The Legend That Was Earth (5 page)

"...so this Maori chief is sitting there while the tourists are taking his picture—old as the hills, wrinkles and white hair—and he says, `It's going to be a cold winter.' One of the women says, `It's amazing! How do you people
know
these things?' The chief points across the street. `White man stacking wood.' "

Cade smiled, leaned back in his chair at the glass-topped cane table they were using, and dabbed his mouth with his napkin before taking a sip of wine. "That's good, Neville. I'll try and remember it. We'll have to find an excuse to come out and visit you some day."

"Do that!" Baxter enthused. "We'll give you a great time. Balance the books for the way you've taken care of me here."

"What time's your flight?" Julia asked.

"Not till three. But I want to stop by the mission and say so long to Vrel and the guys. Dee too, if she's there. If not, say it for me when you see her, will you, Julia?"

"Of course."

Baxter shook his head. "Dee... there's one thing. How long has she been going with Vrel now? At least since the last time I was over. It was a pretty rare thing then—with aliens, I mean. She's just... you know, does her own thing, and to hell with what anyone thinks."

"That's Dee," Julia agreed.

"My kind of person," Baxter said. "I think it's starting to rub off on Vrel too." He halved an artichoke heart with the side of his fork. "You're doing a great job, stripping the uptightness off these aliens, Roland. Do them good."

Cade held up a hand. "This isn't a social adjustment center. I'm just an opportunist taking what comes, same as you. Same as practically everyone you saw here the other night."

Baxter became more serious. "What drives them? Have you figured it out yet, Roland? It's not just wealth or money. They're all filthy rich by our standards. But they never let up."

"You should have talked more to Mike Blair," Cade answered. "He spends most of his time with them and knows a lot more than I do.... But from what I can make out, it isn't so much that what you've got says who you are, as who you are decides what you get. Except `get' doesn't mean just owning things—as you just said, all of them practically own everything anyway. It involves things like privileges you're entitled to, what positions you qualify for, the recognition you can expect...."

"Sort of like a social rank," Julia put in. "But more complicated. Think of it as a combined credit rating and grade-point average based on just about everything you do. They need computers to figure it out. It translates as `entitlement.' "

"No wonder they come across like robots off an assembly line," Baxter remarked.

"Oh, be kind, Neville," Julia chided. "You just said yourself that a lot of them are loosening up."

"But not the other way around." Baxter motioned appealingly with his fork. "Does anyone really think they could import their system here? Who'd want it?"

Cade made a face. "I'd say it would suit a lot of people that I can think of just fine," he replied.

Baxter left twenty minutes later. Cade saw him to the front door. As the cab was pulling away, a maroon Chevrolet carrying two people entered the driveway and came up to the house. Even before the driver got out, Cade recognized the fair, sleeked-back hair of Lieutenant Rossi from the Internal Security Service. The passenger was a woman in a blue-gray, two-piece business suit, hair tied high on her head, carrying a black document case. Cade waited at the door as they came up the steps.

"Mr. Cade. I hope I haven't caught you at a bad time," Rossi opened. "This is a colleague of mine, Investigator Wylie. We'd like to ask you a few questions."

"Ms. Wylie," Cade acknowledged, then looked back at Rossi. "What now?" He had a policy of never inviting government into his life, and if they invited themselves, to offer as little encouragement as possible.

Rossi looked past him through the doorway. "Er, could we go inside?"

"Okay." Cade held the door while they entered, closed it, and led the way back through to the sun lounge. Julia was just finishing her meal. Rossi caught Cade's eye pointedly. "Oh, that's okay," Cade said. "We don't have any secrets. Julia, these are Lieutenant Rossi and Investigator Wylie from the ISS. Apparently, they have some questions."

"For
you
, Mr. Cade. I'd rather it were in private, if you don't mind." Rossi's tone left no doubt that whether Cade minded or not had nothing to do with it.

"I was in the middle of something, anyway," Julia said, getting up. "I'll catch you later." She left with a quick nod to the two visitors. Cade indicated a couple chairs, which they accepted. He settled himself in a wicker seat facing them.

"Well?" he invited.

Rossi began, "I assume you're aware of the assassination of Senator Joel Farden from Virginia, General Meakes of the Army, and also two Hyadeans, that happened two days ago in Washington."

