by Bill Adams
“Ah, the forbidden lore again.”
“Take this seriously, Evan! The Few still exist, and nothing is beyond them. Not murder, not the hijacking of naval vessels to build their own secret fleet—nothing. I suspect they are supporting Reform, for their own purposes. That strong central government would be a lot easier to take over, when the time came, than all the Alignment’s autonomous planets. So don’t be sure you can avoid the Reform struggle in the navy. If you put ten years and twenty parsecs behind you—keep watching your back.”
“Okay, Master,” I said gently. “But you’re the one who should worry. You’ve got that Book, and the Reformers know it. I don’t have any real family left; my home world never understood me; the woman I loved considers me a political enemy. I’ve nothing to hold me in this decade except you, my friend. Do you need help—someone to share your secrets, or—”
He shook his head, smiling. “I’ve already taught you too much. ‘A little learning is a dangerous thing.’ Trust me, as Pope of our little order, to do what’s best, even if it means abjuring the mystical lore forever, like your Prospero. If necessary, I can hide the Book in a place where it will be safe for centuries, until the next Master comes to find it.” He looked at me intently. “And he will know where to look.”
Those words always come back so precisely, the clue I wasn’t able to read. Near the Labyrinth, in a mountain cave, on the isle of Crete, on Earth? But he would never have spelled out a sacred secret so explicitly…
“We’ve had this conversation before, haven’t we?” I ask him. “About Reform, the Survey, the Few. And the Book, where to find the Book someday. This can’t just be déjà vu, can it?”
And now the waiter stands before us again, that same expectant look on his ebony face. And I know his name.
“Entzwame. That’s it, isn’t?” I turn to Summerisle. “But he wasn’t with us that day in the plaza. I haven’t met him yet. What’s he doing here?”
“He’s a waiter,” Summerisle says. “He waits for you. You are living in the past now. Anything is possible, you can always start over, but only in the present. He is waiting for you to wake up.”
“You’re saying this is also a dream,” I say. “Not just the falling. A dream within a dream, a play within a play.”
“A bubble within a bubble,” says the waiter Entzwame.
“No,” said Summerisle. “This is a dream, yes, but you really are falling. And you must wake up.”
He makes a small gesture with his chin toward Entzwame and suddenly the big man pivots on one foot and directs a huge back-handed slap at my face, I can see it coming in slow motion but can’t dodge it, and now they are both shouting,
“Wake up!”
Thunderclap. I was falling in stormy darkness, through rain that I could hear but not feel, protected in an invisible bubble from the lightning and the wind. Not alone; a trapped animal moaned at my side, the sort of blatant symbol that gives my dreams away but does not end them; I felt the whimpering creature’s warmth but could not see it. Falling, falling, helpless, and this time I knew it was not a dream…
Chapter Four
It was not a dream, it was an aerofoil shuttle plunging through a lightning storm. I found myself in a Column uniform and an upright seat, with Bunny Velasquez moaning and whimpering like a trapped animal next to me.
The blinding flash was silent, but I jerked against the straps that held me to the framework couch, and a boom of thunder followed. The usual moment of traumatic amnesia had passed; I could reel in a whole, if flimsy, skein of connective memories.
Up to this point, our journey from Zenobia to Newcount Two had been speedy and uneventful. After the previous Non-Human Artifacts sub-commissioner’s uniform had been retailored for me in the orbital mall off Orlo, we took a suite on a luxury liner, and Condé’s agent T’ung stopped tailing us. Condé knew I could never turn state’s evidence once I’d publicly appeared in Column whites. I was committed for the duration.
I’d come up with the new sub-commissioner’s name myself: “Alun Parker,” very old-worlds. I’d tried to pump Velasquez on the duties expected of me, but he wasn’t much help. Sometimes he insisted that as aide-de-camp he’d done all the sub-commissioner’s work for him; sometimes he admitted listlessly that there was nothing to it anyway—just hosting dinners along the museum circuit and reporting any new alien finds to more competent, nonpolitical authorities.
