The Forever Hero (71 page)

But he ran, real and imagined terrors pursuing.

The copy editor scanned the screen, frowning as he read the headline.

“No Need For Protein Restrictions.”

“Where did that come from?” he muttered, calling up the full text, speeding through it as he did. Then he reread the first paragraph.

“(INS) New Augusta. ‘No system government should need to impose protein restrictions on its people,' claimed D. Daffyd Werlyn, Proctor of Agronomy at the Emperor's College, in his farewell address.

“Werlyn stated that the ‘bestmeat' plant, once banned in the Fursine system, could bring about the end of hunger and protein restrictions in any system. ‘It's tasty, nutritious, and grows under the most adverse conditions, from poisoned sewage to sand, but produces untainted slices of protein undetectable from the finest organic steaks.'

“Werlyn noted that several systems have banned the growing of the plant because it causes ‘agricultural disruption.' The Fursine provisional government just recently revoked such a prohibition and stated that ‘bestmeat' was a national treasure, since a small garden could provide enough protein for an entire family of four year round.

“The Novayakin system government recently banned the home cultivation of the plant…claiming it provided support for outlawed Atey rebels…”

The editor read the squib again, then checked the routing codes, which indicated an Imperial message torp, as opposed to a Ydrisian commercial torp.

He frowned, then tapped his fingers across the board, waiting for the response to his inquiry. The story had already run on two successive netwide faxnews prints.

At that, he smiled briefly before touching the red stud on the console, the special red stud that only a few of the news service personnel had.

The comm screen centered on a man in the dark brown uniform of Domestic Security.

“DomSec, Andruz.”

“Pellestri, FPNS. Thought you should see something that crossed the net, Andruz.”

“What now, Pellestri? Another subversive headed this way? Another Atey deploring the inappropriate and restrictive technology of Forsenia? Or perhaps another intellectual critiquing the regime from behind the protection of New Avalon's Ivory Towers?”

“I'm sending the squib direct, if you want to receive.”

“Send it.”

Pellestri touched the transmit stud and listened to the high-pitched bleep. Then he waited, confident that Andruz would not cut him off and that there would be a reaction.

He was disappointed.

“So there's a new food plant? So what?”

“Just doing my duty, Andruz. The regulations say I have to report anything which has a potential of upsetting planetary order.”

“So…you did what you thought was best. Break.”

Pellestri broke. Then he touched the keyboard again, quickly.

“Pelle! And during the day, too.”

“Do you have a hard-copy terminal there?”

“Yes. But…”

“Take this and see what you can do. All right?”

“Do?”

“Just see if you can track down the subject. Call it personal interest. Might be more than a good story. Might even make life…give it a better flavor, if you will.”

“Aren't you mysterious. All right.” The dark-haired woman nodded slowly, without betraying her understanding of how important the matter was to him. “Send it, and we'll get on it.”

Pellestri sent another bleep through the terminal and broke the connection.

Then he went back to editing, although his thoughts did not.

Marta had the old homestead back in the hills, beyond the military perimeter, out beyond where the regime had confiscated private property, and if half of what the squib had hinted were true, it all might be possible, in the months ahead, or at least by next year. But they'd have to be careful. Most careful.

His hands continued to edit the material on the screen as it crossed before his eyes.

The man in the full-fade camouflage suit waited in the shadows for the scheduled DomSec patrol.

Despite the high-intensity pole lights, when the evening fog was thick, as it usually was right after sunset, gloom dominated most of the interval between the circles of light.

A set of footsteps, light and quick, pattered toward the man who lay stretched under the ornamental hedge bordering the public gardens. His eyes followed the thin, middle-aged woman who nervously hurried from pool of light to pool of light toward the tube station three hundred meters farther down the boulevard.

The sound of her steps rang down the nearly silent boulevard long after her image and shadow were swallowed by the yellow-gray of the fog.

The man who waited could feel the vibration coming from the tube buried ten meters beneath him. He quirked his lips and hoped the woman had made it to the station. If not, she had a long wait for the next train this late.

Whhhrrrr
.

The purring of an electrovan sounded from the cross street a hundred meters downhill to his right, then faded as the van continued eastward.

Click. Click, click. Click
.

The measured tread of military boots on the pavement continued to increase in volume, although the fog concealed the DomSecs who wore those boots. The man in the depression behind the hedge remained there, flattening himself still farther.

