Brother Death (22 page)

"Doesn't sound like it'll put Vishnu out of business," Taz said.

"Not unless your idea of a pleasure world is insanity," Scanner said. "I'll upload the data. Good luck, citizens. You'll need it. You talk to Maro again, tell him I hardly broke even on that rundown ship we stole."

After Scanner was gone, the two of them sat in Taz's cube, pondering what they had learned.

"This Zonn dimension seems like a place we don't want particularly to go," Saval said. "Assuming we believe any of all this." He waved his hand at the blanked proj space. "But I think we're gonna have to check it out, though."

"Why?"

"The Unique and his followers have vanished. No sign of 'em anywhere."

"It's a big planet," she said. "Or he could have had offworld transport hidden somewhere."

"Yeah, maybe. But I don't think so. You know what else I think?"

Taz nodded, blew out a puffed-cheek sigh. "Yeah. Kifo and his crew are hiding out in the Zonn dimension."

"We have a religious fanatic here. If he thinks his gods live there, where else would be safer?"

"Oh, man."

"Yeah," Bork said.

Chapter TWENTY-FOUR

MISSEL SCANNED THE data on his monitor. The info crawl was beyond Bork's understanding, but he watched the man nod as he read the material. The interior of the lab was ahum and aglow from computer screens and assorted forensic machineries. Taz paced behind the lab tech, glancing at him and the holoproj now and then, but unable to stand still.

"This is great stuff," Missel said. "Look at that power curve!"

"Can you build it?' Taz asked.

He blinked, said, "Pause," to his computer. Looked at Taz. "Oh, sure. The schematics are simple enough, nothing we can't lay our hands on. Must have been interesting trying to cobble it together inside a prison, though."

"How long will it take?"

Missel blinked again. "How long? Well, if you can approve the parts-I'll need a purchase order-not all that long."

"Can you be more precise?"

"What time is it now? Tomorrow morning, if I start in the next hour or two."

"I'll get your purchase order number."

Bork said, "We were warned that this could be dangerous."

Missel looked at the frozen holoproj, then back at Bork. "Nah. I can wire a fail-safe circuit into the system, one of the new Graham-Lachmans. Wouldn't be any more risky than a standard jump into Bender space. Christo, half the boards in this design are fifty years out of date. Look at that, the interlock is visual purple bacteria complex, nobody has fooled with VPBC for anything but lume controls and household appliances for at least two decades. I'm surprised there isn't copper wire and vacuum tubes in here. This is the future, man, we don't use stone knives any more."

"Get moving," Taz said.

Kifo gathered his flock and explained briefly what was about to happen. The Very Few were unperturbed; some of them had made the crossing, and the ones who had not looked forward to it. The rest of the Few were, to varying degrees, eager or fearful. None wished to stay behind, however. This was the penultimate moment in their lives.

When Mkono finished his business in the mundane world, he would return here. Brother Hand was the only member of the Few beside himself who knew the Walk Through the Wall meditation well enough to make the crossing alone. A portion of the wall would be softened enough to admit the giant brother when he arrived; Kifo could do that from the other side.

The entertainer who had been taken from the public room stood outside the chamber, held by a pair of the stouter brothers. Mkono would kill him and return to the city.

Kifo smiled. While he bore the kidnapped man no particular malice save his association with the policewoman, he felt a perverse thought grip him as he watched the captive watching the Few. Should he not allow this doomed soul to see what he was missing before his death? To witness the Few as they crossed into the Realm of the Gods by walking through what appeared to be a solid wall, and more, a wall of the hardest substance known to man? True, no outsider had ever seen such a thing; then again, he would not be telling tales afterward.

Kifo nodded to himself. Perhaps the poor soul could even take some comfort from it. To see a miracle and then die might enforce some mistaken belief and allow the fellow a moment of peace. In a universe where men could do such things, surely redemption had to exist?

Kifo said to one of the women, "Go and tell Mkono to wait for my signal before he eliminates the captive."

The woman hurried off. Kifo watched her approach Brother Hand, saw him nod and glance at his Unique.

Kifo turned to his flock. "We begin," he said. "Still your minds and allow your faith to fill you."

