The Pinkelponker Research Institute sprawled across the built-up northern border of Eddy like a fever dream. No signs warned that when you passed the last of the rows of permacrete corporate headquarters buildings you should expect something very different indeed. No lights, labels, tapestries, recordings, or welcome displays clamored to explain it to you. In the middle of a five-hundred-meter-wide lot the gleaming black ziggurat simply commanded your eye to focus on the miniature of Pinkelponker that revolved slowly in the air a few meters above the building's summit.
Dougat and the Followers named it a Research Institute, but you instinctively knew the moment you saw it that it was a temple, a place where people worshipped, a site of great importance to them.
A perfect lawn the muted green of shallow seawater surrounded the building. Circular flower beds rich in soft browns, glowing yellows, and deep ocean blues burst from the grass at apparently random locations all over the lot. Only when you viewed them from the air, as I had when Lobo and I had made our first recon pass late the morning after my meeting with Jack, did you realize that each grouping of plants effortlessly evoked an image of one of the many volcanic islands that were the only land masses on my birth planet. The ziggurat itself looked nothing like any of the individual islands I'd seen, yet its rounded edges and graceful ascent reminded me of home, made me ache for it.
After our initial fly-over, I'd directed Lobo to a docking facility on the west side of town and hopped a cab from there. I'd then sent Lobo back up so he could keep watch over me. No one knew me here, so I really shouldn't have needed the protection, but I've learned from past experience that if I give Lobo something to do he's a lot easier to get along with than if I leave him in storage, even if storage is the more sensible alternative.
At least he appreciated that I needed to see the site in person, and he couldn't reasonably join me. If you're going to work on the ground, aerial images and even surface-level recordings are no substitute for actually walking the terrain and getting a feel for it. I've been on multiple missions that didn't permit that luxury, but this one did, and I was going to take advantage of the opportunity. I'd changed cabs twice on the chance anyone had tracked me from the docking center, but neither Lobo nor I spotted any tails. The last cab took me down the street that bordered the Institute on the ocean side, a wide avenue jammed with hover transports, cabs, and personal vehicles all rushing to and fro in the service of Eddy's growing economy. The length of the crossing signal made it clear that the city's planners valued vehicles and commerce far more than pedestrians.
When I finally made it to the Institute's ocean-side entrance, I found the overall effect far more entrancing than anything I'd anticipated from my aerial surveillance. I felt as if someone had sampled my memories and recombined them, managing in the process to create a setting that in no way resembled home but that at the same time rewarded every glance with the sense that, yes, this is the essence of Pinkelponker, what it meant if not exactly what it was. Working in the grain fields under the bright sun, the constant ocean breeze cooling me, Jennie due to visit when her day was done—I drifted back involuntarily, my memories summoned by Dougat's artful evocation.
I shut my eyes and forced myself to focus on the job. It was a site I had to analyze, nothing more. Jack's task was to keep Manu hidden until the meeting. Mine was to make sure we all got out safely if anything went wrong. To do that, I had to learn as much about this place as possible and set up the best protection scenario I could manage given that my only resources were Jack, Lobo, and myself.
When I looked again at the grounds, I did so professionally. None of the scattered plantings rose high enough or were dense enough that you could hide in them. That was good news for possible threats, but bad news should we need to take cover. I couldn't spot any lawn-care, gardening, or tourist appliances, and when I tuned my hearing to the frequencies such machines use, I caught nothing.
"Lobo," I said over our comm link, "have your scans turned up anything?"
"No," he said. "If there are weapons outside the building, they're not emitting any IR or comm signatures I can trace. I can spot no evidence of sensor activity on the grounds. This place doesn't even have the animal-detection circuits that most developing planets require around the perimeters of buildings. I've never encountered a more electromagnetically neutral setting this close to a city."
"Any luck penetrating the building?"
"No. It's extremely well shielded. It's transmitting and receiving on a variety of frequencies, of course, but everything is either encrypted or boring, standard business interactions with the usual public data feeds."
"Anything significant between here and his warehouse?" In our research on Dougat last night, we'd learned that he owned and operated a shipping and receiving center on the south end of the city.
"Encrypted bursts of the size you'd expect for inventory and sensor management. We should assume that place has the normal software and sensor sentries of any such facility, but it's not as shielded as this building and currently reads IR-neutral. Best estimate is that no people are there."
Good; the security we found here might be all we had to worry about.
"Any other significant activity?"
"Unfortunately," Lobo said, "yes. This structure is transmitting situational updates to the Eddy police headquarters almost continually. If anything happens here, the police will know about it within a second or two."
