The Enigma Score (6 page)

He had told himself he would detest the music, and he tried to hate it, particularly inasmuch as he recognized the Password bits, the words and phrases that had cost lives to get at, here displayed purely for effect, used to evoke thrills. Here, in a Tripsinger citadel town, Lim had sense enough not to bill anything as a tripsong, not to dress as a tripsinger and to stay away from the very familiar stuff that anyone might be expected to know. Except for those very sensible precautions, he used what he liked, interspersing real Password stuff with lyrics in plain language. Even though Tasmin knew too much of the material, he still felt a pulse and thrill building within him, a heightening of awareness, an internal excitement that had little or nothing to do with the plagiarized material. The music was simply good. He hated to admit it, but it was.

Beside him, Celcy flushed and glittered as though she had been drinking or making love. When the concert was over, her eyes were wide and drugged looking. ‘Let’s hurry,’ she said. ‘I want to meet him.’

Lim had made reservations at the nicest of the local restaurants. None of them could be called luxurious by Deepsoil Coast standards, but the attention they received from other diners made Celcy preen and glow. Lim greeted them as though he had never been away, as though he had seen them yesterday, as though he knew them well, a kind of easy bonhomie that grated on Tasmin even as he admired it. Lim had always made it look so easy. Everything he did, badly or well, he had done easily and with flair. Tasmin found a possible explanation in widely dilated eyes, a hectic flush. Lim was obviously on something, obviously keyed up. Perhaps one had to be to do the kind of concert they had just heard. Tasmin looked down at his own hands as they ordered, surprised to find them trembling. He clenched them, forced his body into a semblance of relaxation, and concentrated on being sociable. Celcy would not soon forgive him if he were stiff and unpleasant.

‘Place hasn’t changed,’ Lim was saying. ‘Same old center. I thought they’d have built a new auditorium by now.’

Tasmin made obvious small talk. ‘Well, it’s the same old problem, Lim. Caravans have a tough enough time bringing essential supplies. It would be hard to get the BDL Administration interested in rebuilding a perfectly adequate structure even though I’ll admit it does lack a certain ambience.’

‘You can say that again, brother. The acoustics in that place are dreadful. I’d forgotten.’

‘I just can’t believe you’re from Deepsoil Five,’ Celcy bubbled. ‘You don’t look all that much like Tasmin, either. Are you really full brothers? Same parents for both of you?’

There was a fleeting expression of pain behind Lim’s eyes, gone in the instant. ‘Ah, well,’ Lim laughed. ‘I got all the looks and Tasmin got all the good sense.’ His admiring and rather too searching glance made this a compliment to her, which she was quick to appreciate.

‘Oh, no.’ Celcy sparkled at him. ‘It takes good sense to be as successful as you’ve been, Lim.’

‘And you must think Tasmin’s pretty good looking, or you wouldn’t have married him.’

They were posing for one another, advance and retreat, like a dance. Celcy was always like this with new men. Not exactly flirtatious, Tasmin sometimes told himself, at least not meaning it that way. She always told him when men made advances, not denying she liked it a little, but not too much, sometimes claiming to resent it even after Tasmin had seen her egging some poor soul on. Well, Lim wouldn’t be around that long, and it would give her something to remember, something to talk about endlessly. ‘He really liked me, didn’t he, Tas. He thought I looked beautiful….’

‘Speaking of success,’ Tasmin said mildly, raising a glass to attract Lim’s attention. ‘Now that you’re very much a success, could you offer some help for Mother, Lim? She’s not destitute, but I’d like to send her to the coast. The doctors say her vision can be greatly improved there, but it costs more than I can provide alone. And now with Celcy pregnant….’

She glared at him, and he caught his breath.

‘Sorry, love. Lim is family, after all.’

‘I just don’t want our private business discussed in public, Tas. If you don’t mind.’

‘Sorry.’ Her anger was unreasonable but explainable. As ambivalent as she felt about having a baby, of course, she would be equally ambivalent about being pregnant or having Lim know she was. Tasmin decided to ignore it. ‘About Mother, Lim? You are going to see her while you’re here, aren’t you?’

