The D’neeran Factor (30 page)

Iledra looked away for a minute. Hanna said in dread, “Lee?”

When Iledra turned back there were tears in her eyes. She said, “Lord Gnerin has suggested to me that you resign from this House, and that I name Cosma my successor. There has been no formal motion…yet. If it comes to that they will all be against you.”

Hanna looked at her hand, numb. The Heir's Ring had
come to Earth with Hanna's eyes. The frosty blue stone was not ostentatious; the Ladies of Koroth could be flamboyant enough when they chose, but they took their responsibilities seriously, and that was what the understated ring said. No one had ever given her a greater honor than Iledra had in selecting her to someday head Koroth. She did not think she would do it as well as Iledra, or Penelope before her, but she had always thought she would do her best.

She said, “What do you want me to do, Lee?”

“I will not—” Iledra stopped and drew a deep breath. “I will not attempt to dictate your course. They cannot force you to resign, or force me to repudiate you.”

“But what do you
want?
”

“I want, I want things to be as they were before. And they can't be. They won't ever be. I will not alter my choice. I will not ask you to resign. But as matters stand now you would be entirely ineffective at Koroth.”

Her face twisted, but Hanna could not spare a thought for her pain; her own was too great. She said stiffly, “I will send the ring back for Cosma.”

“No. Bring it. Come home.”

“But the House would not be home anymore.”

“It will always be your home. It will be—it will be hard. But where else are you to go?”

“Nowhere,” Hanna said. “I have nowhere to go, except to you.”

After that conversation she understood at last the full extent of her loneliness. The haze of fear deepened, and she was unhappier than she had ever been in her life. In desperation she reached out to the only person here who had seemed really friendly to her, and invited her therapist to her bed.

Larssen was pleased; he had kept intimate watch on her body for weeks, after all. He was also kind and affectionate and not unskilled, but Hanna felt nothing. She hardly knew he touched her; all sensation seemed to leave her skin, it was like the hide of some alien animal, no part of her at all. Her thoughts blanked again, and she came back to awareness huddled in a cold ball on her bed, weeping bitterly.

“No use,” she said from somewhere in space. “No use. Go away. Please.”

Larssen was unoffended. He knew the details of what
had been done to her; he said it was only to be expected. He made sure she would be all right alone, accepted her apology, and left.

Hanna lay alone in the darkness with an emptiness in her and around her she had never known before. All the rich years had led to this, they were all poured out now, streaming away as such years did at the moment of death. Her work, her pride, her place in her world, even her physical being were come to nothing. She felt nothing but the pervasive fear. She had nothing left but Iledra. She was not sure that would be enough; she was not sure she could ever be filled again. But there was nothing else to try.

Starr Jameson would return to Earth in a few days. She would ask him if she could go home.

“T
hat's it,” Jameson said.

The holograph image that seemed to stand in the center of his office moved slowly.

“See the hesitation? Now watch this.”

The image kept moving. The figure tried another step, lurched awkwardly, and fell in slow motion. It was Hanna. Her face was curiously expressionless, even when one elbow hit the floor with a surely painful impact.

Stanislaw Morisz said doubtfully, “I see what you mean. It's not much to go on.”

“Not by itself, no. But taken as part of a pattern, beginning with that set-up rescue…”

He waited while Morisz thought it over. His theory was far-fetched and he had broached it to few persons besides Morisz. He was not prepared to be laughed at unless it was necessary.

“All right,” Morisz said finally. He leaned back in his chair. The winter day was nearly over, and behind him the river was black except for its edging of ice. “Maybe there's something to it after all. How'd you spot this?”

“I've been looking for…oddities. Anomalies in her behavior, besides the obvious ones. I checked this as a matter of course; it happened to pay off.”

“My people should have caught it.”

That was true, but Jameson said, “She's very good. It's hard to be sure even when you know what you're looking for. But I've watched hours of these things. Days. If you run an incident like this against a kinetic model, there's no doubt she's faking the falls to hide the other thing.”

