Promised Land (3 page)

After that incident
, I decided that irresponsibility was definitely no longer the in thing. I elected to devote myself to more mature and approved pursuits, such as improving my mind and occasionally partaking (always judiciously) of a little intoxicating liquor. I found that my mind could still react favourably to a little improvement. It was more than two years since I'd been able to devote serious time to reading. I'd been too flattened back on Earth before I joined the delArco outfit to do anything except square-eye the HV.

The wind approved thoroughly of my getting deeply into a printed-word bonanza, although his tastes in literature weren't mine by any means. It probably speaks well for my general mood that I compromised instead of having it all my own way. If, that is, you call 80/20 a compromise rather than a concession.

I knew that the peace couldn't last long, but I didn't expect it to be broken in quite the way it was.

I was lying on my bed in the late afternoon when there was an insistent knocking at my door. I couldn't be bothered to get up, so I simply yelled out an invitation to enter.

I didn't expect the Spanish Inquisition.

It was the cops, and there were three of them. That seemed to me to be overdoing things. My old friend Denton was with them (naturally), and he came to talk to me while his buddies stood about flatfooted and looked around suspiciously.

‘Where have you been all day?' demanded Denton. I'd already gathered that it wasn't a social call, but he was making sure I retained no illusions. He was still striding instead of walking like normal people, and he talked like a cheesegrater.

‘I didn't do it,' I said. ‘Whatever it was'

‘Never mind the patter,' he whipped back. ‘Just answer the questions.'

‘Honest,' I said, whimsically stubborn, ‘I distinctly remember not doing it and I've got six witnesses who didn't see me.'

‘Get up,' he said. ‘Let's go'

‘To the station?' I inquired. ‘Or are we still cutting out the middleman?'

‘Charlot,' he said, succinctly.

‘Poor old desk sergeant,' I commented. ‘Never gets in on any of the fun.'

Denton took the book out of my hand as I eased myself off the bed. He closed it without glancing at it and threw it on to the pillow.

‘You lost my place,' I said.

‘This isn't funny,' he said. ‘This time it's real trouble.'

‘What's up?' I wanted to know.

‘You answer my questions first.'

‘I've been here all day. Also most of the week, except a couple of evenings I've been down the street to the bar and the store, for most of which time my alibi is you. I've got no witnesses for this afternoon, but people see me all the time when I'm outside and at most mealtimes. I haven't touched any of the cars and I haven't committed any other crimes except kicking slot machines and being rude to robots. Now who killed whom?'‘

‘Have you see the girl you picked up in the Lamoine last week?'

‘No.'

‘Did you see her at any other time than the one you gave her the ride?'

‘No.'

‘Have you been in communication with any Anacaon?'

‘No.'

‘Right,' he said, reaching under his lapel to switch off his concealed recorder. ‘You're probably clean. You can stop being a suspect and join the good guys just as soon as Charlot is convinced.' He stepped back, and one of his cronies opened the door. Denton went out and I followed him. The other two didn't join us.

‘Are they going to search my room?' I asked incredulously.

‘That's right.'

‘Hell's bloody wheels. What have I done to deserve all this attention?'

‘Played the boy scout when you shouldn't have. You've put yourself on the spot. That girl has disappeared. People think you might have something to do with it, as you haven't been much in evidence lately.'

So much for the quiet life.

Charlot was blazing mad, but not much of it was directed at me. He, at least, thought I was clean. It's nice to know that someone has faith in you. Denton, it seemed, was just eliminating me for the record.

‘How did she do it?' asked Charlot, more of Denton than of me. ‘How did she get on board a ship at the port? How can two aliens smuggle themselves off
New Alexandria
?'

‘Where did they go?' I asked.

‘I don't know,' he snapped. ‘We haven't even found out where they went
from
yet.'

‘Who was the other one?' I asked.

‘One of the women on the project. Not an important part of it. She didn't work with us. She was concerned with administrative liaison. If I find out that you had anything to do with this, Grainger, I'll break you.'

‘You know I didn't,' I told him.

He nodded. He was just letting off a little steam. Even Titus Charlot got steamed up. Sometimes.

But for what? I wondered.

‘Pardon me,' I said, ‘but what's the big flap all about? These Anacaona are free agents, aren't they? There's nothing to stop them leaving New Alexandria, is there?'

My suspicious mind began to awake at last.

‘This is kidnap,' put in Denton. ‘The woman wasn't the girl's mother. She had no right to take her away. And wherever they are they've gone in secret.'

