Eichra Oren looked around at his audience gathered in the clearing.
"This morning," he told them, "if there's no objection, I'll communicate in the human language, English, for the benefit of those without cortical augmentation. Please adjust your implants to the appropriate translation channel."
The p'Nan debt assessor sat cross-legged on a blanket at the base of a huge canopy tree, sword lying across his knees. Sam lay nearby, tongue out, looking like an ordinary dog. Overhead and to the rear, the pearlescent fungoid growth which would soon be Eichra Oren's quarters jutted over the nearby stream. For a few seconds, only the murmur of that stream broke the silence, as sapients of many sizes and shapes briefly contemplated an inner reality unsharedas yet, the thought entered Toya's mindby the small handful of humans present.
They were a mixed handful too, increasingly uncaring of position or rank. Betal was here, having appointed himself a sort of acolyte to the Antarctican. The general, behaving self-consciously toward her as he had since last night, sat beside her on a convenient fallen log. His son Danny leaned against a tree across the clearing, conversing with Sebastiano until the moment Eichra Oren spoke. Not far away, Ortiz glowered (that being his natural, relaxed expression) either at Wisehere for a therapeutic outing on his crippled kneeat his doctor (and everyone else's) Rosalind Nguyen, or at C. C. Jones, whom none of the officers seemed to like. Toya thought him handsome with his rugged features and salt-and-pepper beard. In the middle of the clearing, amidst the aliens, sat Owen and Marna. Even Rubber Chicken Alvarez had shown up. What interest that overgrown class clown had in these proceedings defied Toya's power of imagination. The only individual she missed was Empleado, and she didn't miss him much.
Aside from her own cosapients, it seemed to her that no two creatures among Eichra Oren's listeners were of the same species. Until a moment agothe same moment Danny had quit talkingDlee Raftan Saon, courtly surgeon of an insectile race, had been enjoying what may have been a professional discussion with Rosalind, although Toya rather doubted it. Raftan liked the ladiesof whatever speciesand had once even "kissed" Toya's hand.
Llessure Knarrfic was here, too, which Toya found surprising since that individual was a busy executive in Mister Thoggosh's various enterprises and on top of that, a sort of potted plant-being resembling a giant rubber flower.
Remaulthiek, on the other hand, dispensed refreshments at Dlee Raftan Saon's infirmary. She resembled a big gray quilt in a plastic bag, being distantly related to skates and rays. She was always interested in anything to do with moral indebtedness. Her rather menial vocation was something of a penance she had long ago imposed on herself for some unknown transgression.
There was no sign of the sea-scorpions who provided security here, nor of Aelbraugh Pritsch, Mister Thoggosh's assistant, nor (as Aelbraugh Pritsch referred to him) of the "Proprietor" himself. Scutigera was rumored to be off on the other side of the asteroid, dealing with some technical problem which had been bedeviling the nautiloids. Toya did see a giant spider, three meters tall and strikingly beautiful in its red-and-sable furry pelt.
After a moment, Eichra Oren nodded. "Before we begin this morning, let me help our guests understand what's about to happen. As many of you appreciate, the one debt assessment they've seen was unusual, and may have given them a false impression of what takes place under normal circumstances."
He shifted on his blanket, settling into a more comfortable position.
"For most of human history, disputes between individuals have been settled by professional arbiters hired by a government which theythe arbitersrely on to impose whatever decisions they arrive at, by coercive physical force. Which is to say by threat of injury or death. Those among you unfamiliar with the concept of government will find it described among human customs on one of the supplementary information channels."
For reasons Toya could only guess, a mild disturbance sifted through the crowd. Eichra Oren let it fade before continuing. "Irrational assumptions, faulty logic, and politically expedient dispositions are the hallmark of such an arrangement. Trial by ordeal was common throughout many human cultures. Imperial magistrates in ancient China were legally empowered to torture testimony from unwilling witnesses, even those not criminally accused. It was left, I imagine, to a magistrate's personal integrity whether that process produced anything resembling the truth."
Another stir and Toya knew her guess had been correct. The nonhumans were scandalized at this description of human customs while the humans, feeling they were being slandered, reacted in a similar manner. Eichra Oren gave his listeners a moment to absorb the horror of what he'd told them. Meanwhile the nearby stream did more to preserve the resulting silence than to break it, its minimal white noise muffling other sounds.
"Greater individuation, however," Eichra Oren resumed at last, "is the inviolable rule of evolution. No despot, however draconian, has ever been entirely successful at stopping it. Over many centuries, the brute power of these false arbiters`judges' they were calledcame to be limited and more or less objective standards of evidence and procedure adopted. By the current civilization's nineteenth century, due to worldwide majoritarian influence, judges were generally held to be servants of the people. Even some of them believed it. Everyone involved pretended not to notice where these judges' salaries came from, and the malignant conflict of interest that represented."
Absently, he turned his sword up to rest on its scabbard-tip. "What was termed the `rule of law'meaning participation in the process by government, an entity beyond the reach of any lawdistorted and contaminated every honest effort to balance the moral scales. Still, it is significant that, for a time, judges no longer appeared to wield absolute power in the name of some ruler, but nominally on behalf of those they were presumed to serve."
