Dante's Equation Part 36

"What? Where?"

"He was trying to distribute pamphlets downtown. Only got a handful out before giving up- monitors came across a bag of 'em. They must have been close to the mothered sc.u.m, made him dump and run. We should thank the G.o.ds. It would have been our heads if those pamphlets had gotten around."

Pol eyes swept Gyde's desk. "Where are they?"

"Lab." Gyde's eyes were heavy and slow on Pol's face. Or maybe it was Pol's imagination. He was aware of the old soldier's almost unconscious use of such tactics to intimidate, like the occasional glint of steel in his eyes. Now Gyde draped an arm around Pol's shoulders, fatherly. "I thought we could check out some construction sites while we wait for them."

Pol smiled and slipped from under Gyde's arm to pick up the envelope. He put it in a pocket. "Excellent idea, cla.s.smate. Lead on."

The construction site was downtown, twelve blocks from Victory Square. The foreman, a Bronze 2, snapped to life when they appeared, eager to tell two distinguished Silvers anything they wanted to know.

The black paint was stored with all other construction materials in a chain mail cage that was locked at night. The foreman had never heard of any cages being broken into. Pol made a note to have Research check for incidents citywide.

But the look Gyde gave him, and his own reasoning, said they wouldn't find anything. If no cages had been broken into, then their terrorist was making away with the paint during the day. They could see for themselves that under the watchful eyes of the supervisors an obvious interloper would be noticed. Who, then, had casual access to the materials? Only someone who worked on such a site.

"An Iron's not going to walk off with a can of paint undetected," Gyde said to Pol.

"The Irons take nothing off-site," the foreman a.s.sured them. "They're looked over as they leave."

"He could put it into a smaller container," Pol suggested, "something easily smuggled out."

"Unlikely. They're not that smart." Gyde turned back to the foreman. "Besides Irons who else is on a construction site?"

"The foremen are Bronze, as are the architects, masons, and inspectors."

Pol was watching some of the Irons. They were lifting heavy stone blocks with pulleys. Sweaty work. They were suited to it: drab, dark, smelly, hairy. He didn't see this level of Irons very often. The ones in public service were the nicer ones. Almost a third of these poor animals had some kind of minor deformity-a twisted ear, a split palate, a drooping eye. Mongrels.

Pol clenched his hands at his side. He wasnot one of these.

When they were alone, Pol said, "I don't think we can completely eliminate an Iron. Not yet."

Gyde pursed his lips. "Irons don't read and write. Not this cla.s.s, anyway. House servants maybe, but not these."

"What if our suspect was a house slave who got demoted? It's possible, particularly since our friend has a problem with authority."

"What would you suggest, my tenacious partner?"

"There." Pol pointed to a long, unattractive apartment building. Clearly Iron housing, it was as modest and inst.i.tutional as the state produced, painted a leaden gray like the clouds. Gyde's expression was one of contemplated misery.

"We should look while we're here," Pol said flatly. "It might trigger an idea."

Gyde shot him a look that said he felt this was as fertile a use of time as the Archives had been. "I'll give it twenty minutes. You realize we can have Research check for any Iron construction workers in the city who can read and write?"

"We should do that as well." Pol headed for the housing.

What was he looking for? For the thirty-some years that were missing from his brain? He wasn't sure, but he had learned not to ask questions and this was one way of avoiding them. Even though he'd spent time as a household Iron, he really knew little about this cla.s.s. Instead of asking, he would see for himself. Thoroughness was a good cover for ignorance.

From the look on Gyde's face as they entered the building it occurred to Pol that his partner might know even less about Irons than he did.

The interior smelled putrid. It was the kind of stench Pol had become unaccustomed to in his short time in the privileged world of the Silvers. It smelled of the sweat of despair, the self-loathing of the unwashed. The narrow cement hallways were empty except for bundles of rags here and there that turned out to be children. Some of the apartment doors stood open, and as Gyde and Pol moved silently from floor to floor, Pol could see why. The apartments were tiny boxes, filled with the discarded trash that Irons used as clothes, furniture, or household items and crowded with bodies, even now, when the majority of the Irons were at work.

Pol, who insisted on stepping through the open doors and glancing around, saw no signs of literacy, no signs of any mentality that could calculate, plan, sneak past guards, or formulate obscure theories worth writing on walls. They might as well have been monkeys for all the intelligence he saw. And there was something else that bothered him.

"Children," he said to Gyde with a disapproving tone. They were peering into one apartment where a dark-headed baby was attached to a startled female's breast. Two others, toddler age, were playing listlessly on the floor.

