At first Novak ignored us, turning instead to the Delkar with the paralysis beamer.
"You know the agreement," she said coldly. "I am to be allowed to question them alone, with no eavesdropping."
"An agreement made against my advice." The surliness came through my earpiece.
"Still, Tosava'litan made it, on behalf of the gevroth. Are you prepared to defy her?"
The Delakar stiffened, but spoke mildly. "No, of course not. You know how to summon assistance if you should need it." A note of sheer malice entered the translation. "You recall, of course, that the agreement on which you are relying specifies that you release us from all responsibility for your own safety and comfort if that 'assistance' should become necessary." He departed, motioning to the goons to follow him.
Novak continued to ignore us as she sat down and took a small device out of her handbag. She studied its readouts, while I considered and rejected the idea of trying anything. Clearly, it would accomplish nothing but our own deaths. Judging from what we'd just heard, Novak's hostage value would be limited.
"All right," she finally said, to herself more than to us, "they really aren't bugging this room." Only then did she acknowledge our presence by addressing us directly. "Well, Mr. Devaney, I see your tendency to meddle in matters that are none of your concern is unabated."
The breathtaking injustice of this overcame my resolve to just glare at her in jut-jawed silence. "In case you've forgotten, I'm the security officer. What could be more my concern than tracking down traitorous slime?"
Novak's eyes went cold and narrow, but she spoke levelly. "You also haven't lost the habit of being resentful when you ought to be grateful. If it wasn't for me, you two would be dead by now—and it wouldn't have been a nice death."
"Don't give me that. The Tonkuztra want information, not corpses."
"That's just it. The truth drugs they tried on you don't seem to work on humans—something about the body chemistry. And they had reason to believe that the drugs they hadn't tried would kill you. I gather the Tosava gevroth—that means, approximately, 'family'—has had opportunities to experiment on humans. So they were all for using old-fashioned torture on you. I persuaded them that I could get you to confide in me."
I gave a harsh laugh. "You're no damned good at this, you know. You should have told us we sang like birds under their drugs, and that you're just here to get clarification of a few details. Afterwards, you could have turned us over to your Tonkuztra masters."
Novak's jaw muscles twitched with the effort of sustaining her primness in the face of my second attempt to get a rise out of her. "They're hardly my 'masters.' At most, they're business associates—and I have every intention of terminating even that relationship as soon as the current transaction is finalized. I'm talking to you privately because I want to know how you learned of that meeting. If you'll gratify my curiosity, I'll do my best to convince them that you just got lucky, and have no knowledge worth the trouble of extracting from you. You have my word on that."
"Your word?" Chloe's voice was rich with scorn. "What a joke!"
"Except that jokes are supposed to be funny," I put in. "And by the way, I don't believe for a second that little act about this room not being bugged."
"It's true. Why should I want to sell you out to the Ton-kuztra?"
"Why should you want to sell out the entire human race?" Chloe's question started out defiantly rhetorical, but by the end of the sentence it had become something closely resembling a cry from the heart.
For the first time, Novak's facade cracked. "Sell out the human race? Good God, Chloe, is that really what you think I'm doing? I'm saving the human race!"
At first, we simply stared.
"Saving it from what?" Chloe finally ventured.
"You know perfectly well!" All the strained self-control was abruptly gone as Novak leaned forward, face flushed as though heated from within by the fire that blazed through her eyes. "The Delkasu and the other races that have learned from them have foreclosed the future. You've heard Dr. Fehrenbach's lectures about life in the galaxy: the instant one race discovered the secret of interstellar travel, it was as though a movie film had been frozen on a single frame. I suppose it could have been worse. If the Delkasu or somebody else had colonized Earth a few million years earlier, the human race wouldn't even exist, just like God knows how many unborn intelligent species that have been consigned to limbo. But that might have been more merciful. As it is, we're trapped in a universe that has no place for us. We were just a little too late."
"We all know this, Renata," Chloe said carefully. "It's the very problem the Project exists to cope with."
