Authors: Steve Perry
Alone in the elevator, Veate pondered what she had learned. Her neat life was out of kilter. Her mother was gone, she had discovered that her long-held beliefs about her father were almost entirely wrong, and now there was this hard hulking man with an inner softness who bedeviled her more than any man ever had.
It was not fair to have to deal with all of these things at once.
She couldn't find her mother any faster, not with the best hunters in the galaxy on her side, so there was nothing to be done there.
As for her father, well, he just kept surprising her. She couldn't hold on to her old anger, it kept being blown away by the truth, and she was too smart not to see that.
Then there was Bork. She had waved her sexuality at him; it had never crossed her mind that he would be able to resist it, and yet, somehow, he had. Like it was nothing, no strain, no bother. Nobody had ever refused her before. It hurt.
What could she do? How could she convince Bork that she was worthwhile, that she had something to offer? She had offered him the ultimate treasure, hadn't she?
Well, that hadn't been enough. What would she have to do to get to him? What part of her hidden self would she have to risk?
Scary thoughts, those of change, and Veate would have preferred that they not come up, but—here they were. She couldn't just turn away and pretend they'd never happened.
Ah, Mother, why didn't you tell me this might happen?
What am I going to do?
Chapter Nineteen
FINDING HIMSELF ALONE in his room, Khadaji put in a call to Pen. The connection was made, and the local comnet quickly gave him the image of his old teacher. He was, after all, only halfway around the planet, not across the galaxy.
The holoproj of the shrouded figure tendered an invisible smile. "Ah, Emile. How is everyone?"
"Still alive, so far. We haven't located Juete yet. How are things there?"
"Pretty much back to normal. Diamond discovered the source of the oxidation explosive, but it's a dead end. The sale and delivery were done via com; nobody saw the buyer."
"That doesn't surprise me. We're dealing with somebody who is an expert at computer manipulation.
The casino on Vishnu had its security breached when Juete was kidnapped and later when half a dozen hired assassins bypassedit, and the system showed absolutely no signs of tampering. The attack on Rajeem's ship, the phony evidence against Sleel, the fake Massey, every way we turn we have someone's fine hand performing more electronic wizardry."
The image of Pen nodded. "We live in an age where such things are inseparably entwined with our lives," he said. "There have been more than a few other unnatural disasters around the galaxy of late, most of which are connected to major computer systems."
Khadaji said, "Any ofthis causing problems with your comp set-up?"
"No. Our program security has held firm thus far. Even a genius would have trouble overcoming the dozens of geniuses who thickened the defenses over the last couple of hundred years."
"And what does integrates have to say about all this?"
"That it will come to a head in roughly eleven point three weeks," Pen said. "Give or take a few hours."
"Three months. Got a location, by any chance?"
"A stellar system.Here."
"Let me know when you narrow it down."
"Of course.You should know that there is great personal danger involved, Emile."
Khadaji chuckled. "So, what else is new? You skate the edge, sometimes you get cut."
"Nonetheless, you should take particular care."
"You are getting soft in your old age, Pen. You never warned me back when I was hacking away at the roots of the Confed."
"You were not in as much danger then as now."
That brought Khadaji up short.
He was tempted to stay online, to chat with his old teacher about inconsequential matters, but it would have been forced. They had never been much on small talk, not at the first when Pen had found him, not later, when the revolution had begun moving in earnest.Khadaji dis-commed.
That he was in some personal danger was no surprise, though the comment that it was worse now than when he'd opposed the Confed was news. Back then, there were armies that wanted him dead, literally billions of enemies. What kind of opposition today could compare to that?
It was a sobering question.
Dirisha and Geneva had found a little restaurant specializing in Tomadachi cuisine, not more than twenty minutes' walk from the hotel. Dusk was beginning to shade into night as they left the place. The still walk was thick with people going about their business, but most of them gave the two armed women plenty of room. The evening air was crisp, with a fresh breeze from the water bringing a faint tang of salt with it.
"The eel was pretty good," Geneva said.
