Shadow's End (11 page)

The window beside him reflected his pale face, a ghostly image superimposed over the distant trees. That
long Lostrel nose. That triangular Lostrel mouth. The very face of dynasty hiding the person of …whom?

Who had he been, there on beautiful Elitha? Who might he have become? Famber the Fastigat hadn't actually forced him to return. Once found, however, he had thought … Or had he thought?

“Why?” asked the Prime Minister in a concerned voice. “What difference does it make who hired him, or for what?”

After a moment the Lost King shrugged. “None, really. The free agent is as culpable as the director of that agent. That's Kamir law, isn't it?”

“Yes. With certain reservations. What have you done?”

The king turned, a vague and rather nasty smile on his face. “Nothing, Prime Minister. Nothing that is not entirely traditional for kings.”

S
hortly after that, in the office of the Procurator, Snark the shadow stood immobile against the wall, alert to any need expressed or unexpressed on the part of the Procurator's guests.

There were three of them, ponderous all, two Fastigats and a non-Fastiga woman, counselors to Alliance Prime, heavy with the weight of years and experience, heavy with cynicism and doubt, heavy, at the moment, with anger and despair.

“Two more worlds,” said the oldest of them, a gnarled tree of a man. So Snark thought of him, Twisted-tree. Shadows were not introduced, and the three knew each other well enough to have needed no introductions among themselves. In the absence of other names, Snark labeled the two men Twisted-tree and Thunder-man. The woman's name she knew: Chief Counselor to Prime for Planetary Management Poracious Luv.

Thunder-man rumbled, “The latest communiqué came just this morning. Two more worlds wiped clean in Hermes Sector, yes.”

“Survivors?” asked Poracious Luv.

“We're not looking for any. Except as they may show up on the monitors.”

“Weren't there survivors last time?” she asked.

The Procurator murmured, “No proven survivors. Some children were found.”

“Didn't they say?”

“I don't know. I don't think I ever read the report.” The Procurator waved his hand impatiently. What had happened last time really wasn't germane. “What's being done?” he demanded.

Thunder-man went on. “Last time, a century ago, there was only one populated planet in Hermes Sector, Dinadh. There were also a few outposts and colonization teams. This time there are four systems containing a dozen worlds, most of which have been homo-normed to Class D, basic treefarm grass-pasture biome, with all native life eliminated except for a few tough but relatively unimportant species. Yes.”

“And?”

“And Dinadh, the single world of its own system, doesn't want to be involved. They've refused intervention. The other populated systems are cooperating in what we call an evacuation. It's purely symbolic. We can't really evacuate the population; we couldn't even keep up with the birth rate. We're giving first priority to people who have friends here in Prime. In addition to the symbolic gesture, we've actually removed advance teams from several worlds.” Thunder-man referred to his notes. “From planet Mandalay and the first moon of Cabal in Jerome's system; and from a planet in Goan's system, Perdur Alas.”

“Where the hell will you put evacuees?” asked the Procurator in a whisper. “Every habitable world is full to the shores!”

“There's a used-up planet a bit nearer in, across the space time border in Janivant Sector, yes. Borthal's World. The original population on Borthal's colonied out
a couple of generations back, shortly before it hit crit-popple and ah …perished.”

“Crit-popple?” Poracious Luv murmured, her lips quirking.

The Procurator cleared his throat. “Some of the younger administrators have their own jargon, Madam Luv. We used to say things like, ‘absolute carrying capacity,' or ‘sanity limitation.' Lately it's become critical population level, crit-popple.”

Thunder-man went on: “As I was saying, there's no flora or fauna left on Borthal's, but we've seeded the seas with resistant photocellulars for oxygen production, and we're stockpiling foodstuffs there now. Practically speaking, there won't be that many evacuees. Most of them will be children, and we can only get a few tens of thousands off.”

The three visitors sat in gloomy silence.

Poracious Luv murmured, “How long is the Alliance going to go on promising a continually expanding frontier?”

