Strings (15 page)

Cedric boiled over. “Toss me out a seventeenth-story window?”

“That might be a kindness,” his grandmother said calmly. “If you lose this job, you can anticipate a career in organ donation.”

“Grandfather—”

“He is a rusted bucket. Your High—”

Cedric raised his voice over hers. “But is he my grandfather? How come I was born five years after my parents died?”

She looked at him as though he had just puked all over himself. “Your father’s estate came to me. It consisted of six dirty shirts and a frozen embryo. I had that thawed out and put in a utervat to see what it might grow into. That was twenty years ago, and I am still waiting for the answer.”

“Oh.”

“Is that all?”

“All?”

“I just thought,” his grandmother said, “that you might want to thank me.”

“Thanks for everything.”

His sarcasm was ignored. She smiled in mirthless satisfaction, and her eyes went back to Alya. “Come to my office now, Your Highness. We have much to discuss.”

Alya reached out and squeezed Cedric’s arm and walked away without looking at him. Jathro and the female guard followed.

Just in time, Cedric remembered another problem. “Gran, Eccles Pandora hinted that she has something special planned for tonight. It sounded like more than just your press conference.”

Agnes sniffed. “Indeed? Well, I don’t think we need worry about it yet. WSHB management will certainly run it through their System. The strategy routines will recommend waiting until tomorrow, or later. Two bombshells in one day would be a waste.”

“You know what it is?”

“I can guess. I knew a coin has been stolen. I wasn’t certain who had bought it. Again, talk to Fish.”

The door had closed. Only Cedric and Bagshaw remained in the big room.

“Gran?”

She sighed a
what now
sigh. “Yes?”

“Why did you do that to me? Why make a fool of me like that, and of all those important people, too?”

For a moment he thought she was not going to answer at all. Then she said, “I can’t explain. If it makes you feel any better, you almost ruined everything.”

“What? How?”

She replied with grim amusement. “By being a lot more of a man than I expected. I was really hoping that you’d start weeping. Try to do better in future.”

“You wanted me to fail?”

She shrugged and vanished. The comset was a gray blank.

“Bitch!” Cedric said.

“You just worked that out?” Bagshaw said.

“Yes.” Cedric sighed. He had a lev to catch; no time to rest or relax. “I need clothes.”

The bull nodded impassively. “Nobody carries your size, half-pint, but you can choose style and fabric here, and they’ll be made and waiting for you in Cainsville.” Yet he did not move. He was waiting for Cedric to do or say something more.

Of course.

Cedric switched to command tone. “
System. Is my DNA on file
?”

“Nuclear DNA and mitochondrial DNA both,” the twangy Eastern voice said.

“
Do you have DNA for Hastings Willoughby on file
?”

“I have three persons by that name on record.” There was a hint of smug satisfaction in the tone. This System had traces of personality; it made Meadowdale’s seem very primitive.

“
The Secretary General
.”

This time the answer came in a hollow echo through Cedric’s ear patch. “Information confidential to Grade Two.”

Cedric was graded to One. “
Override
.”

“Affirmative.”

“
Analyze his chromosomal DNA and mine. Report how similar they are
.”

“Stand by.” He heard quiet resignation—much work to do.

Cedric waited, his heart thumping. If his grandmother had lied to him, and if his use of override was reported already, she would surely intervene. He twitched impatiently. Why so long?

“DNA’s pretty complex stuff,” Bagshaw remarked. “It’ll take a while.”

“Comparison complete,” the ghostly voice in Cedric’s ear said. “Analyses are identical to three decimal places.”

Clone! He was Hastings Willoughby’s clone.

Bagshaw could not have heard, but he apparently saw Cedric’s face change, for he turned away toward the door so quickly that he might have been hiding a smile.

Nauc/Cainsville, April 7

FOR SOME TIME Alya had been walking alongside Jathro, following the solid bulk of North Brenda, but she had been lost in thought, unaware of her surroundings. An escalator broke the steady pace and also broke her reverie, and it was then that she noticed the expression on Jathro’s face.

