Halfway Human Page 16

  Tedla had not stirred. Val got up to check out the food. There was only enough for one and it looked unappetizing anyway, so she stretched, wondering if there was a cafeteria in the building. Tedla was still sleeping as if drugged—who knew, maybe it had been—so she quietly slipped out the door into the hallway.

  There was a light showing under the door into the observation booth next to Tedla’s room, so she knocked on it softly and looked in. Magister Gossup was there, his chin resting on his fist, staring at nothing. Most people, on seeing that austere and unreadable face, would have hesitated to disturb him; but Val went in.

  He turned to look at her silently.

  “You haven’t been here all night, have you?” she asked.

  “No, I just got here an hour ago. I have been viewing the recording you made last night.”

  She sat down facing him. The window into the next room was opaque. “What do you think?” she said.

  “I wish to god I hadn’t seen it,” Gossup said.

  “I know what you mean.”

  There was a short silence. At last Val said, “Well, it certainly shoots down Magister Surin’s ideas.”

  “In what way?” Gossup said. He looked very tired.

  “Tedla’s problems obviously go back a lot farther than the last twelve years,” Val said. “It was already in a shaky mental state when it arrived here. Tampering with more recent mentation patterns won’t do any good. The original graph Surin’s using as a pattern is the graph of a torture victim.”

  There was a long pause. “Yes, I suppose you could argue that,” Gossup said at last. Watching him, Val had a sudden strong instinct that he was the key to this situation; winning him over was her only hope.

  “They’re going to go ahead anyway, aren’t they?” she said. “It doesn’t matter whether it will do Tedla any good.”

  His face gave away no hint of his inner thoughts. He said evenly, “WAC is pushing it very hard, yes. But that doesn’t mean it will happen. There are others involved in the decision.”

  “You?” Val said. “Are you involved in the decision?”

  He looked directly at her. “I am working for WAC, Valerie. So are you.”

  She felt a moment of claustrophobia. She was caught in a tiny space, and it was getting smaller, closing in around her. She forced herself not to sprint for the door. “Magister, I have an idea,” she said. “Let me take Tedla home with me again, just for a while. Tedla was so at ease with us. Leaving it here, cooped up in a room that makes it think of that experience—it’s inhumane. We’re making it crazy ourselves.”

  “I know—” Gossup started to say.

  “If security’s a problem, WAC can put surveillance on my copartment,” Val said. “That way, they can keep an eye on Tedla every second of the day, just as if it were here. We’ll sign any form you like.”

  “You’re too close to this, Valerie,” Gossup said. “You need to go home and rest a while. Get some distance.”

  “Will you ask them? Will you try?”

  He paused a moment, then said, “All right. I will try. Tedla would obviously prefer to be with you, and I agree that keeping it here is not kind. Now will you go home?”

  “Thank you, Magister,” Val said warmly.

  She left the room feeling cautiously optimistic—not so much because she believed his promise as because she believed the feeling behind it. Gossup felt as trapped as she did, she was sure of it.

  She stopped at the security desk to ask the guard for the nearest place to get a decent breakfast. He said, “You’ll have to go back up to the main complex. There’s a caf on ground floor.”

  “Fine,” she said, glad to know a little bit more about where she was.

  The caf proved to be run on a Chorister license, and so was heavy on flowers, ferns, and other harmonic foods. Val loaded her tray with enough to smuggle some back to Tedla. As she was heading for a table, a familiar figure hailed her. Magister Surin was sitting alone at a table, drinking a cup of very un-harmonious espresso. She hesitated, but he gestured her over to join him. Wary but curious, she went.

  “Please sit down. I’m afraid we got off to a bad start yesterday,” Surin said when she came up to his table. “I hope you didn’t get the impression we’re not pleased to have you on this project. Really, we are.”

  It was quite disarming. Val said, “Well, I hope you didn’t get the impression I’m opposed to any treatment. I’m not. I just want to make sure we don’t do something drastic before we know all the facts.”

