The Light That Never Was (9 page)

Brance took a deep breath and shook his head.

“Do you realize—”

“Of course!” Brance snapped.

They floated low over the short grass of the throughway, with Milfro turning from time to time for an anxious look behind them.

“If it’s referees you’re expecting,” Brance said finally, “try looking straight up.”

“They’ll figure we’re heading for the city. If we’d found a hangout in the opposite direction we might have gained some time.”

“We would have found the police there waiting for us. Wild-looking artists don’t normally congregate in quiet suburbs. Those who do can expect to be spied on. Didn’t you know that Donov has a secret police?”

“No! Donov? What would Donov want with a secret police? If it’s ever operated in my neighborhood, it’s been invisible.”

“Of course it has. If everyone knew when it operated, it wouldn’t be secret. The likes of us aren’t safe unless we go where everyone else is at least as disreputable as we are.”

“We also aren’t safe until we get there. There’s a bright yellow flier overhead.”

“It’s a dirty shame, ” Brance said resignedly. “Just a little longer—”

“
Now
can I open it?”

Brance shook his head. “Even if they catch us we may be able to bluff our way out.”

“Then let’s get moving.”

“Not until we’re challenged. There’s a chance they won’t be able to identify us, and until they do we’ve got to be the most law-abiding transport in Donov Metro.”

“You’re sure the com equipment is properly bollixed?”

“The first referee that tries to signal is going to think he needs a refresher course.”

A light flashed; a buzzer rasped. Milfro said tensely, “It’s your show,” and climbed into the rear compartment where he began removing seals and labels. Brance shot the transport into a turning lane and an instant later settled it at street level. He turned, turned again, and they gained a residential section and followed a narrow, winding local service way. Glancing upward, he swore softly. The referee hovered above him, much lower than before.

The light flashed; the buzzer rasped.

Milfro shouted, “Head for the tunnel!”

Brance shook his head. “Our only chance is to play innocent. That will—maybe—keep them uncertain about us and they just might wait long enough. The moment we try to get away, they’ll nab us.”

“How much longer?” Milfro demanded.

“I don’t even know where we are.”

They were somewhere in New City, a vast, conglomeratic community of residences for the lower orders. Dreary, multistoried brick buildings lined the street, each huddled against its neighbors in neat, angular dullness. Each had its gleaming power mast and—apparently—its hoards of children, who scattered as Brance approached, mouthing shrill taunts. Milfro snarled back at them from the cargo opening.

The street curved, and an intersection loomed directly ahead. Brance breathed a sigh of relief and humped up to a turning level. For a long moment they floated in a swarm of traffic, Brance anxiously nudging his way from lane to lane to put himself beside, or under, or over, vehicles similar enough to their transport to confuse the referee.

And now he knew where he was. Again he humped up to a turning level and drifted under a large transport traveling the intercity altitude. He made his turn and floated clear, and instantly the light flashed, the buzzer rasped.

“Now there’s three of the miscreants,” Milfro growled.

“If they’ll let us have another five minutes—”

“Do they know we’re not receiving their stop signal?”

“Yes, but they may not know what we are receiving.”

The flashing and buzzing continued. A yellow flier sank to the level above; Brance calmly slipped under it and matched its speed.

Another two minutes passed. Then Milfro swore, and Brance knew without looking that he was boxed. A yellow flier settled in just ahead of him, and behind him another was locked in at the level above waiting for an opening. As the referee ahead of him turned to hand-signal, Brance abruptly shot to a lower turning level and slipped into a side street.

For precious seconds he lost them completely. Now they had a choice between maneuvering to a turning level and following him or returning to patrol altitude and starting over again. Either would take time. He turned, turned again, hoping that none of the referees would make a lucky guess and cut him off. Milfro was purring, “Slick! Slick!” Brance silenced him and told him to keep watch.

Now they were in Old City. In a rural setting, any of these venerable, picturesque buildings, with their steep, tiled roofs, leering gables, and gaping courtyards, would have been a charming art subject, but an entire street lined with such edifices overpowered the imagination. Brance had never heard of any artist attempting to paint it.

They turned in at a courtyard, and as Brance maneuvered the transport’s cargo door against a building entrance, Milfro sighted a referee drifting overhead.