Lim was evasive, his eyes darting away and then back. ‘I’d really like to, Tas. Maybe tomorrow. And I’d like to help, too. Perhaps by the end of the season I’ll be able to do something. Everyone thinks this kind of work mints gold, but it’s highly competitive and most of what I make goes into equipment. If you’ll help me out with a little request I have, though, things should break loose for me and I’ll be able to put a good-size chunk away for her.’ He was intent again, leaning forward, one hand extended in an attitude Tasmin recognized all too well. The extended wrist was wrapped in a platinum chronocomp set with seven firestones. Not the yellow orange ones, which were all Tasmin had been able to afford for Celcy, but purple blue gems, which totaled in value about five times Tasmin’s annual salary.

Tasmin felt the familiar wave of fury pour over him. Let it go, he told himself. For God’s sake, let it go.

‘What request?’ Celcy, all sparkle-eyed, nudging Tasmin with one little elbow, eager. ‘What request, Lim? What can we do for you?’

‘I understand there’s a new Don Furz Enigma score.’

‘That’s right,’ Tasmin said, warily.

‘And I understand you have access to it.’

‘I made the master copy. So?’

His face was concentrated, his eyes tight on Tasmin’s own. ‘I need an edge, Tas. Something dramatic. Something to make the Coast fans sit up and scream for more. Everyone knows the Enigma is a killer, and everyone knows Don Furz has come up with some surprising Passwords. I want to build my new show around the Enigma score.’

Tasmin could not answer for a long moment, was simply unable to frame a reply.

‘Oh, that’s exciting! Isn’t that exciting, Tas? A new Lim Terree show built about something from Deepsoil Five. I love it!’ Celcy sipped at her wine, happier than Tasmin had seen her in weeks.

And he didn’t want to spoil that mood for her. For a very long time he said nothing, trying to find a way around it, unable to do so. ‘I’m afraid it’s out of the question,’ Tasmin said at last, surprised to find his voice pleasantly calm, though his hands were gripped tightly together to control their quivering. ‘You were at the citadel for a time, Lim. You know that untested manuscripts are not released. It’s forbidden to circulate them.’

‘Oh, hell, man, I won’t use it as is. It would bore the coasties to shreds. I just need it … need enough of it for authenticity.’

‘If it isn’t going to be really authentic, you don’t need it at all. Make up something.’

‘I can’t do that and use Furz’s name. The legal reps are firm about that. I’ve got to have something in there he came up with.’ Lim looked down. Tasmin, in surprise, saw a tremor in his arms, his hands. Nerves? ‘That’s just the lead in, though. There’s something else.’ Lim gulped wine and cast that sideways look again, as though he were afraid someone was listening.

‘I’ve met someone, Tas. Someone who’s put me on to something that could get us into the history books right up there next to Erickson. No joke, Tas. You and Cels can be part of something absolutely world shattering. Something to set Jubal on its ear….’

‘Oh, don’t be stiff about it, Tas.’ Celcy was pleading now, making a playful face at him. ‘He’s family and it’s all really exciting! Let him have it.’

‘Celcy.’ He shook his head helplessly, praying she would understand. ‘I’m a Tripsinger. I’m licensed under a code of ethics. Even if we ignored the risk to my job, our livelihood, I swore to uphold those ethics. They won’t permit me to do what Lim wants, I’m sorry.’

‘Hell, I was a Tripsinger, too, brother,’ Lim said in a harsh, demanding tone. ‘Don’t you owe me a little professional courtesy? Not even to make a bundle for old Mom, huh?’ Said with that easy smile, with a little sneer, a well-remembered sneer.

The dam broke.

‘What you spent for that unit you’ve got on your wrist would get Mom’s eyes fixed and set her up for life,’ Tasmin said flatly. ‘Don’t feed me that shit about putting it all into equipment because I know it’s a lie. You were never a Tripsinger. You broke every rule, every oath you took. You set up that ass Ran Connel to help you fake your way through the first trip, then after you were licensed you led four trips, and your backup had to bail you out on all of them. You got through school by stealing. You stole tests. You stole answers. You stole other people’s homework including mine. Whenever anyone had anything you wanted, you took it. And when you couldn’t make it here, you stole money from Dad’s friends and then ran for the Coast. The reason I have to support Mom as well as my own family is that Dad spent almost everything he had paying off the money you took. You never figured the rules applied to you, big brother, and you always got by on a charming smile and that damned marvelous voice!’

Celcy was staring at him, her face white with shock. Lim was pale, mouth pinched.

Tasmin threw down his napkin. ‘I’m sorry. I’m not hungry. Celcy, would you mind if we left now?’

