Black Justinian

by Dana Goldblatt

Copyright (c)1990

Justin paused. He heard Starkadder's voice a few steps behind and to his left.

``Keep going,'' it said. ``Chereny has one of the overseers watching you. He still thinks you were the one who tried to strangle him last week. He doesn't believe Roge's confession.''

When Justin had programmed Starkadder's voice, he'd decided that if it seemed to come from behind, it wouldn't seem so disembodied and spooky. He hadn't thought that he would have an automatic urge to turn around and look for the source of the voice---he knew it was in his mind---but most times he barely stopped himself in time. When he didn't, he pretended to be knocking a bug off his back; still, it might look odd to someone watching. And now there was someone watching all the time.

He bent to plant another handful of seeds. This time of year the soil was moist and newly turned; it gave off a scent that embodied everything good about Nele, the land he'd lived in all his life---the land which was the greatest in a world he now knew was only a primitive planet, far away from the mainstream of the developed stars.

Justin was glad he'd met the Chesetians---after all, they had given him Starkadder---but he wasn't sure he could ever be happy again. Being happy meant knowing his place in the world; now he wasn't sure if his place _was_ in the world. He kept thinking he belonged somewhere that wouldn't condemn him for Starkadder, or any of the other improvements he'd made in his brain with the Chesetian equipment. The strict laws of Nele would execute a man for practicing psychotherapy; what would they make of a neural programmer?

At the end of the row, he ran out of seed. Justin walked over to the seed barrel and, holding his sack below the opening, carefully pulled out the cork. A golden stream of seed began slowly to fill the sack.

When it was about half-full, a girl whose own sack was empty came up behind Justin to wait her turn at the seed barrel. Careful not to spill, Justin turned to speak to her. It was odd that he did not recognize her, since he knew all the plantation people. Starkadder did not comment.

``Hello,'' he said, not knowing how to address her. ``I'm Justin, Nal. I am a thousandth planter of this plantation.'' He waited for her answer.

``Hello, Justin. You may call me Deesay, here. I am here for planting, to help. Lord Chereny has made a call, not having enough planters to put seed down on his entire plantation before the end of the season.'' She moved closer to him. In his ear, she whispered, ``There is more. Meet me after dinner in the transient cabin at Thousan'town---act like you're picking me up. I was told to say: my regards to Starkadder.''

Justin's sack was full, more than he would usually have allowed. It was very heavy. He recorked the barrel and allowed Deesay (if that was her name) to move next to the seed.

In the field Justin's mind was working furiously, but he came up with no more than he had in the instant the girl spoke her private message: she was from the Chesetians, or she knew all about them; and she had some way of suppressing the satellite scans, or Starkadder, or both. If Starkadder had known who she was, it would have told him. And if the satellites had been able to track her, as they tracked everyone on Nele, Starkadder should have known. It hadn't even warned him that someone was coming up behind him.

Starkadder had apparently not been permanently suppressed, because its voice now spoke, still seeming to come from several steps behind Justin. ``An overseer is approaching, not the one who has been assigned to watch you. Tenth Aza Chereny wants to see you.'' Aza! Justin hadn't spoken personally to him in three years. First a picture of Aza as a boy, helping Justin up as the two of them climbed a trie, replaced by a memory of a red-faced newly adult Aza calling insults, in turn replaced by a more mature, calm man (seen from a distance) who had in him little of the boy.

The overseer was windblown and weatherbeaten; his class spent all day outdoors guarding the plantation from thieves and small planters. ``Thousandth Justin? Tenth Aza requires you in the manor,'' said the man, with a pronounced Westernele accent.

Justin replied, ``When does he want me? I have seventeen more rows to plant. One or two of those is Aza's. He may have to be patient.''

``He requires you instantly. I must take you forcibly if you refuse.'' The overseer, like many who did not speak Southernele from the cradle, reverted to formality at times of stress.

``All right. If Aza requires me, it must be important.'' Carrying his sack of seed, Justin followed the Western overseer out of the fields. They walked into the roomy entrance hall of the manor. The cool air felt clammy to Justin, who was used to the hot sun and the stuffy interiors of Thousan'town cabins. The overseer went to tell Aza that Justin had arrived. A maid wandered through, dusting the tables and cabinets in the hall.

