Authors: Migration
“I understand,” Tek sent back.
“Does this task of which the banker speaks involve action concerning
Envoy
?”
“It would seem that this will soon be revealed.”
“Has there been mention of
Envoy
before, since you were brought to Etanne?”
“Only of the folly that it demonstrates.”
“What of the task that you are to perform?”
“Only that I have been chosen for a special mission.”
Openings to successive levels moved upward outside the compartment. The landing off the side of the Assembly Hall, from which Tek had entered earlier, came and went. The figure of Lareda appeared several levels below that, standing and waiting a few feet back after stepping out. Tek did likewise and joined him.
The surroundings had a different feel from the communal parts of Academy above that Tek was familiar with. The floor was of metallic mesh, and the ceiling lined with pipework and cabling. To one side, a metal ladder led up to a railed platform that disappeared between pieces of machinery. They followed a corridor past equipment bays filled with valves and electrical gear to a door bearing a sign saying authorized admittance only, which Lareda opened by entering a code. The far side was noisy, and the air smelled of hot oil.
“I share your eyes but not your memories,”
the Messenger said.
“Where does this lead now?”
“I know not,” Tek replied. “The grandfather has never brought me to this place before.”
“Who is Sorba, of whom the grandfather speaks?”
Confusion tinted with an undertone of alarm resonated in Tek’s circuits. While its senses continued registering the surroundings as it followed Lareda, the focus of the robot’s attention shifted inwardly. The Messenger’s questions had been sounding progressively more strange for one in contact with supernatural powers. The query about
Envoy
had carried a distinct implication of concern. But Tek’s education since being brought to Etanne had left no doubt that sending
Envoy
was a grave error of judgment and principle. Hence, the voice that claimed to be the Messenger’s appeared to represent a position in conflict with that of Almighty Dollar’s true intermediaries. And now he who called himself the Messenger was using “grandfather” as if it pertained to Lareda. But the real Messenger was from Etanne and would have known that it referred to the elevator – he had even traveled on it with Tek less than an hour before.
“Speak the name by which I would know you,” Tek challenged.
The silence that followed was unnaturally long. Then, “I have already said, I am the Messenger.”
It was clear that the voice Tek was hearing now was that of an imposter from the forces of Evil that had subverted Dollar’s plans on Earth, and had reappeared again to frustrate the Design for Hera.
Tek was not schooled with the knowledge to deal with this. It would have to be placed in the hands of those whose understanding was far beyond the robot’s. In the meantime, Tek had to protect itself from exposure to any risk of corruption. It deactivated the circuit and set itself resolutely to concentrating on the task that was to be revealed. Tek’s faith told it that Almighty Dollar would communicate when the time was right.
“What’s happened?” Lubanov snapped – although he thought he had a pretty good idea. The screen had blanked out, and Vogol was not getting a response.
“He’s killed the channel,” Vogol replied. “It’s disconnected. There was some code name between them that we didn’t know about.”
“The questions were too pointed,” Lois said. “He suspected you weren’t the Messenger.”
Lubanov nodded bitterly. It had been a calculated risk. The chance was there to find out everything they needed to know, and he’d had seconds to make the decision. There was nothing to be done about it now.
“Try raising Korshak one more time,” he said. “It looks as if he’s going to have to make contact physically again.”
Several hours elapsed before Korshak responded. He explained that he had been given a rush job in the workshops where he had been assigned, and unable to get away.
He reported back later that he had gone to the room that Tek had occupied, but obtained no response. Neither had he managed to locate Tek anywhere else. It seemed that the robot had vanished again.
It was early afternoon when Lareda returned to the workshops to collect the rider cape that he had sketched for Morgal that morning. Tek was with Seesilan, being instructed on the operation of the Warhorse. Lareda didn’t know what to make of its insistence that Dollar had spoken to it and confirmed its calling as the Chosen One for the mission, but something seemed to have affected it, intensifying its dedication beyond even the fervor that it had exhibited previously. And that was just as well. The horse had been designed to carry an expendable construction-type telebot remote-directed by a human safely ensconced at a console miles away. Since the modus operandi hadn’t changed, Tek’s stated eagerness to depart the material plane in pursuit of a higher spiritual reality would be spectacularly gratified.