That was Bunny’s style in a nutshell. He couldn’t accept the role of underling, in or out of the impersonation, but his attempts to assert his own importance were always halfhearted and pathetic. The spoiled child of minor nobility, he’d never had to learn how to get along with lesser humans, keeping us all at a distance with his exhaustive arsenal of sneers and shrugs.
I never did manage to get a full briefing out of him. He couldn’t summon enough interest to describe the Stone Hut ruins on Newcount Two, for instance, but I gathered that there was nothing to them anyway—aside from Condé’s barrow, and the new sub-commissioner wasn’t supposed to know about that. The new sub-commissioner didn’t know much else, either.
The job manual in the previous sub-commissioner’s kit included a full chapter on inspecting a dig—which medals to wear, a seating chart for dinner, and similar vital details. But there were also indications that a sub-commissioner might actually have a little background in archaeology. Complete ignorance was presumably reserved for full commissioners. I would just have to fake my way somehow. At least I’d had a good classical education, ancient languages and history.
For the last leg of the trip we requisitioned a packet boat from the nearest Swathe mail depot—our first perk as Column officials, our first big step as impostors.
Having undergone bio-decon and omniphylaxis en route, we weren’t delayed by class-three quarantine restrictions. But we had to check in at one of Newcount Two’s defense outposts—a station Mehta’s contractors were still completing—in synchronous orbit above the only large continent. There we commandeered a shuttle to take us down.
The shuttle pilot had objected to the unexpected trip. And when I woke up he was taking it out on us. The g-force indicated that we had to pay for his initial overspeed with heavy deceleration now, even though already deep in the lower atmosphere, with the viewport shields peeled back to provide a scarier view. Lightning flickered without letup amid anvil-shaped clouds, while thunder shock-waves rolled in from near and far to provide syncopation and suspense.
But in the end an insanely relaxed voice from the cockpit informed us that we were coming in to land, and that the local time at our destination would be early afternoon, in a twenty-two-hour day. The usual synchronization tones were played for the benefit of our wristcomps: a local minute in local seconds.
I’d had less than an hour’s sleep. That meant flight lag on top of everything else—with a life-or-death performance only minutes away, and my assistant reduced to jelly at my side. Fed up and furious, I decided that the sub-commissioner would be fed up, too; I held on to my anger through touchdown and rollout.
The last few drops of cold rain rattled on the exit ramp, hissed against the hot skin of the shuttle. Bunny had wobbled down ahead of me, and stood, still green-faced, staring at his watch and tapping his foot impatiently, as though his own aide-de-camp were holding him up. This seemed to puzzle the woman standing next to him. She looked toward me as I stepped out of the shuttle. A sudden break in the clouds lit a golden nimbus around her head; the moment would pass, but the impression would linger.
“Your Excellency,” Bunny said while I was still on the ramp, “let me present Freem’ss Ariel Nimitz, the managing director here. Freem’ss Nimitz, His Excellency Alun Parker, Sub-Commissioner for Non-Human Artifacts.”
The clouds healed and I remembered to scowl. A tropical breeze, freshened by rain, played in the undisciplined blonde hair of a compact and shapely young woman in a severe business tunic. There was a large groundcar behind her, and as I said, “How do you do
?” another one approached us from the direction of a small structure which, judging by its satellite dish, served the field as a control tower.
“Very well, thank you, Excellency,” Ariel replied as I reached ground level. Now her face was framed by a rainbow on the horizon, artistically off-center. Bright blue eyes discreetly looked me up and down. Something in the set of her mouth, soft and generous in an otherwise businesslike face, led me to believe that I was making an impression, too. Not difficult, given a snow-white Column uniform in these gloomy surroundings—a gray basalt landing field, dirty green bowl of hills in every distance, gray-green storm clouds overhead.
“I’m one of Senator Mehta’s executive assistants,” she was saying. “I’ve planned a small—”
Screeching to a halt on the wet pavement, the arriving car overshot the nose of the shuttle. A tall, dark man emerged from the driver’s seat and headed for the ramp. He checked himself before me and unclenched his fists.