``Could I have a shirt or something? It's chilly in here,'' Justin asked the maid.

``I'll see if I can get you something,'' the maid said. She was amused by his discomfort: he was now shivering a little, the bare flesh of shoulders and arms covered in goosepimples.

She went out and returned moments later, with a light jacket. The sleeves were a little long for Justin, and the jacket wouldn't fasten around his chest, but he was warmer. He rolled up one sleeve to a comfortable length. As he started on the second one, Aza came in.

He looked much older than Justin knew he was: Aza was losing his hair. The newly high forehead made him look wiser, and even sophisticated. But his thoughtful look and second-long, gone-before-you-really-saw-it smile were left over from Aza's childhood and completely familiar to Justin.

``I apologize for bringing you here without notice,'' said Aza. ``But it was necessary.'' He led Justin through the manor to his private study, called the _Green Palace_ by the manor staff. Aza had a knack for growing exotic plants. ``The man who tried to assasinate my father has confessed that he had an accomplice. You are suspected.''

``Roge said he had an accomplice? I don't believe it,'' Justin said.

``Yes, Roge. That is the man's name. Well, I don't believe it either; at least, I don't believe the wretched man had an accomplice. But Lord Chereny does, and the questioner has been ... encouraging him to say you were involved in the attempt. My father is convinced, for some reason, that you were the one who tried to strangle him. He will accept no other theory.'' Aza began to pace. He stopped, fingering the dangling leaf of a golden-green plant hanging overhead. ``Do you know why he would be so convinced of this? Do you have any information?''

He looked dismayed when Justin shook his head. ``If you do not, I will be forced to put you in prison to await trial. I will have no other course to follow. But I don't want to incarcerate you. I don't think you are guilty, and I ... I feel some friendship towards you.''

``The only thing I can tell you is that I would doubt Roge's original confession as much as the accomplice bit. I don't think he is capable of plotting a murder or cooperating in one. The man isn't a doer,'' Justin said.

Aza told him, ``I would have agreed, but why would he confess if he hadn't done it? It would be insane.''

``Maybe he has gone insane,'' said Justin. ``Of course, in that case, he could have murdered, too, I suppose.''

``And I can't release him unless I have proof that he's innocent and just harmlessly crazy,'' Aza said. ``Even if I do get such proof, you become our first suspect. You have to know more than that.''

``I don't,'' Justin protested. ``If I knew who did it ...''

``You're lying,'' Aza said. ``You're protecting another Thousandth, or a servant, or an overseer, someone you think was justified to try to kill my father. Maybe he hasn't been completely honest with everyone on the plantation, but murder goes a little beyond fair redress, doesn't it?''

Justin was silent.

``He does have some real reason to suspect you, you know. You did say he deserved to be punished for cheating on the distribution two years ago. He's been afraid of you since then, not just this past week,'' Aza said accusingly.

``I said he should try to live in a cabin in Thousan'town for the summer with a limited ration of fresh water. I said that would be proper punishment for him. That doesn't make me a murderer---unless he is.'' Justin was getting angry, a little unfairly. He did have a good idea who had tried to kill Lord Chereny, just as Aza thought. But he was not refusing to tell because he was trying to protect the criminal. He simply could not explain how he knew without revealing damning evidence against himself, and even giving Aza the information without a source would reveal that he knew more than any Thousandth planter ever should.

Aza asked, ``Just tell me something ... so I can say you've cooperated. Give me a hint, come on.'' His voice grew sharper. ``And stop sounding so bitter! You're exaggerating, and if you keep acting that way, you'll make him worse. Then I won't be able to help you.''

``Do you really feel that friendly toward me?'' Justin asked with sincere curiousity. ``I wouldn't have thought so, even an hour ago.''

Aza looked startled. ``Why not? We were good friends, as boys. I think I spent more time with you than with my family. We haven't been ... recently, but ...'' he trailed off. ``Why not?'' he repeated.

