Conscience of the Beagle (3 page)

ALL DURING
the
ride down the lift, all during the walk to the limo, Vanderslice is mute. I recognize that silence.

It’s the same careful silence I keep in my office. Vanderslice thinks the building’s bugged.

In the limo, we sit opposite each other. He opens a tiny refrigerator and, without asking if I want one, brings out a pair of native soft drinks. The soda is an off-putting hue of purple and sickeningly sweet.

I set the soda down. “Who’s in charge of the local investigation?”

Vanderslice’s head is tilted back against the seat. His eyes are closed. He has a sheltered, guileless face.

One eye opens. “Me,” he says.

I suppress a laugh. Of course. That’s why the investigation is stalled.

“The gossip Marvin mentioned. What is it?” If he thinks the car is bugged, Vanderslice won’t answer my question.

He stops smiling. He studies the level of his soda. Tips the bottle this way and that. “You ever hear Marvin preach?”

I don’t bother to answer.

“He’s good. Really good. Marvin and I go way back, and he was always a star. While the rest of us were busy playing ball, he memorized the New Testament. When we were discovering girls, he’d already begun his ministry.”

My attention wanders from Vanderslice’s monologue. The limo’s been moving at a brisk pace, and wherever I look are houses. Individual houses on their own private lawns. There are sidewalks, too. But no one’s outside. Strange. If I lived in that neighborhood, I’d walk there.

“Marvin was one of those guys who knew where he was going. He was ambitious that way.”

Ambitious. The word rouses me from boredom like a slap in the face.

“Marvin had the handicap of that voice. You’ve heard him. He sounds like a castrato. But otherwise, he was a natural. Straight-A student. The class cut-up. When we were in school, and the teacher wasn’t around, he’d preach these hilarious sermons. He’d talk about sin and make his voice tremble. He’d talk about forgiveness and cry. Old Marv gave an outstanding performance.”

I look out at the houses again. Lila and I could have been happy there. Maybe we could have had a dog. A small white fluffy dog like the kind she cooed over in pictures. My fault we didn’t. Ten years as an M-4. Twenty years of successful cases and criticisms in my Personnel File.

Doesn’t work well with others.

Prima donna.

Insubordinate.

The bastards. I should have been M-6 at least. I had the seniority for it.

Troublemaker.

Iconoclast.

I wanted to buy Lila that little dog. Wanted to live where ceiling light tiles never fail. But I didn’t want it bad enough. We could have had an apartment on a restricted M-6 Level. A spacious apartment. With security cameras. Neighborhood security gates. She wouldn’t have . . .

“You’d never know it,” Vanderslice says.

I’ve clenched my fists so hard that my hands have cramped. Never know what? I’m lost. Nothing he’s saying makes any sense.

“When Ed the Chosen died, Marvin managed five True Prophecies, three more than his closest competitor. He forgets how many times he was wrong. A few years ago he told me that when he opens his mouth, God speaks.” The green eyes lift to mine. “I think Marv’s crazy.”

I stretch the ache out of my fingers. Vanderslice has finally come to the point. “So that’s the gossip.”

He leans toward me. Backlit by the morning sun, his brown curly hair is a halo. “No. Listen. If Marvin thinks he’s the right hand of God, he has to believe in mercy.”

Wide sidewalks, green lawns flash by. Marvin and Vanderslice were born here. Of course they believe in mercy. The people on M-6 might believe in it. On M-4 ceiling lights fail.

“‘Into Thy hands I commit my spirit,’ remember? Marv takes that to heart. He’d punish a sinner. He’s done it before. But he’s absolutely incapable of hurting someone to save himself. No matter how many thou-shalt-nots Marvin’s made of, no matter how inflexible or self-righteous or even silly he might be, God commanded submission. And Marvin isn’t going to let Him down. Once you understand Marvin, really understand him, you’ll see the conclusion my investigation reached is all wrong.”

He pauses for my question, but I’m not interested in his answer. Vanderslice is gullible. Too sheltered to buck the system. I ask anyway. “So what was the conclusion?”

