The Light That Never Was (6 page)

“Then you’ll never see him. He thinks of himself as a public official, and he’s pleased to discuss public business with almost anyone, at almost any time. He considers private business none of his business.”

“I see.”

“I’d suggest that you draw up a memo demonstrating how your private business touches the public interest.”

“If I gave you such a memo, would you see that it reaches him?”

“Certainly. That’s my job.”

“Thank you. I’ll consider it.” He turned away, paused, looked at Wargen again. “It is a public matter, you see, but I’m not certain whom the public might be.”

Jorno moved off, and Lilya Vaan pounced on Wargen. Big, overhearing, too often vulgarly loud, flamboyant in appearance, her first rev on Donov would have been her last had she not been giving it herself. But her magnificent home had the most fabulous rev facilities in Donov Metro—each level of the enormous building had its own rev room, and they flowed together by way of cascading ramps. To this she added vast wealth and a peerless gall in bagging prominent guests and celebrated entertainers. Her invitations were even more prized than those of Ronony Gynth. Behind her formidable Facade, Wargen found her touchingly shy, generous, and kindhearted.

“Look,” she said. “My cousin Telka is after me to twist your arm.”

“She wants to see the W.M. on private business?”

“Nope. She wants you and your mother at her next rev.”

“If I’m free I’ll be delighted to attend. As for Mother, I seem to recall some kind of unfortunate accident—”

“You
seem
to recall?”

They stared at each other and then burst into laughter. Years before, at one of Telka’s famous seafood revs, the countess had been served a cup of govo chowder that on close examination proved to contain one live govo. Since such a thing was physically impossible—no govo could survive its conversion into chowder—the countess instantly concluded that it had reached her chowder cup aided by someone’s malicious intent. Rage was beneath her dignity, but no Wargen would properly ignore such an insult. She summoned Telka and sweetly apologized for arriving before the food was cooked, and then she remained for the entire rev—she was the last to leave—and periodically during the evening she asked if her chowder was ready to eat yet, and when it was brought to her she scrutinized it elaborately and pretended that the govon were still alive. Telka, reduced to tears, fled her own rev long before it was over, and the countess had ignored her invitations ever since.

“Perhaps between the two of us—is she by chance serving govon?” Wargen asked.

Lilya patted his arm. “She wouldn’t dare!”

A food bar rolled past. Wargen sniffed deeply and remembered that he hadn’t eaten since morning. He found an unoccupied chair at the center of the room, signaled, and a moment later was savoring Ronony’s famous spun salad. Passersby ignored him—the right to eat undisturbed in the midst of a rev was a foundation stone of Donovian etiquette—and in his concentration on the food he did not at first hear Eritha guardedly calling to him. She stood a short distance away with her back turned.

“He came to Donov Metro,” she said disgustedly, when she finally caught his attention, “for the aesthetic pleasure of viewing beautiful women such as I.”

Wargen waited until the next passersby had moved on. “It might be interesting to know whom he talks with while he views those beautiful women,” he said softly.

“If you were polite, you’d say, ‘such as you.’ ”

A short time later he saw her join a group of women on the balcony, where she had a sweeping view of the entire room—as did Ronony Gynth on her private balcony opposite, but Wargen did not look in that direction.

He satisfied his hunger and resumed his circuit of the room, greeting friends and listening, listening…

“I’d hoped to have a few words with the guest of honor. Why is he hiding?”

“To avoid having to answer questions. Why else? Those poor animals—”

“I don’t know. Here on Donov we can’t really appreciate their point of view. I mean, what can you do with an animal that talks back and demands equal rights?”

“Isn’t that the Count Wargen?”

Wargen turned, smiled, moved on.

An old university friend captured him for introductions and demanded, “Still on that humdrum government job?”

“Still on it.”

“Well, the offer’s still open. Any time you want a position that’s both interesting and profitable—”

“But I don’t need the money,” Wargen smiled. “I come from a long line of bandits who accumulated vast fortunes at the expense of the public on several worlds, so I feel that I owe something in return.”

