The Complete LaNague

  This was undoubtedly the Mr. Proska who struck such fear into the heart of the powerful, secure, influential Sector Representative Elson deBloise. It was suddenly very obvious to Easly that Mr. Proska had some sort of hold over deBloise; finding out just what that was might prove useful.

  “Excuse me,” he said to the receptionist after the door to the inner office had closed behind Proska. “Wasn’t that Harold Proska?”

  The receptionist smiled. “No, that was Cando Proska. Perhaps you know his brother.”

  “Does he have a brother?”

  “I couldn’t say.” She shrugged. “I believe he’s an old friend of Mr. deBloise’s. He stops in now and then. But I really don’t know a thing about him.”

  “I must be thinking of someone else,” he said, and sauntered out of the waiting room.

  An old friend, eh? he thought as he walked across the hail and stepped into the down chute. He fell at the rate of one kilometer per hour until he passed the “Ground Floor” sign, then grabbed the handles and pulled himself out of the chute and into the lobby. No old friend of mine ever scared me like that!

  Pondering his next move as he stepped out into the late morning sunlight, Easly suddenly remembered that he was on a Restructurist world. And all worlds within the Restructurist fold had a policy of maintaining what they called a Data Center, a centralized bank where vital, identifiable statistics of all natives and permanent residents were kept on file. The information stored usually included date of birth, place of birth, parents’ names, education, employment record, present location, and so on.

  Easly flagged a flittercab and headed for Copia’s municipal complex. He idly wished that all planets had Data Centers – it would certainly make things easier for someone in his line of work – but then banished the thought when he realized his own vital statistics would be listed.

  The Data Centers were a natural outgrowth of Restructurist philosophy, which viewed humanity as a mass and approached it as such. As a result, the government on a Restructurist world was highly centralized and geared its actions toward what it decided were the common denominators of the collective. To determine those common denominators – to “better serve the public interest,” as it was wont to put it – the government had to know all about the public in question.

  Thus the Data Centers. And since all men were brothers, all should have access to the data. This was the Restructurist version of a truly “open society.”

  Individuals like Larry Easly and Josephine Finch and Old Pete posed a thorny problem for Restructurist theory, however: sometimes consciously, most often unconsciously, they refused to accept the common denominator for themselves and persisted in sticking their heads above the level of the crowd. They thought brotherhood was a nice idea but they didn’t think it could be institutionalized. And they never ceased to be amazed at the amount of garbage other people would swallow if the sugar coating were laid on thick enough.

  The flittercab dropped him off before a complex of Neo-Gothic abstract buildings that housed the municipal offices of Copia. From there it was no problem finding the Data Center. Slipping into an empty booth, he punched in the name Cando Proska. If the little man had been born on Jebinose, his name would definitely be listed. If he were an immigrant, there was still a good chance to locate him here.

  A single identity number flashed on the screen. Easly punched it in and hoped for the best.

  PROSKA, Cando Lot 149, Hastingsville

  Male

  Age: 44 Jebinose years

  Height: 1.58 M Weight: 68.2 Kg

  Parents: Carter & Dori Proska (Both deceased)

  Developmental environment: SW sector. Copia

  Religion: none

  Political affiliation: none

  Marital status: unattached

  Offspring: none

  Education history: Copia Psi-school, age 5-10

  Copia Secondary, age 11-16

  Employment history: Clerk, Jebinose Bureau of

  Standards, age 19-27 (voluntary termination)

  Current employment status: none

  Little question that this was the man: height, age, weight, it all seemed to fit. He noted with interest the fact that Proska had dropped out of psi-school at age ten. That was certainly unusual because there’s no such thing as losing a psi-talent – you’re born with it and it stays with you the rest of your life. The purpose of a psi-school is to hone and develop a native talent; therefore you have to be able to demonstrate psionic ability before being accepted into such a school.

  And you didn’t quit. People with psi-talents were always in demand; even those with the most mediocre abilities were assured a good income for the rest of their lives. Proska had been a student there for five years, which meant he had some psionic talent. Why did he drop out?

  And why hadn’t he put the talent to use? He had spent eight years at the bottom rung in a government office that even in the best of times was notable only for its nuisance value. Then he quit again. No employment for the last seventeen years. Also strange.

  Not much information, but Easly was satisfied with it as a starting point. And as a little extra bonus, something had clicked in the back of his mind as he was reviewing the information; he couldn’t place it right now – his brain often made correlations without immediately informing him – but he knew from experience not to push it. Sooner or later it would come to the surface.

  He decided that a quick look at Proska’s living quarters was in order and wrote down the address. It was a calm, sunny day so he rented an open flitter and took it up to a high hover level where he could put the vehicle in a holding pattern and consult the directory. The autopilot code number for the aerial co-ordinates of Lot 149, Hastingsville, was F278924B. Easly punched it in, set the speed at slow cruise, and leaned back to enjoy the ride.

  It took longer than he anticipated. Instead of heading him toward inner Copia, the autopilot took him northeast and outward. He had originally expected to find himself over one of the poorer areas of the city, but now he was entering a suburb.