Dougat definitely had pull, because cops on early-stage worlds are notoriously relaxed and tolerant. They understand that the process of developing a planet is one that engenders many conflicts, and they tend to let the parties involved sort out their differences. That Dougat could get them to monitor his institute so thoroughly meant we had to assume he'd also made sure they'd take his side in any disagreements. So, we had to consider them hostiles. Great.
"How long would it take them to reach here?"
"I can only guess," Lobo said.
"So guess."
"Traffic appears to be bad throughout the day, and I spot no signs of any significant airborne vehicles at their nearest facility. So, I would estimate a response time no faster than seven minutes and no slower than fifteen."
"If anything goes wrong," I said, "we'll consider five minutes to be our window. That means you must remain within a max of two minutes, maybe less."
Even as I said it, I didn't like it. If we ended up dealing with a hostile party on his own turf and we had to cope with a kid, we needed more time.
"I want a bigger window," I said. "We're going to need a diversion."
"What are you willing to destroy?" Lobo said. "If you'll sanction strikes on third-party property, I can destroy enough things in their path that the police will need a great deal more time to reach here."
"No," I said. "I don't want to make anyone else pay for our problems." Hurting innocent people or their property was sometimes necessary, but I hated doing it. "Aren't the police closer to Dougat's warehouse than here?"
"Considerably," Lobo said, "but that facility does not appear to be transmitting to police monitors."
"Fine," I said. "We'll use the warehouse if need be. We can visit it tomorrow. We'll make sure that anything we do to it is so loud and so obvious that the police have to attend to it first."
"If I fire at it," Lobo said, "they'll quickly know the attack initiated from an airborne vehicle. In addition, the explosions are extremely likely to damage neighboring properties. Neither of those factors are will help our cause when we try to jump from this planet."
I nodded and considered the problem. "Good points." The smaller the commotion we caused, the better. In addition, the more we could do without leaving an obvious trail, the more likely we were to be able to get away cleanly, should it come to that. "We'll have to make it look like either an accident or something that someone on the ground did. That would rule you out, and by being here, I wouldn't be a suspect, either."
The plan seemed reasonable, but it could still end up hurting innocents at the warehouse. "Can you get me any more data at all about that building?"
"No," Lobo said. "The place is shielded against both IR and more penetrative scans."
"Then I'll have to check it out myself," I said. "That'll be tomorrow's primary mission. If Dougat maintains a staff there, I'll either have to figure a way to get them out or target only an unoccupied part of the building. That means I'll have to plant implosives. Your arsenal includes a full stock, doesn't it?"
"Of course," Lobo said, immediately indignant.
Even when I ask about things not under his control, such as the replacement weapons I have to buy when we use devices from his munitions supply, Lobo turns petulant. I considered telling him to stop behaving so poorly, but I knew the conversation would prove useless.
Instead, I turned my attention back to the Institute. The air was cooling as night approached, but Eddy was still warm enough that the slight breeze from the ocean felt fine against my skin. I'd stood in one place longer than a normal tourist would, so I walked slowly toward the building.
"In the last fifteen minutes," Lobo said, "over two dozen humans have entered the Institute on the side opposite your position, and twenty have left via the same doors."
"Shift change. How many look like security?"
"All were wearing comm links, so that's impossible to gauge. Based on the building's total lack of visible external sensors or weapons, however, we should assume most are hostiles."
"No," I said. "Even if they're all security, they're not necessarily hostiles, at least not yet. They become problems only if Dougat chooses not to play this straight."
"You're indulging in distracting games," Lobo said, "induced by your emotions. You've involved us, an involvement that matters only if Dougat attempts to kidnap Chang. If he does, he and his staff become hostiles, as do the police. If Dougat doesn't cause any problems, we're spectators. The only reasonable option, therefore, is to treat them all as hostiles for the duration of our participation."
Though I'm glad Lobo is mine, his lack of tolerance for ambiguity frequently leads to conversations that are far more cold-blooded than I prefer. "By that logic," I said, "to maximize our probability of success we should simply kill all the staff and the police. Right?"
Lobo ignored my sarcasm. "That is sensible from an efficiency perspective," he said, "but it would attract the attention of the EC staff at the gate, and it would also remove Dougat's ability to pay for the interview and thus compromise the overall mission. So, I don't recommend it."
Before I could decide whether I wanted to know if he was also being sarcastic, I reached the ziggurat's entrance.
"Signing off until I exit," I said.
The atmosphere inside was a perfected version of what I'd felt outside: a bit warmer, a little more humid, with light breezes of unknown origins wafting gently across you no matter where you stood. Perpetual daylight brightened the space. Cloudscapes played across the ceiling. The faint sounds of distant surf breaking and wind moving through grasses tickled the edges of perception. Once again, I had only to close my eyes to transport myself to the Pinkelponker of my childhood. Either Dougat or someone on his design team had visited my home world, or their research was impeccable.
