Seed of Stars (15 page)

"Commander, you agreed with Mr. Magnus . . ." began Lindstrom

Bruce wheeled on her, his green eyes sparking with rage. "Against my better judgment, I agreed to withhold further action in the case of Mizuno, because of her race. Now that Huygens is involved the situation is changed. I want those two caught. And when they are, I'll throw the book at them. Ninety-nine percent of the Corps don't need encouragement to do their duty, but IT1 see to it that those who do will have a salutary example in Mizuno and Huygens."

The girl seemed to sense his uneasiness. "Doctor Sato, we have no intention of becoming a permanent burden to you. But if we could at least stay for a few days..."

Sato's smile was a formal mask hiding his troubled thoughts. The story the girl had told him was appealing and intensely human, and he had no doubt of her sincerity. None but the hardest heart could refuse to have pity for two such star-crossed lovers in their attempt to escape from the pressures of a society that threatened to force them apart, and destroy the child of their love. Under normal circumstances he would have done what he could to help without the slightest hesitation.

"Of course, my child," he said gently. "That is the least I can do for a member of my family who has come so far. I was trying to think ahead. You see, as Minister of Health, I shall be intimately involved in the independence investigations, dealing with the very people who will be searching for you both. This makes me wonder if any help I may be able to offer you might not be more than counterbalanced by the jeopardy in which association with me must place you."

"That's not exactly true, Doctor Sato," Huygens said. "In the main you will be dealing with Explorations Division personnel, under the direct command of Magnus; whereas our desertion is, and will be treated as, a Corps matter. In that respect, the usual procedure is for the ship's commander to ask for the cooperation of the local police. I hardly think a man in your position would have much difficulty in dealing with them?"

Sato looked at Huygens, conscious of a rising dislike. Mia Mizuno's husband-to-be was a big man, who would stick out like a palm tree in scrubland among Keplerian society, despite any cosmetic adjustments. But even more important than outward appearances, there was an arrogant directness in Huygen's manner which branded him as alien. Half-ashamed of the racial prejudice that colored these private thoughts, Sato made a special effort to be courteous. "You are right, of course, Huygens-san. I am not without some little influence, and I shall naturally use it on behalf of yourself and Mia. Even so, it seems quite obvious that neither of you will be able to lead a normal social existence during the period of the investigation; and such confinement may well be a strain."

"But afterwards, we will at least be free," said Mia. "And Piet, with his Earth-training in medicine, will surely be a useful new citizen for Kepler III, even if I myself do not have a very valuable contribution to make."

In the face of the girl's becoming female modesty, Sato's smile was no longer formal. "My dear child, you would make a valuable contribution to any society by the very presence of your beauty and grace. You may both stay here, as long as you wish, under my protection."

"Oh, thank you, Sato-san..."

Sato waved aside her thanks, as he rose to his feet. "We shall not talk of this again. As far as our neighbors are concerned, Yoko will tell them that you are cousins on vacation from Minashu, and they will accept you as such."

"Thank you, Doctor Sato," said Huygens. "But we have no wish to be a burden to you. I had hoped that there might be some medical work I could do to repay your kindness."

"Later, of course," Sato said. "But for the time being I'm afraid it would be better if your undoubted professional abilities remained unrevealed. Now, if you will excuse me, I will go and change."

After a word with Yoko and Tana, who were preparing the evening meal, he retired to the comforting ritual of bathing. It was only when, having soaped and cleansed himself, he was relaxing in the delightfully hot, clean water of the bath, that a new and alarming possibility occurred to him. While he could not find it in himself to doubt the sincerity of Mia Mizuno, was it not possible that the girl had been duped, manipulated into just this situation, as part of some elaborate plot to plant a Corps spy in his household at this crucial time?

Bruce sat at his desk, his mouth a tight line as he studied the typescript of a speech he was to deliver at the civic banquet to be held in his honor in Central City that evening. The script had been prepared by the Explorations Division public relations experts under the personal supervision of Magnus, and it was, as might be expected from its origin, a superb piece of rhetoric stressing the interdependent roles of the colonies and United Earth in the glorious future of the human race. Basically, there was little that Bruce disagreed with in the speech, but it was alien to his nature to express himself in such a manner.

Picking up a felt-tipped pen, he began to go through the sheets, taking some pleasure in ruthlessly editing out some of the more fulsome phrases. He was disturbed in his task as the door opened and Lieutenant Lee Ching appeared.

Lee saluted smartly. "All correct, sir."

"Got your men?"

"Yes, sir."

"Arms?"

"Stunners, as ordered, sir."

"Good. Now you know the drill. First you call on Colonel Hitachi and tell him that we want the cooperation of his police in a search of the European sector of Central City, in the Kurile Street area."

"Hitachi knows we are coming, sir?"

"He was unavailable when I called," Bruce said. "But I spoke to his deputy, so they'll be expecting you. It seems obvious to me that, if Huygens is in hiding, he would be most likely to try to do so among his own kind, where he wouldn't be quite so conspicuous."

"And Mr. Magnus, sir?"

"Is away in New Honshu for the day. In any case, Corps discipline is my province, and I intend to make certain that it's enforced. Clear?"

"Yes, sir."

"Right—get moving."

Lee saluted and left.

Bruce returned his attention to the typescript The first three of its neat pages were now scored by a number of uncompromising black slashes. He turned over to page four, the felt pen moving once more to its task as the banal phrases leapt up at him: "glorious tradition"—slash; "brotherhood of mankind"—slash. Magnus must have known quite well that he would never stand up in public and give voice to such hog-wash. ...

