The Enigma Score (29 page)

The voice, when it came, though it asked a similar question, was not like that other voice that had accosted her. This voice was so soft and insinuating it could have been part of her brooding dream.

‘Are you the mother of Lim Ferrence?’

The broundy was flowing in her veins. ‘Lim Terree he called himself,’ she said, almost chanting and with a half smile curving her lips. ‘But I was his mother, yes.’ The voice that had spoken to her was a strange voice, almost like a child’s voice, but with an odd accent. It could be a dream voice. Certainly it did not seem to be a real one.

There was a moment’s silence, as though she had said something confusing.

‘Was?’ the voice asked at last. ‘Implies former time? Not now?’

‘He is dead,’ she said. ‘Dead. He died on the Enigma.’

A tiny consternation of sounds. She was reminded of birds talking, that chirrupy, squeaky noise, but in a moment the child’s voice spoke again, almost like singing.

‘What kin did he leave behind?’

‘I thought it was just me, you know. I thought I was his only real kin, the only one who still cared, and remembered, and grieved. Oh, there is Tasmin, of course. His brother, but Tasmin couldn’t be expected to care. Yes, I thought it was only me, but it seems he had a wife, and a child. They’re coming here. Soon. Someone came to inquire about them, and then when I asked the citadel, they found out for me….’ Her dream gave way to a sharp pang of anxiety. ‘I hope nothing’s happened to them.’

Again that dream pause. Something brushed her face, like a feather, something soft, cool, and infinitely gentle. Then the voice. ‘Why should something happen to them?’

‘I don’t know. It’s that man who came. His voice. He didn’t tell me his name. He said it was lucky I was blind. He wanted to know where Lim’s wife was, and his baby. I told him I didn’t know Lim had a wife and a baby. The man wasn’t polite. He didn’t even say goodbye.’

That small consternation of sound once more. ‘Did you think it was a threat to your son’s wife?’

‘It seemed odd they would want to know where she was. It seemed odd anyone would want to know. What is she to anyone? The Master General said she was only a woman, no position, no family. Working in the fish market, he said. And the baby, only a baby.’ Thalia brooded over the wonder of a woman and a baby who were only that. Not Tripsingers. Not people with busy-ness or resentments to take them away, but only people. A woman. A child.

Then the voice once more, soft as gauze, so soft she could scarcely tell from what direction it came, unaware it came from all about her, from two dozen throats, soft as a whisper. ‘How was she to come to you, Mother of Lim Ferrence?’

‘By the southern route. Southwest of the Enigma. To the Black Tower.’ Her eyes filled with tears. She had been worrying over that route. Miles had died at the Black Tower.

Her weeping hid the tiny sound of those that departed. In the grayed light of dusk none had seen them come, and none saw them go.

West of Deepsoil Five, the troupe of Bondri Gesel found a trail through the Far Watchlings, called by the viggies Those Joyously Emergent. Although narrow, it was an insensitive trail, one that required little song and on which great haste might be made.

‘We were right about the Enigma,’ several members of the troupe were singing. ‘The Mad One has killed again. Lim Ferrence, honored be his name, cannot be repaid, for the Enigma has killed him. Oh, how foolish to attempt song with the Enigma.’

Bondri hissed in irritation, and their song faded away. He didn’t wish to think of the Enigma just now. If Favel were still here to sing it over with, perhaps they could have arrived at some conclusion, but this was truly a matter for the priests. He sang so, briefly, to a tinkling chorus of assent.

‘How are we sure that the Loudsinger and her child are in danger?’ caroled one of the young viggies, an attractive female whom Bondri had had his eyes on for some time as a proper trade daughter for the troupe of Chowdri, to the south.

‘The mother of Lim Ferrence was not sure,’ Bondri admitted. ‘She but suspected danger. Still, she has no eyes, and …’

‘Contradiction,’ sang the senior giligee. ‘She has eyes, oh Bondri Gesel, Wide-eared one. Her eyes are not in repair, it is true, but they could be fixed. This pouched one could fix them.’

Bondri made a small noise, indicating both consternation at being interrupted and a degree of doubt. He knew of no incident in which a giligee had worked on a Loudsinger.

‘Truly, oh Bondri Gesel. This one has taken their bodies apart many times. The mother of Lim Ferrence, honored be his name, has only a small malfunction. It could be made proper.’

