Analog Science Fiction And Fact - June 2014 (7 page)

He had no regrets.

But he
did
have an agenda. Vengeance was only part of it. He was a gerontologist who needed subjects for his longevity experiments.

The Ambulans were only too happy to oblige.

Tajok infected thousands of Dokharans with fatal maladies. He crippled thousands more. He monitored their resistance to disease and tried to enhance it. He measured their recuperative powers and tried to augment them. Most of his treatments failed. Most. But not all. A few of his victims recovered and—in some instances—Tajok's procedures had been the determining factor. He could be sure of that because he kept repeating the process with different subjects until he
was
sure.

The makeeva flourished.

Makeeva were large, carnivorous plants that tended to grow in arid soil from which nutrients were difficult to extract. The makeeva stunned its prey with thorns that were coated with a powerful cholinesterase inhibitor. The leaves of the plant then closed around its victim and excreted a corrosive acid that consumed the remains. Digesting a big animal could take years.

Dokharans disposed of their dead by surrendering them to the untender mercies of makeeva. The shimuda performing the ceremony didn't actually say, "Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust," but the basic concept was the same. Dokharans believed that absorption by a makeeva began a process by which the dead were reunited with the soil from which they sprang.

The Ambulans had a different point of view. In their opinion, plant food was the highest destiny to which degenerate Dokharans could aspire.

Pure pragmatism dictated where Tajok's research facility was located. His experiments were conducted in a six-story building immediately adjacent to a cemetery. The building was subsequently enlarged, eventually acquired another story and two wings. The cemetery, too, was considerably expanded. More than once. If Tajok's activities had been allowed to continue, the city of the dead would have soon rivaled the city of the living in size.

But they weren't allowed to continue.

Ambulan aggressiveness didn't cease with the conquest of Dokhara. Bodajiz was invaded soon afterward. The Zifrans, supposing that they would be next, formed an alliance with the Bodajizans, Dokharan partisans flocked to join the coalition, and the Ambulans were eventually defeated. Tajok had to flee.

He was captured by Zifran troops. They mistook him for a fugitive Ambulan—one of many who were put on trial and sentenced to ten years of hard labor in the shiroz mines.

He survived.

Somehow.

He shouldn't have. Ten years in that hellhole should have made makeeva fodder of him. Seven hundred and fourteen prisoners of war had been sent to the mines. Six years later, none of them were still alive.

Correction.

Almost
none.

Tajok served his full sentence, was released on the same day as Luhor—a Zifran thief whose third offense had been punished with three years in the mines. Tajok and Luhor had become friends, did not part company when they were set free.

They made their way to Izmir.

In addition to being a collaborator and a mass-murdering monster, Tajok was an embezzler who had diverted some of the funds allocated to finance his research. He'd used the money to buy shiroz crystals. The irony of that did not escape him. His shiroz hoard was stashed away in a depository on the island of Izmir.

But he couldn't withdraw it without verifying his identity. He had to give his actual name.

The news that Tajok had resurfaced spread like a nervous thrill.

To no one's surprise, Tajok's health was very precarious. He could afford to live comfortably—even luxuriously—but he was too frail and too weak to enjoy it. He was only killing time while he waited for time to return the favor.

The
Herald
had run the story, but the story hadn't been broken by the
Herald.
Baldwin's personal involvement had been limited to proof-reading copy obtained from other news agencies. Now—three years and hundreds of deadlines later—Baldwin had forgotten most of the details.

Unlike the Dokharans.

Forgive and forget
was not a Dokharan motto. The atrocities Tajok committed hadn't been forgotten by his countrymen—definitely not. As for forgiving him... The Dokharans were very forgiving. They were for giving him a death sentence, and they were furious with the Izmirites for granting him asylum. Diplomatic fireworks ensued.

The Izmirites? They had been neutral during the war, were determined to remain neutral now that the war was over. They had no extradition treaty with Dokhara, flatly refused to deport Tajok, listened to appeal after appeal with deaf ears. They were of the opinion that life itself had sentenced Tajok to death. The sensible thing to do was nothing. Let nature take its course.

And it did.