Bruce stopped, the pen poised, as a disquieting thought hit him. Of course Magnus would anticipate his objections to such tub-thumping oratory, and would expect him to edit the script accordingly; to edit out the fulsome rubbish, and be left eventually with . . . with just the speech Magnus really intended him to make.

Damn Magnus! He thrust the script to one side. The man's efficiency was becoming oppressive.

... But they are somewhere.

They have to be. By all the laws of probability,

We should have met them before. There,

Long before we reached the Rim, we should have

found them.

Consider the odds. We cannot be The only men....

Kilroy:
I. Kavanin

Ahead, where the massive grandeur of snow-capped northern Ayoto mountains rose abruptly from the valley floor, the buildings of the Intensive Care Pediatric Unit were still invisible behind the screening trees.

Seated beside the pilot as the copter scurried across the morning sky, Kenji Sato looked down on the deep green of the wooded valley, his drawn face somber with a familiar dread.

The site for the hospital had been carefully chosen. There were no roads, not even an isolated farmstead any nearer than sixty kilometers. All personnel and supplies were ferried in and out by this single copter which operated a shuttle service between the hospital and the small town of Ranaku, some eighty-five kilometers south. Even the inquisitive Mr. Magnus could surely find nothing to attract his interest in this virgin, wooded country, other than its scenic beauty, and Magnus was too fully occupied with more urgent matters. If isolation equated security, then the Intensive Care Unit was surely secure, and the dread which fell like a pall over Sato's thoughts had nothing to do with any doubts on that score.

More terrible than any remote possibility of prying by unwanted eyes were the memories of what he had seen here in the past, and would shortly see again; the pitiful, helpless creatures who depended entirely on the devoted care of Joni Yamaguchi and his staff; monstrous genetic sports whose very existence mocked the imagination of any God-made man. To most of the people of Kepler III, people who hid their true feelings with sayings like "catch a cold and find a monster," the Johannsen's-disease-mutated children were still mercifully only creatures of rumor; and even to those who had personal contact, through the accident of such a birth in their immediate family, that contact was a brief one, soon ended by the hurried removal of the child by discreet, white-jacketed strangers. There was no such release for Kenji Sato. As the copter arced in for its landing and the cluster of wooden buildings came into sight behind the trees, he reminded himself once again that one of the mewling, helpless animals being cared for in this sanctuary was his own grandchild.

The copter settled on the mossy grass about a hundred meters from the main building, its motors dying with a coughing whine. The pilot slid open the doors of the cabin, admitting a breeze laden with the scent of the trees of the forest and effervescent with the coolness of the mountain snows.

"You go ahead, doctor," he said. "And tell Billy Kanu to get the lead out and bring a truck over for this stuff. Like he expects I should dump it over there?" He nodded towards the pile of packaged supplies stacked at the back of the tiny cabin.

Sato smiled his assent, and stepped out onto the yielding grass. Here, with the great silence of a natural paradise broken only by the soughing of a breeze through the living green of the forest, the buildings, constructed from the wood of that same forest, merged with their surroundings, but man was still an intruder. Sato walked slowly up the gentle slope towards the main building, watching the verandah expectantly for the appearance of Yamaguchi, who must have heard the sound of the hovering copter. Yamaguchi was a brilliant young doctor, who had given up the prospect of a glittering career in Central City to take control of the Intensive Care Unit, but Sato was aware that even such dedication must falter eventually in the face of a hopeless task. If only he had been able to bring some ray of hope, some suggestion that the work of Mary Osawa and her virologists offered at least some possibility of checking the steadily growing incidence of monstrous births.

Sato stopped, frowning, as he reached the foot of the verandah steps, sensing an unusual absence of familiar noises from within the building. Usually there was the sound of a typist, the murmur of voices, or the cry of a child, but today there was nothing but a dead silence. Morale might be bad at this time, but surely someone must have heard the approach of the copter?

Quickening his pace, he walked up the wooden steps towards the open main doorway. On the verandah, his foot encountered a yielding obstacle. He looked down, and saw a child's doll lying on the bare boards. Such toys were commonplace at the hospital, where every attempt was made to bring the monstrous children into contact with normal human life.

He bent down and picked up the doll. It was dressed in a miniature green silk kimono. The head had been crushed out of all human semblance, an act which must have entailed the exertion of brutal force, considering the durability of the plastic of which it was made. A deliberate act of destruction, the heavy grinding of a heel, perhaps. Sato held the doll looking down at its ruined face, conscious of a prickling feeling of apprehension which crawled its way over his scalp.

Inside, the chair by the reception desk and switchboard usually attended by Yamaguchi's secretary was vacant. The door of the medical director's office was to the left. Sato rapped briefly and walked in. The room was empty, but Sato noticed that the pilot light of the dictating machine was still glowing, as if Yamaguchi had stepped out in the middle of a memo, and carelessly omitted to switch the machine off. But Yamaguchi was not a careless man.

Sato turned abruptly and walked out of the room, conscious of the hollow sound of his own footsteps as he moved past the reception desk down the corridor which led to Ward A. The doors swung open at his approach and he strode into the ward, where the older of Yamaguchi's charges, the three-year-olds, were kept. The room was light and airy, with pastel-painted walls dotted with the kind of pictures one might expect to see in the nursery of any human child; cartoons of animals native to Kepler III or to faraway Earth, and happy, laughing children.

The children on the walls were the only ones to be seen in the ward. The bedclothes on the ten high-sided cots, five spaced on each side of the center aisle, were rumpled in disorder, but there was no sign of their occupants. Sato stood, held in a shock of incomprehension, his eyes surveying the deserted ward.

Hearing the sound of heavy footsteps behind him, he wheeled as the doors opened again to admit the copter pilot. The man's round face was questioning.