The Alien Trace [Cord 01] (11 page)

    Having made her decision, Bird passed the government complex and headed toward the suburbs. She put the skim away and went up to bed immediately, leaving the house lights on for her father's return. Usually after so much sexual activity she rested well. Tonight, however, her dreams were chaotic and troubling.

    Waking to the morning sun, Bird felt neither rested nor easy in mind. It was unusual for her to be upset by nightmares. After washing and dressing slowly, she went downstairs, to find that the lights she'd left on last night still glowed. Could the Council have remained in session all night? He must have come home, she decided, and she simply had not heard him. Perhaps he was tired and worried.

    She crept up to her father's suite of rooms as softly as she could. The door to his office was not quite closed. It looked familiar and comforting in the sun that shone in the great round window. Austere, everything in its place-except for a scroll, half-written, on the Speaker's low desk. Bird smiled and crossed the room to roll it up and slip it into a holder until he should care to continue it. She never completed the gesture-her own name loomed large and foreboding…

    "Bird, I wish I could do this differently, to spare you the anguish you are about to experience, as well as the inconvenience and embarrassment. However, no practical alternative exists. Thank all the ancestors, on both our behalves, that you were gone tonight.

    "Bird, in my life I have made several major mistakes, but until this last one, I have been the only one to suffer thereby. The first one was cutting myself off from emotional contact with others after your mother died. No one could replace her, and I let no one try. That was foolish, but this is worse: I began to give myself airs of nobility for the deprivation. I let myself believe that it was somehow ignoble to indulge in palliative affairs, when sexual and emotional contact would have kept me from brooding, from turning inward.

    "You know, naturally, that I have not been in the habit of letting others see my feelings. What no one knows is that for years I have not been receptive to others' feelings either. It may have been a brain dysfunction; I don't know. But I welcomed it. The joys, sorrows, and needs of the rest of the world were too painful after Tareel joined her ancestors.

    "This was my last mistake: having ceased to listen to the feelings of everyone else, I let the aliens deceive me. I believed what they told me without the precaution of sensing their emotions. Having done so, I promoted trade with them against the Council's judgment, which was based on empathic sense as well as on reason. I know now this was foolish-and arrogant-to the point of insanity. I must have been mad to ignore common sense to such a degree.

    "Tonight I was called before the Council. They charged me with willfully ignoring a Council directive, which was true but would not ordinarily be a matter of importance. They accused me of acting as an agent for the humans in return for gifts. It is possible that the humans intended those beautiful bracelets as bribes. I don't know. If I had listened to their souls as well as to their speech…

    "Finally, my 'deviancy' was denounced, my lack of emotional sharing, as if that were a crime. Someone actually suggested that I must be a pervert because I have no love-friends.

    "The Council demanded my resignation, and I have complied. It may look like an admission of guilt, but you know as well as I do that if I refused, they would find some other way of removing me.

    "I am afraid I know why your friend Cord has not visited you lately. His delicacy of feeling does him some credit; his family was engaged to gather the evidence which was brought against me.

    "Bird, if I resigned to live in retirement, I would be disgraced and you would be disgraced because of your connection with me. Therefore I am going to kill myself. It may save you from ostracization. Others will pity you, and maybe they will give you a chance. Lovely one, farewell."

    There was no signature; none was necessary. Bird, with a sick sensation in the pit of her stomach, ran to the door of her father's bedroom, still clutching the scroll in one hand.

    The Speaker was lying on the bed platform. One glance at the drawn, colorless face was enough. Beside him was an open box. Bird recognized it as a medication container, in which her father had kept lozenges to help him sleep. It was empty.

    She stood there for a space. Then, shivering, she turned away, to make the necessary arrangements.

    She spent most of the morning reporting her father's death to the Council clerk in charge of death registry, and in arranging for his cremation. Finally, having written short messages to their relatives, Bird found herself alone in the house. She felt stunned and abandoned at first-then she began to be angry. Not at the Council so much as at their tools and at those who had made the Speaker their tool.