“You’re giving your time in return for the public money your ancestors misappropriated?”

“Not exactly. On this world, anyway, I’m merely trying to make it difficult for anyone else’s ancestors to misappropriate public money.”

His friend considered that with a frown. “I say—that’s not really sporting, is it?”

Amidst the ensuing laughter someone proposed a toast to Count Wargen, which he acknowledged gravely before excusing himself. He had seen Jaward Jorno in close conversation with a member of the World Quorum. He passed by without seeming to notice them, but Jorno noticed him and fell silent as he approached. Ronony’s steward was diplomatically moving the guests toward the terrace. “The finest lumeno player in the galaxy,” he chanted. “Never before seen on Donov. Take your places, please. The finest lumeno player—”

A huge lumeno console was in position, the virtuoso waiting patiently, and as Wargen stepped onto the terrace for a closer look at the instrument, the warming up exercises began. The virtuoso rippled his fingers over the keyboards, and color patterns surged back and forth across the dark valley below.

Lilya Vaan moved to Wargen’s side. “It’s Sorlin,” she said enviously. “He really is the best. I had no idea he was available. He has the largest lumeno console ever seen on Donov, and he says he’s never had a better place for an exhibition. He’s been a week setting the lights. I wonder how Ronony happened to get him. Are you staying?”

“I’ll see how Mother is feeling.”

He turned toward the conservatory, and along the way he was intercepted by Eritha Korak, “Medil Favic,” she said. “The attorney. He’s going around looking for World Quorum members, and when he corners one he gives Jorno a signal and Jorno comes and takes over the conversation. He’s talked with seven of them, Anyone trying to find out what they’re talking about is in danger of being trampled, because at least six of Ronony’s goons are doing the same. Will you have another try with Grandpapa? About the art?”

“Then you’d be leaving Donov Metro,” Wargen said. “I couldn’t get along without you.”

“Cad!” she muttered and flounced away.

The countess was standing when Wargen reached her. “A new lumeno virtuoso,” he told her. “Ronony imported him just for tonight. He has the largest console ever seen on Donov, and Lilya is beside herself with envy. Shall we have a look?”

They were walking toward the terrace, and the valley was alive with light as colors blended and exploded and expired in shimmering pulsations.

“I feel rather tired,” the countess said. “I really don’t think I could sit through it.”

Wargen nodded obediently and signaled the steward, who went to call their limousine.

He knew his mother wasn’t tired. She had seen him in conversation twice with Eritha Korak, and she thought three times in one evening might be dangerous. Murmuring farewells they made their way through the shifting throng and out into the clear, double-mooned Donovian night.

As they passed through the doorway, Wargen casually glanced backward at the shadowed balcony where Ronony Gynth lurked. The Mestillian agent’s position was so excellent, her organization so efficient, her technique—not even Wargen knew what she looked like—so flawless, her recording microphones so cunningly placed, that he sometimes felt pained that he could not make use of her himself.

He wondered if she would find out what Jaward Jorno was up to before he did.

Some called the vast World Management Building the Cirque because it was circular; others called it that because they thought the activities there very strongly resembled a circus. The corridors were endless and ornate, the offices mammoth and opulent. Few who enjoyed a formal audience with the World Manager in his plush reception room were aware that he did his work in a small, windowless cubbyhole in the almost inaccessible upper reaches of the building. It was furnished only with an elaborate chair custom-designed to ease the shrunken contours of his aging body, and there he spent most of his working hours—sometimes in solitary thought, but more often in conversation. He could not reach decisions without information, ideas, opinions, so he waited for visitors as a hungry insect waited for prey, ready to pounce on them and suck them dry. It was no coincidence that those who knew the room best referred to it as his lair.

Because of his failing eyesight he could no longer cope with the voluminous paper work that in his younger years had held him captive at his desk. He banished the desk and delegated the work. By occupying the only chair in the room he forced his visitors to stand, which kept interviews gratifyingly to the point and shortened them by a measurable forty per cent, a priceless saving of his diminishing stores of energy.

