The Devil's Eye

SIXTEEN

Vicki, Ivan said, had signed on for the flight from a hotel in Moreska. Moreska was a small town in the middle of nowhere. It had no spectral claims, no demons, creatures from another age still haunting the roads. But it had once been home to Demery Manor, which, for reasons unknown, had been blown apart during the final year of the Bandahr's rule, just months before his assassination. Nobody knew why the incident had occurred, although everyone assumed Nicorps was involved. The manor's owner, Edward Demery, was not an enemy of the regime, as far as was known. I didn't think blowing up a house was enough to have interested Vicki Greene. Until I heard that seventeen other homes, throughout the region, had been destroyed the same night.

The Demery Manor site consisted of a few burned timbers and a couple of stone walls jutting out of the earth. The common wisdom held that Edward Demery had incurred the wrath of Aramy Cleev and paid the price. According to the flyers we'd gotten at the hotel in Moreska, "most experts" believed the Bandahr had been personally offended when Demery, during an interview, had described the compassion and basic decency of Dakar Cleev, Aramy's grandfather, without mentioning Aramy's own matchless compassion. The dictator had said nothing publicly, of course, and had in fact even praised Demery's perspicacity. But anyone who knew Aramy Cleev understood the failure to note his kindness would not have gone down well. The general destruction had come six days after those unfortunate remarks and had been spread over several hundred kilometers in all directions. Houses, villas, and manors had been leveled. There'd been no survivors anywhere. Nicorps, it was assumed by many, was closing its books on people who had incurred the Bandahr's displeasure. We were looking at the ruins, on a cold afternoon, while a wet wind blew in off the sea. We had an autoguide with us. "They killed him and his wife," said the autoguide. "Eighteen houses in one night?" said Alex. "That seems a bit extreme."

"There are always rumors when terrible things happen," the tour guide said. "If you want my personal opinion, I think Nicorps simply went rogue and decided to kill everybody they didn't like. But who really knows?"

"What did he do for a living?" I asked. "Demery?"

"He was born into wealth, ma'am. But he thought of himself as a mathematician though he never had any formal training."

"Was he a native of this area?" "Oh, no. No. He wasn't even from this world. Demery was born on Rimway." "Are there any theories about why all these people were killed the same night?" asked Alex. "Other than Nicorps running wild?"

"What other explanation could there be? I think they'd probably gotten backlogged. Decided to catch up on old work. Did it all the same night. It wouldn't be the first time they'd done something like that."

Alex stared at the ruins. "Did Demery leave an avatar?"

"It was purged. On the day of the explosions."

"By whose authority?"

"Nobody knows."

"It would," I said, "have had to come from high up." Alex nodded. Of course it would.

Edward Demery had not only lost his life. He had undergone an electronic subtraction as well. And not only the avatar. You went looking for data on him, and there was enough to prove he existed. You could find a birth certificate, you could find brief accounts of his impending wedding, and there was real-estate information. Demery buys office building in New Samarkand. You could find an account of his acquiring controlling interest in Blackmoor Financial, and his contributions to the Aquarius Fund, which was striving to rejuvenate oceans hampered by the absence of a moon. There was an award from the Ballinger Historical Society. But of his personal life, what he thought, what he believed in, what he cared about, that was all gone. Orrin Batavian was a banker who liked to be thought of as an historian. We sought him out because he'd organized a speaking engagement for Vicki and because he'd been a close friend of Demery's. We found him at his home, a large, landscaped property on the edge of town. "Ed and I shared a fascination for ancient history," he told us. "For the early years." Because of that friendship, he said, he'd held his breath for several days after the explosion, wondering whether they'd come after him, too. "You never knew what might irritate Nicorps," he said. "It was the way they operated." We were seated in his office in downtown Moreska. "Somebody got in trouble, everybody he knew got swept up with him. I had my fingers crossed." The walls were filled with framed certificates of outstanding accomplishments by Batavian's bank and pictures of the man himself with various people whose postures suggested they were VIPs. "Why did he get in trouble?" Alex asked. "Do you have any idea?" Batavian shook his head. "I honestly don't know. He didn't like the regime. But nobody did." His chair squeaked. "Almost nobody. Some people saw no problem with Cleev. You did what you were told and didn't make trouble, then you had nothing to worry about." "But you do think Cleev was behind the attack." "Well, Nicorps was. I doubt it was anything big enough to draw the Bandahr's attention. You have to understand that it was the guys further down the food chain who caused most of the trouble. They had thugs and psychopaths running everything. And the way they looked good to their bosses was to be able to show a body count every month. "Those were bad times. So people didn't make an electronic record of themselves. Ed was an exception. People still don't do it, for that matter. Not the older ones. Call it force of habit, but there's always a

