Raising The Stones (62 page)

•
On Hobbs Land,
shallow under the soil, the net had spread across the escarpment, beneath the ancient villages, beneath the ruined temples, toward and around and then deep, very deep, beneath the strange radial growths which had been dismissed as “dormant” by the team from Thyker.

In the network was Maire Girat, remembering Voorstod of her childhood, every day, every detail, faces and words spoken, rain that had fallen, sun that had shone, rocks foamed with spray at the side of the sea, all there, all in the network, what Maire was and what she knew of others’ being. In the network were Jep and Saturday and Sam, everything they had done or been upon Hobbs Land, everything they had seen or heard while they were upon Ahabar, all saved, tucked away, kept as though in an Archive—every thought, every response, every recollection. What had happened to them in Voorstod, as well. What they had felt. What they had feared.

There, buried deep in the escarpment was Emun Theckles, walking the gloomy halls of Enforcement, looking into the red lenses of violence, taking out his tools, smelling something wrong, sniffing death and destruction. The network sniffed with him, remembering. Everything was there, every soldier he had worked on, every maintenance diagram, every schematic, everything he had learned from his colleagues about their work on other soldiers, all there, deep, buried, waiting.

Buried deep were Flandry and Pye and Floom and what they had planned while they had visited Hobbs Land. Buried deep were Shan Damzel and his horrified dreams of Ninfadel, his hopes concerning Howdabeen Churry, his fear, his rage.

Buried deep was the Baidee soldier who had been left behind when The Arm of the Prophetess fled, everything he knew, everything he thought.

There had been time for each set of information to be added in orderly fashion. There had been time for every eventuality to be accommodated. The recent great sorrowfulness had been part of the pattern. There had been death and grief, but death and grief had stayed within acceptable limits, and no critical damage had been done. Those beloveds no longer living on the surface lived still in the network beneath. The network grieved only for what they might have become. What they had been, the network still possessed.

Each thing had happened in its time. Each inevitability had been set up, quietly and mechanically and without waste. Paths had been smoothed for some; obstacles had been overcome for others; bait had been set out for the vermin; and traps had been set, to be tripped in the fullness of time.

But there was to be no fullness of time. There was only now. Now, when something unremembered came heaving into the light, like a rotting body emerging in the jaws of a digger, shockingly and without warning. The network had not accounted for that unremembered thing, had not planned for it, had not known of it. None of the Voorstoders had thought of it, while they were on Hobbs Land. Sam Girat had not thought of it, not until now. It was something he had known, but had not known he had known. One of those oddities, one of those unaccountables.

The network was not perfect. Still, it did not engage in recriminations. Such were wasteful. Such were inefficient. When action was wanted, action was all that could happen. All orderly growth was abandoned. Shapes heaved and changed, cells ramified, structures shuddered and expanded like storm clouds, boiling with almost visible motion. Now all order was lost in this burgeoning growth.

The inevitable had been assumed. The immediacy of the inevitable had been underestimated. The network, even while it roiled with frantic life, was no longer sure it could grow fast enough.

SEVEN

•
The Archives link
, on which Mysore Hobbs had insisted when Hobbs Land had first been settled, announced itself in the middle of the night, and Mysore Hobbs II became the first person outside the invading force and Hobbs Land itself to learn what had happened, who had died, and who else was likely to. Dern Blass’s image was there, on the stage, a little incoherent at times, but clear enough to be shockingly understood. Though Dern Blass didn’t tell Mysore what had motivated the Baidee, not precisely, his message did offer intriguing hints as to what
might
have moved them to do such a dangerous and provocative thing. There was no question that it had been Baidee who had made the raid. The best possible proof of Baidee culpability, as the image showed, lay in the person of one Nonginansaree Hoven, approximately eighteen lifeyears old, now under detention, nearly naked, at CM, together with all his weapons and typical Baidee clothing, including his zettle. Dern Blass had a few superheated words to say about the words embroidered thereon.

