Easy to Be a God, page 22
“It’s terribly complicated,” Darski muttered.
“Wait, Pry, there’s more. We already had a foothold. We knew who’d sent the file and who’d received the message. Following the clue, we discovered the next four middlemen, but there the trail went cold. From Secundus, no one sent the data farther. And from there, it was over four hundred miles to Quartus. Although officially we couldn’t accuse the pranksters of anything, we learned that there were people in our ranks who looked at this matter differently than the heads of the scientific department. Now we know that they are willing to do a lot, and even to sacrifice a lot, to protect Suhurs.”
“The attack order was countermanded, I gather.”
“No, it wasn’t,” Valdez said. “But there was no one to execute it. For the first time in the history of Gurdian civilization, all sithus shirked their duty to the Supreme Council. That day we changed … hell, what am I saying … ‘Gods’ changed the history of Beta. Do you understand?”
Darski nodded, then realized that the lieutenant might not be looking at him. He added quickly, “Yes. Suhurs were saved for the time being. Maybe even a year. And what happened to the pranksters?”
“Those directly involved went to jail. Those suspected of complicity were demoted and are still scrubbing the johns or patching up the hull of the station. But we hadn’t gotten to the bottom of this. Next months showed that Gods were doing fine. The incident with the phaser was the fifth serious violation of regulations.”
“Do they really believe Suhurs can be saved from extinction?” Darski asked.
“It looks that way,” the lieutenant said.
“But why are they picking on me?”
“Seifert got caught, and they still need someone in the communications, preferably at the level of the command center. Someone who has access to the latest information and the hardware. Without it, they can’t respond quickly enough, and the most recent disobedience of savages thwarted their plans at the worst possible moment. If the great sampo-sithu were killed on the battlefield with an unknown weapon, Gurds would consider this a divine intervention. Which in turn—with thousands of eyewitnesses—would force the Supreme Council to revise its policy toward Suhurs. The local inkblots are slowly forgetting about the curse, but one more action such as this would make them flee across the Adal Vin.”
“From what you’ve told me, it’s clear that Gods are well organized. They will get their own way with or without me. After all, as you said, one more action is all they need.”
“I assure you, Pry, that we don’t idle, either. We’ve put up safeguards and secured the system in all possible ways. We have reduced the surface staff to bare minimum. The communications centers in the bases have been automated or put under strict supervision of the scientists. No soldier can leave the base without the commander’s authorization. We’ve also stripped them all of directed-energy weapons. So, in order to arrange for something that could be considered as fulfilling the curse, they must now really use their brains. Unless they get to have their man in the command center. No wonder they do everything they can to reach you.”
“There are a hundred people working in the command center,” Darski noted. “Most of them with much more experience than I have, and some of them probably on a friendly footing with Gods. I am the worst possible choice.”
Valdez smiled.
“You still don’t understand a thing,” he said. “The operations on the surface are monitored by eighty-five people working in three shifts, but only four of them have access to the command channel. Me, you, and our substitutes. No one in the center can lift a finger without our knowledge. If an unplanned message appears in the holonet, you will pick it up immediately. If someone issues an unauthorized command, I will see it on my screen before the sender lifts his fingers off the keyboard. That’s how it works. Without access to you or to me, Gods are helpless.”
“And our substitutes?” Henryan asked.
“Yours has been transferred here from the SD headquarters. You know what that means: the guy is die-hard. Of mine, I am equally sure. It was thanks to him that we were able to detect the perpetrators of most incidents so far.”
Darski chewed his lip nervously. He knew he had to help the station’s commander, even if he didn’t want to. The colonel had this planned very smartly. A few years in a penal colony changes perspective. Irreversibly. An inmate would give anything for the smallest chance of escape, even his own mother, let alone a primitive alien race, which was anyway doomed to extinction. But the memory of the warrior dying in agony still troubled him.
“Isn’t it too obvious, Lieutenant?”
“What?”
“My appearance on Xan. I am flying in from nowhere and immediately get the only position that Gods need, and that you should have secured together with esdees. I’m afraid they’ve known since the beginning what is going on. And they play games with us. There won’t be any serious attempts of contact …”
“There have already been such attempts.” Valdez tossed the tiny pyramid in his hand. “Understand one thing, Pry: for them it is a sink or swim situation. They lost their key player in the last minutes of the game, while the score was unfavorable for them. Now they have to make a move, otherwise they will lose altogether. Even time’s not on their side. They are really desperate. And that’s why they will approach the single man who is the key to the success of their plan. If you don’t want to cooperate with them willingly, it can get dangerous. But you will not support them when it comes to a showdown. Do we understand each other?”
“I’m not crazy,” Darski assured him. “I’d rather die than go back to the Sturgeon Belt.”
“That’s the answer I hoped for.” Valdez unfastened the safety line and grabbed the railing. “Now listen to me carefully, Pry. If someone plants you a new crystal or contacts you in any other way, engage in a dialogue.”