  “Absolutely, I couldn’t agree more,” Surin said warmly. “That’s the problem dealing with these marketeer types. They always want instant answers. The trick is to give them one so they’ll go away and let you do your real work.”

  Val glanced at him. He looked completely at ease in this setting, too. It was mildly irritating. “You’ve dealt with marketeers a lot?” she asked.

  “Oh, yes,” he said in a tone that implied it was an everyday thing. “You learn the tricks of the trade. They really don’t care how you solve the problem, as long as you do it.”

  “But who gets to define what the problem is?” Val said.

  Surin laughed. “Good comeback,” he said. “Worthy of Magister Gossup himself.” He took a sip of coffee, watching her. “You know, I’d never met him before this. He’s truly hard to figure out. I understand now why there was opposition to his nomination to the Magisterium.”

  Aha, Val thought. So that was what this was about. “Oh, really?” she said casually. “I wasn’t following the debate.” In reality, she had had no access to the debate.

  “It was the usual arguments you hear whenever another Vind achieves a position of power: Their alliances and motives are unclear, they’re up to something only they know about.”

  “Oh,” Val said. “Xenophobia.”

  “Absolutely. So, have you known him long?”

  She nodded. “He was my thesis advisor.”

  “He certainly thinks highly of you.”

  Val wasn’t sure how to take this. “Really?” she said.

  “Oh, yes. Are you going to follow him into politics?”

  Val looked at him, startled. The thought had never entered her mind, but it told her a lot about how Surin’s mind worked. He saw her reaction and immediately backtracked. “Sorry. Rude question. It’s really been a treat for me, to watch Gossup handle these Gammadian reps. You can tell he’s a master.”

  “Oh, is that what he’s been doing?” Val said.

  “Hasn’t he told you?” Surin said. He had clearly pegged her as a minor player now. “He’s the perfect salesman, so subtle you’d never know he was on our side if you didn’t...well, if you didn’t know. WAC was quite jumpy about sharing any information with the delegates free of charge, but Gossup persuaded the old tycoons that a relationship of trust based on an initial show of generosity would be most profitable in the long run. You see, the Gammadians are quite ingenuous about the value of their own information. They’re like any isolate society: They assume the advantage is all on our side, because we have the spacetravel technology. They think their own information is of little value to us. If they only knew.”

  “How interesting,” Val said, suppressing her irritation at being lectured on introductory xenology. Surin was obviously enjoying the sound of his own voice; if she kept quiet, she might find out something useful.

  “Apparently, we always have this initial advantage when dealing with a new planet,” he went on. “We have to take advantage of it while it lasts. So Gossup’s been tantalizing them with our wares without teaching them our mercenary ways. No sense in disturbing their innocence, is there? It’ll be gone soon enough.”

  A terrible suspicion struck Val. “It can’t be easy to hide how an information economy works. They must be strictly controlling what the delegates see and hear.”

  “That’s the name of the game,” Surin said smoothly.

  Which meant that the delegates couldn’t be allowed to question anyone who kn
ew Capellan society well enough to spill the beans. Even if that person was one of their own citizens.

  No wonder it was the last twelve years of Tedla’s memories that Surin had diagnosed as the problem. They were the problem. Just not Tedla’s problem.

  Val rose. “I’ve got to get back,” she said. “I want to be there when Tedla wakes up.”

  “Here, I’ll walk with you,” Surin said, springing up.

  She headed for the public elevator, but Surin stopped her with a friendly wink and said, “I’ll show you a shortcut.” He led her through an unmarked door into an empty service corridor that unexpectedly made her think: grayspace. There was a freight elevator next to a concrete stairwell. Surin pushed the Up button. As if continuing a casual conversation, he said, “The thing I can’t get any sense of is Gossup’s politics. Do you know where he stands?”

  Val shook her head. “We never talked politics much.”

  “I mean, he’s not one of those wacko radicals who want to de-commodify information or something, is he?”

