Alien Tongues (25 page)

Séamus waited a while, letting this revelation sink in.  His hug did not change, but he said, "So anyway you're one of the many in this community that supports his business.  Has that been your source of guilt?  Now adding our girls is the final straw?"

There was no reply to this question, but she said, "Séamus, why is the world still like this?  I and millions of other naive geeks spend our lives developing sophisticated technology which we tell ourselves is making the Earth a better place to live.  Yet there is still some elite club of ruthless and power-hungry, self-appointed leaders who make fools of us all.  Why do we always tolerate it?  Worse, why do most of us actively sign up to follow these leaders?"

"That's an easy one," Séamus told her.  "Laziness and fear."  And in his quest to be the good agent Barbara wanted him to be, he was as guilty as anyone else of mental laziness.  It was only when events forced him to choose between the Agency bosses and the girls almost instinctively, pressing a single button and setting off an unstoppable sequence under which Phyllis would execute two of his colleagues, he had leapt forever from the minion carriage of the Establishment train of life.  And no sooner was he free than he had jumped on the Anti-Establishment train and gone cap-in-hand to its gilded leadership carriage.  He was being assigned a new seat in this new train, maybe if he was lucky in the senior minion carriage. 

Did any of it make sense?   Was it all worth it for that one moment between the trains, when he had been his own man and tasted true freedom?  Would he look back on that moment in the lobby as his one crowning moment of humanity, or his dumbest decision imaginable?  And in the end did it actually matter?  Was it all nothing more than the timing of their inevitable deaths, those time differences being utterly irrelevant in the course of the Universe?  Dying now or dying in bed fifty years later – one millionth of the evolutionary gap between Earth and its first penpal.

They all travelled south in a van which was windowless but comfortably furnished.  Séamus and the girls were headed for the main port on the coast of East Anglia, a route that took them via Cambridge.  Alice decided she would use that opportunity to see Professor Wilkie in person.

Edward Allsop sat with them, having been courteous and helpful to everyone from the start.  The girls slept on long bench-seats, while Séamus, Alice and Allsop sat on a separate row.  Séamus, unable to sleep, decided it might be useful to start a conversation with his new colleague.

"How long have you worked for Mr Grant, Ed?" he asked.

Allsop frowned.  "Since leaving school.  That'd be some twenty-five years."

"You have always found him a man of his word?"

Allsop nodded strongly.  "Séamus, you can depend upon it. I've never know a man so principled as Mr Grant, and I'm sure I never will."

"Why does such a principled man run a prostitution ring, then?" Alice said with some bitterness.  Though he would not have bothered with the same remark himself, Séamus also felt interested in the answer.  He noted that Allsop's face lost none of its composure.

"Well, that's the point, really," he answered thoughtfully.  "He does it because he's one of the few men who's making a serious effort to get rid of the real evil in this world."

"Oh?" Alice replied. "So what do you consider the real evil?"

Allsop turned to her, his expression unchanged.  "Child prostitution.  Slavery, especially sex slavery.  Stuff like that."

Alice shook her head.  "Aren't you guys encouraging that sort of stuff by running this business?"

Allsop dropped his head a little.  It struck Séamus he was deliberately pausing before he started his answer.  "Dr Turner, you are a very clever woman, and I am just a simple, rather impetuous man.  So maybe you'll be able to correct any muddled thinking I have inside my head.  Here's how I see it.  Mr Grant, and the Syndicate to which we belong, have some very strong principles.  So strong, that most people who have broken them end up regretting that they ever did.  Our top principle is that none of our girls are legally underage, and our second principle is that all of our girls are free to quit working with us whenever they choose, even if they owe us money.  Everyone who leaves us is given three years to repay whatever they owe.  No girl ever owes us more than three years' worth of honest wages."

"I don't believe that," Alice remarked.

Allsop shrugged.  "You asked me how a principled man can run a prostitution ring, and I just explained it.  You didn't ask me to prove it, and of course I can't.  But I can tell you that, if I ever thought the Syndicate allowed these principles to be violated, I myself would go to the police, much as I hate those bastards to death."

"Why do you hate the police so much. Ed?" Séamus asked.

"'Cos most of them are the worst crooks.  Not all, I grant you.  But most. They use the law to break the law, and there's nothing more degraded than that."

"How do you know that?" Alice challenged him.

