Tomorrow’s Heritage (21 page)

He moved to Dian, one arm up, frying, the heat making him look out through squinted eyes. His hair felt as if it were singeing off his scalp, his flesh blistering, searing, sucking him dry. He heard Dian’s voice.

“Beth! Beth’s . . . oh, God! Help me, Todd!”

Dian had stripped off her own tunic and thrown the garment over Beth to put out flames. Todd forced himself to lower his arm, then took off his shirt, wrapped it around Dian, and shoved her toward the door.

“I won’t leave her . . . her and Anatole . . . he’s . . .”

Todd could bear the briefest glance deeper into the room, where Dian was pointing. A body lay there, the head thrown back grotesquely, the mouth opened, the clothes blackened and bonded to the crisped dark skin. He gagged, desperately fighting to keep from vomiting, as he picked up Beth.

The woman arched in agony, moaning. “Don’t, don’t, please . . .”

Dian was cradling Beth’s head, hurrying alongside Todd as they both stumbled away from the worst of the fire. Todd felt pieces of skin coming off on his hands where he touched Beth. Helpless, hating to hurt her, he let Dian guide him, struggling to reach fresh air.

Smoke was a boiling, angry sea, closing in on them, fingers of flame reaching out through the clouds toward them. Todd had no sense of time, parts of his brain going numb.

Have to get out. That way. Dian. Right here beside me . . .

“Hang on, Beth . . .”

“Over here,” Dian urged in a raspy voice. “There’s a clear path! Beth?”

The body in Todd’s arms continued to jerk and writhe, making his task nearly impossible. Beth was tall, and her long legs and arms made a good purchase difficult.

I’m hurting her. Her burned skin’s coming off every place I touch her. But I’ve got to . . .

Water! Or liquid of some kind! He didn’t care what it was. It was wet and cold, drenching him, Beth, and Dian, beating back the smoke and the fire. The stream wasn’t so powerful he couldn’t move, though. Gulping and spluttering, he waded through the spray.

Air—cold and smokeless—hit them next. Men in heavy insu-suits were circling them, trying to hurry them along. Firemen.

“Get that big stuff in here! We got a bad one!” one of the firemen yelled over his shoulder. He leaned close to Todd, bellowing in his ear. “Anyone else in there?”

“Ana . . . Anatole . . . dead. He’s dead.”

“Okay! We’ll get the body.”

Todd and Dian were out in the middle of the wrecked reception area by now, helping hands guiding them. “Medics! Beth needs a medic,” Dian was crying. “For God’s sake, someone help her!”

Iris and some other staffers and a couple of the firemen cleared a space on the floor. One of the firemen had emergency-aid equipment, was throwing some kind of gel sheet over the dirty floor, then reaching out to help Todd.

Beth wasn’t twisting about so badly now. Todd didn’t know if that was good or bad. He hoped it meant she wasn’t in as much pain. He knelt as carefully as he could, lowering her onto the gel sheet. The fireman moved in quickly, examining, soothing, wrapping Beth in the sheet.

Not fast enough. Through smoke-abused eyes, Todd had already seen too much. Beth’s long legs were seared red, some places blackening, blood seeping out. Her arms didn’t look too bad, but her chest and left side were hideous, her hair was half gone, and one side of her face was badly blistered.

“Anatole,” Beth whimpered. “He . . .”

Dian bent over her, trying not to get in the fireman-medic’s way, afraid to touch the other woman but speaking gently to her. “We’ll get him, Beth. Just rest. Gonna be okay . . . okay . . .”

She was shaking with suppressed hysteria. “Are you hurt?” Todd asked, He wasn’t sure it was safe to touch her. He had caused Beth so much pain, out of necessity, and he didn’t want to hurt Dian, too.

“She can’t hear you right now, miss,” the fireman told Dian.

Dian sank against Todd, the pent-in tears welling up. She bawled helplessly while he held her, no longer worrying whether he might touch a burned area. She needed the holding more than his excessive caution.

