The Light That Never Was (12 page)

He saw Eritha off to Zrilund, telling her only that he wanted regular reports on what the artists were talking about. Then he gave himself the luxury of an entire morning devoted to meditating the paradoxes of coincidence that he found in M’Don’s riot reports.

There was the utterly commonplace world of Cuque. Not even its own scientists had evidenced much interest in the fact that at irregular intervals, and for unknown reasons, an alga of its tropical oceans proliferated monstrously. Neither was it thought unusual that during its period of uncontrolled growth the alga became poisonous. Such outbursts had been occurring throughout man’s long history on Cuque without occasioning reaction other than mild expressions of scientific curiosity.

The coincidence arose from the fact that the most recent outburst came immediately after the world’s animaloids, the
llorms
, had their fishing rights curtailed. The alga was a staple food of many minute forms of sea life, and whenever it became poisonous those life forms died, and so did predators and scavengers that fed on them in a chain of death that littered the seas with corpses. Thus it had always happened, but this time Cuque was swept with rumors that the llorms had poisoned the ocean to retaliate for their loss of fishing rights. Before the authorities were aware of what was happening, the world was torn by rioting.

There was a second coincidence. The riots occurred almost precisely when that spiraling galactic wind of hatred would have touched Cuque. The Cuque riots happened in exact sequence with those of twenty-three other worlds.

Wargen pushed the Cuque file aside and took up that of Franff’s world of Sornor. A fungus occasionally damaged native grasses. This year it suddenly raged out of control and laid waste to vast tracts of choice grassland. By coincidence the nonors, a grazing animaloid, had just petitioned unsuccessfully for an extension of their reservation pasturage. The populace instantly assumed that the nonors were poisoning the grazing land that had been denied to them. By further coincidence, the resulting riots occurred in sequence with those of twenty-three other worlds.

The apparent cause of rioting on each world was an accident or a natural phenomenon that had happened frequently in the past. By coincidence this most recent occurrence came immediately after a dispute or altercation between humans and animaloids, which as usual the animaloids had lost. Incredibly, the humans blamed the animaloids and attempted to destroy them.

Wargen could have accepted such a coincidence on one world, or perhaps several. There were twenty-four.

The outbreaks of rioting could be charted on a star map as a time sequence.

Shaking his head he leafed through the other files. On the world of Bbrona, where most buildings were of wood, there had been an outbreak of fires. Such had happened often enough before, such would continue to happen as long as Bbrona’s buildings were constructed of flammable materials. This one occurred immediately after a human-animaloid confrontation, and the humans called it arson.

And rioted. Precisely on schedule.

On Proplif, where a certain insect sporadically destroyed grain crops, it had done so again and the animaloids were blamed.

On K-Dwlla…

On Pfordaan…

On Laffitraum…

On twenty-four worlds: A confrontation, followed by some form of familiar local affliction, followed by rioting. That series of events could not have occurred in sequence on twenty-four worlds without planning, and planning required that such natural phenomena as the proliferation of an alga or a grass fungus happen on schedule, which was impossible.

The spiraling wind of hatred had dissipated, and the rioting had almost run its course. Massive cleanups were in progress on most of the worlds, and both governments and individuals were interring their guilt with the bodies of their victims. Wargen’s official requests for information were ignored, which worried him. M’Don had done his best, but too often his reports were based upon rumor and hearsay.

A messenger arrived with a memo from Demron. The Superintendent of Police was perplexed about a series of petty thefts in a northern precinct. Wargen reluctantly pushed his files aside and went to see him.

“What’s being stolen?” he asked.

“Nothing of special value. He picks up whatever he gets his hands on, but no one has lost anything worth more than half a don. The puzzling thing is that in every instance someone saw him making his escape.”

“He sounds like a notably inept thief.”

“Then why haven’t we caught him?”

“Description?”

“He’s an artist.”

Wargen whistled softly. “Ah! What does the Artists’ Council have to say about this?”

“It’s alarmed. We’ve processed data on every registered artist on Donov, and on all of the thefts, and the computer says the thief couldn’t be a known artist.”

