The Enigma Score (12 page)

Half a dozen cadaverous figures clad only in loin cloths and sandals were haranguing a scanty and fluid crowd of sightseers. Don caught the words, ‘blasphemous impertinence’ and ‘the day of punishment is coming,’ and ‘we cannot be moved!’ As the car came even with the crowd, one of the chanting figures lit a torch, held it high for a moment, then threw it down. Behind the crowd, flames leapt up in a blue hot cone.

People screamed and fled, and Don stared in disbelief at the cross-legged figure burning on the sidewalk, its wide white eyes shining in ultimate agony through the flames. ‘My God,’ she said, retching. ‘My God. They’re burning a person!’

‘An immolation?’ Blanchet asked, mouth drawn into a rictus of distaste and horror. He speeded the car to move them away. ‘Sorry. It’s been a moon or more since they did one of those here in the city. Are the soldiers on top of it?’

She looked back. Uniformed figures were moving purposefully through the crowd, one with a fire extinguisher.

‘Soldiers are there. Why do they burn themselves?’

‘To show the authorities they aren’t afraid of death, or pain, or torture, or imprisonment. To show they can’t be controlled by police methods. We’ve got a small scale holy war on our hands. It’s just that no one in government seems to realize it yet. People are taking bets on whether the Governor has been paid not to act. And these public immolations are bad enough. The secret, ritual killings are worse….’

‘Ritual killings?’ she faltered, afraid of what he was going to say to her.

‘Killings by torture. Women carved up …’

‘Blanchet, don’t. Please don’t. One of them was a friend of mind. Gretl Mechas. She was cut to ribbons. They said it took hours for her to die. I had to identify her body and I couldn’t identify anything except her clothes. Oh, Lord, no one in Northwest called it a ritual killing.’

‘Maybe it wasn’t. Sorry, Tella. Your friend wasn’t the only one. There have been others. Always women or young boys.’

The horrible sight of the immolation, the hideous memory of her friend, as well as Blanchet’s comments on the current political scene had ruined Don’s desire for dinner or entertainment. Oh, Gretl! Lovely, warm, friendly Gretl. Why! And she couldn’t take time to grieve over Gretl tonight. She had to remind herself that there were other, urgent reasons for her to be abroad in the city.

‘Where are we going for dinner?’ she asked, keeping her voice flatly matter of fact and not caring what the answer might be.

‘The Magic Viggy,’ he told her, shaking his head. ‘I’d planned it as an appropriate place to take someone with red hair and a very blue dress. I’m afraid it will seem rather trivial, now.’

It did seem trivial. They ate imported food at extortionate prices. They drank, albeit abstemiously. Blanchet would have been quite happy to fill her glass more often, but Don let it sit three-quarters full during most of dinner. She didn’t need to be more depressed, which the wine would eventually do. They chatted. Though Blanchet was a well-informed and interesting companion, she had trouble later recalling what they had discussed. Magicians and clowns moved about, playing tricks, distributing favors. A neighboring table was occupied by a noisy crowd of elderly sightseers. There was a lot of clutter. When they were ready to leave, Don missed her bag and found it on the floor, half buried under a bouquet of flowers that a magician had pulled from her hair.

‘Like a circus,’ she said. ‘Like a carnival.’

‘The most popular place in town,’ he agreed. ‘Now, I have tickets to Chantry.’

‘Not Lim Terree?’ she asked, cocking her head. ‘I really liked him last time I was here.’

‘Oh, hadn’t you heard?’ he asked. ‘It was on the news here a few days ago. Lim Terree is dead.’

She made an appropriate expression of dismay without letting the shock show on her face. She felt herself go pale and cold, but the flickering lights in the restaurant hid that. By the time they reached the street, she was in command of herself once more, able to sit through Chantry’s concert and pretend to enjoy it. When it was over, she asked to return to the Chapter House, and once there, claimed weariness and was left alone, though Blanchet expressed regret for that decision as she smiled herself away from him. How desirable to be alone! Except, she reminded herself, for whatever listening and watching devices were undoubtedly placed here and there in her rooms.

