‘Oh yeah? I won’t have you sneering at Aleen.’ Samante stepped back.
‘Well, then, I’m sorry,’ Samante said. ‘But you obviously don’t know who this is. Allow me to present Ri Tal Molos, one of the greatest cybermasters in the Pinch. He spent years on Souk, negotiating the settlement that saved the Leps on Palace from deportation. While he was there, Souk’s Map nearly crashed, but he saved it. On top of that, he -’
‘Enough, Se Dinisa, enough.’ The Lep raised a clawed hand that glittered with strange rings.
‘I’m not an ambassador any longer. I’m back on Palace, just an aging Lep who can’t keep his snout out of politics. Normally, I’d enjoy a bit of verbal fencing, but these are not normal times, and we’ve met by chance in a place where we may speak freely. This is not an opportunity to be wasted.’
‘By chance?’ Vida smiled at him. ‘Oh come on. You’ve been waiting for us.’
‘Perhaps so.’ Molos’s crest waved pleasantly. ‘Now tell me, last of the L’Vars, what do you make of Government House?’
‘I’m scared of it. I think I’m going to hate this place.’
‘Ah, an honest answer. Perhaps then you might be interested in making as many allies as possible, such as my humble self.’
‘Allies? Why should a Lep want to be friends with a L’Var? Don’t you think I know what my father’s crime did to your people?’
‘You might as well ask why a reputable sapient would wish to be acquainted with a member of the despised Tal line. Both of us, my dear Vida, come from a clutch raised in
sraa?
‘I beg your pardon? In what?’
‘Sraa.
I believe in Gen the word would be treachery?’ He glanced at Samante.
‘Not exactly,’ the interpreter said. ‘It’s an allomorph, after all. Vida, it can mean the betrayal of an innocent nest mate, or the tricking of an innocent into a betrayal, depending on the conditioning.’
The silence hung as cold as the fog above. Molos reached into an inner pocket of his cloak and brought out a pinch of some black substance that he rubbed, slowly, into a discoloured section of his throat.
‘Molos!’ Samante snapped. ‘And at your age!’
‘It is my one vice, Samante.’ He waggled a claw at her. ‘Don’t lecture.’
‘What is it?’ Vida asked.
‘A derivative of Geriose, the life-enhancement treatment,’ Samante said. ‘It’s a highly addictive drug used by Leps who ought to know better.’
‘Peace, Samante, peace.’ Molos kept his crest raised. ‘We have more important things to talk about than my weaknesses. Vida, please, I need some information from you. Aleen told me about the assassin. Can you describe him for me?’
‘Sure.’
Vida closed her eyes and called up her memory pictures of that other roof park and the assassin. As she talked, describing every detail she saw in her images, Molos would occasionally ask her a brief question, but mostly he said little until she was finished.
‘You have an extraordinary memory, Se Vida.’
‘Well, that’s what everyone always says.’
‘I believe it’s an inherited trait. Our genes bring us many strange things and, unfortunately, tie us to some strange people as well.’
Vida turned back to stare at him. His crest hung languidly.
‘I suppose you mean the L’Vars,’ she said at last. ‘Is the eidetic memory a L’Var trait?’
‘So I always heard, yes.’ Molos rubbed a finger along the discoloured patch on his throat, as if to grind the drug a little more deeply in. ‘And I also mean the line of Tal, my own family, though that word truly doesn’t fit our Lep arrangements very well. Vida, I know who chased you. And you are very fortunate to be alive. Aleen told me she sent you to Government House for your protection. A wise move, but then, Aleen makes no foolish ones. This assassin goes by the name of the Outcast.’
Samante yelped, then covered her mouth with one hand.
‘A famous sapient in his way,’ Molos said, fluttering his crest. ‘And I’m afraid I know him much too - well, who’s this?’
Vida spun round to see Dukayn stepping onto the path out of the foliage. Her guards, caught by surprise, all began talking at once.
‘Shut up,’ Dukayn said. ‘And I’m reporting you all to Dav. Se Vida? I’m not so sure it’s safe up here.’ He glanced at Molos, then away again. ‘And it’s late.’
‘Dukayn, we’re fine,’ Samante broke in. ‘I thought that Se Vida would like to stroll through the roof park. It’s been a long and trying day for her.’
Samante’s expression reminded Vida of Tia, smiling while she spoke to some client she detested. Molos leaned back on his bench and gazed up at the night sky. Dukayn glanced at Samante as briefly as common courtesy would allow.