Vanderslice presses his lips together. Gives me a shrug that is more nervous tic. “That Marv is behind the terrorist acts. And the murders are part of a government conspiracy.”

MY MOUTH
opens
in astonishment. What? I want to ask. What? But then the limo whines to a halt in front of the hotel. The doors slide open. Vanderslice jumps out and walks up the sidewalk to the entrance.

“Wait a minute!” He ignores me. Angered, I catch up to him and jerk him around. “Wait just a fucking minute!”

“Oops. Watch that language.” There’s a bemused look on his face. “Lucky there’s not a God’s Warrior around here, he’d fine you.”

The grounds of the hotel and the spacious sidewalk where we’re standing are empty. Along one side of the huge hotel is a pine forest, a gazebo placed in it like a shrine. It’s empty, too. I don’t understand these huge places where nothing at all happens.

“What do you mean, ‘government conspiracy’?”

A girl suddenly appears at my shoulder. If she had a knife I’d be dead now. Her smile is bright, wide, and vacant as the hotel grounds. A Bible is clutched to her breasts. “The planet of Tennyson was colonized one hundred and fifty years ago by Harold and Mimi Tennyson, of Earth . . .”

Where did she come from? How could I let her sneak up on me like that?

“When the God’s Warriors started looking into the terrorist acts,” Vanderslice says, “they probed the DEEP program in the net of one of the first victims, and found plans for a coup hidden in a subsub file. The Warriors got scared because this wasn’t just some malcontent or blasphemer they were dealing with. This conspirator had status.”

The girl prattles an upbeat counterpoint to Vanderslice’s minor- key tale. “. . . could found a society free from crime and sin . . .”

Vanderslice doesn’t look at her. Is she really there? Does he want to make me believe I’m seeing things?

“So that’s when Marv asked me to take over the investigation, because the God’s Warriors are just cops
—
no offense
—
and even Marv was starting to worry. You could nail him to a cross. He’d let you. But he never had any burning desire to be a martyr.”

The girl stops talking. Looks expectantly at me. I’m afraid to meet her eye, afraid Vanderslice will ask what I’m looking at. I don’t know what I should tell him.

After an awkward pause she asks if I would care for any printed information.

“Tell her no,” Vanderslice says.

Damn it. What kind of game is this?

Then he shoves his arm through the Bible, through the frilly dress, until everything past his elbow is lost from sight. The girl is still smiling.

“A Chamber of Commerce holo. She picked you out because you don’t have an EPAT. Tell her no.”

“No.” So easy. Not murder, but something like it. The girl and her perky smile wink out of existence.

“EPATs. We’re implanted,” Vanderslice says, touching a tiny scar on his wrist. “Eternal Prayer And Tithe. HF told you, right? It tracks where we are every minute of every day. Being an Earther, that’ll probably lead you to the wrong conclusion. Truth is, nobody cares. Nobody wants to know where an EPAT goes. We’re God-fearing, trustworthy citizens, otherwise our EPAT would be taken away. It’s the Banished out of Bosom that the government worries about. They’re the ones they keep an eye on. At least until now.”

Vanderslice has been tagged like a convicted petty thief. Why did he stand for it? Nothing could make me give up my freedom like that. “I’ll want all your files.”

He gives me a self-deprecatory nod. “Sure. I’ve already sent some to Dr. Taylor’s net. I’ll get you the rest right away. It won’t be what you’re used to, though. We’re amateurs at this, and everything’s pretty sloppy.”

“Get me everything.” I walk to the door. Vanderslice follows.

“Look, Major. Why don’t you let me help you? There’s a lot about Tennyson you won’t be able to understand. I’ll try not to get in your way.”

Vanderslice would always get in my way.
“You
look . . .” I face him.

“John. Just call me John.”

“It’s nothing personal. I’m simply not allowed to work with any locals. In off-world cases, HF never shares information. There’s too great a danger that the contact is implicated. Or that he’s an informant.”

Vanderslice is crushed. “Oh. Sure. I understand.”

But when I enter the building, he’s right on my heels.

