by Steve Perry
There was an assembly, to meet the great man. Dirisha stood near the back of the auditorium, watching Massey, the spy. If ever a man should be safe from attack, it ought to be here, but Massey was a question mark. He might be willing to take out Carlos, if it could be blamed on the school.
The leader of the Antag Union arrived, smiling and talking with Pen as he walked. He was a big man, with flaming red hair set in a conservative cut, wearing an uninteresting gray business tunic and trousers, his feet shod in custom-spun dotic boots to match his clothes.
He and Pen were surrounded by a retinue, all Carlos's people, since Dirisha recognized none of them. Four of the party looked to be accountants or advisors; the final pair were obviously bodyguards. Dirisha focused her attention on the last two men, both of whom were large, easy-moving, and constantly watching the sixty or so students in the auditorium, eyes shifting alertly.
Weapons, if they carried them, were well-hidden. They weren't bad, but not in the same class as a matador. The taller of the bodyguards was an attractive man who looked oddly pale, his blue eyes and skin tone not matching his black hair. Well.
Dirisha could hardly fault his genetics, with her own green eyes and black skin.
As the group passed Dirisha, she glanced away, to check Massey's position, and so almost missed the second clue. She looked back at Carlos, who leaned over to say something to Pen, and his gaze met hers for a second.
He smiled, showing nice crinkle lines at the edges of his green eyes. He and Pen could go into business and make a fortune, they could sell the secret to those smile lines-Dirisha's own smile stopped. The group reached the sunken stage, and Pen began to speak. The focused micro-caster amplified his voice so that it filled the auditorium. Dirisha listened with half her attention: she was busy watching the black-haired, blue-eyed bodyguard.
"We are honored by the visit of Rajeem Carlos of the Antag Union," Pen said. "Prebendary Carlos has traveled a long way-"
Dirisha spared Massey a glance, saw he was watching Carlos intently, and grinned. Carlos was in no danger. Pen knew who Massey was, after all, even if she was wrong. But she didn't think she was. Oh, it was possible, of course, such slim clues, but they were just the kind of thing Pen loved to use. Skin stain was cheap, and droptacs could do miracles, if they were serious; but if she were right, Pen was practically flaunting it, and she couldn't let him get away with it, they'd never hear the end of it.
"-will be observing our training for the next few days. Feel free both to comment to him candidly, and ask him questions."
There was her opening. Dirisha strode down the aisle until she was only a few meters away from the speaker's platform. Pen spotted her. "Dirisha?"
She looked at the red-haired man. "Do you wear droptacs, Prebendary Carlos?"
The man looked startled. "Why, no. Why do you ask?"
Dirisha looked at Pen, and grinned. Under his cowl, he grinned back. She shifted her gaze away and to the black-haired bodyguard. The man regarded her calmly, with a hint of humor in his blue eyes. "Then I'd like to welcome you to Matador Villa, on behalf of the students."
Several students laughed behind her, as they understood what she was doing.
Pen said, "How many of you knew, before Dirisha spoke?"
Dirisha turned. No hands were raised.
"How many of you still don't know?"
Two dozen hands were raised.
Pen nodded at Dirisha. "Clues?"
"The obvious ones-eyes and skin tone."
Pen walked three steps to his left, and stood next to the bodyguard.
"Students and instructors, this is Prebendary Rajeem Carlos." He gestured at the bodyguard. "And the man smiling at you over there is an imposter. How many of you read the dossier on Pr. Carlos before he arrived?"
All but a few hands were raised.
"Good, I expected no less. But I am disappointed that more of you failed to see the ruse. Congratulations, Dirisha."
Dirisha acknowledged Pen's compliment, then looked at the real Carlos.
The man smiled broadly, and Dirisha felt a stirring of something within her.
He was attractive, not really handsome, but she could feel his ki flowing forth powerfully. Not at all what she had thought he would be from his file.
In his close-fitting clothing, she could see his frame was well-muscled, hardly what she'd expected.
The galaxy was just full of surprises.