‘Will you do me the honour of accompanying me back inside, Se Vida?’ Dukayn said. ‘I’m sure your fiance is worried about you.’
‘Really?’ Vida said.
‘Well, Karlo is. And Dinisa’s right. You must be exhausted.’
Vida doubted very much if he was truly concerned with how tired she might be. Putting her back in her cage like an exotic animal, on the other hand - no doubt he was concerned about that.
‘Well, I
am
tired. Samante, shall we go back in?’
The interpreter nodded, stifling a yawn with one hand. Vida bowed to Molos.
‘I hope we can talk some more later, Se.’
Dukayn turned on her with ice-sharp eyes.
‘Let’s go,’ he snapped. ‘Now.’
Molos raised his crest and imitated a human wink, then rose, shuffling off with his limp down the direction he’d come. Dukayn waited until the Lep had disappeared among the shrubbery.
‘Don’t let the cardinal see you associating with sapes like that,’ he said. ‘Now let’s go. Dinisa, your uncle’s looking for you. Wilso.’
‘He’s only my law-uncle,’ Samante snapped. ‘And he can call me if he wants to make an appointment.’
‘None of my business. I’m sure Brother Dav’s people will be glad to walk you home.’
In a flash of fear that caught her by surprise, Vida turned toward Samante, the only person she felt she knew, here in this new life of hers.
‘It’s all right,’ Samante said. ‘I’ll see you in the morning. Let’s have breakfast?’
‘Yes, sure, I mean, thank you. I never sleep real late. What about at half of the nines?’
‘That’s fine. I’ll see you then. Sleep well.’
By the time Dukayn led her to the door of her guest suite, Vida felt as if she could sleep forever, but once she was alone, standing in the utter quiet of an unfamiliar room, she found herself restless. She flipped on the panel lighting, turning the stark white walls to a soft gold. On the poll screen the tower graphs were building to show the public’s opinion of new canal construction. When she turned on the vidscreen proper, she saw pictures of herself, walking down the length of the reception hall.
‘Change.’
Onscreen, a talking head - the Chief Master of the Protectors’ Guild.
‘And so we ask all Lep citizens to keep an eye out for any suspicious activity: any newcomer whose story doesn’t quite ring true, say, and in particular someone whose scale patterning looks like it might have been altered. Please call us immediately, and don’t try to take any action yourselves. The fellow we’re searching for is dangerous.’
Vida suddenly realized that he was talking about the Outcast.
‘Change! Search for landscapes and music’
A moment’s grey; a panorama of the sparse and wind-torn grasslands of Belie’s polar continent filled the screen, while stringed instruments played in quarter tones. Vida left the screen on and wandered into the bedroom, flipped on the golden lights there as well, and stood glancing around. The bed, covered in blue satin, stretched long and wide, filling a good half of the room, while in the other half stood a white dresser and a strange narrow cabinet, about waist-high. When Vida tried to touch it, she realized that the cabinet was only a holo, hiding something.
‘Image off.’
The cabinet winked out of existence, revealing a black pillar, angled at the top, much like the pillar in the Carillon. So these rooms each had a Map terminal - made, sense, she supposed. Unlike the one in the bell tower, though, this pillar sported icons she could read. She pressed Access.
‘Meta one,’ she said, imitating Romero. ‘Calios.’
The revenant sprang to life, grinning at her.
‘Hello, Veelivar. How may I help you tonight?’
‘Well, I don’t know, exactly. I just wanted to see if I could call you up from this pillar.’
‘I don’t understand your words.’
‘Um, well, datapoint: may I access you from all Map terminals within Government House?’
‘Yes, you may now.’
‘Now? Explain word choice, now.’
‘Formerly I was confined to the Map segment once designated Quarantine, now known as Pleasure Sect. Just recently, however, some cybertech has implemented a new pipe allowing access to the non-segmented over-configuration of the Map.’
Vida had no idea of what this meant.
‘Can you display data on the vidscreen in the other room?’
‘I can access any vidscreen in Government House now.’
‘Good.’
All at once the revenant disappeared. When the music from the other room stopped, Vida returned to find Calios grinning at her like a news presenter from the corner of the screen.
‘There you are,’ she said.
‘Here I am. What shall I do for you?’
‘Please search for, access, and display titles of archival files, subject: Orin L’Var.’
