Descending Road - TEMPTATION by Dana W. Paxson

TEMPTATION

1563 4D

Arlen eased himself into a large soft chair. His heart thumped. It was as if they were calling to him,; one of the faces was Serreth‘s, his great cat lover, morphed from a mere street thug from Sobi Zone. Arlen shook. What had happened to all the people he had faced in life? The andros had innerspace, the aliens had some larger world; was expansion of human life possible? Perhaps his victims were waiting for him in the unknown reaches; perhaps instead a new world of exploration was waiting for him. The two thoughts contended.

At last he shook himself free. The only way to settle the issue was to go forward, find the answer, break through into that realm the aliens freely used. How would he do that?

The comm panel came to life. A section lit up with the face of Durlow. “Arlen, I’ve been looking for you.” Arlen‘s image of Durlow as a bear contrasted with the worried look now on the man’s face. He nodded, and waited. “That relocation just below Naga went bad. There’s seventy-eight dead, so far.”

“Give me the details.” Arlen had positioned a force near Aswar Nagrasai, but they hadn’t reported.

“A firefight between the rebels and one of the strike forces, yours, I believe, lit off a fuel shop in the Aswar Nagrasai crossing. Now the whole operation is at a dead standstill. The SRD escort guards quit, the people grabbed their belongings and scattered, and nobody’s going anywhere. The rebels are trying to make something of it—“

“Hold on.” Arlen raised a hand, feeling in it the last tremors of his quickly-passing fear. Aswar Nagrasai was a bad place to have visible problems; it lay far too close to the upper City, where the better-fed and better-paid techworkers walked free and safe. “Well, that’s a trick two can play. We can make it louder and faster. Get the word out through your force and our sensi feeds about how the rebels shot into the crowd and then tried to blame us. I’ll make ArWord access available to you for all that. Have you told Talizirin?”

“Yes, and he’s already started putting out what you suggested, on the City News feed. And he’s tripled the scrip allocation.”

Arlen nodded. “So? Did any of the SRDs get out upcity?” He glanced at the walls. No new light came; a sullen twilight hung at the horizon around the room.

Durlow frowned. “I’m not sure. The trouble is that now we’re getting short-handed. We couldn’t prevent some leakage. I’ve got some disappearances in my force, and we’ve caught a few of yours as well. And you know as well as I do what people think of the scrip.” Durlow allowed himself a bleak smile. “Bees go for the flowers, flies go for the—“

“Scrip, yes, spare me. Forget about the SRDs and all that. Concentrate on the Complex. Nothing else matters if we don’t retake it, right? So drop all the other stuff and get your people in place the way Gullinder laid out. Unless you’d like me to fill in for you?” The one needle that could jab Durlow, maybe stab him into thinking straight in a crisis.

“That’s absolutely unnecessary,” Durlow said stiffly. “My forces will be in all the routes with all the support I committed. I just don’t want them to have to watch their backs. And you should want no less for your own.” Durlow cut out.

The last remark stung. Arlen remembered that he had wanted to ask Mentrius about losses. Mentrius had said nothing about fighters disappearing. With successes, morale generally took care of itself; with failures, Mentrius favored quick intervention.

Time to call Tren Tarz. Frintar had stepped on the regional commandant’s toes before, and now Arlen could aggravate that pain. He said to the comm panel, “Get me Tren Tarz.” Time to see whether Frintar‘s words carried any impact.

The bland, bovine face of Tren Tarz resolved itself. In spite of anxiety and frustration gathering in him, Arlen suppressed a grin. The man could have been chewing a cud of grass, and it would have looked so natural.

“Tren Tarz, I’ve learned something disturbing. It concerns one of the commanders in the effort to retake the South Power Complex.” Arlen watched the placid face. No change.

A rumbling voice, harsh with a rasp. “Arlen, each time you come to me it’s with trouble. Since the trouble is rarely anything I can act on, I see no benefit in listening to you.” The militia overlord’s mouth curled slightly into an ironic smile.

“Would you find any cause to act on a contingency plan of Frintar to impound the alien ship?”

Tren Tarz lost the smile. His eyes widened, then settled back to heavy-lidded stability. “Preposterous. Such an act might endanger us all.”

“Exactly. But I have reliable reports that she has established a plan to do just that if the aliens turn on us in the fight for the Complex.”

“And what is your response to this, Arlen? Or have you decided simply to bring it to me?” The small smile again.

The question took Arlen aback, and his mind raced. What would his response be? The watch-and-wait approach he’d given Mentrius was only a putoff. He said, “I am working all that out. I’ll keep you informed of my plans.” Unlikely. This stuffed ox would just follow along with the leaders, Gullinder, Frintar, the others.