Tajok's obituary appeared in the
Izmir Herald
three days after Escoli's. Unlike Escoli, Tajok's death was attributed to natural causes, and—unlike Escoli—he wouldn't be missed. Escoli's funeral had been well attended. The only mourner bidding farewell to Tajok would be Luhor, and even that was by no means definite. When Baldwin interviewed him, Luhor hadn't seemed grief-stricken so much as emotionally numb. Baldwin attributed that to three years in the shiroz mines. An ordeal like that would presumably make a stoic out of anyone.

Kroydhun Ankurda 12-16 was an unpretentious dwelling in an unpretentious neighborhood. Doorbells and knockers were unknown on Bukkara. Visitors announced their arrival by whistling into the mouthpiece of a speaking tube. Bukkarans took pride in developing their own, distinctive whistles. Baldwin's consisted of the first seven notes of the theme from
The High and the Mighty
—another classic film that Baldwin admired.

The door was opened by the most nondescript Bukkaran Baldwin had ever encountered. He wasn't short or tall, slender or heavy, ugly or handsome, and his face was a neutral mask, as blank and expressionless as the image on an ancient coin. Was it possible to have a more undistinguished and forgettable appearance? Baldwin was doubtful. If asked to describe him, Baldwin could have done so only in terms of what he wasn't.

Baldwin introduced himself. In addition to looking like nothing much, Luhor had nothing much to say. "I've already made an official statement," he declared. "You can obtain a copy from the authorities. I have no desire to expand on it."

"You're assuming that I've come to ask you about Tajok." A headshake. "I haven't."

"No?"

"A colleague of mine—Escoli—was here seven days ago. She was accompanied by her rulf hulke: Tumanzu."

"That is correct. She was." A frown. "She's a reporter? She didn't identify herself as such."

"She wasn't on assignment. She was Tumanzu's self-appointed escort. She was accommodating a visiting cousin. Being courteous."

"Courteous?" Luhor spat the word. "It wasn't courteous of her to bring him here. Not at all. Tormenting someone who's on his deathbed... that's not my idea of courtesy."

Baldwin gave him a look that should have turned him to stone, but Luhor remained miraculously unMedusafied. "Escoli was one of the kindest, most compassionate people I have ever known. She was incapable of tormenting anybody."

"She was?"

"Damn right she was."

With the condescension of someone explaining the obvious to an imbecile, Luhor said: "'She was.' As opposed to 'she is.' You're referring to her in the past tense."

"With good reason," Baldwin snapped. "She was killed. Murdered."

"Too bad." Luhor sounded as if he didn't think it really was. He was on diplomatic autopilot, muttering conventionalities without conviction, his voice as hollow as an echo. "Please accept my condolences.
And
my assurances. My yuriki had nothing to do with her death. I can assure you of that."

Baldwin blinked. Yuriki? He recognized it as a very old, obsolete term, but its exact meaning eluded him. He ransacked his memory. Master? Sovereign? No—more like "liege." A yuriki was a suzerain with henchmen—or a henchman—who swore fealty to him.

"Tajok was your yuriki?"

"We were in the mines together. That's where we met. The shiroz mines. Tajok befriended me. He took me under his wing, protected me, taught me how to..." A pause "... not how to stay alive so much as how to keep from dying. Without his patronage, I wouldn't have survived." Luhor's black eyes met Baldwin's. "So yes—I thought of him as my yuriki."

"Tumanzu thought of him as a sugami."

"A dishonorable opponent?" Contrary to Baldwin's expectations, Luhor seemed to be taking this suggestion seriously. "He might have felt that way, I suppose—especially if he was a soldier. Did he fight against the Ambulans?"

"Most adult Dokharans did, but Tumanzu would have been a child when war was declared. He wasn't old enough to bear arms in that conflict."

Luhor raised an admonitory finger. "Don't be deceived by appearances. Tumanzu was one of my yuriki's successes. He's considerably older than he looks."

"You're sure?"

"He wouldn't have been admitted to this house otherwise. Vindictive Dokharans aren't ordinarily welcome here."

"Then no Dokharans are welcome here." Baldwin huffed a laugh as devoid of amusement as a lemon of sweetness. "Dokharans who
aren't
vindictive toward Tajok would constitute a minority of one: Tajok himself and none other."