sense that the Bandahr might come back. So you don't put anything up. Especially not an avatar who's going to tell the government what you really think." Batavian had an aristocratic demeanor. His family had prospered under the dictatorship, and the word around town was that he'd survived when Demery went down because he had connections. "It might be true," he admitted. "I was never a collaborator, but my father was. And my sister." Alex's eyes narrowed. "Do you have any idea why they would have purged the Demery record?" "They did that routinely. They didn't have to have a reason. You got in trouble, you became invisible. Look, I don't know whether he just said the wrong thing to the wrong person. Or whether there was something they were actually afraid of. Demery didn't like the Bandahriate. But he never did anything more than talk. And he tried to be circumspect about the people he spoke to. He was like me. We both had a decent life under the sons of bitches, if you played by the rules and didn't mind keeping your mouth shut. So we played by the rules. Lived with it as best we could. I don't know. Maybe they took him out because somebody just wanted to run up the numbers. Maybe it was a mistake. Maybe he had some old fertilizer in the basement. I just don't know." "All right," said Alex, "let's try a different subject: Vicki Greene." "Ah, yes. I knew that was coming." "She did a program here. With you as moderator." He smiled. "She spoke to the Martian Society. By closed circuit. It was members only. And a few guests." "The Martian Society is-?" "-A group of people who pretend we've been taken over by aliens. Who keep out of sight." "The original aliens, apparently." He laughed. "We have a pretty good time. It's strictly a social operation. Nobody takes it seriously." "What did she talk about?" "Her books, of course." "That's all? Anything else come up?" "Well, it was a fairly wide-ranging conversation." "Did she mention the explosions?" He stuck his tongue in his cheek while he thought about it. "No," he said finally. "Not that I can recall." "How about Demery?" "No. There was no reason to. But she was interested in him. She was excited to hear we'd been friends." "Why was she interested in him?" "Because of the Lantner world ULY447." "Which is what?" "Well, it's not really a world. It's an asteroid-a long way out. Light-years, in fact." "And?" "Two ships disappeared out there. During a religious ceremony. Ed was always intrigued by it. Always coming up with explanations." Alex glanced my way. That sounded like another reason for Vicki's interest. "Tell us about it. About the disappearance." "Not much to tell, Alex. We had a corporation, Starloft, that used to sell people asteroids. The inner-system asteroids, of course." "Starloft sold asteroids?" I asked. "Yes." "Why? What can you do with an asteroid?" Batavian put on a beatific smile. "Immortality, young lady. They name it for you. Then they take you and your family and friends out to the thing, charging everybody for the transportation, of course. They hold a ceremony and install a monument with your name on it. People bought them to honor deceased relatives. Some people provided for it in their wills. It was a pretty lucrative business at one time." "But they don't do it anymore?"