While Dern Blass grieved over his dead settlers, wantonly killed, Mysore grieved with him. When Dern spoke angrily of the blown Doors, however, Mysore Hobbs realized at once that the attackers had not destroyed them for mere destruction’s sake. The only reason to destroy the Doors would have been to keep the foray secret for some little time, that is, unknown by System at large. Because the Archives link was archaic and inefficient, the invading force had not imagined such a thing would exist, and though it was archaic and inefficient, Mysore learned of the outrage within a few watches of the time Dern began the telling. He also learned the name of the captured soldier.

He sent Hobbs Transystem staff members quietly to Thyker, where they were able to establish Hoven’s membership in an ultramilitant group of wild-eyed youngsters known as The Arm of the Prophetess, commanded by Howdabeen Churry. An information stage specialist began backtrailing charges for food and drink and transportation, thus uncovering evidence that Churry and Shan Damzel had several times been in the same place at the same time, not long before the raid itself. The same backtrailing was used to locate other possible members of the Arm.

It was only half a day, Phansuri time, after learning of the matter that Mysore Hobbs came through the Door from Phansure to Chowdari on Thyker like a fat stroke of lightning, surrounded by thunderclouds of aides and specialists in System Law, demanding to be seen at once by the Circle of Scrutators, preferably by all of them assembled.

“Not available,” he was told by a cowering underling.

“They must answer at once to this outrage,” Mysore trumpeted.

“On retreat,” he was told by another, more supercilious underling, who had no idea what was going on.

Holorabdabag Reticingh had ordered the underling to forestall interruption. He himself was not sure what had happened, though, since Mysore Hobbs had made no effort to keep the matter quiet on Phansure, System News was already seething with rumors. Reticingh wanted to delay confrontation until he could learn specifically what had happened. It was not the first mistake made by Baidee on that day. It was not to be the last.

“Tell your Scrutators they will regret their incivility,” smiled Mysore Hobbs with a dragon’s toothy grin. “Whether they were on retreat or not, they should have made time to talk to me. I could have enlightened them as to the murders of over three hundred unarmed and inoffensive civilians upon Hobbs Land, including many children.
Young
children. I could have told them about the destruction of Doors which will require much time and enormous expense to replace. I could have told them that we have a member of the invading force captive. He is a High Baidee, member of a group called The Arm of the Prophetess. Here is his picture, another of his clothing. Here is a medical report on his condition. Since I could not inform your foolish masters of these matters, I leave you with two names to give to them with my compliments. Shan Damzel. Howdabeen Churry!”

And with that, he turned about and went back to the Hobbs Transystem complex on Phansure, from which location he subsequently refused to speak to anyone from Thyker, either during or after his completion of certain arrangements with the other farm worlds.

“Tell them,” he told his secretaries when Thyker tried frantically to reach him, “that I am on retreat.”

This information was promptly received on Thyker, and the underling carried the message to Reticingh and his fellows.

“You should have talked with him,” said Merthal, who had been summoned to lend aid and assistance.

“How could I talk to the man when I don’t know what has happened. I can’t talk to him until we know exactly what occurred. What has Churry been up to?”

“He can’t be located,” replied Merthal, who had been trying to find Churry since the first rumors had reached the Circle of Scrutators. “They say he’s on desert maneuvers.”

“How about Shan Damzel?”

Shan Damzel was summoned and asked to tell the Circle what he’d been up to for the past few days.

“I’ve been here at the temple,” he said sulkily. “Every day for the past five days, as a matter of fact.”

“Doing what?” asked Reticingh.

“Meditating. I haven’t been sleeping well.”

“Reticingh,” said Merthal, “I’ve just thought …”

Reticingh made an angry and impatient gesture. “Are you involved in this business?” he snarled at Shan.

“What business?”

“This destruction of the Hobbs Land Gods?”

Thank the Overmind, said Shan silently. At least it’s dead on Hobbs Land.

“When did this happen?” he asked, with spurious innocence.

“Yesterday.”

“I’ve been here in the temple, meditating.”

“Reticingh,” Merthal interrupted again.

“What!” snarled Reticingh.

“Something just occurred to me.”

“And what was that?”

“Thyker gets about two-thirds of its total food supplies from Hobbs Transystem.”

Shan looked up, dazed, wondering what this had to do with anything.