The center of the space was a single large open area broken by injection-molded black pedestal tables that glowed in the ever-present light, two meter by four meter informational displays, and small conversation areas. The island theme continued here, with each cluster of exhibits centered on a topic such as early history, agriculture, speculation on the exact cause and final outcome of the disaster, mineral and gemstone samples, and so on. A few dozen people stood and sat at various spots around the interior, some clearly serious students, and many equally obviously only tourists with at most an idle interest in Pinkelponker. Even the most studiously focused of the visitors would close their eyes from time to time as the interior effects worked on them.
The exceptions, of course, were the security personnel. You can costume security staff so their clothing blends with the visitors', and you can train them to circulate well and even to act interested in the exhibits, but you can't make them appear under the spell of the place they're guarding. Even the most magical of settings loses its allure after you've worked in it for a few weeks. I counted fifteen men and women on active patrol. I had to assume at least a few more were monitoring feeds and weapons scanners, occupying rooms I couldn't see, and generally staying out of my view.
I kept in character as a tourist, lingering long enough at the historical displays to appear interested but not so long as to look like a student of the planet. I'd learned almost nothing of the world's history growing up there, so I was genuinely interested in the background on the generation ship and the later discovery of the jump gate. Docent holograms snapped alert when I lingered at any exhibit, and I let a few of them natter at me. One presentation explored the various religions of Pinkelponker. Growing up there, I never saw a place of worship, and the closest I came to prayer was the occasional desperate hope for Jennie to come visit me or for my chores to be over. I stopped long enough that a docent asked if by chance I belonged to any organization that viewed the planet as sacred. I hadn't realized such groups existed; perhaps the Followers were among them. I obviously had a lot to learn about how some people viewed my home.
A small, meter-wide display in the right rear corner of the space offered the only discussion of the legends Jack had cited. Dougat might be as personally interested in the stories of Pinkelponker psychics as Jack had said, but the man either wasn't letting his interest shape the Institute's exhibits or was keeping a low profile with his beliefs.
Like the other tourists I spotted, I made sure to invest a large chunk of my time gawking at the cases highlighting jagged mineral samples and large, unrefined gemstones. Though I frequently stood alone at one of the historicals, I always had company at the mineral and gem displays. For reasons I've never understood, standing near items of great monetary value, even things you'll never have the chance to touch or own, is a compelling experience for many people. As best I could tell, the larger samples here, like the big gemstones in any museum on any planet, illustrated the power of natural forces applied slowly over long periods of time to create artifacts of great beauty. The waterfalls outside Choy's restaurant and the grooves they'd cut into the cliffs there made the same point and were, to me, more striking and more beautiful than any individual minerals, but for most people they lacked the powerful allure of gems.
I was intrigued to learn that Pinkelponker had been extremely rich in gemstones and that the business of exporting them to other worlds eventually constituted a major source of revenue for the government. All I'd seen of Pinkelponker was a pair of islands: the one where I lived until the government took away Jennie, and the one where they tossed me until my failed escape attempt led them to sell Benny and me to the Aggro scientists for nanotech experimentation. I owed Benny for my eventual escape from that hellish prison, but he'd died in the ensuing accident, so my debt to him was another of the many that I'll never be able to repay.
The images of gleaming government centers sparkling on sun-drenched islands and the stories of gem-fueled wealth led me to wonder, not for the first time, at the amazingly different ways that residents of the same planet can view their world.
The rearmost of the exhibits ended at a long wall that extended across the back of the building and rose to the ceiling. Offices, storage, and loading docks probably filled the remainder of the interior space. As I exited I counted off the distance from that wall; knowing the size of the private space behind it might prove useful. I continued to hope everything would go smoothly and this scouting would prove to have been a waste, but until the interview was over and Jack and Manu were safely away, the more information we had, the better.
To the left of the entrance I paid a visit to a small concession area. The two machines there offered everything from beverages to quasi-historical data files to glowing bouncy ball models of Pinkelponker. I purchased some water and listened on the common appliance frequencies on the chance that I could glean something useful.
"Another big spender," the beverage dispenser said. "Does anyone who visits this place even appreciate what I'm capable of? If they'd bother to scroll through the menu, or simply ask, they'd learn that I could provide everything from juices to local herbal teas—and some quite good ones, if the reactions I've heard are any indication."
"Isn't that always the way it is?" the keepsake vendor said. "Oh, sure, a few will buy a bouncing Pinkelponker model, but what about the built-to-order and personalized options? How many of these people will take real advantage of what I could do for them? Precious few, I can tell you. Why, I bet not one in a hundred of them has even a clue as to the breadth of Pinkelponker souvenirs I could fabricate."