Ariel hesitated. “Excellency, may I present Citizen Wu Arsenovich, Chief Contractor. Citizen, this is—”
“Excellency.” He bowed stiffly, his angry face frozen. “An honor, sir. I hope you’ll forgive me, but a disciplinary matter requires immediate attention.”
We both looked in the direction of the shuttle’s cockpit.
“Don’t let me detain you,” I said.
The chief contractor muttered thanks, flew up the steps, and slammed the hatch closed.
Ariel took a controlled breath and started over. “I’ve planned a small dinner at the hotel this evening. Just Your Excellency, Citizen Velasquez, Chief Arsenovich, myself of course, and Citizen Foyle to speak for the archaeologists. She’s put together a quick overview of the Stone Hut site—a rather dry dig, I think they call it—so that you can lift off again tomorrow. I know these levy ships don’t like to hang around long, and—”
It was no good. True, I wanted nothing more than to clear the system, space the uniform, and concoct a new identity. But the simplest, safest course was to play out Condé’s game, fast and hard. For one thing, I needed his payment as getaway money.
“Freem’ss Nimitz,” I said, “I will decide what I shall do here, and when to leave. What you call a ‘rather dry dig’ might be a dangerously incompetent one. And there’s no point in plying me with dinner, since—to me—this is still two hours into a sleep cycle. As for the levy ship, it will of course wait in orbit for as long as I require.”
Speechless, she began to pale. I paused a moment for effect, and to consider. Condé’s spies had estimated Mehta’s next arrival on Newcount to be a month or two away. A guess only; Mehta was fanatically secretive. But once the senator did show up, it would be too risky to interfere with his excavation. All Mehta had to do was send a courier Columnward, complaining about “this nosy Parker you’ve sent here,” and Velasquez and I would be exposed as frauds.
The plan was for me to brake the dig hard, install Bunny as overseer, and leave, within as few days as I could manage. Bunny was willing to stay on longer, but only if I’d convinced the locals he bore my authority—and if I could supply a reliable margin of safety by learning the exact date of Mehta’s next visit.
I’d never have a better opportunity.
“I’d hoped that Senator Mehta would be here to meet me,” I said. “Certainly, as someone engaged in a private excavation, he would be wise—”
“Excellency, we were given no notice of this visit prior to yesterday’s transmission. Senator Mehta isn’t even in this system, and I am not at liberty to divulge—”
“When might I see him, then? I assume he does take an interest in the work here—in the palace you’re building for him, if nothing else. When’s his next inspection?”
“As far as exact arrival times, Excellency, there are certain security concerns—”
“Which the Column shares. But I assume it’s not the Column that the senator fears?”
She exhaled heavily. “Of course not, Excellency. And of course we’ll be glad if you wish to stay with us for the next ten days, until the senator’s arrival. I know he’d want you to spend that time in his personal hotel suite. I’d planned a briefer visit only for your convenience. After all,” she added in a reasonable tone, while I thought Ten days! and tried to catch Bunny’s eye, “the previous sub-commissioner saw the Stone Huts, and approved our plans some months ago, and Citizen Velasquez was with him. A quick update was all we thought you’d want.”
I did have what I wanted, and if I wanted anything else, I’d have to quit towering and glowering.
“I see your point, Freem’ss. I’m sure I owe you an apology—which I can make more sincerely after I’ve had a little sleep. Meanwhile, please feel free to drop the ‘Your Excellency.’ Those formalities are just too unwieldy out here in the field.” Anti-erotic, too. Why limit the potential of my role? “And I do want to meet with the archaeologists as soon as possible. I know their workday begins at sunrise, but if I went to bed now, we might be able to fly out and meet them for breakfast. Could you please arrange that?”
“Certainly…sir,” she said, with a relieved smile. “And you may call me Ariel.”
“Thank you. You mentioned a hotel?”
“Yes, sir.” She gestured at the largest of a few low buildings at the tarmac’s edge. “For the senator’s guests, at least until the palace is completed. There’s also a small office building, and we’re putting up some apartment blocks for the workers—”
“A whole town?”