‘Even so,' I said, ‘are we just concerned about the inconvenience, or what? Why is there such a panic on?'

‘I've got years of work tied up in that girl,' said Charlot. ‘It'll set the project back half a lifetime.' He was talking half to himself, half to me.

‘Oh great,' I said. ‘She was just a little girl, was she? Tyler and Lanning only wanted to take her home before it got late, huh? You bastard. What in hell are you
doing
out at that colony?'

‘Don't be a fool,' he said. ‘The girl is important because I've been conducting a careful and unobtrusive study of her development since the day she was born. A lot of the effort of the colony is going into making the study as complete and as unobtrusive as possible. You know full well that to achieve the kind of synthesis I'm trying to form I need more than knowledge. I need empathy. The Anacaona are very difficult people to understand. We encounter difficulties in translation. The programming of the whole project is threatened if we can't find the core of an understanding. I was looking to that girl to provide me with that core. We haven't interfered with her in any way at all. The whole point of the study would have been defeated if we had. We need that girl.'

It didn't sound too convincing to me. I had the feeling that I wasn't getting the whole truth.

‘It's still kidnap,' said Denton, trying to help out—feeling, no doubt, that we'd been sidetracked into irrelevancy.

‘The Laws of New Rome allow anybody to leave any world for any reason they choose,' I said.

‘Not with somebody else's child they don't,' he said.

‘You want to go after her,' I said, suddenly realising why I'd been roped into the heart of the operation. ‘You're just hanging about until you find out which ship she left on and where she's bound.'

‘We have a good idea already where she's bound,' said Charlot, ‘but it would be best to stop her before she gets there, if possible.'

‘Why?' I asked. ‘Wherever she lands, she'll still be a criminal, if you can prove kidnap.'

‘Not on Chao Phrya,' said Charlot. ‘The authorities there are uncooperative.'

‘Not again,' I complained, despairingly. ‘Not another LWA world?'

‘Not quite,' he said. ‘Not from our point of view. From theirs. The situation on Chao Phrya is difficult and complicated. It won't be easy dealing with them.'

‘And you want me to help.'

‘I may need more than help,' he said. ‘If the woman and Alyne—that's the child—reach Chao Phrya, you might have to go down and fetch her on your own. I don't think they'll let me land.'

‘Why?' I asked, fascinated. ‘What did you do?'

‘A diplomatic failure,' he said obliquely. ‘That's not important at all. What is...?'

He was interrupted by the bleeping of his desk phone. He paused to answer it. He listened intently for several moments—the call-circuit was tight-beamed so I couldn't hear what was coming out of the speaker. I watched Charlot's face turn grim, and I could imagine his teeth grinding. Something was upsetting him, and I could see that someone was going to suffer for it. I got the crazy notion that the bogeys might have found something in my room, but I quashed it. Who would want to frame me?

Eventually, he switched off the circuit, and he looked up at us again. He waited a moment or two, stony-faced, and then he spoke.

‘You were right,' he said to Denton. ‘They had inside help. Tyler's missing too.
Tyler
, the damn fool. I'll make damn sure he never gets to spend it, wherever he is.'

‘He'll head for Penaflor,' I suggested helpfully. ‘They don't like New Alexandrians on Penaflor.'

Charlot ignored me. He didn't change his expression, nor did he inject anything into his voice, but I'd never before seen him radiate such powerful emotion. ‘
Wherever
he is,' he repeated.

He turned to Denton. ‘Find him,' he said. And then, to me: ‘The
Hooded Swan
lifts in two hours. Get ready. Socoro's on board. The captain and I will join you as soon as possible.'

‘Nick's on Earth,' I said.

‘I know that,' he said testily. ‘Miss Lapthorn will be acting captain. You didn't think you'd get the job, did you?'

The nastiness in his voice was quite unimportant and unnecessary. The news was enough to curl
me
up.

Denton left with me.

‘How come you get in on all the big secrets?' I asked him. ‘Are you really the chief of police masquerading as a hireling?'

‘No,' he said. ‘I'm Charlot's bodyguard.'

‘Bloody hell,' I said. ‘I didn't even know he had a bodyguard. Does he need one?'

‘Not much,' said Denton. ‘At least, he doesn't think so. But while he's on planet he has to be looked after. Same applies to all the other top Library personnel. New Alexandria values its people very highly.'

‘But you only guard him when he's here?'

