Authors: Migration
“How?” Vogol asked.
Cereta looked appealingly to Masumichi, but Masumichi could only show his empty hands.
Korshak had remained silent, letting the others talk the ramifications out for themselves to see if anyone else might come to any conclusions different from the ones he had while riding the capsule across Astropolis to the Directorate. Nobody had. He hadn’t been driven to agree with Cereta’s last statement, however. There was another way he had thought of, that might work.
“Nothing you attempt remotely will persuade Tek to switch on again,” he said simply. “I’m the only one here who has dealt with it face-to-face. It won’t trust any voice that tries to talk to it over a communications link anymore. The only entity it will believe now is Almighty Dollar.”
“Same question,” Cereta said. “How is Dollar or someone pretending to be Dollar supposed to get through to it if it’s not listening?”
“They won’t – not over a com link, anyway,” Korshak answered. “But it will listen to Dollar’s Messenger.”
Uncertain looks flickered from one to another among the others around the table. Each seemed to be looking for something they had missed. “Then how is the Messenger supposed to talk to it?” Vogol asked.
“The same way as before,” Korshak replied. “Face-to-face.”
“But that was you, dressed up in that mystic’s outfit that you were wearing when you arrived on
Aurora
,” Lubanov said.
“So why shouldn’t it be me again? I’ve still got the robe back home. It could be here in half an hour.”
“Then what?” Lubanov asked.
“I take a shuttle to
Outmark
,” Korshak answered. “We’ve still got the best part of two days. It doesn’t need a circus of search parties. I’m betting I could find it in that time.”
“Even without the circus, how could you be certain of getting close enough for it to recognize you before it panics?”
“That’s my trade,” Korshak replied confidently.
“We’re talking about
outside
,” Vogol reminded him. “You were inside Etanne last time.”
“So you put me in a suit. That’s what they’re for.”
“Do you even know your way around the outside of
Envoy
?” Cereta queried. “Masumichi said a minute ago, it’s a large and complex structure. He wasn’t kidding.”
“
I
don’t,” Korshak replied. “But Vaydien does. She worked on it for a while. I can have her direct me remotely. Or we could use one of your own people out there if you like.”
“Have you had any previous EVA experience?” Cereta asked dubiously. “Or training with suits?”
“No,” Korshak admitted. The point had occurred to him, too, but he’d assumed it was something that could be taken care of. Cereta didn’t seem so sanguine.
“It takes time and practice,” he said. “Especially if you want to come across as a messenger from the gods and not some kind of slapstick act. And even the light-duty models are pretty bulky, and with a pack. Just how big is this robe?”
That had bothered Korshak, too. “You’ve got a point there, Vad,” he agreed. “The only thing I can think of is that if we have to, we do a rush job of enlarging it.”
“It would need to be more like a tarp.”
Lubanov, who had been steepling his fingers under his chin while he listened, sighed and shook his head. “Korshak, I respect your nerve and your initiative,” he said. “But in all honesty, I can’t see that it would have a chance. Adept as you are, it’s an environment that you have no working knowledge of. Vad knows what he’s talking about.”
“Could somebody from a trained EVA crew pull it off, do you think?” Ormont asked.
“It would take too long to fill a new person in on all the background,” Korshak said.
“And that’s assuming you could find someone suitable in the time we’ve got,” Cereta threw in.
That seemed to kill it. The room became still. Korshak had nothing further left to offer. It was one of those rare moments when he felt himself sliding into despondency. Then Masumichi, who had been staring distantly through the table, said, “You don’t need a person in a space suit at all.” He looked up. “Why are we talking about all this? To send this Messenger from Dollar to a place where he can communicate with an entity that functions perfectly comfortably outside because it happens to be a robot. Well, the answer is simple: make the Messenger the same thing.”
“Same thing?” Vogol repeated.
“Yes.” Masumichi waved a hand in the general direction that indicated the next of
Aurora
’s modules around the Ring. “Over in Jakka. You’ve worked with it yourself. We send another robot. Let Kog be the Messenger.”
