The Lazarus Effect by Frank Herbert Bill Ransom

Author:Frank Herbert, Bill Ransom [Frank Herbert, Bill Ransom]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Action & Adventure, Science Fiction, Fantasy, Philosophy
Publisher: Scribner
Published: 1983-07-25T18:00:08+00:00

Brett drew slightly away from her. She had defined an area as large as some of the smaller Islands. Her father had owned it. He knew that by Merman law she probably inherited it. She was no simple worker in the seas, an apprentice physicist who mathematicked the waves.

Scudi saw the look of withdrawal in his eyes and touched his arm. "I live my own life," she said, "as my mother did. My father and I hardly knew each other."

"Didn't know each other?" Brett felt shocked. He knew himself to be estranged from his own parents, but he had certainly known them.

"Until shortly before he died, he lived at the Nest -- a city about ten kilometers away," Scudi said. "In all that time I never saw him." She took a deep breath. "Before he died, my father came to our room one night and spoke to my mother. I don't know what they said but she was furious after he left."

Brett thought about what she had said. Her father had owned and controlled enormous wealth -- much of Merman society. Topside, such matters as Ryan Wang controlled were the property of families or associations, never of one person.

Community was law.

"He controlled much of your Islands' food production," she continued. A flush bloomed across her cheeks. "A lot of it he accomplished through bribery. I know because I listened, and sometimes when he was gone I used his comconsole."

"What is this place, the Nest?" Brett asked.

"It is a city that has a high Islander population. It was the site of the first settlement after the Clone Wars. You know of this?"

"Yes," he said. "One way or another, we all came from there."

Ward Keel, standing in the shadows of the open passage from Ryan Wang's den, had been listening to this exchange for several minutes. He shuddered, wondering whether he should interrupt and demand some answers of this young woman. The anguish in her voice held Keel in place.

"Did those Islanders in the Nest work for your father?" Keel asked.

She didn't turn away from Brett to answer. "Some of them. But no Islander has any high position on anything. They are controlled by a government agency. I think Ambassador Ale is in charge of it."

"It seems to me that an Islander should head an agency that deals with Islanders," Brett said.

"She and my father were to be married," Scudi said. "A political matter between the two families . . . a lot of Merman history that isn't important now."

"Your father and the ambassador -- that would have linked the powers of the government and the food supply under one blanket," Brett said. The insight came so quickly that it startled him.

"That's all ancient history," Scudi said. "She'll probably marry GeLaar Gallow now." Her words came out with an underlying misery that held Brett speechless.

He could see the dark confusion in her eyes, the frustration of being a piece in some unruled game.

In the shadows of the passage, Ward Keel nodded to himself.

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