He fixed his gaze on Toya or perhaps on Gutierrez sitting beside her. "It isn't my intention to criticize the customs of our new acquaintances, but to clarify our own by contrast. Pragmatic or philosophical, any differences between those majoritarian judges and their authoritarian predecessors evaporate, compared to those between them and myself. My clients come of their own volition, seeking the benefit of whatever knowledge and skill I possess. I've no power to compel their presence, nor to compel the testimony of witnesses, nor even to compel acquiescence to any judgment I render. A culture in which people are forced to behave as if they were virtuous (however you define the term) can never know virtue, only sullen compliance and its concomitant: a widespread, furtive criminality."
Across the clearing, Danny laughed out loud.
"On the other hand," Eichra Oren told them, "when an individual's fortune rises or falls with whatever traits of character he manifests spontaneously, his culture discovers within him virtues neither he nor it suspected. My clients pay for my services themselves and these are the only conditions under which I can guarantee value. The power to compel would only make what I do harder, although it would be an easy way to cheat my customers, forcing them to accept the sight of my thumb lying heavy on the scales of justice."
Toya yawned, realizing it was an inauspicious start on the task she'd been given the previous evening (early this morning, actually). It wasn't her fault that her superiors had kept her up half the night briefing her (after questioning her endlessly about her conversation with Mister Thoggosh), but she also realized that, whoever was really to blame, she'd be held responsible for any failure. She would certainly never have asked for this duty, as a spy of all things.
"I know it's a bizarre assignment I'm giving you, Pulaski."
She hadn't believed what she was hearing. Leaning against one of the pilot's chairs, Gutierrez had hesitated, almost shy, as he attempted to explain himself. And he should be, she'd thought, considering what he's asking! Her most heartfelt wish was the same as it had been since landing here, that they'd all just leave her alone to study the Elders and their odd companions.
Gutierrez had looked down at his hands. "I'm not certain I can legally order you to do it under ASF regulations."
"I can, Sergeant, I assure you." Empleado leaned forward in his lightweight folding chair, another of the Elders' puzzling gifts, emerging from an unlit corner of the command deck where he sat listening. The agent took a final drag on his cigarettelike others, he'd recently taken up the habit againstubbing it out in an improvised ashtray turned out by Corporal Owen. "It's perfectly legal under KGB authority which, in case it escaped your attention, I happen to represent." He shook a finger at them. "That's the only consideration which should be important to either of you."
He sat back, features indistinct again in the shadows. Through the windows fireflies, a decorative domestic species someone had told her, with fat abdomens which made them the size of canaries, twinkled at the edge of the jungle surrounding the encampment.
Gutierrez shook his head. "It's important to me, Art, that the sergeant understand why Iwhy we're giving her these orders." He returned to her. "There doesn't seem to be another choice. You know our situation, Toya, as well as anybody. You also know that Mister Thoggosh is searching for something on this asteroid, more and more desperately, it appears to me. Perhaps we can make use of whatever he's looking for to get ourselves out of this mess."
Standing almost at attention, hard to do in the cramped conditions, she began to reply bitterly, "And I'm the only one you thought of"
"I don't like it," he interrupted, showing her a palm, "and you may like it even less before it's over with. But we have to take advantage of the one card we've been dealt. You're in a unique position to find out what they're looking for, and I want you to do exactly that."
How frustrating! "I don't know why you keep saying that, sir."
"I'll spell it out. You've heard the rumor that Mister Thoggosh is looking for some sort of fossil remains beneath the accretion-crust."
"Yes, sir, from two of the McCain crew who spent all day yesterday poking around one of the abandoned drilling sites until an unmanned flying machine ran them off."
"Toya, you're the only one who'd recognize the significance of such a find if you happened across it." He hesitated, his words coming slowly, as if he were ashamed of them. "The easiest way is probably through Eichra Oren. Given what happened with Reille y Sanchez, he may be emotionally vulnerable right now, susceptible"
Empleado leaned forward again, eagerly. "You must expend every possible effort, Sergeant, to determine what this Antarctican knows!"
Toya whirled, feeling the sudden heat of angry embarrassment rise in her face. "You mean I'm supposed to try to seduce it out of him?" She turned slowly this time, to face the general. "Is that right?"
Gutierrez didn't answer, perhaps thinking the question had been directed at Empleado. The KGB man, understanding that it hadn't been, that it was more of an appeal than a question, stepped in. "Tell her, General," he insisted, "that she must do more than just try."
Gutierrez shook his head. Gazing out the window into the darkness, he almost talked to himself. "I keep imagining how I'd feel if I learned that one of my daughters had been ordered to"
"Prostitute herself for the State?" Arthur laughed unpleasantly. "What higher purpose could any woman serve, especially one like her?" He observed her with a sneer, ostensibly addressing Gutierrez. "You merely want her to understand, General. I wish to leave absolutely nothing to her imagination. I rely on you to help: she is to do whatever it takes to accomplish her mission. Isn't that so?"
Empleado seemed to be enjoying himself. The general's face was still turned away, his attention somewhere outside the window. But he'd nodded, confirming the edict.
What they weren't telling her, she realized with a sinking heart, was how to go about transforming her rather drab self from the bespectacled nerd she knew herself to be into something resembling a Mata Hari.