“Of course not. I can’t remember the last time Donov had a police problem with artists, but if it does happen I’m positive the artist won’t be so naive as to attract attention to himself by wearing his work clothing. For a non-artist, an artist’s costume would be a rather good disguise. The fact that he let himself be seen merely means that he wanted it thought that he’s an artist.”

“A non-artist disguised as an artist could be anyone,” Demron grumbled.

“True. You’re likely to have a long investigation on your hands.”

“Since he’s got all of us bamboozled, why doesn’t he steal something of value?”

“Ask him that when you catch him,” Wargen said with a grin.

When he returned to his office, a bright young agent named Karlus Gair was waiting for him.

“I called you in to give you a vacation,” Wargen said. “Go down to the Rinoly Peninsula and relax for a week. It’s really a splendid place.”

“To do what?” Gair demanded. “There’s nothing there.”

“That’s the advantage. You’ll be the only tourist in the entire precinct.”

“Sure. What’s so important in the wilds of Rinoly?”

“Three thousand animaloids. Those refugees from Mestil have literally vanished from human ken, and no one I’ve talked with from that area knows anything about them. We have no contacts there—we’ve never needed any. I think we’d better find out what Jorno is doing with his animaloids.”

Gair went to Rinoly for a week and returned three days later. The natives wouldn’t talk with strangers—he hadn’t even been able to rent a bed—and as for Jorno’s estate, it was formidably fenced and the gates were guarded. He thought that an approach from the sea might be possible, and he wanted to know if he should try it.

Wargen told him not to bother, and the following week he went to Rinoly himself.

It was a humped and rocky land and one of the most impoverished agricultural regions on Donov. Wrranel carts were still the chief mode of transportation. The unimproved roads were deplorable in good weather and impassable during the spring and fall rains.

Rinoly’s young people left for the cities and the resort arc as as soon as they came of age, and many of the elderly farmers who stubbornly clung to their holdings were surviving on handouts from their children who worked in the service trade. Abandoned farms were a blight on an already blighted land, for few of the young people cared to inherit the laborious poverty of their parents.

The closest community to Jorno’s estate was Ruil, a grubby little crossroads village, and Wargen could not find a decent house there in which to rent a room. He had exercised his influence with a horticultural firm and brought with him a bag of seed samples, and that was sufficient credential to make him welcome in the home of a neighboring farmer. He spent several days in calling on farmers in the area to offer free seeds in return for a report on comparative yields. His generosity with the samples loosened tongues, and Wargen quickly learned that Jaward Jorno was the one authentic hero these surly farmers had.

“Just sold him five load of stone,” one would say. Or, “My boy works on his dock. Good pay.” Or, “He started the tarff co-op. More’n the government ever did for us.” The few merchants in the area were even more voluble in their praise. Jorno was, without exception, everyone’s best customer.

But though Wargen listened carefully everywhere he went, he heard no mention of the animaloids. None of the farmers had seen them—most did not know that they existed—and the occasional person he encountered who worked for Jorno was invariably closemouthed and deserving of any confidence Jorno placed in him.

Wargen returned to the precinct capital and arranged for a tourist flight along the coast. Passing over Jorno’s estate, he saw a newly cut road leading to the shore, where a pier and a large warehouse had been built. The string of islands followed the curving coast line, the most distant no more than a mile offshore, and on the largest of them a village had been laid out. The island had its own pier and waterside warehouse, and he was able to identify the ship docked there. Back in the precinct capital, he checked the ship’s registry and left the same day for Port Ornal.

But at Port Ornal he could only learn that Jorno had bought supplies in shipload quantities and saved money taking delivery by water. Reluctantly he decided to return home and try again when he’d thought of an approach that promised better results.

At the Port Ornal Space Terminal he spent an hour eavesdropping on departing tourists. The sturdy Donovians tended to be scrupulously honest, but a thriving tourist world attracted operators dedicated to instant profits, and if not promptly detected and put out of business, these were a threat to Donov’s reputation.