    And she remembered the invitation and her pass to the spaceport.

    

    

    Contrary to Cord's apprehensions, nothing occurred to complicate their preparations. His father rented a vehicle without difficulty; the telepathy machine continued to work; no one attempted to hijack it. They left for the spaceport much earlier than necessary; none of them wished to be late because of some mishap enroute. Cord was amused to see that his mother had knotted an ancestor bag for the device, by way of disguise. To conceal the main object of their visit further, she had brought along several other tools.

    "Here, you carry it," she said to Cord, as they got into the ground car. He took it and suspended the pouch from his belt. It would arouse no curiosity; many people carried ancestral mementoes with them. Running a finger over the pattern of knots, Cord deciphered the meaning: Fyrrell-Neteel-Cord: 3228 Year of Council: 205 year of family-Gifts and Good Fortune from the Sky. His mother's idea of humor, he thought.

    The road to the spaceport had become familiar, so Fyrrell pushed the vehicle along at near its top speed, although they had plenty of time.

    Stev Greffard seemed to be waiting for them, in spite of their early arrival.

    "The room is ready," he told them. "There's been considerable interest, so I expect a crowd. This is the first major gathering we've held, and Julia McKay's announcement piqued their curiosity. She studied persuasion and logic at her seminary. And, of course, there's been a great deal of speculation about the nature of your invention." He smiled slyly at Neteel.

    She smiled in reply. The fulfillment of years of work was in sight.

    The human offered them beverages and morsels of food, all exotic but quite tasty. Cord decided that the pickled vegetables were the aliens' most outstanding accomplishment.

    Julia joined them in Greffard's office. She greeted them, maintaining a slight formality with Cord which he found charming.

    "Is everything you need here?" she asked, glancing at the pile of gadgets Neteel and Fyrrell had placed on Greffard's desk. The ancestor bag, however, remained on Cord's belt. "May I arrange for it to be taken into the conference room?"

    "Yes," Neteel answered. "Yes to both questions. Thank you."

    They had not informed even Greffard that the real demonstration piece was still with them. Let their prospective customers wonder.

    "Everything is ready," Greffard reported soon afterward. "It's almost time. If you've finished your refreshments, I'll escort you to the room we've scheduled for you."

    "We are prepared," Fyrrell said. An electric current of excitement passed between the three. They followed Stev Greffard down the corridor, with Julia close behind.

    The room assigned was surprisingly large and already full. Most of the crowd were human, but many Mehirans were present as well; it looked as though every Mehiran who had a pass to the spaceport had attended. Cord thought he had never seen such a collection of notables in one place. The most honored members of the Council, both Upper and Lower, were well to the front-not in the first rows of seats, which would have been vulgarly pushy, but in the forward middle section, as their dignity demanded. He hoped the Speaker for the Third District was there to witness their triumph.

    A long table at the front of the room held the gadgets Neteel had brought along. It was flanked by a pair of tough-looking guards carrying guns. A broad expanse of polished floor separated the table from the spectators' chairs. No one could say that Greffard wasn't giving Neteel full honors.

    A knot of people around the door-those who lacked the prestige to gain seats-stirred as someone pushed through behind them.

    "I didn't expect so many," Neteel remarked, obviously pleased.

    "Shall we go down to the table now?" Fyrrell asked Greffard. "Or would you rather we stayed here? We seem to be in the way."

    "As my father was in the Council's way?" a voice inquired, sharp-edged.

    Bird had come through the crowd around them. Her face was set and colorless; worse, uncontrolled and scorching anger flowed from her.

    "Yes, I'm here," she said, her voice dripping venom. "But my father isn't. He'll never be anywhere again. He's dead."

    "Dead?" Cord repeated blankly. "What happened? When?"

