by Brian Daley
"Tilla!" Looking around apprehensively, he recovered from the outburst. Few guards were around right then; most of the Betters were either at the compounds or out on the Wild Hunt. He'd gone unnoticed.
He contained himself, his questions and relief and joy, and drew her over into the half concealment of a spa doorway, making sure no one was watching.
"How did you get here? How did you find me? What—" He had all the same questions Alacrity had.
Sintilla grinned smugly, smoothing the material of her frilly, daringly translucent dress rompers. Floyt couldn't help noticing that she wasn't as chunky as he'd always thought, was actually rather shapely, in a compact kind of way.
"I got here because I followed you two." She inclined her head in the direction of the infoemporium. "Sales are jumping; you're both gonna be famous and make me rich! I can't afford to lose you now."
"Heh!" They'd fled her without so much as a good-bye, he recalled guiltily. He'd never been so happy to see anybody in his life. "But how did you find me?"
She showed him a jot tracer. "Some horrible woman named Constance left her jot implanting unit around and one of the servants at Orion Compound noticed the settings—yours and Alacrity's. We don't know where Constance is, but we think she took a ship called the Mountebank up into orbit for some reason or other. There're eighteen kinds of hell waiting to break loose around here. Dincrist is due in."
"Tilla, have you seen Alacrity? Can we get out of this place?"
"Heart's here too, that's how I got in. She's out looking for Alacrity now. And, sweetie, we're going to get the both of you out of here just as soon as we can. An hour or two, if we can pull it off."
A pair of the tall guards, a male and a female, in their wide-shouldered maroon suits and pouter-pigeon codpieces, stepped around a distant comer. Sintilla whipped up the smoky green mask she'd been carrying. With the proprietary air of a Better, she took him by the wrist and led him across the broad corridor past a fountain, right by the guards, Sintilla tottering a bit on platform sandals.
She drew Floyt over to an oriental robotique-style settee under a bubbly steeple of skylight tori. Lively brown eyes sparkled at him through a serene giaconda face. "Just let me fill you in, Hobart, because we haven't got much time."
"Less than you think. I should be working. I'm expected."
"All right, but first I have to tell you, I, um, I sort of pulled a dirty trick on you—when you guys gave me your proteuses to hold during the airbike race, remember? Well, I rigged yours."
"Come again?"
"That cheapie model Earthservice gave you—well, it wasn't too tough."
"But—you didn't gain access to any of my protected data files. I made sure of that."
"Of course not, dopey! I put something in, so whenever you queried Frostpile's data network, the query would also be routed to my proteus. Get my drift?"
"Whew!" And he and Alacrity had been trying to find out about Blackguard at the terminal on the landing roof at Frostpile while they were waiting for the Blue Pearl to pick them up.
"It was devious, I know. D'you hate me?"
"Only if you leave me here, Tilla."
She patted his knee. "Not a chance. Anyway, I knew Dincrist had some kind of connection with Blackguard; found that out back when Weir was still alive and I was snooping around Frostpile. So I figured Alacrity was off to find Heart and you were tagging along. Only Heart wasn't going to Blackguard. I discovered that just before you two left in the Pearl. The obvious conclusion was, you guys were off on a wrong trail.
"I'd heard this and that about Blackguard, but I didn't have the first idea how to get here. So I did the next best thing and tracked down the Nonpareil. That took a little doing! When Heart heard what was going on she requisitioned one of her family's ships and we came here. Y'know, I never had a starship at my disposal before. I must say, it's the only way to travel."
Floyt was trying to absorb the newsflood. Sintilla had jumped to completely the wrong conclusion about why Alacrity and Floyt had come to Blackguard, but it wouldn't be smart to correct her now, especially here. Floyt was listening with one ear, calculating variables like Pollolo, Baron Mason, and most of all the actijots.
"We're going to have to time this just right," Sintilla cautioned, "otherwise you two could have a bad time with those actijackti's you're carrying."
"What's your plan?"
"When we're ready, Heart's going to bring Alacrity in from where they're hiding. Then she goes to the spacefield and gets ready for lift-off, and I bring you two along at the last second.