Wu Mim and several of the new techs were sitting on nearby pieces of wreckage, most burned or bleeding. Some looked as if the attackers had hit them with clubs. Sirens and loud feet and clattering equipment assaulted their senses. There were more medics coming in now, taking over the extra patients from the fireman who was treating Beth. One of the techs refused an injection, insisting too loudly that he was a member of the New Genetic Coalition. No foreign substance would enter his body. It was a genuine religious conviction, and the man probably spoke in sincerity. Yet, considering his condition, it seemed like lunacy to object to a pain killer when his arms were oozing pools of skinless tissue.

Todd knelt in the middle of the holocaust, embracing Dian, wanting to hit someone, wanting to cry. He couldn’t. No target. And his eyes felt burned dry.

“Mr. Saunder?” Someone was draping a cool, wet garment around his shoulders and bare back. Todd peered up, blinking. A dark face. A helmet. Enforcement. One of the officers who had escorted him from the Science Council meeting, a thousand years ago.

“My people. . . help my people . . .”

Iris was fussing over the elderly security guard, a fireman-medic alongside her. That poor guard! He had never a chance. And the enforcement troops posted outside?

Todd heard sporadic gunfire, not as much as before. There were shouts and incoherent curses from the streets, troops angry that the quarry was getting away. Wind gusted through the broken window-wall and ruined shutters. A few flakes of snow were settling over the wrecked furniture.

“We will, sir,” the guard promised. The mask-face gave way for a split second. “We’ll get them. Those sons of bitches killed five of my people. Full-scale attack. Wasn’t rioters. Organized . . .”

Another officer, one wearing an investigator’s ident, leaned over Todd. “Take it easy, Mr. Saunder. We’ll get them,” he repeated. “I understand you got some of your employees out of that fire. Nice going.”

Todd didn’t feel like accepting a hero’s compliments. The reminder of Beth had made Dian stiffen and beat her fists helplessly on his chest and cry still louder. Todd cradled her head on his shoulder, gently stroking her smoke-saturated hair.

“Who did this?” he asked between coughs. “I want you to find out who did this!”

The investigator was talking softly into a pasta mini-com, apparently conferring with some distant superior, For all Todd knew, the man was calling an arson squad.

Arson? Civil insurrection? The officer’s bitter remark’ rang in Todd’s mind—organized, The same anonymous threatener who had warned Beth she would be killed if she didn’t leave Project Search?

The CNAU Enforcement people wouldn’t find them. Organized, Hiding behind military scrambler locks. A lot bigger than the criminals and rioters the troops were equipped to handle. Anything this well planned wouldn’t leave handy tracks and handprints pointing to the perpetrators.

Wouldn’t leave a brand name on a missile heading for Goddard Colony . . .

Enforcement troops were trying to snake order out of the mess, helping the firemen-medics lift people onto stretchers, holding curiosity-seekers outside the windows. “No-good bastards,” one of the officers snarled. “Ought to take ‘em all out and shoot ‘em . . .”

How often had that been said? During the past decade? The past century? Centuries before then?

“I . . . I got a good look at one of them,” Todd said, then had to pause and cough.

“That’s great!” the investigator exclaimed. “We’ll want you to check our files, sir, when you’re okayed by the medics. We’ll take you and the lady to Emergency Facility.”

“Not necessary.” More coughing, seeming to pull Todd’s lungs inside out.

“Better do it, sir. You take care. We’ll catch these bastards.”

Todd peered toward the doors of Project Search. No doors. Nothing within the big room now. The firemen apparently had knocked down the conflagration before it could spread to the other floors. At least that meant no one else would be hurt.

Project Search. The consoles, the tapes, the data banks, all their carefully amassed material—gone. Some might be salvaged. But most of it was ruined by fire or water or chemicals. There were duplicates elsewhere. They could rebuild. But the focus, the excited, concentrated, dedicated effort, all those wonderful minds and the talent, working together on the messages that would change the future—broken, burned, some of them dead, most of them hurt.

Two men climbed through the debris, carrying a stretcher. They had thrown a cover over the body. It didn’t help. That was ComLink Master Tech Anatole Duchamp.