‘How many levels of database shall I access?’
‘I don’t know. Please display the levels available.’
As it turned out, only one level displayed on the screen in a pitifully short list for an important public figure.
‘That’s all?’ Vida said.
‘Yes. Many public records were locked by court order after his trial.’
‘I see.’ Vida hesitated, considering. Although she wanted to know, and badly, what her father had been like, she was afraid she already knew: a traitor, a criminal, hanged in Public Square while the entire planet watched on the vidscreens.
‘What shall I display, Veelivar?’ Calios said. ‘Level One is open to you.’
‘I don’t want to see any of them right now. Clear screen.’
The panorama of pale grass returned, dappled here and there with tiny white wildflowers. The music picked up, whining and howling like the wind she could only see.
‘Calios?’ Vida said.
He didn’t answer. Her command must have returned him to the database, she supposed, but when she went back into the bedroom, he was waiting, hovering over the pillar in another set of bizarrely antique clothes: a pair of pale blue, tight-fitting trousers, a short-sleeved white pullover shirt with writing upon it in a language she couldn’t read. She realized that she’d merely been out of sensor range when she’d spoken. He’s not real, she reminded herself. You can’t make that mistake. He’s not real.
‘What may I do for you now, Veelivar?’
‘I’m not sure. Please wait.’
On the word ‘wait’ he froze and turned faint, a hologram put on ‘pause.’ Vida turned away and stared at herself in the long mirror above the dresser. Her hair was slipping down in strands from its rhinestone clasps; her white satin dress was losing its cummerbund; down one side of the skirt she found a faint spatter of green -spilled wine from somewhere. She pulled the clasps out and threw them on the dresser top, then touched the smart thread at the neck of her dress.
‘Open.’
The dress split like a cut fruit. She peeled it off and threw it onto the floor, then stripped off her gauzy shift and underwear to throw them after it. In the mirror a frightened woman, her red hair a tangled mess, stood looking back at her. She spun around.
‘Activate.’
Calios reappeared full-strength with a little toss of his head. His hair was still silver-coloured but curly, now, cropped close to his dark skull.
‘What may I do for you, Veelivar?’ he said. Vida sat down on the edge of the bed. ‘Can you tell me a story?’
‘Explain, please.’
‘Tell me a story. Do you have entertainment programs?’
‘Entertainment base opened. Searching on keywords.’ A pause; then he smiled. ‘Why, yes, Veelivar. I have accessed files containing stories.’
Vida threw back the satin blanket and lay down. The pillow sighed briefly, then conformed to her head.
‘Which story would you like, Veelivar? Shall I list available titles?’
‘No. Just pick one.’
‘Very well. I shall collate data about your situation and do a search on themes.’
Vida pulled up the blanket, which began to warm. Calios struck a strange pose, with one hand stretched out, palm up, the other set upon his jutted hip.
‘Once upon a time, and a very good time it was, a poor repair tech had a shop on a planet called Earth. He lived in a tiny dwell on the edge of town and got by on small jobs that the Cyberguild gave him. He did have, however, one treasure, a daughter, and he named her Beauty ...’
Vida fell asleep to his voice, telling her of a rich master of the Military Guild, who had been morphed into the body of an ugly beast after he’d mocked a passing Lifegiver.
* * *
With Nju driving, the ride home from Government House turned out smoother if less exciting than their morning’s jaunt. Rico stared out of the window at Palace passing below, a spilled jewel box of lights under its silver sky, and wondered if his mother really would be able to hide his crimes from her older brother. Rico had never been able to hide anything from Arno, after all, and he assumed that being a younger sister would be much the same as being a younger cousin. They landed on the roof pad on the top of the Jons compound, which sported a penthouse as well as this private landing facility. Rico followed Hi downstairs while the Garang stowed the aircar in its hangar. In the top floor vestibule, a drowsy saccule, old Gran, nodded in its chair.
‘Go to bed, Gran,’ Hi said, then hissed out of the side of his mouth. Gran honked, nodding, and got up to stretch.
Barra was waiting in the gather, sitting in a pool of soft light and reading a magazine. When Hi and Rico came in, she tossed the thin screen onto an end table and yawned at them both. Hi took off his robes, let them fall to the floor, then flopped into an armchair opposite hers. Rico sank onto the couch. He was glad ihat he was too tired to be frightened at the conversation ahead. His mother smiled at him, the bland smile she used to cover secrets.