Serpent's Reach (16 page)

Jim came up the ramp, and after some little perplexity, secured the whole carrier into storage behind the Eln-Kest’s modest luggage…forced tire door closed. Raen let him take his seat first, next the sealed viewport, then settled in after, opposite Merck Eln, and fastened the belts. Her pulse raced, considering the company they kept and the museum-piece in which they were about to hurtle into atmosphere.

“This is quite remarkable,” she said to Jim, thinking that Meron in all its decadent and hazardous entertainments had never offered anything quite like Istran transport.

Jim looked less elated with the experience, but his eyes flickered with interest over all the strangeness…not fear, but a feverish intensity, as if he were attempting to absorb everything at once and deal with it. His hands trembled so when he adjusted his belts that be had trouble joining them.

The co-pilot stopped the argument with the pilot long enough to come back and check the door seal, went forward again. The pilot gave warning. The vessel disengaged from its lock and went through the stomach-wrenching sequence of intermittent weightlessness and reorientation under power as they threaded their way out of their berth. The noise, unbaffled was incredible.

“Kontrin,” Merek Eln shouted, leaning in his seat.

“Explanations?” Raen asked.

“We are very grateful—”

“Please. Just the explanation.”

Merek Eln swallowed heavily. They were in complete weightlessness, their slight wallowing swiftly corrected. The noise died away save for the circulation fans. Istra showed crescent-shaped on the forward screen, more than filling it; the station showed on the aft screen. They were falling into the world’s night side, as Raen judged it.

“We are very glad you decided to accept transport with us,” Eln said. “We are quite concerned for your safety at Istra, onstation and onworld. There’s been some difficulty, some disturbance. Perhaps you have heard.”

Raen shrugged. There were rumours of unrest, here and elsewhere, of crises; of things more serious…she earnestly wished she knew.

“You were,” Merek On said, “perhaps sent here for that reason.”

She made a slight gesture of the eves back toward Warrior. “You might ask it concerning its motives.”

That struck a moment of silence.

“Kontrin,” said sera Kest, leaning forward from the seat behind. “For whatever reasons you’ve come here—you must realise there’s a hazard. The station is too wide, too difficult to monitor. In Newhope, on Istra, at least we can provide you security.”

“Sera—are we being abducted?”

The faces about her were suddenly stark with apprehension.

“Kontrin,” said Merek Eln, “you are being humorous; we wish we could persuade you to consider seriously what hazards are possible here.”

“Ser, sera, so long as you persist in trying to tell me only fragments of the situation, I see no reason to take a serious tone with you. You’ve been out to Meron. You’re coming home. Your domestic problems are evidently serious and violent, but your manner indicates to me that you would much rather I were not here.”

There was a considerable space of silence. Fear was thick in the air.

“There has been some violence,” said one of the others. “The station is particularly vulnerable to sabotage and such acts. We fear it. We have sent appeals. None were answered.”

“The Family ignored them. Is that your meaning?”

“Yes,” said another after a moment.

“That is remarkable, seri. And what agency do you suspect to be the source of your difficulty?”

No one answered.

“Dare I guess,” said Raen, “that you suspect that the source of your troubles
is
the Family?”

There was yet no answer, only the evidence of perspiration on beta faces.

“Or the hives?”

No one moved. Not an eye blinked.

“You would not be advised to take any action against me, seri. The Family is not monolithic. Quite the contrary. Be reassured: I am ignorant; you can try to deceive me. What brought the two of you to Meron?”

“We—have loans outstanding from MIMAK there. We hoped for some material assistance…”

“We hoped,” Parn Kest interrupted brusquely, “to establish innerworlds contacts—to help us past this wall of silence. We need relief…in taxes, in trade; we were ignored, appeal after appeal. And we hoped to work out a temporary agreement with MIMAK, against the hope of some relief. Grain. Grain and food. Kontrin—we’re supporting farms and estates which can’t possibly make profit. We’re at a crisis. We were given license for increase in population, our own and azi, and the figures doubled our own. We thought future adjustment would take care of that. But the crisis is on us, and no one listens. Majat absorb some of the excess. That market is all that keeps us from economic collapse. But food…food for all that population… And the day we can’t feed the hives… Kont’ Raen, agriculture and azi are our livelihood. Newhope and Newport and the station…and the majat…derive their food from the estates; but it’s consumed by the azi who work them. There are workers enough to cover the estates’ needs four times over. There’s panic out there. The estates are armed camps.”