“Find them! I want them to pay,” Todd said in anguish, making his tortured throat and lungs obey.

“We will, Mr. Saunder. We will.”

A vain promise. They would probably try—unless spies within Enforcement’s own ranks had tipped off the anonymous enemies, helped them break through Enforcement’s blockade.

Medics were tenderly lifting Beth Isaacs, sliding an invalid carrier under her. Todd desperately wanted to help but knew he would just be in the way. Somewhere behind him, investigators were whispering, comparing notes, their words knives entering Todd’s blistered back and dazed brain.

“See this? Custom. Fire burst. Military. Lab?”

“We can try.” Todd could envision the man shrugging, accepting the futility of the effort in advance, but agreeing to go by the book.

“No handprints. We aren’t going to nail those goons who did it or whoever hired them. This was pro. Lots of money . . .”

“Yeah. Somebody wanted these people very, very dead.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

ooooooooo

DR. ALBRECHT was a nice guy, but he wouldn’t take no for an answer, no matter how many times Todd repeated it. Short of being rude, Todd decided the only way to evict the man was to escort him to the door personally and see him on his way—hoping he wouldn’t turn around and come back to take up where he had stopped.

Todd cued the elevator, willing it to hurry.

“This terrible, willful destruction of your project—barbarism. That’s what it is, my boy.”

“I agree.”

“Have the police no idea who could have perpetrated this villainy?” Albrecht wondered. He tended to talk like that. Too many lectures in front of the university’s vid cameras, probably.

“No. They’re working on it.” The doors opened, and Todd resisted the urge to shove Albrecht inside. He waved the man ahead and stepped in beside him. “Apparently the incendiary was a military device, very sophisticated. The thugs could have put it in a pocket and brought it in. Armed forces all around the globe use the same thing. It’ll be very tough for the police to trace.”

Albrecht made sympathetic noises. “Then your enemies—the enemies of science and Project Search—are indeed formidable. You must see the wisdom of the Science Council’s invitation. If your Dr. Foix and the other personnel wish memberships and privileges, I’m sure the Council would be amenable . . .”

Todd didn’t bristle at the bribe offer. Albrecht meant well. He just didn’t operate on the same frequency as Todd and his people.

“Doctor, I appreciate the offer. But it’s really too early to make any plans. My people are still in the hospital.”

Except for Anatole. His genetic inheritance is on file in SE Antarctic Enclave. But Anatole himself, the good, decent, intelligent person he was, is dead.

“Terrible,” Albrecht opined again. “They’re coming along all right, I trust?”

Todd winced at the reminder. “We don’t know yet, for a couple of people. They’re at the Texas Burn Facility, undergoing treatment. Dr. Foix flew down to spend some time with them yesterday and see how they’re getting along. They couldn’t have any visitors at first. At least now Dian can go in and see Beth and Anaya briefly.”

Mentioning Beth inevitably brought visions of her lying on the gel sheet, of the emergency-room attendant carefully washing bits of Beth’s skin off Todd’s blistered hands. One week wasn’t long enough to lose or even soften a memory like that. It still made him queasy.

Reaching the ground floor didn’t shut Albrecht off. He kept on with his pitch as he and Todd strolled down the corridor toward the front door. The smoke smell still permeated the walls and door frames and floor. The debris had been picked up. New supplies replaced the wrecked furniture. Iris was back at her desk again, though looking very pale, glistening burn bandages on her hands and one cheek.

“I . . . wish you would seriously think it over.”

“I will, Doctor. As I said, it’s just too early.”

“All the training, not to mention your files. You did say you have duplicates of all the material? Good! Good! Good scientific precaution. Of course, one never expects such a terrible thing as
this
to happen to the main file in a research project, still . . .

A new security guard was tending the door. He wasn’t alone. There were six other people, subtle, jacketed, looking as if they were trying to blend in with the rest of Todd’s staff. They couldn’t. They might as well have worn signs advertising them as security personnel.

