Downtime (19 page)

Mahdi
fell silent, suddenly uneasy in her presence. He had always disliked her,
mainly, he had thought, because she was so ugly. Too short. Her thick body
seemed precariously perched on ridiculously skinny legs. Scarred legs, he
remembered from the public baths they had shared. Her breasts had swayed like
old socks. Her eyes would have been perfect on a cow. There was enough about
her to fill anyone with dislike and discomfort, but he finally realized it was
a quality of implacability about her that set him on edge. It was like looking
in a mirror.

“My
time is limited, more limited than I had realized, if I’m to believe Calla,” he
said, addressing Praetor D’Omaha. “Let’s get on with the inspection.”

“This
way,” D’Omaha said, tightening his grip on his wife to hold her back while
permitting Mahdi to step off first onto a primitive gravel path. Calla fell in
beside him. The officers trailed behind.

Mahdi
was pleased with the depth of the cavern that housed the facility. It was,
without question, the most secure elixir plant in the known worlds, one easily
defended, too. Calla was leading him to the production area, assuming that was
what interested him most. But he noticed the hydroponics were adequate for
sustaining the workers for months if they were cut off from the Hub, and that
security was, surprisingly, not relaxed on this backworld.

She
took him and the rest into the decontamination chamber as far as the
transparent doors to the production area. “Would you like to go inside?” she
asked.

“Of
course,” he said impatiently. “I haven’t traveled three months to look through
a damn door.”

“Your
officers will have to wait here,” she said. “It’s off limits to anyone who hasn’t
need. No exceptions. The risk of contamination is too great.”

“I’m
aware of that, Commander.” He gestured to his officers, two of whom helped him
take off his toga and stellerator and put on special coveralls over his khakis.
When he reached for the airlock-door switch, he was surprised to see Marmion
beside him, not Calla. A fine mist of adhesive that would keep securely in
place any moveable particulate they might shed inside coated them before the
second door opened. They stepped into an odorless, dry world where the only
sound was of air rushing through filters. It was a white noise, blanketing even
the sound of their footsteps as they walked alongside bays of acid baths where
tough protein was washed off seeds that came from spawning tanks. Workers and
technicians, wearing white from head to toe, tended the baths.

Marmion
led him to the other end of the cavern where the process began. First the
diffusion machines where the starter seeds were treated before being dumped
into the spawning tanks. Nutrient tanks that fed the growth until the seeds
branched and doubled, and then doubled again, and then were harvested before
the oldest seeds in the tank could bloom and destroy the newer seeds. Optical
inspection stations where seeds were separated into starter, first, and second
generations. Starter, first, and half the second generation would be processed
into elixir, the other half of the second generation would be stored until used
as starter seed. If just one of the original starter seeds were not sorted out
from the second generation destined to become the next batch of starter seed,
it would bloom in the spawning tank and destroy the entire batch. The seeds
were like snowflakes, no two of any generation looked quite alike. The jelly
beans controlling the optical scanners were programmed to remember the shapes
of second generation starter seeds and careful records were kept so that each
group could be scanned and recognized.

The
acid bath process was only slightly less dicey. Each bath had to wear down the
protein case around the heart of the seed until it was a single molecule shell.
Any more and the precious elixir base was dissolved uselessly in the acid, any
less and the protein gave off antigens that contaminated the elixir during
final processing. Filters, microscopic droplets rolling down pipettes to fill
sterile vials with yellow fluid. Counters everywhere. Every drop accounted for.
Marmion looked very smug.

Mahdi
looked at the balances that the jelly beans displayed on the flatscreen at the
end of the process. Losses here on Mutare were less than anywhere else. No
wonder Marmion looked smug . . . and, by the number of wrinkles
in the corners of his eyes, like he was aging. He wasn’t even stealing any of
the elixir for himself. Mahdi wondered, if he were to give Marmion a legal
first dose of elixir, would the Chief of Perfection Engineers gladly call him
emperor to get the second?

“We
have no baths here,” Calla said when they returned to the airlock, “so we’ll
take you to rooms where you can wash off that adhesive. Then . . .”

