So Vindex had been presented with a deadline—whatever his next operation, it was best undertaken before Courtland was too debilitated.
And so far all the Venger’s schemes had a certain consistency. They were aimed at throwing his enemies off-balance and making it difficult for them to respond effectively. The other element the Venger’s plans had in common was their lack of success: though they’d thrown off his enemies’ equilibrium, they hadn’t yet caused collapse.
Vindex lacked the sheer strength to attempt a direct invasion or conquest—or so Aristide hoped. So Aristide suspected that the next attack would be another destabilizing strike.
But what?
Aristide sipped coffee and contemplated this while he watched the carbon-fiber masts bend like whips before the wind.
Aristide wondered whether another plague was in the works, and if so, how it would be spread. Surely most of the Venger’s agents had been rounded up, and whoever remained driven far underground. Their ability to spread a new plague, let alone to construct one, must now be severely restricted.
Daljit’s committee, he recalled, would be trying to anticipate and duplicate the Venger’s work. Presumably they had anticipated Aristide’s questions: perhaps they had even answered a few.
And, he thought, he knew next to nothing about them.
He called up the boat’s AI and asked for a search on Kagame. A lengthy list of publications appeared, dozens of opaque titles which no doubt would be comprehensible to a geneticist. News items about postings and awards were also listed, as was a list of victims on which Kagame’s name appeared.
Despite her ferocious, scaly appearance, it seemed that Kagame had been killed by a zombie on the day of the plague.
Idly, Aristide looked at Huang, then Osbert. More lists of incomprehensible publications, more awards, more promotions. And two more deaths: Huang had been killed by a zombie, and Osbert had been a zombie until, waving a chair leg, he had made the mistake of pursuing a desperate motorist onto the street, and been run over.
Aristide was amused. Daljit and her committee had a very personal stake in defeating the enemy. Vindex had killed them all, and they wanted to get even. They were avengers, perhaps more so even than the creature who called himself Vindex.
So were a very large percentage of the volunteers for the army, Aristide knew. There was nothing like corporeal extinction to make a conflict personal.
Out of curiosity Aristide checked the vitae of the three newer members of the committee, those who had joined after the original four. They also were victims of zombie plague.
Well, he thought as he blanked the screen, now it is getting morbid.
He drank coffee and watched the somber night ocean and thought about Vindex, who so far had been several moves ahead of any of his enemies. Whatever his next strike was going to be, he would have worked it out long ago.
Lin’s words echoed in his thoughts. The zombie plague accomplished all that was intended… It had distracted the authorities, it had provided cover for his seizure of Courtland and the attempts on civil government elsewhere. It had made Vindex a byword for terror among the general population.
But on the other hand it had completely mobilized public opinion against Vindex and his works. Volunteers were flooding in, as the army recruits and Daljit’s committee showed.
But suppose, Aristide thought suddenly, that was the point?
He looked at his hand and saw his coffee cup shaking to a sudden charge of adrenaline. He fought the surge as he tried to work logically through the reasoning that had just led to his thunderclap conclusion.
Suppose, in addition to the confusion and terror, the zombie plague had been intended to create dead bodies.
Because those bodies would then be rebuilt and resurrected. And if you could control that procedure, such that a few minor tweaks could be made to the brain…
You would have an army. An army that could quietly organize, as Daljit and her committee had organized. That could join the military so as to gain access to weapons. That could form a committee like Daljit’s that would gain access to secret government bioweapons labs, in order to produce a plague that would produce even more bodies.
As he sat silently in the cockpit he strove to brake his runaway imagination. How likely was this? he thought. You couldn’t make any obvious changes to the minds of the victims; the alterations would have to be more subtle than those made on the first generation of the Venger’s clients. And somehow you’d have to slip the change past all the safeguards that warded the pools of life against tampering…
Pillars of light flashed on the horizon, reaching down from the heavens like the fingers of God. Aristide blinked against the sudden dazzle. Rainbows flashed from the wave-peaks.
Daylight flooded the world as the sun destabilized. Overhead, the sails were curves of brilliant color against the azure sky.
He gave a start as there was a thump from the hatch, and Daljit stepped into the light, wearing a cheerful blue windbreaker with gold stripes. He stared at her wildly. She returned his gaze from beneath her level brows.
“You know,” she said.
She took another step and swung the piece of pipe she’d held concealed behind her body. Aristide was awkwardly placed in the cockpit and he didn’t drop his cup and get his arm up in time. His head rocked to the blow. Darkness filled his vision.
He knew that he didn’t dare let her strike again. He lurched toward her, caught her in blind, outstretched arms, and drove her against the side of the cabin. She swung the pipe again, but he was inside the range of the weapon and it only thumped against his back. Arms around her, he swung her around but lost his balance. Both fell heavily against the cockpit coaming.
Aristide could feel his strength and his consciousness fading. Daljit was cursing him, hitting him in the face with her fists. He reached for her throat, clamped a hand on the collar of her windbreaker. Pain rocketed through his skull. Acid flooded his tongue. In an exercise of pure strength Daljit managed to stand, bracing one knee on the coaming. His legs wouldn’t support him and he let her drag him upright. Her spittle peppered his face. With slow deliberation he reached his other hand to her collar: he now had his hands crossed under her chin, palms down, a fistful of collar in each hand.
