged through the robot as it stood, soaking up the atmosphere, for the Genhedrin didn’t sing. When the last chorus had subsided, they all sat for Lareda to begin the day’s address and lesson. There was nothing really new this time; the topics were all either ones Tek had heard before or come across in the course of its studies since arriving on Etanne. Nevertheless, the feeling of participating along with the entire company of the movement was sufficiently intoxicating and uplifting in itself – as it always was.

And then a strange thing happened. A data flag in Tek’s imaging system registered a strong input outside the normal optical-frequency band. The robot identified its source as a patch on the rear wall of the stage, behind the rostrum where Lareda was speaking, that was emitting or reflecting in the infrared. The patch moved even as Tek registered it, and then came into focus as the sacred sign of the Dollar. The design traversed the wall slowly until it was almost at one side of the stage, and then reversed direction to trace an arc upward and over, and then down again toward the other side.

What did it mean? It couldn’t have been intended for the audience in general, because humans couldn’t see in the infrared. Tek glanced from side to side, just to be sure. Not a head was turning or showing any sign of awareness of the phenomenon. So could it be?

Surely not.

A sign from Almighty Dollar meant for Tek alone? A portent bespeaking the importance of the special task that was to be assigned to it?

Tek raised its head almost fearfully to follow as the $symbol climbed the wall again to move out over the stage and hover on the ceiling above the front of the auditorium. It halted there, and for a fraction of a second its brightness fluctuated in a rapid series of pulsations, then steadied again. This repeated twice more. Tek compared the short-term retention records and determined that the sequence of pulses had been identical in each case. Analysis quickly identified the pattern of fluctuations as a standard communications code. The plaintext rendering read:

I speak only to you, Tek. A messenger has been sent and will reveal himself. Watch for further signs.

And the vision was gone.

Tek was still in too much of a daze to function coherently when the Genhedrin rose and left the Hall, thirty minutes later.

Rikku, sitting next to Korshak, making notes on his viewpad during the Meeting on the first day, had given him the idea. Working some time into his assigned hours in the workshops over the next few days, he had contrived a small infrared projector and oscillator that fitted inside the case of a regular stylus that he took, along with his own viewpad, to the Meeting the following morning. As he had observed previously, numerous members of the audience were similarly equipped, and his idle toying with the stylus while he listened to the speaker had attracted no attention. The single head among the seated Genhedrin that had reacted when he flashed the image on the rear wall of the stage, and then followed it on its side-to-side excursions and up overhead, had told Korshak all he needed to know.

His next objective was to establish some form of two-way dialog. He hadn’t determined yet how he would go about this. In his three days since joining the Academy, he had seen Genhedrin from time to time, moving silently among the normal traffic of people in the concourses and corridors, so the most straightforward approach seemed to be to set up a rendezvous with Tek somewhere. But Korshak hadn’t settled on a way to do this without revealing himself, which would give the game away since Tek knew him from his work with Masumichi. The purpose of persuading Tek to spy for Lubanov would be served more effectively if Tek continued believing that it was being guided by a supernatural, almighty power.

“I suppose you think this makes you exceptional in some way.” Broker Morgal, the supervisor of the workshops, sniffed and straightened up from peering critically at the water line booster pump running on the bench.

“I was just showing that it seems to be fixed,” Korshak said. The pump fed the showers and other plumbing in the senior washroom. Banker Lareda had complained that instead of turning off when it was supposed to, it would go into a “hunting” cycle of switching itself off and on indefinitely. After Morgal dismissed it as a design flaw that couldn’t be fixed, Korshak had fitted a couple of nonreturn valves to the hot and cold outputs, which rectified matters.

Morgal had been picking on anything Korshak did since the first day. Whether it was simply his nature, or because he felt threatened by a show of competence in another, Korshak didn’t know – or especially care. “There’s more to being an effective competitor that just showing how smart you think you are,” Morgal griped. “Who do novices think they are, coming in here and trying to show
me
my job?” Korshak looked aside and sent a helpless look to Accountant Trewany, another workshop artisan, of the same rank as Furch, who was turning a bearing liner on a lathe a short distance away and trying not to look as if he was overhearing. Trewany shrugged, shook his head, and bent to his work. “How much was the time worth that you spent fooling with this, eh?” Morgal demanded. “You never thought about that, did you? You wouldn’t even have known how to put a figure to it. But you think you’re a Dollarian adept already. If I’d wanted it done this way, I’d have said so, wouldn’t I?” He stalked away toward his cubicle at the end of the room, at the same time throwing back over his shoulder, “Since you’ve wasted the time on it, you might as well go ahead and reinstall it.”

Korshak waited until Morgal had disappeared, then moved over to stand watching Trewany. “Is he always like this, or did I just pick a bad week?”

“He takes Dollarian principles very seriously. Competing and winning dominate his life. He says that’s how things were in the old world.”

“Surely they couldn’t have been like that everywhere, all the time.”

“Oh, probably not,” Trewany agreed. “I’m sure they had to stand together against outsiders. But in their internal dealings with each other, everyone needs to ease up.”

“Well, I’m relieved to hear that,” Korshak said. “But it would be nice to see more evidence of it.”

