‘What’s wrong?’ She handed him a glass. ‘You look like death.’
‘Do I?’ He saluted her with the glass. ‘I’m feeling old.’
‘Don’t.’ She smiled and sat down opposite him. ‘You’re not.’
Hi took a cautious sip. Swamp wine always tasted cold, even when it wasn’t, and deceptively mild. Aleen cradled her glass in both hands and waited.
‘All right,’ he said at last. ‘How come I didn’t know about the girl?’
‘I would have told you, in time.’
‘Sure. Right. Why in hell did you let the cardinal in on this?’
‘You’re asking the wrong way round. It’s the cardinal who’s known about Vida from the beginning. He approached me when he found out where the Lifegivers had placed the baby.’
‘What? Why did he protect her from Vanna?’
‘I don’t really know. To preserve the L’Var line, I suppose. He’s a great believer in maintaining the purity of the genome.’
‘Yeah, that’s for sure. A little too worried about it, if you ask me. But why did he leave her here?’
‘What choice did he have? She was an Unauthorized birth, wasn’t she? Roha was only a priest, then. He didn’t have the connections he does now.’
‘Well, that’s true, yeah. What I really don’t understand is how Roha talked Vanna around.’
‘He didn’t even try. He talked Karlo around, and the First Citizen made Vanna swallow it. I’m sure it didn’t taste very good going down.’ Aleen paused for an unpleasant smile. ‘His Eminence told me that Karlo wanted a rich marriage partner for his son, and no other family in Palace was going to give him one, not on good terms.’
‘Karlo never much liked the le-Yonestilla match Vanna arranged. That’s no secret.’
Aleen nodded and took a long drink of her wine. For a moment they sat, regarding each other like a pair of chess masters over an unstarted game. Hi could guess what she wanted from him; he merely wanted to see what she’d offer in return. After a moment Aleen turned blunt.
‘Vida will need protection in Government House.’
‘You think so?’ Hi had guessed right. ‘The cardinal will take care of her, won’t he?’
‘Maybe. Maybe not. If Vida becomes a political liability, who knows? And Vanna is right there.’
‘I see your point. But why would I want to risk angering the Second Citizen by taking an interest in the girl?’
‘Who said I was asking you to?’
Hi laughed - she’d won that round. She merely sat and watched him.
‘Well,’ Hi said at last. ‘Her genotype is valuable, I suppose. Don’t you go believing that legend, though, about the L’Vars having some kind of magic built-in power over AIs.’
‘She’s the
last
of the L’Vars, Hi,’ Aleen said. ‘She’ll inherit their confiscated property.’
‘Yeah, so? I’ve got plenty of rich allies already.’
‘Maybe you
are
growing old. Don’t you understand? The L’Vars aren’t just any old house. They’re one of the First Families, one of the automatically enfranchised families. Vida will be confirmed as their chief patron. She’s it, the last of them. As soon as she’s old enough, she’ll inherit their seat on Centre Council.’
‘But that’ll be years from now. She’ll have to be thirty-five at. least.’
‘No, not if Karlo and Roha decide to force the matter. There’s an emergency provision to allow the oldest Not-child in a family to take that seat if no-one else is available. I looked it up. She’ll be a Not-child in five more months.’
‘God!’ Hi had another sip of wine. ‘Yeah, you’re right. I’m practically senile, missing that. If she were inclined to favour the Cyberguild ...’
Aleen smiled, very gently.
‘Yeah, yeah.’ He grinned and swallowed the entire contents of his glass. ‘Don’t worry. I’ll make sure she survives. You can count on it.’
He hadn’t expected her to thank him, and she didn’t. He rose, setting his glass down on her desk.
‘I’ll be in touch later,’ he said. ‘I’ve got to talk with Arno. About all the things you don’t need to hear.’
‘Of course. I just hope he doesn’t blow out the power grid for the whole damn Sect, with the stuff he’s put together in that room.’
* * *
By the time that the wiretrain let him off at his stop, Rico’s burns ached and stung, especially along the backs of his hands, where climbing up the vine-covered grillwork had scraped the skin. He was tired, too, and decided that if he was going to be a rich man’s heir, he might as well start acting like it. Out in front of the station stood a queue of bright red robocabs. He took the first one and sank into the soft cushions of the back seat.
‘Riovizza District, Tech Sect,’ he said. ‘Long Street, Block seventy-four, rear complex.’