He swore, and Brance shouted, “Everyone out! We have thirty seconds!”

The courtyard quickly filled with artists. Eager hands lifted the crate onto a weight frame and rolled it away. Another, identical-looking crate was pushed into position behind the transport, and Milfro began attaching labels and seals to it.

A yellow flier settled into the courtyard. Milfro, his task completed, strode forward protestingly. An angry argument ensued, and finally he gestured to Brance.

“This miscreant,” he said scornfully, “claims he can make this illegal and outrageous invasion of private property on the basis of Code 21—he claims to have witnessed a violation of the law. Did you break traffic regulations on the way back?”

“Not to my knowledge,” Brance said.

“Why didn’t you stop on order?” the referee demanded.

“I received no such order.”

“Orders were transmitted repeatedly.”

“None were received and you know that. Better go home and check your com equipment.”

The referee was a young man, obviously uncertain of himself, and as a circle of scowling artists closed in on him, he sought to prop up his waning confidence with bluster. He said stubbornly, “I’m citing you for operating a vehicle without properly functioning communications.”

“Just in case you aren’t aware of it,” Brance said, “regulations make the proprietor of a rented vehicle responsible for its communications. Write that citation on the transport company. All I received was a command to clear for emergency traffic, which I obeyed.”

The referee pocketed his citation.

“What violation did you witness?” Brance demanded.

“You were ordered to stop repeatedly.”

“No such order was received, and you had no business transmitting one without a violation. What was it?”

“Smuggling.”

Brance said incredulously, “You’re claiming to have witnessed an act of smuggling?”

“On the basis of information received—”

“You’re violating the law, fellow. You’ve landed that crate illegally on private property. Bust off, or we’ll have you at the Hall of Justice in the morning.”

“You picked up a customs package on the basis of a false declaration,” the referee persisted.

“Let’s see your writ.”

“One is on the way.”

“Glad to hear that—I’ve always wanted to see one,” Brance said with a grin. “Now tell me what law lets you camp on private property because there is, you think, a writ somewhere else.”

“I’m guarding that shipment until the writ arrives,” the referee said stubbornly. Brance turned to Milfro. “He’s made his accusation before a dozen witnesses. Take his identification and send someone to the district arbiter to file a complaint. In the meantime, we’re going to have to open that crate, or some of the boys will miss their Port Ornal connections. If there’s anything wrong with the shipment, I’d like to know about it myself. Why don’t we let him check the invoice as we unpack—under protest, of course. If he finds anything that isn’t listed he can have it.”

Milfro turned to the referee. “Is that satisfactory?”

The referee nodded.

Milfro chased a messenger off to the arbiter’s office, and then he led the referee to the substitute crate and opened the inspection panel. “Here, you lazy oafs, come and help out!” he called. “His honor will check the invoice, and when we’ve finished he’ll ofter to eat it. This box—” He lifted a carton through the panel. “This box is supposed to contain a gross of paint sprayers, sixteen-head size, medium-pressure capacity.”

The referee ran a finger down the invoice. “Paint sprayers, sixteen-head size, medium-pressure capacity,” he acknowledged. Milfro opened the carton and began to count.

Brance quietly edged away.

He moved along a hallway, took a quick look behind him to make certain that he hadn’t been followed, entered a room, looked behind him again, and then pushed aside a wall panel.

He stepped through, and the panel swung shut behind him. In the center of a small, windowless room stood the crate from customs. It had been opened with frantic haste, the sides ripped away, the delicate paint containers and sprayers kicked aside, the bale of fabric slit open.

It was hollow. In the center an animal huddled—seated, after a fashion, on an oxygen tank, its forelegs extended stiffly, its eyes closed, its ears drooping lifelessly, its lustrous fur ruffled and matted. The oxygen mask hung limply over its frothing snout.

“Dead?” Brance demanded hoarsely.

The eyes opened. The creature shook the mask off, took a great, shuddering breath. Its ears jerked, it lurched forward onto its four hoofs and struggled upright. The long neck slowly uncoiled. A husky, whispering, blurred voice asked, “Whose funeral is this? Not mine, I hope.”

Brance flung himself forward and embraced the long, silken neck. “Franff!” he sobbed.