Trewany stopped the lathe and reached for a laser micrometer to check a dimension. His mouth curved upward briefly. “How long have you been here, Shakor? Three days? That makes you an outsider in the eyes of most people. Give them time. Maybe after you see one of the Phantasmians’ shows you’ll find we’re not all so bad.”

“Who are the Phantasmians?” Korshak asked.

“You see. You haven’t even heard of them, and you rush to judge us already. Our week is mostly a sober affair of business and study. But every weekend we have a performance of mixed acts and entertainments in the Assembly Hall to relax and appreciate some artistry. The Phantasmians are the group who organize it, but anyone can enter.”

Korshak was intrigued. “What kind of entertainments do they have?” he asked.

Trewany shrugged. “Anything, really. Dramatic pieces, recitations, music, juggling and balancing acts, even a dash of buffoonery to lighten things up. You probably won’t believe it, but Banker Lareda did a comic magic act not long ago, lampooning the antics of the Mediators next door on Etanne. I take it you know of them?”

“I’ve heard of them,” Korshak said. “I can’t say I was really sold, though.”

“Cheap trickery,” Trewany pronounced. “I’m amazed that anyone could fall for it. You know, Shakor, I sometimes wonder if it was a good thing, trying to make the original
Aurora
population a reflection of human diversity. It could have been a wonderful opportunity to select what was brightest and best, and have that as the seed that would shape the world that is to come on Hera. Don’t you think?”

“By concentrating more on people like us, you mean,” Korshak said.

Trewany looked surprised as he replaced the micrometer and opened the jaws of the lathe chuck to release the workpiece. “Why, yes. What else?”

Korshak smiled affably but said nothing. It had never ceased to amaze him how so many seemed to think that the world would be a better place, and all its problems go away if only everyone else could be more like them. He returned to the bench where he had been working and turned off the pump prior to disconnecting it.

A deeply thoughtful mood had overtaken him by the time he left, carrying the pump and a toolbox, ten minutes or so later.

The Repository on the basement level kept stocks of just about all things used in the Academy, from robes and viewpads to pieces of furniture and kitchenware. Xaien lifted a bundle of bedsheets fresh from the laundry off of the cart and stowed them in a space on one of the linen shelves. “I know it was part of the gospel, but I could never see how it could work,” he said to Nerissa, who had delivered the load and was airing some views on doctrine before she returned. She argued compulsively about anything, seemingly from need of constant reassurance that she could always come out on top. “So you had this ideal of a free market. Very well, let’s suppose that it existed. Now, just because of the way the world is, some people, either because they’re smarter, work harder, are just lucky, or for whatever reason, will do better than others. Right? So they have more dollar power to command laws that will benefit themselves and penalize everyone else, at which point a free system ceases to exist. So it’s inherently unstable.”

“Not at all. Because the point you’re missing is that —” Nerissa’s voice broke off as another figure appeared in the open doorway of the store room. He peered around, saw them, and stepped inside. He was in his later thirties, maybe, lithely built, with dark eyes, close-cropped hair, barely more than stubble, and dressed in the white tunic of a junior clerk – grade novice.

“Yes?” Xaien asked, moving out from the aisle between the shelves. “Can we help you?”

In response, the newcomer produced a yellow ball from his pocket. Saying nothing, he held it out at arm’s length for a moment, and then turned his hand over so that the ball rolled into the back of it. Raising his hand slightly, he caused the ball to roll the length of his arm to the shoulder, then by hunching his back, across behind his neck to the other shoulder, and finally all the way out to the back of his other hand, where in seeming defiance of gravity it continued over the tips of his fingers to settle into his waiting palm.

Xaien was about to say something, and then realized that the act wasn’t finished yet. The novice showed the ball again, passed it to the other hand, showed it once more, then brought his two hands together in a mutual massaging motion, slowly compressing the space between them until they were rubbing palm to palm. He then turned them outward and open to reveal them empty. Xaien heard Nerissa gasp behind him. The novice pointed into the air, moving his arm as if he were following an object around the room. Suddenly he snatched at something and made a throwing motion toward his other hand, which he then opened to reveal not one, but two balls. The novice grinned expectantly.

“Wow!” Nerissa breathed.

“
That
was cool,” Xaien pronounced.

“My name is Shakor,” the novice said. “I’ve been told about the weekly program that the Phantasmians put on, and I thought I might be able to contribute something to it.”

“If you’ve got more acts like that, you could have the whole show,” Xaien said.

“Really? I’m glad you think so. Look, I was thinking of making it a kind of comic routine, with a Genhedrin character. What do you think? Would that go down well?”

Xaien’s face creased with mirth. “A Genhedrin as a comic magician? I love it!”

“I’d need to borrow a Genhedrin robe, then. This seemed to be the place to ask.”

“Oh, I think we can help you out with that.” Xaien began walking back toward some other shelves piled with robes, tunics, and various kinds of other garb. “It’s a pity they don’t let you talk much about yourself. It sounds as if it would make an interesting story. How long have you been here now…?”

A plan that would allow him to confront Tek without being recognized had started to form in Korshak’s mind, but he still needed to work out the details. Masumichi’s research had focused on forms of robot intelligence to interact with a world that would be perceived primarily through vision – as was the case with humans. Although it would have been technically straightforward, he hadn’t equipped them with a faculty for identifying voiceprints. Hence, all Korshak would need to do was disguise his appearance. The Genhedrin robe could have been designed for the purpose.