"Ha! All the Project has done is trick the Delkasu into letting us exist on sufferance."
"Isn't that a little strong? The Project has also worked to bring Earth up to the galactic technological standard so we can—"
"But we can't! Why am I the only one able to see that? In the long run, humanity is doomed to dwindle away into extinction in a Delkasu universe. We'll never have the scope for greatness that we need to be truly human. We're not meant to be insignificant! As impotent spectators of the great Delkasu epic, we'll have no incentive to go on living. But all you and I have been doing, all these years, is trying to wheedle the Delkasu into allowing us a slightly cushier state of dependency. It was all we could do, given the way history has worked out." With strange suddenness, Novak halted, as though afraid she'd said too much.
I stepped into the pause. "So just what is it you think you can do about 'the way history has worked out'?"
"And whatever it is," added Chloe, "how does it justify betraying the Project—and, by extension, the human race—to vermin like the Tonkuztra? If you really do think you've happened onto something that will dramatically change humanity's status, why haven't you gone to the Project's leadership with it?"
"The leadership! They're nothing but a bunch of old fogeys, hopelessly locked into the approach the Project has been using for the last twenty years. It's the only approach they know, or can imagine. They're incapable of recognizing that it's a dead end. They'd probably all die of heart failure if anyone suggested a radically new solution. No, it was up to me. I had to act on my own."
"You haven't answered Chloe's first question," I pointed out. "The one about why you've been playing footsies with the Tonkuztra. But we all know the answer to that, don't we? Your big idea requires something that the Tonkuztra have got." I kept enough presence of mind to not say something the Tonkuztra stole from the Ekhemasu. Khorat & Company's involvement was the one bit of knowledge Novak didn't have, and therefore the one card I was holding. So I spoke in my most reasonable voice. "Let's make a deal. I'll tell you how we found out about your little game." (I risked a small jab to Chloe's thigh under the table, but not a side glance to see if she'd gotten the don't-act-startled-at-anything-I-say message.) "In exchange, you tell us just exactly what it is you think is so valuable it's worth buying at the price of letting the Tonkuztra in on the truth about Earth."
"You're hardly in a position to be bargaining, Devaney." Novak's trademark stiff formality was back, closing like shutters over the startling passion she'd allowed us to glimpse. "And no, you're not ready to be told the subject of this transaction. You wouldn't believe it anyway. I will tell you this much, however: you're only partly right about why I was willing to dole out some of the truth to the Tonkuztra. You see, if my plan works, it won't matter that the Tosava gevroth—or anybody else—has the information I've given them. They'll have accepted payment in worthless coin. So you see, Chloe, in the end I won't have really sold anyone out."
"It's a dangerous game you're playing," I remarked. "Sane people don't gamble for stakes like these."
"I take no offense at that remark because it is rooted in ignorance. The 'stakes' involved are totally beyond the comprehension of a lowlife like you."
"Maybe. But unless I'm misreading the signs, Chloe and I have thrown a monkey wrench into your plan. What happened? Did our presence at the meeting spook this Tosava mob and sour the deal?"
Novak glared. "It is only a temporary inconvenience. I was able to confirm that no other humans were missing from the ship, so you two were acting alone. And a search revealed that you had no surveillance devices. So Tosava'litan, the boss of the gevroth, has calmed down, and the transfer of the merchandise will proceed on schedule." She stood up abruptly. "If being told the nature of that merchandise is your price for telling me how you learned of the meeting, then I'll just have to swallow my curiosity and let the Tonkuztra question you in their own way." She started to leave, then paused. "I truly wish I could spare you this, Chloe . . . and even you, Devaney. But this is bigger than all of us. Individuals must sometimes be sacrificed to the greater good."
"Now where have I heard that before?" I wondered out loud. "Oh, yeah, I remember: every lunatic zealot who's ever lived."
"Renata, you know you can't get away with this," said Chloe in a tight voice. "How are you going to account for our absence? Nobody will buy an unexplained disappearance. There'll be an investigation."
