The Memory of Earth (39 page)

I don’t know how to kill a man with this. It doesn’t stab. I can’t stab the heart with this.

His head. Take off his head.

I can’t. I can’t, I can’t, I can’t.

But Nafai was wrong. He could.

He took Gaballufix by the hair, and stretched out his neck. Gaballufix stirred—was he waking up? Nafai almost let go of his hair then, but Gaballufix quickly dropped back into unconsciousness. Nafai switched on the blade and then laid it lightly against the throat. The blade hummed. A line of blood appeared. Nafai pressed harder, and the line became an open wound, with blood spouting over the blade, sizzling loudly. Too late to stop now, too late. He pressed harder, harder. The blade bit deeper. It resisted at the bone, but Nafai twisted the head away and opened a gap between the vertebrae, and now the blade cut through easily, and the head came free.

Nafai’s pants and shirt were covered with blood, as were his hands and face, spattered with it, dripping with it. I have killed a man, and this is his head that I’m
holding in my hands. What am I now? Who am I now? How am I better than the man who lies here, torn apart by my hands?

The Index.

He couldn’t bear to wear his blood-soaked clothes. Almost in a panic to be rid of them, he tore them off, then wiped his face and hands on the unbloodied back of his shirt. These were the clothes that Luet handed to me when I climbed back into the boat in the beautiful, peaceful place, and now see what I’ve done with them.

Now, kneeling beside the body, his own clothes cast down into the blood, he realized that because of the downhill slope of the street and the fact that the blood mostly poured upward out of the neck, away from the body, Gaballufix’s own clothing was unstained with blood. Vomit and urine, yes, but not blood. Nafai had to wear something. The costume wouldn’t be enough—underneath it he’d be cold and barefoot.

When he thought of putting on Gaballufix’s clothing, it was abhorrent to him, yes, but he also knew that he had to do it. He dragged the body up away from the blood a little, then undressed it carefully, keeping the blood off. He almost gagged as he pulled the cold wet trousers on, but then he thought contemptuously that a man who could kill the way he had just killed should hardly feel squeamish about wearing another man’s piss on his legs. The same with the stench of stomach acid in the shirt and the body armor that Gaballufix had been wearing underneath. Nothing is too horrible for me to do it now, thought Nafai. I’m already lost.

The only thing he could
not
bring himself to do was put the blade at his waist, the way Gaballufix had done. Instead he wiped his fingerprints from the handle and tossed it down near where the head was lying. Then he laughed. There are my clothes, which countless witnesses
saw me wearing today. Why should I have tried to conceal myself, if I’m leaving those behind?

And I
am
leaving those behind, thought Nafai. Like my own dead body I’m leaving those. The costume of a child. I’m wearing a man’s clothes now. And not just any man. The most vile, monstrous man I know. They fit me.

He pulled the cloak of the soldier costume over his head. He felt no different, but he assumed that the look was there. He stepped away from the body. He could not think of where to go now. He could not think of anything.

He turned back to the body. He had left something behind, he knew that. But all that was left was his old clothing, and the blade. So he picked up the blade again after all, wiped the blood from it with his old clothes, and put it on his belt.

Now he could go on. To Gaballufix’s house, of course. He knew that now, very clearly. He could think very clearly now. The trousers froze on his legs, and chafed. The body armor was heavy. It was awkward walking with the charged-wire blade. This is how it felt to be Gaballufix, thought Nafai. Tonight I am Gaballufix.

I have to hurry. Before the body is found.

No. The Oversoul will keep them from noticing the body, for a while at least. Until they are so many people out in the morning that the Oversoul can’t influence them all at once. So I do have time.

He came up Fountain Street, but then thought better of it. Instead he walked over to Long Street and came up to Gaballufix’s house from behind. In the alley he found the door that he had seen Elemak use, so many—so few—days before. Would it be locked?

It was. What now? Inside there would be someone waiting. Keeping guard. How could he, in the guise of a common soldier, demand entrance at this hour? What if
they made him switch off the costume once he got inside? They’d recognize him at once. Worse, they’d recognize Gaballufix’s clothing and they’d know that there was only one way he could come in wearing their master’s clothes.

No,
two
ways.

