Context Page 14

  ‘Um, right away,’ said the youth.

  Since Chojun Akazawa was in Jakarta, that meant a local replica would be created and delivered, but that was OK.

  Ro took a last look around. Candies—amber ‘mu-space’ jelly stops with embedded liquorice stars; chocolates shaped like the UNSA logo—and child-sized uniforms. Infocrystals which she would have liked to browse through, if she had been on her own.

  ‘I remember Chojun. He helped your mother.’ Schwenger bent close to Ro as they left the shop, as though sharing an intimacy. ‘Furnished the technical data for the field generators.’

  They were in a carpeted corridor. Like the rest of the complex, it was nearly empty: just a few uniformed staff in the atrium at the corridor’s end.

  ‘It didn’t work, though.’

  Ro knew that Mother had tried everything to free Dart, Father, from the mu-space energy pattern which held his ship. But it had threatened to engulf them both, and Dart had deliberately collapsed his protective event-membrane when he realized that Karyn was in danger. Even as his bronze ship imploded, disappearing in a myriad glowing shards, Mother had escaped, and broken through to realspace.

  In stress-induced, agonizing labour.

  ‘Pilot Dart Mulligan,’ said Schwenger, ‘learned that Karyn was pregnant. Did you know that? He interfaced to your mother’s internal systems. He knew.’

  ‘No-one told me.’

  Father. You killed yourself for me?

  ‘And the breach birth must have been terrible.’

  Ro looked at her.

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘Ah... Well, I’m sure you’re old enough to know. There were ... complications. When your mother returned to real-space—to random coordinates—she was already in labour, and only a caesarean would do. She used the internal robot arms on herself.’

  ‘How?’ Ro’s voice sounded small to her own ears.

  ‘They have laser cutters, you know. And internal pre-processors, to keep on going even when the Pilot has lost consciousness ...’

  There was a bench by the wall, and Ro crossed to it and sat down, feeling shaky.

  She cut herself open.

  Drifting, alone and in pain, in dark endless space.

  Sliced herself. To produce me.

  Afterwards, as Neil saw her to a waiting air-taxi, she took hold of his sleeve.

  ‘Armstrong?’ She used his forename for the first time. ‘Why was I brought here?’

  Ilse Schwenger had left her sitting on that bench, after a polite farewell.

  Neil shook his head. ‘I’ve no idea.’

  It was written throughout his being, in unmistakable body language: he liked her, disliked his task—to report back on what he had observed—and knew nothing of the political machinations which lay behind her being here. He was complicit, but only to the extent of following orders whose purpose he did not understand. And both of them knew her meeting with Ilse Schwenger was no accident.

  Just what did I learn here today ?

  She felt the pressure of Neil’s gaze, intent upon her, as she slid into the air-taxi’s cool interior and the gull door lowered into place. She waved, sat back. But in her mind was the holo image of a single chesspiece on a floating board, and the grotesque thing which lay on the floor beneath it.

  Anne-Louise. Did someone kill you for a reason?

  Then the ground dropped away, and the taxi was high above the long yellow runway. It arced over the glass buildings, acceleration kicking in, and zoomed upwards, leaving PhoenixCentral far below.

  <>

  ~ * ~

  19

  NULAPEIRON AD 3418-3419

  Tom, cross-legged upon his sleeping cot’s rough ochre covering, shut down the bulky holoterminal beside him. Reckless, perhaps, to have borrowed the terminal from the merchanalysis hall, not to mention invoking the crystal’s functions, but suddenly he did not care if they threw him out of the Bronlah Hong, or worse.

  He sealed the crystal inside the stallion talisman once more, and looped it round his neck. Looked down at the cot, and knew he could not sleep just yet. Returning the holoterminal could wait until morning.

  Slipping through the faded drape, he walked silently along cold grey flagstones—there were mutterings and other sounds from the alcoves he passed, but most of the men would be asleep already, worn out from a long working day—until he reached a cross-tunnel, and headed towards the nearest security station, looking for someone to talk to.

  Behind the granite desk, a huge black-skinned, square-bearded housecarl stood chuckling. His copper helm hung from his belt like some grisly warrior’s trophy, and sweat was trickling down his forehead. His hand, as he wiped away the drops, was twice the size of Tom’s, maybe more, and his shoulders were massive.

  ‘What’s up?’ said Tom.

  ‘Caught what you might call an interloper’—shaking his head, grinning—‘from the freewomen’s washchamber.’

  ‘Sweet Chaos.’

  ‘Heard the loudest scream you could imagine. One of the women had gone in, found this bedraggled flashdust addict washing himself from a drinking flagon.’

  Tom could not quite share the amusement.

  Cold flagstones beneath his stinking, shivering body. The feet of passers-by, disturbing his dayshift sleep — too dangerous to close his eyes at night. Dark extended memory gaps. Scratching his ever-itchy scab-encrusted skin. The hunt, always, for more booze, for the sweet hot liquid dragon which could make him feel alive...

  Lost years.

  ‘Poor guy.’

