The Alien Trace [Cord 01] (5 page)

    His father was surreptitiously scratching at a wall made of the same black material that formed the exterior of the port buildings. The attempt was apparently futile.

    "This place is a fortress," he observed to Cord, sotto voce, while Neteel asked their guide about the system of transport used in the complex. The trans tube intrigued her.

    "They use this stuff to separate sections. Probably they could seal off any one from the others, and that area would be impenetrable. That's what I think," Fyrrell qualified. "Did you notice what an odd texture it has?"

    "Do they anticipate trouble?"

    "The Council did," his father replied dryly. "Why not these?"

    Next were the recreational facilities: rooms in which to play games, a pool for swimming (imagine doing that for pleasure! Well, bathing is enjoyable) and a large hall where a handful of humans were lifting weighted objects, and…

    Two males were grappling. Cord tensed and felt his parents do likewise, ready to leap in and separate the aliens. But Fyrrell signaled to hold back.

    No one else seemed to have noticed the combatants. Cord opened his mind to impressions. With strangers, unless they were experiencing some strong emotion, it was necessary to concentrate on sensing them.

    There was no anger in the men. Competitiveness, yes, more than Mehirans thought proper, and excitement, but it was not a fight as Cord understood it. His mother and father seemed to have reached the same conclusion and to have dismissed any thought of intervention.

    They
are
different, Cord realized, shaken. They play at fighting, they take actual violence for granted, they admire those who use force… To them, my parents and I would be heroes.

    It was a heady thought. He almost wished he'd been born a human.

    He reached out with his empath's sense to Julia, wanting a human contact for reassurance.

    There was nothing there. Startled, he unwittingly transmitted his surprise to Neteel and Fyrrell. His mother glanced at him inquiringly. With the code of body signals his family used when working together on a case, he indicated that it was nothing of importance.

    Cord tried again. The absence of emotion in Julia McKay was different from the way a shielded mind felt. This, he decided, was what he expected an alien to be. But why did she differ so much from the other three or four humans whose emotions he had touched? He wanted to ask her about herself and her background, but one could hardly pry.

    "I would like to see more of your buildings," Neteel said, "but we don't wish to monopolize your time or keep you from your other duties."

    "I don't have any other duties," Julia responded. "I am here to meet Mehirans and to learn about them." She led them out of the recreational area and into another corridor.

    "Are you a scientist, then?" Neteel, coming from a scientific family, regarded that branch of study highly. "We understood this was a commercial enterprise."

    Julia laughed. "I'm a missionary: I have no commercial value. But most of the worlds on which a trading company might incorporate require such enterprises to carry out other functions. Trading companies have to file planetological reports with the Allied Systems Survey, for example, to increase our knowledge of the galaxy. And if a trader wants a branch on my world, he must agree to carry a missionary if asked to do so."

    "What is a missionary?" Fyrrell inquired.

    A flash of surprise crossed Julia's face, but she recovered quickly. "A missionary's function is to impart knowledge of his or her religion, so that others will recognize its truth and efficacy, and adopt it as their own." She touched the emblem on her tunic and added, "When I was sent to Mehira with this expedition, no one anticipated that access to your people would be so limited. The Church assumed-everyone assumed-that we'd be able to travel freely. However, though I see only a few Mehirans this way, I am able to know them better than I could if I saw hundreds every day."

    "I see. Thank you for your explanation," Fyrrell responded.

    "Perhaps you will tell us about your religion sometime," Neteel said politely. "Unfortunately, if we are to return tomorrow with samples of our equipment, we must go home to check them over and pack them."

    "Of course," the alien woman agreed. "I shall look forward to meeting you again." With a serene smile and a nod, she led them to the end of the hallway and opened a door, gesturing them to go through. Then she locked the glossy black door behind Cord's family.

    They had learned to interpret the colored lines in the corridors. By following the green strip, they found the exit with ease. The guard at the door made a note that they had left, and at what time. Security seemed tight enough, Cord noted.

    As they drove back to the city, Neteel observed thoughtfully, "Finola is right. Those humans are wealthy, and they're interested in what we have to sell them."

    His parents were unusually silent for the rest of the trip. Cord himself had things to think about. It had not even crossed the minds of the humans they'd met (except Julia; he didn't know about Julia) that Cord's family were investigators. At least, they had not reacted to the knowledge, as Mehirans always did, unless they were close friends. Why should they react? Cord asked himself. The humans' own emotions and pastimes branded them as hardly better than Mehiran criminals and degenerates. Certainly they were no better than Cord and his family. Worse, if anything, he concluded. Would he want to be a "hero" among such people?

    They parked their rented vehicle and walked to their door, where a Council messenger was waiting for them.

    "You should leave word when you're going to be out all day," he complained.

    "We were at the alien spaceport, trading," Fyrrell said smartly. That was cause for pride. "Come in."

    The messenger shook his head.

    "It must be urgent then," Neteel observed.

    "Let us say that the Council gives it high priority. A case of deviant behavior in the Council itself," the man murmured, handing over the authorization.

    "Oh…" Fyrrell said, reading it over, his fine features grave and intent.

    Cord felt revulsion at the word "deviant." It was used to cover so many things now. When he was a child, deviancy meant killing or hurting for pleasure, but now it seemed to be applied to conduct that once would only have been considered eccentric. Or even, he added to himself, to disagreement with the Council.

    "Well, do you accept?" the messenger asked sharply, making no effort to conceal his feeling of irritation.

    "Yes, of course." Fyrrell signed the receipt and handed it back to the man. Neteel, who had been waiting by the door, clearly impatient for him to leave, shut it firmly behind him and secured it.

    "Bad news, Fyr?" Fyrrell's emanations of distress were unmistakable.

    "I wish we could have turned this one down," he muttered.

