CHAPTER

SEVEN

T he funds transfer from Cascadia went through without a hitch and without—so far as Rafe could tell—arousing any interest from ISC security. With great care, he and Gary routed funds through several company names, and Rafe filed contracts for the manufacture of commercial ovens and food production machines with the relevant offices, and applied for export permits “upon completion of design & manufacture of these machines.” As far as Rafe could tell, this seemed sufficiently dull to arouse no interest here, either.

In the meantime, Gary had put his own intelligence-gathering team to work on the problem of location. His files revealed that Green Hills Development Corporation was distantly owned by ISC’s Nexus II local development division, along with a string of other resort and retreat properties.

“By talking to various travel agents, we’ve been able to determine which ones are scheduled for events when,” Gary said. “If your parents’ captors are corporate, as you suspect, they’d be able to find holes in the schedules and move your family from one resort to another. Most of the places are fairly secure—it’s what clients pay for, after all. If we’re lucky, this is how they’re being held, and we’ll locate them in a few days.”

“How long do you think they’re being kept in each place?”

“Don’t know yet. The gaps in the schedules range from a weekend—probably not time enough to move in hostages and move them out again—to sixty days or more, for the hunting lodges. Did you ever stay at one of these places?”

“We went to resorts sometimes, but I don’t know if they were part of this list,” Rafe said. He looked down the printout Gary had handed him. “Bel Ara, yes. That was the first time I saw a tropical reef. But you’ve marked it off—”

“It’s one of the busiest. All-year use by conventions, corporate training sessions, and so on. Vacant at most for three days, or during tropical storms. What about the ones marked in green?”

Rafe shook his head. “My father may have gone to one of these—I see they’re mostly hunting or fishing lodges—but I didn’t.”

“I think they’re the best bet,” Gary said. “You said your family was snatched a maximum of three weeks ago, judging by the condition of the house and the plants. Green Hills had an opening starting about then, but a series of religious meetings is starting two days after you think your family was moved out. That’s the kind of thing a retreat center can’t cancel without people noticing. Maybe they hoped whatever they wanted would happen in that time, but just as likely it was planned as a short-term holding site.”

“Still a lot of places to look,” Rafe said.

“And a lot of tools to look with,” Gary said. “I’ve got long-term surveillance data to play with. Want to see?”

“Always,” Rafe said. The files Gary opened astonished him. “What made you start keeping all this?” he asked, looking at a summary graph of the previous three years’ satellite data on travel patterns.

“The need to find people,” Gary said. “You’ll have noticed that this algorithm allows me to filter out all scheduled traffic—” The graph changed. “—and then to spotlight specific areas. Here I’m entering the locations of the ISC-owned resorts with gaps of thirty or more days in their schedules.” The graph changed again. “The colors show total traffic in the past three years…file that…and now for this year…”

Rafe, watching the lines and colors shift, was more impressed than he wanted to admit. Gary had always seemed like a big dull-witted bully. “Big” and “bully” might be true, but not “dull-witted.” Rafe wondered how many other misjudgments of character he might have made—and how much those misjudgments mattered in this crisis. The planetary schematic turned, showing the other hemisphere.

“Now let’s match the traffic to the schedule gaps,” Gary said. He reset the parameters, and they watched the schematic redraw itself. “Now that’s interesting…”

“What?” Rafe wasn’t sure which colors went with which meaning now.

“There.” Gary pointed. “High-latitude hunting lodge specializing in ice bear trophy hunting in winter and wildlife ecotourism in summer. Normally it’s vacant this time of year—too cold for summer tourists, migratory birds have left, and the ice bears haven’t migrated down yet. But you’ll notice…” He touched the controls again. “Ah. Yes. Traffic there a week ago, and since, and I’ll check the infrared data on the next satellite pass.”

“You can access the security satellites?”

“Nothing tricky about that; I have a license,” Gary said. “Law enforcement doesn’t mind as long as I’m not extricating criminals from their prisons. I don’t do that; it doesn’t pay enough.” He turned to another console. “And while we’re waiting for that, let’s see what else we can find out about…what do they call the place?…Aurora Adventure Lodge.”

