A few guests managed a chuckle at this attempt at a joke.
‘So, well, one thing I’ll say about Arno. He loved a party. Why don’t you all remember him by making this event a good one? He would have liked that.’
The guests clapped. Hi left the podium and gestured to Jevon, who started the music again. The ceremony was over.
Rico considered another drink, but his head throbbed from the last one. He’d never eaten breakfast, faced as he had been with Barra’s news when he’d woken. When one of the caterer’s trained saccules passed with a tray of bright purple ices, he grabbed one, then let it melt in its paper cup until he could sip the sugary result. Guests came and went, stopping to congratulate or commiserate, while he stood on the turquoise lawn by the white garden wall with a fixed smile on his face.
The worst was Pukosu, flouncing up to him in her blue apprentice’s smock. She made a great show of stroking the sleeve of his jacket while her big brown eyes, as hard as ever, judged his reaction.
‘Oh, I’m so looking forward to getting one of these of my own,’ she said. ‘The journeyman’s coat, I mean. You’re so lucky, Rico.’
The stress on the word, lucky, was faint but unmistakable.
‘I wouldn’t call it luck,’ he snapped. ‘I’d give anything to have Arno here instead of me.’
‘You probably would, yes. You’re that type.’
Before he could think of a suitably nasty answer, she smiled and trotted off to join Ymel Rethe, her mentor in the guild.
After a while everyone ignored Rico and began to chew over the week’s gossip with their plates of refreshments - the last of the L’Vars found, and wasn’t he a clever one, that Peronida, wasting no time in marrying her off to his son?
‘It’s the money, of course,’ ran the assembled opinion. ‘And a chance to show Vanna that he can be his own master if he wants to.’
No-one mentioned Wan, Rico noticed, only Karlo. Finally he asked Dian Wynn about it, when she swept up to him to offer her congratulations. She’d done her auburn hair into a tower of curls for the occasion and brought with her a youngish blond man wearing the green journeyman’s coat, piped with brown, of the Biotech Guild. She introduced him as Payder.
‘I don’t get this,’ Rico said. ‘You’d think Vida was marrying Karlo.’
‘Well, my dear Rico,’ Wynn said with a wink in Payder’s direction. ‘Everyone knows that Karlo writes the code and Wan just runs it. I’m afraid he inherited his dear mother’s brains as well as her looks.’
Rico stared, puzzled.
‘You - a decent young fellow, aren’t you?’ Wynn was smiling at him. ‘I was being catty, dear. His mother’s a holostar. Brains are not part of her resume.’
Rico dutifully laughed. He’d learned to do dutiful laughs during the years he’d spent under Wynn’s tutelage. He noticed that Payder laughed, too, but a little louder.
‘Well, anyway,’ Rico said. ‘I hope Wan’s got the brains to appreciate what he’s getting.’
‘Doesn’t take brains for that,’ Payder broke in, grinning. ‘She’s a sexy little number, isn’t she? And one of those girls from Pleasure.’
‘She wasn’t ever Marked,’ Rico snapped.
‘Oh yeah, but I bet she knows all there is to know already.’ Payder went on grinning. ‘They train their girls with VR, you know. They’re technically virgins, sure, but. Heh. I’d like to run a few tapes with her, myself.’
Rico’s hand tightened on his fortunately empty paper cup and collapsed it. Payder stepped back sharply, the grin gone.
‘I think, Payder dear,’ Wynn said, ‘that Rico has made the acquaintance of Se L’Var in some social way.’
‘Oh well, hey, yeah, sorry. Didn’t mean to insult a friend of yours. You know?’
‘Sure.’ Rico let out his breath in a long sigh. ‘Just keep in mind that she’s not what you think. Okay?’
Payder forced out a watery smile, muttered something about getting another drink, and dashed. Wynn raised one orange eye brow in Rico’s direction. When he merely looked at her, she laughed.
‘My last little lesson for you, Rico,’ she said. ‘Learn to hide these things better. Nothing a man like Payder says is going to harm your friend, not one bit. She could buy and sell twenty of him. What none of them says matters. Do you understand that?’
‘Yes, Se. And thanks.’
With a little nod Wynn moved off, gliding like a tower through the chattering guests. Rico looked at the smashed cup in his hand and wondered if this was what love felt like.
* * *
Out of respect for the family’s mourning, the guests left early, fading out on a long wave of condolences until by the fifteens only the caterers remained in the garden. Hi was just escorting Ymel to the door in order to savour the pleasure of having him gone when Jevon marched up to him.