When Lubanov restricted access to the telebot controllers at
Outmark
, Lareda and Sorba had debated at great length the arguments for and against seeking a volunteer martyr. Although some could almost certainly have been found among the ranks of the believers, the option was a messy one, with risks of all kinds of backlash that could tarnish the leadership’s image and set everything back years. And then, out of nowhere, a solution had appeared that avoided all of it. Sometimes, when things like that happened, Lareda was tempted to wonder if there might really be an Almighty Dollar at work somewhere after all.
Morgal had the cape ready in the cubicle that he used for office space at the end of the workshop. Lareda held it up and looked it over. “Not a bad job, considering the rush,” he commented. “Did you do it yourself?”
Morgal shook his head. “Seesilan had another problem that needed some work in a hurry. I gave it to that new novice, Shakor.”
“Oh, yes…. He’s signed it with his name in the corner here. Hm. He seems to have a good hand when it comes to workmanship, anyway,” Lareda said. He caught the dark look on Morgal’s face. “You don’t think so?”
“Oh, he’s good,” Morgal agreed. “Too good.”
“How do you mean?”
Morgal moved to the door and closed it. “There’s something not right about him. He’s made of more than the stuff of a dreamer who wanders about on Plantation trying to get in touch with nature. There’s a competence there that he tries to hide, but I can tell. And he’s always watching – doesn’t miss a thing.”
Lareda folded the cape up slowly and wedged it under an arm. He did recall noting the unusual charisma that Shakor had projected at the interview, but he had been under pressure from too many other things to dwell unduly on it at the time. Already an instinct was telling him that he had erred. “Do you think he could be another one?” he asked. He meant another attempted plant by Lubanov.
“That’s what I’m saying,” Morgal replied. “He was over half an hour late after the Meeting this morning. Now he’s gone again. Something’s going on.”
Lareda tugged at his beard, scowling. That was also the time that Tek had gone missing. And the incident on Sarc showed that somebody was trying to get to Tek. They couldn’t take any risks at a time like this. The first thing to do was have Shakor detained and kept under observation until the operation was over. The explanations and any necessary apologies could wait until then…. And if it turned out that no apology was called for, they would have to make sure that the message back to Lubanov was spelled out more clearly this time.
Sending Morgal a silent nod of agreement, he reached inside his robe for his phone.
“Voice on. Connect Archbanker Sorba,” he instructed.
Beneath the sinks in the men’s washroom along a side corridor from the central concourse was a removable floor plate that gave maintenance access to the plumbing. The space beneath provided a convenient hiding place for Korshak’s Genhedrin robe and audio headset. Transformed once more into the white tunic of a raw novice, he waited until all was still and emerged from one of the stalls with the bundle wrapped in a piece of plastic sheet. Stowing it out of sight and replacing the floor plate took no more than a few seconds, and moments later Korshak emerged into the corridor and headed for the dormitory area to go up to his cell.
He needed to send a message updating Lubanov’s people on the still-negative result of his attempt to locate Tek before getting back to the workshop. Morgal was getting suspicious over his absences, and at this stage in all that was happening, he didn’t want to complicate things further by creating a confrontation. Tek had gone incommunicado again when Lubanov’s operator got too pushy, and then vanished once more. Any plan to sabotage the launch would have to be implemented through
Outmark
, and the Dollarians had already shown themselves adept in smuggling the robot aboard ferries. But maybe it was there that they had gone too far and given their method away.