‘I'm a cop,' he said, ‘not a private bodyguard.'

‘Strikes me,' I said, ‘that he's an awful lot more vulnerable offworld than on.'

Denton shrugged. ‘We can only do so much. He doesn't like his body being guarded. In a way, it's a bum job, because he won't let me close enough to be effective, but if somebody bumps him off while I'm standing around on the wrong corner, I carry the can.'

‘Great,' I said. So that was why he spent so much of his time helping walls to stand up straight.

Then another thought struck me. ‘Say,' I said. ‘Suppose, just for the sake of argument, that there was something going on at that colony. Something against the Law of New Rome? Where are you then?'

‘You're imagining things,' he said.

‘You mean that Charlot is above the law?'

‘That's not what I mean at all.'

‘Now there,' I said, ‘is what I call hypocrisy. Do you mean to say that if I gave you evidence that Charlot was breaking the law, you'd act?'

‘Show me the evidence,' he stalled.

‘I might just be able to do that,' I said. ‘There's something about this kidnap business that smells. It makes no sense.'

‘Yeah?' said Denton, not sounding too convinced, or even interested. ‘Well, I tell you what, I'll buy you a drink the night you get back from Chao Phrya, with or without the girl. And you can tell me what happened. And then we'll see who gets to say “I told you so.” Okay?'

‘You reckon that Charlot's told us the story straight?'

‘That's what I reckon.'

‘Okay,' I said. ‘It's a deal.' I chalked up the date in my mental agenda. I don't often get a chance to say ‘I told you so' to a cop.

All cops with purposeful strides are optimists.

If I were asked to
prepare a list of lady captains I have known and loved, the list would not be very long. In fact, I would be hard pressed to come up with any candidates at all. This does not mean that any fairminded man (or woman) would automatically name me as male-chauvinist-pig-of-the-year. I am myself a fairminded man, and I assess captains on their ability to captain. Personally, I am a good captain. Eve Lapthorn as a captain was a joke. A poor joke.

If he hadn't been angry, I think Titus Charlot would have enjoyed the jump from New Alexandria to Chao Phrya. As it was, nobody was happy in the control room, and Johnny was only happy because he wasn't in the control room. I have rarely seen anyone look quite so uncomfortable as Eve did as she passed out routine orders for the lift. To make the best of the situation for both of us she should have gripped it hard in both hands and maintained a poker-face, but she wasn't up to it. She let her uneasiness and her reluctance show. It helped me to stay irritated. Eve always had a tendency to get on my nerves by virtue of her having been related to the late and much-lamented Lapthorn who had been my friend and partner when
I
had been a captain.

Failing the stone-faced approach, I reckoned that the best thing she could do was to turn down the job. She wasn't tied to Charlot by a slave-chain, and she sure as hell didn't need the money. But I think she regarded it as some kind of challenge, issued not only by Charlot but also by me. Personally, I don't think people should accept challenges which they aren't up to answering, but other people just don't have my keen sense of probability and responsibility in these matters.

The atmosphere aboard the
Hooded Swan
was, as usual, very strained. Perhaps even more so than usual.

In all honesty, I can't say that I remember the
Hooded Swan
as ever having been a happy ship. I enjoyed flying her. I loved sitting inside the hood. But you can never quite forget what's going on behind the control cradle when trouble is just as likely to start there as outside. Every time I grooved her, no matter when or where, I always had to come back to that same air of simmering mistrust and hostility. It didn't even matter whether or not Charlot was there in person. He was always there in spirit.

While I was lifting the
Swan
from Corinth port, I was thinking seriously that the best trip I'd ever taken in the bird was the lunatic drive back through the Halcyon Drift after plundering (or failing to plunder) the
Lost Star
. It had been deadly dangerous and extremely painful, but at least it had been the bird and the wind and myself united against the forces of nature, instead of the wind and myself separately suspended in a sea of negative feeling, which was what I would inevitably find when I had set her in a groove for Chao Phrya. I inspected the charts with all my usual care and precision, and plotted a perfect minimum groove. I almost wished that I had a couple of clouds to nurse her through or a close passage where she might get sucked out of the groove or fluttered within it. But there was nothing but nothing in between New Alexandria and Chao Phrya. There was a lot of it, because Chao Phrya was a long way from the core, but we didn't have to go anywhere near the galactic heart or the frayed fringes of starspace. It was all very nice and safe and boring.