  He had intended only to be genially provocative; he had no idea that Val was married into a whole family of wacko radicals. She said, “Actually, I think the free information people have some good points.”

  He pretended to be intrigued. “You’re joking, right? Those people want us to return to some sort of primitive state of nobility that probably never even existed.”

  “There are plenty of cultures that get along fine without buying and selling information,” Val said, mostly to needle him.

  “None of them has an interstellar trade economy. Come on, commodification of information is the only thing that’s made space travel economically feasible. It’s the only commodity whose value exceeds its transportation cost. We’d be exporting biologicals or photonics if it paid. But our trading partners can build the machines and grow the organics much cheaper than we can send them, if they just have the codes and specs. If information were free, the way the radicals want, then there would be nothing to trade, and there goes the only incentive for interstellar ties.”

  Val had heard all these arguments; in fact, she had used them all herself with Max. She also knew his answers. “They would argue that the artificial restriction of information, in order to make it a scarce commodity, hampers the exchange that creates new ideas, and hinders change.”

  “Poppycock,” Surin said. The elevator arrived, and they stepped on, but he kept talking. “An information economy creates incentive for new research and new ideas. Our whole planet’s economy is based on generation of innovations. That’s the thing about information. You sell a person a widget, and he needs more widgets pretty soon. You teach him how to make widgets, and he never needs you again, unless you invent a better widget. We’ve always got to have some new product. That accelerates change.”

  “They also say the information trade creates a culture of paranoia.”

  Jokingly, Surin said, “I’m not paranoid. Are you paranoid?”

  “No, but someone paranoid may be listening to us,” Val gave the old retort.

  They had reached the seventh floor. Surin led the way through a door that let onto the corridor where the wayport was located, but from the opposite direction than the public elevators. Val thought she would get rid of him when she thumbed the wayport lockplate, but he followed her to the other side. The guard at the security desk had changed; Surin waved at him and he gave a respectful, “Morning, Magister Surin.”

  Walking down the hall toward Tedla’s room, Surin said, “Listen, how long do you think this interviewing thing you’re doing will take?”

  “I thought we agreed on five days,” Val said, a little tensely.

  “I know, but if I could get going any sooner, it would give me some breathing space, make my life easier.” He came to a halt by the observation room door. “What do you say?”

  So this was payback time. Fair exchange for all the information he thought he’d given her. It struck her then: He didn’t just want to impress the capitalists. He wanted to do the project. It was his chance to make a name for himself. She forced herself to smile and said, “I’ll see what I can do.”

  “Thanks, Val.” He patted her shoulder. “Listen, it’s been great getting to know you. We should have lunch some time.”

  “Sure, I’d like that,” she said.

  She went into the observation room and closed the door behind her. The room was empty. She allowed her face to contort into the grimace it had been wanting to make for half an hour. “Self-important prick!” she said to the empty chair. But putting up with him had been worth it. She understood a lot more now than she had.

  When she entered Tedla’s room, it was empty. Alarmed, she called out Tedla’s name. There was no response. She looked behind the bed, then went into the bathroom. Tedla was sitting in the dry bathtub, wrapped in a blanket.

  “What are you doing there?” she said.

  “Val,” Tedla said wanly. “I thought you weren’t coming back.”

  She sat on the commode, studying Tedla’s face. “Why would you think that?”

  “I thought you were disgusted with me,” it said softly.

  Seriously, Val said, “You still think it was all your fault, don’t you?”

  “No,” Tedla said, but the denial was unconvincing.

  “Listen, Tedla. You haven’t done anything wrong. Not in my eyes, or the eyes of anyone else on Capella Two.”

  There was a short pause. Tedla didn’t respond. Val said, “You haven’t told me what you’re doing in here.”

  “I had to get out of that room,” Tedla said. “I’ve been sitting here thinking how easy it would be to tear up this blanket into strips, and make a rope. I think that ventilation grate would support my weight. They’re crazy to leave me alone like this. I was wondering if they wanted me to try.”