"No. The Bandahr claimed ownership of the asteroids, and Cleev took a cut of the proceeds. The current government probably wouldn't have changed things, but we went through a Save-the-Asteroids period. People didn't think markers should be put on them. Or that the government or anyone else owned them. It became a political issue." "So it got stopped?" "The politicians saw a good thing and got on board. They eventually taxed it out of existence." "So what about the Lantner mission?" "That was a big deal for Starloft. For a long time, the business was strictly local. Then the Family of God, a religious group led by Calius Sabel, decided to go deep. Go for the outer asteroids. Out to the Swarm." "The Swarm?" "It's a sea of asteroids. Some of them line up pretty closely with Callistra. They picked the biggest one they could find and decided to build a monument on it. They thought it would provide religious significance." "In what way?" "The Family of God associated Callistra with the eye of the Deity. So the placement of a monument on that asteroid was to assure the faithful that they walked always in His light. Or some such thing. "Starloft sent a team out and did the installation. It's still there if you want to take a look at it. When it was completed, the Sabels went out in two ships to conduct a ceremony. There were a couple of Starloft executives with them. The two ships were the Lantner , which the Sabels leased, and the Origon , which was provided by Starloft. They got out there okay. They set up imagers, spent two days in prayer and thanksgiving, and on the third day they went down to do the ceremony." "And this was thirty years ago?" I asked. He had to count. "Thirty-six, Chase." "How far is it?" He checked with his AI. "Thirty-three light-years." "They'd have been using the old drive," I said. "Just getting there would have taken a week." "Please continue," said Alex. "On the third day, they went down onto the asteroid?" "Yes. There were two landers. They put on pressure suits and got out and assembled in front of the monument. The ceremony was transmitted back here on HV. I didn't see it live. But I've seen it since. Everybody has. "Anyhow, they did some praying. Then they started making speeches. One of the Sabels was talking when the transmission suddenly stopped. Just blanked out. Dead at the source. It was the last anybody ever heard of any of them." "When the rescue units got out there-?" said Alex. "-They were gone. Ships, landers, people. Everything. Except the monument." I was trying to imagine any sequence of events that would account for it. "It doesn't sound possible," I said. Batavian got up, walked over to the window, and looked out. In the distance, a train moved across the countryside. "There was a search. But they never found anything. Some people blamed the Mutes. There were all kinds of stories. Mostly that other aliens were loose out there somewhere. And there was something else." "What's that?" "The patrol boat that originally went to the scene, the Valiant , never made it home. It was the first rescue vehicle." "What happened to it?" I asked. "Are you going to tell us it disappeared, too?" "No. It filed its report, and another Bandahriate vehicle, a specialized one, I think they said at the time, went out to look around. The patrol boat returned to its usual assignment. And a day or so later it exploded." "Sounds like a pattern," said Alex.

"They said it was an engine problem." "Any survivors?" "None." For several moments, no one spoke. Then he continued: "Ed loved mysteries. So naturally the Lantner incident caught his attention. I don't know how many times I heard him tell people how he'd watched the night it happened." He sighed. Shook his head. "Shortly after that, the government issued a warning about the area, that they thought Mutes might have established a base in the region. Everybody was told to stay clear." "So nobody went out there after that?" "Nobody went out there anyhow. Except on that one occasion." We sat. We could hear a couple of people arguing outside.

While I watched her, I was thinking how much more difficult it is to be entertaining when you don't have the audience physically in front of you, when they're spread out across an electronic hookup and you can't feed off their reactions. Or even get a read on them. I've done a few appearances with Alex, and I want them sitting out there where I can see them to get my adrenaline flowing. But it didn't seem to bother her. Batavian had been the emcee. He introduced her from the same room we were sitting in. She came in and sat down in the chair that Alex was using and said she was glad to be there, and what a privilege it was, and so on. Most people do that and you know they're kidding. But she meant it. And it was easy to see right from the start that she was enjoying herself. Batavian got out of the way, and Vicki took the helm. She told the audience how much she loved what she did, that the old stories about writers working out of attics while they slugged down whiskey, that their lives were solitary and dreary, that it was hard, painstaking work, was all a lie. "We say that stuff to discourage other people from getting into the business. To keep the competition down. There's nothing as exhilarating as writing a good line or watching a plot come together." Images of her listeners appeared. The audience was composed of young and old, equal numbers of both sexes, people with money and people who were managing. The one characteristic they all shared was enthusiasm. When she'd finished, they applauded for a full minute. Not bad for an audience scattered around the globe. They went to questions. We listened while they asked why she'd decided to write horror, what she did in her spare time, and whether there'd be a sequel to this or that book. When it was done, we sat quietly listening to the wind play against the side of the building. Batavian was still staring at the spot where Vicki's image had been. "She was interested in Aramy Cleev, Alex," he said. "Did you know that? It's true. She was annoyed because Cleev's avatar is restricted." Alex leaned forward. "Really?" That was a surprise. The guy was, after all, a major historical figure. "Yes. You have to have special authorization to talk to it." Alex's eyes, which had been distant, came into sharp focus. "I think," said Batavian, "they just don't trust Cleev. Not even dead. And they don't entirely trust the general population. A lot of people here would love to go back to the Bandahr years."