“It was not sex!” she snapped in sudden fury.

His moustache writhed in a sneer. “Oh—forgive me!”

Damnable male pig! He looked so smug, so sure of his erroneous presumption, so unbearably superior—and then her anger turned and slashed back at herself. Why should she care what that grubby hack was thinking? Let him wallow in his prejudices! Let him assume that every woman was a natural wanton, and that this one was planning to jump into Hubbard Cedric’s bed at the first chance she got. Why should she care?

Of course, she had chummied up very close to the boy—but never mind! Jathro repelled would be one less worry. It would take him off her hands—and vice versa.

Normally she would not have given a second thought, or even a first thought, to what might be churning inside Jathro’s narrow little mind. Today she was just edgy because she was jet-lagged, and because she was tired, and because—because the pain was coming back. The
buddhi
had its claws in her again. Every step away from Hubbard Cedric was making it worse.

She felt a need…

It was not sex! He was an ungroomed, overgrown wisp, ungainly and immature. Alya had enjoyed men in the past and hoped to try out two or three more before she made a final selection, but she could guess how that young giant would approach lovemaking. Mud wrestling would hold more appeal.

It was certainly not a desire for friendship. They had nothing in common. She could converse on almost any subject on Earth, and Cedric would be ignorant in all of them. Not his fault, of course, that he had been reared inside a crate. But not hers, either. Buddies they could never be.

It was not some perverted mother instinct, either. He radiated loneliness and rejection. He needed somebody to comb his hair and pat him on the back when he tried hard, and steer him toward civilization. But not Alya! Motherhood and its troubles could wait.

It was not even admiration, although he had displayed an astonishing courage before an angry mob. Despite his youth, his ludicrous costume, and his jungle hairstyle, that boy had been more impressive than his grandfather, Hastings Willoughby, the celebrated political wizard. Boys did not do what he had done…but admiration would not explain her strange longing.

No, it had to be the
buddhi
. Close to Cedric it let her breathe again. Away from him, it tormented her. Somehow he was important.

She could not help that.

And then Cedric was driven from her mind as she found herself being ushered into the spine-chilling presence of Hubbard Agnes.

The office was large and five-sided, containing only the wide pentagonal table and some chairs. Two of the walls were comsets, the biggest Alya had ever seen. They displayed a breathtaking seashore—majestic high waves breaking and hurling spray, rolling up on a glistening beach that curved away into far distance. She could hear a very faint soundtrack, as though muffled through thick glass, and the effect was so realistic that she could almost smell the salty tang. A backdrop of high frondy trees looked like palms tossing in the wind, but the sky behind them had an uncanny purple tinge.

“You like it, Your Highness?” the director inquired, somehow managing to make the simple question condescending.

“Very much. Not Earth, though. That’s a stable beach profile. I’m too young to remember those.”

Alya thought she had won that round.

She took a chair next to Jathro but did not move it close to his. She had no intention of letting Hubbard Agnes intimidate her. Well, not much, anyway. She tried not to remember that Director Hubbard ate presidents and generals raw.

There were six of them gathered around the big table—Alya herself, and Jathro, and his two political sidekicks from Banzarak, who were staying silent as nonentities should. Moala had been left outside. For the Institute there was only Old Mother Hubbard—but then the door closed behind Dr. Devlin Grant, the King of the Rangers himself.

He bent low to tickle the back of Alya’s hand with his moustache. He
smiiiiled
at her. He looked her over with much the same analytical, speculative gaze that Cedric had used. In Cedric it had been a curiously innocent and unconscious lechery, and rather flattering. In Devlin it was not innocent, and it made her flesh creep. Compared to Devlin, Jathro was a blushing virgin. Kas had warned her about Devlin.

The door was closed, the meeting brought to order. Bargaining was about to begin. That was Jathro’s problem. There were some preliminary pleasantries: inquiries about Piridinar’s health, and about Kas…

Alya wondered what color would seem best on two meters of mop handle with ochre hair, and how that hair would look if decently styled. Then she saw that Hubbard was addressing her.