‘Tarick Avon in ten minutes, Se,’ she announced.
‘Can’t we just put him off?’
‘No. If you do, we’ll be swarmed by gridjockeys. I made it one of the terms of his exclusive
- he keeps the rest of the pack off our lawn. He said he’d bring Garang with him.’
‘You know something, kid? You’re brilliant. Okay. Where’s Rico?’
‘Se Barra’s fetching him. Oh, and Patron Jons? There’s a lot of food left. The caterer wants to know if he should pack it for storage.’
‘Tell him no. Get our servants out here and let them gorge themselves. You know how saccules love to eat. And hey, his guys can join in, if he’ll let them.’
‘Oh, I’m sure he will. I’ll tell him.’
Ymel had been listening to all of this with his usual bemused expression, one raised eyebrow over the glitter of his simtil left eye. ‘Something wrong?’ Hi said.
‘Oh no. I was just thinking that someone else could always take over this part of your job the interviews I mean - if you don’t care for them.’
‘This interview’s about the family matter, too.’
‘Ah.’
For a moment they considered each other, Ymel smiling a little through his brindled beard. Hi believed him, all right, about his being ready to take over as much of the guildmaster’s job as Hi would let him sink his fangs into. For a moment he wondered if he really should go through with the move to Government House - but saving the Map meant a great deal more than guarding his position in the guild.
‘Well, good to see you,’ Hi said. ‘Gotta run.’
‘Of course. See you at the next guild meeting.’
Hi lingered in the hallway for a moment watching old Gran show Ymel out. What if, just for instance, just as a speculation, what if Ymel thought he could cause a limited crash on the Map and then step in to save the day, the only master who could repair that mysterious damage? You don’t have any proof, Hi told himself. Not yet anyway. Widi a shake of his head he turned away, then hurried to the gather for his interview.
Tarick Avon was slender and not particularly tall, but under the rainbow-striped robes of a master of the Media Guild, he was lean and muscled, and even sitting still in one of the big beige chairs he gave the impression of a man of immense physical energy. Although he had the usual cluster of audio pickup and transmit chips visible in the back of his skull - he was going quite heavily bald for a man so young, not even sixty yet - Avon had brought along a pix, a young Lep woman wearing the long striped kilt of a journeyman, who said nothing during the entire proceedings, merely paced around, pointing her camera hand. At first the interview went smoothly. Avon got things started with some general talk about the possibility of reprogramming the Magnus AI, which gave Hi the welcome chance to heap scorn upon the idea. Turning more personal, Avon asked Rico questions about his apprenticeship and Hi some very tactfully phrased questions about Arno, so tactful that Hi knew the reporter was planning on springing something on them. Sure enough, just as it seemed the interview was winding down, Avon turned to Hi with his charming smile.
‘This Pansect transmission crash,’ he said. ‘It’s part of the larger problems afflicting the Map these days, isn’t it?’
Hi thought something foul. Aloud he said, ‘It depends on what you mean by the larger problems. We’ve run into what we call a maintenance cluster. We all know that the Map is an ancient artifact, and just because it’s so old we tend to think of it as uniform, that it was all built back in the mists of time. Well, of course that’s not true. The Colonizers built it up piece by piece over a long time. At various points they’d patch in whole new areas. Now, the constructs that were patched at the same time tend to wear out together. It’s fairly normal to hit these clusters. A real nuisance when they happen, of course.’
‘I see.’ Avon hesitated, half-convinced. ‘They’ve happened before?’
‘Oh yes. Let’s see, I was just finishing my apprenticeship when the last big one occurred. I remember that within eighteen months we had five major dev lines go down and a number of station crashes. It was pretty frightening, but in the end, the guildmasters got everything up and functioning again. I’m sure you can find the details in the archives.’
‘I’m sure I can, yes. Patron Jons, there’s something our audience wants to know.’ He paused, making sure the pix had his face in her point. ‘During our morning call-in, we let you, our audience members, vote on which question you most wanted Hivel Jons, master of the Cyberguild, to answer for us today. So here it comes. What about this L’Var girl? Is she really a cybersorcerer?’
Hi forced himself to smile at a question grown tedious.
‘No,’ Hi said. ‘The L’Var genotype produces an aptitude for cyberskills, not mysterious built-in powers.’
Avon looked disappointed. No doubt his audience shared the feeling. ‘Not even a well, a kind of empathy for AI units?’ he said.