He leaned toward her and rotated his palms right-side up, the curved insides of his wrists slicing into her neck to cut her air supply and the flood of blood to her brain. She choked and he felt her sway. Desperate hands clawed at his wrists.
The boat lurched and both fell. The shock of the cold water was stunning but he kept his hold.
They bobbed in Fathom Deep’s wake as the boat hissed onward.
His last thought was of the necessity of hanging on.
14
He rose through the blood-warm liquid and opened his eyes. The light was dim and welcoming; the air was warm; in the shadowy light he saw three silhouettes.
He turned on one side and efficiently expelled fluid from his lungs. The fluid cooperated and flowed out in one long stream. He drew in a welcome breath. Alveoli crackled in his chest as they expanded with air.
His eyes adjusted. There was a woman technician, an unknown man with pale skin, and he recognized the third.
“Commissar,” he said.
“Doctor.”
He passed a hand over his damp hair.
“Was it zombies?” he asked.
“Probably not,” said Lin. “Apparently you fell off a boat and drowned.”
Aristide was genuinely surprised. He looked down at the silvery fluid that was draining from his coffin-shaped pool of life. “How long have I lost?”
“You last backed yourself up eight days ago.”
“Did anything happen in that time?” he asked. “Other than committee meetings?”
“We’re reconstructing the time as best we can. So far we’ve found nothing very exciting.”
“And as for the meetings,” said Bitsy, as she jumped onto the edge of the pool of life, �
�I can give you access to the minutes.”
He closed his eyes. “I’ll look forward.”
Lin’s walleyes were narrowed. “We haven’t recovered the bodies yet, but when we do, we’ll have a clearer idea of what occurred.”
Aristide looked at him. “Bodies? More than one?”
“Two people went missing from the boat.”
Aristide thought about that. “Was there a third party aboard?”
“According to the sailboat, no. When the boat sensed the combined weight of its passengers disappear, it launched lifesavers, began circling the area, and called for help. But apparently you went under quickly.”
“Who was the other passenger?”
Lin’s eyes opened fully. “Daljit,” he said.
He absorbed this, and then the realization came to him of what must have happened; and sudden bliss descended, a warm tingling knowledge that filled him to his fingertips. She had done this for him, he thought. Out of love she had given him this gift.
He looked at Lin. “I’m cold,” he said. “Can I get up?”
“If you’re ready.” It was the technician who spoke.
He rose, rubbed himself with a towel although by now he was perfectly dry, and dressed in simple clothing that the clinic had manufactured for him based on his physical template.
“There was blood in the cockpit,” Lin said, as Aristide slipped on his shoes. “Your blood, in fact.”
Aristide looked dubious. “While Daljit and I might have had a fight over something, I very much doubt she went after me with a cleaver.”
“Again,” said Bitsy.
“No,” Aristide corrected. “The first time was a kitchen knife.”
“The bodies will tell, when we get them,” said Lin.
“Where’s Daljit?” Aristide asked.
“Down the hall,” said Bitsy. “Being reassembled.”
“I’d like to see her.”
“Sergeant Brady and I will have to see her first,” Lin said. “She’d backed herself up just that morning; perhaps she’ll be able to tell us…” He shrugged.
Aristide grinned. “You think she’ll confess homicidal intent?”
Lin made an equivocal gesture. “I doubt it very much, but I’m afraid it’s necessary we follow procedure.”
Aristide found himself in a familiar waiting room scented with antiseptic and flowers, sitting on a chair while he let Bitsy bring him up-to-date on current events. While he listened, he treasured his secret glow, his knowledge of his own clandestine purpose.
When Daljit finally appeared, Aristide rose and kissed her, and in the soft touch of her lips and the glow in her eyes he knew that she loved him almost as much as she loved Vindex.
He was the same person, with the same personality. The difference was simply that now he had been ennobled. Before he had lived for his own selfish, foolish reasons; and now he lived for something great, something wonderful and perfect.
On that first day it was some hours before he and Daljit could be alone. When they were finally together in her apartment, they came together with an urgency that Aristide had never felt with anyone else. He loved her not simply for herself, but for the knowledge that she loved Vindex. He removed her clothing, touching, licking, sniffing for the traces of Vindex that he knew were there. When they coupled, she whispered “Vindex victorious” in his ear, and the words produced a prolonged ecstasy that left him breathless, without speech.
Too excited to sleep, they paced through the apartment and found it too confining. They then went to the rooftop garden of the tall building, where they could see the great city spread out below them in a golden glow. There they coupled again in an ecstasy of love for Vindex, and only then did weariness touch their minds.
In the morning they shared a breakfast on the balcony, and Aristide looked out at the world below and saw it, and himself, anew.
The gusting wind brought the scent of coffee to his nostrils. He took his cup and sipped and looked out over the waking city.
“I’m struck by how sad I have been,” he said, “and for so long.”