“Your brother’s call was not unexpected. We have a feast of Class Two worlds on our hands just now, a surfeit. We have never had so many. The last three years have been sparse, and suddenly we are deluged. The obvious problem is—which one do you want?”

Tiber.

“We are using river names again now. We have eight worlds under scrutiny—Nile through Usk. Grant, would you review them quickly for Her Highness?”

Blue-gray, to match his eyes, Alya decided; those big round Nordic eyes.

Devlin showed teeth from ear to ear. “Delighted! With the exception of Rhine, most of these seem to be short-period bodies. You do understand, Princess, that since both the Earth and the target world are moving, and since certain wave functions must be in phase, our effective access is restricted to the brief repeating periods we call ‘windows’?”

Alya nodded again. Of course, Cedric might look real cute in dark blue, to set off that baby’s-bottom complexion.

“…estimate Rhine at eight days, approximately. That’s why we are anxious for you to take a look at it tonight—last chance for a week. Po is the shortest—it’s lining up at twenty-hour intervals, and the windows are already shrinking. If you choose Po, then you’ll give me serious problems.” Devlin
smiiiiled
again.

“What Dr. Devlin means,” Hubbard interrupted acidly, “is that we just do not have time to run a thorough check on Po and later transmense a significant number of people there. We believe that three thousand is about the minimum viable plantation.”

Alya shuddered. She was to be responsible for three thousand lives?

“More is better, of course,” Devlin said, keeping his glittery snake eyes on her. “We managed forty thousand for Etna.”

“Omar?” It had been Omar who had gone to Etna, five years before. Happy, laughing Omar! She had never known anyone more stubbornly joyful than Omar—until his call had come. Like her, he had endured a day or two of moping and rising strain, and then he had been gone, and Oh, the hole his passing had left in her life! It had been then, at fourteen, that Alya had first really felt the agony of the
buddhi
, the first time she had truly understood that one day it would carry her away also.

“Yes,” Hubbard agreed, her blue eyes lancing across the table at Alya. “Prince Omar. We must assume, Your Highness, that he lives on, that the colony prospers. We have no reason to believe otherwise in his case.”

Alya shivered again. “Do you sometimes?”

Hubbard pursed her lips, then spoke cautiously. “Never since your family became involved. In a couple of our early attempts, before we knew all the gruesome tricks that Nature can play—Oak, for example. You have heard of Oak.”

“Cedric’s—your son?”

It was old history—but had Hubbard ever shed tears? “Yes. My son. We were almost at the end of the string. The planting was complete—sixty-five hundred and supplies. Then the lab reports showed excessive concentrations of organic antimony compounds. No one had thought to check for those. Antimony is an element similar to arsenic in its toxic effects.”

After a nasty silence, Alya said, “You could not bring them back?”

“There was no time.” Hubbard was being clinical, as emotionless as stainless steel. Was she testing? “We had two more windows, of a few minutes each. We sent all the relevant information, of course, and what supplies we thought might be effective. Then contact was lost. We have never reestablished contact, with that or any other world. Our probing is basically random, you know.”

She was trying to frighten Alya, or judge her dedication.

“And the antimony would poison them?”

“Unless it was a local problem and they managed to move to some other area free of the contamination. We never have time to explore more than a tiny fraction of a world.”

“But you had time to say goodbye, in effect,” Alya said, wanting to crack the metallic facade. “Why did you not at least rescue your own son and his pair?”

“I tried. Of course I tried! They refused to leave the others.”

There was no feeling there at all, except maybe contempt for stupidity.

“So today, when you reported that eighty-six people have died in the Institute’s explorations—”

“The true number can never be known.” Hubbard Agnes smiled her ghoulish smile. “Other plantings must have failed after we lost contact. It is inevitable. I am surely one of the great mass murderers of history.”

“So you see, Your Highness,” Devlin said in his greasy voice, “how vital it is that we investigate these candidate worlds as quickly and thoroughly as possible. Nile we may discard. It is strictly Class Three, of scientific interest only. Orinoco looks good, very good. I am inclined to think that Po is hopeless—there just is not enough time. Even leaving Po out, we face a severe shortage of equipment and trained personnel.”