"The loopfish was better. Maybe just a tad too much smoke, but it's a long way to Tomadachi to find better."
"Coming from a woman who can't cook failsafe soypro, that's quite a compliment."
"Yeah?Well, it's hard to master everything, brat. If I wasted my time learning how to cook, when would I practice my swaggering?"
"You've never going to let me forget I said that, are you?"
Dirisha grinned. "Are you kidding?"
"Ahead and to the left," Geneva said.
"I see him. You spot any company?"
"Not yet."
He was slim, moved like a young man at first glance, though that was sometimes hard to say in these days of surgical and hormonal reconstruction, and he was pretty good at shadowing. He was doing a front-tail, staying well ahead of the two matadoras, acting as if he had no interest in them at all. He would have fooled most people, Dirisha figured. He had been with them since they'd left the restaurant, at the least.
Geneva said, "I think he's alone. What do you want to do?"
"Let's see how he plays it. So far he's the only devil we know."
The local shops began to thin somewhat as Dirisha and Geneva approached the underpass for the eight-lane main highway through the plex, and the patrons grew fewer in number. The boy—Dirisha guessed his age at sixteen or seventeen from his moves and general appearance—stayed well ahead of them as he neared the underpass. More of the other pedestrians found shops or left the walk for other reasons, so that only a few continued on to the underpass, a well-lighted rectangle of smooth-walled stressed plast-crete. He'd be a lot more visible there, and Dirisha figured he realized it, because he stepped into a smokeshop to the right.
"He wants to get behind us," Geneva said.
"Yeah, probably wants to see my swagger from that angle."
"I'm going to hit you."
"You getting perverse in your old age, brat?"
"Bork is right. We've been married too long."
"You want a divorce?"
"I reallyam going to hit you."
Dirisha smiled at her lover. Geneva smiled back.
"The smokeshop is as good a place as any," Dirisha said.
When they reached the entrance to the shop, Dirisha went first, stepping immediately to the left as she entered the building. Geneva was immediately behind her, and she moved right.
The smokeshop smelted great, a combination of sharp and spicy scents made up of tobaccos,janes , rok'eed , and others she could not name. The boy stood at the counter, his back to her, pretending to look at a display of handcarved pipes and injector tubes. He was good, she had to give him that, good enough to know he'd burned the tail and was boxed. He turned, nodded once to let Dirisha and Geneva know, and made to leave the shop.
Geneva went outside first, ahead of the boy, Dirisha following him. The black matadora didn't think he meant them any direct harm, but if he did, he wouldn't be able to get them both without eating a spetsdod dart, and he knew it.
Something about him seemed familiar. Dirisha searched her memory. She hadn't dealt with many children, and it took only a little while to scan those she had known.
He kept his hands away from hisbody, fingers spread wide, posture relaxed. Outside, he turned to face Dirisha. Geneva had him covered from behind.
"Long time," the boy said.
Dirisha remembered. "Resh," she said."Long time and a long way from home."
He nodded, as if he'd expected her to recognize him. It had been more than six years since she'd seen him, and then only once. He'd been a street rat who delivered a message when she'd gone to her homeworld to collect Rajeem from where she'd stashed him. What was Resh doing here?
"The man said to give you this."
Even though his hands had seemed empty, Resh produced a thin circle of hard plastic the size of a demistad coin and held it up for Dirisha to see.
She nodded and took the message disc from him. Black Sun had a long reach. That the boy had come from them she didn't doubt.
"Tell the man we owe him."
"He knows."
Dirisha glanced at Geneva and gestured with one hand. To Resh, she said, "See you later."
"It's a small galaxy," he said, grinning. He nodded once at Geneva,then strolled away.
"Do we know him?" Geneva asked, after the boy had gone.
"Picture him about this high"—Dirisha held her hand at chest height—"before we started moving on the Confed."
"The kid who brought Emile's message in FlatTown ?"
"Good for you." She looked at the message disc."Word from Maro. Something we can use, I hope."