“Really? You didn’t seem that way to me.”
“I’ve lived a long life—longer than practically anyone. I’ve seen so much, forgotten so much. I had to create poetry in order to help me remember things.” He looked at her. “I remember the lines I wrote about you better than I remember you.”
She was amused. “I had no idea I was so forgettable.”
“It wasn’t you.” His gaze brooded over the city. “It was me. I accomplished wonderful things in my first century, and then less and less as time went on. I abandoned my old career because the Eleven were so much better at it than I was, and I replaced it with an Arabian Nights costume drama. Eight hundred years of martial arts training led to nothing. A series of relationships with women, all without passion, all ended amiably.”
He turned to her, his gaze afire. “It has taken Vindex to remind me of what I am capable. I have worked wonders, and I can work them again—but this time for our Master.”
Daljit put down her coffee cup and leaned forward to whisper into his ear.
“Vindex victorious.”
A thrill ran along his nerves. He stroked her arm.
“I am so in love,” he said.
He began his work for Vindex. With Daljit’s friends he shared his knowledge of the meetings of the Standing Committee, of the work that had been done on the army. He told them that the United Powers were planning an invasion of Courtland.
What was done with the information was unclear. Aristide only knew that it was passed on beyond Daljit’s circle. He thrilled to the idea that it would somehow reach Vindex, that Vindex would recognize Aristide’s devotion.
In theory it wouldn’t be hard to send messages to Vindex. You’d have to get out into space with a communications laser and aim it at Courtland, which was more than intelligent enough to read photon-pulses on its skin.
It would be harder for messages to go the other way without being detected. No one among the Venger’s agents in Myriad City claimed to have received their Master’s orders, but then it was scarcely necessary. The Venger’s agents were intelligent people: they knew what to do.
Aristide continued to attend meetings of the Standing Committee when it was discussing matters within his sphere, and he began to undergo military training—in simulation only, as the actual hardware had not yet been built. Not only was he able to pass on military information through Daljit and her friends, but within the growing army he made many new friends among those who had been killed in the zombie plague, all of whom were now devoted to the cause of Vindex.
He consulted with Daljit and the others about how to present himself to the Venger’s unenlightened foes. The decision was made to keep Bitsy. People expected to see him with the black-and-white cat, and they would think it odd if Bitsy were to disappear from his life—and more to the point, Endora would think it odd as well. But since Daljit had already been well established as someone who didn’t care for Bitsy’s company, Aristide was able to keep Bitsy away from his meetings with Daljit and her friends, and do so without raising suspicion.
Commissar Lin, however, troubled him.
“We’ve found the bodies,” Lin said two days after Aristide’s resurrection. He gazed mildly over the bow of the Standing Committee’s floating headquarters, his wide-set eyes encompassing the horizon.
“You were tangled together—in one another’s arms. You’d received a blow on the head, but beyond some superficial scrapes Daljit suffered no physical injury.”
Aristide affected to consider this. “So I hit my head and fell in,” he said, “and I dragged Daljit in after me when she tried to help.”
“That’s a likely scenario,” Lin said. He turned to Aristide. “The boat tells us it was heeled far over on a reach, so you could have overbalanced. And the sun switched on around that point, so you might have been dazzled and taken a misstep.”
“Well then,” Aristide said. “I
suppose that solves the mystery.”
“We can’t rule out anything,” Lin said. “But in the absence of any other evidence, there’s no reason to continue the investigation.”
“Since you’re no longer digging into our lives,” Aristide said, “perhaps you’d care to join us for dinner one night.”
Lin smiled. “Thank you very much. I accept with pleasure.”
“We should kill Lin,” Aristide told Daljit that evening, as they dined on her terrace. “He makes me uneasy—he’s simply too intelligent and too good at his job.”
“The acting head of the Domus on Topaz,” Daljit said,”would be a perfect recruit.”
“But he’s got guards now. It won’t be easy.”
“Depends on the guards. Are any of them… our friends?”
“Ah. Perhaps they are.”
Their smiles mirrored one another. In silence and perfect accord, they reached across the table to take one another’s hands.
Plans for Lin’s assassination began to unfold just as Aristide’s military training began in earnest, in a new-built facility called Camp Ashoka. In addition to learning vast amounts of technical information, actual drill was involved—physical conditioning as well as the traditional close-order marching. During operations, soldiers would be able to survive and fight only so long as their bodies held out, and conditioning was judged essential. Even though the recruits’ bodies were in very good shape to start with—few people incarnated themselves in bodies that were poorly conditioned—and even though the conditioning sessions were aided by drugs and nanomachines, the drill sessions still left Aristide exhausted by the end of the day.
In addition, the drill sessions were conducted by the traditional loud-voiced, bullying, randomly violent drill instructors, almost all recruited from less advanced worlds like Midgarth, New Qom, and the Other New Jerusalem, places where wars were either recent or ongoing. In order for the recruits to understand war, it was felt that they should first have war made on them, and survive with intelligence and spirit intact. Besides, shared misery was judged essential to creating comradeship and unit cohesion.
Implied Spaces Page 21