“Later.
Right now I want my engineers to examine your traceability for second
generation starter seed. I assume you have a staff room we can use for that
purpose?”

“Right
across the hall, General,” Calla said, her voice as expressionless as her face.

She
was cool, all right, Mahdi thought, but then she would probably have done a
detailed inspection herself if their positions were reversed. And the
perfection engineer wasn’t batting an eye either. Only Praetor D’Omaha
registered any surprise, but even he recovered quickly and was smiling faintly,
his blue eyes astonishingly vivid. The records must be perfect, Mahdi decided.

“I’ll
need your inventory records, too,” Mahdi said, “for finished product.”

Calla
nodded. “Praetor D’Omaha can probably give you a final count right now.”

Mahdi
looked at him expectantly, and D’Omaha said, “Two thousand and three vials.”

“Two —
and you’ve only been operating two months?” Mahdi was impressed. It was twice
what he expected.

“Production
has been excellent. No personnel problems thanks to Ranger-Governor D’Estelle.
He keeps everyone well fed and busy.”

Mahdi
glanced at D’Estelle. His face revealed nothing. A working dog, Mahdi decided,
no ambition. Useful type, though.

“You’ll
have to explain to me,” Mahdi said, turning to D’Omaha, “how production here
has managed to exceed probability.” He took off the sticky white suit and
allowed his officers to help him with the toga. Then he started for the door,
Calla falling in beside him. “Marmion first,” he said curtly to Calla. “Be
certain he has all his records. I’ll call for D’Omaha when I’m ready. Please
stand by in case I need you.”

Calla
dropped back as he entered the staff room, her officers with her, leaving him
with his. As soon as the door closed, he said to them, “Why’s he called The
Peddler? Did anyone find out?”

“Privately
owned entrepreneurships on Stokensburr and Mercury Novus,” Roma answered
quickly. “They’re run for him by his sons and daughters. He supplies exotic
goods that he picks up on his military travels. Apparently strictly legal.”

“I
doubt that,” Mahdi said. “No one known as ‘The Peddler’ could possibly have a
totally unblemished past. Check all his export licenses, then let me know. Any
other candidates? I would really like to have one of these people bought and
paid for before I leave, and the whole thing done quickly, so I can get on with
the hunt. It really shouldn’t be too difficult with all of you working on
pinpointing the one.”

“I
would take the job myself if I could,” Roma said. “It’s completely without
risk.”

Mahdi
smiled. He believed it was, too, but there was always an element of doubt. “I
want my mole,” he said, “just in case we need someone to open the doors when we
come back.”

“They’ll
open them for you themselves,” Roma said. “You are the imperator general,
their
imperator general.”

“That
is the plan,” Mahdi said, coldly, “but there has to be a reliable alternative.
Now stop admiring my brilliant plan and work on this problem. Who else?”

“The
ranger-governor,” Roma said. “As a cadet he received non-judicial punishment
form his local commander twenty-eight times.”

Mahdi
thought for a moment. “I was that local commander . . . and I
think I remember him now.” He shook his head. “He won’t do. I gave him
reprimands, extra duties, forfeiture of pay, confinement on diminished rations,
and correctional custody. I must have seen the man every judgment day that he
was under my command, but it was always things like breaking curfew,
insubordination, or for running up debts in Silvanweel that he couldn’t pay.
Don’t think any of it was ever intentional. He was disadvantaged because of his
background, lived by his wits, but didn’t have much in the way of wits to go
by.”

“Why
didn’t you dismiss him? He certainly doesn’t sound like guard material.”

“Couldn’t,”
Mahdi said. “He was the son of some minor royalist. His attending the academy
was guaranteed in the reparation agreement.”

“He
might be just the right one,” Roma said. “Not bright enough to understand the
implications of what he’s being asked to do.”

“Too
dumb to be relied upon to follow orders,” Mahdi said. “Not him. Now who else?”

“Commander
Calla. Anyone can see that she desperately needs elixir.”

Mahdi
glared at Roma. “She’s a genetic singularity. Elixir doesn’t work for her. Now,
who else?”

“D’Omaha . . .”