"If it weren't for the staff," the dispenser continued, "my conveyor and rear assembly parts might rot of disuse."
"I'm sorry I'm not thirstier," I said on their frequency, "but I do appreciate the work you both do."
Though machines don't expect humans to talk to them on their radio spectrum, it takes an exceptionally intelligent one, such as Lobo, to ever question why you're able to do so. Most appliances are so self-absorbed and have so much spare intelligence that they'll dive at any chance to chatter endlessly with anything or anyone that responds.
"Thank you for saying so," the dispenser said.
"At least he bought something from you," the other commented.
I interrupted before they could get into an argument and forget me entirely; appliances also have extremely short attention spans. "The staff must keep you very busy. I'm sure they appreciate you, and they seem to outnumber the visitors."
"They appreciate it," the keepsake machine said, "but not me. Except for the odd desperate birthday gift purchase, most never even visit me. Of course, it's not like I have an outlet in the back of the Institute. Some machines work at a disadvantage."
"Some machines are simply more important than others," the beverage dispenser said. "Every human has to drink, so my offerings are vital. They do not have to purchase the sort of disposable afterthoughts you peddle."
"I bet each staff member uses you at least once a day," I said, focusing on the dispenser.
"Not quite," it said, "but some order multiple times, so the average daily total is actually a bit better than that."
"You must keep quite busy simply helping them," I said, "because that must be, what, sixty or eighty orders a day."
"I wish!" it said. "It's more like thirty-five to forty orders a day, and I could handle ten times that quantity with ease."
That put the staff count at about three dozen, which meant security could run as high as twenty or more during busy hours. That estimate roughly matched what I'd guessed from walking around. That many guards would have been overkill for a place this size were it not for the gems, but given their presence it was believable. Consequently, Dougat had the option of summoning a lot of human backup, so I definitely needed to keep the meeting in the open, where Lobo could reach us quickly.
I walked outside and wandered for a few minutes among the islands of flowers. That Jack had approached me about a job involving Pinkelponker kept nagging at me. Did he know something about my background, or was it just a coincidence induced by me choosing to spend time on a world only two jumps away? If he'd learned more about me, how, and from what source? With many people I would ask them or feel them out on the topic, but neither approach would work with Jack; he was too much a manipulator for me to play him, and if he knew nothing, I certainly didn't want to alert him that this was a topic he should pursue further.
My safest option was to do the job at hand and listen closely in case he let something slip—an unlikely event, of course, but a possibility nonetheless.
I headed off the grounds and opened a link to Lobo.
"Enjoy your tour?" Lobo said.
The tone of his voice answered my earlier, unspoken question: he'd been speaking sarcastically then. Lobo's mood never changes due to breaks in a conversation, no matter how long the breaks may be—unless, of course, the concerns of a mission intervene. Though his emotive programming was, in my opinion, overblown, his designers had at least possessed the good sense to make him turn all-business when the situation demanded. For that, I was always grateful.
"It was informative," I said, ignoring his tone. "As you would expect, we're going to make some modifications to the draft plan we discussed earlier. Pick me up at the rendezvous point in an hour and a half, and we'll walk through it again."
"It's what I live for," Lobo said.
I ignored him and continued. "In the meantime, consider options that do minimal damage to this place. I see no reason to trash more than we have to."
"No reason?" Lobo said, incredulity replacing sarcasm in his voice. "Your instructions were that the top priorities were to get you, Manu, and Jack, in that order, to safety should this turn into more than an interview. You even established that Jack would be in command should you be incapacitated. You wouldn't have given those orders unless you believed this could go badly. Should that happen, the simplest way to achieve your goals and avoid an unwanted conclusion is to take out all opposition staff and positions."
"That's not an option," I said.
I signed off without further discussion. Lobo didn't agree with my orders, but like any professional soldier he'd obey them as long as he was able.
I winced inside at having put myself first on Lobo's priority list, but the reality was that if the day turned non-nonlinear, the best hope Jack and Manu had was that I stayed alive and protected them or, if need be, went back for them. In some ways I hated the part of me that could coldly assign priorities in life and death situations. That same coldness, however, had kept me alive through a great many missions gone very, very wrong, so I was unwilling to abandon it.
In times like these, moments when I can't avoid seeing some of my darker aspects, I find the only force that keeps me going is the job in front of me. Everyone who's ever been through basic training knows how it works. You push aside doubt as best you can, but even if you can't, even if the doubts scream and pull at you, you take the next step—and the next, and the next, and the next, until you either reach your goal or you die.
My next step was the warehouse.