Serpent's Reach

  A second door lay beyond, similarly locked: they three stood within the narrow intervening space as the outer door boomed and sealed with a resounding noise of locks. Then Itavvy used his card on the second, and a wave of tainted air met them, a vastness of glaring lights and grey concrete; a web of catwalks.

  The scent was again that of antiseptic, compounded this time with something else. Itavvy would too obviously have been glad to close the door with that brief look, but Raen walked stubbornly ahead, moving Itavvy out before her—no beta would have the chance to slam a door at her back—and looked about her.

  Concrete, damp with antiseptic, and the stench of humanity and sewage.

  Pits. Brightly lit doorless pits, a bit of matting and one human in each, like larvae bestowed in chambered comb. Five paces by five, if that; no doors, no halls between the cells…only the grid of catwalks above, with machinery to move them, with an extended process of ladders which could, only if lowered, afford the occupants exit, and that only a few at a time.

  The whole stretched out of view around the curve of the building and far, far, across before them. Their steps echoed fearsomely on the steel grids. Faces looked up at them, only mildly curious.

  Raen looked the full sweep of it, sickened, deliberately inhaled the stench.

  “Are contracts on these available?”

  “For onworld use, sera.”

  “No export license.”

  “No, sera.”

  “I understand that a great number of azi have been confiscated from estates. But the contracts on those azi would be entangled. Where are they housed? Among these?”

  “There are facilities in the country.”

  “As elaborate as these?”

  Itavvy said nothing. Raen calculated for herself what manner of facilities could be constructed in the sparsely populated countryside, in haste, by a pressured corporation-government. These facilities must be luxurious by comparison.

  “Yet all of these,” she said, “are warehoused. Is that the right word?”

  “Essentially,” Itavvy whispered.

  “Are you still producing azi at the same rate?”

  “Sera, if only you would inquire with ITAK Central—I’m sure I don’t know the reasons of things.”

  “You’re quite satisfactory, ser Itavvy. Answer the question. I assure you of your safety to do so.”

  “I don’t know of any authorisation for change. I’m not over Embryonics. That’s another administration, round the other side, 51. Labour doesn’t get them until the sixth year. We haven’t had any less of that age coming in. I don’t think… I don’t think there can be any change. The order was to produce.”

  “Origin of that order?”

  “Kontrin licensing, sera.” The answer was a hoarse whisper. “Originally—we appealed for a moderate increase. The order came back quadrupled.”

  “In spite of the fact that there existed no Kontrin license to dispose of them when they reached eighteen. The export quota wasn’t changed”

  “We…trusted, sera, that the license would be granted when the time came. We’ve applied, sera. We’ve even applied for permission to terminate. We can’t do that either. The estates—were all crowded above their limits. They’re supposed to turn them back after a year, for training. But now—now they’re running their operations primarily to feed their own workers…and they’re panicked, refusing to give them up, the permanent workers and the temporaries.” Itavvy wiped at his face. “They divert food—to maintain the work force and it doesn’t get to the depots. Our food. The station’s food. ISPAK has threatened a power cutoff if the estates go on holding out, but ITAK has—reasoned with ISPAK. It wouldn’t stop the estate-holders. They have their own collectors, their own power. And they won’t give up the azi.”

  “Are the holders organised?”

  The beta shook his head. “They’re just outbackers. Blind, hardheaded outbackers. They hold the azi because they’re manpower; and they’re a means to hold out by human labour if ISPAK follows through with its threat. Always…always the farms were a part of the process; azi went out there in the finishing of their training and shifted back again, those that would be contracted for specialised work—good for the azi, good for the farms. But now, sera, the estates have been threatening to break out of the corporation.”

  “Hardly sounds as if these holders are blind, ser Itavvy…if it comes to a fight, they’ve the manpower.”

  “Azi.”

  “You don’t think they’d fight.”