“We were told when we came in,” Eln said in a faint voice, “that ITAK has been able to confiscate azi of some of the smaller estates. But there’s no way to take them by force from the larger. We can’t legally dispose of those contracts, by sale or by termination. There has to be Kontrin—”

“—license for transfer or adjustment,” Raen finished. “Or for termination without medical cause. I know our policies rather thoroughly, ser Eln.”

“And therefore you can’t export and you can’t terminate.”

“Or feed them indefinitely, Kontrin. Or feed them. The economics of the farms insist on a certain number of azi to the allotted land area. Someone…
erred
.”

Eln’s lips trembled, having said so. It was for a beta, great daring.

“And the occasion for violence against the station?”

“It hasn’t happened yet,” one of the others said.

“But you fear that it will. Why?”

“The corporations are blamed for the situation on the estates. Estate-owners are hardly able to comprehend any other—at fault.”

There was another silence, deep and long.

“You’ll be glad to know, seri, that there are means to get a message off this world, one that would be heard on Cerdin. I might do it. But there are solutions short of that. Perhaps better ones.” She thought then of Jim, and laid a hand on his knee, leaning toward him. “You are hearing things which aren’t for retelling…to anyone.”

“I will not,” he said, and she believed him, for he looked as if he earnestly wanted to be deaf to this. She turned back to Eln and Kest.

“What measures,” she asked them, “
have
the corporations taken?”

No one wanted to meet her eyes, not those two, nor their companions.

“Is there starvation?” she asked.

“We are importing,” one of the others said at last, a small, flat voice.

Raen looked at him, slowly took his meaning. “Standard channels of trade?”

“All according to license. Foodstuffs are one of the permitted—”

“I know the regulations. You’re getting your grain from Outside trade. Outsiders.”

“We’ve held off rationing. We’ve kept the peace. We’re able to feed everyone.”

“We’ve tried to find other alternatives.” Merek Eln said. “We can’t find surplus anywhere within the Reach. We can’t get it from Inside. We’ve tried, Kont’ Raen.”

“Your trip to Meron.”

“Part of it, yes. That. A failure.”

“Ser Eln, there’s one obvious question. If you’re buying Outsider grain…what do you use to pay for it?”

It was a question perhaps rash to ask, on a beta vessel, surrounded by them, in descent to a wholly beta world.

“Majat,” one of the others said hoarsely, with a nervous shift of the eyes in Warrior’s direction. “Majat jewels. Softwares.”

“Kontrin-directed?”

“We—pad out what the Cerdin labs send. Add to the shipments.”

“Kontrin-directed?”

“Our own doing,” the man beside him said. “Kontrin, it’s not forbidden. Other hive-worlds do it.”

“I know it’s legal; don’t cite me regulations.”

“We appealed for help. We still abide by the law. We would do nothing that’s not according to the law.”

According to the law…and disruptive of the entire trade balance if done on a large scale: the value of the jewels and the other majat goods was upheld by deliberate scarcity.

“You’re giving majat goods to Outsiders to feed a world,” Raen said softly. “And what do majat get? Grain? Azi? You have that arrangement with them?”

“Our population,” sera Kest said faintly, “even now is not
large
—compared to inner worlds. It’s only large for our capacity to produce. Our trade is azi. We hope for Kontrin understanding. For licenses to export.”

“And the hives assist you in this crisis—sufficient to feed all the excess of your own population, and the excess of azi, and themselves. Your prices to the majat for grain and azi must be exorbitant, sera Kest.”

“They—need the grain. They don’t object.”

“Do you know,” Raen said, ever so softly, “I somehow believe you, sera Kest.”

There was a sudden stomach-wrenching shift as the shuttle powered into entry alignment. They were downward bound now, and the majat moved, boomed a protest at this unaccustomed sensation; then it froze again, to the relief of the betas and the guard azi.

