The Gabble and Other Stories (9 page)

‘What, Merril’s hack-and-slash job?’

‘Yes, and Merril better keep her head down or she’ll get a hack-and-slash job in return.’

‘Really?’

‘Really.’

* * * *

The new Polity Embassy sprawled across twenty hectares of reclaimed marshland on the south side of Siroc, which was the capital city of the planet’s main continent. At the centre of the complex rested a replica of the Millennium Dome of old London on Earth - an ironical architectural statement if ever there was one. The monitor driving one of the first antigravity cars to be used here remained reticent on the subjects of Garp and Geronamid. Salind became insistent.

‘You know that criminal actions here are out of your jurisdiction for the moment. I had a nice police officer explaining that sort of thing to me only a few hours ago. So why did you people grab him?’ he asked.

‘As I have already told you, Mr Salind, I do not possess that information,’ she replied.

Salind sat back as the car began to spiral down into the complex. ‘Perhaps you can tell me who Garp killed?’

‘An acrobat, I believe.’ As she said this she touched her finger just below her ear - an unconscious action of someone listening to a comlink. She continued, ‘Geronamid will see you.

Perhaps he will explain.’

Salind grinned. There were thousands of reporters on Banjer who would have killed for this opportunity.

The monitor landed the car on a plascrete parking area and, after they disembarked, led the way toward a nearby building bearing the appearance of a Turkish mosque. One of the grey metal Golem came out to meet them.

‘This Golem will take you to the Arbiter.’ The monitor hurried off with her finger pressed below her ear. Salind studied the Golem. It had not been referred to by name, which probably meant it was a blank Golem being run by one of Geronamid’s sub-programs. And close to it now, he realized it did appear corroded. Ceramal did not oxidize in air, so this must have been caused by a powerful acid or some kind of energy burst. He wondered it this was just for the look or the result of some ambassadorial cock-up. Salind queried Argus and received an immediate reply, but he put that on hold.

‘This way,’ said the Golem.

‘Why the appearance?’ Salind asked, as they entered the building.

‘All part of Geronamid’s implicit message,’ it said.

‘Which part?’

The Golem paused before replying. ‘Membership of the Polity comes with all its advantages and drawbacks. All its AIs in every form. He would not want people to protest that the Polity had been mis-sold.’

‘Wouldn’t a less threatening appearance have been better?’

‘Exactly the point,’ said the Golem.

Salind listened to the message from Argus:

The two Golem androids that accompany Geronamid when the AI is on Arbitration duty
owe their appearance to a Separatist attack on the world Cheyne III. An assassin attempted to kill
Geronamid who, at that time, travelled inside an Egyptian sarcophagus. When the attack failed
the assassin keyed her weapon to self-destruct. The two Golem were caught in the backflash.

After entering the mosque through an open arch, they traversed a marble hall to reach a wooden door the Golem opened by hand. In the antechamber beyond, an armoured ship droid hovered a couple of metres above the floor. Salind felt a tingling sensation run from the top of his head to his feet. There came a discordant buzzing from Argus.

‘Clear,’ spat the droid, and moved aside.

What was that?

Weapons scan.

‘You will note,’ said the Golem, ‘very in-your-face.’

A second door admitted them to the repro interior of a mosque. Garp was sitting on a wooden chair with his arms crossed, a cable trailing across the floor from the sockets in his head. His eyes were the same as they had appeared in the arrivals lounge, but Salind had no idea what that meant. Geronamid stood off to one side finishing his lunch, which looked like half a wildebeest. Salind started to sweat as the Golem closed the door behind him, not because of the crunching gobbling sounds, but because he had just discovered his aug’s external link was being blocked.

‘Why aren’t you allowing me a direct link to Tarjen?’ he asked.

Geronamid gulped down a large dripping lump of flesh. A disembodied voice replied, ‘You may record, and you will be allowed to transmit that recording once you leave here, should that be what you wish to do.’

Salind tried to locate the source of the voice then quickly gave up. Geronamid was speaking and he needed to know no more than that.

‘Okay . . .’ He nodded towards Garp. ‘What are you doing to him?’

‘Downloading information to my evidential submind,’ Geronamid replied.