“When you have something useful to say, call me,” Tren Tarz said, still smiling. He cut out.

Arlen sat and pondered. The aliens had never let anyone near their ship. Anyone. Not even the Regional League, the governing body of the whole planet. After the first years of contact, when the corps had tried to slip spies in and been caught, no one had approached the corridors leading to the ship. All physical communication had ever since gone through the bug soldiers the aliens used, plus the ancient video feed.

But now, with most of the aliens in their mass meeting, and the few remaining coming on and off combat shifts, what stood between him and an uninvited visit? Some of Frintar‘s maybe-fictitious protectors? A few alien soldiers, most of their cohorts either fighting alongside humans or wrapped up in that meeting? And if he entered the ship, what then? He shook his head. A dream.

But that ship carried secrets Arlen had wanted for a long time. The keys to space travel, certainly; maybe the keys to the human colonizations. Excitement swelled in him, a tumescence of curiosity that made him get up from his chair and look searchingly around the dusk-enveloped walls, the shadowed Trenzil, the shrouded Tariall, the deeply-wrought doors.

And Luce was at the heart of it. The man had just sat and taken the worst that Analytic Doctor Progarnes could give him, and Progarnes was the best ever. But the antorphin drugs hadn’t worked, and the cutting and burning hadn’t worked, and the cold hadn’t worked, only making Luce seem duller and more indifferent. Arlen couldn’t understand it. No one had ever resisted the things he had dumped into Luce‘s bloodstream. Just as if the man’s body had neutralized everything, just the way Turiosten could do—

Arlen‘s eyes opened wide. What if Luce had had an alien in him already? He should have died from the KPX and Darforyn overdose, slowly and in pain — in fact, Progarnes had said Luce‘s heart had stopped. He should have died in the shed, from the cold. He should have died from the blood loss when they’d cut his tendons.

That’s when Arlen had decided on his last plan, and tossed the nearly-dead man out by the road with a jected tracer in him, for someone to find and take back to his family. Sooner or later, Arlen had told himself, Luce would lead him to that object that had triggered the n-emission meters, the only thing besides the ore that had ever made the meters register anything. And Luce had come back into his hands, and then escaped; and Turiosten and Luce were together somewhere downcity. And the object, the treasure, still eluded Arlen.

But here was a new chance to probe the aliens. Maybe a little exploration of the ship would work best — that way, he could pull back if he met with resistance.

Yes. And then he would call Mentrius from the control room of the alien vessel, just to see the general’s face. And even better, call Frintar and Tren Tarz. They’d look even madder than the time when he’d taken over the magic-walled chamber he now used, wresting it from the City on no basis except a pretended insult. This would be a sight worth taking the greatest risks: a gilding on the penetration of the aliens' long-held secrets. He grinned.

Arlen said to the screen, “Dismiss. Show me the approaches to the spaceport, and the routes between the spaceport and the Upper South Domehall. Then I would like to review all video interviews with the shipboard aliens, highlighting ship controls and their use. Trenzil, algizarkha n’saitra Bargaroth. Na suis Carchesme.”

The screen whelmed and thrust out a holo of the spaceport shaft, in white, the streets and shafts and ramps and stairs around it shimmering lines of pale blue. Trenzil vibrated. Arlen approached the holo and traced one line with his left forefinger. This would be worth a try. Then, if that failed, this one, and then—

The doors opened. A small man, wiry in a dull brown coverall, his hair cropped to a dark fuzz over his brown scalp, walked in, silent as an ownerless shadow. He stopped beside the steel-tentacled Trenzil to look intently up at Arlen from dark soft eyes in a badger-broad face. “You have a job for us?” Arlen inclined his head slightly. When it came to commando discipline, these Argazindari put the other colls to shame. No other security force matched them, not even Gullinder‘s.

“Yes, Bargaroth, with me. We are going to get on board the alien ship, and leave it again with some information. I am taking a technological specialist with me to study the ship.”

Bargaroth‘s expression stayed neutral. “Is our visit invited?”

“No. We are neither expected nor invited, nor are we wanted. Some intelligence and diversionary work will be needed, and of course speed. Here’s what I have in mind.” Into the hanging holo display Arlen began to sketch new lines as red as fire. Bargaroth drifted noiselessly closer. Arlen glanced over at him. The man’s collechi marks, livid and swollen into ropelike vines by repeated ceremonial scarring and ulceration, ran between the neck of his coverall and his jaw, cradling his head like a wreath of snakes.