She rummaged in her bag, as though for her handkerchief, her fingers encountering something that crackled crisply. She palmed it in the handkerchief, wiped her nose, then thrust the note under her pillow as she turned down the bed. Nightly ritual, she told herself. The whole bedtime score with all variations. Shower. Teeth brushed. Hair brushed. Nightgown. Emergency kit on the bedside table. No Explorer would ever go to sleep without the emergency kit within reach. Then, pick up the new exploration digest, delivered to her door in her absence, and read the professional news for a while. A new theory of variation. Which wasn’t new. Yawn. Let the eyes fall closed. Rouse a little. Put out the lights.

She let a little time go by, then silently brought the emergency kit under the covers and turned on its narrow beamed light. The note she had put in her purse before leaving, informing her friend that someone had tried to kill her, was gone. In its place were two others. The letters were minuscule, hard to read.

‘Terree informed and supplied as per our plans. He is obtaining Enigma score in Five. Took him some time to set up tour. Should return at end of Old Moon.’

This was dated weeks previously and was on a tiny sheet of paper, no larger than one-quarter the palm of her hand. Folded inside it was another sheet, even smaller, dated a few days prior.

‘Word received two days ago, Lim Terree dead on Enigma. Trying to find out what happened. Make contact.’

Both were signed with a twisted line that returned upon itself to make three links of a chain. She put out the light, replaced the kit on the bedside table, then methodically tore the two notes into tiny pieces and ate them.

In the office of the Prior, Fyne Blanchet finished his report with a yawning comment. ‘I don’t know what all the fuss is about. She’s all right. I talked about the things you wanted me to, but she didn’t say anything much. There’s no evidence of her knowing anything I don’t. She didn’t gripe about corruption or say she was going to murder the governor or anything, just a few snide remarks, the same as anyone.’

‘She didn’t ask you to stay.’

‘A lot of them don’t. Hell, she’s got it on with that guy at the Northwest Chapter. Five years? What’s his name, Zimble? So, she’s monogamous. Lots of women are. Besides, she was really upset over that burning. She saw the whole thing. She didn’t eat much, and she was pale all through the concert.’

The Prior grunted, thought. After a time, he said, ‘She has some people she usually sees here in Splash One.’

‘So?’

‘So, she would normally want to visit them.’

‘And?’

‘If she doesn’t visit them or any one of them, it might mean something.’

Blanchet yawned. He felt the Prior was clutching at straws. Donatella Furz was nothing to worry about. And what was the Prior so worried about? Blanchet, who kept his curiosity strictly in check when it was profitable to do so, told himself he really didn’t know. Or care.

‘Fibey,’ she said the next morning over her breakfast fish, ‘I’ve got three old friends here in town. I’d like to see them while I’m here. Could you arrange that for me?’

‘Certainly, Ma’am. Any particular order? Lunch dates? Dinner dates?’

‘No. Nothing in particular. Whatever’s convenient for them. There’s an old family friend, actually sort of a cousin of my mother’s. Name’s Cyndal Prince, and last time I was here she lived over in that development south of town, along the bay. Then there’s Link Emert, He’s still with BDL, but he’s recently been attached to the Governor’s office. Liaison of some kind. And then there’s my niece, Fabian Furz.’

‘Your brother’s daughter?’

‘One and only. Bart died about five years ago, one of those wasting diseases no one in the interior knows anything about, and by the time he got to the ’Soilcoast, it was too late to do anything. You’d think by now they’d have improved the medical system in the Deepsoil towns, wouldn’t you?’

‘I think it’s a materiel question, Ma’am.’

‘Oh, I know, I know. No way to ship the big diagnostic machines in. No way to take in the life support systems. Shit. They take in anything else that suits them, in itty bitty pieces, if necessary, with a whole troop of mechanics to put it together again. Oh, well, no reason to fuss about it now. Bart’s long gone, and my bitching won’t bring him back. Anyhow, if you could get hold of those people and set up dates for me, this afternoon or tomorrow morning, I’d appreciate it. I’ll call you just before noon, if that’s convenient.’

‘You have other plans for this morning?’

‘I, Blanchet, am going to have my annual medical checkup. That’s why I’m here. Orders from up top.’

There was no shortage of diagnostic machines at the Splash One medical center. No shortage of technicians either, Don thought, as she was prodded, poked, bled, and otherwise sampled for the tenth time in as many minutes. ‘This is the last one,’ the anonymous white-coated person said with at least a semblance of sympathy. ‘You can get dressed now.’