‘Inadmissible evidence in a Banjer court and irrelevant after the Polity amnesty comes into effect, so why are you doing it?’

‘Curiosity. In my position wouldn’t you want to know?’

‘Yes . . . What do you intend to do to Garp? Your seizure of him was illegal you know.’

‘I will do nothing to him, and my seizure was not illegal.’

‘He committed a crime here. He killed that acrobat. Surely he’s the province of the Banjer police.’

The allosaur jerked its head up from the remains of its meal and abruptly paced toward Salind. He had to suppress the urge to turn and run. Now, the voice issued from its bloody mouth.

‘The acrobat was called Houdini Friend. My friend.’

‘Okay,’ said Salind, swallowing drily. ‘But that still doesn’t change—’

Geronamid interrupted. ‘The reif committed no crime as it is just an artefact which, since the recent seizure of Garp’s remaining estate, has become the property of the Banjer government. The reif is under a destruction order and will duly be handed over for incineration.’

‘I note you refer only to “the reif” and not to Garp. What about him? You accused him of murder yourself.’

‘The murderer is whoever loaded the subversion program into him. He had no knowledge of what he was doing,’ Geronamid replied.

‘Surely that is evidence you could pass on to the police?’

‘Why?’

‘So the real murderer can be caught,’ Salind suggested.

‘You have been here for two weeks, and have learned nothing in that time?’

‘I have not unlearned the necessity of due process, of . . .’ Salind trailed off as the allosaur turned away, apparently losing interest in him. It looked at Garp.

‘Ah, praist,’ said the AI.

‘Why am I here?’ Salind asked, feeling at once foolish and angry.

‘Worlds must join the Polity of their own free will. There must be no hint of coercion.

Eighty per cent of the population must vote for entry. That’s eighty per cent of the
entire
population.’

‘Yes, I am aware of the charter.’ Salind struggled to keep his face straight.

‘Voting on most worlds is through net encryption - absolute anonymity, your vote registered by the click of a button.’

‘Polling stations,’ said Salind, getting some hint of where Geronamid was leading.

‘Yes: polling stations. The government of Banjer managed to foist polling stations on us.

Their argument being that five per cent of the population is without net access. We estimate that probably forty per cent of the population will be too frightened to vote.’

‘So there’ll be a void result. Why then are you here?’

‘In some cases Polity intervention is allowed: humanitarian disaster, cases when widespread corruption in the governing authorities can be proven, and when widespread coercion is being used.’

Salind felt his scalp crawling. ‘Are you saying that the Polity intends to intervene here?’

‘That can be hugely damaging unless sufficiently justified. Such tactics can lead to rebellion against the “AI Autocrat of Earth” and not necessarily on the world on which we have intervened.’

Salind stared at the allosaur for a long moment as he chewed over that euphemistic word

‘intervention’, then shook his head in annoyance - he’d been trying to read the creature’s expression.

‘What do you intend, then?’

‘My overall intentions I will make available to the free press when I am ready.’

‘Then why the hell am I here?’

‘You are here because you were first onto the story of Garp and because he wants you to know the rest of it.’ The allosaur swung towards the reif. ‘You see, there is no evidence that Soper was responsible for loading the subversion program into his aug, but there is plenty of proof available of her other crimes. Should you choose not to broadcast this conversation and so alert her, you can go with him to obtain this proof. Conveniently, Soper will be visiting one of her praist factories in a few days’ time - one of eight hundred such places run by the Tronad.’

There it was:
justification.
Geronamid had not admitted the Polity intended intervention here, but the hint stood as wide as a barn door.

The allosaur swung back to Salind. ‘It is well to remember that if not Soper, then certainly someone in the Tronad ordered the assassination attempt on me. Not because they thought it might succeed, but because the attempt in itself would bring home to the ruling council here on Banjer just how vulnerable they are and so stiffen their resolve to keep the Polity out.’

The Tronad was the main power here, not the Council?

Salind said, ‘But you are sending Garp for destruction.’

Geronamid paced away and swung round with his snout poised over the reif. ‘Garp is not there,’ he said, then swung his snout towards the blank Golem. ‘Garp is there.’