  Beta deference robbed her of an honest answer. Itavvy swallowed whatever he would have said; but he looked as if he would have disputed it.

  “It hardly sounds as if they’re without communication on the issue,” Raen said, “since they’re all doing alike. Aren’t they?”

  “I wouldn’t know, sera.”

  “Only on East, or is West also afflicted?”

  Itavvy moistened his lips. “I think it’s general.”

  “Without organisation. Without a plan to keep themselves from starving.”

  “There’s already been work toward new irrigation. The river…that supplies Newhope…is threatened. They expand—”

  “Unlicensed.”

  “Unlicensed, sera. ITAK protests, but again-we can do nothing. They feud among themselves. They fight for land and water. There are—” He mopped at the back of his neck. “Maybe two and three holders get together. And azi…muddle up out there. They’re trading, these holders.”

  “Trading?”

  “With each other. Goods. Azi. Moving them from place to place”

  “You know so?”

  “Police say so. Azi—are more on some farms than we put there.”

  Raen looked over all the cells, as far as the eye could see. “Weapons?”

  “Holders—have always had them.”

  She walked forward, slowly, the little boxes shifting past. The ceiling weighed upon the senses. There was only grey and black and the white glare of light, no colour but the shades of humanity, all grey-clothed.

  “Why,” she asked suddenly, “are they walled off one from the other? Security?”

  “Each is specifically trained. Contact at random would make it more difficult to assure specificity.”

  “And you get them at six years? Is it different from this, the young ones?”

  The beta did not answer. At last he gave a vague shrug.

  “Show me,” Raen said.

  Itavvy started walking, around the curve. New vistas of cells presented themselves. The complex seemed endless. No walls were discernible, no limits, save a core where many catwalks converged, a vast concrete darkness against the floodlights.

  “Do they ever leave this place?” Raen asked as they walked above the cells, provoking occasional curious stares from those below. “Don’t they want for exercise?”

  “There are facilities,” the beta said, “by shifts.”

  “And factories. They work in the city factories?”

  “Those trained for it.” Perhaps Itavvy detected an edge to her voice. His grew defensive. “Six hours in the factories, two at exercise, two at deepstudy, then rest. We do the best we can under crowded circumstances, sera.”

  “And the infants?”

  “Azi care for them.”

  “By shifts. Six hours on, two of exercise?”

  “Yes, sera.”

  Their steps measured the metal catwalk another length. “But you’re not sending these out to the estates anymore. You’re more and more crowded week by week, and you’re not able to move them.”

  “We do what we can, sera.”

  They reached the core, and the lift. Itavvy used his card to open the door, and they stepped in. SEVEN, Itavvy pushed and the lift shot up with heart-dragging rapidity, set them out on that level with a crashing of locks and doors, echoes in vastness.

  It was otherwise silent.

  All these levels, she began to understand, all these levels were the same, endless cubicles, floor aft
er floor, the same. Seven above ground. Five below. And there was silence. All that space, all those cells, all that humanity, and there was nowhere a voice, nowhere an outcry.

  Itavvy led the way out onto the catwalk. Raen looked down. These were all small children, six, seven years. The faces upturned held mild curiosity, no more. There were no games, no occupations. They sat or lay on their mats. Same grey coveralls, same shaven heads, same grave faces. At this age, one could not even tell their sex.

  None cried, none laughed.

  “God,” she breathed, gripping the rail. Itavvy had stopped. She suddenly wanted out. She looked back. Jim stood at the rail, looking down. She wanted him out of this place, now, quickly.

  “Is there a door out on this level?” she asked, perfectly controlled. Itavvy indicated the way ahead with a gesture. Raen walked at his unhurried pace, hearing Jim following.

  “What’s the average contract price?” she asked.

  “Two thousand.”

  “You can’t produce them for anything near that cost.”

  “No,” said Itavvy. “We can’t.”