“We’re doing an unusual entry,” Raen observed, feeling the angle.

“We don’t cross the High Range. Fad weather.”

She looked at the beta who had said that, and for that moment her pulse quickened—a sense that, indeed, she had to accept their truths for the time. She said nothing more, scanning faces.

They were coming in still nightside, at a steeper angle than was going to be comfortable for any reason. There might be quite a bit of buffeting. Jim, unaccustomed to landings even of the best kind, was already looking grey. So were the Eln-Kests.

Two corporations: ITAK onworld and ISPAK, the station and power corporation overhead. ISPAK was a Kontrin agency, that should be in direct link with Cerdin. So were all stations. They were too sensitive, holding all a world’s licensed defense; and in any situation of contest, ISPAK could shut Istra down, depriving it of power. With any choice for a base of operations, ITAK onworld was not the best one, not unless the stakes were about to go very high indeed.

No licenses, no answer to appeals: the fink to Cerdin should have had an answer through their own station. No relief from taxes; other worlds had such adjustments, in the presence of Kontrin. Universal credit was skimmed directly off the tax; majat were covered after the same fashion as Kontrin when they dealt through Kontrin credit; but they could, because they were producers of goods, trade directly in cash, which Kontrin in effect could not. Throughout the system, through the network of stations and intercomp, the constant-transmission arteries which linked all the Reach, there were complex-formulae of adjustment and licensing, the whole system held in exact and delicate balance. A world could not function without that continual flow of information through station, to Cerdin.

Only Istra was supporting a burden it could not bear, while inner worlds as well were swollen with increased populations, with no agricultural surpluses anywhere to be had. Council turned a deaf ear to protests, after readjusting population on a world where arable land was scarce.

And the azi-cycle from lab to contract was eighteen years, less for majat-sale.

Nineteen years, and Council had closed its eyes, deafened itself to protests, talked vaguely about new industry. Population pressure was allowed to build, after seven hundred years of licensed precision, every force in meticulous balance.

She watched the screen for a time, the back of her right hand to her lips, the chitin rough against them.

Blue-hive, blue-hive messenger, hives in direct trade with betas—and a world drowning in azi, as all the Reach was beginning to feel tire pressure—a forecast for other worlds, while Council turned a deaf ear to cries for help.

Moth still ruled. That had to be true, that Moth still dominated Council. The Reach would have quaked at Moth’s demise.

What ARE you doing?
she wondered toward Moth.

And put on a smile like putting on a new garment…and looked toward set On and sera Kest, enjoying their unease at that shift of mood. “I seem to recall that you invited me to be your guest. Suppose that I accept.”

“You are welcome,” Kest said hoarsely.

“I shall take the spirit of your hospitality…but not as a free gift. My tastes can be very extravagant. I shall pay my own charges. I should expect no private person to bear with me, no private person nor even ITAK. Please permit this.”

“You are very kind,” said ser Eln, looking vastly relieved. They began to feel their descent. The shuttle, in atmosphere, rode like something wounded, and the engines struggled to slow them, cutting in with jolting bursts. Eventually they reached a reasonable airspeed, and the port shields went back. It was pitch black outside, and lightning flared. They bit turbulence which dampened even Raen’s enthusiasm for the uncommon, and dropped through, amazingly close to the ground.

A landing-field glowed, blue-lit, and abruptly they were on it, jolting down to a halt on great blasts of the engines.

They were down, undamaged, moving ponderously up to the terminal, a long on-ground process. Raen looked at Jim, who slowly unclenched his fingers from the armrests and drew an extended breath. She grinned at him, and he looked happier, the while the shuttle rocked over the uneven surface. “Luggage,” she said softly. “You might as well see to it. And when we’re among others, don’t for the life of you let some. one at it unwatched.”

He nodded and scrambled up past her, while one of the guard azi began to see to the Eln-Kests’ baggage.

The shuttle pulled finally up to their land berth, and met the exit tube. The pilot and co-pilot, their dispute evidently resolved, left controls and unlatched the exit.

Raen arose, finding the others waiting for her, and glanced back at Warrior, who remained immobile. Cold air flooded in from the exit, and Warrior turned its head hopefully.