"You already asked me that the last time you were here. When you poured ice water on my party."

"I explained then that it was orders, and we regretted the inconvenience," Rossi said. Cade let it go with a nod. Rossi resumed, "Since then, information has come into our possession that establishes a probable connection with the affiliation of political subversives who call themselves `CounterAction.' You've heard of them, I trust?" Rossi leaned back, waiting for a reaction. Beside him, Wylie had taken some papers from the document case lying opened on her knee.

"Just what you see and hear. It isn't something I make a lot of time for." CounterAction was the illegal militant wing of the protest movement known as "Sovereignty," which had grown in North America over recent years out of various groups opposing what they saw as the Globalist sellout to Hyadean economic imperialism. Sovereignty had organized the rally in Washington the previous Sunday. After other incidents that had been reported over the preceding months, Cade wasn't surprised to learn that CounterAction might be behind this latest act.

"It's pretty widely assumed—and
we
know for
certain
—that the activities of CounterAction in this country are supported clandestinely by the AANS," Rossi said. Cade made a conciliatory gesture which again admitted to knowing nothing beyond what the media said. Rossi gave him a further moment, as if hoping that Cade might help a little more by not making him spell everything out. Cade waited invitingly. Rossi sighed.

"Up until now, AANS support for illegal groups operating in this country has been in the form of money, training, and the infiltration of weapons. We believe that the incident last Sunday might mark a new phase of escalation. You see, as is normal for Hyadean flying vehicles sent here, the aircar carrying the four victims was equipped with an automatic counter-missile system capable of stopping anything produced by the technology of this planet." Rossi showed a hand briefly. "But the assassins didn't use technology from this planet. They used a Hyadean directed-plasma weapon, which the defense system wasn't designed to deal with because up until now only the Hyadeans had it. But one went missing somewhere, and it found its way into this country. We're pretty sure that the people it found its way to were CounterAction. Can you see the implications, Mr. Cade, if the route by which weapons like that can enter this country isn't uncovered and stopped?"

That much was clear enough. But how did it affect Cade? He replied in the only way he could. "Well, yes, I take your point, Lieutenant. So... ?"

Rossi took a couple of sheets of paper from the ones Wylie had extracted and glanced at the top one. "You were married at one time, I believe."

"That's right."

"Your wife's name was Marie Ellen, formerly Hedlaw?"

"Yes." Cade had no idea where this could be going.

"Do you still have some means of contacting her, Mr. Cade? Do you know where she is now?"

Cade could only show both palms and shake his head. "No. That was three years ago now. The last I heard she was supposed to have gone to China." He stared from Rossi to Wylie and shook his head again, this time nonplussed. "Look, can I ask what this is about?"

Rossi seemed to hear, but pressed on with his own line. "Can I ask why you split up?" he said.

Cade had half felt this coming. "It was fun in the early days—you know, a wild kind of fling. But when that wore off, really we had nothing in common. She was an idealist with strong politics—serious ideas about what was wrong with the world and how to fix it.... I guess I'm just the opposite: I let the world be and ride with the tide."

"So there's no way you might still be in touch with her?" Rossi tried again.

"I already said, no. And even if I could, I'm not sure I'd want to. Life is good and comfortable. Why should I want to get mixed up in whatever you're talking about? I don't know anything about Hyadean weapons." He cocked an eye pointedly. "Anyhow, you still haven't told me what you're talking about."

Rossi stared at him for a few moments longer, as if perhaps giving him a chance to change his mind if there was anything to reconsider. Then he said, "Your ex-wife's views and her going to China were not a coincidence. We think she's back in the U.S. now, with one of the cells that CounterAction is organized into. We think that cell might be the one that the Hyadean plasma weapon found its way to."

Cade sat back slowly, massaging his brow. Now it all made sense. They were following up any lead, and the ex-husband would be an obvious name to put on the list. But still, what they were saying didn't feel right. Yes, he and Marie had had their differences, which at times had erupted into rows of her venting exasperation with what she saw as lack of principle on the one hand, and his protesting the wasting of life on what struck him as futile posturing on the other. And yes, he could see her agitating for what she believed in, or even wielding a gun if need be when passions ran high. But premeditated assassination in cold blood?... That didn't sound like her style. Rossi had evidently been prepared and was letting him think it over.