  It was a long walk. There was nothing to fill the silence. She would not hurry, would not betray her reaction, disturbing betas whose interests were involved in this operation, stirring apprehensions. Nor would she turn and look at Jim. She did not want to.

  They reached a door like the one on third—passed that and its mate into sterile halls and light and clean air. She breathed, breathed deeply. “I’ve seen what I came to see,” she said. “Thank you, ser Itavvy. Suppose now we go back to your office.”

  He hesitated, as if he thought of asking a question; and did not. They rode the lift to main, and walked the long distance back to the front offices, all in silence. Itavvy had the air of a worried man. Raen let him fret.

  And when they three stood once again in the beta’s office, with the door closed: “I have an estate,” Raen said, “ridiculously understaffed. And a security problem, which affords me no amusement at all. How many contracts are available here?”

  Itavvy’s face underwent a series of changes. “Surely enough to fill all your needs, Kontrin.”

  “The corporation does reward its people according to the profits their divisions show, doesn’t it? All these empty desks…this isn’t a local holiday, is it?”

  “No, sera.”

  Raen settled into a chair and Itavvy seated himself at his desk. Raen gestured to Jim, and he took the one beside her.

  “So,” she said. “And the number of contracts available for guard personnel, azi only?”

  The beta consulted the computer. “Sufficient, sera.”

  “The exact number, please.”

  “Two thousand forty-eight, sera, nineteen hundred nine hundred eighty-two males, rest females; nineteen hundred four under thirty years, rest above.”

  “Counting confiscated azi, or are these on the premises?”

  “On the premises.”

  “A very large number.”

  “Not proportionately, sera.”

  “Who usually absorbed them?”

  “Corporation offices. Estate-holders…it’s wild land out there.”

  “So a great number of those tangled contracts in custody in the country…would be guard-trained, wouldn’t they?”

  “A certain number, yes, sera.”

  Itavvy’s eyes were feverish; his lips trembled. He murmured his words. Raen reckoned the man, at last nodded.

  “I’ll buy,” she said, “all two thousand forty-eight. I also want sunsuits and sidearms. I trust an establishment which sends out guards sends them out equipped to work.”

  He moistened his lips. “Yes, sera, although some buyers have their own uniforms or equipment.”

  “You’ll manage.” She rose, walked about the office, to Itavvy’s extreme nervousness, the while she looked at the manuals on the counter by the comp unit. She looked up a number, memorised it, turned and smiled faintly. “I’ll take the others as fast as you can train them. Those tangled contracts…if you’ll check tomorrow, you’ll find the matter cleared and the contracts saleable. I trust you can quietly transfer azi from there to here as spaces become available.”

  “Sera—”

  “The children, ser Itavvy. However do you substitute for—human contact? Do tapes supply it all?”

  Itavvy wiped at his lips. “At every minute stage of development…deepstudy tapes, yes, sera. The number of individuals, the economics…it would be virtually impossible for a private individual to have the time, the access to thousands of programs developed over centuries to accomplish this—”

  “Eighteen years to maturity. No way to speed that process, is there?”

  “For some purposes—they leave before eighteen.”

  “Majat azi.”

  “Yes.”

  “And moving them out without programming—as they are—”

  “Chaos. Severe personality derangements.”

  She said nothing to that, only looked at him, at Jim, back again. “And more than the two thousand forty-eight…how long does it take for training? On what scale can it be done?”

  “Minimally…a few days.” Itavvy shuffled the papers spread across his desk, an action which gave him excuse to look elsewhere. “All channels could be turned to the same tapestudy—easier than doing it otherwise. But the legalities—the questions that would be raised on this world—they’d have to be moved, shipped, and ISPAK—”

  “You know, ser Itavvy, that your loyalty is to ITAK. But ITAK is a Kontrin creation. You are aware then of a-higher morality. If I were to give you a certain—favour, if I were to ask your silence in return for that, and certain further co-operations, you would realise that this was not disloyalty to ITAK, but loyalty to the source of ITAK’s very license to function.”