  ‘I guess.’ The big carl’s expression grew kinder. ‘He was dressed again in his rags by the time I got there. Smelled bad ... But he’d been beaten, and cut. You could tell. I told the proctors, when I handed him over.’

  The addict must have wandered in from the enclosing realm, Bilyarck Gébeet; perhaps it made sense to hand him back over to the Gébeet’s proctors.

  ‘You know how it feels,’ said Tom.

  ‘To be beaten?’ A heavy shrug. Beneath his tunic, the big carl’s trapezius muscles bunched up like coiled cables, relaxed. ‘It’s been a while.’

  ‘But you don’t forget.’

  ‘No.’ Looking directly at Tom. ‘My name’s Kraiv.’ Holding out his massive hand.

  ‘I’m—Tom. They call me Gazhe round here, but it’s not my true name.’

  They clasped wrists. For all Tom’s wiry strength, he knew the other man could crush his bones with little effort, if he chose.

  “Well met, my friend.’

  The next night Tom ran eight klicks along the Light Maze tunnels, worked flow/focus fighting forms over and over on the uneven stone, among shifting shadows: striving against imaginary opponents, kicking and gouging, throwing and striking, until he finally stopped, chest heaving, his body hot and slick with sweat. Not yet at peak, but finally recovered from the ordeal in the Grand’aume’s dungeons, smiling to himself in the quiet knowledge that cleansing adrenaline and pouring sweat had once more excised the childhood demons from his mind.

  For a time.

  The day after that, Yim Roken, Master Grenshin’s dour deputy, put adhesive scan-tags on every terminal: a coincidence, Tom assumed, because Yim Roken said nothing throughout the procedure, and he would never miss an opportunity of accusing a subordinate caught in wrongdoing. But it prevented Tom from borrowing a holoterminal again.

  Yet that evening, as though in validation of those mystics who teach that overwhelming belief creates reality, Draquelle came into the men’s residence tunnel with a gift. It was a small holopad, delivered at Madam Bronlah’s orders. At insignificant cost to the Master Trader’s wife—but to Tom it would make all the difference.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said, and bowed to Draquelle formally, as if she were a Lady.

  For the holopad could be used for more than amateur art.

  Over the coming Standard Year he worked hard: running and logosophical work—exploring new theorems, mapping out new simulations—early in the
mornings; a long day in the merchanalysis hall; then studying and reading, followed by strength training and phi2dao at night.

  Each night he slept without dreaming.

  His research proceeded incrementally, while his physical training worked through phases: increasing intensity through a tenday, then dropping back to easier levels, before building up again. But each beginning was a little higher than the previous; each peak a new achievement.

  The merchanalysis work was purely to keep him alive, but there were some snippets which would remain with him.

  Such as the time Yim Roken slammed a fist on Mivkin’s desk, saying: ‘If there’s an eduthread that can teach you not to be a moron, I’ll pay for it myself.’ And Mivkin’s remark, later, to Tom: ‘I thought I’d left schoolyard bullies behind, but I was wrong.’

  But Mivkin had no interest in learning the disciplines of self-defence which would protect him—psychologically, physically—from such overbearing gas-bags, though Tom quietly offered to teach him.

  In the kitchens, old Xalya would try to give Tom extra helpings—he was the only temporary-indenture merchanalyst who ate with vassals—while complaining about her corns and blisters. In the workplace, Jasirah’s petty jealousies, and her colleagues’ exasperation with her, afforded Tom some amusement.

  And sometimes, the housecarls would allow him into their barracks, where he could watch them training, empty-handed and with weapons. They used tsatsoulination breathing and control techniques, beyond anything Tom had learned in phi2dao flow/focus training.

  No-one, at least verbally, invited him to join in; he was happy to observe.

  Tom was not there the night young Horush was injured, far more seriously than anyone realized at the time. The various accounts provided to him by his friends among the carls enabled him to piece together what had occurred.

  One of the spectators was a lean housecarl called Harald, sitting on a bench at the side, his arm encased in amber gel: an injury gained from groundfighting with Kraiv five days earlier.

  ‘He was on top form that night,’ Harald told Tom later. ‘Never seen Kraiv looking so good.’

  Every warrior in the platoon was already breathing hard, tunics dark with sweat, muscular bare limbs glistening, when the drillmaster sergeant, his long face rippling with old scars, called the carls out in groups of six, for synchronized spear work, using forms that were normally performed solo.

  With heavy morphospears, each weapon tuned to basic halberd configuration, the six men stamped and spun in unison across the battered, padded mats stained brown with old blood, avoiding the mattress-wrapped pillars, venting their berserker roar as they hacked and killed enemies of their own imagining. Kraiv fought hard, eyes crazed, white dry spittle encrusting his mouth: a big gentle man transformed into a rabid, vicious beast.

  ‘And fast,’ said Harald. ‘For a man that size.’

  Behind his back, the big carl was called Killer Kraiv, partly from the insane berserker stare which clicked into place behind his eyes whenever he got deeply into solo practice. But partly, too, it was in contrast to his normal nature: easygoing, always concerned with other people’s troubles and willing to help.