Gaballufix must have come home drunk before.

Nafai tried, silently at first, to think of how Gaballufix’s voice sounded. Husky and coarse. Rasping in the throat. Nafai could get it generally right, he was sure—and it didn’t have to be too perfect, because Gaballufix was
drunk,
of course—he reeked of it—and so his voice could be slurred and out of control, and he could stagger and fall and—

“Open up, open the door!” he bawled.

That was awful, that didn’t sound like Gaballufix at all.

“Open the door you idiots, it’s me!”

Better. Better. And besides, the Oversoul will nudge them a little, will encourage them to think of other things besides the fact that Gaballufix isn’t really sounding like himself tonight.

The door opened a crack. Nafai immediately shoved it open and pushed his way through. “Locking me out of my own house, ought to send you home in a box, ought to send you back to your papa in pieces.” Nafai had no idea how Gaballufix usually talked, but he guessed at general surliness and threats, especially when he was drunk. Nafai hadn’t seen many drunks. Only a few times on the street, and then fairly often in the theatres, but those were actors
playing
drunk.

He thought: I’m an actor, after all. I thought that was what I might end up being, and here I am.

“Let me help you, sir,” said the man. Nafai didn’t look at him. Instead he deliberately stumbled and fell to his knees, then doubled over. “Going to puke, I think,” he rasped. Then he touched the box at his belt and turned
off the costume. Just for a moment. Just long enough that whoever else was in the room could see Gaballufix’s clothing, while Nafai’s face and hair were out of sight as he bent over. Then he turned the costume back on. He tried to produce the sound of dry heaves, and was so successful that he gagged and some bile and acid
did
come into his throat.

“What do you want, sir?” said the man.

“Who keeps the Index!” Nafai bawled. “Everybody wants the Index today—well now
I
want it.”

“Zdorab,” said the man.

“Get him.”

“He’s asleep, he . . .”

Nafai lurched to his feet. “When I’m off my ass in this house,
nobody
sleeps!”

“I’ll get him, sir, I’m sorry, I just thought . . .”

Nafai swung clumsily at him. The man shied away, looking horrified. Am I carrying this too far? There was no way to guess. The man sidled along the wall and then ducked through a door. Nafai had no idea whether he would come back with soldiers to arrest him.

He came back with Zdorab. Or at least Nafai assumed it was Zdorab. But he had to be sure, didn’t he? So he leaned close to the man and breathed nastily in his face. “Are you Zdorab?” Let the man imagine that Gaballufix was so drunk he couldn’t see straight.

“Yes, sir,” said the man. He seemed frightened. Good.

“My Index. Where is it?”

“Which one?”

“The one those bastards wanted—Wetchik’s boys—
the
Index, by the Oversoul!”

“The
Palwashantu
Index?”

“Where did you put it, you rogue?”

“In the vault,” said Zdorab. “I didn’t know you wanted
it accessible. You’ve never used it before, and so I thought—”

“I can look at it if I want!”

Stop talking so much, he told himself. The more you say, the harder it will be for the Oversoul to keep this man from doubting my voice.

Zdorab led the way down a corridor. Nafai made it a point to bump into a wall now and then. When he did it on the side where Elemak’s rod had fallen most heavily, it sent a stab of pain through his side, from shoulder to hip. He grunted with the pain—but figured that it would only make his performance more believable.

As they moved on through the lowest floor of the house, fear began to overtake him again. What if he had to provide a positive identification to open the vault? A retina scan? A thumbprint?

But the vault door stood open. Had the Oversoul influenced someone to forget to close it? Or had it all come down to chance? Am I fortune’s fool, Nafai wondered, or merely the Oversoul’s puppet? Or, by some slim chance, am I freely choosing at least some portion of my own path through this night’s work?

He didn’t even know which answer he wanted. If he was freely choosing for himself, then he had freely chosen to kill a man lying helpless in the street. Much better to believe that the Oversoul had compelled him or tricked him into doing it. Or that something in his genes or his upbringing had forced him to that action. Much better to believe that there was no other possible choice, rather than to torment himself with wondering whether it might not have been enough to steal Gaballufix’s clothing, without having to kill him first. Being responsible for what he did with his opportunities was more of a burden than Nafai really wanted to bear.