The physician, who appeared harried and abstracted, leafed through the chart twice before looking up at Don with a furrowed brow. ‘You didn’t have that wound on your arm last time. No record of it in your history. Well, there wouldn’t be. It’s obviously fresh.’

‘Yes, it’s a recent injury.’

‘When? How?’

‘Oh, about ten days ago. A fall. A ’ling blew its top when I was on a narrow trail, and I fell against a sharp edge. I reported it to the Prior when I got back to the Chapter House. It should be in the record update.’

‘Oh, I see it. Yes. Well, just checking. Healing clean, is it?’

‘Seems to be healing well, yes.’

‘Do you want the scar removed?’

‘Perhaps later. It still takes two or three weeks of regeneration treatment to take scars off, doesn’t it.’

‘With the small machines, which is all we have available, yes. About that.’

‘Well, I don’t have time right now. I’ve got several explorations to do for BDL before Old Moon’s out. I’ve got some leave coming up next Dead Moon, though. Maybe I’ll do it then.’

‘Suit yourself. If you want it done in Northwest City, don’t go to the BDL medical center there. Word to the wise, right? Go to this woman. You’ll have to pay for it, but you’ll be better satisfied.’ The physician handed over a note with a name on it.

Don made an appreciative noise, both for the information and because she had been afraid there would be close questioning about the injury. Not that it wasn’t very much like a dozen crystal cuts she’d had over the years. It could have been a crystal cut.

But it wasn’t.

Shortly after she had returned to Northwest from the Enigma, she had calmed down and begun to realize how dangerous her position might be. This realization was followed by a period of indecision during which she had found an excuse to make a quick trip to Splash One, ostensibly only to attend a government house reception. During the reception, she had managed to get lost on the way to the women’s convenience long enough to hold a lengthy whispered conversation in a dark and supposedly vacant office, guaranteed by her friend to be free of ears or eyes.

‘I don’t suppose it would do any good to suggest you just forget the whole thing?’ her friend had murmured.

‘I’ve explained why that won’t work,’ she had said. ‘This information has to get out. It has to be made public.’ They both knew it. Don’s friend had worked for an intelligence agency at one time and was well aware that this was the kind of information that had to be publicized. As public information, it was a danger to no one. As a secret, it was a death trap. And the consequences to the planet if the information was kept quiet were too terrible for either of them to contemplate.

‘BDL isn’t going to like it.’

‘That’s why I can’t do it,’ Don had whispered. They pretty well control me. I know damned well my Priory reports where I go, what I do. Not just me. All Explorers. No. It’s got to be someone else who does it. Someone BDL doesn’t control.’

Together they had crafted a hasty plan, every step of which made the danger more and more clear. When they parted, it was as co-conspirators. Wheels were in motion, very secret wheels. Donatella returned to Northwest with a sense of mixed relief and apprehension, taking refuge in routine duties, everyday activities. Behind her in Splash One, her friend would move things along.

There had been one loose end. She had had to fill out a ‘lost or stolen equipment’ report to cover the synthesizer that she had taken to Splash One and returned without. But after that, nothing had happened. For weeks, nothing at all.

Until ten days ago when she had been sent out on a routine two-day trip to explore a pocket of deepsoil behind an offshoot ridge of the Redfang Range. It had seemed an odd assignment, even at the time. The offshoot, Little Redfang, was only half a day’s travel from Northwest. The Passwords to a good part of the range were Donatella’s own work, and most of them had been part of the repertory for almost a decade. All that was wanted this time was some minor variation that would get wagons through the Fanglings in a slightly different direction from that taken formerly – a route that Don could see no sensible justification for – and virtually any apprentice Explorer could have done the job.

Still, an assignment approved by one’s Prior was an assignment not to be argued with. She remembered being preoccupied with her personal problem, worrying at it relentlessly as she rode. The plan was dependent on so many variables, so many little things she couldn’t control. She was having second thoughts, trying to decide if she should make another trip to Splash One or whether it was too late at this point to do anything but ride it out. Indecision was not an ordinary thing with Donatella, it irritated her. Explorers couldn’t be indecisive. Those that were didn’t last long. The morning’s trip made the matter no clearer, moreover, and by noon she reached the peril-point and had to force herself to set the subject aside. She told herself she would think about it again that night, over her campfire.