Eve had a cup of coffee ready for me when I peeled off the hood and left the
Swan
to make her own way at a furious, but quite safe, fifty thou. Charlot wanted all possible speed, but at fifty thou we could outrun anything in the galaxy and still have hours in hand when we got to Chao Phrya, thirty hours' start or no thirty hours' start. I thanked her kindly, and didn't make any sarcastic remarks about captains doubling as tea-girls.

‘What's the ETA?' demanded Titus.

‘Nineteen hours and a bit, I guess,' I told him. ‘I can give you the nearest half-second if you like.'

‘What about the
White Fire
?' asked Johnny, his voice emanating from the open speaker over the cradle. The
White Fire
was the ship on which the woman and the girl were travelling.

‘She can't possibly reach the system until four hours after we make the drop,' I said. ‘No trouble at all.'

Charlot laughed humourlessly.

‘You're expecting trouble?' I asked him.

‘Perhaps,' he said.

‘Don't you think you'd better tell us about it?' said Eve, trying to sound as if she was in charge.

‘Chao Phrya is a difficult world to deal with'

‘So you've said,' I said drily, remembering that he was
persona non grata
there.

‘Why?' asked Eve.

‘The
Zodiac
families are unfriendly,' he said.

‘Go on,' I said, as he paused. ‘Tell her the rest. Tell her Chao Phrya is LWA.'

‘Chao Phrya is not covered by the principle of Let Well Alone,' said Charlot acidly. ‘The Law of New Rome applies on the surface. It's simply that the people who colonised the world don't like outworlders coming in. They permit no further immigration. Except for half a dozen representatives of New Rome they won't even allow embassies from other worlds. They won't trade, they won't even communicate unless they're forced to.'

‘Nobody's forced to communicate,' I put in.

‘Be quiet,' said Eve. ‘Let's hear this.'

She was gaining confidence, but she obviously lacked enthusiasm. But I did as I was told.

‘The law requires that the spaceport carry out certain duties with respect to ships in orbit,' said Charlot. ‘There are certain circumstances under which they cannot refuse permission to land. As time does not permit us to get the full force of the law behind us before the
White Fire
gets into the system, there may be trouble here. But the restriction should apply equally to both ships. We should both be in orbit when the legal apparatus does manage to get the appropriate messages through to Chao Phrya.'

‘Optimist,' I commented.

Nobody took any notice.

‘The reason that the people of Chao Phrya adopt these awkward conventions with respect to outworlders is because they are neurotic isolationists,' said Charlot. ‘Not one of them has ever left the planet. They have no ships of their own except the
Zodiac
, and that's a shrine now, not a ship. They built the port solely to control all communication with the outworlds:'

‘How can they
all
be neurotic?' asked Eve.

‘Simple,' I said, jumping in to steal Charlot's big line. ‘The
Zodiac
was a generation ship.'

Eve didn't understand. Johnny didn't say a word, but I knew he was still listening, and that he didn't understand either.

‘Promised Land,' I said, my voice reflecting my distaste.

‘What?'

‘Before Spallanzani invented the phase-shift, and long before mass-relaxation, they had spaceships powered by something they called the thrust-cycle process,' I told her. ‘You probably know them under the name ‘tumblers'—if they teach you any sort of theory at school these days you'll know why. There was space travel before this new and enlightened age of high velocities, you know.'

‘Subcee drive,' she said. ‘But....'

Charlot took over the explanation again. He was better at it anyway. ‘It took the
Zodiac
four hundred and eighty years to travel from Earth to Chao Phrya. They couldn't travel at anything like light-speed. Chao Phrya was in the fifth system which they searched for habitable worlds. They turned down two worlds where they could have survived, because they weren't looking for survival. They were looking for a garden of Eden. A paradise planet. A Promised Land. During all the time that the people lived on that ship—nineteen generations—they supported themselves with promises. They weren't living for themselves at all, but for their descendants. The only purpose in their lives was to give their children a perfect world. That purpose had to be strong. Living aboard a generation ship is not a good life. Eventually, they found that world, and their children inherited it. But the children also inherited the sense of purpose. Inevitably, their attitude to Chao Phrya was the same as their ancestors'. It was the Promised Land. Sacred Soil. Marked down to them and to no others; all they were entitled to want and need for all eternity. It's a common syndrome. It wears off, but not for several generations. In a way, the children of the
Zodiac
were immensely fortunate in that the world they finally found was still undiscovered. It was well within the rim. But civilisation had gone toward the heart, ignoring a lot of worlds
en route
. Chao Phrya was discovered by the galactic civilisation only forty years ago—less than a century after the
Zodiac
had landed.