“Don't talk dirty,” boomed Twisted-tree. “You talk like that, somebody'll hear you.”

“Somebody's already heard me,” she snorted. “The Celosians don't care if I talk population limitation for the Pooacks. The Pooacks don't care if I talk population limitation for the Schrinbergians. So long as I don't mean them, they don't care. Sometimes, late at night, I have these dreams about all the animals….”

“Animals?” asked the Procurator. “What animals?”

“All of them. The ones in pattern storage. In the files. Whales. Elephants. Grampuses. Winged things, some of them. I have these dreams. The souls of all the animals are speaking to me, condemning mankind as the greatest beast of the field. They make a kind of hollow roar, like the sound of the sea.”

“This is no time to be fanciful!” Twisted-tree announced.
“Besides, I find your words offensive. Man is not an animal.”

She made a rude gesture. “You Firsters have been top-aheap ever since you came up with that ‘universe made for man' claptrap.”

Twisted-tree snarled, “Fastigats are not Firsters, madam, any more than kings are commoners. As kings and commoners may share pride of identity while being otherwise unlike, so we and Firsters share certain opinions. Neither they nor we are the first to have those opinions, and the Firsters are saying no more than we have always said. The universe was made for man.”

The Procurator said, “Firsters are oversimplifying, of course. ‘Humanity first' leaves certain refinements unaccounted for. Still, their numbers are growing.”

The big woman grumbled, “They're making their politics sense-able, that's why. Have you seen their sensur-rounds?”

The Procurator shook his head, making a little moue of distaste.

She went on: “They portray exciting journeys to newly homo-normed planets where the senser lives happily ever after with no shortages, lots of room, plenty of food, and a couple of dozen live, healthy children.”

The Procurator laughed knowingly. “Sensing is believing!”

Poracious Luv gave him an indignant look. “Once they've sensed the Firster version, they don't want to hear anything about your so-called refinements. They don't want to know the ordinary Firster has about as much chance of going to the frontier as he has of surviving once his world hits—what did you call it?—crit-popple? And, of course, you Fastigats may continue in your ivory-tower opinions because it won't happen here.”

Twisted-tree flushed slightly. Thunder-man looked offended. The Procurator, through long practice, ignored what she had said. Alliance Central wasn't officially a
“world.” It was a government. Freedom-of-procreation laws that applied to Alliance worlds could not apply here. The administration would not remain in power if Alliance Central ever hit crit-popple. There were ways to assure that it did not. Required emigration for larger families. Shadowhood for overactive males. A little something in the water supply. A little something else in the air.

Poracious Luv's hand twitched toward her cup. Snark moved like invisible lightning, taking away the used cup, filling a clean one, putting it where the avid hand could fall upon it. Poracious drew in the hot fragrant brew as though breathing it, half emptying the cup. It was time to change the subject.

“Is there any news from Dinadh?” she asked.

“Lutha Tallstaff is on her way there now,” said the Procurator. “It will be some time before we hear anything from there. How about the recorders we had hidden all through Hermes Sector? Did they function properly? Did we get anything useful?”

Twisted-tree growled, “They functioned well, yes. We have excellent records of thousands of colonists going about their business. Then we get deterioration of the audio segment, then brief exclamations, drawn breaths, yes. We see people staring fearfully around themselves. Then we see a gray veil, and the next moment we have good views of a planet without human life.”

“That quickly?”

“More quickly than I can tell it. Subsequently, the recorders stop functioning.”

Twisted-tree said gloomily, “They stopped functioning on Mandalay and Jerome's System, yes.”

Silence once more except for the almost surreptitious inhalation of tea.

After a time the Procurator offered, “If they are taking the people first, perhaps some kind of device implanted
in
the people themselves would give us useful information.”

“Political suicide,” hissed Poracious. “If it were ever found out we'd used workers or colonists …”

“What if they were volunteers?” asked the Procurator.