‘Submit authorization for entrance to Riovizza.’
‘Oh, right, sorry.’ Rico leaned forward and pressed his thumb onto the ID plate.
‘Cleared. Please sit back.’
Rico did, watching the towering glass and marbalite buildings flash by as the cab darted and squealed through the streets. At the big stone gates the robocab paused just long enough to transmit its passenger’s thumbprint to the guard mechs, then zipped through into the quieter air and long lawns of Riovizza. Even the shops and service booths clustered near the entrance stood among native fern trees and plantings of pale turquoise grass from Belie. Purple flowers hung in huge sprays from the languid branches of pole trees; roses bloomed red and yellow amid statuary and stone benches. As the cab ran deeper in, the shops disappeared, the turquoise lawns grew longer, and the dark green trees grew thicker, hiding the houses set well back from the street inside security walls. Private cars purred past, every now and then; once a big open truck, carrying a squad of Garang Japat, dressed in the black and red uniforms of the le-Yonestilla family, sailed slowly past, heading to the compound of their clan. Rico stared after them, golden-pale with their long narrow faces and prominent green eyes. Tufted with gold hair, their clawed hands clutched stunsticks, the only weapon private citizens were allowed.
The Jons clan compound, which sheltered its employees and retainers as well as the family, stood on a rise overlooking the River Algol. From his bedroom window, in fact, Rico could see the river, if he leaned out just right to catch the view between the trees. From the street, though, where the robocab deposited him, he could see nothing but trees and the white walls of his family’s compound and the one across the street that belonged to the Sanchis family. Rico pressed his thumb on the ID plate next to the wrought-plasto gates and started to punch the key for the pedestrian gate, but the pain in his hand stabbed at him. He spoke to the gatepost.
‘Send a passenger cart down.’
‘Voice recognized. Will do.’
The fog swirled overhead, and sunlight poured through. Rico leaned against the pillar and basked in the unfamiliar warmth until he heard the cart whooshing through the gravel. When he clambered onto the front bench, the cart sensed his weight and trundled off up the glittering white drive. Around him fern trees swayed; he heard the soft calls of the tiny songflies, all jewel bright colours and dappled wings, that lived in the gardens in Palace. The house itself loomed pale lavender and white at the top of the rise, a bent spiral of wings and corridors, all leading to the big central meeting hall. One of the family saccules was washing fungal spores off the front steps with a powermop and a hose. When Rico drove up, the neuter sniffed the air, then wheezed out a greeting from its side throat-sacs - a more respectful sound than the full boom from the front sac.
‘Hi, Gran,’ Rico said. ‘Is my mother home?’ The saccule let loose a scent like overripe fruit, and hissed a sound quite close to a human yes. ‘Thanks.’
Rico let himself in by a side door, avoiding the meeting hall, and went to his mother’s wing. Although he took the servants’ stairs up to the second floor and walked as quietly as he could, Barra still caught him, coming out of her bedroom door just as he was reaching his. She wore a pair of loose blue slacks and a flowered shirt, and her dark hair flowed over her shoulders - she would have just got up after her night’s work.
‘Rico! What have you been doing? You’re filthy.’
‘I bet. I’ve been climbing up this tower in Pleasure Sect, trying to run the antique Mapstation inside it.’
Barra blinked several times, rapidly.
‘No, honest, Mom. Ask Uncle Hi. It was his idea. The station’s in the Carillon Tower, and the stairs were torn down or something a long time ago.’
‘I
do
know the one you mean, yeah. Is the station still functional?’
‘Kind of. It’s erratic, and someone’s put an umbrella over it. But you can raise a rev from it.’
‘I want to hear about that, but you look like you could use a shower. Why don’t you clean up and meet me in the gather?’
Taking a hot shower, Rico found, made the skin on his face and hands peel. By the time he dried off, his reddish-brown skin was so badly streaked with beige that he looked like a victim of one of Palace’s many fungal infections. While he dressed, he stared at himself in the bathroom mirror and tried to figure out what he was going to tell his mother. Suddenly he realized that he was planning on lying to her, just as he’d lied to his uncle and guildmaster, when all the time the Candle was burning somewhere on the Map. He felt as cold and breathless as he had in the grip of the Chameleon Gate when he saw what lay ahead of him, his unguilding and a life of shame and poverty, but how could he go on lying when the Map was in danger?