Another visual came up, this one a developer’s rendition of the site. Against a backdrop of a lake, with mountains beyond, a glacier peeking between them, a massive log structure surrounded by smaller log cabins was rendered in bright colors, windows framed in white and bordered by green shutters. Flower baskets festooned the eaves, and more flowers overflowed planters on the deep porch.

“This must be for summer tourists,” Gary said. “Terrain’s not bad.” It was treeless, lumpy with huge boulders scattered here and there, cut by streams emptying into the lake.

“Above timberline?” Rafe asked.

“Yeah,” Gary said. “But plenty of cover in those rocks. If we control the airspace and aerial surveillance—and we will—we can get very close without being detected. Weather’s the possible problem here. It’s late autumn; the first winter storms should hit any time.”

“So how soon can you do it?”

“I still don’t know enough. We need to know if they’re really there—that it’s not a decoy—and how many people are guarding them.”

Access to Aurora Adventure Lodge, its website said, was by “the incredibly scenic” train from Brygganha to the high-altitude station at Dobst, from which the train went on to Pergyn, on the far side of the plateau. Dobst Station was just that: a small prefab building with a snack bar, toilets, a ticket counter, a left-luggage room. Beside it was the station staff’s dormitory, and adjoining was a bare-bones hostel for high-country hikers. At Dobst, the site went on, Aurora Lodge guests were met with “a seasonally appropriate vehicle” and transported some eight kilometers to the lake. The summer vehicle was motorized; the winter one appeared to be a horse-drawn sleigh.

The website map showed “public hiking trails” well away from Lodge property, touching the lakeshore kilometers away from the Lodge. “Private hiking trails” led from the Lodge down to the lake and along its shore, up from the Lodge to the glacial margin, to various fishing spots and scenic overlooks. All were color-coded “for the use of Lodge guests only.” The property was secure, its brochure said, from all types of intrusion, physical and electronic; the perimeter barriers were “top of the line.”

“They’re not, actually,” Gary said, leaning back in his chair. “They’ll certainly stop a curious hiker, or a criminal who’d like to sneak in and pretend to be on staff while robbing guests, or the casual everyday kind of commercial snooping.” He leaned forward again, deep in another site. “The latest version of their perimeter security was installed…almost two years ago. Reputable company in Brygganha, main concern ice bears in winter and nosy tourists in summer. Good products, but not the best; that cost too much. I know Stani; he supervised installation, and he’s good.”

“So…”

“It’s more difficult than some jobs we’ve done, but not impossible.”

“When will I meet the others?” Rafe asked.

“Meet them? You’re not going to meet them.”

“But—”

“Rafe, for the hundredth time—! You are not part of this op. You cannot be part of this op. You are a client, like any other client. You must not be seen to have any connection whatever with what we’re doing; it’s bad enough that you aren’t out there continuing to look for food processing equipment, or being the businessman on vacation chatting up beach girls or boys or something.”

“I can’t just—”

Gary’s look stopped him. Rafe took a deep breath, then another. When he looked down, his left hand was shaking slightly; he went on breathing, willing it to stop. When it was steady, he looked up.

“I’m being an idiot,” he said.

“You’re being a client,” Gary said with a shrug. “Clients are like that.”

“I don’t like thinking of myself—”

“—as just like everyone else? That hasn’t changed, at least.” Gary punched him lightly on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, son; you aren’t like the others except in being anxious and tense and entirely too eager to jump in and help. But part of our security, and yours, and your family’s, is a nice thick, tight wall between my people and you. You have no idea what will happen after we get them out—”

“You said after—you really think—”

“After we get them out, yes. Yes, it’s doable, and yes, we’ll do it. If you don’t muck it up in the meantime. Now—what was your original itinerary? How long did you plan to stay on Nexus?”