The woman shook her head. “Even so. There are populated worlds out there, worlds with representation here at Prime. Those representatives are already giving us hell because we didn't start evacuation the minute we knew the Ularians were back. Never mind that it's impossible to evacuate a settled world. We take off a thousand; the same day they have a thousand and ten babies! They don't want to hear we can't do it, even though that's what we've told them right along. Blind faith in somebody stepping in to fix things eliminates a lot of emotional stress, so blind faith is what most people have!

“Now that they're facing the fact nobody can fix things, they're on the screaming prod; and if they found out we'd put recorders into people we knew would be taken, they'd have us for breakfast, broiled.”

“But we need information,” the Procurator murmured.

“Well, we can't use colonists.” Her eyes came to rest on Snark, seeming to see her through her garb, through her shadowhood. Poracious Luv's gaze went past Snark, on to the several other shadows in the room, resting briefly on each. “Not colonists, Procurator. But …”

His eyes followed hers. “Shadows?” he asked in a hushed voice. “You mean shadows?”

“Why not?”

“Why not? Because it denies the first right of man! As shadows, they can live part of their lives normally. But on a frontier world …”

“How do we know they wouldn't be better off?” Poracious asked in a silky tone. “We don't know what the Ularians do with them. Maybe they transport them to other, more suitable worlds.”

“Tchah,” he snorted.

“We could always claim we believed so, and who could
prove we didn't?” asked Thunder-man. “Besides, in a time of war, there have to be sacrifices. Whom would you rather sacrifice?”

“The first rule of governance is never to choose who to sacrifice,” snarled the Procurator. “Or, at least, never to be seen to choose. Death and dismemberment must always be … inadvertent. Everybody's fault or nobody's fault!”

“What are you suggesting?” Thunder-man asked the woman, ignoring the Procurator's words. “Replacing a real preliminary team with one made up of shadows?”

Poracious Luv nodded thoughtfully. “Exactly. If I heard you correctly, we took preliminary teams off three worlds. One of them was Perdur something?”

He glanced at his notes. “Perdur Alas,” he confirmed.

Twisted-tree drummed his fingertips on his chair arm, scanning his databoard. “The team there was only a few hundred strong. How many shadows are there?”

“I'm sure there will be enough,” said Poracious significantly. “By the time we get them ready to go.”

The Procurator folded his hands in his lap and stared at his guests. Was he capable of this? He murmured, “You'll recall we use simulation booths to control the shadows, to vent their hostility. The booths are a modified form of sensurround. Shadows are accustomed to the satisfaction they get in the booths. There are no simul booths on Perdur Alas.”

“No, and you can't put any there,” said Poracious. “The Firsters would have a fit.”

The Procurator shook his head slowly, considering.

“There aren't that many Firsters,” said Twisted-tree.

“There are altogether too many,” whispered the Procurator. It was true. They had an influence that was out of all proportion to their numbers, and those numbers were growing.

Thunder-man said, “Firsters have enough trouble accepting
sensurround. They'd have a fit if they knew about simul booths.”

Poracious nodded. “You're right. We may get away with sending shadows, but we'd never get away with the other. Someone would talk. Some shipping coordinator or installation tech.”

“Then you're talking about deep conditioning,” the Procurator objected. “The very conditioning the shadows have rejected!”

“How much can be accomplished with deep conditioning?” asked Poracious. “Can we make anything much of them?”

The Procurator mused, half aloud. “Look around you, madam! Half the people on the streets have been conditioned to some degree, though they've done it voluntarily. Most professionals are educated at least partly through deep conditioning. The only difference between them and the shadows is that they've asked for it and the shadows have vehemently rejected it.”

“Forget that for the moment,” she urged. “Just tell me what can be realistically expected.”

He mused. “We can't make a master mathematician out of a discalculic, but we can enormously multiply natural aptitudes. It has always been interesting to me that many shadows are very bright. We could assign them jobs in accordance with their aptitudes.”

“Advance teams are mostly bio-generalists anyhow,” muttered Thunder-man.