When his superiors, the members of the World Quorum, sought to reconcile the fact of his advancing age with the phenomenon of his miraculously increasing efficiency, he smiled modestly and did not reply. He submitted his resignation annually; annually it was refused. In a changing universe, every citizen, every world, needed something of permanence. Donov had Ian Korak.

An invaluable adjunct to Korak’s failing sight and mobility was the brilliant young chief of his Secret Police. Neal Wargen went everywhere, and he had a gift for observation, a positive instinct for being in places where there was something to observe, and an encyclopedic memory. Much of the information he passed to Korak had little to do with police work. He also had a philosophic turn of mind that Korak found stimulating. While Korak probed Wargen’s knowledge, the younger man tested his wisdom.

The private entrance to Korak’s lair was by way of an elevator from Wargen’s office on the underground level, and through elaborate electronic arrangements the two were in constant communication when Wargen was at the Cirque. It was therefore commonplace for a certain light on Wargen’s desk to flash, and for him to respond at once when he was alone.

Korak’s dry voice said, “Last week you dictated a memo on the interesting behavior of one Jaward Jorno.”

“Yes,” Wargen said. “Did I include the information that he left Donov Metro the day after I saw him?”

“You did. Now he’s back, and he just handed in a petition endorsed by twenty-five members of the Quorum requesting an interview. Would you like to look on?”

“Certainly.”

Wargen activated the screen on the wall opposite his desk, and a moment later he saw Jorno enter the lair. Jorno wore the casual, colorful dress some of the artists affected when they came to the Metro, and he probably was unaware that both his costume and the broad smile he flashed as he bowed were wasted on the World Manager’s weak eyesight.

Korak pronounced the name. “Jaward Jorno?”

Jorno bowed again. “I’ve never liked it, but it’s the only name I have.”

“One is all an honest man needs,” Korak observed.

“At least I have no siblings with blighted reputations to curse my Good Works. Are you interested in Good Works, Excellency?”

Korak smiled. “My own, or other people’s?”

“In this case, mine. I’m one of the idle rich, so I dedicate myself to Good Works. You won’t know if you’ve never had the actual experience, but there is something about Good Works, something—”

“There is indeed,” Korak conceded. “Which of your Good Works brings you here?”

“I caught a news item about three hundred animaloids who escaped from Mestil in a battered old ship and somehow managed to coax it across space to Tymoff, where they were refused permission to land. They’re still in orbit there. Tymoff replenished their air and food—once—and there is talk of giving them a refueling so they can go away. No one on Tymoff has bothered to find a world that will accept them. That’s just one ship, Excellency. There may be ten or a hundred carrying other innocent, terrified animaloids in flight from human-inflicted horrors. Has there been no discussion of this problem on a world level?”

Korak shook his head slowly. “I’ve attempted to discuss those horrors and their causes with the ambassadors of every world concerned. All of them have informed me—quite properly—that these are internal matters not concerning my world and therefore none of my business. As for the terrified refugees, what would there be to discuss? Each world has its own admission requirements. If the Mestil refugees had met those of Tymoff they would have been permitted to land. Obviously they did not, so they’ll have to try elsewhere—or return to Mestil.”

Jorno said earnestly, “Are you aware, Excellency, of the intelligence, the talent, the capabilities of some of these animaloids? They would be a tremendous asset to any world. On that one ship are a philosopher whose works are in every university library in a dozen sectors, one of the greatest mathematicians in the galaxy, and an inventor whose patents have made a thousand humans wealthy and enriched the lives of uncounted millions. Naturally as animaloids they were not permitted to own their own copyrights or patents. I’d like to wipe that word ‘animaloid’ from human thought, because it means nothing at all except that there are intelligent creatures who look as freakish to us as we do to them. In their achievements some of them are greater human beings than either of us. I bring you a question: there have been no riots on Donov. Are the people here merely indifferent, or have they compassion for the unfortunate?”

“I’ve learned to speak for no man’s compassion except my own,” Korak said quietly.

“I’m a member of a newly formed organization. The Committee for Interplanetary Justice. Our objective is humane treatment for all life forms everywhere.”