``Don't you remember how you, well, warned me right before you went North three years ago? You yelled at me to stay in Thousan'town where I belonged, not to mix with advanced folk such as yourself, not to presume; by the time you got back I was presuming quite a bit, investigating your father's practice of stealing from the poor and selling to the rich. I supposed you would never want to speak to me again; I certainly didn't care to speak to you.'' Justin paused, breathing audibly, almost a sigh. ``All right. I can tell you one thing. After this, please leave me alone---you don't want your father thinking you are plotting against him with me. This is it, all right? I don't think it was anyone on this plantation who tried to kill him. And I don't think he will ever be able to put the criminal in prison, even if he finds out who it was. Now I have to go. I have seventeen more rows to plant today.'' Justin stood up.

Aza stood too. ``Let me show you out,'' he said politely. At the door to the manor, he stopped. ``Good-bye, Justin,'' he said.

``Good-bye.'' Justin picked up his seed sack and his walked back toward his seventeen rows. He imagined the conversation which might have occurred if he had told his thoughts to Aza.

``I believe the instigators of the murder attempt are people from another planet,'' Justin says.

``Another _what_?'' Aza almost yells. ``You mean another plantation, don't you?''

``Another planet, I said,'' Justin insisted.

``What makes you think there even is such a thing?''

At this point the imaginary conversation breaks down. Justin would not be able to tell Aza about the Chesetians, and he could think of no other possible explanation for his theory. Of course, he could say he had heard rumors, but Aza would question his sanity for believing that kind of rumor with no evidence. It sounded like wish-fulfillment, since the plantation people were desperate to be exonerated.

He finished planting around the time Thousan'town would be settling down to supper---those who had it. He went into his own cabin, where he'd lived alone since his mother died, and put a half-full pot on the fire, soon to be a quick meal of boiled grains and vegetables.

He took out the past week's Journal to read while the food cooked. It had only arrived two days earlier; the Chereny plantation was so far from Casternor, the city in which the Journal was published, that Justin's copy always came about ten days late. The Journal was somewhere between a weekly newspaper and a nonfiction anthology; the writers were given scope to express their opinions without any attempt at objectivity, but an effort was made to describe the important events of the week in Nele. The quality varied sharply between various writers, some of whom wrote regularly and others only once or twice. Justin himself had had an article published in the Journal, but under an assumed name. He had called himself Ches Nal Black, in honor of the Chesetians, his assumed lineage name Nal, and his mother's true lineage name, Black. Since Justin had never known his father's lineage, he had adopted the Nal lineage. The Nal had, as far as Justin knew, died out about a hundred years earlier, leaving only traces of their history. Only one of the Nal had ever achieved any lasting fame, but that one was Armeny s-Nal, the pioneer popularizer of the share system which now governed most of the plantations of Nele. Armeny based his system on traditional ones used long before in very limited context, but expanded them into a system so flexible and adaptable it could be suited to feudal- or commune-organized plantations equally well.

After eating his supper, Justin decided to follow Deesay's instructions. He was too curious to pass up a chance to solve the puzzle she had created, and felt too threatened by her knowledge to let her continue to pretend she was an ordinary transient.

He walked over to the transients' cabin. It was a large, wooden building, capable of housing fifty men and women in need. Twenty or so transients lived there, fairly comfortably, at most times. During harvest, the building would hold over eighty, sleeping in rotation. As Justin approached, he saw Deesay standing outside, looking at rocks she picked up off the paths.

He stepped up beside her, looking at the black and grey stone she held. ``What's so interesting about that rock?'' he asked.

Deesay looked up. ``Oh, hello. It's not this pebble that's interesting, it's where I found it. This kind of rock is rare on the surface in the South. In this region, it would have to be imported, or taken from a deep excavation, or maybe thrown up in an earthquake.''

``How do you know that?'' Justin asked, surprised.

``I know lots of things ...'' Deesay said. ``I've been studying this place, before I came. Listen, do you have a place here where we can talk privately?'' She said this with artifical flirtatiousness, then lowered her voice. ``We have to talk. Thank you for coming over, you did very well.''

He began to walk toward his cabin. Deesay followed. Justin said, ``You didn't do too well. People here don't know that kind of thing, especially transients.''