    They almost never refused an assignment. They could not afford to, and when the Council was the client, it was unwise to do so. Cord recalled that they'd last declined an assignment two wet seasons ago, when his mother was ill with the dry-lung infection.

    "We are to secure evidence of crime, so that the object of the investigation can be charged."

    "But don't they know whether he's committed one?" Cord asked. Usually they were called in when there was a known crime and an unknown perpetrator. This case seemed backward.

    "The Council feels it likely the subject is engaged in criminal activity, in view of his… ah… 'deviant' behavior."

    "Which is?" Neteel prompted.

    "He has no lovers, as far as is known, has turned down invitations to have sex, and keeps his feelings to himself."

    "Discourteous to refuse an offer, certainly," Cord's mother remarked, "especially if he should be so clumsy about it as to give offense. But that's not a crime."

    "Who is our subject?" Cord asked, with growing apprehension.

    Fyrrell raised his golden-brown eyes from the authorization and report to Cord's face.

    "I'm sorry, Cord. It's the Speaker for the Third District."

    Neteel looked stricken, but Cord did not feel much surprise. He'd thought for a long time that his friendship with Bird was too good to last.

    His parents felt sorry for him. To make them feel better, he said, "Well, it isn't as though they knew he'd done something. Maybe there won't be any evidence to gather."

    Fyrrell and Neteel were not noticeably cheered. Cord knew what that meant: the Council-even if they did not say so explicitly-wanted results. Still, one could not fabricate proof of crime. If the Speaker was doing nothing wrong, all the Council could do would be to expose his allegedly deviant habits, which might well be enough to remove him from the Council. But if that was all they desired, why not do it, instead of hiring investigators?

    "We needn't all go to the spaceport," he replied. "You must, because you invented most of our tools. If the humans have technical questions, you must be there to answer them."

    Cord saw the difficulty at once. Someone had to initiate the Council assignment tomorrow. His mother could not go to the spaceport alone; some of the devices required two to operate, or two to carry, at least. He, Cord, could accompany her, but he'd been assisting in investigations for only about three years-some of that part-time, while he finished his specialist courses. His father was the one who should go to the spaceport with Neteel.

    "I can watch the Speaker," Cord said. "It doesn't sound like a very complicated case. The day after tomorrow, if I haven't made any progress, we can talk it over and see what I'm doing wrong. But I think I can handle it. All I'll need is an audiovisual shadow."

    "I wish you didn't have to, Cord. It will be hard enough for you if Bird finds out that your family is involved. But you understand how it is. We can't afford to miss this chance at the spaceport, and we can't risk the Council's displeasure."

    "I know, Father."

    

    

    In the very early morning, Neteel and Fyrrell began packing up the equipment they intended to demonstrate to the humans. No one said anything further about the assignment given them by the Council.

    Cord, feeling unusually serious, took their best mechanical shadow. The second-best was really good only for night work, as it was bulkier.

    "We'd better be starting," he told his parents. "I can place the shadow and be back before the Speaker leaves home, and then monitor it from here."

    It was not difficult. His parents dropped him off within walking distance of Bird's home. Cord knew where the Speaker's vehicle-a sign of his importance and wealth-was kept. There were some advantages to investigating acquaintances, he thought bitterly. At the back of the house, in a service courtyard not overlooked by windows, Cord could do his work with no likelihood of being spotted. Setting the mechanism took only moments.

    Then he sprinted for the public transport station. He wished now that he'd gone out the previous night to place the tracking device, but he'd been tired then and upset at the prospect of investigating Bird's father. Well, no point in worrying about that now; and it was still early. People like the Speaker did not rise as early as Cord's family did. If only this did not prove to be the morning he'd make an exception!

    Cord was breathing more rapidly than usual when he reached the station, but his mind was calm. There had been no indication from the audio transmitter yet. The coach came, and Cord made himself comfortable, regulated his breathing, and watched the city go by: first the pink and yellow homes of the well-to-do, with the phalluslike towers of the hillside mansions in the distance. The hillside was the most desirable section of town, as the riverside was the poorest. Fine houses, mauve and pale green, a park, businesses ranging from genteel to merely necessary, then dingy white multi-residences.

    The day's being gray and chill worked to his advantage in two ways. Few were out yet, so the public vehicles were running on schedule and without too many stops. Also, such cool, damp weather guaranteed that the Speaker would be wearing bulky clothing-trousers, perhaps, and surely a mantle.

    By the time he reached the station nearest his home, he was less apprehensive. Evidently today would be no different from any other for the Speaker. It had been Cord's chief fear that Bird's father would alter his routine and leave earlier than usual, which would have destroyed Cord's chances of watching him for the day. Entering his parents' unit, he went straight to the monitor. It was recording and transmitting a good picture, which relieved another anxiety. Sometimes it was unreliable. Fortunately all it showed was the underside of the Speaker's vehicle and a restricted view of the courtyard's paving. If the Speaker had left before Cord got back to the monitor, the shadow's microphone would have picked up the sound of the engine-but that would have been little use, if he was not back at the monitor.

    Well, here he was, and now he had to wait.

    Invisible footsteps, eerily clear in the receiver, clipped in his ear. Dress shoes, lacing halfway up the calf, came into view-though from the shadow's vantage point, Cord could see no higher than the ankles.

    Now, he thought, quickly. The Speaker was sliding open the door. Cord manipulated the controls. The shadow detached itself from the vehicle, hovered, and moved out toward the Speaker's feet. This was the tricky part. If the Speaker glanced down, or felt the shadow when it attached itself…

    It moved quietly and without disturbing the air in its passage. Forward, rise, elevate lens…

    Cord made a quick decision. He wouldn't attach it until the Speaker left the vehicle. But when the Speaker slid the door shut, the shadow was in the car with him.