FIVE :
The trip to the inner system and New Tigris proper took five days. Bayta and I spent most of that time eating, sleeping, watching dit rec dramas and comedies from the torchyacht's limited selection, and going round and round on the topic of the Modhri and this Abomination he seemed so eager to wipe off the face of the universe.
We didn't reach any firm conclusions, or even any tentative ones. But we came up with a whole laundry list of options, none of them very pleasant, about what the Modhri might actually be up to.
Which meant that by the time New Tigris Control called us with landing instructions we were about as paranoid as it was possible for two Humans to be.
But that was all right. In this business, too much paranoia might annoy people. Too little could get you killed.
The spaceport was a couple of kilometers north of Imani City. It was a pretty casual affair, as landing areas went, little more than delineated rectangles on a reinforced concrete slab. I put us down on our assigned spot, noting as I did so that there were two other rental torchyachts squatting in various places across the field. Apparently, we weren't the only ones who'd decided not to share the regular torchferry run with even a deodorized Pirk.
The Customs procedures were a quick and painless formality, partly because we weren't bringing any luggage off our torchyacht for the moment, and partly because New Tigris needed all the visitors it could get and wasn't about to scare them off with annoying bureaucratic procedures. The official did, however, make a point of carefully scrutinizing my Hardin Industries carry permit before allowing me past his counter with my Glock.
There were two autocabs waiting outside the terminal. We grabbed one, gave it an intersection that my map said was at the edge of Zumurrud District, and headed south.
Imani City, once we were actually traveling its streets, was a pleasant surprise.
I'd seen pictures of the place, of course, and had studied maps of the city and surrounding regions during our torchyacht flight. But most of the reports I'd read had focused on New Tigris's dead-end status. Yet another of Earth's ill-conceived and badly managed colonies, the hand-wringing stories went, that would probably be a drain on the public treasury until the heat-death of the universe.
But someone had apparently forgotten to pass on all that depressing news to the colonists themselves. In the city's center, as well as in most of the neighborhood districts we passed through, the people looked for the most part to be cheerful, optimistic, and showing the kind of energy and dogged determination Human pioneers have always displayed.
I also saw that the private sector had responded to the UN's arm-twisting in spades. Along with their probable cash donations, I spotted the logos of at least five major corporations on various buildings along the way. Small operations, undoubtedly, at this point. Nevertheless, it was a vote of confidence in the colony's future, and a nice psychological boost besides.
The locals had done their part, too. There were all sorts of businesses nestled in among the houses, from bakeries and neighborhood grocery stores to the more homespun sorts of places like leather-workers and pottery makers. I spotted electronics shops, small-engine assembly plants, and even a tool-and-die manufacturer, all the signs of a colony determined to become self-sufficient as quickly as possible.
The colonists' private lives also seemed to have been taken care of. The houses were simple but nice and seemed reasonably well-kept. There was a fair sprinkling of homes that looked unoccupied, but it was possible their owners were simply off at long-term jobs elsewhere on the planet, working the mines or forests or else renting scuba equipment to holiday-makers at Janga's Point. Nowhere in Imani City, not even in those half-empty neighborhoods, did I sense anything remotely resembling an atmosphere of defeat, as one of the more effusive commentators had dubbed it.
Not, that is, until we reached Zumurrud District.
If the reporters had come to New Tigris looking for doom and gloom—and knowing reporters, I had no doubt that they had—this was definitely where they'd spent most of their time. The houses here, which had probably started life as nice as those in the rest of the city, were showing the signs of severe neglect. Worse, there were a surprising number whose broken windows and carved graffiti showed complete abandonment. The handful of shops had security grates on windows and doors, and there seemed to be at least twice as many taverns decorating the street corners as I'd spotted elsewhere in the city.
There were also a lot more people on the streets. Some of them were walking purposefully along, but there were a goodly number who were merely sitting or standing in small groups, clustered together on doorsteps or leaning on lampposts. The groups seemed self-segregated by age, with one block's loiterers consisting of bitter- faced middle-aged men, while the next block's were composed mostly of teenagers.
There were few women in evidence in any of the groups. Possibly they were gathered inside the houses instead, looking as bitter or depressed as the men. Or maybe the majority of the women had long since moved out of the neighborhood.
'All this in only twenty years?' Bayta murmured as we walked past another group, this one composed of bitter-eyed men in their mid-twenties.
'It's actually worse than that,' I said. Like the other groups we'd passed, the men here had broken off their conversation as we approached, gazing at us with the odd expressions of people who wanted to be suspicious of the strangers but weren't sure we were worth even that much effort. 'It's probably really only ten years of decay, not a full twenty. The first ten years would have been filled with typical mad-dash government activity and excitement. Hordes of new colonists being brought in, buildings and businesses going up, industries started, and everyone as optimistic as hell.'
'What happened?'
'What happened was the same thing that happened with all the colonies,' I told her, feeling a quiet pang of sympathy for these people who'd been casually brushed aside when the governmental winds changed direction. I knew exactly how they felt. 'The initial push wound down, the UN brought all the temporary workers back home, and all the extra torchliners they'd rented for the big push were flown to the Tube, disassembled, and packed back aboard Quadrail cargo cars. Suddenly the colony found itself basically ignored while the UN started pouring its money and attention into the newest rage to catch its eye.'
Bayta shivered. 'Yandro,' she murmured.
'In this case, yes, it was Yandro,' I confirmed. 'But it could have been anything that caught the bureaucratic imagination. Regardless, New Tigris suddenly found itself in the position of a jilted girlfriend. All alone, the gravy train dried up, and with a couple of wheezing modified torchferries her only contact with her former boyfriend.'
'But the colonists must have expected something like that would happen eventually.'
'I doubt the plan was any big secret,' I said. 'And to be fair, most of the people here don't seem to have been all that bothered by it.' I looked at a group of four teenagers idly tossing a small ball back and forth by one of the broken-windowed houses ahead. 'Unfortunately, others just gave up. Interesting.'
'What's interesting?'
'That group propping up the front of the bar,' I said, nodding toward a tavern a couple of doors past the four teens where a half-dozen men were idling around the doorway. 'Notice anything unusual about them?'
'In this neighborhood?' Bayta countered.
'I'm serious,' I said. 'Note the age range. Everywhere else it's been teens or middle-aged or whatever. Very age-segregated. But the group up there has a teen, a young adult, two thirty-somethings, and that white-haired man has to be at least sixty.'
Bayta digested that for a couple more steps. 'And you think that's significant?'
'I have no idea,' I said. 'But it makes me curious enough to want to check it out. You thirsty?'
She sighed. 'Do I have a choice?'
'Sure,' I said. 'You can wait outside.'
'In that case, I'm thirsty.'
'Good. Let's get something to drink.'