The winters on this part of Renault were mild; enough so that Dirisha only wore a light jacket over her orthoskins as she walked through the scrubby trees a klick away from the school. She'd explored this area dozens of times in the last few years, but each time seemed to bring her a taste of the new.
Today, there was a sense of something impending, a feeling of tension, as if the air were full of positive ions, awaiting the release of a cleaning storm.
Past the scrub was an irregular ring of waxy-leaved evergreen bushes, two meters tall, a brooding green against the stark winterscape. Dirisha would sometimes sit and meditate within the circle of thick vegetation, for the bushes absorbed wind and sound well enough to give the enclosed space a relaxing stillness.
Today, when she approached the circle, Dirisha felt the presence of another within, the ki of someone she had come to know. So she was not surprised when she saw Pen sitting seiza near the center of the grove of evergreens. That he was waiting for her, she doubted not at all.
Dirisha knelt across from Pen a meter and a half away and settled onto her heels, a mirror of his pose. She waited.
After a moment. Pen spoke.
"You saw Carlos before you left the school." Not a question.
"Yes. He was watching Twisp and Kaynon at the range. Red had them working against simulacrums in class-two military armor. Carlos pretended to be most impressed with their ability to find the small cracks in the armor's joints with their spetsdod slugs."
"Pretended to be," Pen said. Again, it was not a question, but a flat statement.
Dirisha took a deep breath. "Yes. He's been here for three days, poking around the classes, nodding sagely at what he sees, making appropriate noises to show he's impressed. It's all a sham, isn't it?"
Pen deflected the question with one of his own. "What do you think of him?"
"He's not what I expected."
A stray breeze found its way past the surrounding bushes and ruffled Pen's robe slightly. His gaze seemed locked on Dirisha, his blue eyes unblinking against the cool wind. He said, "Carlos is a very important man.
More so than you imagine. The Confed is losing its war to stay in control, you know that, but the end is much nearer than almost anyone realizes. It will fall soon, and Rajeem Carlos will be a major force among the ruins-if he survives the collapse. There are hundreds, thousands of people who might rise from the ashes as brilliant lights, many who would lead mankind along a different path, one of peace and nonviolence, but Carlos is one of the brightest and best. We must not lose him."
"I understand what you're saying," Dirisha said. "But your fugue escapes me."
"I don't think it does, Dirisha."
Dirisha met Pen's gaze with her own, but focused past him, thinking. She was pretty sure she understood at least part of what Pen meant. She said,
"Carlos has already made his choice. The rest of his visit is just window dressing."
Pen nodded, once.
Dirisha took a deep breath, and tried to quell the fluttering in her belly.
The sensation would not go away. There could only be one reason for Pen's presence here, and his oblique word dance. She shook her head. "I'm not interested."
Pen said nothing, only kept staring at her.
"I'm not the best, Pen. If you want that, send Geneva with him." That thought wasn't comfortable, either. She had grown more than fond of Geneva, even if she didn't love her.
"Geneva did not see through the disguise."
"Is that what impressed him? It was luck, Pen-"
"No, it wasn't. It
was part of a... design."
Dirisha rose from the kneeling pose to her feet, turning away from Pen to stare at the encircling greenery. This place had become her home, she didn't want to leave, didn't want any changes. There was a kind of security here, more than she'd ever felt before. She had friends here. To leave would be to lose that; she couldn't. She wouldn't. She turned back to face Pen.
He was gone.
Dirisha felt a stab of panic. She darted to the perimeter of the glade, searching for him, but he was not to be seen.
For a moment, Dirisha was afraid she had hallucinated him, but when she touched the ground where Pen had knelt, the earth was warm.
She stood alone in the clearing for a long time after Pen vanished, thinking.
Her mind was filled with turmoil. What was his comment about her luck being part of a design all about? True, Dirisha felt drawn to Carlos somehow, as if he were comfortable and familiar in a way she couldn't put a finger on, but even Pen's manipulations couldn't extend that far. She'd never met the man before, never seen him or known much of anything about him until she read his file. Even Pen couldn't see the future, or tell how somebody would react to another person. Or could he? She remembered his talk to her about Geneva, the day they'd gone walking together. He had been pretty sure Geneva would fall in love with her, hadn't he? Damn, what was Pen up to?
