The Long View, page 24
part #2 of The Long View Series
No! Rissa's eyes clamped shut; she shook her head.
When she looked again, and listened, it was to the one un-mutilated man. He said, "My name is Biels Doming. I represent the two members who are off Earth-the two who, with their proxies of lesser holdings, effectively control this Committee and UET itself."
Tregare said, "I'd like to know a little more about those two."
"So would I," said Doming. "So would everyone here, I imagine. Myself, I inherited this job; I've never seen either of them, except pictures. Has anyone here? Or had any contact whatsoever, except for their formal reports and directives?"
The grotesque heads shook. Doming said, "They seldom come to Earth. That's how they managed it, you see-stretching time by traveling space. They're a team, always voting together since they first became major stockholders-oh, fifty-sixty years ago. But every few years one turns up, takes my latest reports and gives me new instructions. Over the special circuit-and on the screen, no face."
"How do you know who it is, for sure?"
"The screen shows fingerprint and retinal patterns-plus some special codes I'm not at liberty to divulge."
"You are if I say so," said Tregare. "But never mind, for now. What I'll settle for is the names. That's no secret, is it?"
"Of course not." Doming looked relieved. "The two women are Tari Obrigo and Cele Metrokin."
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before Tregare could speak, Rissa clutched his arm. "Bran! The woman, on Stronghold-she may have told the truth?"
He turned to look at her. "You mean-!"
"The one who claimed to be a Committee member-and of course we thought she was lying." She looked to Doming. "You have pictures of these persons, as well as the identifying patterns?"
"Why, yes-but I don't understand. I-"
"You will, soon enough. But first you will obtain for me copies of those pictures."
"I have them with me."
"Good-let me see them." He rummaged through his briefcase and handed her several photographs. She looked, then nodded. "The one, certainly. The other-Tregare, let us return to the ship and unfreeze the first one. Tomorrow you should be able to bring her here-and then you will learn much more than we can today."
"But-"
"I will remain on Inconnu. We must unfreeze the other, also-the one who, even under drugs, could not be made to tell who she is. With the advantage of what we know, I will question her again. For although the picture is not conclusive-if the one is Cele Metrokin, the other may well be TariObrigo."
Tregare grinned. "That might be-it just might. I wouldn't be surprised, come to think of it." He turned to the others. "All right-is there anything more here, now? Before you're returned to your new quarters?"
"If it's all right to ask-" said Doming. "What's your name, the woman who tells Tregare what to do?"
Tregare tensed, then laughed. "Doming-you just flunked the course in tact. And-well, never mind. You're not old enough to have met my wife-but maybe UET hasn't quite, forgot Rissa Kerguelen."
Doming looked blank. But the woman Rissa had not been able to look at, the one with" her ears sliced into drooping fringes and-no, she still could not look at the nose-that woman said, "You left Earth the year I was born. But my father told me-'Keep waiting,' he said, 'and someday you'll get her.'"
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"It is too bad to disappoint your father," said Rissa, "but the situation appears to be quite the opposite."
"Don't be too sure," the woman said. "This isn't done with, yet."
"No," said Tregare, "it isn't. You'll be back here again tomorrow. Now-anything else?''
One of the medical aides spoke. "One thing. ! didn't want to interrupt you, because it wouldn't have helped, anyway. But Forbisher died a few minutes ago." He gestured. "Should I have said something? "
"No." Tregare shook his head, "It was his own doing. He succeeded, and he's welcome to it."
He turned to Rissa. "Let's go-we've got some things to do."
And on Inconnu, in their quarters, she put her arms around his neck. "Bran! Do you see it? We have conquered ourselves."
tregare contented himself with coffee but Rissa took wine. "It is largely Hulzein money, of course-for my own investments, even with the years, could never have built so greatly. Hulzein money and Hulzein maneuverings. Even before I left Earth, Erika must have begun-and since she could not buy UET stock directly, she used the identities she had obtained for me. And Frieda-perhaps thirty-five years ago she received my first report, from Far Corner, and decided to accelerate the program."
She laughed. "At any rate, Bran, it has worked. And we-"
"You're forgetting something," Tregare said. "If the Hul-zeins control UET, how come it's running along as rotten as ever?"
"I had not thought-perhaps the control is recent, and there has not been time-"
"Didn't sound that way. Try this for size-maybe Lena Diabla likes things as they are."
Rissa shrugged. "It does not matter. For the holdings are in my names, no matter who has been manipulating them."
"Yeah." Tregare scratched his chin, rose and poured more coffee. "I wanted to ask you about that? Why Metrokin? And why wait until tomorrow?"
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"I cannot use Tari Obrigo because enroute to and on Number One I grew lax-I absorbed her speech patterns as my own, and our mannerisms have merged. And I need the time- today and tonight-for practice, since I have not done Cele Metrokin in years."
"Can you remember?"
"Besides the rest of it, I have voice tapes."
"What's she like?"
