Harvest of Stars - [Harvest of Stars 01] Read online

Temptation stirred. It had been quite a while. But no. A bad idea, under these conditions. Maybe later. He really was rather sweet.

  Too much so, too gentle? He’d shown himself plenty brave, but that didn’t rule out an inner tenderness which might prove fatally disadvantaging. After all, while he had spent his life in North America, lived and worked among its citizens, he was Fireball. She suspected, from his style, that he too was Fireball born and raised. Then probably all the people were whom he felt closest to. He might join them over the phone more often than in the flesh, but they were his amigos, his true compadres; and he knew that troth worked both ways and if trouble came upon him he would have the mighty company at his back. So he could afford a certain trustfulness that the ordinary North American no longer could.

  This situation had brought on a great deal of the conflict, Kyra mused. There was always some friction between Fireball and every government, even Ecuador’s. No government liked any of those over whom it claimed authority bearing a deeper allegiance to an outside power than to its own politicians and caudillos. Most could tolerate that, however, especially the democratic ones. It didn’t threaten them any more than did allegiances to a worldwide religion or a worldwide interest group. But Avantism, which wanted to organize everything—ultimately, all human minds—according to Xuan’s doctrine, Avantism was seriously inconvenienced by the daily presence of a system that was different and that flourished.

  Yes, Fireball was altogether different, the creation of a rambunctious individualist whose machine ghost continued to rule over it. More than a set of profit-making enterprises, it was a society, a way of thinking and living—a nation, Dad said once. A nation whose folk were allowed, encouraged, to think, speak, act for themselves, yet which bound them together in loyalties stronger than law. A nation whose head set an example utterly noneconomic, nonaltruistic, nonrational, and was cheered for it, when he not only sponsored missions to the stars, which was justifiable as scientific research, but went to Alpha Centauri in person. (Bueno, as a copy of himself, but it came to the same thing.) It wasn’t as if yonder planet Demeter promised the slightest material gain for anybody at any time before its doom came upon it.

  Still, the Avantists had managed. Fireball didn’t actively try to subvert them, and they depended on Fireball as much as Earth in general did. The relationship was uneasy, but it worked after a fashion. Then why had the Avantists suddenly lashed out? Why, first, their occupation of North American headquarters, and now of everything Fireball had within their jurisdiction?

  Because they’d learned about Guthrie’s duplicate and wanted it for their own purposes, and one thing led to another. But surely this was a desperate move.

  They were desperate, Kyra thought.

  They were totalitarians. Hitherto she had not quite appreciated what that meant. It had been something in her history lessons when she was a schoolgirl. Oh, she heard analogies drawn between the Avantists and the Jin Dynasty, the Incas, the Communists, and so forth, but it had seemed pretty abstract. She heard of abuses, and had once met a victim who’d escaped to Brazil. (He had been a physicist, rather reckless in expressing his opinions. After what had been done to his brain, he was taking any kind of menial work he could get.) But in several other countries on Earth, dissenters also flew a dangerous orbit.

  She should have asked her parents more carefully just why they had moved to Russia. She should have asked herself just why any country needed to make ideological nonconformity a crime, and maintain a Security Police against it, and send offenders to prison or to revision treatment. Then she would have understood beforehand how this government had cornered itself.

  Measures like that were necessary if you were to march your people into the paradise your system promised them; but in today’s world you couldn’t keep it up forever. A global, no, interplanetary economy required they go back and forth across your borders, thousands and thousands every day; an interplanetary communications net kept them awash in information from abroad; they saw they were being ordered about with little benefit, and they saw that elsewhere were more freedom and prosperity. They grew disillusioned. Some of them muttered complaints, and you labelled such persons Chaotics, reactionaries who would fain throw history back into randomness. Did certain among these begin secretly gathering weapons and plotting revolution?

  Kyra didn’t know. She simply thought that the Avantists must have stumbled on an opportunity for a wild, daring gamble, and taken it because it was their last chance. Which didn’t mean they couldn’t do a lot of killing and wasting before they went under. It didn’t even mean they couldn’t win their bet and take charge of the whole human race. Far-fetched, no doubt, but possible.

  Infierno! She was making herself wakeful. To what purpose? None. Relax. What she needed was a night’s rest. Subvocally she recited the mantra that should put her to sleep.

  * * * *

  5

  D

  ateline Futuro,” rattled from the newscaster’s lips. “Yesterday the government seized all properties of Fireball Enterprises in the North American Union. Militia are in occupation and Security Police units have entered the key facilities.” Scenes flashed by. Northeast Integrate, the World Trade Center shining renovated like an island amidst reefs and wreckage, flitters hovering above, troops and guns on the roof. Toronto Compound, Kyra’s birth home, uniformed men standing guard along a street of neat little dwellings while children passed anxiously on their way back from school. Southwest Energy Central, a desert forested with receivers that waited for Moonrise and the power they would drink, armored vehicles now squatting beneath them. Kamehameha Spaceport, a glimpse of blue sea and white surf, a ship tall on her pad, several technicians herded from her by a squad whose hands brushed holstered shock guns.