‘Perhaps you can imagine the reactions of the children of the
Zodiac
. They had a tradition of twenty-two generations of sacrifice. Now here were these people flitting about the stars with virtually no effort at all, calmly ignoring what the
Zodiac
people still thought to be immutable Laws of Nature—the quaint old ideas of relativity. Their immediate reaction was to shut themselves off totally—to ignore the galaxy and forget the rest of the human race. But that couldn't be permitted. They had to accept the Law of New Rome. They were offered no choice. Because of the Anacaona.

‘To the children of the
Zodiac
, you understand, the Anacaona were just part of the Promised Land package. It simply couldn't occur to any of the
Zodiac
people that the Anacaona had any sort of right to this planet. They were here, but that only meant that they had been provided by a benign providence for the convenience of the children of the
Zodiac
. They weren't people. They were slaves. So the families—still administered by the crew, who simply became the government of the New World—just moved in and took over. They eradicated virtually all traces of the native culture within hundreds of miles of their landing point, and they were expanding at a frightening rate when the world was rediscovered. There had been no bloodshed—the Anacaona had been conquered without a blow. They were extremely amenable to being conquered. If the rediscovery had been a hundred years later, there might not have been a single wild Anacaon left on the planet. The entire species would have been domesticated and humanised. The Anacaona were intelligent and imitative—the perfect slaves. They had a limited continental range, too. Their own expansion as a species hadn't really got under way.

‘The
Zodiac
people were in no danger of committing actual genocide, but they came perilously close to cultural genocide. New Rome sent representatives out, and so did New Alexandria. The quarrel lasted for years. I was sent out during its final stages, to make arrangements for the Anacaon project which has been going on at the colony near Corinth. There's no point in going over all the details of the diplomatic war. You can imagine the difficulties. The children of the
Zodiac
were eventually persuaded that they had no choice. If they didn't let the Anacaona alone, New Rome would move in troops. If Chao Phrya wasn't to be run under the Law of New Rome by the
Zodiac
crew, then it would be run under the Law of New Rome by a military authority. There was no question of Let Well Alone. That principle only applies to alien worlds which don't want to be colonised and human worlds where there are no other considerations to be taken into account but the eccentricities of the particular humans involved.

‘The crew had to capitulate. They agreed to handle their world our way, provided that we let them get on with it. If anything, the rediscovery reinforced their determination to remain isolated and free from interference.

‘The children of the
Zodiac
hate us. It will wear off in time. It is wearing off. But we—New Rome and New Alexandria particularly—came and trampled all over their sacred Promised Land and told them how they would have to run it if they didn't want it taken away from them. All that hatred is going to work against us down there. The only thing which will work in our favour is the fact that the only thing the
Zodiac
people are afraid of is the possibility of our coming back to carry out our threats. They'll have to cooperate with us, but we'll have to threaten them in order to make them. They'll be as difficult as they can contrive to be without actually getting us killed or refusing point-blank to help us in accordance with the law.

‘I don't think they'll let me land. They might not let more than one of us land in any case, in which case it will have to be you.'

He meant me.

‘Thanks a lot,' I said.

‘Whatever you do,' he said, ‘don't let them think that the whole galaxy isn't behind you. Don't ever suggest for a moment that if they don't do as we say they'll get away with it. We have to make this look like a diplomatic incident of the highest order. The New Romans on planet will back us up. They know the score. But don't give the
Zodiac
people an inch.'

‘That's wonderful,' I said. ‘I might have to go down there on my own. To a world where every man hates me. Great.'

It didn't really worry me all that much. It looked like the sort of thing I could handle. I only get into difficulties when the situation demands that I be nice to people.

Charlot, on the other hand, was very worried. He was nursing a lot of bitterness about Chao Phrya. I could afford to be philosophical about the sad story he'd just told us. It's a big galaxy. Things go wrong. People are always getting hurt. When cultures collide, someone always suffers. But there's never any way back to square one. These things happen. Too bad.

Being philosophical and cynical about things doesn't make them any better, though. Charlot couldn't be cynical and philosophical, because he saw his purpose in life—the purpose of all human life—in making things better. He was unalterably committed to New Alexandria (just as the colonists were unalterably committed to their Promised Land), and he could never afford to shrug his shoulders. He had tremendous faith in New Alexandria as an instrument of his brand of good.