Zdorab walked into the vault. Nafai followed, then
stopped when he saw a large table where the entire fortune that Gaballufix had stolen from them that afternoon was arranged in neat stacks.

“As you can see, sir, the assay is nearly done,” said Zdorab as he wandered off among the shelves. “I have kept everything clean and organized there. It’s very kind of you to visit.”

Is he stalling me here in the vault, Nafai wondered, waiting till help can arrive?

Zdorab emerged from the shelves at the back of the room. He was a smallish man, considerably shorter than Nafai, and he was already losing his hair though he couldn’t have been more than thirty. A comical man, really—yet if he guessed at what was really happening, he might cost Nafai his life.

“Is this it?” asked Zdorab.

Nafai hadn’t the faintest idea what it was
supposed
to look like, of course. He had seen many indexes, but most of them were small freestanding computers with wireless access to a major library. This one had nothing that Nafai could recognize as a display. What Zdorab held was a brass-colored metal ball, about twenty-five centimeters in diameter, flattened a little at the top and the bottom. “Let me see,” Nafai growled.

Zdorab seemed reluctant to part with it. For a moment, Nafai felt a wave of panic sweep over him. He doesn’t want to give it to me because he knows who I really am.

Then Zdorab revealed his true concern. “Sir, you said we must always keep it very clean.”

He was worried about how dirty Gaballufix might have got himself under his soldier costume. After all, he seemed falling-down drunk and smelled of liquor and worse. His hands could be covered with anything.

“You’re right,” said Nafai.
“You
carry it.”

“If you wish, sir,” said Zdorab.

“That’s the one, isn’t it?” said Nafai. He had to be sure—he could only hope that the drunk act was convincing enough that stupid questions wouldn’t arouse suspicion.

“It’s the Palwashantu Index, if that’s what you mean. I just wondered if that’s the one you really wanted. You’ve never asked for it before.”

So Gaballufix hadn’t even brought it out of the vault—he never, not for one moment, intended to give it to them, no matter how Elemak bargained or what they paid. It made Nafai feel a little better. There had been no missed opportunity. Every script would have led to the same ending.

“Where are we taking it?” asked Zdorab.

Excellent question, thought Nafai. I can’t very well tell him that we’re giving it to Wetchik’s sons, who are waiting in the darkness outside the Funnel.

“Got to show it to the clan council.”

“At this time of night?”

“Yes at this time of night! Interrupted me, the bastards. Having a party and they had to see the
Index
because they got some whim that maybe it got itself stolen by Wetchik’s murdering lying thieving sons.”

Zdorab coughed, ducked his head, and hurried on, leading Nafai down the corridor.

So Zdorab didn’t like hearing Gaballufix lay such epithets on Wetchik’s sons. Very interesting. But not so interesting that Nafai intended to take Zdorab into his confidence. “Slow down, you miserable little dwarf!” called Nafai.

“Yes sir,” said Zdorab. He slowed down, and Nafai lurched after him.

They came to the door, where the same man stood on guard. The man looked at Zdorab, a question in his eyes.
Here’s the moment, thought Nafai. A signal passing between them.

“Please open the door for Master Gaballufix,” said Zdorab. “We’re going out again.”

The only signal, Nafai realized, was that the doorkeeper was asking if this man in holographic soldier costume was Gaballufix, and Zdorab had answered by assuring him that the drunken lout inside the costume was the same one who had come in only a few moments before.

“Making merry, sir?” asked the doorkeeper.

“The council seems to be asserting itself tonight,” said Zdorab.

“Want any escort?” asked the doorkeeper. “We’ve only got a couple of dozen close enough to lay hands on, but we can get some in from Dogtown in a few minutes, if you want them.”

“No,” barked Nafai.

“I just thought—the council might need a reminder, like last time—”

“They remember!” said Nafai. He wondered what “last time” was.

Zdorab led the way through the door. Nafai stumbled outside. The door latched behind them.

As they walked along the near-empty streets of Basilica, it began to dawn on Nafai what he had just accomplished. After all the day’s failures, he had just come out of Gaballufix’s house
with
the Index. Or at least with a man who was carrying the Index.