“Not this long,” Rafe said. “I planned to visit Dad, find out what was up with the ansibles, see how the land lay, and then—”

“Did you have a reservation?”

“Yes, but now—”

“You have to use it.”

“No! I can’t leave the planet not knowing—”

“Rafe, you have no reason not to leave—your persona doesn’t, I mean. If you don’t leave you’ll arouse suspicion—you already have.”

“But—”

“Do you have anyone outside who would act as your office manager or CEO or whatever and send you orders to stay?”

“Er…no.” Stella might, if he explained it to her, but he hadn’t explained it before he left Cascadia, and he could not trust even secured ansible transmission now.

“Then you have to go. If you can sneak back in, that’s fine, but you have to go, in that persona. It will make our job, and your family, much safer.”

Intellectually, Rafe knew Gary was making sense, but he did not want to leave. If something happened while he was away, something that his presence could have prevented…“I’m sure I can work something up, something believable—”

“What, break a leg? That’s no bar to travel, as you know—”

“I know. I’d need to be in a hospital or locked up—” Rafe stopped. From Gary’s expression the same thought had come to him. “I don’t suppose—”

“You wouldn’t like it,” Gary said. “Lockup isn’t much more fun than school was.”

“It wouldn’t be the first time,” Rafe said.

“You’re kidding.”

“No. Not on this planet, but—I do know my way around a jailhouse.”

“Something local,” Gary said. “Something you could get out of, probably. Just to tide you over, hold you onplanet until your ship’s taken off and the op’s started.”

“I don’t even know what gets you temporary incarceration here anymore,” Rafe said. “And it can’t be with ISC security, or something that a local would report to them.”

“Right. On the other hand, they—or someone higher up—has to know that you’re behind bars or something else legitimate, so there’s an explanation for your not catching your ride out.”

“I guess I could get sick,” Rafe said.

“It’s harder to find cooperative doctors and hospitals than cooperative law enforcement,” Gary said. “No, don’t look at me like that. I’m on their side now, and favors go both ways. I’m just thinking which one to call.”

“May I make a suggestion?”

“I may not take it.”

“Of course not. But a traveling businessman, like my persona, is apt to become…lonely. He could misunderstand, perhaps, local customs.”

Gary snorted. “A Cascadian?”

“Polite amorous insistence is still amorous insistence. And it depends so much on the attitude of the person receiving the attention, whether it is unwanted or not. Such a person might come to understand, at a convenient time, that the incident resulted from a cultural misunderstanding…”

Gary shook his head. “Rafe, you are even more devious than you were. But yes, that’s a possible scenario, and I suppose it suits you better than a false accusation of theft or conspiracy.”

“Since I expect to be guilty of the conspiracy, at least, before this is over, yes.”

Gary’s directions led Rafe to a mountain village straight out of the tourist brochures. Up a narrowing valley on a steep winding road, mountains already snowcapped looming closer and closer above…to the picturesque hotel with its wide porches on three sides, the big airy rooms looking out on nothing but scenery.

Genson Ratanvi thought it was charming, and said so. Rafe allowed his persona’s gaze to linger just a little too long on the young woman at the desk when he came down to inquire about places to eat in the village. Then, instead of going to eat right away, he headed for the bar Gary had told him about.

Inside, it was like every other small-town bar Rafe had seen. Noise aspiring to music came from speakers on one side. Two women of a certain age leaned across the bar, chatting; at a table in the corner, three men eyed him as they went on with whatever conversation they’d been holding. One of the women, a redhead, looked up.

“Want something?” she asked.

Rafe compared her to the description Gary had furnished and ordered a drink; he handed her the marked bill.

“You’re not from around here,” she said.

“No,” Rafe said. “From Cascadia. I am sent by my company to find a supplier of food processing equipment.”

“Here?” asked the blonde.

“Well…not exactly.” Rafe sipped his drink. “I have been here on your lovely world for many days, and I needed a break. It is lonely, you know, traveling so far from home at the holidays.”

“Holidays?”