Deesay looked puzzled. ``Don't you get traveling students working in the fields here? I thought that was common. Supporting themselves as they study the culture, geology, whatever?''

``I don't know,'' said Justin. ``It sounds reasonable, I guess, but I never met anyone like that. We don't have students here as transients much, I suppose, or they pretend not to be---to study the culture better, maybe.''

They arrived at his cabin. Justin opened the door and they walked in.

``I like your furnishings,'' Deesay said.

``No, you don't,'' said Justin. ``I know what you're used to, wherever you came from. What have you come here for? Why were you told to say---what you said to me.''

`` `My regards to Starkadder'? When I told a friend I was coming here to study Nele, he told me he knew a man who was a natural genius at neural programming, who was living on the Chereny plantation in South Nele. I'd been learning Easternele, but once you've got that one Southernele isn't so hard. He asked me to try to persuade you to leave here, and go work for his company. But I don't think---'' Justin interrupted. ``What company was he talking about?''

``Chesea Neurnetyx Realcompagne, of course.'' She took a card out of a concealed pocket.

                         |        ________         |
                         |                         |

| XYrr-2522 tty00028 |
|_________________________|

Justin had never heard this name. But the visitors he called Chesetians had said they were ``from Chesea,'' and he had only assumed they meant their nation.

``If they wanted me to come work for them, why didn't they ask me before?'' Justin asked.

``How should I know?'' asked Deesay. ``But according to Whitey, your talent is wasted here. The anti-psychorifling laws prevent any sort of industry getting started in Nele. There aren't enough natural resources anywhere else on the planet.''

The implications of this statement hit Justin with the force of ten gravities. He had thought Nele was the only place on the planet. Or really, he had not thought about the possibility of other nations.

``Where else on the planet could they go?'' Justin asked.

``Nowhere, I just said there weren't enough natural resources.'' Deesay asked, ``Well? Are you considering leaving with me? Would you like to be a professional?''

Justin thought about this. It would solve all his problems: no more chance of arrest for Lord Chereny's attempted murder; no more need to conceal Starkadder; no more unfair distribution practices to risk his freedom protesting. His mother was dead, there was no one he would be leaving behind.

``In a way I can't stay in Nele. A man I had forgotten was my friend, Aza Chereny, just warned me I may soon be arrested,'' Justin said.

``What? For what crime?'' protested Deesay.

``Someone tried to strangle his father, Lord Chereny, who thinks I'm behind everything. Aza wanted me to give him some information, so he could say I was helping with the investigation, but I don't know who did it.''

``Aza sounds like he's really caught between you and his father,'' Deesay said.

``Well, I don't know. But if I am going to join Chesea, I don't understand how it works. How would I be allowed to leave Nele?'' asked Justin.

``Simple,'' said Deesay. ``When the _Frame_ comes to take me back, I'll bring you along.''

``Don't I need a passport, or identification? The Chesetians had those rainbow coins they said were their equivalent. I thought they didn't think of taking me with them because they couldn't make me one of those.''

``Absolutely right,'' Deesay said. ``But they will have to take you, and we will get one of those made for you right away, at the first bordermark we reach.''

Justin was puzzled. ``Why will they have to take me? That doesn't make sense.''

She brought a folded paper out of the pocket which had also held the card. ``This,'' she said.

It was ornately decorated and written in a language he did not know.

``What is it?'' Justin asked.

``Well ... it's a unification agreement,'' Deesay said. ``It's something like a marriage or adoption contract, binding people together into a legal family.''

``I'm going to marry you? Or adopt you? Or maybe you'll adopt me,'' Justin laughed.

``I said something like,'' said Deesay. ``Ah ... there's something else. I have to put my real name on it, so you might as well know what that is. Devise Zar-Leroi. But don't say it in public, or when you aren't near me.''

``Devise?'' Justin asked. ``That's a strange name.''

``It means `invent.' It's better than Deesay: Deesay means `she says.' I'm more inventive than I am talkative,'' Devise told him.

``When you tell me not to mention you when you're not around, you mean that gadget that keeps the satellites from seeing you, don't you. If they hear me talking about you, someone might notice you're invisible,'' Justin said.