The Chamber grew quiet; no manmade sound disturbed the air within the three Zonn walls. Kifo fingered the Sacred Glyph in his robe's pocket, slid his fingers over it, feeling the coldness of the holy relic. He became aware of the wall in front of him changing, of a swirling in the material. It was like smoke in a scanning laser, bound by the wall's shape but boiling inside the confines of the planes. It needed the Glyph and a proper mindset to accomplish, but the Few had spent years preparing for this.

Kifo said, "Brother Angst, you may cross first."

"I am honored, my Unique!"

The man was thirty years older than Kifo, had been instrumental in teaching him the ways of the faith, and it seemed only proper to allow him this small favor. Once in Paradise, what did it matter who arrived first or last?

Brother Angst stepped toward the wall, hesitated not even an eyeblink, and vanished in the steely murk.

An involuntary gasp escaped from those who had never seen the phenomenon before. Even the Unique still felt a sense of amazement after having witnessed and done it himself a number of times.

"Sister Weary?"

The second member of the Very Few squared her shoulders and strode forward, vanished from the world.

Kifo turned to look at the prisoner. Mkono held the man by the shoulders. He was staring, all right. His mouth hadn't gaped, but his amazement was plain to see. It made Kifo feel a certain sense of power.

Perhaps he should not have reacted so hastily in having the two cools who had come snooping killed. It would have increased his pleasure to see their wonder before they died. Ah, well. Even a candidate for godhood could not think of everything. Perhaps he would revive them once he became a god and allow them to see it then. He laughed at the thought. Ah, the power of a god!

The passage continued, each of the Few in turn stepping up to the wall and vanishing into it. They knew to cross over and wait until he arrived to lead them. The Zonn realm was not a place in which to wander around unguided.

When all in the chamber had crossed save himself, Kifo turned and waved at Mkono. The big mue nodded, slid his hands up and around the prisoner's head, twisted sharply, and broke his neck. The man fell in an untidy heap. Mkono waved once, then turned and walked away. He did not look back.

Kifo nodded. So much for that little problem. He stepped up to the swirling wall and into it. He felt the bone-freezing blast of cold that always came with the crossing. As he took the step that would end in another world, another universe, he heard a small humming behind him. Ah. The vouch. He had forgotten to shut it off. He wondered idly how long it would wait here for him. Given the life of the power system, it could be years.

Well. No matter. It was only a machine, loyal, but of no importance. Not to one who was going to be crowned a god. He would hardly need it when he returned.

Taz attacked the weights in her gym, slamming them back and forth, doing too many sets and reps, trying to blunt her anxiety. She tired herself but did not quell the worry.

If Ruul were here now, she would marry him in a second. All it took was the knowledge that he might not be around to make Taz realize how much she really loved him. She hoped it wasn't too late.

She had no patience with the workout machines. She loaded plates onto the bar, squatted with more than she could safely handle, managed to keep from falling and being crushed. The dumbbells she bench pressed were five kilos past her usual maximum and she did too many sets.

After an hour she couldn't move any more weight. Her muscles were pumped so full that she could barely bend any joint; it was as if she had balloons under her skin, skin stretched so tight it felt as if she moved suddenly it would tear, spilling her muscles, her guts, her bones onto the gym floor.

She went to the shower, dialed the spray to its hardest and as hot as she could stand it. Vapor fogged the room, coated the mirrors, condensed and ran down the walls.

The two POs sent to check out the Zonn Ruins had not reported in. Two more units were sent to find out why. It was dark and they had found the flitter but no sign of the missing officers yet. Taz didn't doubt that the pair had met resistance of some kind and might be fertilizing plant roots somewhere. She hoped Ruul wasn't with them.

When her fingers started to pucker she shut the water off. Stood under the dryer until she was parched.

Went to her bedroom and sat naked on the bed. Stared at the wall.

She should try to get some sleep; but no, she knew it would be a wasted effort. Despite the grueling workout, despite the long shower, she was still wired. And she didn't want to take any chem that might make her dull and stupid if a call came in the middle of the night. Better to find something useful to do, she had to be awake

The com chimed. She swatted it to life before the first cycle ended. "Yes?"