  The flitter stopped and hovered over a sprawling mansion located in the center of an obviously well-to-do neighborhood. He allowed the flitter to lose altitude so he could get a better look. The house consisted of four octagonal buildings connected in an irregular line and built at varying levels. The landscaping had been extensive: the rest of the lot was covered with an intricate pattern of color-co-ordinated shrubbery. A “149” on the landing platform confirmed the address.

  Not bad for a man who hasn’t worked in seventeen years, Easly thought. Not bad at all.

  As he dropped lower, a number of bright red lights began to flash from the roof and landing pad, a warning that clearance was required from below before he would be allowed to land. Easly veered off and followed the fenced perimeter of the property all the way around. His trained eye picked up traces that indicated the presence of a very effective and very expensive automated security system.

  He was about to make another pass over the house when his peripheral vision caught sight of a moving object to his left: another flitter was approaching. He gave the guide stick a nudge and moved off in the opposite direction at an unhurried pace. The other craft seemed to hesitate in the air, then landed at Proska’s residence. There were two men inside – he was almost positive they were deBloise and Proska – and they did not leave the vehicle right away.

  Cursing himself for his carelessness in renting an open flitter, he picked up speed and altitude and set a course in the general direction of Copia. Of course, he did have an excuse or two: he had made the erroneous assumption that Proska would be living at a low socioeconomic level, and that his home would be somewhere in the capital city where an extra flitter in the air would go completely unnoticed.

  But Hastingsville was not in Copia; it was in an exurban area where his hovering craft was like a vagrant leaf in a well-kept swimming pool. If deBloise had recognized him, then Easly’s cover was most certainly in jeopardy. His
policy in any situation such as this was to assume the worst. That being the case, the wisest thing he could do at this point was to get off-planet immediately.

  But there was one more thing he had to check before leaving. He looked up the aerial co-ordinate code number for the psi-school in Copia, punched it in, and sat back to review what he knew so far as the autopilot took over.

  Proska was blackmailing deBloise. That much was obvious. Easly had no idea what the lever was, but it had to be a big one. Proska had no doubt squeezed the mansion and a generous annuity out of deBloise’s personal fortune in return for his silence. But there was more going on besides simple blackmail. DeBloise was in actual physical terror of the little man.

  The reason for that could, perhaps, be found at the psi-school.

  The flitter stopped over an imposing, windowless, cuboid structure. Easly landed and walked inside. He waited until someone who looked like a student strolled by.

  “Excuse me,” he asked a boy who looked to be about ten standard years of age. “Who’s the dean?”

  “Why, Dr. Isaacs, of course.”

  “How long’s he been dean?”

  The boy shrugged. “How should I know? Check the plaque over there. You should be able to figure it out from that.”

  Easly approached the indicated wall where a silvery metal plaque listed all the deans and their period of tenure since the school’s founding. A man named Jacob Howell had been dean thirty-four years ago. That was the man he wanted.

  The vidphone directory gave him the address and phone code of a Howell, Jacob, who lived in Copia. Easly went to a booth, punched in the code, and waited. The face of a thin, elderly man lit up the screen after the third chime.

  “I’m sorry to bother you, sir,” Easly said, “but are you the Dr. Jacob Howell who used to be dean of the psi-school?”

  “One and the same,” the old man said with a smile. “What can I do for you?”

  He held up his bogus identity card. “I’m doing a series of articles on psi-schools for the Risden News Service. The piece I’m currently working on concerns psi-school dropouts, and I understand there was a dropout when you were dean. Now, I was wondering if you could tell me–”

  “Why, of course!” Howell beamed. “I’ll be glad to help. Come right over and we’ll talk about it.”

  “I really haven’t got too much time left on Jebinose,” Easly protested. “If you could just answer–”

  “I’ll be home all day,” the man said, smiling. “You can drop by anytime.” With that, he cut the connection.

  Easly debated his next move. Howell obviously wanted to get him over to his home. Why? Was he lonely? Or didn’t he want to discuss anything over the phone? Or was there another reason?

  He decided to go. There were a few unanswered questions here that would nag him incessantly if he did not make at least one attempt to answer them.

  “AH! SO YOU DECIDED to come after all!” Jacob Howell said as he opened the door to his modest apartment. It was immaculate. The walls were studded with plaques, degrees, and testimonials; the furnishings were simple and functional. A holo of a middle-aged woman was affixed to the wall above the vid screen.

  A quick glance around and Easly had a capsule description of the man: a retired academic, a widower, somewhat compulsive in his habits, lonely. He welcomed Easly warmly. Any company, even that of strangers, was better than sitting alone.

  “Please have a seat and let me get you a cool drink,” Howell said.

  Easly demurred and tried to get to the point. “There was a student named–”

  “No names, please,” Dr. Howell said, raising both hands before him. “I was dean of the psi-school for nearly forty years and only one child dropped out. I will discuss the matter with you freely, but without the use of a name.”

  Definitely compulsive, Easly thought.

  “I assure you the article will not name names, but I do need to know some specifics.”