  What a mierda background for breakfast, Kyra thought. Nonetheless she tucked the food away. No telling when her next chance would come. Lee picked at his. On the end of the table, Guthrie watched, armored in the impassivity of his box.

  “The company’s operations throughout this country are suspended. However, the official statement expressed hope that they can resume shortly. It declared that this move had, quote, ‘the full agreement of Fireball executives at the highest level,’ close quote. That comes as an added surprise, after many years of growing difficulties between the government and a number of giant international firms, especially Fireball.”

  Especially indeed, Kyra thought. Without Guthrie’s lead, which must have included plenty of hidden pressure and connivance, the others would long since have truckled.

  His mutter chilled her: “That settles it. They have definitely got my duplicate and they’ve worked him over. Poor bastard.”

  Lee raised his head. “Won’t your officers suspect?” he asked.

  “They may,” Guthrie answered, “though only two of my people besides me now know where he was, and they’ve no reason thus far to think he isn’t there yet. I didn’t myself, remember, till too late. If and when anti-Guthrie comes out into the open, he’s going to be almighty convincing.”

  “—speaking from the Directive Office, President Manuel Escobedo Corrigan.”

  The image that appeared in the screen was handsome, silver-haired, sonorous. “Citizens, attention! I have an important announcement. First let me make clear that there is no cause for alarm. Acting in your best interests, your government is taking measures against a danger to your very lives. In the course of doing so, we will terminate a conflict that has become intolerable. Few persons will be directly affected, except that society will benefit enormously. Meanwhile, all are entitled to information. Listen carefully. Hear the truth. False rumors may circulate. Properly instructed, you will be able to discredit them, denounce them, and report anyone who persists in them.

  “By the authority vested in me, and under the wise guidance of the Advisory Synod, I have ordered seizure of all possessions in this country of that company known as Fireball Enterprises. Suspicion has become certainty. Your Security Police hav
e found that over the years, this whole vast organization has been infiltrated by Chaotic terrorists. Their end is nothing less than the violent overthrow of your government. Their means, if carried through, would bring millionfold deaths, nationwide devastation, and immeasurable suffering. We must forestall them. We must track down each last one of them, arrest him in his evil work, and bring him to rehabilitation—to justice.

  “You will recall the seeming accident that ruined the database in Midwestern Security Center with a powerful electromagnetic pulse. It would have gravely hampered police operations throughout that area. Fortunately, your Security Police had unearthed some clues in advance. They did not know precisely what was to happen, but as a precaution they transmitted duplicate files elsewhere. When the event struck, they were prompt to act. They found it was no accident, but sabotage. They found, as they already suspected, that employees of Fireball were among those responsible.”

  Kyra threw a glance at Guthrie. He saw and rumbled, “No, of course we had nothing to do with it. Don’t you suppose I’d make damn sure all our people in a screwed-up country like this, who might be in a position to do something unusual, were sane and sober? Why the hell should we pull such a stupid stunt, anyway? And how do you know the thing ever even happened? We had only the government’s word for it, and they brushed aside our offer to help investigate.”

  A manufactured excuse to enter and ransack the building in which the Sepo had learned that the other Guthrie lay—Kyra turned her attention back to Escobedo. “—cannot go into detail,” the president was saying. “Criminals and subversives must not be informed of our detective methods. But rest assured, my fellow citizens, when the task has been completed, you shall know the results.”

  He went quite solemn. “I must be frank with you. I will not, I may not hide from you that there will be many difficult, yes, dangerous moments in the near future. We are dealing with a huge and powerful organization that has always been hostile to the ideals of Avantism. Let me explain. Let me give you once again the background, though you be familiar with it, in order that I may then share with you the hope that stands bright before us.

  “During the past two centuries, Fireball Enterprises has grown until its operations span the Solar System, reach beyond, and at the same time probe into the vitals of every country on Earth. It is more than a spaceship line; its holdings include everything from extraterrestrial mines and manufacturing plants to planetside freight services, from scientific foundations to traders in luxury goods. It maintains whole communities under its own laws, raising generation after generation in primary devotion to itself, and deals with true governments on virtually equal terms. Yet it is not even a corporation, except in a purely technical sense. It is a private organization, tightly controlled, dedicated to profit but not above interference with politics, disdaining any national laws that inconvenience it.”

  Escobedo smiled. His tone mellowed. “Today, however, I am not denouncing Fireball as such. Instead, I am happy to say that a new order of things is beginning. We are near the end of troubles that have worsened ever since the Avantist Association took leadership of this great country. Mark well, I do not accuse Fireball’s directors of criminality, antisocial intent, or even nescience. Words on either side often grew heated. But analytically observed, as Xuan would have had us do, it was a conflict of world-views. If they do not agree that our restructuring of North American society is correct, if they do not share our billion-year vision of mind evolving toward the Omega, then it has been quite natural for them to obstruct.