What devious game did he have her playing? She could not shake the feeling that she was a puppet, and that her strings had just been pulled, carefully and expertly; that no matter what she did, Pen would expect it.
Damn!
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
NINE ARMED SIMULACRA charged Dirisha, crowding each other in the confines of the shooting range. Nine was the limit of the viral intelligence that created the ersatz-reality of the combat range, and nobody had ever beaten that many opponents at once.
Dirisha dodged, rolled, fired, leaped, fired again and again, filling the air with the sounds of her spetsdods. She was good... but she wasn't that good.
On her seventh hit, she side-stepped a throwing steel, only to feel the tingle of a particle spitter. Seven out of nine, not bad, but dead was dead. She shut down the range, disgusted. No, it wasn't so much disgust as it was anger. She felt a rage, and she reached for the simulacrum control, intending to dial up another half-dozen attackers, unarmed ones this time. She wanted to kick something. Or somebody.
She became aware of another presence as she touched the control. Geneva.
Dirisha turned, away from the generator, to look at her friend and lover.
"I take it you've heard?" Dirisha said.
Geneva nodded. Her face looked grave.
"Don't look so gloomy, brat. I'm not going anywhere."
Geneva waved a hand at the firing range. "Why are you so upset?"
Dirisha considered that. She had been considering it ever since she had spoken to Pen in the clearing earlier. She wasn't sure she knew. But she decided to try to express it. "Pen's twisty mind," she said. "I get the feeling he expected me to see through the bodyguard switch; that he expected Carlos to decide he wanted me for a guard; that there are things going on here I haven't begun to see. I feel like a chess pawn, a single Go stone, without an inkling of the over-all strategy of the larger game."
Geneva moved closer, so that she could reach out and touch Dirisha. She did so, stroking the older woman's face with the trembling fingers of one hand. The beginnings of tears pooled in Geneva's eyes, and she said, "I think you should consider going with Carlos."
Dirisha was shocked. Geneva was the last person she'd expect to say that!
"You want me to leave?"
The twin pools of tears brimmed and overflowed. "No. Oh, no. More than anything in the universe, I want you to stay."
"But... ?"
"But Pen does understand things you and I don't. All this-" she waved to encompass Matador Villa "-all this is important in some larger plan, that I do know. If Pen thinks Rajeem Carlos is so valuable a person that he wants the best of us to protect him, there must be a good reason."
Dirisha raised her hand and touched Geneva's arm. "Hon, I'm not the best, you are-"
"No," Geneva interrupted. "I can shoot a little straighter or faster, maybe, but there's something in you I don't have, Dirisha, a kind of... depth-"
"Shit there is-"
"It's true. Pen can see it."
Dirisha turned away, to stare at the firing range. After a moment, she turned back to face Geneva, who was crying soundlessly, the tears streaming and falling from her face. "Did he talk to you? Pen?"
Geneva nodded.
"Damn him! And are you supposed to convince me to zip off with Carlos."
"I said I'd talk to you."
Dirisha wanted to scream. That Pen would use Geneva this way was reprehensible! He knew the girl was in love with her, that she would do anything in Dirisha's best interest Dammit, he had gone too far!
Dirisha hugged Geneva to her. "Easy, hon. I'm going to have a little talk with Pen, you just don't worry about anything, you hear? Just don't worry."
Pen sat behind his desk as Dirisha stormed into the office. The man in gray was playing with a curved knife, shaped much like a plantain, a thing of mirror steel, polished brass and close-grained wood. It seemed nothing so much as a fang to Dirisha, a steel tooth from some mechanical monster.
"Ah," Pen said. "I've been expecting you. Sit down."
"I'll stand," Dirisha said, barely holding her anger in check.
Pen continued to twirl the knife; light reflected from the blade, glinting against the cool walls. After a moment, Pen held the knife up, staring at it.