  ‘Next group,’ called the drillmaster sergeant.

  When the entire platoon of thirty men had demonstrated their skill, he called back the first group and gave the command: ‘Partner up!’

  It was unarmed close-quarter combat, a sparring session, and young Horush was the third opponent Kraiv faced.

  They moved fast, Horush trying to use his lanky speed in avoidance, but Kraiv’s huge muscular form whirled and leaped across the mats in unpredictable ways, and just as Horush leaped to attack, a flashing backfist, light and whippy and totally unseen, struck him on the temple and he fell.

  Horush was back on his feet almost immediately, while Kraiv apologized as the berserker stare dropped from his eyes. Just one word: ‘Sorry.’

  No serious fighting school, if it is of any worth, permits more than a single word of abbreviated apology; some allow none at all. It is to do with attitude of mind, concerns of life and death.

  But Tom wondered, as he heard the tale, whether there was any sense in a system which pitted lightweight youths against massive, seasoned warriors in a sparring situation, and expected no-one to get hurt.

  The training session ended in good order, and the carls went to wash and change, then meet up with the womenfolk who would have undergone their own training during the day. En masse, they would retire to the great dining chamber where circular bronze shields glimmered upon dark walls, to eat their one true meal of the day. It would be a big one, a warriors’ dinner, consisting of at least four courses, during which they would flirt and laugh and boast: taking the opportunity to relate tall, outrageous tales or spin convoluted, often surreal riddles—always friendly, always competitive.

  And it was afterwards, when Horush was walking back towards the barracks’ sleeping chambers, that his eyes rolled up in their sockets and he crashed heavily to the flagstones. Harald was the first to drop to one knee, put his fingertips to Horush’s throat, and discover there was no pulse to be felt: none at all.

  But Horush was sitting up in the autodoc and talking when Tom arrived at the barracks’ med complex. Tom broke off a glucose-bulb from a copper syrup-tree, and handed it to Horush.

  ‘They revived you, then,’ he said.

  ‘Thanks.’ Horush sipped, then leaned back, closing his eyes. ‘Good. I—’

  His eyelids fluttered.

  Tom looked away, thinking only of Elva as the thanatotrope took hold, flooding her nervous system with fast-acting toxins, while the implanted femtarrays spun her soul across spacetime to the waiting duplicate and her true body died—

  ‘... not too long.’ The on-duty medic, a carl with a white-edged tunic, was leaning over the display’s phase-spaces. ‘In fact, I think he should sleep now.’

  ‘Will he be all right?’

  ‘I’d say so. But don’t, um... Don’t say anything to Kraiv, OK?’

  Tom blinked. ‘He doesn’t know?’

  ‘Not that it’s his fault. I’d rather not worry him.’

  ‘Right. I can see that.’

  Tom shook his head, sure that he was missing something, but the medic was already leaving to check another patient.

  The next morning was strange: the start of the annual holiday, after which the relaxed and revitalized merchanalysts would be expected to renew their indentures.

  And Tom had agreed to go with the others downstratum for three days—a decision which no longer made sense to him. But he knew only that he was ready for a change, in a way that meant more than a brief time away from the mundane work which was killing him with boredom.

  He was getting no closer to Elva while he remained here.

  On the way out, he could not help but look inside the dusty merchanalyst hall—Master Grenshin was there, bent over a solitary workstation; Tom backed out quietly—before meeting the rest of the little party. They were waiting beyond the Light Maze, at an octagonal archway which led through to the realm of Bilyarck Gébeet.

  ‘Hi, Gazhe.’ Mivkin’s lisp seemed more pronounced, and he grinned like a schoolboy. ‘Time off at last, eh?’

  ‘Finally.’

  Mivkin was cloaked in plain grey, not unlike Tom, but Jasirah was decked out in bright joyful scarlet. Dour Quilvox had threaded tiny coloured beads into his long beard, and his quilted surcoat was embroidered with intricate patterns. Ryban, shifty-eyed, wore a tattered brown cloak which might have been made from sacking, perhaps stolen from a godown storage chamber.

  ‘This way.’ Jasirah pointed, taking charge.

  Mivkin winked at Tom.

  Their travel-tags authorized them to descend at one point only, so they followed a festive penrose-tiled corridor—red, green and cream predominating—through to a wide piazza in which long silk streamers floated, and exotic scents moved upon the air.

  There were grim expressions among the people who thr
onged the piazza, despite their brightly coloured tunics and soft, floppy caps: standard costume for local holidays. Still, Jasirah pushed her way through the crowd in a straight line, without deviation, for all her lack of height. Tom followed with the others, smiling slightly as they made mock salutes behind Jasirah’s back.

  Off to one side, a musical mendicant group was playing the Grilvin Fantasia on pipes and aerolutes. It was an ode to their order’s founding martyr, and their robes bore woven representations of the active macromolecule in the poison St Grilvin had been forced to drink. Their clothes and skin were impregnated with doses of the actual toxin, steadily increasing as their immunity built.