Story List	SURPRISE ME	Author Page
USER SURVEY	PUZZLE ME	MAKE ELM MARK

HOVER Lucida Bright BARE	HOVER Lucida Bright FULL	HOVER Palatino Linotype BARE
HOVER Palatino Linotype FULL	HOVER Times New Roman BARE	HOVER Times New Roman FULL
PAD Arial BARE	PAD Arial FULL	PAD Lucida Bright BARE
PAD Lucida Bright FULL	PAD Times New Roman BARE	PAD Times New Roman FULL


	TEMPTATION 1563 4D Arlen eased himself into a large soft chair. His heart thumped. It was as if they were calling to him,; one of the faces was Serreth‘s, his great cat lover, morphed from a mere street thug from Sobi Zone. Arlen shook. What had happened to all the people he had faced in life? The andros had innerspace, the aliens had some larger world; was expansion of human life possible? Perhaps his victims were waiting for him in the unknown reaches; perhaps instead a new world of exploration was waiting for him. The two thoughts contended. At last he shook himself free. The only way to settle the issue was to go forward, find the answer, break through into that realm the aliens freely used. How would he do that? The comm panel came to life. A section lit up with the face of Durlow. “Arlen, I’ve been looking for you.” Arlen‘s image of Durlow as a bear contrasted with the worried look now on the man’s face. He nodded, and waited. “That relocation just below Naga went bad. There’s seventy-eight dead, so far.” “Give me the details.” Arlen had positioned a force near Aswar Nagrasai, but they hadn’t reported. “A firefight between the rebels and one of the strike forces, yours, I believe, lit off a fuel shop in the Aswar Nagrasai crossing. Now the whole operation is at a dead standstill. The SRD escort guards quit, the people grabbed their belongings and scattered, and nobody’s going anywhere. The rebels are trying to make something of it—“ “Hold on.” Arlen raised a hand, feeling in it the last tremors of his quickly-passing fear. Aswar Nagrasai was a bad place to have visible problems; it lay far too close to the upper City, where the better-fed and better-paid techworkers walked free and safe. “Well, that’s a trick two can play. We can make it louder and faster. Get the word out through your force and our sensi feeds about how the rebels shot into the crowd and then tried to blame us. I’ll make ArWord access available to you for all that. Have you told Talizirin?” “Yes, and he’s already started putting out what you suggested, on the City News feed. And he’s tripled the scrip allocation.” Arlen nodded. “So? Did any of the SRDs get out upcity?” He glanced at the walls. No new light came; a sullen twilight hung at the horizon around the room. Durlow frowned. “I’m not sure. The trouble is that now we’re getting short-handed. We couldn’t prevent some leakage. I’ve got some disappearances in my force, and we’ve caught a few of yours as well. And you know as well as I do what people think of the scrip.” Durlow allowed himself a bleak smile. “Bees go for the flowers, flies go for the—“ “Scrip, yes, spare me. Forget about the SRDs and all that. Concentrate on the Complex. Nothing else matters if we don’t retake it, right? So drop all the other stuff and get your people in place the way Gullinder laid out. Unless you’d like me to fill in for you?” The one needle that could jab Durlow, maybe stab him into thinking straight in a crisis. “That’s absolutely unnecessary,” Durlow said stiffly. “My forces will be in all the routes with all the support I committed. I just don’t want them to have to watch their backs. And you should want no less for your own.” Durlow cut out. The last remark stung. Arlen remembered that he had wanted to ask Mentrius about losses. Mentrius had said nothing about fighters disappearing. With successes, morale generally took care of itself; with failures, Mentrius favored quick intervention. Time to call Tren Tarz. Frintar had stepped on the regional commandant’s toes before, and now Arlen could aggravate that pain. He said to the comm panel, “Get me Tren Tarz.” Time to see whether Frintar‘s words carried any impact. The bland, bovine face of Tren Tarz resolved itself. In spite of anxiety and frustration gathering in him, Arlen suppressed a grin. The man could have been chewing a cud of grass, and it would have looked so natural. “Tren Tarz, I’ve learned something disturbing. It concerns one of the commanders in the effort to retake the South Power Complex.” Arlen watched the placid face. No change. A rumbling voice, harsh with a rasp. “Arlen, each time you come to me it’s with trouble. Since the trouble is rarely anything I can act on, I see no benefit in listening to you.” The militia overlord’s mouth curled slightly into an ironic smile. “Would you find any cause to act on a contingency plan of Frintar to impound the alien ship?” Tren Tarz lost the smile. His eyes widened, then settled back to heavy-lidded stability. “Preposterous. Such an act might endanger us all.” “Exactly. But I have reliable reports that she has established a plan to do just that if the aliens turn on us in the fight for the Complex.” “And what is your response to this, Arlen? Or have you decided simply to bring it to me?” The small smile again. The question took Arlen aback, and his mind raced. What would his response be? The watch-and-wait approach he’d given