The heart of the lobby is pierced by brilliant shafts from the skylights. Beagle and Szabo sit at a table under a waterfall of green vines. Arne’s chair is pulled some distance from the others as if he fears being contaminated by congeniality.

As we approach, Beagle looks up. His eyes are heavy-lidded. His jowls sag over the tight collar of his uniform. “I want to talk to you alone, Major,” he says.

Vanderslice fidgets. Waves vaguely toward the restaurant. “Okay. Sure. Well, I’ll just go over here and get something to eat. You guys want anything?”

Beagle doesn’t answer. Always the gentleman, Szabo shakes his head.

When Vanderslice is out of earshot, Beagle says, “Get us off this planet. Get us out of here now. We’ve been set up.”

We? Surprise makes my mind so blank it’s like staring at a wall. Beagle’s not in danger. I am.

“I’ve only gone over the preliminary reports,” Beagle is saying. “But there’s enough here to point to an attempted coup. The Tennyson government found out about it. They planted the bombs to kill the conspirators and cover up the revolution. Tennyson’s designed to be a perfect world. And in a perfect world, Major, there can be no such thing as unrest . . .”

Beagle’s eyes rivet to a point beyond my right shoulder. Vanderslice is walking toward us, carting a platter. He halts a few feet away. “You guys finished talking now? I brought snacks.”

“All finished.” I take a chair. Beagle’s too smart
—
too
brilliant
—
to be fooled by the obvious. “Beagle here was just telling me he’s solved the case.”

Blood drains from Szabo’s cheeks so quickly it seems he’ll faint.

I smile at Vanderslice. “Your government did it.”

He puts the platter down in the center of the table and pulls up a chair. Apples. He brought us real apples cut in slices. And grapes like frosted green glass. A mound of cherries, still with their stems. Slices of melon too perfect, too orange to touch.

I pick up a cherry. Halfway to my mouth, my hand freezes. Beagle’s glaring at me.

“It’s there to find, Dr. Taylor.” Vanderslice plucks a grape and rolls it between his fingers. “But wasn’t finding it a little too easy?”

Of course it was. If Vanderslice found it, it had to be. And Beagle’s so fucking
brilliant.

Beagle’s eyes never leave mine. “It’s not good procedure to discuss this with a governmental representative present.”

Vanderslice puts the grape on the table and regards it as if he expects it to talk. It lies there, separated from its peers: a pale-green enigma.

Beagle sits back. Laces his hands over his stomach. “Your orders called us here, Mr. Minister. You didn’t go through Marvin. Do you really want us to solve this case, or do you need someone else to blame failure on?”

No one else seems hungry. I pop the cherry into my mouth. A surprise: firmer that I had imagined; and sweeter. But an unexpected harness inside.

Vanderslice says, “Marvin and I have divergent views.”

“What about?”

“There was a man named Paulie Hendrix.” A pucker between Vanderslice’s eyebrows mars the blondness of his face. “He was killed in the fourth blast. The Warriors discovered incriminating statements in his DEEP, too. Marvin doesn’t know who’s behind the bombings, but he believes in revolutions. That’s because he believes in sin, you see.”

Vanderslice picks the grape from the table and squeezes it. He squeezes until the skin bulges. Until juice bleeds from its end. “When Paulie Hendrix died, Marvin stole his good name. His money. His house. He confiscated everything. Hendrix—” He stops himself as if startled by his own intensity. “Hendrix was always a little questionable. Not quite the ideal Tennysonian Christian. Marvin wouldn’t hurt someone to protect himself, but he’s always punished heresy. And there was lots of heresy in Paulie Hendrix’s DEEP.”

Vanderslice looks at me. At the grape. “Okay. He broke the Apostay Laws. But there’s a difference between preaching evolution and fomenting rebellion. Paulie Hendrix would never be a part of that.”

Szabo takes and apple slice from the platter and bites into it. From the silence, a crisp, moist snap.

“How do you know for sure?” Beagle asks.

Vanderslice puts the grape on the table. He lays it down as if giving it rest. “Paulie Hendrix was my best friend.”