“Are you still in contact with it?” Bason asked.
“In contact with it?” Lau Sul said.
“Never mind,” Bason said cagily.
“I think she means, do you have any personnel on the Grandis 459’s cargo section – in the shipyard – anywhere up there,” Gandicon said, as they accelerated further. He couldn’t have said why he kept Karturi’s secret, except that it was evidently important to her that she keep something back. If it turned out that the Lawkeeps of the Old Enclave really didn’t know about the machine mind, and needed to, he could always tell them.
They took a corner at speed and Gandicon was sure they were going to tip over, but they stayed upright.
“No, it’s abandoned,” Lau Sul answered, and this time she definitely gave Gandicon a sidelong glance. “There was a bit of a custodial presence over there, but it all closed down and went silent thousands of years ago.”
Gandicon glanced at Bason, who returned the look blankly. “How many thousands of years?” he asked.
Lau Sul gave him another look. “How much do you know?” she asked. “Where are you getting your information?”
“About what?” Gandicon asked. “About the cargo section, the asteroid belt, the coming threat? Like I told you, the Bharriom contacted me.”
“Yes, you did say that,” Lau Sul grunted, turning back to the scooter’s controls. “Have you actually seen it? The phantom,” she said impatiently, when Gandicon hesitated. “I’ve heard tales about the heart, about the powers the Bharriom has.”
“Yes,” he said, “it’s manifested to me. To both of us, once we reached close proximity to the crystal. Something about being able reach more fully into the world using me as context, and touching the people I interacted with.”
“And the cultural consciousness your awareness touches,” Karturi put in, just a little sarcastically.
Lau Sul Go’sana shook her head with wonderment. “What’s it like?”
Gandicon shrugged. “Like a little blue boy who talks like a Riddlespawn,” he said. “Give him a while, and he’ll probably turn up again to hurry us along.”
“A while, I can give you,” Go’sana said. “If you really plan on using the facility to launch yourselves around the sun, it’s going to take a while to get it all up to safety standard.”
“How long?” Bason asked.
“And who do we need to talk to about it?” Gandicon added.
“I have no idea,” Lau Sul replied to Bason first, then turned to glance at Gandicon, “but the Old Enclave Primary Council will.”
XVI
After a considerable trek on the scooter, they disembarked at a more standard underground rollway terminus and stepped onto the smoothly gliding transportation pad. This carried them deeper into the subcity, but moving in a gradually-tightening downward spiral that suggested they were merely descending to another level of the same surface-adjacent region.
“Have you left your post unattended?” Gandicon asked Lau Sul Go’sana as they disembarked and climbed onto another scooter. There were more people around now, all of them Lawkeeps of various ages and in neat variations of Old Enclave military garb.
“A stand-in took over a few minutes after we left,” Lau Sul said, and cackled sharply again. “Although ‘seat-warmer’ would probably be the better job description. It doesn’t really matter, as far as I’m concerned – before you came, we hadn’t had a visitor in almost a year,” she made another harsh, cawing sound of amusement. “And that was a lost tourist.”
“So we weren’t followed from the Grandix building,” Bason said, eyeing Gandicon meaningfully.
“No,” Lau Sul said. “Were you expecting to be?”
“We–” Gandicon started.
“I stole the Bharriom crystals,” Bason interrupted him. “Ghåål’s keeping tabs on me until the proper authorities can be contacted.”
“Ah,” Lau Sul nodded. “I see. Well,” she went on after a long silent scooter-trundle, “I suppose the first step is discussing it with the Council, but I wouldn’t be too worried,” she gave Gandicon a look of mingled approval and sympathy. “If the Bharriom phantom manifests as a self-actualised entity and corroborates your story, then it will legally classify as a sentient dumblermar and your ‘theft’ will constitute lawful liberation. Hadn’t you thought of that?”
“It did occur to me,” Gandicon admitted, “but it seemed too much like wishful interpretation of the legal strictures.”
“Lawkeeps,” Bason muttered.