“But …”
“Don’t interrupt me!” The lieutenant raised his voice. “We’ve pulled you out of the mines, even though we both know you should rot there. The fact that you are relaxing today under this dome instead of drilling another tunnel on some unstable asteroid, you owe to us, and us only. Me and Colonel Rutta. But now it’s not me who is pulling the strings. If the old man finds out that you’ve screwed, you’ll get an orange outfit and you’ll hop away to follow Seifert the very same day.”
He lowered his voice again. “Look, man … I’m on your side, but we’re both up this shit creek without a paddle. So, you have no choice.”
“I know.”
“Then listen carefully, Pry. We don’t want that much from you. You don’t have to expose Gods. You don’t need to submit reports, or rat on anyone. The Admiralty is not interested in revealing the depth of this conspiracy, or its subsequent participants.”
“I guess …” Darski muttered.
“We just want to know what Gods are up to, so that we can thwart their plans. I’m not an idiot, I am aware that they will check you. Most likely, for their own safety, they won’t even tell you what they’re going to do until the last minute. Maybe they will slip you some false leads.”
Lieutenant Valdez paused as if pondering over something.
“I want you to understand that the ultimate goal of this operation is to prevent interference with the destinies of the two alien civilizations. We’ll give Gods free rein, let them enjoy an illusory sense of impunity. We will ban only their last, decisive move. If inkblots think they need to get rid of savages, so be it. I know it sounds inhuman, and the conspirators will undoubtedly use this very pitch, but you must remember that the matter is not as simple as it looks. In ten years, a hundred at most, restoring Suhurs’ population will lead to a new war, and we’ll be back to square one. Protracted fighting means millions more victims on both sides of the conflict. By allowing them to live, we will sanction slaughter on an unimaginable scale. Elimination of savages at this stage will obviously be an irreparable loss. We all understand that we are dealing with … with an old, intelligent race, but look at this problem from a different perspective.
“The Warriors of the Bone are a threat even to themselves. You’ve recently seen some kind of experiment, no doubt not very pleasing to the eye, but I’ll bet that Gods won’t show you the holo of making offerings—including individuals of their own species—or mangling nestlings. I could go on with examples like this for hours.”
Darski’d had enough by now.
“What am I to do?” he asked.
“You’ll make a decision when the time comes, depending on how the situation develops. But remember one thing: you can’t immediately agree to their proposals. Let them make several attempts. Keep acting nervously, as you’ve been doing so far. When they start to press you, avoid answers, deceive them, and ask for more time to think. The longer it takes, the more desperate they will become, and thus, more careless. From now on, we’re going to communicate only in the command center, only verbally. No electronics. Starting tomorrow, the old man is proclaiming a state of heightened alert, which means the closure of most channels, and tighter control of the station’s traffic. That should help us. Do you have any other questions?”
“No, Lieutenant.”
“Excellent. Then sign the documents confirming the completion of the repair for me, and go back to the rim.”
“Yes, sir.” Darski took one last look at the contour of Suhurta and its narrow northern end.
The Seven Pinnacles stood out clearly from the celadon and gold highlands.
TWENTY-NINE
Zaitsev waited for him in the corridor of the residential area. He was standing just round the corner, behind the bulkhead, where he could watch this level’s main intersection. Leaning against the wall, he was typing something on his comlink, smiling to himself as if it amused him. A moment before Darski turned into the leg of the corridor that led to his cabin, the black gendarme stopped what he was doing and leisurely mingled with the crowd. Henryan was firmly convinced that their meeting wasn’t a coincidence.
“We need to talk, Sergeant,” Zaitsev said indistinctly, not taking his eyes off the comlink.
“I don’t think so.”
“Esdees are sniffing around you,” the black gendarme added quickly.
“I know.”
Zaitsev looked at him in surprise.
“Slow down a little,” he asked, changing his tone.
“I’m in a hurry.” Henryan tried to brush him off again, and not because the lieutenant told him to. He really didn’t want to continue this conversation.
“Really?” Zaitsev hissed, irritated. “This time it won’t be just a search. They are waiting for you.”
Darski shrugged.
“Let them wait. I have done nothing wrong.”
“If I were you, I would check all your pockets,” Zaitsev advised him, before turning sharply when the corridor forked, and started to squeeze between the first shift soldiers returning to their cabins.
Henryan cursed and, in spite of himself, slowed down. He resisted the temptation to immediately check his pockets. The esdees could have put a tail on him, since they planned open confrontation. A dozen steps away, behind the corner, his corridor began. If he was to get rid of the crystal, this was the only place. He let the crowd swallow him, put his hands in his pockets, as if reaching for something casually, and immediately found the cold pyramid. He grabbed it with two fingers. He wondered frantically what to do with the cuckoo’s egg … that’s probably how people once called the sneakily planted objects. In this part of the corridor there were no public atomizers. He could drop the microcrystal onto the floor grating, since no one would probably notice it, but this wouldn’t solve his problem. In a moment rush hour would be over and the transparent pyramid would catch passersby’s attention. Not to mention the security cameras.