Two sets of steps meant increased concerns. At that, he permitted himself another brief smile. Then he waited. With two guards, there was a good chance one was carrying and using a heat sensor, but sensors were line of sight, and his position was not. He remained hugging the grass behind the hedge as the steps neared.

Click, click. Click, click
.

“Scope?” asked a deep voice.

“Negative.”

“Waste of time.”

“Maybe. You want to be an Atey casualty?”

“Stow it.”

Click, click. Click, click
.

“Somebody in front of us. See?”

“Small prints. Almost gone. Scope pattern says a woman.”

“Who says it's a man after DomSecs?”

“Who says it's one person?”

Click. Click, click. Click
.

The steps passed.

The man edged into a crouch, edging along behind the DomSec pair, but well to the side and trailing them, shadowing them, while fitting a small rounded object into a leather sling.

Whirrrrr!

Crack!

Clank!

Hisssss! HISSSS!

The remaining security officer used his laser like a hose, spraying every shadow in sight.

The man in the full-fade blacks had melted back into the ground, behind the hedge and below the line of sight of the laser.

“Fyrdo! Square six, halfway to five. Gerlys down. Ambush! Say again. Ambush. Gerlys is down.”

Whirrrrr!

Crack!

Clank
.

The man in black, more shadow than the shadows that concealed him, did not wait for confirmation of the second sling, but began the ground-eating strides that would take him through the public gardens. As he ran, he replaced the weapon behind his equipment belt.

What the DomSecs had yet to learn was that in a city, a well-conditioned man who could run quickly, right after the attack, was quicker than their reaction, particularly if his attacks were always aimed at outlying areas and patrols away from the dispatch points. He had made sure they were.

He smiled.

The point was to force retrenchment or repression, or both. Either would do, as would the destruction of the myth of DomSec invulnerability.

After straightening his tunic, the man with the brown and gray curly hair and full beard eased out his doorway toward the stairs leading down to the second floor.

He stopped after one step, listening, his acute hearing picking up fragments of the vidfax conversation from the room below, where Carra Herklonn, the woman from whom he had rented the upstairs room, spoke in a voice barely above a whisper.

“…I'm sure he's the one you want…”

“…said his name was Emile De L'Enver. We are definitely looking for a man named Martin deCorso, who is a Forsenian national formerly in Imperial Service.”

“…same build, and he didn't rent the room until after deCorso, whatever you called him, disappeared. So he has brown and gray hair and a beard. Anyone can color their hair and grow a beard…”

“What is the name, Madame…Madame…?”

“My name is Herklonn, Carra Herklonn, and his name is Emile De L'Enver. D-E-space-L-apostrophe-E-N-V-E-R. De L'Enver.”

“Just a moment, Madame Herklonn.”

“…don't understand why they let people like that run around…”

The man on the top step of the stairs began to edge down the steps silently, still listening as he moved.

“Madame, there is also an Emile De L'Enver, with perfectly good credentials and credit, who also recently returned to Forsenia. He has been interviewed several times, as is our practice with returnees, the last being several weeks ago, before Ser deCorso disappeared, in connection for his travel permit. It would seem somewhat unlikely that Ser deCorso would be in Halmia at the same time that Ser De L'Enver was in Varenna…”

“…but he doesn't talk like a Forsenian, not even one who spent years away in the Empire. There's an odd lilt there. You know. You just know. And he doesn't have the right attitudes…about Domsec…about anything…and he's scary…”

“What do you mean, Madame?”

“Sometimes I get the feeling he's heard everything I've said. He moves so quietly you can never hear him. He doesn't act like an old man, even if he does limp a little.”

“He limps?”

“Just a bit, when no one is looking, almost as if he were trying to hide it, and that seems strange. And then there's the suitcase. It has Imperial locks on it, the kind Alfred would have called security locks. Not your normal locks, but the kind that look like you could never break them…”

“Perhaps we should have another talk with Ser De L'Enver. Is he there now?”

“He's upstairs…resting, he said.”

“A patrol should be there in the next few minutes, perhaps as long as ten minutes, Madame.”

“All right.”

“If he is the man we're looking for, he has avoided hurting anyone except security officers. But I would stay out of his way. And I would not mention you faxed us, of course.”

“I was not planning on announcing it.”

“Good day.”

“Good day.”

The man known as De L'Enver waited until she had stepped away from the console before walking into the second-floor room.