Project Search was closed. The arson inspector’s seal was still on the makeshift barricade that had been put up to replace the shattered doors. A stink of fried metal, plastic, stagnant water, and something sickeningly sweet managed to get past the barricade, reaching Todd’s nose, reminding him.

The front window-wall was gone, too. New steel completely boxed them in.

Albrecht was gazing around, clucking. “Such destruction. Terrible!”

“It is that. And expensive, too,” Todd said acidly. He winged a cue at the new door guard. The man reached for the monitor trigger but didn’t press it, waiting. If he opened the door too soon and they couldn’t get Albrecht to take the hint, it was going to get very cold inside the reception area. New Washington was back to its normal January temperatures—normal, that is, since the glacial outbreak had lowered northern hemispheric temperatures around the world.

“Oh? I hadn’t thought about . . .”

Todd smiled bitterly. “My mother tells me that before the Death Years businessmen could collect insurance on such damages. That must have been nice. Now we just have to save back enough funds to take care of ourselves, or gamble that nothing further will happen to us.”

Albrecht grabbed Todd’s hand, pressing it, playing fond uncle. “We want you, my boy. The Science Council stands ready to support you and fund you. You really can name your own ticket, as they say.” He chuckled fatuously.

Put Project Search under their banner. That’s the price of their generosity. They’ll pay. They’ll probably be willing to pick up the tab for the medical bills for my people, too. Everything transferred and to go on just as it was before the unknown enemy broke in and firebombed us.

Only Project Search wouldn’t continue as before. It was an independent operation. The Science Council was a confederation. Todd could predict the outcome if he accepted Albrecht’s generous offer. Every linguist and self-proclaimed expert on the alien messenger and its creator species would want to get into the act. Advice, bad, good, indifferent, and mostly emphatic. And he would be in their hire and would have to listen to it all, just as he was enduring Albrecht’s babbling now. A bit of courtesy to a fellow Science Council member was quite another matter from having to follow the dictates of three thousand plus voting members of that body. They would take control if that happened, and Project Search wouldn’t belong to Todd Saunder any more.

Jael would somehow find a way to get the funds Albrecht was dangling and keep Saunder autonomy. Todd didn’t know how she had accomplished that in many of he deals she had pulled off, but he freely admitted she was a genius at it. He was momentarily tempted to contact her and ask her to wheel and deal on his behalf, this time.

He never had, though, and it was too late to start. She had provided the financial security that enabled him and Ward to put ComLink together. But she hadn’t needed to deal for them. The deals had already been made, before Todd was old enough to need them. He had stepped into Ward’s shoes and been on his own ever since.

“I’ll think about it, Dr. Albrecht. You’ll have to give me some time, though. I need to talk it over with my colleagues.” Iris was raising an eyebrow at him. She winced and touched her face, regretting the silent facial sarcasm.

Albrecht pumped Todd’s hand, taking the equivocal answer as probable assent. “Good! Good! I’m sure they’ll agree it’s the best thing to do.” As Iris was fetching the man’s outerwear, Todd gave the door guard a sign. For a moment, they shivered in the sleet blowing in while Albrecht dawdled over his farewells. Finally, he left, and Todd signaled the guard to close the door quickly.

Todd pinched the bridge of his nose. Fairchild was making a speech on the big main display screen. Pro-Spacer. That was a refreshing change. She was pro-alien messenger, too, as one would expect from the Third Millennium Movement’s spokeswoman.

Todd turned back toward the elevator. “Iris, I’ve got some work to do. Hold any calls until I tell you otherwise.”

“Yes, sir.”

He stopped and looked at her kindly. “You all right?” She tilted her chin up bravely, ignoring the burn bandages. “I’m fine, boss. You and Dr. Foix just take care of Beth and Anaya and the others who were hurt.”

“We will. Dian said she’d give Beth your love.”