“Did you say something, Karturi?” Gandicon inquired. “Go’sana and I might be a little hard of hearing, relatively speaking.”
“Right,” Lau Sul chuckled. “We’re old, don’t you know.”
“I know my ears aren’t what they once were,” Gandicon admitted.
Karturi shook her head, but she was smiling in hopeless forbearance. Go’sana’s grin, in contrast, was decidedly wicked.
They reached the Old Enclave Primary Council, which turned out to be another object lesson in expectation management for Gandicon. There were only three Council members present in the small, comfortably-furnished chamber Lau Sul led them to, and two of them were little older than Karturi. The third, a grizzled man somewhere deep between Second and Third Prime, was slurping on a broad cup of something that smelled – from across the room – like ripe carcassback. He looked up when they arrived. The two younger Councillors, immersed in some sort of debate over a flickering data terminal, barely even registered their appearance.
“Go’sana the Great Redistributor,” he said with a broad grin. His eye teeth were unusually thin, and discoloured-yellowish from something in his diet – possibly the awful broth he’d just been drinking. He transferred the cup to his lower hands and set it on a nearby table before heaving himself upright. He was thickset for a Lawkeep, although still lean in comparison to Bason Karturi. “It figures that only a matter of the direst importance would bring you down from your cosy roost.”
“Fee, you silly old bastard,” Lau Sul responded bawdily. “I could smell that you were in session today.”
Fee’s grin widened to show off more narrow, yellow teeth. “Interest you in a cup?”
“Not if I was starving to death.”
“You look like you are,” he turned to the visitors with a little bow. “Forgive our banter,” he said, and lowered his voice nowhere near enough to prevent the other two Councillors from overhearing. “We do like to discomfit the youngsters.”
Gandicon glanced towards the younger Councillors, and noticed that their shoulders had stiffened a little and the nostril-slits of the one facing them had become pinched and pale.
“Councillors,” he said politely to the pair. “Gandicon Ghåål and Bason Karturi, your servants.”
The other two broke off their discussion and rose to greet Gandicon and Bason, but not before Fee nodded and made a welcoming gesture with his lower left hand.
“Ah, the impeccable manners of the surface-folk put us to shame yet again,” he mourned to Go’sana. “Polteus Fanak Fee, your servant. And my fellow Councillors, Maza Ko W’Tei and Chahmalcis Jow.”
“Your servant,” W’Tei and Jow murmured.
“Please, take a seat,” Fee said, “I’ll call for some refreshments – not my homemade chowder, don’t worry – and you can tell me all about the extraordinary conditions of your arrival here at the Enclave. Lau Sul has filled us in on only the barest and most tantalising of details since your arrival at her checkpoint.”
“Like I was going to tell you my life story on this stupid subdermal tapper,” Go’sana snorted, flicking her tough fingers expressively against the palm of her upper right hand.
“Genitals, genitals, genitals,” a discreet communications pad set in the table next to Fee’s chowder cup said flatly. Go’sana and Fee laughed, and W’Tei and Jow added ‘pained’ to their ‘affronted and put-upon’ expressions repertoire.
“But to business,” Fee smiled again as his guests sat, “let me see h
ow much of your tale I can discern from the evidence. Young Karturi here has the bones of a Lawkeep but the bearing of a solid citizen, with a glaze of Three-Sider and a little Lo-Rider seasoning on top. I’d wager she hasn’t come far … the Koi-Jack satellites, maybe New Morrowjack?”
“Very good, Councillor,” Bason said, sounding surprised. Gandicon wasn’t, although he was slightly envious, not to mention embarrassed all over again at his own critical failures when it had come to properly placing Karturi. Fee, for all his levity, was a sharp one.
“Ghåål, on another hand, is at once far more challenging and considerably easier,” the Councillor went on expansively. “Cut him into a thousand slices, and Lawkeep would be written on every one of them, but he’s got a dusting of Single Sigh on him, and a long way from home. And yet … the Ghååls are an old Lawkeep dynasty, and you have Thréu Ghåål’s ears.”