‘There’s no such thing. AI units are not living creatures. They merely mimic the behaviour of living minds.’ Hi smiled into the camera. ‘If any of you would like more information on this subject, the Cyberguild has a series of download pamphlets, part of our ongoing effort to keep the people of Palace informed. Just go to Public Service Area Twelve, Confederated Guilds, and press the Cyberguild outreach icon.’
‘Well, thank you, Patron Jons. I’m afraid, folks, that our time is up. This is Tarick Avon, signing off for Pansect Syndication Services. You all have a bright night!’
The camera sighed and snapped her outsized fingers once to turn her unit off. Avon stood, subvocalizing to his chips, but Hi decided that trusting him to keep them dead would be a mistake. He himself got up, leaving Rico sprawled miserably on the sofa, and began to stroll toward the vestibule, giving Avon no choice but to follow.
‘My condolences on your loss, Patron,’ Avon said. ‘Your factor warned me that if I tried to dig for private data on that subject during our interview, I’d never get near you again.’
‘Did she? Good.’
Avon flashed him a smile of near-convincing sincerity.
‘But there’s just one thing I’d really like to ask you, Se, off the record, of course. The Protectors have been making public service spots on all the grids, asking for tips about some mysterious Lep from off planet. I can’t help wondering if there’s some connection between that and this sad event.’
‘Yeah?’ It took all of Hi’s will to keep him from throwing the man out there and then. ‘That’s for the Protectors to say, not me.’
‘Well, of course.’ Avon hesitated for a long moment. ‘I’ve had tips that the Outcast is back on planet.’
‘No kidding? Hey, sounds like a big story for you, if it’s true.’
‘You don’t have any thoughts on the matter?’
‘I’m not a member of the Protectors’ Guild.’
‘Of course. Of course, Patron Jons. Well, thank you very much for your time. And if you ever need something fed onto the grid, you can count on me.’
Hi had Gran show Avon out, then returned to the gather. Long legs akimbo, Rico still sat slumped on the couch. Hi pulled off his robes and stood dangling them in one hand.
‘It’s over,’ Hi said. ‘Thank the Holy Eye.’
‘Yeah.’ Rico tipped his head back to look up at him.
‘Uncle Hi? When you told the intake that AIs aren’t alive, that you can’t have any empathy for an. AI, is that true?’
‘Officially it’s true. That’s what it says in all the manuals and all the faqs. That’s what you’d better say during your exams, if anyone asks you.’
‘Yeah, I know all that. But is it?’
‘No.’
Rico smiled for the first time all day.
‘I didn’t think it was,’ the boy said. ‘Is that why we can’t make a new AI out here? We don’t know how to make them come alive? The way the Colonizers did, I mean.’
‘That’s my guess, yeah. Hey, I’m glad to see that someone else agrees with my private theory.’
‘Well, I asked Arno once, and he thought I was crazy.’
‘He said I was, too. I can’t support the theory with hard facts, so I keep my mouth shut about it. I suggest you do the same, but I’m real glad to find someone who shares my intuitions.’
‘Okay, but I wonder.’ Rico thought, chewing on his lower lip, for a moment. ‘There’s got to be evidence somewhere. If we can’t deduce it from the way the AIs work, maybe there’s an uncatalogued archive file somewhere.’
‘With the mess the wars left things in, maybe we’ll find one someday, but don’t bet your allowance on it. I haven’t had a lot of time lately to come up with new places to look, either. But hey, that’s right, something I need to tell you. Maybe it’s time to start looking for that evidence. We’re moving into Government House tomorrow, you and me, Jevon, Nju, and maybe a couple more staff members. It’s time for me to do a little work on Caliostro.’
‘Government House?’ Rico practically bounced off the couch. He was grinning on the edge of laughter. ‘We’re moving into Government House? We’re going to live there?’
‘Yeah, we sure are. Hey, I didn’t think you’d be so excited. What is this? Ancient architecture’s a hobby of yours?’
‘Huh? Uh, no, no.’ Rico wiped the grin away. ‘Just uh well, it’ll be a change.’
‘Oh right. The L’Var girl’
Rico blushed scarlet. Hi sighed with a shake of his head. One minute the kid was showing his brilliance; the next he was - was what? Acting like a normal man of twenty, that’s what.
‘Hey, it’s all right, Rico. If I were eighty years younger, I might be giving you a little competition. She’s some girl, huh?’