Implied Spaces

by Walter Jon Williams

  Far too late. The first pipe caught him low and tossed him into the air, and as he fell another pipe caught him and hurled him like a corn doll into the roadway. And then all Aristide could see was the stampede of leaping pipe.

  Lights were coming on everywhere on the street. Aristide ran forward, then swung himself into the cab. He kissed Daljit as he dropped onto the leopard-spotted blanket, and Shamlan fed power to the wheels, accelerating as she turned onto a road that would take the truck back to Myriad City. The last Aristide heard of the accident site were a series of crashes as the pipe slammed into the wooded creek bed at the foot of the hill.

  “I can’t help but think that a dagger would have been a lot quieter,” Aristide said.

  “We want noise,” Lin said. “We want the body to be discovered right away.” The cold light of satisfaction glittered in his eyes. “I’ll order that the body be taken to Fedora’s pathology lab,” he said. “And then we’ll see who gets out of bed to collect the body before the autopsy can begin.”

  The tractor-trailer drove to Myriad City, where it dropped Lin off near his apartment, in a wood devoid of surveillance cameras. The last Aristide saw of him, he was lighting his pipe; and then the tractor-trailer continued into the heart of the city, where it parked in the empty, echoing garage of a vacant sixty-year-old hotel scheduled for demolition, and where no passive surveillance lurked.

  Aristide and Daljit left the vehicle, footsteps echoing in the huge hollow space. Shamlan awakened the truck’s AI, and ordered it to drop the trailer off at the port, then return to the municipal lot from which it had been taken. Then Shamlan left the cab, taking with her the leopard-striped blanket and the seat covers that had helped to soak up hair and other DNA evidence.

  “Nice meeting you,” she said as she stuffed the incriminating fabric into a bag she had brought for the purpose.

  “And you,” Aristide said, and he and Daljit left by a different exit than Shamlan or the tractor-trailer.

  Aristide and Daljit separated and walked roundabout routes to their destination, the marina, where a sailboat awaited them. The boat hadn’t been rented by Franz Sandow, but by Pablo Monagas Pérez.

  At Aristide’s command, the Fathom Deep unhitched itself from the pier and spread gossamer sails to catch the land breeze. In the glowing cockpit, he plotted a destination, told the boat to go there, and ordered the boat’s AI to refuse any communication that did not contain a certain prefix.

  Computer-guided carbon-fiber masts bowed to the wind and the boat moved in near-silence from the harbor. Water chuckled under the counter, and there was a rhythmic splash from the bow as the boat began to pitch into the waves. Aristide opened the hatch and he and Daljit went below.

  Each had their own cabin, with the closets full of clothing filled with tags that certified they had been on the boat all evening. Each changed clothes, then threw their incriminating clothing and footwear into the sea in a weighted bag.

  Aristide, in duck trousers and a lambswool sweater, left his cabin and stepped into the boat’s salon. A rose-scented perfume floated in the air. Daljit stood at one of the narrow windows, gazing at Myriad City’s receding skyline.

  “Well,” Aristide said, “if Lin is right, all this evasion should have gained us five or six hours.”

  “Who will we next see, do you think?” Daljit asked. “Police, or pod people?”

  “Commissar Lin, I hope.”

  Aristide looked in the refrigerator and withdrew a bottle of Veuve Clicquot shipped all the way from Earth. He produced a pair of glasses, opened the bottle, and poured.

  He handed a glass to Daljit.

  “Are we drinking to the success of our first murder?” Daljit asked.

  Aristide restrained a shudder. This was not his first.

  He forced a smile onto his face. “To our successful escape,” he said.

  For a moment, the sound of chiming crystal hung in the air. The champagne on his palate tasted like the most glorious air in creation and eased his thoughts.

  They sat on a bench seat and drank. He put an arm around her, and she leaned her head on his shoulder and spoke.

  “What will happen if this works?” Daljit asked.

  “If the pod people leave enough traces,” Aristide said, “we’ll find out who’s giving them orders, and which of the Eleven is involved. And then—simply—war.”

