Beyond Heaven's River

“Yes?”

  “You seem to be provisional owner. Can they land?”

  “Of course.”

  The pilot handed a tapas insert to Elvox. “And here’s a message from the two men you sent into the dome.”

  “Yes. I have some questions about that. Yoshio, we measured that dome. It couldn’t possibly hold everything you’ve told us about. How do you explain that?”

  “I do not know.” He bowed to them. “I will go rest now. Is it possible—” He paused, his eyebrows coming together and his lips working. “Is it possible to destroy the dome and everything under it?”

  “I wouldn’t advise that,” Anna said. “Go rest now and we’ll talk about it later.” Kawashita nodded sharply and left the lounge.

  “Looks like you’re mother to the oldest child in the world,” Elvox said.

  Nestor shook her head. “He’s had a rough time,” she said, hugging the loytnant’s arm. “Have to wait until we hear the rest of the story, right? Patience. If I’ve learned anything, it’s to let times like these unfold at their own pace. I’d pay attention to the Waunters now, frankly. But what about your investigations? Can we share and share alike?”

  Elvox looked at the tapas insert, then nodded. “I don’t see why not. You can investigate as easily as we.” He took a tapas from Carina, programmed the decode sequence, and held the machine out for them to watch.

  When it was done, they leaned back in their seats and Elvox sighed, “I apologize if my men think it’s haunted.”

  “It’s understandable,” Carina said. “Two hundred bodies, half looking like they’ve just fallen in their tracks, and the rest slaughtered, throats cut, limbs scattered.”

  “How could it happen?” Elvox asked. “Who would want to go around killing androids?”

  “Maybe they killed each other,” Anna said. “Maybe they thought they were real, and held real grudges.”

  “It doesn’t seem to have been one big battle,” Carina said. “They seem to have attacked each other at random. No sides chosen, no special uniforms, no banners. Just streets filled with bodies. What did Yoshio have to do with it?”

  Elvox put his hand on the pad. “I think the Perfidisians left just when the slaughter was getting good. They kept the basic environment for him but cut back on the androids, the scenery, most of the illusion. So the androids fell in the middle of a pitched battle, whatever sort of battle it was.”

  “They left him because he started a ruckus?” Carina said, incredulous.

  Anna shook her head. “I don’t pretend to understand Perfidisians, but they must have left for better reasons than that. A scientist just doesn’t leave his lab because the rats squabble. But think what Kawashita must have gone through. All of a sudden, his dream was over. He was surrounded by bodies. Who knows? They might have been friends, fellow soldiers, wives, nobles. Hell, he was there long enough to have had children and grandchildren. Suddenly they all died, stopped functioning. Well, because of the battle, maybe it seemed like a punishment from God—from the kami. Maybe he went crazy for a while, still lived with phantoms.”

  “And the Waunters found him that way,” Elvox said. “But if they had him living whole lives in the dome, they had to provide more than is there now. The roads just end at the walkway around the perimeter. Some buildings are cut in half. Whole forests are bisected, and that doesn’t make for a credible world. Something had to keep the cage out of his view.”

  “What?” Anna asked.

  “I have an idea,” Kiril said. “It’s a little hard to conceive. Maybe he really did have a whole world at his disposal. Whenever he headed for the walkway, for the cage wall, everything changed behind him, and he was somehow turned around to head back toward the center of the dome. To him, it would have seemed like one long walk.”

  “He wouldn’t have just lived in one restricted section, then,” Elvox said.

  “He already told us about that,” Anna said. “He had all of Japan to travel in. But where is the dome now? I mean, what locale is set up inside?”

  “Perhaps Heian-Kyô, or Kamakura,” Carina said. “He was dressed like a samurai, but he could have put on the armor when the illusions stopped. He was probably scared out of his wits.”

  “That much seems certain,” Anna said. She looked at Elvox. “Do you have a few hours before you have to go back?”

  “If I leave a message.” He removed the tapas insert from the pad. “I assume my men delivered this after sending it on from the lander.”

  “If you trained them right. I’d enjoy your company here. Place your message?”

  He agreed. In the lift, he stood behind her, frowning. Until now, he hadn’t violated any of the codes of a United Stars Officer. He had been completely loyal and dedicated. Was he compromising his duty by staying with Nestor? He didn’t think he was. On the whole, they would both benefit by not being evasive or hiding information.

  Nestor took care of Kawashita honorably and without apparent guile. She could afford to—she wasn’t desperate. But then, neither was United Stars. As the largest human consolidation, USC had its hand in thousands of similar enterprises. How could he decide without bias? She was a persuasive woman. And was that persuasiveness deliberate? Or perhaps even worse, it was possible that her actions—while not deliberate—were part of the unconscious matrix of behaviors which made her what she was, Anna Sigrid Nestor. Her instincts could be far more dangerous than any subterfuge.

  “I feel a little guilty,” he said as they entered their cabin.

  “Why?” she asked.

  “This may not be in the line of duty.”

  “It may not be for me, either. So we are both consorting with the enemy.”

  “No, not exactly, but—” He laughed.

  “My people will get as much out of this as yours, everyone will be happy. So far, it looks a lot like a farce.”

