Seed of Stars (13 page)

Mia showed no sign of even noticing his unease. Bright as a bird, she led him on through the echoing corridors of the archive building, until at last they arrived at the office of the custodian. A wrinkled brown ancient with a white beard, he welcomed them with a bow and took note of Mia's request. Then he guided them to the subsection of files marked MIZ, and with another bow, left them to it

Piet stood beside her as she leafed through sheet after sheet. In here it was still and cool, and the thronging traffic of the city outside seemed miles away.

Mia said: "One thing makes it easy. We've lived in Haneda for over a hundred years, so tracing other families won't be difficult...."

He peered over her shoulder, but much of the writing was in ideographic script, so he lost interest in the papers and, fretting over the time slipping by, he walked to the window and looked down towards the square. The smoothly running electric buses had a curiously old-fashioned look, and the pedestrians in their brightly colored clothes were like figures in an old tapestry, remote. ... As he stared, the strangeness of it all pushed his thoughts back into the regions of the familiar, the life he had left behind.

Back on
Venturer Twelve,
had his absence been noted yet? Was George Maseba even now demanding to know what had happened to his assistant? And Bruce . . . that ruthless crag of a man. He shuddered slightly. If he—

Suddenly Mia was at his elbow, her hand touching his sleeve. He looked down at her, and saw that every feature of her face seemed to have gone round with wonder.

"Piet... Piet, I've found them."

He exhaled air with sharp relief. "Good! I was beginning to think you'd been too optimistic. Do you have the address? Can we go there now?"

"I'm ... I'm not sure—"

He stared at her. "But we can't just hang around the city. Any time now there's sure to be an alarm put out for us—there'll be our faces, descriptions on the local television network. Where do your relatives live?"

'Ten kilometers east of the city at a place called Tamah. But I..." She stared at him, the small muscles at the comer of her mouth twitching.

"Mia! What's the matter?"

"The head of the Kepler branch of the family is a man named Kenji Sato—Doctor Kenji Sato," she said.

"Well, there's a hell of a coincidence!" he exclaimed. "So is that bad? Looks like your Doc Sato's got another medic in the family."

"You don't understand," she said, in a small voice. "Kenji Sato is not only a doctor—he's also the Minister of Health for Kepler III."

"My dear Commander Bruce, don't think I'm insensitive of your feelings in the matter," said Charles Magnus. "But you will be doing myself—and United Earth—a not inconsiderable service if you cooperate. You must realize that colonial peoples such as those on Kepler III cling hard to their associations with Earth, and it is in our interest that they should do so."

Seated at the desk in his standby room, Tom Bruce scowled down at the sheaf of foolscap sheets that the Explorations Division officer had just handed to him. The first sheet was headed: SCHEDULE OF SOCIAL ENGAGEMENTS—COMMANDER BRUCE. On the second and subsequent ten sheets, planned in precise detail, was a schedule of the appearances to be made by Bruce at public occasions on Kepler III during the next month. These occasions included everything from private banquets with the mayor and corporation of all ten major cities, to the addressing of a ten-thousand-strong rally of schoolchildren in the Kyoto stadium of Main City. Far from kicking his heels in enforced idleness, if he accepted this schedule, it was evident that Tom Bruce would work even harder during his stay on Kepler III than when commanding the ship in space;
much harder,
because for a man of his temperament, who had never cultivated the ability to suffer fools gladly, and who had always prided himself on his direct, no-nonsense approach to each problem that presented itself, the prospect of so much public speech-making and polite conversation with Keplerian dignitaries would be like entering blindfold into an area sown with land mines.

"Hell, Magnus! If you wanted this kind of public relations performer, you should have got yourself one of the pretty boys of the Corps, like Mariano, or Van

Eps. You know darned well the kind of reputation I've got."

"For speaking your mind, for complete, fearless honesty?" Magnus said, the shadow of a smile on his lean features. "My dear fellow, I know you by more than repute, and I've got the scars to prove it. But if you care to spend a little time scanning the local television channels and the Keplerian press you will see that your name, as commander of the Corps' largest and most impressive ship, coupled with your distinguished record, has made you the natural focus of attention during our stay here. As such, it is quite understandable that the people of the colony should request, even demand, the opportunity of meeting you on every possible occasion. There have already been two peak-hour documentaries—one devoted to yourself and
Venturer Twelve,
and the other concerned with your work as head of System Patrol, before you took over this command."

Bruce frowned. "Where did they get the material for such a coverage?"

"Naturally there have been releases on all aspects of the expedition by my PR department," Magnus said. "Films and tapes were provided as a matter of routine."

"But why pick me for such a build-up? After all, as you've pointed out before, what happens on Kepler III is mainly your show."

"Commander, you are far too modest," Magnus said. "Your record, without any embellishment, has been sufficient to draw attention to you. The releases on myself were equally detailed, but despite my acknowledged importance in the matter of this independence investigation, you must realize that I am a comparatively colorless figure, an obscure civilian legal expert with a routine job to do. You, on the other hand, immediately appealed to their inherent sense of
panache.
If I recall correctly, the headline of a recent page ar ticle in the Main City
Times
was: BRUCE—THE SAMURAI OF THE STARS."

Tom Bruce winced visibly. It occurred to him that he was being railroaded into accepting the role of some kind of figurehead, an image on which the greater part of the Keplerian attention would be focused, while Magnus, in his own quiet way, got on with the independence investigation unhampered by too much limelight. His military training made him well aware of the value of diversionary attack in certain operations, but the acceptance of such a secondary role did not sit easily; especially so, because he had an idea that in some covert manner Charles Magnus was laughing at him.

