“I wish we knew the extent of the reality!”
“What do the Men of Business say? Anything useful?”
“This and that. It will or won’t bankrupt the world. It will or won’t put us all back to the Stone Age. It will or won’t have anything to do with our social … arrangements, though they know nothing about this world’s real arrangements.”
“No,” said D’Jevier. “But they think they do, and they simmer with discontent. They are sexually frustrated, overburdened with responsibilities, often overtired. They turn to drink and to drugs or nagging at their children. They blame themselves if they have no daughters.”
“Tragic!” snapped Onsofruct. “Tit for tat after millennia of otherwise!”
D’Jevier sighed. “Did you expect them to agree on anything? It isn’t in them to adopt a cause or pursue justice, not given over to the game of profit as they are. That’s one of the reasons we designed … well, our foremothers designed things as they are.”
“Those same foremothers warned us, their daughters, that if ever a leader emerges among the Men of Business, they might rise up in rebellion. Especially if they ever found out … “ Onsofruct’s voice trailed away.
D’Jevier shook her head warningly. “Which they won’t. We keep tight hold of information on this world. They have no way of getting hold of it.”
“Not so long as the Panhagion controls, no. But, the greater our population, the harder it gets to keep things quiet. If we’re going to keep on as we have been, it’ll take a new Temple near Nehbe and a couple of branch Temples out toward the scarp. Those valleys are filling up … “ Onsofruct’s voice trailed away as she realized what she had said.
“Were filling up, Onsy. Were. The people there are either dead or evacuated by now. Which actually helps us control data. When the population is centralized, we manage very nicely.”
“Until the planet blows up.” She heard her voice rising stridently and put her hands over her eyes.
“If it does. Well, if it does, our troubles are over. I’ve been wishing we could ask the Timmys … “
“I think we must.” Onsofruct put her hands flat on the table before her and pushed herself erect. “Certainly we must. Let’s find some.”
“Unfortunately they don’t seem to be findable. I’ve had the word out among the Haggers for the last couple of days. The Timmys have completely vanished, Onsy. They went so quickly and totally that it appears they’d been planning it. As if they knew about it before we did.”
“That’s impossible!”
D’Jevier fought down a shriek, took a deep breath, and said as calmly as she could manage, “Nothing’s impossible any longer. We must go to Mantelby Mansion and see what we can find out there.”
They saw the scene of the deadly event, which both of them were reluctant to call a murder. They questioned everyone, learning the sequence of the disappearance, first the entourage, then the two Old Earthians, then the Questioner herself along with two gardener’s boys named Ornery and Mouche—at the mention of whose name D’Jevier’s face paled.
“You know him?” whispered her sister.
“Of him,” said D’Jevier, in so forbidding a manner that it halted further mention.
Two other boys had disappeared as well, the steward said, but they had disappeared from the cellar, where they had been with Marool. Their names had been Bane and Dyre.
The Hags examined the machines and fought through their disgust to a comprehension of their use. D’Jevier sent for a smith to bring a portable furnace and the necessary equipment to dismantle everything in the cellar and convert it to scrap. They found the maker’s name attached on neat little brass plates, and they directed a squad of Haggers to find and dispose of that individual, even before directing that Marool’s body be wrapped in a linen sheet and be buried without ceremony in the Mantelby graveyard, behind the ridge.
“And,” said D’Jevier with a glare at the steward, “as you value your life and sanity, don’t take that ring off her finger or whatever ate your aunt may come to nibble on you, as well.”