“Might I ask why you are so intent upon turning me over to the DomSecs, Madame?”

Carra Herklonn started to jab her hand toward the console, but De L'Enver was quicker, and caught her arm before her fingers reached the keyboard.

Despite her greater height and weight, she found she could not break his grip.

“Help!”

“No one else here,” he observed with a twist to his lips.

“It was worth a try.” She smiled wryly.

“You a former DomSec agent?”

“No. InSec, part-time, before—” She attempted to twist and drive her elbow into his midsection.

“Ooooo.” The expression oozed out as his fingers tightened on the nerves above her elbow.

“Before?”

“Before I met Alfred.”

“You don't mind all the social control? The government trying to tell you what to do and when?”

Her reply was another attempt to break away, followed by an effort to smash the bones in the top of his foot with her boot heel.

“I take it you approve of all the repression.”

“I don't see it that way. You mind your own business, and neither InSec nor DomSec bother you. They don't torture people, like on Barcelon or Gondurre. There's enough food, and the government doesn't tolerate parasites…”

De L'Enver shook his head almost sadly.

“You prize order so highly that you have forgotten freedom.”

He cocked his head to the side, as if to listen, then gripped her arm more tightly and moved her away from the console, nearly lifting her off the floor with his right hand.

His eyes caught hers, and despite their muddy brown color, they seemed to flash.

“Do most people share your feelings?” he snapped.

She tried to move away, away from the stare and the force of a personality she had not seen before behind the nondescript facade.

“…I…think so. Very little crime…or unrest…not that many people in prison…not that many emigrants…”

He frowned.

“Who would have thought—”

“Thought what?” she parried.

“That so many people would like such a repressive society.”

He turned toward her, his left hand coming up like a blur. She twisted and tried to scream, but the pressure across her neck tightened, and finally she slumped.

De L'Enver laid her out on the carpet and dashed for the third floor.

Within seconds he was up the stairs and back down by the front door, carrying only an attaché case, leaving clothes and what appeared to be personal possessions in the third-floor room.

As he stepped out onto the narrow stoop, he did not hesitate, but adopted the brisk walk of a businessman in a hurry, of a man late for an appointment, but a bit too dignified to rush.

Three blocks from the Herklonn house, he picked up the whine of an overstrained electrovan behind him. Forcing himself not to pick up his pace, he continued toward the tube train station, presenting an alternative credit card, not in the same of De L'Enver, to the gate.

Once inside and down the ramp, he ducked into a private stall in the public fresher and made several quick changes. The beard was replaced, though he left longer sideburns than he had used as Martin deCorso, and the enzyme solution he combed through his hair changed the brown to black, leaving the streaks of gray intact. The brown contact lenses were replaced with a darker shade that left his irises black, and lifts inside his boots added another three centimeters
to his height. He reversed the business tunic from brown to a crisper charcoal, and attached a pencil-thin mustache above his upper lip with a skin adhesive that would resist anything but a special disolver. He added a reddish blotch on his cheek below his left eye.

Last, he replaced his identification card as Emile De L'Enver with that of his third prepared identity, that of one Lak Volunza.

After joining half a dozen others on the platform, he watched to see if any DomSecs appeared, but even five minutes later, when he stepped aboard the four-car train to western Varenna, no security types had appeared.

He resisted shaking his head.

Forsenia represented a closed and controlled society, more tightly run than either Barcelon or Byzania, and yet there were few signs of unrest, and the DomSecs were strangely inept as a planetary police force. While the government imprisoned dissidents, the accommodations, according to all accounts, while spartan, were adequate, as were food and medical treatment. Hardcore opponents were sent to the state farms, but there too was the treatment not terribly repressive.

Yet few escaped or tried to, nor were there any underground movements visible. Istvenn knew, he'd looked.

De L'Enver, now Volunza, sat in a two-person seat one seat back from the sliding doors and observed the handful of other riders.

The train slid to its first stop. The doors opened, and another fifteen people trooped into the car, almost silently, as if each individual were wrapped in a blanket of his or her own thoughts.

The man calling himself Volunza studied the car itself.

No litter on the floor. No graffiti on the walls. No tears or rips in the faded upholstery, which appeared to have been recently scrubbed.

The tube trains were scarcely new, occasionally squeaked or swayed, but were well maintained. While some passengers talked quietly, Volunza could see that they were individuals who already knew one another.