"That's right," I nodded. "They'll dig and dig. And you know what's at the back of Section Two's mind whenever we investigate anything these days: the traitor who's been our bugbear for the last five years."
Novak looked at us, and even now I still think her look held a genuine sadness. If it didn't, she was a better actress than I believe her to have been. "Oh, no. They won't be thinking in those terms. Because, you see, they'll already know the identity of their traitor: you, Chloe."
Chloe and I were temporarily without the power of speech.
"I've taken the necessary steps, and prepared the necessary evidence," Novak continued, expressionless. "It will be generally believed that you betrayed the secret of the Project back in '63. I'd hoped it would be possible to tie you in, Devaney," she added as an afterthought. And, I swear to God, I could detect no trace of personal malice in her voice. "But there was no getting around the fact that the Tonkuztra had their information before you were recruited into the Project. So that incident in Washington, which was intended to exculpate me by casting me as the target of an operation of theirs, had the unintended side effect of exculpating you as well." Her face clouded. "Also, there was the matter of Mr. Inconnu specifically ordering your recruitment. I still don't understand the reason for his interest in you. But it put your actions and motivations before that point off-limits." She turned back to Chloe. "So it seems, Chloe, that you seduced him after his induction into the Project. Only then did he become an accomplice in your treason."
"You contemptible bitch," I said. Unless my memory is completely at fault, I said it without heat, as a simple statement of fact.
Novak ignored me. "Again, Chloe, I genuinely regret this. I wish there was another way. You must believe that." She turned to go.
"Whatever bogus 'evidence' you've manufactured will never stand up," I called out after her. "Not in the long run."
She stopped just short of the door, and her face wore an odd, unreadable smile. "You know, Mr. Devaney, you're almost certainly right. But it won't matter in the long run." On that puzzling note, she departed. The Tonkuztra good-humor men returned and took us back to our room.
We didn't have long to wait, which was just as well. The food was the same unappetizing glop we'd gotten before—doubtless some Delkasu bioengineer's idea of what humans needed to stay alive. Admittedly, we did. We didn't even get sick. The effect on our morale was another matter. Come to think of it, that might just possibly have been intentional.
Worse than the food was our inability to talk openly. I knew that silence about Khorat was more important than ever, and I couldn't even tell Chloe why. I could only hope she had figured it out for herself. (She had, as I need hardly add.)
The transfer of the merchandise will proceed on schedule. Those words of Novak's were all I had left to hold on to. They meant that all we had been through hadn't been for nothing. The information we'd left with the shopkeeper was still good . . . as long as Novak and her "associates" didn't know we'd left it there, and change their plans accordingly.
So we passed our time in a state of strained awkwardness, unable to speak out loud what we both knew. In our ignorance of the capabilities of the surveillance we knew we were constantly under, we dared not even risk an exchange of whispers in the ear.
Then, with startling lack of warning, our door slid open to admit a unit of armed Delkasu, who ushered us out and led us down a series of corridors and up a lift tube. We finally emerged into the Antyova-light of what looked like—and quite probably was—a public aircar port. In a place like this, non-Delkasu were no novelty at all, and our escorts attracted no attention as they herded us across the tarmac with somewhat more subtlety than they'd heretofore displayed. I considered the idea of making a conspicuous public escape attempt, only to reject it. As you may have gathered by now, I am not the stuff of which martyrs are made.
We were taken to a large aircar—airbus might be a better term, except that it means something altogether different to you—and locked into a rear compartment that could have held six passengers. We squeezed into two of the Delkasu-sized seats . . . none too soon, for the vehicle lifted off without warning. The compartment had two small windows, and once the aircar leveled off we stood up and looked out avidly.
It was evidently the same city we'd been in all along, for the central plaza and the streets radiating from it were visible off to one side, like a spoked wheel etched deeply into the expanses of towering buildings. But then that comforting bit of familiarity was gone, and we were passing over a cityscape whose awesomeness was gradually swallowed by its endlessness. It began to remind me of driving across Kansas: you drive and drive but feel like you're getting nowhere because the grasslands to either side are exactly like those you saw an hour ago.