Mentrius was only a putoff. He said, “I am working all that out. I’ll keep you informed of my plans.” Unlikely. This stuffed ox would just follow along with the leaders, Gullinder, Frintar, the others. “When you have something useful to say, call me,” Tren Tarz said, still smiling. He cut out. Arlen sat and pondered. The aliens had never let anyone near their ship. Anyone. Not even the Regional League, the governing body of the whole planet. After the first years of contact, when the corps had tried to slip spies in and been caught, no one had approached the corridors leading to the ship. All physical communication had ever since gone through the bug soldiers the aliens used, plus the ancient video feed. But now, with most of the aliens in their mass meeting, and the few remaining coming on and off combat shifts, what stood between him and an uninvited visit? Some of Frintar‘s maybe-fictitious protectors? A few alien soldiers, most of their cohorts either fighting alongside humans or wrapped up in that meeting? And if he entered the ship, what then? He shook his head. A dream. But that ship carried secrets Arlen had wanted for a long time. The keys to space travel, certainly; maybe the keys to the human colonizations. Excitement swelled in him, a tumescence of curiosity that made him get up from his chair and look searchingly around the dusk-enveloped walls, the shadowed Trenzil, the shrouded Tariall, the deeply-wrought doors. And Luce was at the heart of it. The man had just sat and taken the worst that Analytic Doctor Progarnes could give him, and Progarnes was the best ever. But the antorphin drugs hadn’t worked, and the cutting and burning hadn’t worked, and the cold hadn’t worked, only making Luce seem duller and more indifferent. Arlen couldn’t understand it. No one had ever resisted the things he had dumped into Luce‘s bloodstream. Just as if the man’s body had neutralized everything, just the way Turiosten could do— Arlen‘s eyes opened wide. What if Luce had had an alien in him already? He should have died from the KPX and Darforyn overdose, slowly and in pain — in fact, Progarnes had said Luce‘s heart had stopped. He should have died in the shed, from the cold. He should have died from the blood loss when they’d cut his tendons. That’s when Arlen had decided on his last plan, and tossed the nearly-dead man out by the road with a jected tracer in him, for someone to find and take back to his family. Sooner or later, Arlen had told himself, Luce would lead him to that object that had triggered the n-emission meters, the only thing besides the ore that had ever made the meters register anything. And Luce had come back into his hands, and then escaped; and Turiosten and Luce were together somewhere downcity. And the object, the treasure, still eluded Arlen. But here was a new chance to probe the aliens. Maybe a little exploration of the ship would work best — that way, he could pull back if he met with resistance. Yes. And then he would call Mentrius from the control room of the alien vessel, just to see the general’s face. And even better, call Frintar and Tren Tarz. They’d look even madder than the time when he’d taken over the magic-walled chamber he now used, wresting it from the City on no basis except a pretended insult. This would be a sight worth taking the greatest risks: a gilding on the penetration of the aliens' long-held secrets. He grinned. Arlen said to the screen, “Dismiss. Show me the approaches to the spaceport, and the routes between the spaceport and the Upper South Domehall. Then I would like to review all video interviews with the shipboard aliens, highlighting ship controls and their use. Trenzil, algizarkha n’saitra Bargaroth. Na suis Carchesme.” The screen whelmed and thrust out a holo of the spaceport shaft, in white, the streets and shafts and ramps and stairs around it shimmering lines of pale blue. Trenzil vibrated. Arlen approached the holo and traced one line with his left forefinger. This would be worth a try. Then, if that failed, this one, and then— The doors opened. A small man, wiry in a dull brown coverall, his hair cropped to a dark fuzz over his brown scalp, walked in, silent as an ownerless shadow. He stopped beside the steel-tentacled Trenzil to look intently up at Arlen from dark soft eyes in a badger-broad face. “You have a job for us?” Arlen inclined his head slightly. When it came to commando discipline, these Argazindari put the other colls to shame. No other security force matched them, not even Gullinder‘s. “Yes, Bargaroth, with me. We are going to get on board the alien ship, and leave it again with some information. I am taking a technological specialist with me to study the ship.” Bargaroth‘s expression stayed neutral. “Is our visit invited?” “No. We are neither expected nor invited, nor are we wanted. Some intelligence and diversionary work will be needed, and of course speed. Here’s what I have in mind.” Into the hanging holo display Arlen began to sketch new lines as red as fire. Bargaroth drifted noiselessly closer. Arlen glanced over at him. The man’s collechi marks, livid and swollen into ropelike vines by repeated ceremonial scarring and ulceration, ran between the neck of his coverall and his jaw, cradling his head like a wreath of snakes.