"Chief, this is Thumal."

The WC for the corpse-stealer's shift. "Go."

"We, ah, found Nestom and Parleel. At the Zonn Ruins. Dead. Broken necks."

"Jesu Damn."

"Yeah. And we found Oro, too. Also a broken neck."

Taz's heart froze, her body turned to steel. "Oh, God." Time stopped, the universe burned, she with it.

The final deathrattle of her words grated from her as stone slammed into diamond: "Oh, God!"

Ruul was dead. All was bleak beyond words.

"He's lucky," the WC said.

For a beat it didn't make sense. She blinked. Found she had one final word in her: "Lucky?"

"It's a fucking miracle, that's what it is."

"What are you talking about?"

"Him surviving like that."

Taz was born again; Atlas returned, took the weight of the planet from her shoulders. Allowed her to go free.

Ruul was alive?

Alive!

"He's in pretty bad shape," the WC said. "Gonna be in spinal rehab for a couple months. He'd have been as dead as the others, except when the boys found him, there was a goddamn vouch plugged into him, pumping myelostat and antiplaz and Buddha knows what-all into him. Weirdest fucking thing, a vouch out in the middle of nowhere like that."

Taz was already up and moving, jerking clothes on, heedless of her hair, her face. He was alive! She had to get to him.

"He's at the Southside Mediplex. I thought you might have some questions for him so they're keeping him awake until you get there-"

That was the last she heard of that particular call. She was out the bedroom door and yelling.

"Saval! He's alive, goddammit, he's alive! Saval! Get dressed!"

She'd never been so happy in all her life. Never.

Chapter TWENTY-FIVE

RUUL DIDN'T LOOK so hot but he was more than a little lucky to be alive. Bork watched his sister beam at the injured man where he stretched out inside his Healy unit, and if love were sunshine the room would look like the heart of a nova. Ruul wasn't going to be feeling much from the neck down for a couple of months, until his spinal cord underwent reversion and repair, but he could still smile.

"You stupid bastard," Taz said. "Why didn't you yell or something?"

His voice was weak when he spoke but didn't quaver. "The two buffoons had a gun jammed into my ribs. Noise would have gotten me pierced. I decided I'd rather put that off as long as I could. Besides, if you and the gray giant had come rumbling back into the bar, they might have gotten you, too."

"I'm a trained cool," she said. "I'd have shot the guns out of their hands."

"Right."

The medic standing next to the Healy adjusting the monitor panel shook his head. "You must have a patron god concerned about you, M. Oro. Not everybody who gets his neck broken has a top-of-the-line vouch idling nearby looking for somebody to latch on to."

Bork raised an eyebrow at the medic. "Just how did that happen?"

"The EEG and MEG pattern locked into the unit's primary care mode belongs to this fellow you're looking for, according to the printout. Apparently something fairly major must have happened to him."

"How you figure?" Bork asked. Taz, focused on Ruul, didn't seem to be paying much attention here.

"Well, the PC mode is what runs these things. Once you are entered into the machine's operating system, you are who it takes care of. It won't leave to help somebody two meters away if they slip and break a leg or something; it is yours. If you die, then the basic first aid mode kicks in and the thing is available to offer whatever it can to anybody who is ill or injured within its range. System default, built into all the top models. The manufacturer makes a big deal out of it but it's basically to cover lawsuits. Wouldn't look too good to have a life-saving vouch idling its motors while people were dropping like flies all around it; that doesn't generate a lot of sympathy for medcoes on the planets where they still use human juries. According to the records, your priest or whoever stopped transmitting his EEG and MEG patterns all of a sudden. With its primary program cancelled, the vouch zeroed in on the nearest human, in this case M. Oro, and when it turned out he was in need of help, as evidenced from his disturbed vital functions, it rolled over and plugged itself into him. The newer models can do that without being specifically instructed to do so; they have some leeway."

"Lucky for Ruul," Bork observed.

"A miracle. The vouch must have gotten to him within sixty seconds of his injury. Another thirty or forty seconds and it would have probably been too late."