No, I won’t be able to get rid of it this way, Darski thought. Maybe it’s better to pass it on to someone? On second thought he rejected this solution, too. He wasn’t as dexterous as the person who bothered him with the Gods’ messages. Getting caught was almost certain, and if the “recipient” starts making a scene … Damn it! Suddenly he felt someone take his hand, the one in which he held the pyramid. It wasn’t a strong grip, rather a soft brush, so surprising that before he realized what was happening, the microcrystal changed its owner. He didn’t see the face of a woman in a white uniform of a medic, who had just walked confidently past him, saving him a hell of a lot of trouble. Before she disappeared in the crowd, he noticed she had flaming red hair and pale skin on the neck, speckled with freckles.
Thank you, Henryan thought, turning left into a narrow corridor, adorned with two rows of doors with scanners. It was much more quiet here. Several soldiers, off duty like him, were walking toward their cabins.
Putting his palm on the scanner, Darski swallowed loudly. The door slid open with a barely audible hiss. It wasn’t completely dark inside, as when he’d finished his shift on any given day. This time, he was greeted by a pleasant twilight. In the dim glow of the lighting panels he saw three bulky figures.
“Sergeant Prydeinwraig?” The man pronounced his name with some difficulty.
Judging by his accent, Welsh was foreign to him.
They did not march him to their office. They didn’t have to. The fast but thorough search, with the full scan of the digestive system, took them only a few dozen seconds. Then Darski was sat on a chair at his desk. The Security Department officers stood around him, so that he had only one of them in his field of vision.
“Where is the microcrystal?” the shortest of the three men asked. He was still a head taller than Henryan.
“I don’t have any microcrystals,” Darski said, momentarily realizing that his answer was too elaborate and too quick.
The SD officers also thought that the suspect, taken by surprise, should have asked first what crystal they meant. Everybody at the station used microcrystals. They were the most common data storage devices.
“That we already know,” the first officer said, brushing some fluff off his impeccably tailored uniform. “I asked what you did with it.”
Darski looked the esdee straight in the eye, and suddenly felt an icy chill crawl up his spine. These were not the eyes of a sane person.
“As soon as I found it in my pocket, it went to the nearest atomizer,” he explained after a moment’s thought, trying to make his words sound sincere. “I’m not going to get entangled in conspiracy and rescue savages. I’m not Seifert.”
The esdees exchanged glances.
“Here, here. For someone who throws away crystals without reading them, you seem to know an awful lot about their content,” the interrogator said with amusement.
“I have been instructed not to meddle in the affairs of Gods,” Darski explained.
“Who instructed you?”
“Lieutenant Valdez.”
“The colonel’s bitch,” another esdee snorted. This one was standing behind Darski.
“What did he tell you?” the first esdee, standing in front of him, asked.
“Nothing specific.”
A hand as big as a shovel rested on the sergeant’s shoulder. He knew what this gesture might herald. In the penal colony, he’d been also questioned whenever there was a failure of the armor or the equipment. Human ingenuity knows no bounds. Both when it comes to taking one’s life, and extracting truth from others.
“Try to be more precise,” the invisible one advised him.
“It seemed to me that the lieutenant is on your side—” Darski began and hissed loudly when the fingers of the giant tightened on his shoulder’s tendon. This guy knew how to inflict pain. “I’m telling the truth! It was him who warned me about Gods. He advised me to stay clear of them.”
“And to discard crystals in the atomizer?”
“No,” Henryan admitted. “He wanted me to pass them to him.”
“So why haven’t you been doing that?”
“Because of … fear.”
“Fear of what?”
“Of visits like this one, of being involved in some scandal—”
“We know what’s in your file, Sergeant. Or rather, what’s missing.”
Does it mean that creating a new personal file and changing the appearance haven’t misled the always vigilant Security Department?
Darski swallowed and looked up.
“If you know about the sentence, you should also understand why Rutta fetched me here.”
“Some say our intellectual level leaves much to be desired, Sergeant.” The shortest of the agents folded his arms. “That’s probably why we have to resort to such brutal methods of interrogation.”
Henryan took the hint and added quickly, “Colonel Rutta wants me to be bait for Gods.”
The esdee smiled. For real. It wasn’t a sadistic grin, so frequent on the faces of the torturers when they finally managed to break the suspect, but a normal, sincere smile of an amused man.
“Old fool. If he stayed out of this and let us work, there would be no incidents. What is his plan this time?”
Darski spoke briefly about Valdez’s proposal, skipping a few minor details, like giving the previous microcrystal to the lieutenant.
The agents listened to him attentively, and when he finished, remained silent for a moment. In the end, the shortest one said, “I’ll be damned, the dogs of war are starting to play counterintelligence.”
The two esdees standing behind Darski guffawed.
“Listen to me carefully now, you damn wretched clone-of-a-bitch, shooting decent people.” The icy tone didn’t agree with his smile. “From now on, you won’t discard anything. Every crystal you get you’ll immediately play back on this terminal.”
He pointed to the desk. “You don’t have to watch it. It’s enough that the contents will be copied to the system. Then you can give it to Valdez, let him play a detective.”
Henryan nodded vigorously.