  “And so, protected by the notorious Planetary Protocols, employees continued, also among us, to live in practically autonomous compounds, send their children to company schools for company indoctrination, and subject citizens whom they met to incorrect arguments. The Juneau rioting, which claimed thirty-seven lives, was only the most conspicuous consequence of this inflammation.”

  “Horse shit,” Guthrie muttered. “Alaskans remember better than most what it was like being free. They didn’t want a correction center built in their back yard, and somehow a rumor got started that the Russians would come over and join them.”

  “From abroad,” Escobedo declared, “high Fireball officials issued pro-nunciamentos hostile at best, incendiary at worst. The company embargoed sale within the Union of security-related materials. Again and again, employees helped fugitive subversives to escape abroad.”

  “A bit of truth there, for a change,” Guthrie remarked.

  “But I repeat, this was inevitable,” Escobedo said, almost compassionately. “It was like many a conflict in the past between opposing forces, equally sincere—Christians versus pagans, astronomers versus astrologers, democrats versus royalists, liberators versus imperialists.”

  His tone became stern again. “Now, as I told you, we have discovered that certain persons in the lower echelons of Fireball became so fanatically full of hatred that they entered into actual criminal conspiracy. They made contact with Chaotic terrorists who have long been waiting for a chance to strike deadly blows at you, the North American people. These individuals in Fireball aided and abetted the terrorists. They helped Chaotics get employment in the company, until today it is riddled with infiltration.

  “The danger this poses is obviously enormous. Fireball fills key positions in the economy of the Union, as it does in every country on Earth. Its potential power to commit sabotage is virtually unlimited. In our modern world, we all depend for our lives on a frighteningly vulnerable network of high-technology services, as well as materials and energy from space. Let any of this be disrupted, and we shall immediately stand on the brink of starvation, chaos, mass death. Ruthless enemies, desiring still quicker collapse, could wreck our transportation and communication facilities here on the ground. The terrorists, armed and ready, would take mastery of the ruins.

  “This is why your government has occupied everything in our country that is Fireball’s. Were we able, we would have occupied everything everywhere. I have instructed North America’s representatives in the World Federation to call for action by the Peace Authority. For surely chaos in a nation as large as ours menaces the entire human species.”

  He smiled afresh. “Now for the good news. I said before that the directors of Fireball, and indeed most of its personnel, are not evil. Misguided, we know. Negativistic, selfish, greedy, yes, many among them—I do not say all. But they are not insane. They are not stupid. They realize full well how much they too would lose by a breakdown of order. They accept that the Chaotics are enemies not only of Avantist Xuanism, but of civilization as a whole. They were simply not aware of the extent to which these enemies have infected their own quasi-nation.

  “Once your Security Police had access to Fireball headquarters, they went to work. Brilliantly they used the most advanced investigative techniques. Piece by piece, they uncovered the basic truth. Much remains to be done, of course, but we now know what it is that we must do. When we had this information, we approached certain key leaders of Fireball, in deepest confidence. They were appalled. They agreed that full occupation was necessary. The Chaotics must be rooted out to the last cancerous cell. It is for the company’s health almost as much as for our own.

  “Citizens, I tell you that this development means more than immediate safety. It points toward an entire, positive future. I do not expect the officers of Fireball or of the other corporations that follow its lead—I do not expect them to embrace correct doctrine overnight. They will continue to pursue their self-interest, and the interest of their organizations, for a long time to come. However, I do believe they are starting to see that those interests are not really opposed to a rational ordering of society. I do look forward to an era of growing cooperation—”

  The voice went on. “Turn the sound off,” Guthrie said. “The rest will be duck-billed platitudes.”

  Kyra obeyed. She caught the idea, if not the figure of speech. “Yes, he’s just a figurehead, isn’t he? The whole government is.”

>   “Not quite, but close enough for present purposes. Hm. Those North American execs of ours, Reynaldo, Langford, Rappaport—how many more? —what about them? I hope to Christ they’re all right.”

  “I shouldn’t think the Avantists would harm them, sir,” Lee said. “That would make needless antagonism. Probably several key persons are in ‘protective custody,’ but not otherwise abused, and that’s simply to keep them incommunicado. Then nobody can be sure whether some of them have in fact agreed that the occupation is right and necessary.”

  “How believable will that be, and for how long?” Kyra wondered. “Would any of them sit still and mum, given a choice?”

  “No,” Guthrie replied, “but the situation can be maintained for several days, after which the prisoners can be released and it won’t matter. Any little inconsistencies between their stories and Escobedo’s will be overlooked. Till then, Sayre’s gang needn’t expect too much trouble from those they’ve left free. The commonsensical thing for all consortes to do right now is sit tight and wait for word from me.”

  As if to confirm, the president’s message ended and a new image appeared. Kyra restored the sound and heard: “Dateline Quito. At Fireball’s general headquarters here, Director-at-large Dolores Almeida Candamo issued a statement calling this a most perturbing development. She had no other comment pending further information, except that she and her associates are in touch with other offices on Earth and in space. None of these have offered any comment either.”