Some of the urgency had seeped out of that claim over the centuries, during which time Elsewhere had remained so inviolate that one might question whether the Hobbs Land Gods knew or cared it was there. Considering that Elsewhere had been set up and populated in secret, this was not astonishing. Still, Elsewhere had indisputably been designed as a refuge, and from the moment the first fleeing groups arrived to settle provinces of their own, each one was guaranteed the uninterrupted continuance of its own language and religion and customs and dress and anything else it considered important. Elsewhere, managed by Council Supervisory, was designed to insure the immemorial diversity of man.
Council Supervisory had made the rules to start with, and they had not changed since.
No province would be allowed to cross its own borders to infringe upon another or to make common cause with another to infringe upon a third; evangelism across borders was forbidden along with treaties and alliances; travel and trade were allowed, within limits; and any and all groups would be welcome so long as they let one another alone!
If provinces did not leave one another alone, if a Situation arose, Council Enforcers would be sent to Attend the Situation. Enforcers might go winging or striding or riding some ancient, patient animal; they might go singly or in groups of hundreds; they might carry simple weapons or a complex armamentarium. However they went, the Situation was always Attended to. Provinces on Elsewhere really did Let One Another Alone. If they would not do it on their own, the Council Enforcers made sure they did it anyhow.
One such Council Enforcer was Zasper Ertigon, who at a certain point in his career found himself in the city of Molock. The city was the capital of a province also called Molock, on the continent of Panubi, which was well settled around the edges but otherwise largely unexplored. Zasper had been in the city for a few days on routine Council business that was almost concluded. After checking out his vehicle and while waiting for his colleagues, he’d given in to thirst if not to the pleasure of the company, and now occupied a tottery stool in a ramshackle shelter near the vehicle park, drinking what passed locally for ale in company with a local guard officer.
“Goin’ home now?” the sweating guard asked him, belching voluminously.
Zasper nodded, holding his breath against the noxious emanation and fingering the thick braid of slightly graying hair that signified his rank and status. “Back to Tolerance,” he acknowledged, meaning the quasi-city on the polar plateau that was headquarters to Council Supervisory and all its works. “We’ll leave as soon as my colleagues arrive.” Actually, the persons he had conveyed to Molock were not colleagues, that is, not Council Enforcers. They were Council technicians charged with maintaining the ubiquitous monitors that speckled every province like seeds on a bun, but it was Council policy that all technicians be escorted by and treated as Enforcers when on duty out in the field. Zasper wasn’t Else-where’s greatest pilot and he found escort duty dull; but when ordered to do it, he did it.
“Tol’rance your home?” the guard persisted.
Zasper shook his head. “No,” he admitted. “I’m from Enarae originally.”
“What category’s that?” the officer wanted to know.
“Category seven,” Zasper replied. Category one was untouched wilderness and category ten was quintessential tech, so a rating of seven meant only a little better than halfway civilized, which was a comedown for people who originated in sea-girt Phansure, once home for the galaxy’s preeminent engineers. Or so Zasper had been taught as a boy in school. Molock was only category four. Molock was primitive and, in Zasper’s privately held opinion, barbaric. Enforcers weren’t supposed to have private opinions about provinces, but many of them did.
“What’s it like in Tol’rance?” the guard officer asked.
Zasper drank deeply and stared toward the fireglow of Molock city, ruddy against the overhanging cloud, trying to come up with something that would be both permissible and inoffensive. When he thought of Tolerance, he thought of the Great Rotunda, where Council Supervisory policed and protected the varied remnants of humanity, where the monitors clicked and chuffed and whirred and now and then beeped, as they had been designed to do, bringing scurrying minions to see what each and every beep portended. When Zasper thought of Tolerance, he thought of obsessive attention given to cleanliness, no escape from boredom, and an excess of piddly little customs that didn’t mean anything. He also thought of comfort, marvelous food, and quite outstanding drinkables.
But he couldn’t talk about that. So, he fell back on geographical details, told in dull generalities, while he swallowed more of the tasteless ale and wished he were either drinking back in Tolerance or out Attending to something urgent.
Though Zasper didn’t know it, the something urgent was present, just across the landing field where two persons and a child huddled in the darkness outside the circling fence. The child’s name was Danivon Luze. The two adults were his parents, Cafferty and Latibor. They had given Danivon something to make him quiet and a little sleepy.
“It’s there,” Danivon’s mother said, staring through the fence at the bulky Council vehicle, parked not far from the gate. “But so are the guards.”
“Wait,” whispered Danivon’s father. “They just finished a circuit. In a minute they’ll go in the hut. They always do. They spend most of the night in there gambling and drinking with their officer. Every night I’ve watched them it’s been the same….”
“Yes, but the Enforcer’s in there!”
He raised his head and sniffed the air, like an animal testing for predators. “It won’t matter. They won’t let that bother them.”
“It has to be tonight,” Danivon’s mother murmured, the softness of her voice barely holding the hysteria that bubbled just below the surface. “It has to be tonight.”
“Cafferty, I know,”