His eyes checked the map on the car wall. Three more stops before his destination.

The train squealed as it braked for the next underground station, but only five or six passengers rose.

Once the car halted and the doors opened, the small crowd outside on the platform waited until the departing passengers left before entering. With a hiss, the doors closed, and the train lurched gently as it began to pick up speed.

Lak Volunza continued to study the passengers, the stranger accepting citizens of Forsenia, while the train hummed and hissed along.

When the train slowed in its approach to the next to the last station on the western line, called Red Brook, Volunza stood, along with a handful of others. The majority of passengers remained seated, obviously headed for the end of the line, as he stepped out onto the platform.

While the DomSecs appeared slow, they might be one step ahead, and waiting for him to exit the train at the end of the line—any line. Even if they could track which cards he had used, they would have to wait until he left the station, unless they wanted to stop every passenger on every platform, whether incoming, outgoing, or transferring. He doubted that the DomSecs were worried enough yet to blanket some sixty stations; many of which had much higher traffic volumes and more than one exit.

If their data system were good enough, they could track anyone from the two tube stations that were equidistant from the Herklonn home and compare the names against addresses. That would take a few minutes, but not many, and would certainly narrow the focus of the search.

That possibility was the reason why the credit card he had used did not bear the name or credit codes of Lak Volunza, but those of a newshawk association, the kind of card given to people who traveled on business too frequently to be justified as personal use. Such cards were registered in both individual names and in the names of the organization. His card represented the state news organization, FPNS.

Brisk steps took him up the inclined ramp to street level, where he turned southward along the boulevard lined by squat and oversize dwellings of gray stone, presumably the homes of well-paid functionaries of some sort.

Volunza checked the time. Only midafternoon, far earlier than he would have wished to be less conspicuous.

At the next corner he turned westward, keeping an eye open for uniformed DomSecs and anyone else. He passed a young woman wheeling a buggy, in which a sleeping infant lay, covered with a light, but bright red blanket.

He nodded, somberly, without smiling, as he passed.

Surprisingly he received a tentative smile in return.

He reached the green expanse of the Novaya Park without passing another soul on the broad streets, and with just two or three electrocars humming past.

The park had no gates and presented a series of grassy areas interspersed with dark conifers and the heavy trunks of the ancient and imported oaks. The size of the trees, if nothing else, confirmed the age and stability of Varenna.

As he headed toward the permanent summer pavilions, he wished he had made his hair even grayer. Then he could have joined the group of older men at their endless games of chess.

While the cool breeze felt warm enough for him, he suspected most Imperials would have found Forsenia far too chilly, especially in any season besides the too-short summers.

A whining sound tickled his hearing, coming from the road to his left where it wound toward the common area a hundred meters in front of him. Volunza set his case down by an oak and wiped his forehead, leaning against the tree as if to rest for a moment. Then he sat down.

From the base of the old oak, he had a clear view of the men at their stone tables, as well as of the women playing cards at a second row of tables. His position also kept him shielded from direct observation from the perimeter roads around the park.

The electrovan continued to the common area and the summer pavilions, where it stopped. A uniformed man and woman climbed out and walked over to the men playing chess, stopping by an older man who was watching, standing in the kiosk that sold drinks and dressed in a gray tunic. The seller nodded as the three talked for several minutes.

The two security officers walked into the section of tables shaded by the pavilion roof. The female DomSec pointed to a white-haired man, then looked back at the man in gray, who nodded.

The white-haired man, the object of her attention, bolted upright. Despite his obvious paunch, he charged the male DomSec, bowling him into another table, and scattering chess pieces in the process.

Both DomSecs turned, but did not draw weapons, as the paunchy man careened off the immobile stone table, pounded past the kiosk, and threw himself through the still-open driver's door of the electrovan. The door slammed closed.

The van began to whine, picking up speed and volume as it whipped back down the road toward the far side of the park.

Wsssh!

The man who temporarily called himself Volunza blinked.

A searing flash of light flared across the grass, so quickly it cast no shadows.

Volunza blinked, rubbing his eyes to regain his vision.

The first thing he saw, when he could see again, was the seething lump of metal that had been the DomSec electrovan. He turned his head slowly to survey the park, but could see nothing else.

“Booby-trapped,” he observed to no one in particular.

He watched the group in the center of the park. All but a few of the older men and women returned to their cards and chess. Those that did not merely sat and stared blankly.