Salind turned to study the Golem. While behind him it had plugged a thick optic cable into a socket in the side of its chest. Now its stance was different. It held out its skeletal grey hands to stare at them, then it gazed across at Geronamid.

‘Garp was running fully in his augmentation because viable brain tissue was being destroyed by his praist addiction. He is now a hundred per cent uploaded to this Golem,’ said Geronamid.

Salind could feel his stomach turning over and over. His fortune was made. What a story!

He had enough already to get his contract picked up by one of the Earth networks. Hell, he could even get investment for his own network. He watched as Geronamid swung its head back towards the reif.

‘The reif will go for incineration as per the Council’s request,’ the AI said.

‘About time,’ said Garp the Golem.

* * * *

‘Thank you for agreeing to see me. Obviously I was wrong about this Garp character and his relationship to you. I’m not afraid of admitting to error. You’ll have heard that my story has been withdrawn from the net?’ Salind kept smiling as he studied the apartment. Soper was obviously a woman of baroque tastes. The place was full of preruncible furnishings and frankly strange decorations. He brought his attention finally back to the woman herself.

Deleen Soper bore the appearance of a sixteen-year-old girl - a sure sign she’d been using some of the less sophisticated rejuvenation treatments. She sported short-cropped blonde hair over elfin features and wore jeans and a check shirt. Her whole persona seemed that of a pretty farmgirl from some half-forgotten age. Salind knew her to be a hundred and forty-three years old, and responsible for the deaths of hundreds directly, and tens of thousands indirectly through the drug praist. He kept on smiling.

‘Leave us, Turk,’ she said, and gave an airy wave of her hand.

The butler character who had accompanied Salind from the front door all the way up the spiralling stairs of the building gave a wooden nod and departed. Salind guessed that the man’s duties probably included more than butlering - he looked as if he could crush rocks in his armpits.

‘Please, take a seat Mr Salind,’ she said.

‘My pleasure.’

Salind sat and watched her walk to an antique drinks cabinet and fill two small cups from a silver teapot.

‘Tea?’

He nodded. Now was as good a time as any to try the stuff. She placed the drinks on an occasional table and sat in the armchair opposite.

‘Please, conduct your interview,’ she said.

Salind picked up the warm cup and sipped the drink. It tasted bitter and salty, then left an aftertaste of avocados. Like most of the preferred drinks of humankind it was an acquired taste.

‘What was your relationship with Inspector Garp?’ he asked as he placed his cup back down on the table. ‘I’d like to hear your side of things.’

‘It is a shame you did not think of that before you released your first story.’

Her expression, for a moment, had gone flat and characterless.

‘Again, I apologize . . .’

Soper switched on a smile and began to talk. ‘We had, for a brief time, a liaison. I finished it because it became evident he expected more from the relationship than I was prepared to give.’

‘Like what exactly?’

Soper waved her hand at her surroundings. ‘I am a wealthy woman. My family has made a fortune from our bangroves. Garp wanted some of that and I was not prepared to give. I do not like fortune hunters. When he realized my position he then started to make accusations.’

‘He accused you of dealing in praist and being connected to the Tronad.’

Soper leant forward. ‘Ridiculous of course. Why should I deal in praist? I have no need of the money.’

‘His contention was that your family has always dealt in praist, that you made a fortune from it which you are now investing in legitimate businesses.’

‘I thought you were here to listen to my side?’

That flat and dead look again.

‘I’m sorry. Do go on.’

‘My family have owned bangroves for centuries and our fortune grew from them.’ She gestured to the drink before Salind, who took up the cup and drank again. This time the mouthful he took seemed more satisfying.

Soper continued, ‘Praist is a drug dealt in by a small minority of the criminal element of Banjer. We have always been leaders here and the holders of moral . . .’

As she went on Salind accessed Argus.

Praist statistics please.

Fifteen per cent of the population are praist users. That is approximately eighty million
people. It is at the root of seventy-three per cent of all crimes committed here and ninety-two per
cent of all suicides. It is speculated that terminal praist users will be the first to vote for Polity
subsumption because of advanced Polity medical technologies. There is no cure for praist
addiction here, and most users - those who do not commit suicide - are killed before the drug kills
them. In the last year of addiction - addiction lasts eight solstan years - the user becomes
psychotic.