  “Which we’ll win,” Daljit said, “because the rogue AI is outnumbered ten to one.”

  “That’s the plan,” Aristide said. He sipped his champagne, and made a quiet decision that this was not the moment to cast the plan in doubt.

  If this little conspiracy failed, he knew, if he and Daljit and Lin and the others were taken, Endora would alert the multiverse, and though there would be chaos and witch hunts in high places, the rogue would still be at a comprehensive disadvantage.

  “The womb of every world is in the balance,” he said.

  “Conspirators gather beneath a darkened sun.

  The silence weighs a thousand pounds.”

  There was a moment of silence. She pressed her cheek to his shoulder, her hair a warm presence in the hollow of his throat.

  “These could be the last hours of peace,” she said.

  “Yes.”

  She offered a mischievous giggle. “Can I say that I’m glad you don’t have your cat with you?”

  “I’d rather have you.”

  She looked at him soberly, then kissed his cheek. He returned the kiss, and said,

  “Old friend, the familiar perfume,

  How thrilling it is that

  The touch of your lips feels new.”

  “Yes,” Daljit said. “If this is our last night in this incarnation, let it be poetry.”

  He put his arms around her and kissed her deeply.

  Poetry it certainly was.

  In the morning, while a highly competent robotic kitchen prepared duck eggs, lightly poached with a bit of truffle oil and just the right amount of duck fat, Aristide stood in the cockpit and scanned the surrounding sea with binoculars. A few giant cargo ships stood black on the horizon like the distant castles of Gundapur, but no patrol or pleasure craft could be seen. Fathom Deep was beating into the wind on the starboard tack, and a fine salt spray dotted the cockpit windscreen.

  Aristide put down the binoculars and picked up his cup of coffee. He tasted it and frowned—this was a domestic blend. For some reason Topaz never produced great coffee: the good stuff had to be imported.

  Daljit appeared in the hatch, carrying a breakfast tray, two small plates with the duck eggs along with butter and a baguette. She set the tray on the table, and he kissed her.

  As their lips touched a speaker pinged on the instrument console. They parted, a little rueful, as if the console were in the role of a strict chaperone.

  “Yes?” Aristide said.

  The voice that came from the console was that used by Endora—female, a little hurried, a little over-precise, and unlike the more colloquial voice of Bitsy.

  “The rogue AI is Courtland,” Endora said.

  “Really?” Aristide was surprised. Courtland’s personal interests were rather abstract—it was attracted to cosmology, exploration, and teleology. Not exactly the mindset to lead a revolution. Courtland’s personality was sufficiently amorphous that it was always referred to as an “it,” not a he or she.

  “It isn’t yet clear whether there is a group of humans behind Courtland’s actions,” Endora continued, “or who they might be, but if they exist we’ll find out in due course.”

  “May I ask how the identification was made?”

  “Partly as a result of your actions on Hawaiki,” Endora said, “and partly by backtracking those who arrived in great haste this morning to claim General Tumusok’s body. These included Myriad City’s Chief of Police, by the way.”

  Aristide looked at Daljit. “That’s two of the security services compromised,” he said.

  “They were being very careful about sending
messages to one another,” Endora said. “For the most part they took guidance from AIs they brought with them, which meant they didn’t have to communicate with Courtland very often. But reports had to go back and forth sooner or later. Everything is on record, and the track is very plain.”

  Daljit took the cup of coffee from Aristide’s hand and sipped at it.

  “What about General Tumusok?” she asked.

  “He has been reincarnated from a three-month-old backup, and has been briefed by Commissar Lin and me. He’s already taking charge of the human end of this investigation.”

  A gust of wind blew Daljit’s hair across her face. Aristide swept it back with a delicate finger.

  “How are Grax, Herenui, and Cadwal?” he asked.

  “They were uploaded, then downloaded again into new, untainted bodies without the rogue’s modifications. Once they got over the shock, they revealed everything they knew.”

  Aristide took his coffee cup from Daljit’s fingers, and took a thoughtful sip.