He ascended two levels in the dormitory section and came into the corridor where his cell was located, automatically slowing his pace and casting an eye around for anything unusual. If there was a camera covering the corridor, he had never managed to spot it. At the door, he paused to inspect the strand of waxy compound, setting hard and brittle in a minute or so, that he always stuck across the crack after leaving – not on the latching side, where some intruders might think to check, but on the hinge side, where nobody ever did. The strand was broken. Someone or ones had entered, and might well still be inside, waiting for him. Just at the moment, Korshak didn’t want to know why. He turned silently about and departed back the way he had come. His sojourn on Etanne might be about to come to an abrupt end, he decided as he took the stairs down. But if Tek was in the process of being sent elsewhere, there was little more that Korshak could accomplish here anyway.
His senses were on full alert as he came into the central concourse. He hadn’t proceeded more than three paces, when he spotted the two figures in Dollarian Executive-branch uniforms away on the far side. Their manner was not that of persons going anywhere, but prowling – looking this way and that, searching the faces of the people who passed. Korshak melted into a gaggle of novices and lower ranks moving in the general direction of the Assembly Hall, intending to take a roundabout route back to the washroom. But as he appeared at the side of the foyer in front of the Hall, he saw two more a short distance away in one of the doorways. They appeared to be interrogating somebody wearing the plain brown robe of an Accountant. Korshak recognized Furch, and Furch saw him at the same instant. Furch must have said something, for the two heads swung around in unison to follow his gaze. One of the figures pulled something from a pocket and began talking into it. Korshak was already retreating back toward the concourse. Without waiting to see what happened next, he quickened his pace and disappeared into a side corridor.
He heard their footsteps rush by outside the washroom as he was releasing the catches of the floor plate, and figured that he had ten seconds before they met others coming in the opposite direction who had seen nothing. The robe came out of its wrappings, and the floor plate clicked back into place. As if on cue, the door burst open and four Executive uniforms charged in, only to moderate themselves to a respectful pace at the sight of the Genhedrin calmly wiping his hands under the dryer by the sinks. A stall door was closed. One of the four moved over, tested it, and nodded quietly to the others. There was nobody in there, but the wadded tissue jammed between the top part of the frame and the door was tight enough to give a first impression of its being locked.
“We can wait a few minutes,” another said in a low voice.
The Genhedrin finished his ablutions without hurry and left. There was no reason why any of the four should have noticed the plastic wrapping stuffed into the waste bin below the sink, covering the headset that there had been no time for Korshak to put on.
Uniformed Dollarians were still about, watching in the viewing gallery around the docking port, when Korshak, still in his robe, rematerialized several hours later to board the ferry for
Aurora
. However, it wasn’t they who stopped him, but the couple he had seen that morning on his way back into the core zone with Tek.
“Pardon me,” the man said. “But I’m from the Directorate. We have a small security issue that we have to check on. Could I ask your cooperation?”
“What do you wish?” Korshak asked.
“May I see one of your hands, please?”
Korshak extended an arm. The man pushed the sleeve back far enough to uncover the wrist, checked around it lightly with a fingertip, evidently looking for a glove, and then produced a small metal wand which he touched against Korshak’s shoulder.
“No, I’m not a robot,” Korshak murmured in a low voice. “It’s Magician. You saw me this morning. Time to leave town. Notify Wizardry for me.”
“Will do.”
“So, should I take it that Tek hasn’t come through?”
“Not that we’ve seen. And there’s no other way off Etanne.”
So Lubanov had arrived at the same conclusion. Korshak had always liked working with professionals.
When Korshak came out of the arrival gate on
Aurora
less than an hour later, two of the “Research Section” staff were waiting to take him straight to a debriefing session with Lubanov.
Meanwhile, in the dark recesses of the
Aurora
’s docking bays, the Warhorse detached from its lodgement between the engine-mounting spars of the ferry that Korshak had arrived on, and hugging closely to the lines of the Hub structure, made its way stealthily toward the larger port where the shuttles to
Outmark
docked.
It was good to be home again. After the cramped, windowless crew cabin in Plantation’s underworld, followed by an ascetic’s cell on Etanne, the familiar surroundings of Astropolis gave Korshak the reassuring feeling of a return to reality.