  “Of course. Well, I’ve been going over the incident in my mind since your call. It’s not something one would easily forget. Nasty business, that.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, little Can–” He stopped short. “I mean, the boy we’re discussing got into an argument with another little fellow – it was in the telekinesis lab, I think – and the other boy died right there on the spot. It was a shocking incident. The boy you’re interested in – let’s call him ‘Master X,’ shall we? – apparently blamed himself and refused to set foot inside the school again.”

  “What did the other boy die of?”

  Howell shrugged. “We never found out. His parents were from the farm region and were devout members of the Heavenly Bliss sect – we had a lot of them on Jebinose, you know – and they refused to allow an autopsy. It’s part of the Heavenly Bliss canon that the human body not be willfully mutilated, neither before birth, during life, nor after death.”

  “There are plenty of non-invasive methods of determining the cause of a death.”

  “These were employed, of course, and nothing beyond a previously known congenital heart defect was uncovered. That was assumed to be the cause of death. It was probably the excitement of his argument with Master X that triggered it, and of course one couldn’t lay any blame on the little fellow. But you couldn’t convince him of that, however. He considered himself responsible and never wanted to come back.”

  “Congenital heart defect?” Easly’s tone was dubious. “That’s ancient history. Nobody walks around with something like that any more.”

  “He does when his parents refuse to consent to surgery… mutilation, you know. If the same thing happened today, there would be an autopsy, Heavenly Bliss sect or not. But we weren’t as well organized then as we are now. I wish we could have insisted on an autopsy, then little Master X would have been spared such a burden of guilt. I seem to remember that he showed promise. Such a shame.”

  “Would you happen to know what he’s doing nowadays?” Easly asked.

  Howell shook his head. “No, I never kept track of him. To be perfectly frank with you, I tried to forget the whole matter as soon as possible.”

  Easly digested what Howell had told him for a few minutes, then rose. “Thank you for your time, Dr. Howell. You’ve been most helpful.”

  “You mustn’t leave yet!” Howell said, leaping to his feet. “There’s a lot more I can tell you about psi-schools. I can prepare an early supper and fill you in on many operational details that may prove very useful as background material.”

  “Some other time, perhaps,” Easly said, reaching for the door. “I’m on a very tight schedule now, really.”

  “Stay and have a drink, at least.”

  Easly begged off and slipped out the door. As he walked down the hall he could feel the lonely old man’s eyes on his back. He felt guilty. All Dr. Howell wanted in return for his information was a little companionship. But companionship meant time, and time was something in short supply at the moment.

  The sum total of Larry Easly’s instincts and training was prodding him to leave Jebinose immediately, but he shrugged it off. He was hooked now and couldn’t run out just yet. He had the tantalizing feeling that all the pieces were here and that a nice coherent picture would be formed if he could arrange them in the proper light. He started laying them out for examination.

  DeBloise was terrified of Proska; Proska was a psionic talent of some sort. Those two could be accepted as fact.

  Now for a little extrapolation: A little boy at psi-school had died during an argument with Proska and Proska had refused to return to the school because of guilt. Why so much guilt? Unless he knew he had killed the other boy!

  Could Cando Proska kill with his mind? Was that why he inspired such fear in deBloise? Was it that plus some very sensitive knowledge that had enabled him to extort a house and probably a yearly income from deBloise for the last seventeen years?

  Seventeen years… the Vanek Equality Act had passed almost seventeen years ago ?
??

  The subconscious correlation his mind had made back at the Data Center suddenly bobbed to the surface: Junior Finch was murdered on this planet seventeen years ago!

  There were too many seventeens involved here to be written off as mere coincidence: deBloise’s political career took a sharp upward turn seventeen years ago with the passage of the Vanek Equality Act; Junior Finch was murdered while working among the Vanek seventeen years ago; Cando Proska, a man who might have the ability to kill with his mind, stopped working for a living seventeen years ago and started blackmailing deBloise.

  It all fit!

  No, it didn’t. The Vanek killed Junior… they admitted it openly. And Vanek never lie. Or did they? It was also generally conceded that Junior’s death merely increased the margin by which deBloise’s pet Equality Act was passed. So deBloise had nothing to gain from Junior’s death. Or had he?

  By the time he reached the roof, he knew where he was going. Not the spaceport… he had just two more stops to make before the spaceport: The first, his hotel room; the second, Danzer.

  DARK HAD FALLEN by the time he reached Danzer and there was a different Vanek sitting cross-legged inside the circle this time. A small flame sputtered before him and cast a wan glow on his features. This one was younger-middle-aged, Easly guessed – with a spot of dark blue pigmentation on his forehead. This Vanek would no doubt be as informative as the last one, but Easly had secured a small vial of gas from his hotel room, something to give him a conversational edge over the Vanek.

  “Wheels within wheels, bendreth,” the beggar greeted him.

  “Wheels within wheels, yourself,” Easly muttered as he squatted before him.

  “Have you come again to meditate on our friend, Junior Finch?”

  Easly started. “How did you know I was here before?”