them. Tuberculosis, smallpox, measles and all sorts of things with strange Latin names…’
‘The plague years,’ Marje said.
‘Exactly. Carradine’s company, BioCarr, developed the next generation of antibiotics that attacked the bugs at the genetic level. He was already rich and powerful through BioCarr at the time — he fed the world and he helped cure SuperAIDS — but after that he was one of the most powerful men in the world. That’s all in the Fallow Age, of course. Mr Asaldra went to see him when he was just starting to flex his muscles.’
‘Perhaps he went to observe?’ Marje said.
‘Hardly. The database says these are the co-ordinates for his actual office. Unless he was out taking a whiz, your friend must have appeared right in front of him.’
‘You’re being frivolous.’
‘I am not.’ Rico’s face was cold and thoughtful. This, Marje thought suddenly, was the other Garron. Not the boy in a man’s body that she had been becoming used to. Give him something worth taking seriously and this was what happened.
‘So what is it?’ she said, almost afraid of the answer.
‘The main BioCarr site was excavated a few years ago. They found… well, things. By the end of his career, Carradine wasn’t bothering with smart viruses and super crops. His clients wanted people who can breathe underwater, or live in a vacuum. He never provided successful models but it didn’t stop him trying. I can’t help wondering where he got his technology from…’
‘Oh God,’ Marje said. She saw from his face that there was more. ‘And?’
‘Just a feeling,’ Rico said, ‘but remember, I was a Specific. I’m trained to be suspicious.’
‘Suspicious about… ?’
‘Commissioner Daiho.’
‘Oh, for goodness sake!’ Marje exclaimed. She threw up her hands. ‘You’re going too far. The Commissioner died of an aneurysm, that’s been established.’
‘They can be induced, and there wasn’t much of him left to conduct an autopsy on.’ Marje opened her mouth to object: Rico interrupted. ‘No! Listen!’ More quietly: ‘I’m dealing with facts, that’s all. An aneurysm can kill you on the spot. What it can’t do is lift you up and chuck you twenty feet through the air, because that’s what must have happened for the agravs not to catch the body.’
Marje opened her mouth again. Her mind had simply been cruising on the assumption that Daiho’s death had been an accident and anything that said otherwise was nonsense. But she knew conviction when she saw it, and that was what was on Rico’s face.
‘Social preparation would prevent anyone from doing that,’ she said, ‘assuming they were strong enough in the first place.’
‘ ‘Tals could do it, and they don’t have social preparation.’
‘ ‘Tals need to be told what to do, by one of us. Social preparation would prevent that from happening.’
‘Not if the person telling them what to do was a former Field Op,’ Rico said quietly. ‘Especially not one who still works for the College and therefore has access to the ‘tals in the first place.’
Marje had gone pale. ‘Hossein has a tame ‘tal as a servant…’
‘There you are,’ Rico said, as if that solved everything.
‘Perhaps Commissioner Daiho learned your friend was using his name in vain, or—’
‘That’s enough!’ Marje said. ‘I’m sorry, this is suspicion and circumstantial evidence. I’m not going to convict Hossein Asaldra on a charge of murder in his absence. We stick with what we know, and that’s already got him into enough trouble.’
‘There’s an easy way to find out,’ Rico said.
‘Damn straight.’ Marje Orendal was a woman whose world had collapsed around her. She had taken a new job upon the death of a friend and had thought herself surrounded by like-minded professionals, serving the College and the Home Time. And now she discovered that at least one of those like-minded professionals was casually engaged in activities that blew the code by which she ran her life to pieces. She had reached her decision: no more meekly sitting back and letting the others run her life for her. ‘I’m hiring you full-time,’ she said. ‘I want you to locate Hossein Asaldra, bring him back here and find out just what the hell is happening.’
SIXTEEN
Jontan, grinning, crept up behind Sarai who was crouched next to one of the culture regulators, peering into its innards. He pounced forwards and covered her eyes.
‘Guess who?’
She shrugged him off. ‘Leave it, Jon.’ She didn’t even look round.
He retreated, wounded. ‘I thought…’
‘Jon, I know. I just… I just need time to think, OK?’ She snapped her fingers at the toolkit. ‘Pass me a joiner.’
He mutely obeyed and crouched down a few feet away; close enough to enjoy her presence and make himself useful when required, far enough to be only on the fringes of the zone of hostility. And he could think happy thoughts of when they had been closer. Still not as close as he might have liked, but closer than ever before. Just a few hours ago.
But not today. It had started with the silence at breakfast, which he had put down to the continuing frostiness from Mr Scott, but even during the day when Mr Scott wasn’t present there had been a growing chill between them.
He had just been happy that they seemed to be getting it right at last. It was all so straightforward for him — why couldn’t it be for her? Why did she need this ‘time to think’? He shook his head. He would never understand.
Waking up with limbs like lead and a clogged head hadn’t helped. At breakfast, to his surprise, Mr Scott and Mr Daiho had looked fairly hung over too. Maybe some antediluvian germ had got into the food, but he had had the strange sense that the night had been full of activity which he just couldn’t remember.
Something shimmered in the corner of his eye and he blinked as something seemed to cloud his concentration for a moment. What was… where was…
He shook his head to clear it, glanced up, then quickly jumped to his feet.
‘Sa…’
Sarai looked up over the top of the regulator, then shot to her feet herself. The man standing in the middle of the lounge was in College dress, and the College was the last place they had seen him; or rather, deep beneath the College, as the doors of the transference chamber closed. He looked at them.
‘Get me Mr Scott or Mr Daiho, now,’ he said.
‘What the hell are you doing here?’ Mr Scott shouted.
‘I couldn’t help it.’ The newcomer, Mr Asaldra, was flushed and ran a finger round his collar as he spoke. ‘Marje Orendal was on the point of finding out about us.’
‘Who’s she, and how?’
‘She was my designated successor,’ Mr Daiho said calmly. ‘But the how, Hossein?’
‘I don’t know what alerted her but she’s got a Field Op working for her. I saw him on one of my trips but I didn’t recognize him until now.’
(Their personal differences forgotten, Sarai and Jontan were working side by side on the regulator with only half their minds on the task. Listening to their betters falling out was much more interesting. Jontan tightened the last valve, and they glanced at each other. Then he untightened it again, and they began methodically to undo all the work they had been putting in.)
‘Yul Ario was meant to be keeping an eye on that sort of thing,’ said Daiho.
‘This is a private arrangement.’
‘Oh, great!’ Scott exploded. ‘And by running, you’ve proved her suspicions!’
‘If they’d taken me in,’ Asaldra said, ‘they’d have got the plans out of my mind and this place would be swarming with Specifics come to take us home. Ario couldn’t sit on that. As it is — yes, they know something’s