"She would not attract you." She showed him a picture. "See? Someone else wore the identity, for this, but it is close enough. She should be fatter than I can manage. A drug to retain fluid in the body will give me part of it-for the rest I must make do with padding and thick clothes, and the inserts to puff my cheeks. If I were using the identity fully, in hostile territory, I should have to cut and gray my hair-but for this, the wig will do. When I have added the wrinkle appliques to my face, and the two gold teeth and broken-veined nose-piece-"
He looked from Rissa to the picture. "You can make yourself into this hag?"
"Hag? She is not so old-biologically fifty, perhaps. She has lived immoderately." She laughed. "It is lucky that Doming had the pictures-and that the Hulzeins did not insist my doubles follow the disfigurement fads of the rest. Otherwise- "
He put an arm around her. "Otherwise we'd have worked out something else, is all. And by the way-"
"Yes?"
"You mind waiting until tomorrow to pull the transformation?"
"Not at all." She sipped the last of her wine. "But now- Tregare, you must have business to attend. So-"
"You trying to get rid of me?"
"For a time, yes. I need to hear the tapes, and practice being Cele Metrokin."
it has been so long-I have forgotten so much! She played the tapes three times, taped her own voice in mimicry, listened to short bits of each in sequence. She shook her head-it was going to be a long, arduous time, this...
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Listening again, trying to engrave the patterns in her mind once more, she sorted through the paraphernalia of identity. Yes, it was all here-and spares for the items that were not reusable. The tape ended; she set the other machine to Record and spoke again. Her accent was better now, she thought- and she was becoming used to the phrasings. But I must be very careful. ..
She paused to dine with Tregare, but for the evening again demanded solitude. At the end of it, when he joined her, she said, " I think it will be good enough.''
in the morning, after breakfast, Tregare watched her begin the transformation. Already the drug gave her an edemic, bloated look; the cheek inserts and her clothing, only slightly padded, completed the effect. When she spoke, the harshness of her nasal voice owed something to plastic that widened her nostrils. " 'Not quite lardy enough, maybe-but 'senough to fool those freaks." She blurred the sibilants, almost lisping. "Gimme the names again. I never seen 'em so I dunno which's which-right? But I oughta know the list, solid."
He read the names; she repeated them. "Okay-I won'tforget." She placed the gold toothcaps, then the appliquesthat gave her a sot's nose and wrinkled cheeks, streaked withbroken capillaries. With her own hair coiled and carefullypinned, she donned the bushy gray wig and painstakinglyplaced heavy salt-and-pepper eyebrows, holding them until theadhesive dried. Lastly she added Metrokin's fingerprints andretinal patterns.
"Gimme my shoes, huh?"
Tregare started to pick them up. "What-? These things weigh a ton!"
"Two kilos the foot, 'sail. They got lead sheets in the soles." And when she put them on and walked, her heavy, stumping gait satisfied her. "Now the gloves-I got stuff to age the hands, how they look, but takes too long for now."
She stood, posed, and he looked at her. "Peace take me, Rissa!-I mean Metrokin-if 1 hadn't seen you do it-"
"Who knows? Maybe you're lookin' at your own young slut, thirty years along.''
"Never!" He shook his head. "Now then-you want time alone with that bunch before I come in-right? So I'll have a
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guard take you over there. You want him to know who you are, or not?"
"Least knows, the better, 'less you got some clown you can trust-"
"We'll keep it to ourselves, mostly. And I've set up the quarters they'll see you locked into, tonight, and come out of in the morning."
She gave Cele Metrokin's croaking laugh. "What they dun-no is, 'sgot a back door to it, as theirs ain't. Well, Tregare- let's get off our ass."
rissa did not have to pretend nonrecognition of her guard; the man was from offship. O'course! I'm fresh outa freeze, and this one don't know Tregare's chambers are shot to hell.
With the guard directing her she clumped downship and across to the building. Inside, her guide became confused; while he led her in the wrong direction, she was hard put to keep silent.
Finally she said, "You dunno, zerchface, why the hell don't you ask?" Eyes narrowed, he looked at her. For a moment she expected a slap for her rudeness, but he shook his head and moved her along. Next time they met someone, he did ask directions-and soon escorted her to the conference room.
Inside, she looked at the Committee members. Remember- I ain't seen these before!" "Hello, Doming," she said. Then, "Curse me for a Client! You're my goddamn' colleagues-you bunch of carved-up freaks?" She made her heavy-footed way to a chair and sat. "What in hell got into ya? I heard stuff-sure-but why ya wanna be such friggin' monsters?"
Someone-Gemskull, it was-said, "It's a status matter. You've been off Earth; you wouldn't understand. A-a competition, with no one else allowed to compete."
Metrokin's harsh laugh. "What I think-you sorta forgot when to quit. No wonder this snotnose Tregare's got his boots up our ass! You'd stuck to business-"
"For that matter," said Fringe Ears, "you're as much a prisoner as we are. So who are you to talk?"