"This was part of Emile Khadaji's training," Pen said. "A lesson in basics, about how even simple things can be very important." He looked away from the blade, at Dirisha, and set the knife upon his desk. "You remember the first time you came into this office."
"I remember. Listen, I don't think much of what you did to Geneva-"
"I told you then we had something here you hadn't found in the Flex," Pen continued, ignoring Dirisha's interruption. "It's been almost five years. Was I right?"
Dirisha's anger threatened to erupt, but she nodded tightly. "You know you were."
"You've been happy here. Satisfied?"
"Yes, dammit-"
"Have you ever stopped to wonder how most of the people in the galaxy feel about their lives? If they are satisfied? If the ever-present fear of the Confederation monster haunts even their dreams? No, I suppose you haven't.
Emile Khadaji did, and he was willing to spend his life to do something about it. He's been an inspiration for resistance fighters everywhere, the man who took on an army."
"I know that, Pen-"
"We sit here in our comfort, wanting for nothing, while evil is done. To not do something about it is immoral, Dirisha. You have had five years of rest, of peace, of training. Don't you think it's time you paid your dues? Put that training and skill to use?"
Dirisha found her anger dissipating. What Pen said had occurred to her before. She had been given a free ride, paid to become better, faster, happier.
Had she really thought she deserved it, for nothing in return? No. It didn't work that way. You had to earn what you got, always.
"You can stay here as long as you wish," Pen continued. "But I wonder if you can stay, knowing that by being elsewhere you could do something important, something worthwhile? Something beyond yourself, for the first time. Something to help your fellow human beings to find a better path than the one they are now forced to tread."
Dirisha moved to the only other chair in the room, and sat. Helping the sheep meant nothing; playing by her own rules did, and honor was one of those rules. You pay for what you get and you don't owe anybody. She didn't want to leave this place, not ever, it was the home she'd never had as a child, but she owed for it. Pen had called her on it, and Dirisha knew she couldn't ignore that particular call. You owe us, Dirisha, and the time has come to pay.
Okay.
Okay.
"I think what you did with Geneva sucks vac, Pen. I think you've gotten so used to manipulating people you think you're some kind of god, it doesn't matter what you're doing it for, in the long run. I don't think you care about anybody or anything, save this serpentine game you're playing."
For a moment, she saw pain touch his eyes, and she fancied she could see through the opaque shroud he always wore in public, to a face twisted in regret. Then the moment was gone, and the unperturbable, inscrutable mask returned.
"But you'll take the job with Carlos?"
"Yeah, I'll take the goddamned job."
There was a graduation ceremony, of a sort. Dirisha had attended dozens, without ever really thinking she'd be the woman onstage someday. Early on, maybe, she'd wanted that, but later, once the school became home, that had changed. It wasn't that elaborate a set-up, no big deal.
Still, there was something about it that Dirisha found... stirring. Matadors usually graduated one at a time, people learned at different speeds, and Pen was always one for precision. You left when you and he thought you were ready.
Standing on the stage in front of the assembled students, Dirisha knew that she and Pen both knew she had been ready for a long time. She just hadn't reached the leaping off point on her own.
Pen flowed onto the stage, as smooth as usual, dressed as always. Dirisha wore a new set of gray orthoskins, newly spun dotic boots, and both spetsdods. It was Khadaji's uniform, the same kind as he had worn on Greaves, and while there was no rule against it, no graduating matador or ma-tadora ever wore anything else. The imagery was clear: when you hired a matador, you were hiring somebody cast in the same mold as Emile Antoon Khadaji, the Man Who Never Missed. Quite a selling point, from what Dirisha knew. The only difference was the shoulder patch, a hand-sized, bright red holographic splotch, shaped like a small cape. Floating over the cape was an androgynous human figure, dressed in a kind of tight-fitting coverall. A suit of lights, Pen called it, worn only by the original matadors of Old Earth.
Pen moved to stand next to Dirisha. The already-quiet room grew tangibly more so, as if no one dared even breathe.