“That’s
really stupid, Roma,” he said. “As a retired decemvir, he already has an
allotment of elixir. Not all of them are as anxious to recapture their youth as
Frennz is.”

“I
wasn’t thinking of D’Omaha himself. I was thinking of his wife.”

Mahdi
smiled. “Not bad, Roma. Now we have two good candidates.”

“Chief
Marmion Andres Clavia asks permission to enter,” the voice modulator said.

“Let
the first candidate enter,” Mahdi said.

“There’s been an accident,” Marmion was saying through the
flatscreen. The lens revealed that the perfectionist was in a zephyr. Jason
could see a blur of trees through the transparent canopy around Marmion. “A horrible
misunderstanding. Calla . . .”

“Where
is she?” Jason said feeling panic rising to constrict his throat.

“The
commander is fine,” Marmion said hastily. “The imperator general must have
misunderstood. We’ve been touring the Amber Forest this morning. His laser was
concealed by his toga. He shot from the hip, got two danae.”

“How
the . . .”

“Commander
Calla says for you to come,” Marmion said, cutting him off. In the background
Jason could see two other zephyrs among the trees. “She doesn’t know if she
should finish destroying them.”

“Tell
her I said she should destroy the imperator general,” Jason said reaching for
his stellerator.

Marmion
continued as if he had not heard. “She’s . . . dealing with
Mahdi. I’m to wait here for you to show you where . . .”

“I’m
on my way,” Jason said. Not even bothering to log off the comm, Jason left,
running all the way from his room to the lot where the zephyrs were parked. His
mind was filled with questions: How could there have been any misunderstanding?
The Amber Forest was under his protection; no hunting allowed. Had the
imperator general flouted the law? How had he managed to shoot two when most
people couldn’t even get a shot away at one? Couldn’t Calla stop him after the
first shooting? Which two had he shot? The danae took little notice of humans
in the Amber Forest these days; they’d become accustomed to them with their recording
devices and jelly bean memories. Any of them could have been the victims.

At
full speed, the flight was no longer than five minutes. Jason spotted Marmion’s
zephyr in the usual parking place in the meadow at the edge of the Amber
Forest. The perfectionist was standing alongside, waiting for him. Jason landed
swiftly and threw open the canopy.

“This
way,” Marmion said, stepping off in long steps to the forest.

The
wind was coming out of the forest, which had undoubtedly prevented the danae
from getting a whiff of the hardware the imperator general was carrying. The
walk would be a short one, Jason was sure. If they’d gotten far enough for any
of the danae to be downwind, any that smelled the laser would have alerted the
rest in the forest. Yes, the wounded danae were close. Jason could smell the
sickening sweetness of excrement that mortally wounded danae released.

“Over
here,” Marmion said, carefully picking his way through a slender wand of
hardened tree sap, first of many that would form the frame of a new kiosk.

“Not
the Builder,” Jason said, half muttering, half praying. Sunlight played on half
a dozen unfinished dwellings where sap was carefully being channeled to fill in
the frames. In time they’d become hollow mounds of amber, lovely to look at,
clean and dry inside. Jason pushed aside a sticky frond to step inside a
half-finished kiosk. Two danae lay on the pine needles and dried twigs. Neither
was the Builder.

The
smaller danae was badly charred in the upper body and the abdomen was bloody
from an incision made to retrieve the crystal gall. Even so, Jason recognized
the natural red of Old Blue-eyes’ scales. Tonto lay alongside, burned less
badly but similarly incised and, incredibly, still breathing.

“He
took the gall out of a live danae?” Jason said, incensed. He kneeled beside
Tonto. The nictitating membrane of the danae’s eyes was shut, but the lids
fluttered when Jason put his hand over the central heart.

“She . . . Commander Calla wouldn’t let him finish the kill; he refused to leave without
the gall. It was very small.”

“The
bastard. What kind of man . . . ?” The central heart was beating
strongly. Jason moved to feel for the secondary heart; he found it beating
irregularly.

“All
the danae in the forest took wing, almost like last spring when they went on
the mating flight. Shock scent, I guess,” Marmion said.