Ian Korak assumed the management of a world that had no capital city. The meeting place of the World Quorum shifted according to legislative whim or political manipulation. Shifted along with it were files containing twenty-four expensive surveys of sites that urban engineers had recommended for a world capital, minutes of twenty-four lengthy hearings during which politicians had rejected the sites proposed by the engineers, thirty-seven legislative reports advocating other sites, and thirty-seven expensive engineering surveys proving that any of these would be a disastrous choice.

“Gentlemen,” Korak told the Quorum, “the engineers are searching for an ideal location. Donov doesn’t have one. You politicians are searching for a location that will please everyone. Donov doesn’t have one of those, either. Let me make the choice. It won’t be ideal, and it won’t please everyone, but at least other worlds will stop referring to Donov as a world where the Quorum stands because there is no seat or government.”

The Quorum incautiously gave him the authority that he wanted. lie selected and acquired the site for a capital city, and the engineers and politicians immediately stopped arguing among themselves and began raging at Ian Korak, Predictably, the Quorum attempted to veto the choice by withholding funds.

Korak thought the site delightful. There was a broad river with a vast sweep of rolling plain on one side and encroaching, steep hills on the other. There was a deep bay and stretches of contrasting seashore. There was even a freakish little desert in one of the converging valleys. Korak prevented its being irrigated out of existence, and eventually it found owners who liked it the way it was.

Before the first plans were drawn, land values had inflated beyond Korak’s most sanguine expectations and almost beyond his belief. Millionaires from neighboring worlds were delighted with the astonishing diversity the site provided and pleased at the prospect of a vacation estate on the doorstep, as it were, of a glittering new world capital. They bid fantastic prices for the hills and valleys across the river, or for choice seashore estates. Korak judiciously sold other parcels only when necessary, taking full advantage of the rampantly inflating values, and he presented the Quorum with a complex of governmental buildings already paid for and retired Donov’s longstanding indebtedness as well.

There was a native style of architecture, appropriate to an impoverished world of farmers and ranchers: sturdy, frugal, and uncomplicated; and the first millionaires found it charming and managed to incorporate it into vast mansions. Their followers allowed pride in the worlds of their origins to expand beyond rational limits, and they gathered together into neighborhoods where their new homes flaunted the more objectionable features of the dwellings of their native worlds.

Millionaires from Wrytho, a world of vast, shallow seas and lush, flat islands, settled on the bay, laced their little community with a network of canals, and built their homes on ornate stilts to guard against the floods that had never occurred in all of Donov’s recorded history. Those from the mountainous worlds of Skuron and Qwant took to the steep hills with glad cries of recognition and built homes in their native tradition, which seemed to insist that a building with fewer than five steeply ascending levels was best reserved as a stable for servants. Along the seashore the natives of Adjus, a world of raging oceans, ornamented their homes with complicated launching ramps capable of putting a ship safely afloat in the wildest seas, and they actually used these to launch pleasure craft in Donov’s quiet waters. Those from the desert world of Minoff claimed Donov Metro’s diminutive desert as their own, built stubby towers of cast silicons, imported varieties of desert blooms and killed them off with the lavish amounts of water available from the surrounding hills, and sometimes actually constructed and used their own recycling systems to convert wastes to fresh water.

The millionaires occupied an inordinate amount of space and not Infrequently behaved as though their investments in Donovian real estate also gave them a controlling interest in the government, but no one resented them. The lavish homes gave employment to thousands.

The remainder of Donov Metro was a complex of cities separated by belts and chains of parks and throughways: Government City, at the center, was surrounded by Commercial City, with its stores and offices and vast blocks of hostels for visitors and tourists. Old City was made up of buildings Korak had insisted on preserving from the original provincial town on that site, and they contributed a priceless flavor and heritage of the past. Port City included Donov Metro’s seaports and spaceports, along with a sprawling complex of service facilities, customs warehouses, and homes for vast numbers of its employees, The seaport was another project Korak brought into being over the protests of the politicians—he thought it silly for an impoverished world to be indulging in the more expensive forms of transportation when money was so much more important than time. There was New City, a regimented arrangement of dwellings where the lower-paid government workers lived, and other cities for other classes, from the moderately well-off to those nabobs who were too snobbish to associate with their fellow millionaires, whom they claimed were snobbish.