“Not really, sir. Senator Mehta intends to retire here. The planet will remain undeveloped, peaceful. A retreat.”
Chief Contractor Arsenovich, looking much more peaceful himself, clattered heavily down the ramp.
“Chief,” Ariel said, “We’ll need one of Construction’s flitters tomorrow morning, around four. We may be gone all day.”
“Impossible.”
“Oh, I think you’ll manage,” she said with weighty quietness, and he broke stride long enough to give in. He seemed used to it. A young woman for her responsibilities, and as overawed by Column whites as anyone, but competent and sharp. Attractive, but a potential danger. And aren’t they all?
◆◆◆
Despite what I’d said to Ariel, I didn’t expect to sleep—or want to. The trauma dreams had been more frequent and more vicious ever since I’d entered the Blue Swathe. Reminders, perhaps, that even in this least-oppressed of the Column’s domains, I did not deserve to be free. I lay sleepless for a few hours, occasionally massaging the last joint of my left hand’s ring finger. That segment of bone is artificial, a repository for the information once stored on the data disk of the survey cruiser Barbarossa, the lost Barbarossa, my ship.
Chapter Five
The next morning I showered, shaved, and dressed in the senatorial suite’s huge bathroom, and when I came out into the foyer I saw a cold-eyed official of the Column come striding through the door at the other end. His sinister smile gave way to surprise like my own. I stopped dead, and so did he.
It was a “rightway mirror” fitted to the back of the door; I hadn’t noticed it earlier, entering from the corridor. Not the usual, recognizable mirror image, but re-reversed as in a photograph. I’d always hated that effect.
But this time I paused to see myself as others saw me, thinking about the sky-blue eyes I’d been introduced to nine hours before. And let the worst be admitted. Evan Larkspur, author of the New Satires, last true (Old Rite) Kanalist, enemy of all dictatorships—and yes, that smirking fellow in the glass—loved his Column uniform, from the patent-leather half boots to the gold piping on the erect collar.
A comic-opera costume, sure. At Nexus U. we used to mock the “self-defense forces” of the so-called First Column worlds for having to wear it. But if a cluster of local governments wanted to play Prussian, well, that was the price of our tolerant federal system, and a good joke at least. And then, at one of those interminable bottle parties at the Kanalist lod
ge, someone—Kostain, de Bourbon?—had suggested similar white tunics as perfect for the new central government the Reform group was pushing: “Like blank pages for a new constitution.” And I’d laughed it off, until I’d realized that everyone was staring at me, that politics had taken an ominous turn while I’d been immersed in my rewrite of Cyrano…A hundred years ago; no one dares to laugh now. But.
But the outfit flattered me unmercifully. I’d had to shave my black Odyssean beard before the trip—too un-Column—but in white the resulting pallor looked pink and healthy. Physical fitness, in my case owed entirely to a life on the run, makes the most of military tailoring. My face, nondescript when it’s not unpleasantly sardonic, looks aristocratic and knowing above the trappings of power. And the touch of theater I’d insisted upon, the streaks of gray at the temples, completed the picture: some archangel just a little too clever to fall, the one who’d inherited Lucifer’s place and expense account.
Which reminded me. I had urgent business to discuss with Bunny Velasquez.
He was waiting in the lobby of the hotel, next to travel bags packed for the day’s field trip. The building was dead, even the lights seeming pale and exhausted an hour before dawn; there appeared to be no other guests, and the servants were still asleep. It was like a stage set, and we lowered our voices as if afraid of the audience.
“Only ten days,” I said. “Too bad, but it does simplify things.”
“Now just look,” Bunny rushed, as if he’d been nerving himself up to it for hours. “We can’t leave, understand?”
“Oh, we’ll try to do the job first,” I said. “Whatever we can to bring the dig to a standstill. But Mehta’s just as likely to be a week early. And if I leave in forty-eight hours, you’ll have to go, too; there’s no way to summon another ship in time.”
He reached up, with the astounding unselfconsciousness of the very rich, to pull on his lower lip as an aid to thought. Maddening. Too timid to come here alone, but too afraid of Condé to leave.