"Oh well, let me see.  You pointed out the existence of child prostitution and sex slavery, though you incorrectly assigned some of the blame to the Syndicate.  Now I am going to agree that these evils are sorely widespread in this wicked world.  But I would ask you, how can that be when we have so many policemen on the taxpayer's payroll?  Maybe it's because the real offenders are not arrested.  Maybe when crimes do occur – let's say where the criminal is not caught red-handed – the police don't go looking for the truly dangerous types who do the very bad stuff.  They just find some poor fool on whom they can pin some evidence.  A lot easier, isn't it?  Someone stupid, or suspicious-looking, or with some history, etcetera.  Juries believe police evidence, don't they?  Maybe the offenders pay off police and witnesses because they can afford to.  In the public's eye, someone is punished for a crime.  Trouble is, the real criminal is free to commit another crime."

"You don't know that!"  Alice snapped.

Allsop shrugged.  "I know it for a depressing number of cases.  Many, many, many.  Of course I don't know about every case, but there's a very troubling pattern."  He leaned towards Alice.  "Now I would guess, Dr Turner, that you personally don't know
any
cases where you actually are sure the police
did not
take the easy road and just find anyone they thought they could easily get convicted? You just believe they do a good job because… Because it's really too disturbing to imagine that they don't, isn't it?"

"I work with the police a lot on breaking gang codes and I can tell you they are not like that."

Allsop shook his head and smiled.  "Dr Turner, you give us information to protect your mother from a murder charge.  Are you telling me Old Bill is less corruptible than yourself?"  Alice swore at him but the man just chuckled.  He looked at Séamus and said, "You've got to ask yourself, what makes a bloke become a rozzer?  'Cos he wants to help folk?  Ever seen that delight in his eyes when he's handing you a speeding ticket?  Those bastards are interested in power, nowt else."

Alice was pointedly looking away from Allsop.  Séamus broke the silence by asking, "But how does your Syndicate get rid of evil, then?"

The other man opened one of several thermoses of coffee and poured three plastic cupfuls. "Well, Mr Grant would tell you that there are two types of evil.  Evil that cannot be avoided, and that which can be avoided.  Take underage prostitution.  We can't stop pedophiles being born, so that's an evil we will always face.  But most underage girls are teenagers made up to look like adults.  There's a demand for them because there's a poor supply of adults.  Increase the willing supply of real adults and you eliminate the demand for fake ones and coerced ones."

"Sounds rubbish," Alice said, still looking away. "Isn't it, Séamus?"

"I never thought about it," he commented.  How could he imagine what made sense in this context, when he was obsessed by a woman who had a daughter a few years younger than him?  He said to Allsop, "So other men in your Syndicate share these beliefs?  I mean, it's a kind of
Credo
for you?"

The Syndicate man shrugged again.  "We don't see them as beliefs, we see them as science.  Our people severely punish pimping of under-aged and coerced girls, and everyone doing voluntary adult business is invited to join us.  Throughout Western Europe there's not much left than ourselves, and we're growing everywhere else.  Just one more rule – if you leave us then, for the safety of yourself and your family, you say nothing.  If you see something wrong, you tell us and not the coppers."

"So you're basically like the Mafia?" Alice said. "You're the gods who decide what justice is."

"No, Ma'am.  Mafia is families.  We have no preferential treatment of family members.  And we have our own legal system.  If someone's up for punishment, we have our own jury review the evidence."

"I pray someday you'll all be up before a real jury," Alice remarked.

Séamus sighed. "Not any day soon, I suspect."  He looked at Allsop.  "I've recently been reading the government files on the Syndicate.  Seems our people concluded the same as you.  Coercion and underage is way down these days and they suspect it's because of the spread of your organization.  So they're not going after you, since you're doing the worst part of their job for them.  What I had no idea about – and I'm sure they don't either – is that this is actually part of your mission." 

After pausing, he gave an ironic laugh. "You know, I now appreciate more what McMahon said to me about unlawful armies.  But instead of the IRA, it's more like Sinn Fein was in the old days – illegal, but in constant talks with the government.  Local police may hound you from time to time, but our Agency and others stop it going anywhere because they know any alternative's going to be worse.  If we don't have enough resources to stop bombs in public places, we're not going to waste them on consenting adults in private."

"Especially when your top people enjoy our discounted prices," Allsop said with a wink, "And can be assured of no breaches of confidentiality."

Alice made a noise of disgust. "Then all you're saying is that everything's just as corrupt as you are.  Seems we still don't have enough women in government yet."