“You knew my mother?” Gandicon said with pleasure.
“Never met her,” Fee said, “rather before my time … but she lived in the Old Enclave for a good stretch of years, and her picture is on display alongside the other Primary Council Founders. Ah, I should clarify,” he added, seeing Gandicon’s surprise, “your mother wasn’t in fact a founding Councillor, but she was connected to the records and held an auxiliary role … well, I’d say it was a long story, but since she came down on the Grandis 459, I suppose ‘long story’ is a given.”
“Fair to say,” Gandicon agreed. “I came in from Bonshoo Drop, by way of Koi Beckons.”
“Indeed, indeed. Big Single Sigh territory, the Drop. And … I am given to understand that a third visitor is currently indisposed, but could be said to be present?” Fee went on, bright eyes roving expectantly around the cosy chamber.
“Yes,” Gandicon said, “it’s really a rather difficult situation, since I know nothing about the Bharriom phantom or the consciousness projecting it.”
“You cannot summon it by kissing a mirror and saying the name of your one true love?” Fee asked whimsically. The door to the chambers opened and another young Lawkeep strode in carrying a covered tray in each pair of hands. “Thank you, Stadius,” the Councillor added.
“I can’t say I’ve tried kissing a mirror,” Gandicon said lightly as Stadius set out the food and departed once more, and the three Councillors, two guests and Go’sana moved in to taste the selection of food and drinks, “but I doubt it would do any good.”
“Well, we will just have to discuss your quest while we wait for him to show up,” Fee said cheerfully, and set about the refreshments as though he hadn’t just finished a cup of idiosyncratic-smelling chowder.
Gandicon, ignoring Bason’s evident misgivings, related his tale up to that moment. At the appropriate time, he set the heart of the starship on the table and induced Karturi to do likewise with the backups. Fee leaned forward with wonder in his eyes, which reflected the soft purple light of the Bharriom. Even W’Tei and Jow seemed impressed.
“I am concerned, obviously, that until such time as the sentience of the Bharriom can be legally established–” Gandicon started.
Polteus Fanak Fee waved a hand. “We understand, of course, the delicacy of the situation,” he said. “Grandix security has been contacted and they are aware of the temporary relocation of the crystals. Naturally, if they have expressed as sentient life and asked you to relocate them, there is no issue – although it is of course rather momentous. If there was a … misunderstanding … then obviously the lack of interference with and the safe return of the heart and its counterparts is paramount. You will be recorded as having been instrumental in this, Gandicon – while Bason will neither be named nor implicated in any wrongdoing. Accidents happen.”
“That’s some accident,” Karturi remarked.
“Yes, well,” Fee popped a pastry in his mouth and slurred happily around it, “there’f no fize limit to atffidentf,” he swallowed. “Far as I know.”
W’Tei spoke up. “So you need to use the facility,” she said, “to get to the shipyard? Keeping in mind,” she added, “that there is no actual structure up there, as far as we know.”
“Apart from the Grandiss 459’s cargo section,” Jow added.
“Yes,” W’Tei agreed. “And that is a derelict. It may have life support capability, but little more. If you do not find anything there, you will need to make a return trip – and with no launching system at that end, the capsule trip will take some months.”
“I see,” Gandicon said.
“The capsule itself can be stocked with at least two years’ worth of food, as well as systems for the generation of atmosphere and water,” W’Tei went on, “but … if you are right about the timetable in question…”
“We may not have that long,” Gandicon finished for her.
“Indeed,” the young Councillor poured herself a drink, and offered the jug to Gandicon. Gandicon, still feeling quite full from the Grandix cafeteria dumplings and juice, declined politely. “The facility is capable of launching a capsule back along Dema’s orbital path,” she explained, “into the oncoming orbit of the debris field and the so-called shipyard. This optimises the relative movement of the target area against the capsule’s velocity, meaning you will clear the orbital arc around the sun in approximately five local days.”