Trick number two in avoiding detection: if you must ask a question, don't phrase it as such; simply open the topic for discussion.

"Disgusting isn't it? They let them breed at will, this cla.s.s. It's their mortality rate. Can't even procreate right." Gyde, who did not appreciate having to be here in the first place, let his abhorrence fully vent. "I've heard half of 'em are born monsters. Have to kill 'em right out of the womb. Racial garbage. Besides, you know the state-they always need more slaves."

They were four stories up when the air-raid sirens went off: jolting, the way they always were, no matter how many times you heard them. Sometimes Pol heard them even when they weren't there.

"Scarp!" Gyde cursed.

From all sides, Irons flooded the halls. Gyde and Pol were caught in a panicked stampede. There was no time to get out of the building, to search for another shelter. They were trapped in a crowd that pushed through the narrow corridors and stairwells like a tide through a funnel, going down, down, down.

The bombs began to hit as they reached the cellar. Someone lit a lantern.

Pol could feel Gyde next to him, muscles stiff as a ramrod. In the flickering light, the old warrior's eyes were closed: closed against the sight, wishfully closed against the smell, of a hundred terrified Irons, panting, rank, braying, groaning, moaning. The light flickered in and out. The bombs were close. Then they werevery close. The building shook. Dust was in the air-from the ceiling, walls, corridor, coating Pol's throat.

How easily it could happen: a ceiling collapsed and you were trapped under a ton of rubble. If you were lucky, you died in the first few minutes. If you were not, you lived for days in the crus.h.i.+ng dark until done in by your wounds, by starvation and thirst. It happened every day in Centalia. It was as common as rain.

Trapped with a hundred Irons in a cramped bas.e.m.e.nt during a bad air raid-it was a Silver's worst nightmare.

The bombs drew closer and Pol found himself flat on the ground. Through the clogging dust that was the first round of liquefaction of the building he was in, Pol saw a female not far from him. She was huddled over a bundle, her face looking upward plaintively, as though to hold the ceiling in place. The bundle in her arms s.h.i.+fted and stretched. Coverings parted to reveal a young boy-bare from his waist to his toes, struggling against his mother's frightened grip. He was wailing, but Pol's ears were ringing with the sound of the explosions.

They must be hitting next door. The enemy loved to hit construction sites. That was another reason that hardly anyone but Irons worked them and perhaps why the state was so low on slaves.

The boy's right foot was clubbed, a fleshy ma.s.s. If the state had let him live they were desperate for warm bodies. The mother felt his struggles, reached down, and gathered his arms around her neck, pulling him to sitting. He was two or three years old. He clung to her, looking at Pol. His thumb went into his mouth. Staring eyes.Mother.

Something came surging across the chasm. He had been held like that once, hadn't he? He'd had a mother. She . . . She had left him before he was very old, he was pretty sure, because his memories of her were faint, but he'd had one. In a house, a private home, she had held him in just such a way. And then later there had been a father. Hate flared in his heart. Yes, he was very sure there had been a father.

But the lives of Silvers were dedicated to the state: they didn't have wives, homes, children, mothers, fathers.

He buried his face in his forearms. If this scarping noise didn't stop he would kill someone!

"Get up!" Gyde said. Pol felt a toe in his side, nudging. "What's the matter with you? Are you hurt?"

Pol looked up. The Irons were shuffling from the room. The air raid was over. Gyde wanted out at all costs, was going to leave him here in a minute if he didn't move.

Outside, the air was hazy with dust. Gyde might have upbraided Pol for making him go in that h.e.l.lish place except for the fact that right in front of them the construction site-where they'd been standing minutes ago-was a smoking pile of beams and steel and the occasional b.l.o.o.d.y limb of a construction worker.

Gyde looked at the site briefly, rubbed his reddened eyes. "If that scarping terrorist dies before we catch him and I lose my merits . . . !"

The very thought-that the terrorist might die in just such an air raid, that they might never know any more about him, might never solve the case-caused Pol to feel very upset as well.

There are aliens among us.

"Let's wash up and get out of here," Gyde said gruffly. He headed for a spigot on the side of the building.

"The water line might be down. Let's just get back to the station." Gyde turned the spigot. Water came out. He shot Pol a look and removed his coat. "Come on. We're filthy from that place. I don't want you getting it in the car."

Theywere filthy. The dust darkened the water that sluiced off Gyde's hands. Pol could feel it clogging his pores, coating his hair, even his eyelashes.d.a.m.n. It must be matting on the blue makeup at his temples.

Gyde rolled up his sleeves, revealing his corded, hairless forearms. He rubbed his hands and face in the stream: "What are you waiting for? Let's go!" Pol went over to the spigot reluctantly. Put his hands in the flow.