"Went into Stronghold, we did-all the signals right. Then we're landed and Police come aboard-only they ain't Police at all, they're Tregare's. How'm I supposed to lift ship-stand
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on the ramp and fart, maybe?" She shook her head, a jerky motion. "Anyway-he didn't take no whole damn planet off me, like he did you."
Scar Ridge said, "We're wasting time. The question is, what can we do about it?"
"Dunno about you," said Rissa. "Me, I'm gonna make a deal,"
The Dairy Queen's unlikely breasts heaved. "Traitor! If the guards weren't here, I'd-"
"You'd what? Smother me with them haybags you got? If you fell over frontwards, your head'd only make it half ways. What are those things-plastic or somethin'?"
"They are not. it's a glandular treatment-very expensive, too, to maintain."
"Shoulda tried one for your brains-alia ya. But looka here, now-we gotta try workin' together. Better chances that way. So-who's top freak between ya?"
"Don't you know?"
"Sure-I know it's Hrodicken. But I never seen ya before, any more than you seen me. So whicha you pincushions is Hrodicken?"
Gemskull said, "She's dead, I'm told. I'm next in line-after you and Obrigo, of course."
"You gotta name? Or do I gotta read your monogram off your head?"
"Zavole-Aarem Zavole."
"Awrighi, Zavole. Tregare gets here, you give him the story. All the how-so, why we been runnin' things this way, the stuff he's so pissed about."
"Why not you? You're senior to all of us."
"Been off Earth too long-outa touch with all the small shit. Besides, you talk it better."
She pulled at the little finger of her right glove-the sign for Tregare, watching the monitor in his office, to enter. While Zavole still temporized, Tregare walked in and sat.
"Okay-school's started. You been having fun together, kicking old times around? How about it, Metrokin?"
"Har'ya, Tregare? You coulda warned me about the freak farm-some a these, make a maggot puke. They watch the store half the time they spend tryin' to look so candy-ass, you'd be on 'tother end of the stick here."
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"Maybe." Tregare spoke quietly. "It strikes me, before I decide what to do with you lot, I'd better hear your side of it. If you have one."
"Such a coincidence," said Fringe Ears, "that the idea strikes you when we've just been discussing it here."
"Stuff it," said Rissa. "Any sense at all, he's got eyes and ears on us."
"Yeah," said Tregare. "And what kind of deal, Metrokin, do you have in mind?"
"Shit-simple, Tregare-I play your game, I'm home free."
"Think I'd leave you in voting control? You're crazy."
Rissa said, "Hell with that. I mean-you don't punish me for nothin', I live good-and when I want, you let me off Earth. No comin' back, I don't need to-out there I own enough-"
"I'll think about it. First you play my game-you do that, you won't be punished. I'll go that far with you, Metrokin."
"And the rest of us?" said Zavoie. Tregare shrugged; the man continued. "You wanted to hear our side of it. Do you know how the present system began?"
Tregare leaned back, relaxed now. "What part of it do you have in mind?"
"A hundred and twenty years ago, roughly, this continent had twice its present population and couldn't afford its own government. The system of corporate elections, bidding for the job of governing, saved the economic structure from total collapse. It was supposed to be a stopgap-"
"And it was," said Tregare. "Because after UET'd been in power a while, they stopped having any elections."
"Well, yes-but that was before any of us were born."
"Not me," said Rissa. "You, maybe."
"Yes-I'd forgotten. But the terrible problem was still overpopulation-and so many of the people with no work, no way to earn a living,"
"So somebody had a bright idea," Tregare said. "Total Welfare."
"Total Welfare, and UET's brilliant discovery of star drive." Rissa did not correct the man's idea of how UET had gone into space. He said, "The Welfare system-peace take us all if you succeed in destroying it. Those mindless herds, good for nothing but to take-"
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"Skip the excuses," said Tregare. "I don't believe them. The way those people are treated, kept ignorant, worked for your gain, not their own-"
"Oh, there's abuse, of course. In anything this big-but it works, you see." Before Tregare could interrupt, "Would you rather have what happened in India a hundred years ago? Or China? Africa? Brazil?"
Delicately, careful not to press against the implanted gems, Zavole wiped sweat from his forehead. "Here's what happened. Quarantine of famine areas until the population starved down to fit the food supply. Deliberate introduction of pestilence for the same purpose. Rations withheld from unsterilized men-and since there weren't enough medical people to handle the mobs, like as not the men went to roadside quacks and found themselves castrated instead. Infanticide-enforced by fixing a woman with two touches of a hot iron-so that if she did have a baby she couldn't nurse it.
"I tell you-all these things happened, and worse. But not in North America."
Rissa shuddered. Almost, she forgot Cele Metrokin-but caught herself and said nothing.
Tregare said, "I've read some-not all that, but a little. Here, though-the birthrate was headed off, the way I hear it. So how come-"
"Massive immigration-forced on us by the rest of the world. We'd cut back, all right-so we had to make room for those who hadn't. We were at a military disadvantage-treaties that gave us a dubious balance with the Russians but not against the coalition that formed. We had no choice."