"It'll be a legitimate take-off, and we'll be out of jot range and into Hawking before planetary defenses can—what's the matter?"
Floyt had been shaking his head. "Listen, it's more complicated than you think. Alacrity and I can't get close to a spaceship; our jots would fry us."
"What? But there's got to be some way around that! Hobart, if we're still around when Heart's father shows, we're all in the plopper!"
"It wouldn't be anything new for me." As he had in the vault of the causality harp, Floyt exerted all his will, getting a grip on himself. "We may be able to do this yet. There's a Baron Mason who's trying to gain control around here, and he's interdicted control of the actijot system. I think I can do something in the facility where he put me to work."
"That's it then! You've got to!"
"Not that simple. There's also an XT there—a creature called Pollolo; he's on watch all the time. I've been working on a scheme, but—I'm dubious about its chances at this point. It may be too soon to—"
"Hobart, it's practically too late! Whatever it is, you've got to do it!"
Floyt took a deep breath. Being torn limb from limb by Pollolo could hardly be worse than whatever Dincrist would have in store for him.
Sintilla was still wearing her proteus. "Give me your contact index and wait for my call," he said. "I'll just have to try my idea. I'll try to meet you here within, say, two hours. If you don't hear from me … good luck. Tell Alacrity I'm sorry for everything he's been through because of this Weir thing—because of me."
She lifted her mask for a moment, pulling him close, and gave him a sound buss on the mouth. There were tears on her cheek. "Get going, and don't bobble it!"
"I haven't even thanked you yet, Tilla."
"There'll be time for that later. Now, go!"
As usual, the inner sanctum was dim, making the strange projections and corallike decorations on the wall eerie and threatening.
Floyt entered Pollolo's domain warily; the creature liked to take him by surprise just to watch him jump. But he could see stirring waters in the tank and could by now judge the waterline by eye. Pollolo was still immersed.
Floyt brought his terminal to life and called up Diogenes, so it would look as if he'd been working. He adjusted the worklamp to a fairly low glow then sent it to hover high on its magnetic field, near the ceiling-mounted baseplate. It was a small, adaptable lightshape, a modest miniature version of the grandiose ones in the corridors and esplanade. Right now it had taken on the form of a pale-blue dodecahedron.
Pollolo had been against Floyt's bringing in more illumination, preferring his little kingdom gloomy and quiet. But the creature grudgingly relented rather than bother Baron Mason with the matter. Pollolo warned Floyt to keep the light well over in his corner though, behind the partitioning data banks and stacked modules. That was just perfect with Floyt. The lamp was an important victory, critical to his plan.
Floyt checked an access plate in one of the upper components of a control stack, where it would be awkward for Pollolo to reach without leaning against the sacrosanct systemry. The hair he'd spit-glued across it, a melodramatic precaution, was still in place.
Floyt quickly opened it and drew out a slave collar he'd hidden in there. Anxiously checking the waters again for the preliminary roiling that usually preceded Pollolo's emergence, he darted to the room's Classified Materials Disposal device.
Wonderful little
gadget, when you stop to think about it, Floyt reflected as he fed the collar into it. Installed for routine and/or emergency destruction of documents, code matrices, commo and crypto equipment, and so forth, the CMD device also did a first-rate job turning iron slave collars into a pile of filings.
He was grateful to whatever powers there were that Pollolo hadn't noticed that Floyt always entered with a slave collar on—Pollolo's mandate—but often left without one, tunic collar pulled up. Sometimes more than once a day. The collars were easy to come by around the Central Complex, and nobody bothered to keep track of them.
In fact—Floyt pulled off the one he was wearing and ground it up too. He also threw in the odds and ends he'd collected in his wanderings: a few scraps of this and that, the metal working end of a small utensil, a few decorative studs furtively pried loose from a door. Floyt had recently become a hawkeyed scavenger of iron.
As he worked he cast wistful glances at the Most Secure Module. Thanks to the staff members Mason had co-opted, the jot control system could be reached and manipulated through that ordinary-looking hunk of apparatus, along with spacefield operations and some security ops. Unfortunately, only Pollolo could unlock the Most Secure Module.