The medics might help his people, but what was going to help Project Search get back on its feet? He hadn’t yet really studied the financial aspects. At first he had been too preoccupied with the murderous attack and getting Beth and Anaya to the medical facility that might save their lives. For four days, they hadn’t known if Beth even had a chance. The doctors in Texas said her lungs were burned. Not until two days ago did Todd feel he could head back to New Washington with a clear conscience. He had left Dian with Beth and Anaya, and she had called this morning to say Beth was out of danger and she would be taking an afternoon flight back.

The good news was welcome. But it also meant he now had to come up for air and look at the rest of what had happened. He had been doing that in the back of his mind all week. He didn’t like what he saw in his mind’s eye—red splashed across ComLink’s Project Search accounts.

But the funds would come from somewhere. He had some stock he could let go. A few more global rental circuits hadn’t been tapped. And if his salesmen got busy, they could steal some more accounts away from his competitors.

What had Pat said?
You can be hurt.
Financially, and otherwise. That was a disturbing thought, one Todd hadn’t yet faced squarely. And he hadn’t yet figured out who had placed that mysterious call on a top private line, calling him away from Project Search when the attack had come. A ruse to protect him? Why? He thrust the speculations away as he would a terrible nightmare.

Money. He needed it. Poetic justice? Was he now paying for the funds he had quietly borrowed from his own Corporation to finance Project Search? It wasn’t illegal. As he had bragged to Jael, not one stockholder had lost. Todd Saunder had footed the entire bill. Sometimes it was money. And sometimes it was the use of time and other people’s equipment that you had to justify to yourself.

Bootleg research. His time and money, other people’s property, or time, or data, in some cases. The term covered a lot of territory. Ward Saunder had tried to spell it out for his son a long time ago.

Chicago. The crater towns, springing up like mushrooms west of the war-racked city on the lake. Ward, hired away from a lab in California, now working for another firm at the edge of the Midwestern United Ghetto States. It was after closing hours at the plant. Everyone else had gone home. Jael had taken Pat and Mari to a clinic to have their eyes checked and had dumped Todd on her husband, glad to get rid of at least one cranky kid for a while.

Todd, sitting on a lab table, his stubby child’s legs dangling while he watched wide-eyed as his father ran through an experiment. “There! Did you see that? That’s called replication, Todd. Haddad’s got something with that formula, because I can produce the same results right here, every time.” Ward hesitated, frowning. “It’d be better if I could have my own lab to do it in, though. Someday I will. Your mother guarantees it, and she always keeps her word, eh?”

His father’s long-fingered, acid-scarred hand rumpled Todd’s hair lovingly. “I pay for these materials, Todd.” He spelled out the rules. “You always play fair by your employer if possible. Fair pay for fair equipment. Well, mostly adequate equipment, in this case. But the space to work in—that’s priceless. They don’t realize it, up in the front office. They waste their time and their engineers and inventors every day. I told them what I was doing. They just don’t think it’s important. But it is. You keep your eyes on the gauge. I’ll run it again . . . see? Right down to a point five. Almost inertialess. And if we incorporate that with Haddad’s experiment, we can turn the continental rapid-transit system upside down and make the damned thing finally work! Just wait till I tell your mother about
this . . . !
”

I told them what I was doing . . .

So did I, Dad, but not until the results of the experiment were in my hands. Did I cheat, by your standards? No, I robbed myself for the time and the personnel and the equipment. I’m the only one who got hurt—me and the people who’ve been so loyal to me . . .

He left the elevator and went inside his office, tiredly cueing the door shut. The room was semi-dark. A glow from ComLink’s commercial net filled the wall of monitor screens to his left. Surface media and satellite link, following him everywhere, even into the sanctuary of his office. Todd started toward the desk.

He wasn’t alone.

Very slowly, he turned, peering into the shadows opposite the monitors. “Who?”

A figure was faintly limned in one corner, caught in the Constantly shifting light from the screens. The figure didn’t respond to Todd’s query. Todd backed away, groping, hitting the master override on his desk and flooding the room with bright overhead illumination.