Allsop nodded his appreciation of the point. "When we do, I suspect our bill for luxury goods will go a lot higher – especially those involving the skin and parts of endangered species."  He picked up a cushion and placed it behind his head.  "They said with women in government there'd be more peace in the world, but I don't remember them campaigning too hard against the last war."  He looked at Séamus. "But I'd vote for Petra any day, wouldn't you?  Says she'll stand for election when she goes back to her home country – she's a big fan of our cause, you might say.  Now if you wouldn't mind, I'll take forty winks."

When Allsop started to snore gently, Alice said to Séamus, "I can't bear you and the girls getting tied up with this Syndicate.  I know I'm trapped, but it was my mother's foolish decision."

"You can't blame her for fearing the justice system," Séamus told her.  "Most juries don't understand the science of evidence, or even the meaning of it being 'beyond reasonable doubt.'  What's more, maybe 70% of people in this world live under a justice system closer to Kevin Grant's than English Common Law, and they accept it as being the norm.  It's certainly not unfamiliar to the girls. " He paused. "And this is one way I can be allowed to keep an eye on them.  I will be inside the Syndicate, right along with them.  You and they tell me that my minding role is the most important thing to them.  Strangely enough, just now it's the most important thing to me."

Alice grabbed his hand.  "Dear, please promise me you'll stay one of the good guys?"

"I'll tell you what.  I'll promise you that I'll tell you whatever I'm doing, providing you promise to help me work out whether that means I'm a good guy or bad guy.  And if I'm on the wrong side, help me figure out a way of crossing over which allows me to keep my legs working."

Alice kept his hand in hers.  "Any advice on how to handle Wilkie?"

Séamus started munching on one of the many sandwiches provided for them.  "If I understand anything about him, he'll be enraged at what happened.  A group of politicians wreck your key research tool just because they don't like the truth when they hear it?  I suspect that the Agency has pretty much destroyed everything we've developed at the facility, and that he's been ordered to stop all work on translation."

"But the Consortium had a version."

"Yes, and I have the girls safe.  Just make sure he feels he can trust you.  That you will be supportive of whatever direction he wants to take from here.  Let him suggest you try and contact me.  Then we'll just have to make sure he's committed himself over to our side.  If we're going to reach the Consortium and negotiate decent terms, his assistance will be vital."

A little while later, both he and Alice fell asleep.  He awoke when he felt the van driving through town streets, and noticed they were still holding hands.  They had reached Cambridge and Alice directed the driver where to drop her.  She gave all the girls a long hug, then one for Séamus that was particularly tight.  "We're committed to sharing, just like before, aren't we?" she asked.  He agreed with her.  She climbed out of the van's side door without turning round again.

When they reached Felixstowe, Séamus and the girls exited the van inside a warehouse and climbed up into a container on the back of a trailer.  It was wonderfully furnished with soft, full-body reclining chairs with sophisticated seat belts, various options for lighting, plenty of food and drink, digital entertainment, and a wide range of emergency equipment.  They were all given a briefing about what to do in the case of various emergencies, as if they were airline passengers listening to FAA-approved pre-flight instructions.  They were also given sleeping pills and medicine to fight sea-sickness and claustrophobia.  Thereafter, other than some uncomfortable swaying during loading and unloading, it was simply a matter of waiting until they disembarked in a similar warehouse in The Hague.  For certain, a number of bribed officials had ensured that their container was not on any inspection list.  The officials' upside was a much fatter salary, and their downside was a threat to their welfare and that of their families.  In return, the Syndicate would do its best to minimize their exposure, covering its tracks with proper documentation everywhere possible.  The cattle breeding center was the ideal front, requiring sealed animal transit under quarantine laws.  Of course, on this occasion the bribed officials would have been disturbed to know that the girls were escaping government-ordered elimination, but they would never know.

Within another twenty-four hours, Séamus and the girls were having a late breakfast at a hotel on the French Riviera.  The girls were dressed in clothes that had been supplied for them, and which they were delighted with.  Their table sat on a wide, street-side patio, and they were enjoying watching the passers-by.

Before sitting down they had already walked to the beach, and it had startled the girls to find not only women sunbathing topless, but also to note the average size of the exposed breasts.  They had  remarked with great interest on the buildings – how old they all looked, yet how immaculately kept they all appeared to be.  With small exceptions, the only old buildings they had previously seen treated so lovingly were temples.