  The beta wiped at his face and nodded, the papers forgotten, his eyes fever-bright. He looked at her now. There was no possibility of divided attention.

  “I’m creating an establishment,” she said very softly, “a permanent Kontrin presence, do you see? And such an establishment needs personnel. When this process is complete, when the training is accomplished as I wish, then I shall still need reliable personnel at other levels.”

  “Yes, sera,” he breathed.

  “The great estates, you see, these powers with their massed forces of azi—this thing which you so earnestly insist has no organisation—could be handled without bloodshed, by superior force. Peace would come to Istra. You see what a cause you serve. A solution, a solution, ser, which would well serve ITAK. You realise that I have power to license, being in fact the total Kontrin presence: I can authorise export on the levels you need. I’m prepared to do so, to rescue this whole operation, if I receive the necessary co-operation from certain key individuals.”

  The man was trembling, visibly. He could not control his hands. “I am not, then, to contact my superiors.”

  She shook her head slowly. “Not if you plan to enjoy your life, ser. I am extremely cautious about security.”

  “You have my utmost co-operation.”

  She smiled bleakly, having found again the measure of betas. “Indeed, ser, thank you. Now, there’s an old farm on B-branch, just outside the city, registered to a new owner, one ser Isan Tel. You’ll manage to find some azi of managerial function, the best: its housecomp has instructions for them. Can you find such azi?”

  Itavvy nodded.

  “Excellent. All you can spare of them, and all of the guard-azi but two hundred males that I want transferred to my own estate…go to the establishment of Isan Tel. Provisioned and equipped. Can you do it?”

  “We—can, yes.”

  She shook her head. “No plural. You. You will tend every detail personally. The rumour, if it escapes, will tell me precisely who let it escape; and if there is fault in the training—I need not say how I would react to that, ser. You would be quite, quite dead. On the other hand, you can become a very wealthy man…wealthy and secure. In addition to the other co
ntracts, I want half a dozen domestics to my address; and ser Tel’s estate will need a good thirty to care for the guard-azi. Possible?”

  Itavvy nodded.

  “Ser Itavvy, after today, an identity will be established, one ser Merek Sed. He will be a very wealthy man, with properties on several worlds, with trade license, and an account in intercomp, a number I shall give you. You will be that individual. He will be a creator. of art. I shall purchase art for the decoration of my house…and so will ser Isan Tel. Be discreet at first, ser Itavvy. Too ostentatious a display of your new wealth would raise fatal questions. But if you are clever—Merek Sed can retire in great comfort. You have family, ser Itavvy?”

  He nodded again, breathing with difficulty. “Wife. A daughter.”

  “They also can be built into Merek Sed’s identity. Untraceable. Only you and I know how he was born. Once off Istra, utterly safe. I will put your wife and daughter into those records too, and give you their new citizen numbers…at a price.”

  “What—price?”

  “Loyalty. To me. Discretion. Absolute.” She tore off a sheet from a notepad and picked up a pen, wrote three numbers. “The first is a number by which you can contact me. Do so tomorrow. The second is the citizen number of ser Merek Sed. The third is an account number which will provide you an earnest of things to come. Use only cash-machines, no credit purchases…don’t patronise the same store repeatedly. Create no patterns and don’t let others know how much your fortunes have improved. Recall that if you’re suspected, the consequences to me are mere annoyance; to you…rather more serious. For your family also. I can defend myself from my annoyances. But I fear that they would devour others, ser Itavvy.” She held up the paper.

  He took it.

  “The delivery,” she said, “of the guards for my house…today?”

  “Yes.”

  “And all equipage with them?”

  “Yes. That can be arranged. We have warehouse access.”

  “And the transfer of the azi to the Tel estate?”

  “Will begin today, sera. I could suggest an abbreviated training, if only the use of arms is required, and not specialised security—”

  “Hastening the program?”

  “Hastening it by half, Kontrin.”