He stared at the man in the corner. No weapon, at least none visible. The stranger was nondescript, a Scandinavian, it appeared. Blue eyes and cornsilk-white hair, a lot of fuzzy blond beard. As Todd Continued to look at the silent form in the corner, it hit him. Wrong. The package wasn’t quite coordinated. The features didn’t suit the Scandinavian genetic type, and the skin color didn’t match the hair color as it should have. Todd puzzled over this, mental relays tripping. “Gib?”

The shuttle pilot’s familiar choppy laughter tore away the remainder of the disguise. “How did you spot me?” Gib Owens asked. Without waiting for an invitation, he sat down.

Todd hulked over the pilot. “What does that have to do with this masquerade?” he demanded.

Amusement slid off Owen’s bearded face. “My survival, that’s what it has to do with. Mine and Goddard’s. Come on, Mr. Saunder, how did you identify me?”

Todd frowned and shook his head distractedly. Then he said simply, “I know you. And . . . the coloring is off. The hair looks too freshly bleached. And the beard’s what—a good fake? Your genes aren’t Scandian,” Todd finished.

“Then I guess I’ll have to try something else the next time. This was a quick job. We figured it would get me through without being detected. Worked, too. Came in on one of your Pacific shuttles on the Indus run. Took the surface systems to New Washington. They checked through my papers all along the way. But they might be a little sharper when I head back.” The young pilot appeared to be planning some alternate disguises.

Delayed shock caught up with Todd. He slumped into his desk chair. “You slipped planetside aboard one of my shuttles?” Gib’s expression was bland. He wouldn’t explain how he had accomplished that, what ComLink employee he had changed places with, where the obviously forged papers must have come from “Are you going to tell me what this is all about? Why this espionage routine?”

“Necessary, sir.”

Todd glowered at him. The disguise seemed juvenile, but Owens was in earnest. So were the people he worked for. “I don’t like people hiding in my offices, Gib.”

“Sorry,” the pilot said. “Right now, I’m a sub on your regular custodial staff. Got the regs to prove it, too.” Owens sobered, then went on. “You really should tighten up your security here, sir. It’s too easy to break through. I mean, I was sent planetside because I’m a late file at the Colony and my chances are better; the enemy is less likely to have a package and be able to spot me than it would some of the more experienced men. Not that I’m not experienced,” he added proudly.

“I know the security’s lax, but it’s better than it was.”

“We heard about Beth Isaacs and the others, Mr. Saunder.” Owens was coldly angry, sharing Todd’s feelings. “The police catch anyone?’

“Not yet.”

Mariette had predicted that Todd’s Project Search announcement would lead to retaliation, people trying to strike at him, at his project. They couldn’t stop the real messenger, so they had tried to stop Todd Saunder. Todd hadn’t fully appreciated the danger he was in. He hadn’t believed Mariette, thought she must be exaggerating. Even after he had seen the destruction at Goddard, he had clung to that naive hope.

“It wasn’t the first time. The first few days Project Search was operating downstairs, saboteurs tried to tap into our global lines. ComLink was disseminating the data so no one would be ignorant. We had enough alternate channels to go around them, but that tipped me off—or should have.” Todd thought of the missile shadowing him and Gib Owens in orbit. The last time he had seen the pilot was when he stopped by the Colony Sick-bay, just before he and Mari left for Saunderhome. “How’s your head?” he inquired.

“Oh, just fine.” Owens was embarrassed. He touched his scalp lightly. There was no apparent scar. Makeup? Or superb medical care? Gib smiled in gratitude for the question. “Are we masked in here, sir?” he asked tonelessly.

Todd had to translate from Goddard slang. “We can be.”

“Would you cut in a circuit?”

Exasperation mingled with curiosity. Todd cued the desk panel, activating his privacy circuits. The Sound on the wall screens garbled and damped to white noise. Nothing but incoherent murmuring would be apparent from outside the cubicle. The effect would completely cover their voices and jam any attempt at electronic eavesdropping. Originally, Todd had installed the device to prevent snooping by his business competitors. ComLink security had beefed up the output early this week, after the attack on Project Search. Todd looked at the glowing panels under his hands. Security. Had they done enough? Were he and Gib
really
safe from detection?