“Mysore Hobbs
is
Hobbs Transystem,” Merthal went on, relentlessly. “And he’s very upset.”

“He wouldn’t,” breathed Reticingh. “He wouldn’t do that?”

“Do what?” asked Shan, suddenly aware of factors and considerations which had not previously crossed his mind. “Do what?”

“Oh, shit,” muttered Reticingh. “Oh, for the love of the Overmind. Oh Hell, Shan. What did the Hobbs Land Gods ever do to you that you had to stir up something like this?”

•
The same question
had occurred to Mysore Hobbs. It wasn’t that Mysore Hobbs cared about the Hobbs Land Gods. Mysore Hobbs had no interest in the Gods one way or the other. He was a Phansuri, who could take Gods or leave them alone. However, he was also a conscientious man whose self-image demanded very high standards of conduct, and if Gods meant something to the settlers, then their Gods should not be interfered with. The settlers had been guaranteed that courtesy under the terms of the contract.

The government of either Phansure or Thyker would have considered it acceptable merely to refer the matter to Authority. Mysore Hobbs, however, had no intention of involving Authority. Whenever one invoked Authority, one invoked, by association, that unliving army stored away on the moon Enforcement, just waiting to be called up. Authority and Enforcement were two words for a single idea, like bread and jam or roast grom with kotopek. If a hundred or so Baidee could make such a mess of a simple raid which had been largely unopposed, consider what unthinking destruction such an army might accomplish! Mysore Hobbs shuddered to think of it. No, he did not intend to involve Authority.

Instead, Hobbs sent for his operations manager, who communicated with the other Hobbs agricultural projects. Food scheduled for shipment to Thyker was to be rerouted to Ahabar or Phansure or the supply center for the Celphian Rings. No food was to be shipped to Thyker from any Hobbs Transystem Foods source except from Hobbs Land itself.

•
On Thyker, at
the main receiving station outside Serena, where the day shift of warehousemen and transport workers had been waiting since early morning, a shift supervisor was attempting to explain to a higher-up in Chowdari that no foodstuffs had arrived from any of the Belt worlds, that his complaint to Hobbs Transystem had been greeted with the information that all future shipments were to come from Hobbs Land only, but that the supervisor had been unable to reach Hobbs Land.

“Can’t reach Hobbs Land?” asked the higher-up with a sinking feeling.

“Something wrong with their Doors! I sent messages through all three of them. All I get is sparks!”

“I’ll have Chowdari try and call you back.”

Chowdari was also greeted with sparks and the warning howl that meant system malfunction. A message sent from Chowdari to Fenice upon Ahabar, asking Fenice to attempt to reach Hobbs Land, had similar results.

Maintenance of Doors was an Authority responsibility. The Bureau of Doors, unlike other Authority subdivisions, had a well-earned reputation for actually working. Its people were trained to a fare-thee-well, and they liked to be kept busy. By noon the station outside Serena had been informed by the Bureau that Hobbs Land had no functioning Doors and was therefore unavailable. By midway in the afternoon, the import center at Chowdari was aware that Thyker was under embargo.

“I don’t understand!” screamed the Thykerian shipping manager, who really did not understand. “What have we done?”

A Phansuri employee of Hobbs Foods enlightened him.

The shipping manager went personally to the temple and demanded to see whoever was in charge at the Scrutator level. He got, not by chance, Holorabdabag Reticingh.

“They say they’re going to what?” demanded Reticingh for the third time. “They really say that?” He was rejecting the idea, hoping against hope it wasn’t so. Still, he could not pretend he was surprised. Mysore Hobbs was not a patient man. The Scrutators should have seen him when he arrived on Thyker. It had been a mistake not to do so. Mysore Hobbs intended to hold their feet to the fire.

Reticingh reflected sadly that something of this kind had been almost inevitable ever since Shan Damzel returned from Hobbs Land. Something of this kind had been brewing, in fact, ever since Shan, bursting with pride in his own strength and stability, had chosen to do research among the Porsa. Two guards were sent to fetch Shan, who returned with them in a sullen and un-forthcoming mood.