"You're going to get your sleeves wet," Gyde said with exasperation.

Pol shook the water from his fingers, face hard. "It's the smell of blood, too many memories. I just want to get out of here."

To the Citizens of Centalia Some secrets lead to destruction. Let it be known then: there are other realities beyond this planet. I have been in contact with aliens, beings from other worlds. I have been taken to those worlds. These aliens have advanced technology. If they choose (maybe I should say when they choose. . . ) they will take all power from us and enslave us (every citizen . . . ). This is a warning. They are already here. Their spies have infiltrated our society from the lowest levels to the highest ranks of our government. These aliens are in disguise and they are almost impossible to detect. (I know how, but I cannot speak for obvious reasons.) We must unite, in secret, to save ourselves. Do not trust the State. TRUST NO ONE. The pamphlet was signed on the back page with the open circle with the bar on top, the "signature"

they'd seen on the wall. Gyde was gleeful. "The more this sc.u.m dares, the easier it will be to find him and the more merits we'll get when we bring him down!"

Pol almost said "ifwe bring him down," but he bit it back. Gyde's confidence made him angry. He didn't know why. He wanted to find the terrorist, but that wasn't the same thing as wantingGyde to find him.

"He has access to a copier and supplies. The lab is checking now on the paper. . . ."

Gyde went on. Pol shut him out. He shut out the anger, too, and his own confusion. One thing at a time. When your mind was wounded you had to grasp reality one fistful at a time. He tried to focus on the pamphlet's message. He read it over several times, waiting for it to stick. Suddenly the paper was shaking in his hands.

It took him a moment to realize it. Meanwhile he stood there, shaking. He put the paper down carefully and made his way past Gyde with what he believed was a stony face, heading into the service room down the hall. For once it was empty, thank the G.o.ds.

It was his scarping hands. They were trembling, the traitors. He stuck them under his armpits, leaned forward from the waist, squeezing them tight, and his eyes, too.

Their spies have infiltrated our society.

He had opened the letter from the Department of Health. Gyde was right. It was his yearly physical, scheduled for one month hence. No, it was the yearly physical of Pol 137, scheduled for one month hence. Pol 137 would not be showing up.

Had he known about the physicals when he killed the Silver? No. He had thought of many things: of the hair color and the eyes, of removing the head and hands. The Silver had been just what he'd needed. Pol 137 had come to Marcus for some black-market hooch, and he'd mentioned that he was leaving the next day for Centalia and had Marcus ever been there? Kalim N2 had slipped from the house and followed the das.h.i.+ng officer, had later broken into his hotel room and found the letters of commission. He'd been retired from active battle duty, rea.s.signed as monitor, detective cla.s.s, in Centalia. Kalim had made up his mind instantly. He knew it was dangerous and chances were high that he would be caught. But at the time, he thought he would rather die than remain a servant. Perhaps he had not been thinking clearly after all. Craftily but not clearly.

He had not counted on the physicals. But even if he had thought about them, would it have made any difference? He tried to think back. He remembered wondering if he and Pol 137 were the same blood type.

He wanted to laugh, gripping his stomach. The same blood type! He couldn't even roll up his sleeves or pull out his d.i.c.k in public! What would they find in his scarpingveins ?

In the cafeteria over lunch, Gyde was still going on about the pamphlet. He puzzled over a copy while eating his soup. " 'I have been in contact with aliens, beings from other worlds,'" he quoted. "What a lunatic."

"Perhaps that's the angle," Pol said. "Can we check records of anyone with known mental disturbances?"

Gyde gave him a peculiar look. "Not much tolerance for that."

Meaning, Pol understood, that mental deviants simply "disappeared." There would be no such records.

"Any other ideas?" Gyde prompted.

"We've eliminated Irons. What if he's higher than a Bronze?"

"Scarp! No Silver or Gold is gong to hang around construction sites. Besides, this sociopath is too sick to be from the upper cla.s.ses."

Pol didn't respond, but he must have looked unconvinced. "No Silver or Gold is going to think up scarp like this! When he wrote the other messages I thought he was talking about foreign spies. But aliens fromother planets ? By the blood, what doesthatmean?"

Pol looked at the pamphlet, a reflective finger stroking his lip. "Who ever heard of such a thing?" Gyde insisted, requiring an answer. Pol's cold blue eyes looked into Gyde's. He could sense s.h.i.+fting sand under his feet. "Have you ever heard of such a thing?" Gyde asked. "No." "Everyone knows there are only four planets and ours is the only one capable of sustaining life." The finger stroking Pol's lips faltered. "You've . . ." Gyde lowered his voice, "you've never heard of Bronzies being taught anything different, have you?" His baffled tone suggested that the state would certainly be capable of teaching the Bronze cla.s.s something else-anything else-if it was in their best interests to do so. "Not to my knowledge."