Wargen and his men regularly made the rounds of the resorts and scanned the terminals to learn what tourists were complaining about. It not infrequently happened that a departing visitor who had been grumbling about a strangely multiplying hostel bill, or a guided tour that skipped half the advertised attractions, or a lavish restaurant with expensive but inedible food, was approached by a friendly young man who invited him to furnish details and sign a complaint; and after his return home the tourist would be utterly astonished to receive a refund.

Wargen circled the terminal with apparent aimlessness until he chanced to hear the name, “Harnasharn.” The two elderly men who were conversing belonged to that rarest type of tourist, the vacationing art connoisseur, who came to study Donov’s permanent collections and also to gamble—there was no better investment in the galaxy than a painting by a young artist who would become great. The problem was to select the right young artist—as the Donovian saying went, to find the one gray hair on a white wrranel.

“I didn’t get up to the Metro,” one of the men said.

“You should have. Those eight anonymous paintings in Harnasharn’s permanent exhibit are worth the trip.”

“Anonymous? That’s an oddity.”

“So are the paintings. Strangest things I’ve ever seen, but for that kind of thing they’re simply magnificent. I might have bought one if they’d been priced reasonably, but they weren’t for sale.”

“That’s odd, too.”

“Harnasharn was accepting registered bids, but you know how that goes. He expects the price to keep going up, and he’ll hang onto them for years. Anyway—just to show you how odd they are—a tourist told me with a perfectly straight face that they’d been painted by a Zrilund swamp slug.”

Their laughter chased Wargen all the way to the exit.

At Port Metro he commandeered one of Demron’s patrol vehicles, and they careered through Donov Metro on the emergency altitude. When they reached the Harnasharn Galleries, Wargen leaped out and stared at the building in foolish uncertainty. He did not know what he expected to find—radicals haranguing an enraged populace, perhaps, or anti-animaloid fanaticists pulverizing the pavement to manufacture missiles, or a mob threatening to storm the place.

Confronted by the establishment’s usual quiet and dignified mien and the sedateness of the few viewers who leisurely paced their ways through the exhibits, Wargen had embarrassed second thoughts.

But he dismissed the driver and went to see Harnasharn.

“I’ve just come from Port Ornal,” he told him. “A couple of tourists departing the space terminal were discussing your permanent exhibit, and one of them said that a tourist had told him the eight anonymous paintings you’re displaying are the work of a Zrilund swamp slug.”

Harnasharn turned on him aghast.

“What sort of animaloid did paint them?” Wargen asked.

“A Zrilund swamp slug.”

“I see. Blabby sort of creature that couldn’t resist bragging to its friends?”

“Mr. Wargen. This is extremely serious. There should be only three people on Donov who know that—my assistant, myself, and the slug’s owner. I’m pledged on my word of honor not to divulge the origin of those paintings to anyone, and I have not and will not except to yourself and the World Manager and that only because your positions entitle the two of you to share a confidence of this order. I know my assistant has not told anyone. Having observed how concerned the slug’s owner was to preserve his secret, I feel certain that he wouldn’t tell anyone. Otherwise, why the fuss about extracting pledges from us and having them written into contracts? You say a
tourist
said that?”

“Actually it was a visiting art connoisseur who said he’d heard it from a tourist. Neither he nor the person he was talking with believed it. What the tourist thought about it I couldn’t say.”

“Had they been to Zrilund?”

“I don’t know.”

“I’m wondering if others may have known about the slug—friends or neighbors of the owner, for example. I’ll have to investigate this for my own protection. I don’t want a situation where the owner starts a rumor and then attempts to cancel his contract by blaming me for it.”

“It seems to be a singularly unsuccessful rumor,” Wargen observed. “Our only source is a man who was leaving Donov and anyway didn’t believe it. We may be making a fuss about nothing.”

“I’ll investigate just the same,” Harnasharn said. “I’m very glad you told me about this.”

Wargen returned to his office and longingly contemplated his riot files: Cuque, Sornor, Mestil, Bbrona, Proplif, K-Dwlla, Pfordaan…