Eventually, though, the city began to thin out into suburbs nestled among hills clothed in the foliage of trees imported so many centuries ago from lost Kasava. Not even Antyova II was solid city from pole to pole. Soon, even the suburbs began to fall behind, and the hills grew more rugged.
Chloe and I looked at each other in the silence that had become a matter of cautious habit. By now, whenever we were both thinking the same thing, we knew it without the need for words. And we both had a pretty good idea of what had happened. Novak would hardly have been able simply to ignore our disappearance. She must have had to go through the motions of notifying the Selangava authorities, who in turn would have launched an investigation, if only on the general principle of running a taut ship. The Tosava gevroth had decided to move us from the city to some private place where we could be dealt with at leisure.
Not knowing the details of what we were in for just made it worse.
We were thinking about it when the aircar banked sharply, almost making us lose our balance.
"Hang on!" I yelled at Chloe, before my mind had consciously formed the words evasive action.
It was too late. The aircar shuddered and lurched, and a deafening clang reverberated through it. We were thrown to the deck. A hard corner of an armrest caught me behind the right ear. A sunburst exploded behind my eyes and dissolved into a shower of stroboscopic stars. As consciousness ebbed, I felt the aircar begin to slant sharply downward.
When I awoke, I was lying on my back, in late-afternoon daylight. Chloe's face was hovering over me. So was Khorat's.
"What . . . what . . . ?" I tried to sit up, only to subside as a god-awful headache flared.
"Lie still," Chloe said urgently. "You took a nasty bump on the head.
"Our time is limited, though," Khorat demurred. "As soon as he is able to move . . ."
"Yeah. I'll be okay." I tried again to rise, more slowly this time and holding my head lest it split apart. I looked around.
We were in an upland valley. The vegetation would doubtless have fascinated the Section Three people. I was more interested in the big aircar we had ridden, now obviously the worse for wear and lying canted on the ground, and the smaller but businesslike aircar that rested close to it. But most interesting of all were the Delkasu figures moving about. I automatically reached for a gun that wasn't there.
"Relax," said Chloe, grasping my arm. "These are the good guys. Khorat brought them."
"But . . ." I gave my pain-ridden head a shake and ordered it to function. "But Khorat, I thought you said your organization was acting without the knowledge of your Delkasu bosses."
"Oh, these are not representatives of the Khemava Empire," Khorat assured me. "They are native to Antyova II." A note of embarrassment entered the synthetic voice. "In point of fact, they belong to a Tonkuztra organization, the Osak gevroth."
Chloe saw my expression. "Well, relatively good guys," she hedged.
"Perhaps I'd better explain," Khorat began.
"Yeah, that's one way to put it."
"The shopkeeper from Astogra delivered the surveillance device to us, which enabled us to learn when the sale was to be finalized. She also told us of your capture. This placed us under a moral obligation to rescue you if possible, although the recovery of our stolen property had to come first. For both purposes, we used the services of the Osak, a gevroth which is also well established among the Delkasu of Khemava. My organization has had dealings with them before, and they owe us a few favors. Furthermore, they are bitter enemies of the Tosava gevroth, and were more than willing to act for us in this matter."
I nodded, remembering what I knew about the snake pit that was the Tonkuztra. They'd never had a Lucky Luciano to pull them together into one big syndicate. The various families were still grimly waging vendettas dating back to the times before the Delkasu had left Kasava.
"Did they block the sale?" I asked. "And did they get Novak?" Chloe, I noted, did not react to my second question with the disapproving look she once would have given me.
"The answer to the first is yes. But as for your human traitor . . . no. The Osak operatives struck just before she was to arrive. She must have found corpses and nothing else. "
"Must have been a nice surprise for her," said Chloe in tones of deep satisfaction.