  “How’s that?” He thought she meant their own behavior, and he stiffened.

  “This whole affair. An empty planet, heavily explored and charted—for nothing. Blank slate.”

  “Oh.”

  “Don’t worry. Everything will turn out fine. What would you be doing in your lander now?”

  “Filing reports.”

  “We’ve already sent an unedited transcript of Yoshio’s talk to your ship in orbit. What else could you report about?”

  “Nothing my crew can’t handle,” Elvox admitted.

  Nine

  If most people could be compared to dull glows, Nestor was white heat. Her eyes were wide and full of energy even while her voice was measured and restrained. She never said a thing that hadn’t been passed through a dozen self-contained censors. But she had ways of letting out her energy. One was in a sleepfield.

  She was almost too much for him. On his home world, such cooperation and enthusiasm would have been unseemly. He was almost afraid of her independence, of having to satisfy both of them. Yet she didn’t demand more than he could give. All in all, they matched each other rather well.

  After they’d made love, he sat up in the sleepfield and folded his hands on his stomach. “I was raised on a pretty straight-laced world,” he said.

  “So was I—though my world was a ship.”

  “No, I mean where love is concerned.”

  “You’ve had some good teachers, wherever you came from,” she said, smiling at him sleepily.

  He stroked her shoulder and reached down to caress her breast. Her skin was soft, just taking on the matte texture that shows a woman is leaving girlhood behind. He found it much more attractive than the plastic tightness that usually brought approval.

  “This means a great deal to me,” he ventured. “Where I come from, we believe in commitments.”

  “Mm,” she breathed, snuggling against him.

  “I know it’s a release…shared release of tensions.” His words sounded incredi
bly inept to him. “And I don’t think you’re trying to win me over.”

  “Already have,” she said under his arm.

  He shook his head and said no more.

  The Centrum team visited Nestor’s lander the next day. Four men and six women ex officio Judges took the case under consideration after listening to the depositions. Half of the proceedings were held aboard the USC lander, and a tour of the Waunter vehicle was made as well. The Waunters watched without expression, grimly confident—it seemed to Elvox—that they had no case at all. True enough, the Centrum was seldom called in to intervene on the behalf of individuals, dealing instead with entities like USC or Nestor’s far-flung operation.

  The Waunters could not give up all hope, however. Alae prepared a deposition on her own, using what legal advice she could glean out of the lander’s library. The Centrum took it under advisement.

  Nestor—in the presence of the judges—behaved according to strict protocol. Elvox was an officer attached to United Stars, she was a representative of separate interests. They were cordial but aloof.

  The next evening, however, he was again a friend and confidant. They ate a late snack and made love. Before sleep, he realized how beautiful she really was. He had thought of her as moderately attractive before, but when she laughed, she went right over the line into beauty. It was like watching a monument turn into a living woman.

  As they ate breakfast in the lounge—alone, as if by assumption of the crew and Kawashita—he felt a moment of emotional vertigo. It was worse now. Not only did he not care about duty, he hardly cared about returning to United Stars. He chastised himself for thinking like an adolescent.

  “I’ve been working for USC for seven years,” he said.

  “They must have gotten you young.”

  “Nineteen. How does that stack up against your crew, in terms of experience?”

  She shrugged. “Depends on what you’re an expert at.”

  “General ship work, I suppose. Command of equipment watches, sortie captain.”

  She cocked her head and looked at him. “Julio, you’re not thinking of transferring, are you?”

  He didn’t know how to answer. “It crossed my mind,” he said finally. “I’ve been comparing services. Your crew—”

  “Works very hard,” she threw in.

  “Yes, but the work seems much more basic, important. In the action.”

  “We’re both here. USC can’t be that far away from the good stuff.”

  “And besides,” he said, “you’re here.” He chuckled knowingly but watched her expression.

  “Close to the action, as it were,” she joked, eyes twinkling.

  “Yes.”

  “Indeed I am. Some of my crew never see me for weeks at a stretch.”

  He felt like a fish being played on a line. Her words were double-edged. “I always honor my commitments,” he said.

  “Yes, I would think that.”

  “But a lateral transfer, with warning, is allowed in our contracts.”

  “I could offer you a post,” Anna said. “The work’s hard, but…I think you’d fit in.”

  He grinned broadly, caught himself, and felt his face flush. She laughed and patted him on the shoulder. “But I’m in command, and I’m not always reasonable. Sometimes I do monstrous, foul things—and make my officers drop years off their lifespans, right and left, like dandruff. You don’t believe that, do you?” she asked, this time with a bite in her tone.

  “I believe you can be tough,” Elvox said.

  “Tough is not the word,” she said, looking away from him. Something seemed to cloud her expression. “We’ll think about it.”

  In the days following, he realized that there were competent people, and there were masters. Nestor was a master at what she did. She wined and dined the Centrum lander crew—not so intimately as Elvox, and not beyond discretion—and got into their good graces. Because she was obviously staying neutral, they had no objection to her tutoring Kawashita, and Kawashita had no objection to almost anything she did. By being pleasant and cooperative, she got her way.