Gyde shook his head in disgust. "It had to come from somewhere. This slag can't bethat original." "There was nothing about aliens in the Archives." And now Pol realized how odd that was. The "aliens" search had yielded not one word about extraterrestrials in the Archives, not even a claim from the state that such things didn't exist.

"It came from somewhere." Gyde's eyes glinted with calculation.

The communal library at the dorm was empty. Only a few older Silvers were spending their evening in the lounge through the open archway. Pol scanned the bookcases of state-sanctioned t.i.tles and found what he was looking for-a book on astronomy.

He took it to a big leather chair and sat down. The lamp beside him cast a rosy glow. He thumbed through the pages and found a large color chart at the center of the book.

There: the sun and around it in elliptical orbits . . . four planets. Recalia, this planet, was the closest to the sun. Beyond it, cold and lifeless, were three smaller planets. None of the planets had any moons. And around this small solar system was a black encircling dome, affixed with pinpoints of light that were meant to be the stars. And that was all.

In the comfortable library, a fire not all that far away, Pol s.h.i.+vered.Bulls.h.i.+t, he thought, a word from his old language.Bulls.h.i.+t.

Why would the state teach this? It was wrong, all wrong. He didn't know how he knew this, but he knew. It was part of that embedded knowledge inside him. It was like a strange conviction he had that the sun ought to s.h.i.+ne, that he ought to be able to look up and see blue sky, at least once in a while. For the longest time, he had thought the weather was simply terrible, kept waiting for the dense cloud cover to break. Finally he'd asked one of the Irons at Marcus's house,Is it always like this ? They'd thought he was crazy when he said the sun was visible where he came from, that there were such things a.s.sunny days. There was also the certainty that things wereheavier than they should be. At first, he took it for a symptom of his illness, but after that pa.s.sed, he still retained a conviction, sometimes when he had to step up onto a bus or pick up something simple, like a pen, that everything weighed more than it was supposed to.

Now this. He stared at the chart for a long time, as if it might trigger something in his brain, something, no matter how small and forgotten, that might enable him to fit the pieces into a reasonable pattern. Instead, the longer he looked at the chart the more that chasm in his brain solidified, deepened, yawned, threatened to suck him down into its icy darkness until at last he snapped the book shut.

In his bathroom he propped the chair against the door and ran the shower. He removed his clothes and stood under the water, the dust of the air raid was.h.i.+ng down the drain. He could feel something hard inside him; maybe it was his will or maybe something he couldn't even name, but he felt it s.h.i.+ft, break, collapse, and wash away like the dirt down the drain. And for the first time since Marcus had picked him from that battlefield he cried, deep, shuddering wracks, shaking until the warmth softened his muscles to limpness.

16.2. Sixty-Forty Denton Wyle

Denton dreamed of people screaming in the night. When he awoke, the Sapphian village was quiet all around him. He was spooked enough that he got up and stepped out of the hut into the village common. It was quiet. Everything looked peaceful. The large wood bonfire in the center of the circle was low and hot like a bed of coals. He went back to bed.

In the morning he slept late and missed the work crews. The day was long and dull and he could not even find John in the afternoon to shoot the breeze or go for a swim. He looked, too. And asked around. No one had seen him.

That night, at the Sat.u.r.day Night Special, John's name was among those announced in the circle.

Denton was standing in the crowd when he heard it. He had, in fact, just been scanning the crowd for John, and not for the first time that evening. He froze, his hands folded politely in front of him.

Denton knew it was John's name, John'sreal name. He knew that Sapphians did not often, if ever, share the same name. And John's absence now took on an ominous meaning. He had never seen the boy miss a gathering like this one. Something was majorly wrong.

And then Denton remembered that he did not really know the purpose of the list. He'd tried to find out, but maybe not hard enough, because suddenly the fact that he did not know seemed lazy and horribly, horribly unwise.

Denton scanned the crowd again, as if to change the message his ears had heard. His gaze stopped upon an apparently inconsolable cl.u.s.ter of females-John's mother and sisters. He worked his way over there, trying to keep it together. They were hanging on one another in a kind of ball of limbs and tears. Denton tugged on one, disentangling her with more force than he had intended, but he was upset, d.a.m.n it. Hemade her look at him. "Where's John?"

She gaped at him with confused hurt, as if he were purposefully being mean. Then she started wailing again and turned back to her family.