Korshak blinked, and then stared. The suggestion was so audacious that he felt himself drawn to it irresistibly already. Another robot. It answered everything.
But Vogol was frowning and not seeming so happy. “We’d still run into the same problem as before,” he said. “Tek saw through it when I tried to pretend I was Korshak. How can we expect Kog to get away with it? If Tek smells another rat at this stage, it’ll guarantee he blows the whole works.”
Masumichi was smiling, as if he had been anticipating the objection. “You’re forgetting the neural coupler. We put Korhsak at the other end. So for all intents and purposes, that means he
is
Kog.”
Vogol’s frown deepened. He shook his head. “No. That won’t work. There’s only regular web communications out there at
Outmark
. They can’t handle NC. Even if you shipped the antenna out there, it would just give you a narrow beam from
Outmark
.
Envoy
has too many shadows and dead spots – and the entire reverse side would be blind anyway. Korshak had to take Tek out to the viewing gallery for it to work on Etanne. We’re not going to have that kind of cooperation this time.”
Masumichi continued smiling and nodded his agreement. “All the same, I think there’s a way we could make it work,” he said.
The movie was about shooting wars between private corporate armies in the old world, and was just building up to the climax where the champions of two rival energy suppliers were about to settle things by facing each other on an avenue lined by spectators in one of the fabulous skyscraper cities. Historians had expressed doubts that things had really been like that, but it made good entertainment and helped foster a healthy spirit among young people of standing up for themselves when it was called for.
What had always mystified Vaydien about the old world was the enormous number of automobiles. Even around Arigane, which had never been one of the major population centers, she had seen excavations that had turned up the remains of thousands. Where, she asked herself, had they ever managed to find enough trained drivers? A woman who did research for one of the libraries had told her that there weren’t any as such; everybody drove themselves – from schoolchildren not much older than Mirsto to octogenarians in their dotage. Vaydien didn’t believe it. Vehicles capable of a hundred miles an hour, strung together along strips of roadway twenty feet wide? The idea was ridiculous. Half of them would have been dead within a day.
“Is Dad going away again already?” Mirsto asked from the other chair.
“Not this time. He just had some unfinished business that he remembered across in the Directorate. He hasn’t even left Astropolis. He’ll be back later tonight.”
“That’s good to know, anyway. He was only just back. What was he doing with those funny clothes?”
“You know, I’m not really sure myself. He’ll tell us all about it in good time.”
Mirsto’s attention drifted back to the movie. “I think the one from the nuclear empire will win. You can always tell, because they wear white hats. Is it true that they had to fight, otherwise they lost their jobs? I’m not sure I’d have liked that.”
An incoming-call tone sounded. Vaydien’s viewpad told her it was from Korshak. She directed it to the kitchen and went through to take it there.
“A change of plan,” he announced.
“Change? I didn’t even know we had one.”
“Lots of urgent things are going on. You know that gray robe with the cowl that I brought back with me in the bag?”
“You mean Mirsto’s invisibility cloak?”
“Yes. Look, can you bring it over here right away?”
Vaydien realized that after years of being married to a magician, nothing ever really came as a surprise. “Where are you? Still at the Directorate?”
“Yes. Ormont’s office.”
“Ormont? I’m impressed. I take it he’s not going to wear it.”
“Not his style. We need it for something at
Outmark
.”
Vaydien sighed to herself inwardly. “Does that mean you’ll be going there?”
“We are. You’re needed there, too. You can drop Mirsto and Kilea off at Hori’s place on the way. Tell them it might be for a day or two.”
“I’m on my way,” Vaydien said resignedly.
The only coasts that Ronti had seen back on Earth had been bleak, windswept expanses of muddy flats, rocky headlands, and gray seas. If this was the fake, artificial substitute, he was all for it.
He lay on a towel spread out on the warm sands of Beach, his back propped against an ice chest well stocked with Envoys and assorted other delicacies, watching the surf roll in from the offshore wave maker. A few feet away, Ginaya rubbed oil over the parts of her body not covered by a swimsuit that was more suggestion than actuality. In fact, Beach’s “sun” was designed not to emit potentially harmful wavelengths, but Ginaya had grown up in Sofi and insisted that being on a beach wasn’t the same without going through the oiling ritual.