    "
They
killed him." She was looking at his parents, anger and tears fighting in her eyes. "The Council wanted him eliminated, so they hired Fyrrell and Neteel to find a way. Once the Council had disgraced him, he thought it would be better to die-for my sake. Maybe my father made mistakes, but he never deliberately did anyone harm. But you're the Council's tools. You've made it dangerous to have a difference of opinion with them." Her voice had risen shrilly; now it fell to a whisper. "You… you should have told me, Cord. You owed me that much."

    Cord dropped his defenses to let Bird feel his concern and surprise. In the background he sensed his parents' embarrassment and alarm. Others' reactions came through also: concern, irritation, confusion, and faintly, as though from a great distance, an immense need, a gnawing hunger…

    Before Cord had time to wonder about it, Hamilton K appeared with an escort of security guards. They surrounded Bird as if cornering a vicious animal.

    "She should never have been permitted inside," a Mehiran voice observed. "Under the circumstances…"

    K said, "We were not aware of the 'circumstances,' whatever they are. She has a pass. Needless to say, it will now be suspended. Get her out of here."

    "No," Cord snapped.

    Hamilton K looked at him. Cord was glad he did not work for this alien, cold man.

    "Is she a friend of yours?" he asked.

    "Yes," Fyrrell replied. "We will deal with the matter." To Bird, he added, "I'm sorry. I did not know what they intended to do with my report. We've often worked for the Council, even gathering material about its members. Nothing ever came of it, before. Nothing we've been aware of, at least. And I would have sworn in the names of my ancestors that there was nothing in your father's life to give the Council so much power over him."

    Bird's chin had been trembling. Two or three tears slid down her cheeks. The sight wrenched at Cord's heart. He moved forward to take her into his arms, but Bird motioned him away.

    "I'm sorry, too. But it doesn't do any good, does it? My father is still dead, and you're still alive and profiting by it. And you, Cord-you may not have helped drive him to suicide, but you didn't do anything to prevent it, did you? You might have warned me, if you did not care enough to speak to him." Her eyes brimmed with tears.

    "Is this affair settled yet?" K demanded. "If this young woman is going to make further scenes, I must insist on having her expelled."

    "Yes, let's get started, if Madame Neteel agrees," Greffard suggested.

    Bird wiped her eyes quickly with the back of her hand, then said clearly, though there was still a tremor in her voice, "I have said what I came here to say. It isn't necessary to put me out."

    Neteel took over with her customary efficiency and made one deft change in the program.

    "Cord, you stay here with Bird. Fyrrell and I can manage without you."

    He gave Neteel a grateful smile. She was always thoughtful. Bird needed someone with her right now: he did not mind giving up his share of the limelight (a small one, anyway) to offer her what comfort he could.

    "Thank you, Lady," K said softly.

    Cord was momentarily surprised that it should matter to the Trade Agent, then realized that the man's gratitude was for the resolution of an awkward situation.

    Neteel smiled, and her ears twitched toward Hamilton K in salute. She might yet find out how human males coped without tails.

    "I'll introduce you first and then leave you to your demonstration," Greffard said.

    "Thank you." Fyrrell spoke stiffly, painstakingly polite.

    "Cord, I'll take my bag now," his mother said casually.

    He slipped its loops free of his belt and passed it to her. Then she followed Greffard and Fyrrell up the aisle, carrying their future as easily as though it had been a personal pouch for trinkets.

    "Cord, I want to apologize," Bird said. "I liked your parents, the times I met them. They wouldn't intentionally push my father to kill himself-I was half insane with sorrow and anger. Completely insane. When I felt your father's emotions, I knew I was wrong. Do you think they'll be able to forgive me?"

    "They understand, Bird. So do I. After this is over…"

    At the other end of the hall, Greffard waved away the guards by the table. Cord's parents took their places behind it.

    "Most respected ones," Greffard began, the Mehiran honorific sounding odd when translated into the human language. A metallic voice repeated his words in Mehiran for those who spoke no Multi-Lang. "You have come here today to see the dawning of a new age. The most respected Neteel and Fyrrell…"