“Tiber,” Alya said miserably. “It’s Tiber.” Jathro’s shoe slammed hard against her anklebone, too late.

Devlin and Hubbard glanced at each other.

“You are sure, child?” the director said.

“Certain. I saw the list. That name crawls off the paper at me.”

The old woman nodded in clammy satisfaction. “And your brother called a few hours after we made first contact. Usk came later. Well, that helps. Grant, you had better keep your best for Tiber. But do not neglect the others.”

Devlin leaned back and beamed toothily. “Who knows? We may have hit on two Class One worlds at once?”

“Possible, I suppose.”

“I had better get away to Cainsville as soon as possible, then?” Alya resisted a temptation to push her chair back. “If I am to do whatever it is you want with Rhine in the middle of the night. I’m feeling jet-lagged.”

“I was hoping we might have dinner together. You can go on the ten o’clock lev.” The snow-haired bitch smiled her thin-lipped smile.

Trapped! “I was hoping to travel with Cedric,” Alya admitted.

“Wait, please!” Jathro said angrily. “We have certain arrangements to negotiate yet.”

But Alya had cut the ground from under him by revealing that name.

Dr. Hubbard made a faint shrugging gesture. “The arrangements are fairly standard now, Your Excellency. You choose the first five hundred, and we the next five thousand…We can discuss this again when we know which NSB we shall be colonizing—how long its windows are, how frequent, and how stable. What is the Tiber schedule, Grant?”

Devlin had his facts to hand. “We caught a shadow contact on April second. First focused contact at those coordinates came on the fifth. We opened a Class Two file right away and transmensed a robbie. It’s very Earthlike—gravity, oxygen, temperature. In fact, next to Orinoco, it’s the obvious candidate. We expect to meet up with it again tomorrow, around noon.”

“Waxing or waning?” Jathro asked.

“Can’t tell yet.” Devlin favored Alya with another leer. “He means, are the windows growing longer or shorter?”

“I know.” She did not care about any of that. She cared about Tiber, and the thought of seeing it tomorrow was like air to a woman drowning. But mostly—right now, before anything—she wanted to go in search of a certain overgrown adolescent. She wanted to hold his hand. She was crazy. He was leaving on the four o’clock lev.

Jathro was glaring murder at her. Poor Jathro!

“We’ll have every telemetry gadget ready to go,” Devlin promised Agnes, “plus a full overnighting expedition. I’ll rip that planet to shreds for you.”

Dr. Hubbard rose gracefully. It was impossible to believe she was so old. “I expect no less. Thank you all. This meeting can adjourn, but I wish a private word with the princess.”

Two thousand years of royal blood be damned—princess be damned—there was no doubt who ruled here.

“Wait!” Jathro banged a fist on the table. “We must discuss this matter of refugees. Banzarak is a small and a poor country, Director. It has suffered grievously. Yes, many of its citizens have been allowed to emigrate to better worlds—but it has done far more than its share for refugees from other lands. We have almost a million in our camps now. They outnumber the natives! Yes, the Institute has helped generously, but money does not solve everything.”

Hubbard frowned, as though that were heresy.

“It is essential,” Jathro protested, his voice rising, “that the refugee portion of the planting this time be taken from camps in Banzarak. We can no longer—”

“Talk to Dr. Wheatland!” the director snapped, cutting him off without mercy. “I repeat that details can be better discussed when we have more data.”

Jathro tried to protest more, but Devlin’s powerful hand assisted him from his chair. Willing or not, he departed, his two flunkies scurrying after, not having spoken a word. Alya felt like a gnat stuck in a web as she watched the door close, leaving her alone with the all-powerful Hubbard.

The director sat down and stared thoughtfully at that door. “Your friend shows great compassion for refugees,” she murmured.

“He has ambitions,” Alya said.

Hubbard studied her for a moment, and then something like real amusement touched her face, revealing ghosts of excised wrinkles. “Do they include yourself, by any chance?”