Hanna's insubstantial figure lay before them in a grotesque
sprawl. Morisz stared at it, and Jameson, moved by some obscure impulse, touched a switch and said “Endit.” The image vanished. Not that it matters, he thought. She hasn't had a moment's privacy in weeks, and after all this is only a picture.

“If she's supposed to do something—think she's supposed to do something? Sabotage? Spying? If you're right—” Morisz caught himself up short. He looked faintly embarrassed by his own half-belief. He said, “We'd better find out what it is, first. Conditioning, programming—we can do things like that too, you know. Shouldn't be hard to figure it out.”

“She doesn't remember what they did.”

Morisz answered with emphasis, “She
says
she doesn't remember.”

“Tharan would have known.”

“You weren't too sure about him yourself.”

“I think he reported honestly what he saw. I think he did not see all there was. And of course there is still the possibility Ward suggested—that it's some sort of hysterical reaction, delayed shock or something of that nature, she's disguising for reasons of her own. Afraid to admit it to Ward for fear of losing even more autonomy—”

“Doesn't explain the nights.”

“No. If I'm right she may know—as she says—only that she is tired in the mornings.”

“But the rest of it…”

“She knows she is somehow out of control, of course, and she has spoken of it to no one. And I think Ward is wrong.”

“Well, then?”

Jameson said, “There is only one expert on the aliens, on what happened to Hanna, and on Hanna's state of mind. I intend to ask her.”

“Sure. And a lot of good that'll do if she doesn't remember, or she's hiding everything she can from us, or both.”

“One can always ask. She's under a hell of a strain, Stan. She's frightened. It shows, when she thinks no one's watching. A direct confrontation might be enough to get a start, at least.”

“So what happens if it doesn't produce anything?”

“I'll try to get her to agree to another deep probe. Maybe duplicate the drugs the aliens gave her—”

“You wouldn't let us do that before,” Morisz said resentfully. “What happened to ‘intolerable' and ‘inhumane'?”

Jameson said, “They got lost somewhere between expediency and desperation,” and Morisz eyed him doubtfully, not sure if he was joking or not.

“We should have done it a long time ago,” Morisz said. “Six months since they dumped her in our laps. Six months lost, six months without a sign of them when we could have been getting somewhere.”

“Not lost,” Jameson said. “Perhaps if we'd done it at the beginning we'd never have seen what we're seeing now. I did not and do not think creating an artificial psychosis will accomplish anything except her further torment. I still hope it won't be necessary.”

“And if it is, and she doesn't agree?”

“We do it anyway. We can take her into official custody as an intelligence source. You don't need to remind me how gently she's been treated so far. We do not have to keep doing that. There is no way for her to stop us from doing anything we want to do.”

It took a greater effort than he expected to say that quite coldly, but Morisz noticed nothing and said only, “You're sure of this, aren't you?”

“I'm sure the implications are so important we have to assume I'm right.”

Morisz was thinking ahead. He said, “If we have to go that far, how do we justify it to D'neera?”

“We won't have to. D'neera is united in nothing, and less than ever now. There will be no protest; except from Lady Koroth, of course, but she'll be alone. No one else on D'neera is likely to give a damn. Hanna is not exactly popular there.”

“The old story.” Morisz chuckled, but without humor. “After Nestor she couldn't do anything wrong. Now she can't do anything right. Yeah.” He got up, stretching. He seemed a little larger than he had when he entered the room. There was a plain course before him, a thing to do. He said, “I'll get started on it right away.”

“No,” Jameson said. He sounded peculiar even to himself; Morisz glanced at him in surprise. He said, “I'd like to give it a try myself.”

“You?” Morisz said, looking at him too closely. “What for?”

Jameson said slowly, “She knows me. Not well, perhaps,
but she respects me and I think trusts me as much as she trusts anyone here. She regards I&S as a threat. The analyses of the direct interrogation sessions made that plain. I should like to see how she responds.”

“It's irregular,” Morisz said disapprovingly. Jameson folded his hands and waited. Finally Morisz said, reluctantly but with no rank to pull, “It makes sense, though.”