  “Herenui’s group could have tried to take me earlier than they did,” he said. “Do we know why they didn’t?”

  “They were busy taking others,” Endora said. “A whole group of nine visitors traveling together.”

  “Caught in their net,” Aristide murmured.

  “Taken all at once in those caves, yes. They’ve returned, in standard human bodies, and are now being tracked to see who they report to.”

  Aristide looked at Daljit. “I suppose there’s no reason to stay at sea,” he said.

  “No,” Endora said. “Though since both of you have finished your assignments, and as neither of you have any official status in this emergency, you have no obligation to return.”

  Daljit put an arm around Aristide and kissed him. Her lips tasted of coffee.

  “I think we’ll go back,” she said.

  Aristide ordered the boat to return to Myriad City. It swung off the wind, its pitching easing, and then the headsails went slack as the fore- and mainsail boomed out to either side. The water laughed under the counter as the boat’s pace increased. The sound of the breeze fell nearly to nothing as the boat began running at nearly the speed of the wind.

  Their breakfasts had gone cold, and were fed to the fishes as the galley was instructed to prepare more. Aristide sat in the cockpit with Daljit as they shared their coffee and baguette.

  “It won’t take long for Courtland to realize he’s been found out,” Aristide said. “These are the last hours of peace.”

  “Yes.”

  He stared at the brilliant horizon with eyes that stared into a void. “Fifteen hundred years,” he said. “Centuries of astounding progress… functional immortality, travel to the stars, the creation of dozens of pocket universes tailored just for humanity. But during that time I’ve also seen fifteen hundred years of folly, waste, missed opportunities, and stupidity. Which outweighs the other? There are billions more useless, worthless human beings in the universe now than there ever were, and I justified it by saying that at least there wasn’t a war… by which I mean a real war.” He sighed. “And now we finally have one. And I’ve seen so much absurdity that I’m not even surprised. I thought it would happen ages ago.”

  She watched him from beneath her even brows, her coffee cup held by both hands just below her chin.

  “How do we fix it?” she asked. “What’s the plan?”

  He rose, paced the length of the cockpit, and put his hands in his pockets.

  “I don’t have one. I’ve been operating entirely on instinct, at least when Lin lets me.”

  She smiled. “Your instincts are pretty good, if you don’t mind my saying.”

  His lips echoed her smile, though with a grimmer twist. “After fifteen hundred years, they had better be.” The carbon-fiber masts bent to a gust, and he looked up at the sails aglow with the dancing reflection of the water. “The martial arts training helps,” he said. “I’ve been living in the moment for centuries, without any plan other than pursuing whatever seemed interesting at the time. My basic needs were taken care of, and Endora gave me my little bribes, and so why not?” He frowned. “Perhaps I was the worthless one, living in my Zen paradise.” He touched his upper lip with a knuckle. “We need more than the moment now, that’s certain.”

  “Fortunately,” she said, “it’s not all up to you anymore.”

  “Fortunately?” he said softly. “We’ll see.”

  She rose to join him, putting an arm around his waist.

  “If these are the last hours of peace,” she said, “we should treasure them.”

  “Yes. We should.”

  They kissed.

  The masts groaned as a gust of wind caught the boat, and carried it toward the towers of Myriad City, and the certainty of war.

  10

  It was past noon by the time Fathom Deep eased into its berth in Myriad City. As he left the port Aristide detected a slightly frantic quality to the metropolis, as if the great city had somehow sensed it was already at war. Road traffic had a sullen, aggressive quality, and those traveling on foot seemed uncertain when they weren’t rushing along in furious haste. Even the gliders that floated overhead seemed in a hurry to get somewhere.

  Aristide and Daljit managed to avoid being trampled by the relentless mob of pedestrians as they walked to the nearest trackline station. She was going to Fedora’s lab, and from there to her regular work at the Institute. Aristide intended to visit a pool of life, to dispose of the Franz Sandow body and return to the body with which he’d walked across Midgarth.

  He supposed he would have to make a concession to the modern world and accept an implant.