"Subsequently," Khorat continued, "our Osak associates used their own sources of information to determine where you were being held. You were unreachable there, and would have been even more so at the place to which you were being taken. So the only window of opportunity was while you were in transit between the two, over this largely uninhabited region. Still, the Osak gevroth had grave misgivings; shooting down an aircar is the sort of thing law enforcement authorities tend to take seriously. I am afraid we had to call in almost all the favors they owe us." Khorat paused as though expecting an expression of remorse for all the trouble we'd been. I felt no inclination to oblige him. "And now, they are in a hurry to depart. So, if you are ready to travel . . ."
"Wait a minute, Khorat! What happens to Chloe and me now."
"Admittedly, that presents a problem. You can hardly go back to your ship, where Novak is doubtless in no particularly forgiving mood." I decided the Elthemasu did have a sense of humor, of sorts . . . or maybe the translator software did. "But do not concern yourselves. You have placed us in your debt. We ourselves must depart for Khemava shortly, but we will arrange for the Osak gevroth to keep you concealed here on Antyova II until berths become available on a ship bound for your world."
"You don't understand, Khorat," said Chloe. "We can't go back to Earth now. Renata Novak will get there first . . . which means there'll be a shoot-on-sight order out for us."
"Yeah," I agreed. "Novak is setting Chloe up to take the rap for her own treason, with me playing comic relief."
For a space, Khorat was silent and immovable. One of the Delkasu approached, in an attitude of unconcealed impatience . . . only to slink off at an absent gesture from Khorat. I began to suspect that the elderly Ekhemar, either individually or through his mysterious "organization," exercised more authority than he chose to admit to. Finally, he turned his huge, difficult-to-read eyes on us.
"Very well. As I said, you have placed us under an obligation. Obviously, we cannot take you with us when our diplomatic mission departs. I will, however, arrange other transportation for you from here to Khemava, where I will meet you."
"Khemava?" Chloe echoed. "Your world?"
"Yes. It will have to be arranged without the knowledge of my government, of course. But there seems to be nowhere else where I can guarantee your safety. You will not find it the most comfortable environment imaginable, but I have reason to think your species can probably adapt to it."
"Don't ever try for a second career as a travel agent," I groused.
Chloe shushed me. "Khorat, I'm sure your planet is a marvelous place, and perfectly comfortable, but . . . well . . ."
"You need not attempt to spare my sensibilities." The translator registered amusement. "I know what you're trying to say. You can never be at home there. That is perfectly natural. And of course the long-range objective is to return you to your own world. I am only proposing this as a temporary expedient until such time as a return becomes practical. It is, I am afraid, all I have to offer."
Chloe and I looked at each other. There seemed no scope for discussion. "Okay," I sighed. "Let's do it."
We crowded into the Osak aircar, to the comically evident relief of its crew, who'd been casting anxious glances at the sky for police aircars. As we lifted off, commands were given, and the wreck of the larger vehicle below was consumed in an eye-hurtingly intense explosion.
"Hey, Khorat," I finally broke the silence. "Now that we're going to be seeing a lot of each other, maybe you could let us in on just exactly what this is all about. What was it that Novak was trying to buy from the Tosava gevroth?" I gave it my best effort at suavity. "I hope you don't think I'm imposing on the 'obligation' that you yourself were gracious enough to acknowledge just now."
"No, I don't think anything of the sort. And no, I won't tell you. You're not ready for that knowledge."
"Renata Novak told us exactly the same thing," Chloe informed him pointedly.
"Then she was, for once, absolutely right. Where she went wrong was in failing to recognize that she isn't ready for it either. No one is."
"Except, of course, you and your organization," said Chloe with some asperity.
"Including us. But we unavoidably find ourselves in the position of being its custodians. That is simply a matter of blank." The blank was just that: dead silence as the translator software rejected a concept as untranslatable. "But," Khorat resumed thoughtfully, "perhaps I will tell you . . . later. Perhaps you will come to be ready."
o