“At home,” Rafe said, “It is the festival of trees. We put lights in the trees and walk among them.” Cascadians did that, anyway. He had done it once, just to experience what Cascadians claimed was the ineffable spiritual power of trees. What he’d felt was chilly and damp from the wet branches dripping on his head. Now he leaned toward the woman and fell easily into the role Gary had given him.

“We don’t worship trees here,” the redhead said. “But I know what you mean about being lonely.”

From there the conversation moved swiftly to the necessary conclusion, both he and the redhead having the same goal. She offered to show him around; he agreed.

On the way up the street to the high end of town she suggested a trip to the town’s dairy center, empty at this time of day. Rafe agreed. They spent a pleasant fifteen minutes or so in the hay barn, settling on who would do what, and then Rafe walked back to the hotel alone. They might have enjoyed more, but an essential part of the agreement was that no biological evidence should be produced.

“I understand your concern, Ser Ratanvi,” the man in the green uniform said an hour later. “And I mean no disrespect to either your system of origin or yourself. But when we have a complaint—”

“But it wasn’t me,” Rafe said, thickening his Cascadian accent. “She must have made a mistake. I’m a Cascadian; I would never offer insult to anyone. It’s against our culture. And I have tickets. You’ve seen them.”

The man’s name tag read SLY LILYHANDS, which seemed entirely too strange, but his subordinates—two of them—addressed him formally as Lieutenant Lilyhands without so much as a twitch of the mouth. He sighed now, obviously a little out of patience with the stubborn foreigner. “Ser Ratanvi,” he said a little more slowly. “It is the policy of our government that if a person is detained from travel for an official inquiry, the transport company must refund the price of the tickets or offer equivalent transportation later. You will not be out the cost of the tickets.”

“That’s something.” Rafe pouted. “But it is a disgrace even to be mistakenly thought to have committed such a heinous act. If my company finds out—”

“They will not find out from us, unless you are in fact guilty,” Lilyhands said. “Now—if you will agree to make yourself available, and not attempt to flee the community, I will simply retain your identity information.” He tapped the ID folder he had taken. “Otherwise, I’m afraid it will be necessary to take you into custody. And I hope you realize that this is a courtesy to a foreign…guest…and that our laws would allow me to take you into custody no matter what your demeanor.”

Rafe nodded. “I understand. It is indeed most kind of you to allow me to remain in…more congenial surroundings.” He bowed a little, in the Cascadian manner.

Lilyhands laughed. “It was your congeniality that may have gotten you into trouble. A little less congeniality and a little more circumspection would be advisable. Now—you understand that no commercial transportation will be available to you without current ID, is that clear?”

Rafe nodded. “But must I walk everywhere, then?”

“No. Your money is good on local public transport. This applies to long-distance transport only.” Lilyhands handed back Ratanvi/ Rafe’s jacket, the business case, and a little bowl containing what had been in Rafe’s pockets: the hotel room key, the small change. All but the ID case.

“Thank you, again, for your generous handling of this unfortunate situation,” Rafe said, in Ratanvi’s plummy voice. “I apologize for my remarks earlier—it was just the surprise of being accused of such a thing.”

“No offense taken,” Lilyhands said. “Just settle in for a few days as we straighten this out. The local judicar is on vacation, but she’ll be back in ten days or so, and then—and maybe by then the young lady will have changed her mind.”

At the hotel, it was clear that his room had been searched; Rafe didn’t bother to check for newly planted surveillance gear. He was sure it was there, but it didn’t matter. What he ached to know—and could not find out without risking his cover—was whether Gary’s contact was Lilyhands or the woman. Or both. Both would make sense, especially if false claims against tourists were part of an established scam of some sort.

He fell asleep, somewhat to his own surprise, on sheets scented with some flower—a few petals clung to a pillowcase—with the window open to let in a draft of cold air off the mountains behind the city. He had nothing to do until Gary contacted him—if Gary contacted him—and he might as well sleep.