The Fifty-Seven stood ready to attack, prepared to die for the glory of the One True God if need be, but convinced that they would not fail. The One True God had spoken to them through Three , the Holy Conduit, and the Word filled the Fifty-Seven with unmitigated joy beyond what any mere unenlightened mortal could understand. It was the work of a lifetime for any of the lesser faithful to become one of the Fifty-Seven, to be thus linked to the original members of the First Church . The original Fifty-Seven had been privy to the Words of the Prophet Himself, had been washed in the Light of His Being, and to achieve Fifty-Sevenness was to bask in that same glow. There was no sacrifice too great, no task too hard, no thing whatsoever that could be denied to the One True God. He had not spoken so directly or forcefully to any Fifty-Seven since the Beginning as He had recently toThree . Members One through Five had been witnesses to the Divine Communication, and Five had been so overcome by the visitation that she had fallen into a coma for several hours afterward. The word of the One True God was power beyond compare.
But all were alert and prepared for the assault now. Ancient holy weapons had been made ready, new ones procured, and preparations finalized. The Fifty-Seven had ingested the Holy Chemicals; they were thus impervious to pain, filled with the Spirit of the One True God, and subject to visual flashes of His Glory. They wore the ceremonial robes of green silk and laughed among themselves as the chartered bus took them to their rendezvous with destiny. They'd had to kill the driver, of course, and put Forty-Nine in his place, but that was only a small detail. The work of the One True God could not be denied. He had commanded and it was theirs to obey. They all knew the words by heart; the Holy Orders were seared into their souls:
The President of the Republic is an agent of Evil. He must die. Who accomplishes this will be at my right hand, yea, even until the end of Eternity.
To sit at the side of the One True God forever?There was not one among the Fifty-Seven who wouldn't kill a billion presidents for that!
The elevator doors opened and Bork started to enter the lift.
Inside, alone, stood Veate.
Bork hesitated.
"Are you going to just stand there?" she asked.
Bork took a deep breath and let it out, then moved.
The lift began to move upward. Veate said, "Hold." The elevator stopped.
Bork regarded the young woman. He felta coldness in the pit of his stomach.
"When I was twelve," she said softly, "my mother introduced me to my first lover. There had been others who had tried to be before him, of course, but Juete was diligent in her watchfulness. She didn't want me to start too early."
Bork shifted his weight uncomfortably.
"His name was Arl, and he was maybe fifty T.S. He had been my mother's lover a couple of years past, and she had picked him for me then, against the day when I was old enough. He was from Spandle.Old enough to be my grandfather."
"Arl was a teacher. It was his job, his avocation, his reason for being. He lived to teach. He made me feelcherished, he spent weeks preparing me, weeks, so that when finally we breached my virginity, it was but one part of the total experience. As a lover, he was kind, gentle, and expert. It was a beautiful thing, my first time."
"On most worlds, sleeping with a twelve-year-old human or mue is a crime—and rightly so. But an Albino Exotic is not made the same way normal humans are, and twelve is old by our standards. Many of us start years earlier. We reach puberty, on average, at nine. I was sexually mature at eight. But I was protected by my mother, who wanted me to have an experience most of us Exotics do not have time to enjoy."
"Arl was patient, he was careful, and he showed me how good lovemaking could be, if one took the time and effort to make it so. I have been with scores of partners since— men, women, humans, mues—and some experiences have been better, though not many. I have learned more about myself; it is not bragging to say I've become skilled to the point of artistry. It is what my kindwere created to do. It's something wehave to have, to feel whole."
She looked up at him, locked her gaze to his, and he could feel her willing him to see and understand her.
"You said that it isn't about technique for you. That it is about love. It is beyond my understanding that a person could, for some abstract principle, give up something around which my life and the lives of my kind are based. That you would refuse my offer, something that many have fought for and at least one has killed to have, impresses me. Especially since Iknow how much you want me."
Her voice, when next she spoke, was quieter still, and he heard the quivering undercurrent in it.