  The judgment of majority ownership was made in the Centrum lander, with all parties attending. The lander lounge was turned into a small courtroom, and the ten judges opened their records of deliberation. Elvox almost felt sorry for the Waunters. They looked totally defeated as they read the judgment. Alae’s face was grim as death. She took her copy of the proceedings and walked out of the ship with Oomalo close behind.

  Even after the judgment, the Centrum work wasn’t over. It took two weeks for Centrum satellites to thoroughly scan the planet. Percentages of ownership had to be established, and values assigned for taxation.

  In that time, Elvox’s confusion seemed to evaporate. His time with Anna was smooth and regular. His awe at her status became subdued.

  The planet yielded almost nothing—and what it did yield was an insult. The ruins of a weather machine were discovered practically at antipodes to the dome. Like the simulacra and equipment in the dome, the machine had powdered to a sandy mix of minerals and metal traces. How such a small device could control the weather was impossible to tell, but nothing else was found, and the ruin’s outlines were at least suggestive of its purpose—field vanes, seeder guns, and the like. They analyzed the marks that resembled roadbeds, and found they were geological. The planet was still mildly active. The concrete plains were already being re-formed. In a hundred million years all traces of the Perfidisians would be buried or ground to rubble. It would be no great loss.

  Of the nothing that the Perfidisians had left behind, Kawashita was given a ninety-percent interest. The Waunters, because of the unusual circumstances, were given a ten-percent share. The planet itself was to be controlled by Kawashita, but of any profits he might make from its eventual sale or lease or other dealings, ten percent would go to the Waunters. The Waunters could orbit and land anywhere on the planet they wished, at any time, so long as they did not interfere with operations that Kawashita could profit from. And so on, and on…all the fine legal points established over centuries of planetfalls and millennia of property settlements.

  In the final proceedings, Kawashita didn’t seem the least disappointed that he wasn’t going to be wealthy.

  “Has the majority owner decided on a name for this world?” the first judge asked him.

  “I have,” Kawashita said. “It will be known as Yamato.”

  Anna had coached him on the presentation, and he performed flawlessly.

  “And does this name have a meaning?”

  “Yes, your honors. It is the old name for my native land, Japan.”

  “Well and good. This court has made its decisions, executed its responsibilities as arbiter and mediator, and any further judgments must be appealed to Centrum courts on Myriadne. These proceedings are at an end.”

  Four hours later, the Waunters returned to their old Aighor ship and broke orbit.

  Ten

  “My God, Julio, you’re an officer, not a Casanova!” Tivvers stood in the door to Elvox’s cabin, hands on his hips, the perfect picture of outraged sensibility.

  Elvox smiled wanly. “We’re doing our work, aren’t we? Nothing’s slacked. All the decisions have been made.”

  “Yes—and you’ve found an excuse to keep us down here for another three weeks. Think the CO likes being delayed?”

  Elvox stood in the cramped quarters and stretched. “We can help Kawashita readjust. We shouldn’t just leave it to Anna and her crew.”

  “Why bother? This planet’s stripped—worthless.”

  “I’m not so sure of that.” He frowned and rubbed his head. “Call it a gut feeling.”

  “I call it being lovesick. She’s got you right where she wants you. Let’s up-ship and go to a righteous liberty, for Christ’s sake—not this blasted billiard ball. You’re the only one getting??
?”

  “Goddammit, Tivvers, I’m your superior officer!”

  Tivvers grinned sardonically. “Not that you’d notice by your actions.”

  “If you see me slacking, report it to the CO,” Elvox said, bristling. He raised his hand and swept it to indicate the USC shuttle. “This is my command, and my decisions stand.”

  “She’s using you.”

  “She is Anna Sigrid Nestor. She could have her pick of any man, and if she is settling for me, doesn’t that mean something?”

  “What?”

  Elvox backed away and shrugged.

  “She’s got you bad, doesn’t she? How the hell could you let this happen to yourself?”

  “I’m a fool, I suppose,” Elvox said blankly.

  “What about that planet you come from, with all the zealots. Didn’t any of their sense get through to you?”

  Elvox rubbed his eyes and laughed. “Sense? Tivvers, they were Baptists and three or four other kinds of fool. They schismed from the lot that colonized God-Does-Battle, but they have the same goal—to bring Christian heaven down to Earth. Well, they couldn’t have Earth, so they settled for Ichthys. Their idea of heaven doesn’t include a rational approach to worldly things. God’s kingdom is ruled by a line of patriarchs. That’s what I grew up with, not sense. It was fine when I was a boy, but when the world started explaining itself to me through my gonads, it became hell. I thought I was a sex maniac, that my family would disown me. Well, I grew out of that but not completely. Not yet. I can’t reject what I’ve been taught since I was a child.”

  “Then why is she getting to you?”

  “Her attitude. She’s so free and loving.”

  “Dross, pure dross. She’s a businesswoman. She’s using you for all you’re worth.”

  For a moment Elvox seemed to be considering that. Then he shook his head. “No, she’s helping me to grow up. She’s not the first woman I’ve had, not by a long shot. But—”

  “She’s got you, all right.”

  “I will not give her up easily! I feel like I’m willing to give everything to her.”