Inherit the Earth - Brian Stableford [38]
“You’re right, of course,” the judge informed him. “The police are searching for you with more than their usual diligence—Interpol has taken charge of the investigation, on the grounds that the Eliminators are a worldwide problem. Damon Hart’s unsavory acquaintances are using their less orthodox methods to search for information as to your whereabouts. The Ahasuerus Foundation is also diverting considerable effort to their own investigation. Were all three to pool their resources they might actually stand a chance of finding you before the trial gets under way—but in a world where privacy is fatally compromised by technology, discretion becomes an instinct and secrecy a passion.”
Silas was genuinely astonished by the list of people who were actively searching for him. “Damon?” he echoed suspiciously. “What’s Damon got to do with this? Why on earth should the Ahasuerus Foundation be interested?”
“Damon Hart is involved because I took care to involve him,” the voice replied with a casualness that was almost insulting. “The Ahasuerus Foundation is interested because I took care to interest them. I omitted to mention, of course, that Conrad Helier will also be doing his utmost to find you—but he is hardly in a position to pool his resources with anyone else.”
“Conrad Helier’s been dead for half a century,” Silas said.
“That’s not true,” said the judge, with equal conviction. “Although I will admit to some slight doubt as to whether or not you know it to be untrue. How soon was he aware, do you suppose, that you would eventually desert his cause? Did he identify you as his Judas before he went to his carefully contrived crucifixion?”
“I only retired from the team ten years ago,” Silas said.
“Of course. The burdens of parenthood served to resensitize you to your own old age. You developed a passion for the company of the authentically young: naive flesh, naive intelligence. In a way, they’re all Conrad Helier’s children, aren’t they? All born from his womb—the womb he gifted to humankind after robbing them of all the wombs they already possessed. He appointed you to foster his son, but he surely considers your defection as a kind of betrayal.”
Unable to help himself, Silas stared at his virtual adversary with a new intensity. He had not seen Conrad Helier for forty-six years, and his memories had faded as all memories did, but he was absolutely certain that Conrad Helier was one of the few people in the world who could come to him masked as artfully as any man could be masked and yet be recognizable.
Whoever his interrogator was, he swiftly decided, it could not possibly be Conrad Helier, or even his ghost.
“Torture can make a man say anything,” Silas said, feeling that he ought to say something to cover his fearful confusion. “Anything at all. I know well enough how utterly unused to pain I’ve become. I know that as soon as your nanomech armies have smashed mine to smithereens I’ll be utterly helpless. I’ll say whatever you want me to say—but it will all be worthless, and worse than worthless. It won’t be the truth, and it won’t even look like the truth. No matter how cleverly you edit your tapes, people will know that it’s a fake. Anybody with half a brain will see through the charade—and even if the police don’t find you while I’m still alive, they’ll find you once I’m dead. This is a farce, and you know it. You can’t possibly gain anything from it.”
Even as he made the speech, though, Silas realized that it couldn’t be as simple as that. Whatever game his captor was playing, it wasn’t just a matter of extorting a confession to post on some Eliminator billboard. Damon had been brought into it, and the Ahasuerus Foundation—and Silas honestly couldn’t imagine why . . . unless, perhaps, the sole purpose of the crime had been to prompt its investigation