“But if you were the king’s bodyguard, why did you leave the palace?” she asked. “It sounds to me more as if you should have been trying to stop the others.”
Ronti shook his head. “He was a wicked man. I had decided long before that I couldn’t remain in his service. So when I found out that the magician and the physician were planning an escape, instead of turning them in, I threw my lot in with them and helped them organize it.”
“A man of principle and integrity,” Ginaya said admiringly.
“That’s how I like to think of it,” Ronti agreed.
“Okay. So where were we? The prince and his cavalry were charging across the bridge. But you couldn’t take off until the others were inside, and the physician was slowing them down. What did you do?”
“The situation was desperate. Arrows were already falling around us. The horsemen would be upon us in moments. It was obvious that the physician would never make it in time.”
“You didn’t leave him?”
“No, of course not. Suddenly I had an inspiration!”
“What?” Ginaya asked breathlessly.
“Just inside the door of the lander was one of those flare pistols that they have for emergencies. I grabbed it off the wall, ran down the lander’s steps and out into the road, and fired it head-on into them. They had never seen anything like it before and had no idea what it was. It burst right in among the thick of them, in the middle of the bridge. You’ve never seen such a rout. Bodies and horses falling off both sides into the water. It was complete panic….”
At that moment, a call sounded from Ronti’s phone, in the pocket of the shirt slung over the ice chest behind him. Frowning, he sat up, reached back, and fumbled for it.
“I told you to turn it off,” Ginaya said.
“I should have.” He flipped it to audio. “Hello? Ronti here.”
“Ronti, it’s Korshak.”
“Well, hey! How’s Plantation?”
“Oh, that’s history. I’m back on
Aurora
, in Astropolis. Long story. No time to go into it now.”
“Okay.”
“I need your help. Urgent. Where are you?”
“Relaxing on Beach – or was. What’s up?” Ronti cupped a hand over the mouthpiece and whispered, “Just a little bit of business.” Ginaya nodded.
Korshak went on, “The mirror for the Teleporting Man.” It was a prop for a new trick that they were working on – a high-quality, one-way reflecting sheet large enough to cover a person, at present in their workshop on Jakka.
“Right,” Ronti acknowledged.
“Can you get over to Jakka for it? I need it as soon as you can manage.”
“Well, I guess so. Where are you, exactly?”
“Right now I’m in the Directorate. But the mirror needs to go to the Hub docking area. Take it to the shuttle port for
Outmark
. The people there will be expecting you.”
“Can do.”
Ginaya read the glum look on Ronti’s face. “What is it?” she hissed.
“I have to go to Jakka and then the Hub. Right now. Sorry. Something urgent has just come up.”
“You will still be coming back later?”
“Oh, yeah – I’m pretty sure, anyway. But if anything changes, I’ll call you. It’s just that there are times when certain things have to come first.” He finished the beer he had been drinking and stood up. “You know, Gin, sometimes I feel as if I’ve never stopped being a bodyguard.”
Hera, of course, met all the criteria for a habitable world, such as size, temperature range, surface and atmospheric chemistry, and data returned from the old-world probe confirmed that life had established itself there. The question that couldn’t be answered was whether it included some form of intelligence, and if so, the degree to which its culture had progressed. The mixture of gases that enveloped the planet carried the unmistakable signature of living things; images captured from orbit showed areas that varied in color and extent with the seasons; but beyond that, little more could be said. Answering the question was one of
Envoy
’s principal objectives.
In
Aurora
’s Hub observatory, Lois Iles was finally catching up with her own work after being drafted into helping Lubanov out and ending up on Plantation. Marney Clure had never lost interest in her work and was in the lab on one of his periodic visits. A screen by the chair where he was sitting showed a transmission from
Outmark
of the last-minute activity going on around
Envoy
as the final items of equipment were absorbed inside before the auxiliary craft and service platforms were pulled back to clear the launch zone. Shortly before, there had been a news item on a protest demonstration staged outside the Directorate offices.