“Quite,” Jameson said, and was shocked at his own relief. The reason he had given Morisz was sound enough, but he had not admitted even to himself, until now, the other reason: that his intervention might, just might, mean that Hanna could be spared some quantity of pain.

Morisz said, “When are you going to do it?”

“I don't know. Soon. Why?”

“I'll have to have somebody on the scene.”

Jameson shook his head sharply but Morisz said, “He can stay out of sight. I don't—I beg your pardon, but you have to consider appearances. I don't mean to imply anything about anybody, but—we don't want anybody thinking this is some secret kind of—”

He was talking himself into a corner. Jameson almost smiled. He said, “You mean if Struzik or al-Nimeury were doing this without an I&S representative at hand, I'd bite your head off. I see. You're right, of course.”

Morisz relaxed visibly. He said, “Anyway, it wouldn't hurt to have help there. If the worst-case scenario is true she might get violent.”

This was a possibility that had not occurred to Jameson. Whatever his suspicions, he thought of Hanna now as so fragile that a look might break her. Yet the chance existed, and he had finally managed to get rid of his bodyguard, an appendage Heartworld considered a weakness—though the threat of assassination was real enough even now. The tradition of personal courage was strong in his culture, and he wondered what would be said about his accepting assistance with a woman still frail from illness. But Hanna was trained in personal combat and he was not, and he had not struck a man since early youth.

“All right,” he said finally. “I might as well do it immediately. She's been asking to see me, in any case. I think I'll ask her to come to my house tonight. It might be as well to get her out of the medical atmosphere.”

“Soft light and flowers,” Morisz murmured.

“What?”

“I've seen the same reports you have. She's lonely. Vulnerable, maybe.”

Jameson said frigidly, “That was not what I had in mind.”

“Of course not.” Morisz looked abashed. “Sorry. Larssen was after her again the other day, by the way.”

“What do you mean?”

“Said he wanted to try again. I hear she was in tears by the time she got rid of him. I'm surprised she didn't just break his arm.”

“She would have, at one time.” Jameson had not seen the record of Hanna's earlier encounter with Larssen and had told Morisz to destroy it. He knew one or two of the Beyle Center's directors very well; now he made up his mind to see to it Larssen lost his job. Surprised by his own anger, he hardly noticed Morisz getting up until he looked up absently, hearing the man speak again.

“What did you say?”

“I said, I just can't believe it. It's fantastic.”

“I know. That's what the others said. But you are becoming convinced, aren't you?”

“Let's say,” Morisz said cautiously, “the evidence is suggestive. It would explain a lot. Are you just going to come out and ask her about it?”

“Why not? It would simplify things considerably if she admitted I could be right. And when she knows we've found out her evasions, what would she have to lose?”

“More than you think, maybe. The last man who sold Polity secrets—remember Harrison? He's still living on Nestor like a king.”

“I don't think she's done that. Tharan would have picked it up.”

“Not necessarily. It's no crazier than what you're suggesting. If that really was an artificial block Tharan ran into, who knows what they can do? Maybe they bought her and taught her to hide it. Maybe Koroth isn't enough for her. Maybe they promised her she'd be a queen. Keep it in mind. You can't leave out the possibility.”

“No,” Jameson said, but he did not mean what Morisz thought he meant. The slight, shivering woman who had
shown him her agony at failing had not been bought by anyone; but he would not let Morisz see his certainty.

The evasion left him uneasy, and he was still uneasy when he left his office some time later. He had not spoken to Hanna, only left a message for her at the Beyle Center, but he did not doubt she would come. The interview would be recorded, and one of Morisz's men would be within earshot.

It was dark on the concourse before the administration complex, and a bitter wind was rising, laced with snow. Jameson suddenly remembered he had not arranged transport for Hanna. He had personally vetoed letting her have access to a credit network, which in effect made her a prisoner under the guise of making her a guest. That meant she would have to be on foot, and he thought of her walking five kilometers on legs that did not always obey her, and winced.