  His capsule hissed up to the platform. “See you tonight?” he said.

  “Sure.”

  “Where shall we meet?”

  “Come to my apartment after work hours. You know where it is.”

  The small capsule had filled with impatient people glaring at him. He waved goodbye and stepped inside, where he had time to grab a strap before accelerating smoothly away. Two minutes later the car stopped at the Medical Center, and as he exited Aristide was almost trampled by rushing medical personnel.

  Moving at a more refined pace, Aristide walked past the two glowing holographic balls that marked the station entrance—each was blazoned with a caduceus, as those of the port station had been marked with an anchor—and then he strolled to the annex that contained the pools of life. While waiting his turn he called Commissar Lin on his implant.

  “I can’t talk for long,” Lin answered “I’m about to go into a meeting with Coy Coy.”

  “Who’s Coy Coy?” Aristide asked.

  “General Tumusok,” said Lin. “It’s what his friends call him.”

  “You’re his friend now?”

  “I have that pleasure, yes.”

  “Felicitations,” Aristide said. “I thought I’d call to let you know I have returned to the city, and to offer my services to you or to the general.”

  Lin’s tone was distracted. “I imagine you’ll be formally debriefed within the next few days. But as you have no official standing—”

  “War is a matter for officials?”

  “At present, yes.”

  “You know,” thoughtfully, “that isn’t my experience of war at all.”

  “I’m sure that once things get under way, your presence would be of great value on committees and other consultative bodies.”

  Aristide was vexed. It seemed to him that he had earned a place on Coy Coy’s council of war.

  “Let’s hope so,” he said, a bit pointedly.

  “By the way, I’ve heard from my opposite numbers on Hawaiki. They were wondering about your weapon.”

  “Beg pardon?”

  “What did you use to take off the big one’s leg? They said microsurgery couldn’t have been neater. And a part of the boat was cut away as well.”

  “Was it? I don’t remember.”

  “Did you use some kind of laser?”


  “Something like that,” Aristide said. “If you’ll excuse me, I see that it’s my turn for a pool of life.”

  Lin excused him. Aristide, who had not in fact been summoned for anything, sat in the waiting room and considered for a long moment the features of the ongoing war. How would the other pockets be alerted safely? The others of the Eleven? How many of Courtland’s population had been converted to the cause of the Venger? Possibly Coy Coy knew the answers, but Aristide didn’t.

  Vast and important things were happening, and he was not a part of it. Though he was willing to admit that the Domus had a point in not making use of him, he resented being kept in the dark.

  He had been through this kind of war once already. He wondered if Coy Coy could say the same.

  When his turn came, he went to the pool of life. A few hours later, he rose a new man. Franz Sandow’s clothes did not fit him well, and he used his implant to order new clothing to be delivered to Daljit’s apartment.

  For a moment he considered whether or not to pick up the new Bitsy, who had been created but was currently deactivated, waiting in storage. He decided that as he planned to spend the night with Daljit, and she wasn’t fond of Bitsy, he’d return on the morrow and activate Bitsy then.

  As Aristide left the Life Annex, he saw crowds surging around the entrance to the main hospital building. The air had a smoky tang. Aristide asked his implant what was going on, and was told that there had been an explosion at the Stellar chemical plant. He felt a degree of relief—his nerves were keyed to war, and they were eased by the reminder that accidents, too, could cause casualties.

  He walked to the trackline station, and immediately a sleek capsule, all windows and streamlined composites, drew up and disgorged a mob of chemical plant employees coming to be checked for contamination. Though none seemed to have injuries, they all seemed angry, and shouted at each other as they barged past Aristide toward the hospital entrance.

  Aristide stepped into the capsule and asked it to take him to Daljit’s apartment. Apparently he was the only person in the trackline system who wanted to go there, because the capsule didn’t stop to pick up anyone else en route. Aristide left the capsule, took the escalators to the apartment lobby, and was challenged by the building’s AI—which, after scanning his biometrics, let him pass. Daljit must have told the AI to expect him.