"Well, as you've already made these arrangements, I suppose there's not much I can do about it," he said ungraciously. "But I warn you, Magnus ..."

He broke off as there was a tap on the door and Helen Lindstrom entered, accompanied by Lieutenant Lee Ching, who was wearing duty blues with a police armband.

Lindstrom and Lee Ching saluted smartly, and Lindstrom said: "Sorry to interrupt, sir, but a matter of some urgency has just come up."

"All right—what is it?" Bruce said.

In answer, Lindstrom produced a small transparent envelope. Tipping its contents, tiny pieces of metallic wreckage, into her palm, she showed them to Bruce. They appeared to be the remains of a wrist watch.

"Well?" Bruce demanded.

"These were picked up by a sweeper on Shamari mono station early this morning," she said. "He was going to throw them in the trash can when he noticed the numerals and realized that what he had found was an artifact of Earth origin, rather than Keplerian. He handed it to the station super, who took it to the police, and they delivered it here a few minutes ago."

"So someone on Kepler III destroyed an Earth-type wrist watch," Bruce said heavily. "I fail to see . . ."

"But that's not all, sir. According to her section head, Leading Crewwoman Mizuno failed to report for duty at oh eight hundred hours this morning, and further enquiries revealed that she had not been seen by any of her bunk-mates during the past twelve hours."

"Mizuno . . . isn't that your pregnant crewwoman?" inquired Magnus.

Bruce ignored the query. "The stupid little bitch! You mean she's gone adrift?"

"Looks very much like it, sir," Lindstrom said. "She's certainly nowhere aboard the ship."

"Damn and blast!" Bruce snapped. "Not twenty-four hours down on a colonial planet, and one A.W.O.L. already."

"Her motive is pretty clear," said Lindstrom. "She'd take any chance to save her baby."

Bruce glowered up at his second in command. "All right, Lindstrom—you can save the motivational analysis for the court martial. Assuming this is Mizuno's watch, you at least have some kind of lead. What action is being taken to trace her?"

"None at the moment, sir," said Lindstrom. "I considered it better to consult you first"

"Goddam it, woman! Can't you handle a simple case of A.W.O.L. without detailed instructions? Get onto the local police right away, and..."

"No, commander!" Magnus spoke with quiet but incisive firmness. "That would be very unwise at this stage—and most probably of little use."

"You mean I should let her go, just like that?" Bruce said. "Mr. Magnus, we don't do things that way in the Corps."

"I quite appreciate that in the normal course of events a deserter can expect immediate and possibly rough justice," Magnus said. "But here, I'm afraid, we are dealing with a rather special case."

"We?"

"Yes,
we,
commander. If the girl is A.W.O.L. on

Kepler III, as seems likely, then there are a number of factors which must be considered before any action at all is taken. In the first place, as I understand it, she is Japanese—an origin which she shares with some ninety percent of the population of the planet. She is no doubt aware of this, and is relying on the fact that once she is out of uniform it will be extremely difficult to distinguish her from a native Keplerian."

"There must be some way of tracing her. She will have no civilian identity papers, for one thing," Bruce pointed out. "If the local police put out a dragnet. . ."

"For one little Japanese girl, on a planet with a population of a million?"

"It could be done, if they cooperate."

"If they cooperate—there's the point," Magnus said, with a touch of grimness. "But I would remind you that a colonial planet of this kind is not run with the rigid efficiency of a Corps space ship, commander. Apart from that, there is the public relations aspect to be considered."

"Public relations? What the hell are you talking about? This is a domestic matter—the girl is an enlisted member of the Space Corps."

"As far as we are concerned, that is true," agreed Magnus. "But look at the situation from the Keplerian point of view for a moment. Their instinctive sympathies must inevitably lie with Mia Mizuno. She may have sinned against Space Corps regulations, but if we tried to instigate a full-scale manhunt to find her, we would be making a bad mistake. Such action could only succeed in creating an unfavorable image of the Corps as a ruthless, inhuman machine, dominated by persons of Western extraction, determined to persecute an individual who is by birth one of their own race. The fact that she is, in addition to everything else, pregnant..."

"I think Mr. Magnus is right, sir," Helen Lindstrom said. "Assume that we were to demand the cooperation of the local police, and they did manage to find her. What earthly use is this girl going to be to us in the future? Bring her back to the ship, and perform a compulsory abortion, and I guarantee that she'll spend the rest of this duty tour under psychiatric treatment, followed by immediate discharge when we return to Earth. She can only be a liability, so why not let her go now and forget about her?"

"Forget about her?"
Bruce glared up at his second in command. "Goddammit, Lindstrom! You know as well as I do that Corps
never
forgets, particularly in matters of discipline."

"Then," said Magnus, calmly, "I think it is time that the Corps learned to temper its rigid attitude. I don't want to have to pull rank on you, Bruce, but in this instance, I must request that you comply with my recommendation to drop the matter of Mia Mizuno."

Bruce looked at the Explorations Division officer long and hard. Several times in the past he had wittingly jeopardized his career on points of principle and suffered for it. But this time, even if he stuck to his guns and insisted on having Mia Mizuno dragged back to
Venturer Twelve,
what was there to be gained?

"All right, Mr. Magnus," he said. "I'll accept your recommendation. But I shall require you to tape a full statement for the record."

"Gladly, commander," Magnus said, smiling.

Tom Bruce rose to his feet, pulling his shoulders back with conscious effort There was a time to stand firm, and a time to retreat, he told himself. But at the back of his mind an unease was stirring. Was he, he wondered, getting old, too old for the job?

Dr. Kenji Sato had spent most of the morning in his office at the Ministry of Health poring over the draft