She gulped, turning a stricken face to Lim. ‘Yes, I would mind. I’m starved. I’m going to have dinner with Lim because he invited us, and if you’re too rude to let childish bygones be bygones….’ Her voice changed, becoming angry. ‘I’m certainly not going to go along with you. Go on home. Go to your mother’s. Maybe she’ll sympathize with you, but I certainly don’t.’

He couldn’t remember leaving the restaurant. He couldn’t remember anything that happened until he found himself in a cubicle at the citadel dormitory, sitting on the edge of the bed, shivering as though he would never stop. It had all boiled up, out of nothing, out of everything. All the suppressed, buried stuff of fifteen years, twenty years….

Over twenty years. When he was seven and Lim was twelve, Dad had given Tasmin a viggy for his birthday. They were rare in captivity, and Tasmin had been speechless with joy. That night, Lim had taken it out of the cage and out into the road where it had been killed, said Lim, by a passing quiet-car. When Tasmin was eight, he had won a school medal for music. Lim had borrowed it and lost it. When he was sixteen, Tasmin had been desperately, hopelessly in love with Chani Vincent. Lim, six years older than she, had seduced her, got her pregnant, then left on the trip to the Deepsoil Coast from which he had never returned. The Vincents moved to Harmony, and from there God knows where, and Dad had been advised by several of his friends that Lim had stolen money – quite a lot of it. With Dad it had been a matter of honor.

Honor. Twenty years.

‘Oh, Lord, why didn’t I just say I’d think about it, then tell him I couldn’t get access to the damn thing.’ He didn’t realize he had said it aloud until a voice murmured from the door.

‘Master?’ It was Jamieson, an expression on his face that Tasmin could not quite read. Surprise, certainly. And concern? ‘Can I help you, sir?’

‘No,’ he barked. ‘Yes. Ask the dispensary if they’d part with some kind of sleeping pill, would you. I’m having a – a family problem.’

When he woke before dawn, it was with a fuzzy head, a cottony mouth, and a feeling of inadequacy that he had thought he had left behind him long ago. He had ruined Celcy’s big evening. She wouldn’t soon let him forget it, either. It was probably going to be one of those emotional crises that required months to heal, and with her pregnant, the whole thing had been unforgivable. The longer he stayed away, the worse it would be.

‘You childish bastard,’ he chided himself in the mirror. ‘Clod!’ The white-haired, straight-nosed face stared back at him, its wide, narrow mouth an expressionless slit. It might be more to the point to be angry at Celcy, he thought broodingly, but what good would it do? Being angry with Celcy had few satisfactions to it. ‘Idiot,’ he accused himself. ‘You can sing your way past practically any Presence in this world, but you can’t get through one touchy social situation!’ His eyes were so black they looked bruised.

He borrowed a quiet-car from the citadel lot and drove home slowly, not relishing the thought of arrival. When he got there, he found the door locked. Few people in Deepsoil Five locked their doors, but Celcy always did. He had to find the spare key buried under one of the imported shrubs, running a thorn into his finger in the process.

She wasn’t at home. He looked in their bedroom, in the study, in the kitchen. It was only when he went to the bathroom to bandage the thorn-stuck finger that he saw the note, taped to the mirror.

‘Tasmin, you were just so rude I can’t believe it to your very own brother, I gave him the score he wanted, because I knew you’d be ashamed of yourself when you had some sleep and he really needs it. He really does, Tas. It was wrong what you said about his not being a Tripsinger, because what he found out will make us famous and we’re going to the Enigma so he can be sure. You’ll be proud of us. It would be better with you, Lim says, but we’ll have to do it just ourselves.

‘You were mean to spoil our party, after I decided to go ahead and have the baby just because you want it even though I don’t, and I’m really mad at you.’

So, that’s what she hadn’t been telling him. That’s what she had been hiding from him. A desire to end the pregnancy, not go through with it. The letters of the note were slanted erratically, as though blown by varying winds. ‘Drunk,’ he thought in a wave of frozen anger and pity. ‘She and Lim stayed at the restaurant, commiserating, and they got drunk.’ There were drops of water gleaming on the basin. They couldn’t have left long ago.

He went to his desk to shuffle through the documents he had brought home for study. The Enigma score was missing.

Surely Lim wouldn’t. Surely. No amount of liquor or brou would make him do any such thing. He wasn’t suicidal. He couldn’t have forgotten his own abysmal record as a Tripsinger; he wouldn’t try the Enigma. He was too pleased with himself. Surely. Surely.