The giligee had touched Lim Ferrence’s mother with its antennae. If the giligee said such a thing could be done, then it could be done. ‘Remember what you have said,’ intoned Bondri, wondering just how far a viggy could go in breaking the taboo. ‘If we do not find the child, it may be we will pay our debt in this way.’

‘I interrupted the Troupe Leader,’ chirped the giligee. ‘Please return to your song.’

‘The woman cannot see,’ Bondri warbled, this time in the conditional mode. ‘Our ancestors say of those without eyes that the spirit must see what the flesh cannot, is this not so?’

‘Verily, these are true words,’ sang the troupe.

‘So, her ears told her the man made a threat, though perhaps his words did not convey his true intention.’

‘Blasphemy,’ sighed the troupe. ‘Obscenity.’ To the viggy, words that did not convey reality were worse than no words at all. Once this tendency of the Loudsingers to sing falsehood had been determined, the taboo had been invoked. How could viggies sing with those who did not care about truth?

‘Pity them,’ intoned Bondri. ‘For they are lost in darkness of unmeaning.’ He paused, an obligatory beat, then continued, ‘So the mother of Lim Ferrence feels her son’s mate and their descendent child are in danger. She does not even know she feels it, yet her inward parts know. If such danger truly threatens and can be forefended, Prime Priest Favel’s debt is paid even though Lim Ferrence has been killed.’

There was appreciative murmuring, followed by a burst of purely recreational rejoicing. After a time, they halted for grooming and food. Bondri took advantage of the halt to peek into the pouch of the giligee who had honorably corrected him. The pink thing that squirmed there in its nest of pouch-tendrils looked very lively. The brain-bird of Prime Priest Favel was developing well.

‘We’re being followed,’ said Jamieson, getting down from his mule with an exclamation of pain and annoyance as he grabbed for one ankle. ‘Damn! I keep hitting that place.’

‘Shhh,’ said Clarin. ‘I told you last night to let me put a bandage on it.’

‘It didn’t need one.’

‘It does if you keep hitting it every time you get on and off your mule, Reb. For heaven’s sake!’

‘Oh, all right. Put some kind of a pad on it if it will make you feel better.’

‘Me? It’s you who keeps hitting it.’

‘All right,’ said Tasmin, wearily as he rolled up his bedding and inflatable mattress. ‘The two of you slash it off, will you. You say we’re being followed?’

‘I rode back and found the highest point I could, Master Ferrence, then looked along the backtrail as you suggested. They were there, all right. Six riders. The only reason I could see them is they’re coming down that long traverse along the cliff, the one we were on yesterday morning. About halfway down, the trail splits, you remember? Right there, one of them got down and snooped along the ground, obviously looking for trail signs. Then they came the way we did.’

‘Have you any idea who?’

‘Two Explorers, Master. Way out in front, as though they don’t want to associate with the ones behind.’

‘And the ones behind?’

‘Riding in couples. A man and maybe a woman, then farther back, I think two men.’

‘I don’t suppose you could see who they are?’

‘I could see the Explorers’ leathers. The woman seemed to be wearing something glittery in her hair, beads maybe. Maybe it isn’t a woman at all, but that’s the impression I got.’

‘Well, it was only a matter of time before someone came after us.’ Tasmin cursed silently, wondering who. Wondering why. Wondering how they had found this trail. The group that had pursued them originally had been easy to evade, and they had hoped there would be no further pursuit. Now, this.

The long north-south corridor between two escarpments of Presences that Donatella Furz had found for them had made the traveling simple and very quick, since they had not needed to sing their way through. Now they would need to travel even more quickly.

Don came out of the grove of trees where their small tents were pitched, her face flushed with annoyance or anger or some mixture of both. ‘Did I hear you say someone is tracking us?’

Tasmin nodded. She grimaced, then turned to take a folded chart from the pack on the ground, spreading it on a convenient rock and kneeling over it. ‘Damn! I didn’t think anyone would find us in here.’

‘They probably found our trail all the way back in the Redfang and tracked us in here, Don. There are two Explorers with the group.’

She shook her head. ‘Well, I found this corridor. I suppose it would be arrogant of me to think no one else had the wits to find it.’

‘Did you tell anyone about this passage?’

‘I probably did. I would have noted it on the file charts in my room, too. I think I told Ralth. Hell, for all we know, Ralth may be one of the Explorers with them.’