``How do you know about that?'' Devise demanded.

Justin explained, ``Starkadder didn't tell me you were coming up behind me. He announces everyone I don't know or can't see. You fit both categories, but he didn't say a word. I thought you might be suppressing him, but you weren't; he just didn't see you, because the satellites didn't.''

``That's some program,'' said Devise. ``No wonder Whitey says you're a genius.'' She brought the paper to Justin's attention again. ``You can just sign this,'' she said. ``It's sufficient even if you don't fully understand the agreement's terms. If I've cheated you, you can sue me for recompense, but I promise it's all right by our standards.''

Justin had only the vaguest idea what her standards might be like, but he signed anyway. He was so sure now that he wanted to go, he would sign anything to insure it.

``Don't change your behavior, act as though nothing has changed. The _Frame_ is going to show up some time between tomorrow morning and next week. I'll come over and get you: have everything you want to take assembled and wrapped to carry. We'll have to leave right away, when they come.'' Devise left Justin's house.

Justin slept uneasily. He had made the right decision, he thought, but his life would never again be what he considered normal. He hoped that wouldn't translate into unhappy.

A commotion outside his door woke him the next morning. He could see nothing of its cause through his single, narrow window. Justin stood and put on work clothes.

As he finished dressing, his door was thrust open. The commotion grew louder, and now Justin could see that half Thousan'town was standing in his yard. Three overseers had taken the hinges off his door to get it open. Near the edge of the road, Justin saw Devise in the crowd.

An overseer said, ``I arrest you, Justin, called Nal, left of Black, to answer the charges of attempted murder and conspiracy against Lord Chereny. Your property is now in the wardship of justice, and forfeit if you are guilty. Come with me now.''

As the man spoke, Justin saw Devise moving away, toward the transients' area.

Starkadder spoke at his back, like a murmur in his ear. ``Roge has finally been forced to name you as his co-conspirator. You will be imprisoned if you don't leave the area ... The overseer Lord Chereny sent to arrest you is arriving now ...'' Justin was frightened. Apparently, whatever it was that Devise used to block the satellites and Starkadder was ruining Starkadder's ability to function. Normally it should have warned him of the danger in plenty of time to escape.

Devise was frightened too. She sent a neuromessage to Chesea Recruitment officer Sofya Valadiya on _Frame_. The message was somewhat incoherent, but a translation would be something like: ``The solution has caused more problems. To remove recruit from habitat, cause trauma in habitat; but trouble captured recruit and made removal unlikely.''

``What happened? Be calm,'' was Valadiya's reply.

``Two causes: attempt on life of Chereny Senior; interruption of data to keep my presence unknown. Result: recruit wants to leave, but is imprisoned and unable.'' Devise sends urgency across neuromessage circuit.

``Calm. Rational. Tranquil. Now, send me a causal chain.'' Valadiya was used to dealing with field agents under stress; when weren't they having an emergency?

``Chesea personnel arranged for recruit to be unwanted in Nele. They arranged he would be suspected of a crime. I arrived. To keep my arrival secret, I blocked satellite scan. The same blocking transmission interfered with operation of recruit's neuroprogram. Therefore he was not as well informed as usual. He was just arrested for the crime Chesea arranged. Now how can I get him to the _Frame_?''

Devise was ordering her thoughts more clearly under the direct influence of the neuromessage circuit.

Valadiya told her, ``You have to get him out of prison.''

``How?'' asked Devise.

``That's your job. You're the agent.''

``How much exposure can I allow myself?'' she asked.

``As little as possible/Whatever it takes,'' came an answer loaded with ambivalence.

Devise said, ``I won't be able to do it. I claim revocation, take me home.''

``You can't do that,'' Valadiya told her.

``Why not?'' Devise protested.

``You signed that unification agreement, didn't you?'' asked the recruitment officer.

Devise said, ``Oh. You ... make such plans. I have to get him out of prison, legally, don't I? Because I signed that unification agreement that was just supposed to let him off Nele. Now I know why you're in charge of half of Recruitment.'' She paused, planning her next transmission carefully. It was an untranslatable joke. Unification agreements were taken seriously, but their many entanglements made them the subjects of every kind of humor.