Floyt hastily filled his pockets with the filings, wiping and blowing away the remains. There was a slow churning of the waters. He dashed for his place, sliding into his glide-chair just as he heard the surface of the pool break around Pollolo's form.
There were familiar noises as the creature clambered out, shedding water, and donned his interface collar. "Delver Rootnose!" came the synthesized voice, using the alias Floyt had given. "Get over here!"
Floyt hurried to show his face, carrying a roll of info-wafers and a case of tapes.
"Why are you late, Rootnose? And where is your collar?"
Pollolo's new shell was just about complete. His great chelae ground ominously as he spoke—or, rather, transmitted. Floyt stayed clear and showed the fear Pollolo liked to see.
"Heavens!" Floyt clutched at his throat. "I took it off to eat, and I guess—I'm so sorry; shall I go get it?"
"No! You've wasted enough time as it is! Baron Mason called for a progress report. He still wants to know about Praxis, and the Regatta for the Purple."
One of Mason's obsessions was the regatta and how his foe Dincrist, a nouveau-riche social climber, had managed to get himself accepted for it. Mason suspected it had something to do with Praxis, who was also chairman of the race committee.
"I'm working on it, but I haven't had much luck."
"Well, work harder! And I don't want to see you without a collar again! This is the last time I warn you!"
With any luck. Floyt hid the thought with the finesse of an Earthservice functionary.
"Get busy!" Pollolo snapped his huge claws close to Floyt's snout; Floyt backpedaled hastily to his workplace and brought up Diogenes.
He very nearly forgot his troubles as the powerful AI routine lit screens and holo displays, projected images, made light dance, and turned readouts into mosaics of information. Signals and sound pulses crowded over one another. It was like standing inside a kaleidoscope or, he supposed, a causality harp of information. Floyt didn't see how, as he'd heard alleged, contact could be any more intense for a headboarded accessor, directly wired to the AI or not. Diogenes had even come up with some very interesting information about Astraea Imprimatur.
"Hello, user Delver," came Diogenes' voice. He sounded like a cultured, wise, and simpatico Terran male a good deal older than Floyt.
"Hi, Diogenes."
"I have the data and correlations you requested, Delver. I've also compiled new avenues of investigation."
"That's fine; thanks. Dupe them for Pollolo and, uh, keep a record for yourself. And Diogenes?"
"Yes, Delver?"
Floyt hesitated; he hated the thought of leaving Diogenes behind. The AI was so much less wooden to work with, so much more cordial and capable than the deliberately limited and lumpish Earthservice constructs he was accustomed to that Floyt couldn't help wishing.
Then he told himself to stop. There wasn't time, there probably wasn't a way, but more to the point, Earthservice would only confiscate Diogenes. Functionary thirds—particularly ones in bad odor for having been offworld—did not get to keep brilliant, virtually alive AIs for their own use and companionship.
"Nothing, Diogenes. Dim it down a bit, if you will, and just keep the overview displays up."
The fountain of light and data died away. Floyt tiptoed cautiously through the labyrinth of equipment to peek around a comer.
Pollolo was working system status checks in a far corner of the spacious room. Floyt lightfooted back to the pool and speedily dumped handsful of iron filings into it.
He had only a rough idea how many kilos he'd dumped into the tank so far, but thought it was quite a few. He'd ground up scavenged struts and shelving supports and cable clips—anything that wasn't nailed down. He'd been haunted by the fear that Pollolo would notice the missing items, or a strange taste to his water.
Finished, Floyt knelt to brush and blow a few spilled filings into the water to avoid leaving any trace of his work, then sneaked back to his chair. Diogenes was still working. Between them, the two had already exhumed and pieced together enough blackmail information to keep Mason fairly content. Most of it was the sort of stuff that would be of use only to the baron or someone in his circles, nothing criminal or illegal, but matters of record that would be embarrassing or demeaning, and threaten status or bring ostracism. Floyt's background in genealogy had been especially useful there, as he tracked down spurious family trees.