‘Whoever they are, they probably don’t know they’re hunting you, Don. Whoever sent them will have fed them a tale.’

She perused the chart, chewing her lips. ‘You still want to split up?’

Clarin made a face of denial, but Tasmin said, ‘Yes.’ He said it very firmly. He had become too aware of Clarin. She seemed always to be at his side, ready with whatever he needed next. Or he was always at hers. It was hard to know which. He found himself turning to her, depending on her. If she had her way, she would not leave them, but he was going to insist on it. Clarin and Jamieson both. It was the only thing that made sense. He bit down the feelings this raised in him. It could be a final parting, and they all knew it. It was bearable only if he did not admit it to himself. ‘I want Jamieson and Clarin to do their best to get to Splash One.’

Don pointed at the chart. ‘The best way back to the ’Soilcoast from here is to take the Shouting Valley cutoff, about half a day ahead of us.’

‘Why do you want me to go to Splash One?’ Clarin asked Tasmin in a subdued, faintly rebellious voice.

‘You’ve got to get to Vowe,’ Tasmin answered. ‘I want you to tell him everything we know, everything we suspect, everything we’ve even thought of in passing. We need whatever protection he can give us. He’s got to be ready for whatever we do, and if you don’t get to him, we have no other way to let him know.’

‘Also, I want you to take him a recording of the Enigma stuff,’ Donatella said. ‘I made a copy cube last night. I’ll keep my box, the one with the translator in it. You take my new one.’

‘We’ve got synthesizers,’ Clarin objected.

‘I know you do, but Explorer boxes are different. They’re programmed to try variations. You sit off about a mile away from a Presence and start with something that almost works or worked somewhere else. Then you try variations until you get one that doesn’t rock the needle, see. We don’t publicize it, but that’s how you do it, mostly.’

‘I thought Presences always reacted adversely to recordings,’ Jamieson remarked suspiciously.

‘They do, if it’s close up. But at that distance, it only seems to tickle them. Like a subconscious response, one they’re not even aware of. When you’ve got a variation that doesn’t rock the needle, then you play it over until you know it well enough to sing yourself through or at least to get up close and try it first person.’ She patted the box, almost as though it had been a mule. ‘If often works, for the easy ones. Not for the Enigma, of course.’

‘You never told us what Erickson’s clue was to getting the Enigma score, did you?’ Clarin asked.

Donatella shook her head. ‘And I’m not going to. Not yet. Better for you if you don’t know. If it looks like you’re going to be captured, destroy the cube. That way you won’t know anything that can help anyone.’

‘We’ll know where you and Tasmin are going.’

‘Yes,’ said Tasmin. ‘And if you’re taken, tell them anything they want to know. Tell them where we’re going. We’ll watch out for ourselves. You don’t know anything except that Don Furz thinks she talked to a Presence and is going to the Enigma to find out for sure. Tell them that.’

‘You’ll get through all right,’ Don said. ‘I’ve got proven Passwords for almost everything west of here stored in the box, and the charts are clearly labeled. You’ll have to duck around the Giant’s Toenails. Can’t get by there without a tripwagon full of effects, but if you detour to the south, there’s a back way.’

‘Where are you two going when you leave the Enigma?’ Clarin asked.

‘From there, depending upon what we get, either to Deepsoil Five or back to the Deepsoil Coast,’ Tasmin replied.

Silence. Her face was calm, but he could see her hurting, rebellious eyes. Oh, Clarin. Clarin.

‘Clarin.’ More than anything he wanted to comfort that pain. Foolish. She was almost young enough to be his daughter.

‘Yes.’

‘Listen. At least one of us has to go with Don as a witness. I’m the logical person because I’m enough older than you and Reb to have a reputation that guarantees me a certain amount of credibility. Also, getting back to Splash One for the hearings is going to require help. I can get that from the citadel in Deepsoil Five, and I carry more weight there than either you or Reb.’

‘I could go with you and Don.’

‘Then Jamieson would be alone. And if whoever is following us chooses to split up and send some of them after him, or if there’s someone trying to intercept us from the west, then Jamieson’s chances would be decreased.’

‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘Sorry.’

‘And when we get to Vowe?’ asked Jamieson, equally subdued.

‘Just tell him. Put it in his hands. He’ll know what he can do with it. If he can do anything with it. Pray God he’ll believe you.’