Justin was taken into the basement of the manor, where prisoners were kept. There were six cells, each of which could hold four men. Only two cells were tenanted. One held three men, the other only one: Roge.

Roge was in bad shape. He looked like a man who had been forced to give false evidence against his will, Justin thought, which supported what Starkadder had told him.

The overseer pushed Justin into a cell across from Roge's. The three men in the cell furthest from Roge were all in their beds, but one raised his head.

``What's going on?'' he asked.

The overseer said, ``We've got the man Lord Chereny wanted.''

``Justin Black,'' said the man. ``I lose again. Gerd!'' he said loudly, turning toward the man beside him. ``Gerd! Wake up! You win, I'm only four up on you now.''

The other prisoner sat up. He was wearing what Justin assumed was a prison suit, an unusually dirty gray one-piece garment. ``Well, I thought you'd be in here. Roge is wrong about everything.''

The overseer was locking Justin into his cell. ``Shut your mouths, all of you,'' he said, leaving them alone.

Roge looked over at Justin. ``Sorry,'' he said hoarsely.

``Did you do it?'' Justin asked. ``I told Aza I didn't think you had tried to kill his father, but I'm not sure he believed me.''

``Why would I confess to it, if I hadn't done it?'' Roge asked.

``Why would you confess if you had?'' Justin countered.

``Guilt, maybe,'' suggested Roge.

``I suppose. I just can't see you as the kind of man ... '' Justin trailed off.

Roge said, ``I can't see myself as that kind of person either. I just don't even know why I tried to strangle him. I don't even know why I confessed to it. I don't understand anything.''

Justin did not know what to say to answer him. The other prisoners went back to sleep, now that there was nothing going on.

Soon Justin, with nothing else to do, went to sleep too.

The rescue turned out not to be so difficult. Devise had not realized that the ``prison'' Justin was being taken to was only Lord Chereny's residence. She remembered that Aza Chereny had tried to help Justin, and knew he would be her key into the manor.

She changed her clothing. Devise was now the model of a Lord's daughter from one of the wealthier Easternele plantations.

``Hello,'' she said to the maid at the door. ``I've come to visit Aza.'' The maid welcomed her in. Devise was led to the plant-filled study, where Aza was working on a boxed row of spiky flowers. ``Aza Chereny,'' she said. ``I've been told so much about you.'' The maid left. As soon as she had, Devise stepped over to Aza. ``Listen. I know you've arrested Justin,'' she began.

Aza said, ``What do you---''

She continued, ignoring his attempt to interrupt. ``You don't want him in prison, but you can't let him stay free here, right? Well, I'm going to take him off your hands. You'll never see him again, but he'll be free, and happier than he could be here. All you have to do is let me have him.''

Aza wanted to believe her, but didn't understand her at all. ``I really don't know what you're talking about.''

``I'm just going to smuggle him out of here. No one in Nele will ever see him again. No one but you will know how he escaped.'' Devise waited. There wasn't much time; the _Frame_ would touch down in less than an hour.

Doubting his own sanity, Aza took her down a back staircase into the basement. He unlocked all the cell doors, as she directed. Then he took her on a tour of the manor. He noticed her sprinkling a pale yellow powder on the floors, everywhere they went.

The yellow powder all over the manor was a neuroerase formula Devise carried for use in emergencies. The overseers and servants woke the next day with only traces of memory, unable to explain how their wards had vanished. The former prisoners woke in the fields, unable to say how they had escaped.

Justin woke in his room on the _Frame_, knowing only that he was no longer a prisoner of Lord Chereny ... and no longer a prisoner of Nele.

Dana Goldblatt never has admitted to preferring science fiction over other forms of fiction, except when it was cheaper at used bookstores. She started writing stories for fun in high school, but didn't finish any until after she graduated. When she was an editor of Brandeis University's literary magazine Kether, she started writing a lot more often. Dana is currently a graduate student in computer science, and is still attending Brandeis.

dana@chaos.cs.brandeis.edu