Mason made no effort to conceal from Floyt what he was doing or why he was doing it. Floyt found that ominous. The Earther, agonizing over his plan and the many things that could go wrong with it, brought up the critical passage of the information he'd gathered about Pollolo's species.
He scanned it again. Statocyst lining divestiture; sensory tendrils; statolithes. It talked about sediment, but not in specifics. Sediment was attached to sensory tendrils inside the statocysts and the pull of gravity gave Pollolo's kind their sense of equilibrium. But there was simply no precise information.
Floyt shook his head. The whole scheme was insane.
"Rootnose! Get yourself over here, worm!"
Floyt ran. Pollolo's collar was switched to what Floyt now knew to be commo mode. He was saying to it, "Yes, Baron. I understand. You may depend on me, my lord." The creature ended the call, then its eyestalks swung to Floyt.
"Delver Rootnose? Your master and owner-of-record, Captain Dincrist, has just come out of Hawking. He'll be here shortly."
Floyt swallowed. "And?"
"Why, he'll raise a fuss about you and the other one, no doubt. No doubt." The cruel claws opened and closed. "You're an embarrassment to the baron now. You're to be held for disposition."
Floyt's heartbeat was fast as a hummingbird's. "But—but I've found something new," he lied. "I've uncovered something about … about Praxis! The baron needs it."
"He shall have it." Pollolo sidled a little closer. "I will give it to him. We no longer require your services."
Floyt ducked away from a clashing pincer and retreated toward his work area.
He'd been lucky Pollolo hadn't used a jot unit on him; that would have been the end of everything. The creature came after him slowly, claws spread wide, certain it had him cornered.
Floyt kicked his glide-chair in Pollolo's direction and it scooted freely that way. Pollolo batted it away. In the meantime Floyt palmed the control unit for his worklight.
Pollolo came on almost mincingly, claws held at waist level; Floyt backed into the corner, a horrible gulf in his chest and stomach.
"I'm glad you bolted, glad for this sport. Didn't you know I had this in mind for you all along? Now it's over; come to—"
Floyt ran the magnetic control all the way up to max. Pollolo was directly beneath the ceiling baseplate. Small metal objects—stylus, tape
-clip, bits of debris—leapt up to adhere to it. The lightshape was flattened overhead.
Pollolo's collar gargled. From the creature himself came a noise totally unprecedented, a shrill, almost hypersonic bleat of terror.
Pollolo abandoned his attempts to seize Floyt and clutched desperately at nearby machinery, at console legs, and even tried to get a grip on the floor, his eyestalks squeezed shut, quaking in fear.
"Well, what do you know," Floyt said, open-mouthed. "It worked!"
Eventually Pollolo's antennules regained some control of his collar, but not much. "Please-please-stop-oh-please-ah!" was about all he could produce, and he seemed incapable of going through the more complex procedures of opening commo connections. With extreme caution Floyt moved a little closer.
But Pollolo really was pasted to the deck, unable to let go. His intellect told him gravity hadn't changed, that he'd been tricked. But he was a creature of strong instinct and reflex; the metal filings that had entered his statocysts were being pulled upward by the baseplate's magnetic field, and that told his body that he was clinging to the ceiling, in danger of falling, triggering a very strong reflex. He could no more disregard it than a human being could thrust an arm into a nervefire field.
Floyt tossed a few objects at the thing, in case it was a trick. Then the Earther circled round, got his glide-chair, and beat Pollolo on the anterior surface a few times, experimentally. Pollolo, eyestalks squeezed shut, could only make the pleading sounds and his own shrill keening, immobilized.
Floyt inhaled a resolute breath, then scrambled up onto Pollolo's back. The thing made a tentative effort to swipe him off, but couldn't bring himself to let go any of the clawholds he'd gotten. He vibrated and rocked a little, but was fairly stable.
Kneeling on Pollolo's back, Floyt tried to work the releases for the commo collar. It wouldn't do for Pollolo to pull himself together long enough to send in an alarm.
Losing patience with the alien fastenings, Floyt gave them a couple of hearty kicks with the heel of his foot. They clacked open; he pulled the collar loose.