Two boring days later, Rafe had chatted up the hotel food service manager, who complained about the inadequacies of the hotel’s automated kitchen machinery, and the town’s only baker, a Luddite who insisted on doing everything by hand. Rafe felt that he had done all he could to establish himself as a genuine food service professional. Everyone in town knew he was stuck there, and most of them thought they knew why. The redhead turned her back on him when he came into the bar; other locals glared. Rafe himself was tired of wearing Ratanvi’s plump suit and the disguising facial pads that made him look, to himself, like a constipated rodent.

Another day dragged past. Rafe had walked up the street on one side of the noisy creek, and back down the street on the other side. Though a brightly colored tram trundled up to the first ski lift station and back, Rafe preferred to stretch his legs in town. He needed nothing in any of the few shops, though they were fully stocked with anything a tourist might want, the owners having changed out the summer stock for winter: sweaters, caps, gloves, fur hats and jackets. He had nothing to do. It was like being in deep space, in FTL flight, isolated from anything interesting, except for the smells. His nose wrinkled as a small herd of cattle appeared at the head of the road, up the mountain.

Every day, Lieutenant Lilyhands appeared at the hotel, paused for a polite greeting, and then walked back to the station.

Rafe wondered how much longer he could stand this without going crazy. He had finally given up walking the street over and over, and spent hours sprawled in a swing on the hotel’s porch, staring down the valley. Far away, sunlight twinkled on moving vehicles, where the regional roadway and railway ran together for a few miles, sharing bridges across the Meltorn River.

The car was a kilometer up the valley before he registered it. By now he knew the usual ones: the regional post van, bright blue with buff stripes, that came every day, the eight vehicles that left in the morning and returned in the evening from jobs away in the valley, the grocery truck that came every other day to the hotel and restaurants and bars. This car was different. Rafe took his feet off the little table and looked more closely.

The car went past the hotel and stopped in front of the nearest bar. Gary got out and went into the bar without glancing at the hotel. Lilyhands, on his morning walk through the village, nodded to Rafe on the hotel porch and stopped into the bar, as usual. He came out and walked back to the hotel.

“I do believe, Ser Ratanvi, that your accuser may have made a mistake; she seems willing to retract her accusation. On the other hand, I really must have the judicar’s permission to release your identification documents. So I remind you that you cannot travel on any commercial vehicles”—the slight stress he placed on ‘commercial’ went with a twitch of his mouth—“and while I do not feel compelled to forbid your traveling outside the town limits with a friend, I must remind you that your identification will stay in my custody until the justice has put her stamp on the file.”

“That’s very kind of you,” Rafe said, adding Ratanvi’s stiff little bow.

“I might just mention that there’s a fellow in the bar now, someone I personally know, who says he’s willing to take you into town for a short time. I realize that a foreigner might not be willing to just go off with a stranger, but you may find it easier to contact your office back home, let them know what’s going on and when you’ll be back, from a communications center like Brygganha, which is where this fellow’s headed. It’s up to you, of course.”

“That’s very kind,” Rafe said again. “I should—I need to contact the office, you’re quite right, and also to make another reservation. I should talk to him perhaps?”

“I can tell him you’re willing,” Lilyhands said. “If you want to settle up with the hotel…”

“How very kind of you,” Rafe said, bowing again. “I believe I shall take the assistance of this kind stranger, if you will excuse me.”

The hotel clerk accepted his money; Rafe rolled his belongings into his duffel and was waiting on the hotel porch when Lilyhands came back with Gary and solemnly introduced them to each other, with a warning to Gary that Ser Ratanvi was on no account to be allowed to use commercial transport without proper identification, which he, Lilyhands, retained.

“He is not a criminal,” Lilyhands said slowly, as if Gary needed a full explanation. “There was a misunderstanding, and I do not wish to make difficulties, but the judicial process must be followed. When the judicar comes back, I am sure that his documents will be released.”

“I will take care of him,” Gary said.

“You have my thanks,” Rafe said, with a final bow before he climbed into Gary’s vehicle.