“I understand it would be faster,” Fee put in, “but that level of acceleration is the maximum permitted by the Molran body, and the maximum that can be compensated for by the capsule’s gravity offset. You’re essentially being fired out of a huge cannon, into space,” he said, beaming – and not seeming to notice Bason’s smug glance in Gandicon’s direction. Gandicon pretended not to notice it either. It wasn’t a cannon. It wasn’t. “If you don’t want to be smeared all over the rear wall of the capsule like jam, you need to moderate the acceleration at least a bit.”
“If you don’t mind my asking,” Jow spoke up, addressing Bason, “what is your part in this situation? I understand you were of instrumental technological assistance, but beyond that it seems as though your involvement lacks a satisfactory explanation.”
Karturi looked at Gandicon again, then took a deep breath. There seemed little point – and zero means – of hiding the source of her information any longer.
Before she could speak, the Bharriom phantom flickered into view beside Lau Sul Go’sana’s chair.
XVII
The Councillors and the access checkpoint guard took the appearance of the glowing blue child very well.
“Hello,” Fee said, “are you the heart of the starship?”
“In a sense, Polteus Fanak Fee,” the boy said. “I have manifested into this place through the Bharriom that unites us, with the mind of Gandicon Ghåål acting as a … a vessel, of sorts, or perhaps a gateway. I have a warning for all the Molren of Dema.”
“Gandicon has told us,” Fee said, leaning forward. “We will see to it that your warning is acted upon. We have already begun to make preparations, and we will proceed as quickly as we are able. This sort of threat isn’t exactly what the Old Enclave was founded for, but it may be one of the best-suited organisations…” he paused. “What should we call you?” he asked. “Do you have a name?”
“I do not understand the question,” the boy said.
“But you called me by my name,” Fee said. “You called Gandicon by name.”
“Well, yes,” the boy said. “You are Fee. He is Gandicon,” he smiled at Karturi. “Bason. W’Tei. Jow. Lau Sul.”
“Did you request that Gandicon Ghåål remove you – or at least the Bharriom crystals that house this facet of your consciousness – from the Grandix vault?” W’Tei asked.
“Facet,” Fee said in a low, amused voice. W’Tei sighed inaudibly.
“Yes,” the boy replied. “I told him he had to find the hearts, and he did,” he turned his smile back on Gandicon. “I told him he needed to bring them to the vessels, so that they can be awakened. I trust he is speaking to you in pursuit of this goal.”
“I do believe we’
ve been rebuked,” Fee remarked.
“He’s not the same colour as the crystal,” Lau Sul, who had been staring at the Bharriom phantom in silence, suddenly spoke. “I was expecting him to be the same colour. Not entirely sure why.”
This, like the boy’s name, was something Gandicon had not even thought to ask. He was reassured by the phantom’s inability to answer the question about his name – Gandicon had suspected the question would just confuse the phantom – but the question about the glow … he hadn’t even thought of that. He tried to reassure himself that the Councillors of the Old Enclave had been introduced to the concept of the Bharriom phantom more gently than he had been, and even Bason had done some research into the properties of the crystal. He, on the other hand, had been dropped straight into the thick of the apparition’s appearance and prophetic proclamations, and it had knocked a lot of the questions out of his mind.
“Am I blue?” the boy looked down at his pudgy arm, opened and closed his smooth fingers, then glanced across at the three glowing crystals on the table. “Do you express your intellect in forms other than the manipulation of your bodies?” he asked. “In speech? In images, in writing? Do all of those forms have the same colour?”
“Why do you look like a little boy?” Fee asked suddenly, into the considering silence that followed this simultaneously profound and nonsensical counter-question.
“I am not sure I understand,” the Bharriom phantom said again, looking down at his hands once more. “I am an expression of the age of the urverse. I am – the crystal is – in a sense, the spirit of the urverse. I cannot explain it, I think, in any way that will make sense.”
Deadshepherd (Tales of the Final Fall of Man Anthology Book 1) Page 39