  She didn’t think it would be reassuring to say, “Don’t worry, you’re under surveillance,” so she just said, “No, they don’t.” After a moment’s thought she said, “You didn’t think anyone wanted you to kill yourself before, did you?”

  “No. I didn’t think anyone would care. I’m still not sure why all of you do. I guess I don’t know you Capellans as well as I thought I did.”

  Right then, Val would have been glad to know a little less about Capellan motives. She paused. “Tedla, do you still want to go home with me?”

  She saw the first spark of life in Tedla’s eyes since yesterday. “Could I?”

  “Sure you could, if that’s what you want. Yesterday you wanted to stay and have the treatments.”

  “Not if there’s another way to get out.”

  “Is that the only reason you wanted the treatment? To get out?”

  “I don’t know. I was crazy yesterday. They’d been probing me and photographing me, giving me drugs. Please let me go home with you.”

  Val took a deep breath. “All right. We’ll give it a shot. You have to stay quiet until we get out, all right?”

  “All right,” Tedla said.

  Val led the way out into the hallway. Tedla walked close at her side, its eyes on the ground. When she came to the security desk, the guard rose nervously. In a calm, take-charge voice she said, “Surin asked me to take Tedla up to his lab for another scan. Do you have the checkout tablet?”

  As the guard looked around his desk for the nonexistent tablet, Val drummed her fingers impatiently. Finally she said, “Oh, just give me something to sign.”

  The guard gave her a slate, and she scribbled a signature.

  “I can’t let this person through the wayport, Magister,” the guard said, nodding nervously in Tedla’s direction.

  “Don’t worry, I’ll authorize it,” Val said confidently. “Come on, Tedla.” She turned to lead the way down the hall. The guard looked after them uncertainly, but apparently her invocation of Surin’s name won out over his doubts. When the doors opened, she waved Tedla through. “Wait with the guard on the other side,” she said loud enough for the man at the desk to hear
. Then she stepped through herself.

  Tedla was waiting for her alone in the corridor. She glanced toward the security desk; no alarm seemed to have gone off yet, so she turned away from it, leading Tedla down the hall toward the service door. They passed only one person on the way, a nurse wheeling a large machine. She didn’t even glance at them. When they came to the unmarked door into the stairwell, Val pushed on it. It was locked from this side.

  “Damn!” she said. There was a small, reinforced-glass window in the door; she peered through it. Two doctors were coming up the steps on the other side, talking. She rapped vigorously against the glass to attract their attention, then pointed to the door handle. One of them opened the door. “Thanks,” she said. “I didn’t want to go all the way around.”

  “Sure,” the man said, then continued on. Val and Tedla started down the steps.

  Uncertainly, Tedla said, “Aren’t we going up to the lab?”

  “No, you idiot, we’re going home,” Val said.

  “Oh. I thought you’d changed your mind.”

  “I guess I was convincing, then,” she said.

  Tedla looked at her. “You’re not authorized to do this, are you?”

  “Well...not exactly.”

  “Are you going to get in trouble?”

  “I guess I’ll find out,” Val said.

  Once they came out into the crowded public lobby by the caf, it was easy to blend into the stream of pedestrians heading toward the waystation. Val bought two tickets for them and waved Tedla on through. She was mildly astonished that it had worked. It was amazing to find what you could get away with if you acted like you had the right to.

  When they got home, Deedee was so delighted to see Tedla that she completely ignored Val’s presence. Even Max looked genuinely pleased. When Deedee had dragged Tedla off into her room, Max said in an undertone, “What happened? You looked pretty grim when you called.”

  She said, “Max, I don’t normally believe in conspiracies. But there’s really one going on here.”

  “Tell me,” he said seriously.

  “Later. First, I’ve got to make a call. I think you’d better lock the doors, and don’t let anyone in. Tedla’s not supposed to be here.”