He taped nearly four hours of wartime reminiscences from seven officials before calling it quits. It was mid-afternoon, and he couldn't afford to waste any more time in the Hub. Finding the underground could take days; and he didn't have very many of those. Summoning an autocab, he headed toward the gray wall.
The machine let him out at the wall's northern gate, the one they'd entered by the previous day. "I'd like to go out," he announced to one of the guards on duty there.
"Yes, sir," the young Security man said briskly. "Just get back in your autocab and I'll open the gate."
Caine shook his head. "I'm walking."
The guard blinked his surprise. "Uh... that's not recommended, sir."
"Why not?"
"The common people aren't all that friendly sometimes. You might have some trouble."
Caine waved the implied warning away. "Oh, I'll be all right. Come on, open up."
"Yes, sir." The guard still looked doubtful, but he stepped to a small control panel and the mesh slid open a meter or so. Nodding his thanks, Caine went through.
He walked slowly, all his senses wide open as he tried to absorb everything around him. The city was like no other he'd ever been in, at least on the surface. But underneath were the same bitter tastes the Ryqril had also left on Earth. The dusty buildings, each two or three stories high, were boxlike and coldly functional, with even less ornamentation than their Terran counterparts. The "architecture of the vanquished," Caine had heard it called; and it was clear that Plinry had suffered considerably more than Earth from the war. The people shuffling through the streets were in little better shape. Poorly dressed, their expressions ranged from resigned to hopeless to merely blank. Most of them looked middle-aged or older; clearly, little Idunine made its way to this side of the wall. Still, young men and women had to exist somewhere, and Caine wondered where they were hiding.
He found a partial answer two blocks later. Half a block down on a side street was what seemed to be an open-air cafe of sorts, from which emanated the sound of conversation and occasional laughter. Curious, Caine headed over.
It was, it seemed, a bar. Caine stood for a moment, looking the place over. About twenty small tables were scattered around under the open sky near the walkway; another fifty or so sat farther back from the street in a sheltered area that had been created by knocking out the front wall of a one-story building. About a quarter of the tables were occupied, by older men drinking alone or in twos, or by youths in groups of half a dozen or more. It was from this latter age group that most of the noise was coming.
Just under the overhang, against one wall, was a horseshoe-shaped table behind which a middle-aged man stood watching the teen-agers. Caine hesitated, then walked over, trying to ignore the eyes that followed him.
The barman shifted his gaze as Caine came up. "Afternoon, friend. What'll you guz?"
Caine caught his meaning. "Beer. Any brand."
The other nodded and pulled a bottle from under the counter. "Haven't seen you around, have I?" he asked casually as he poured the drink into a chipped glass mug. "You new in town?"
"Just visiting," Caine told him, sipping cautiously. The beer had a strange taste, and he wondered what it had been brewed from. "Name's Rienzi."
"I'm John, Mr. Rienzi," the barman said. "Where you from?"
"Earth."
John's eyes widened momentarily, and he seemed to withdraw slightly into himself. "I see," he said, his tone suddenly neutral. "Slumming?"
Caine ignored the insult and shook his head. "I'm writing a book about the war, from the point of view of the outer worlds. I thought I'd be able to find some old soldiers or starmen here to talk to."
The other was silent for a moment. "There are some still around," he said at last. "But I doubt that what they'd say would make it into any collie book."
" 'Collie'?"
John flushed. "It's slang for government people," he muttered. "Short for 'collaborator.' "
"Oh. So their views wouldn't be very complimentary?"
"You can hardly blame them." He stopped abruptly, as if afraid he'd said too much. Picking up a mug and towel, he began rubbing vigorously.
Caine let the silence hang for a few more seconds before speaking. "I'm only a very minor government official, but I do have access to a TDE senator. If there are problems on Plinry something can be done about it."
"There's nothing you can do to help, unless you've got a million jobs in your pocket." John sighed and put down the mug he was polishing. "Look. We were stomped by the Ryqril here. That multi-damned Groundfire technique wiped out three-quarters of our population and made seven-eighths of our land uninhabitable. Most of our industry went, and a hell of a lot of farmland. A million more people starved or froze to death the first winter—" He took a ragged breath. "I won't bore you with the details. Things are improving, but we still don't have enough jobs to go around. Why else would they be here at this time of day?" He jerked a thumb toward the teen-agers.
Caine sipped his beer and studied the youths. Now that he was paying attention he could see the frustration in their faces and hands, the thinly suppressed bitterness in the clusters of empty and half-empty bottles in front of them. "I see what you mean," he said. "But I'm sure something can be done to help. I'll bring this to Senator Auriol's attention as soon as I get back. In the meantime, perhaps you could suggest other people I could talk to, both about Plinry's problems and about the war."
John's mouth tightened, and Caine could read the barman's mind: doesn't care about anything but his damn book. "Well, if you're looking for honest opinions, you could try Damon Lathe. He's right over there," he added, pointing past Caine's ear.
Caine turned and saw a grizzled old man with a bushy beard sitting alone at a table in the open-air section. He was of average height and build, and Caine judged his age to be early sixties or older. "Thanks," he said. "What branch of service was he in?"
John snorted. "He was a blackcollar."
"Really!" Caine said, not trying to keep the interest out of his voice. Laying a two-mark note on the bar, he picked up his mug and headed toward the old man's table.
Lathe, lost in contemplation of his mug, didn't look up as Caine approached; didn't look up, in fact, until Caine cleared his throat. "Mr. Lathe?" he asked cautiously. "My name's Alain Rienzi. I wonder if I might talk to you for a moment."
Lathe shrugged and waved toward one of the other chairs. "Why not? Don't get much else to do. Don't know you, do I?"
Caine sat down across the table from him, feeling the clash of experience with cherished belief. Lathe was nothing like the youthful, keenly alert blackcollar he had always envisioned. Too late, he realized he'd forgotten what thirty-five years without Idunine would do to a man. "No, I've just arrived here. I'm from Earth."
"A collie, huh?" Lathe nodded. "So how's things back home?"
Caine had expected a negative reaction similar to the barman's. The lack of one caught him somewhat by surprise. "All right. You were from Earth?"
"Yup. Born and raised in Odense—that's in Denmark. Lived there till I joined up with the blackcollars in 2420. Haven't been back for a few years—the war, you know. I'm a blackcollar—did you know that?" He spread open the neck of his faded shirt and tapped the snug-fitting black turtleneck he wore underneath. "It's real flexarmor—the sort of stuff we all used to wear." Letting his hand drop back to the table, he sighed, watery eyes gazing backwards in time. "Yes, those were the days," he murmured. "They're gone now. All gone."
Caine nodded silently, feeling as awkward as if he'd stumbled into a private wake. Whatever Lathe might have once had the Ryqril and the passing years had stripped from him, leaving a useless wreck behind. Gathering his feet under him, Caine was preparing to make a graceful exit when Lathe's eyes came back to focus. "What'd you want to talk to me about, Mr.—?"