"Tumanzu claimed to be an exception. He contacted us, said that the life-extension treatments he'd received had been very beneficial and that he wanted to express his gratitude. My yuriki was intrigued. Of course he was. He expected no thanks and desired none, but he was eager to examine Tumanzu—to verify that the aging process had actually been retarded."

"And it had."

A brusque nod of affirmation. "No question about it."

"And Tumanzu was grateful?"

"No."

"But didn't he say...?"

"... that he wanted to express his gratitude. That's what he said. And that's what he did. He expressed his gratitude. To the Zifrans. For punishing my yuriki. For subjecting him to ten years of brutal servitude that ruined his health and shortened his life." Luhor made a cup of his hand and then deliberately upended it. "The exact opposite of what he'd hoped to achieve. What he
did
achieve—but for Tumanzu, not for himself."

"That was all Tumanzu really wanted? To gloat? To exult over Tajok's undoing? To rub salt in an open wound?"

"A genuine hatred. I'll grant Tumanzu that much. His hostility emanated from him like heat from a radiator. Or cold from a block of ice. It was uncontrived and undiluted. You almost had to admire its purity."

Deliberately echoing the insincerity with which Luhor's commiserations had been offered, Baldwin recited: "Please accept my condolences on the loss of your..." He started to say "friend" but changed it in mid-sentence to: "... yuriki. I apologize for intruding on your sorrow."

"That's quite all right. Making funeral arrangements is an unpleasant task. An interruption isn't unwelcome." As though struck by an afterthought, he muttered: "I don't know if reporters will be permitted to attend the funeral. You'll have to ask the authorities." And—like a lecturer stressing a point of clarification—he specified: "The Dokharan authorities."

"Dokharan?"

"Yes. His body is being shipped home for burial. The same makeeva that absorbed his father awaits him. I haven't decided if I'll be present. I'd rather not, but perhaps I owe it to him. Yes—perhaps I do. Is one friendly face among the onlookers too much to ask?"

Danzoni was the Odenga of the shokiku—a title roughly equivalent to Prefect of Police. It wasn't exactly the same because Izmir had no civilian constabulary. The shokiku belonged to a branch of the military, were naval officers whose duties would have been performed by police officers elsewhere. On Izmir, martial law was never undeclared. The Izmirites were acquainted with no other kind of law.

Danzoni prided himself on his command of Terran Standard, seized every opportunity to speak it and did so with great gusto, but—like so many people striving to master a second language—he doubted himself, was never wholly confident that he was getting his meaning across. Was he hitting the target? Instead of attempting to improve his marksmanship, he resorted to scattergun tactics, firing barrages of synonyms, one of which would hopefully be a bullseye.

When Baldwin was admitted to his office, Danzoni offered him a chair and said, "Be seated, Mr. Baldwin. Please. Sit down. Make yourself comfortable."

"Thank you."

"By no means. Not at all. Think nothing of it." Danzoni took his own advice and relaxed into the plush of an overstuffed armchair. "What can I do for you, Mr. Baldwin? How can I be of service?"

"You are investigating the murder of Escoli."

Danzoni's cheerful expression vanished as though wiped from his face by a dustcloth. "A great shame. Her death, I mean—not our investigation. A tragedy. Very sad. Most unfortunate."

"I'm told she was killed by a kojuma dart."

Danzoni confirmed the truth of this with a dart-casting gesture. "She was. Yes. A poisoned dart. That is correct."

"Not the sort of weapon you'd expect an ordinary Bukkaran to carry."

"No. Certainly not. Throwing a kojuma dart is a specialized skill. Throwing it
accurately,
that is. With precision. On target. Lots of practice is required.
Lots
of practice. Years."

Baldwin nodded. "It is, in fact, the weapon of a professional assassin, isn't it?"

"Just so. Yes. Indeed it is. A professional. An expert."

Baldwin opened the folder he was carrying and extracted seven photographic prints. "You returned Escoli's camera to us. These were among the pictures that were stored in its memory. They were taken over a period of three days as she and Tumanzu went from place to place."

"Sightseeing. That is the term, is it not? Taking in the sights?"

"Yes. 'Sightseeing' is the word, and these were some of the sights they saw." Baldwin spread them out on the surface of Danzoni's desk. He might have been a merchant inviting Danzoni to inspect his wares. "My colleague, David Collins, examined the images that the camera had captured and noticed that these seven have something in common."