Someone could get killed, he told himself. Just like you nearly were. The cold deepened until he shook. What if someone already had, and just because he’d never said a word to Hi this morning, when he had his chance?
The gather lay at the head of the stairs, a semi-circle of a room with two heavy wood doors on the flat wall; one led to Hi’s office, the other to the dining area. In the curve, soft furniture covered in pale koro hide stood before polarized windows giving onto a long view of the river, running through turquoise lawn. Along the walls, in recessed niches, stood small bronze statues and fine examples of glazed pottery from the various planets of the Pinch. Most of these hid interference field generators and other anti-snoop devices. Rico sank into a chair and watched Barra, pacing back and forth. Already the brief sunlight had faded, and the sky beyond the windows hung low and grey.
‘Something wrong?’ he said.
‘Yes, but there’s not much I can do about it. It’s this trip to Orbital. I do not want one of Karlo Peronida’s officers there, breathing down my neck and asking dumb questions.’ With a sigh she sat on the long sofa opposite him. ‘I just got a commcall from your uncle. He’s been invited to meet with the Peronida this evening. He says he’ll raise the subject then. Oh, and don’t forget - you’re supposed to go to that formal reception with him tonight.’
‘I can’t. I just can’t.’
‘What? Rico, you’ve got to. It’s a very important thing, this invitation. Do you understand?
The Peronidas had your name put on the invitation, too. Dukayn must have heard that you’re going to be Hi’s heir.’
Rico nodded, but he could barely hear her. The cold had gathered in his stomach and turned into a spiked blade. Barra tilted her head to one side and considered him.
‘What’s wrong?’ she snapped. ‘Rico-’
‘Uh well, you’re going to have to disown me. When they unguild me, I mean.’
‘What? Oh Rico, damn you! You went messing around the Nimue gate, didn’t you? And after you promised -’
He shook his head no. His tongue seemed frozen to his mouth. Barra leaned forward, her hands on her knees.
‘Rico.’ Her voice was very soft. ‘Tell me. You went somewhere forbidden, didn’t you?’
‘Yeah.’ He forced himself to look at her. ‘And I ran into some trouble.’
‘A supervisor recorded your route mark.’
‘No, jeez, I wish. Far as I know no-one knew I was there. But I saw this unregulated object. It was, well, I don’t know what it was. But it was destroying things, burning parts of the Map. There was a crash today, wasn’t there, at Pansect Media?’
‘Yes. How do you know?’
‘I saw it happen. This - this thing blew up their transmission routing centre.’
Barra sat quietly, very quiedy, for a long moment while Rico sank deeper into his cushions and wished he could die, right there and then, and save her the trouble of reporting him to the guild.
‘Pansect Media’s in a public area,’ she said at last. ‘No-one’s going to unguild you for going there.’
Hope. He sat up straight and winced when his hands dragged on the chair cushions. Barra leaned forward, puzzled.
‘Why are you saying I’ll have to disown you?’
‘Well, I didn’t log in exactly.’
She sighed, a long hiss of breath.
‘You commandeered the Chameleon Gate.’
‘Yeah. ‘Fraid so.’
‘Well, no-one’s going to unguild you for that, either.’ All at once she laughed, but it was a sickly sort of sound. ‘The Jons family has never bothered to tell the rest of the guild about it, has it? Hi’s not going to be yelling at you in public about it now.’
Rico started to smile, but the skin around his mouth cracked. Barra leaned forward for a good look at his face.
‘You shouldn’t use sunlamps when you’re tired,’ she snapped. ‘It’s too hard to stay awake.’
‘I didn’t get this from a sunlamp. I got it from the unregulated object. It burns like some kind of huge candle and explodes constructs with icons that look like fire. When I left Mapspace I was burned like this.’
Barra stared at him, her mouth slack.
‘I don’t see how that’s possible,’ she said at last. ‘But that doesn’t mean it isn’t. Come into the bathroom and let me get rid of that mess. A couple of squirts of ReGen spray should do it. And then you’re going to tell me every detail you can remember. No-one’s going to be asking me awkward questions when I report this to Hi. The Gate leaves no records. For all anyone knows, I used it just because I was in the mood for a little jaunt.’
Rico felt as if the planet had just wrenched in its orbit.
‘You’re going to lie for me?’ he whispered.
‘Why wouldn’t I? You had the guts to tell me, didn’t you? Even when you thought it was going to cost you your place in the guild?’