"You said on Sunday that you didn't think the two Hyadeans were planned as part of it," Cade said at last.

"They were hitching a ride at the last moment. The targets were Farden and Meakes."

"So what was so terrible about those two? Why should CounterAction have singled them out?" Cade wanted to know if they were guilty of anything which by any stretch of the imagination he could see Marie reacting to so drastically. Rossi looked at his colleague and nodded for her to take it. Wylie handed Cade a pamphlet from the document case. It showed a picture of Joel Farden over the caption WHO'S SELLING BOLIVIA? and below, a page of angry denunciation. Large banner type above showed the piece to be a product of SOVEREIGNTY.

"Farden was pushing Congressional bills to open up big sales of Hyadean services and products," she answered. "Their minerals extraction program in Bolivia owes a lot to his pushing." Cade knew a bit about that from his various contacts. The Hyadeans were constructing huge facilities to mine and process minerals from the Bolivian central Altiplano region, which was rich in deposits but underdeveloped due to capital shortage. Their advanced technologies could cut out traditional Terran industries with prices that couldn't be beat.

"A pretty good way to open up resources that it seems no one figured out how to touch before now," Cade commented. "And sure, the people who did figure it will come out okay. Why would they bother if there was nothing in it for them? You have to have movers."

Wylie waved the pamphlet she was holding and nodded. "But you can see how it can be turned into a propaganda piece for stirring up lots of people looking for something to blame their problems on. Some of them get mad enough..." She left it unfinished.

Cade nodded. Yes, he could see how somebody like Farden could be made into a hate figure. "How about Meakes?" he asked.

"Even simpler," Wylie replied. "He wanted to revamp our defense capability by incorporating Hyadean weapons and methods. We'd be talking near-invincibility here. You can imagine how the AANS would feel about that. So it was turned around into a story that he was going to put our defense under Hyadean control."

Cade could see how that would work too. But he still couldn't see Marie getting involved in murder over it—simply
because
she had strong principles. Or could she have changed that much in three years? Who knew what she had been exposed to in China? Why get mixed up in it? He showed his hands in a way that said he understood but really couldn't help.

He thought that should have ended it, but the two ISS agents continued to regard him skeptically. Cade could tell when people didn't believe him. They went over some further details, but he still had the same feeling when Rossi and Wylie finally left twenty minutes later.

* * *

What they suspected only hit him later. It was that his and Marie's splitting up might have been just a cover, and he was still in contact, acting as an information source for Sovereignty, for which his Hyadean and other contacts would make him uniquely valuable.

And if they believed that she was with the cell of CounterAction responsible for the assassinations, then Cade would be their prime hope for uncovering a lead back to it. There was no way he was going to keep them out of his life this time, he realized bleakly.

THE MOVIE SHOWING AT THE THEATER in downtown Baltimore involved an egg-shaped planet whose ends formed immense "mountains" projecting beyond the atmosphere and providing habitats for a range of progressively more bizarre life forms able to exist virtually to the fringes of space. Space adventure had become popular in recent years—the Terran-made varieties, at least. Adaptations of Hyadean imports had been tried in earlier years, but with limited success, mainly due to curiosity which soon passed. The Hyadean themes were invariably exercises in social role modeling more than entertainment, with character stereotypes reflecting approved attitudes and behavior. Terran movies, by contrast, were a sensation back on the alien home worlds.

Reyvek had come here to lose himself in the anonymity for a last hour before committing himself and to reflect one last time on his decision; and also as a precaution. Although there was no particular reason why he should be an object of attention on a routine day off-duty, he had changed seats twice, the second time to put him within a couple of rows of the exit at the rear. Nobody slipped into nearby seats in the minutes following; none of the faces profiled in the flickering light from the screen showed undue interest in him. He checked his watch, waited for a moment when the action quickened to an attention-grabbing high point, then quickly got up and left. Nobody came after him; nobody was watching from across the foyer. Carrying a red plastic bag as he had been directed, he went out onto the street and turned right. It was already dark. His pocket phone beeped when he was halfway along the block. He drew it out and held it to his face. "Yes?"