“Complications?”
The woman stuck her tongue out and licked at the air. It was an obscene gesture.
So everything went as planned, the bishop thought. It was best to make sure, though.
“What was the nature of your imitation?”
The woman crossed behind the bishop and stopped in front of the painting.
“Cézanne?” asked the man.
“Yes,” replied the bishop. And he thought: I sit between a Jeek and both tways have their backs to me. “You’re very trusting this morning,” he said dryly.
“Not really,” replied the woman. Her voice was just a shade lower than before.
The man turned slowly. He spoke calmly. “Should you have attempted something rash, like reaching under your robes for a weapon, I would have heard you.”
“You would have died before you had a chance to fire,” said the woman.
The bishop relaxed. This was the Reemul of two centuries ago—shrewd, distrustful, supremely confident. And the confidence was based on the purity of experience. Reemul did not brag. He is the liege-killer. That is what the humans of two hundred years ago had called him. It had been a name spoken in fear.
The man grinned. “Back in our time, Bishop, I would never have worried about turning my backs to you.”
The bishop projected astonishment. “You truly suspect treachery—from me?”
The woman laughed. “I’ve been asleep for hundreds of years, whereas you, Bishop, you and the mighty Codrus...”
“Don’t ever voice that thought!” the bishop snapped. “Not even here, within such privacy.”
The man shrugged. “As you wish. It’s just that there has been time, these past few days, to consider my awakening.”
“Could it be,” the woman continued, “that I am to be permanently put to sleep once this affair is over?”
The bishop sighed. The Jeek merely needed soothing. “That Cézanne you admire—do you know why it is valuable?”
“It is ancient,” said the man.
“Quite true. But what really makes it priceless is the fact that there are only four paintings by that artist still known to exist. It is almost unique ... and by that virtue, irreplaceable.”
The man stood up and turned to face him. “There were many Paratwa hidden before the Apocalypse. You said so yourself.”
“And most of them perished,” replied the bishop. The thought illuminated an edge of genuine sadness. “Some capsules were damaged by poisons or plague—others were found and destroyed by the doomed humans remaining on Earth after the Apocalypse. E-Tech claimed their share.” The bishop paused. “I should have hidden all of them with the care I lavished on your entombment.”
The woman’s reply was brittle. “I will say this but once, Bishop. Don’t ever cross me.”
The bishop nodded slowly. Shrewd and distrustful. Reemul could not help it—the qualities were part of his makeup. Such attributes elevated the Jeek Elementals above the other breeds, placed them among the deadliest of the assassins.
“As long as there are humans, you remain valuable,” he concluded. “Now, let us return to my earlier question. What was the nature of your imitation?”
The woman moved to his side and hopped onto his desk. Sad eyes stared down at the bishop.
The man spoke. “I portrayed the characteristics of one of those sloppy Terminus assassins. During the first contact with the witnesses, I gave the impression that I was having trouble walking—this called attention to me. I told outrageous lies that the woman did not believe, thereby further heightening her suspicions. I made one tway appear emotionally dead and the other gloriously alive!”
The woman chuckled.
“The witness had her gallery covered by a security system, so I had to use my AV scrambler in order to plant the bugs without being seen.”
The bishop frowned. “You are aware that few people utilize AV scramblers within the Colonies. Use them frequently and you will call attention to yourself whenever you pass under surveillance cameras.”
With a sharp laugh, the man turned away. “My, but you do worry so!”
“If it will satisfy you,” said the woman, “I won’t use them again.”
The bishop drove home his point. “Hardly anyone in the Colonies has even heard of autotargeting weapons. You have nothing to fear.”
AV scramblers had originally been designed to foil the tracking systems contained in the sophisticated attack robots of the mid-twenty-first century. No such robots existed today—they had been successfully outlawed and contained by E-Tech.
The man continued. “When I returned to perform the kill, I made sure the witnesses were positioned to observe. They thought that I did not notice them hiding on their porch.”
Again, the woman laughed.
“Naturally, I used a wand to destroy the target.”
The bishop allowed a smile. “Good. And the witness notified the authorities?”
“She only called E-Tech.”
“Excellent.” In the long run, it would not have made much difference whom the witness contacted first. But the bishop knew that Codrus preferred this variation. The plan would be well served when Rome Franco attended today’s Council meeting, believing that only E-Tech was aware of the Paratwa.
The man grinned. “This could develop into an interesting game. I wonder how long it will take these E-Tech fools to come after me?”
“Don’t underestimate them,” the bishop warned. “E-Tech is a far more complex organization than it was in our century.”
The woman, seated on his desk, rubbed her bare leg against the bishop’s arm. “One of our monarchs taught me that complexity is a cavern for the blind.”
Where did Reemul hear that? the bishop wondered. Sappho?
“Anyway,” the man continued, “E-Tech does not frighten me.”
“Then again,” added the woman, “nothing does.”
The bishop raised his hand in a futile effort to stop the Jeek’s stereo laugh. There was no use trying to counter such an ego. He quickly changed the subject. “Where are you staying?”
“Sirak-Brath,” the tways said in unison.
The bishop shook his head. “That’s an uncivilized place, Reemul. Pirates, smugglers—half the misfits in the Colonies wind up in that cylinder.”
The woman smiled. “But Sirak-Brath has such interesting diversions...”
“ ... special treats that make a Jeek’s heart flutter,” the man finished. He clapped his hands and laughed.
The bishop had a fair idea what those diversions were. “Just be aware that E-Tech can track you by your vices.”
The man spoke calmly. “I am aware. I shall be very selective in choosing my treats.” He could not hold back a grin.
“Very selective, indeed,” said the woman. “My. She will have to be quite young—between one and two would be ideal!”
Again, they both laughed.
The bishop waited until Reemul calmed down. “Enjoy your games, but remain alert. E-Tech and the Guardians will soon be tearing apart the Colonies to find you.”
“Let them tear,” said the man. His expression denoted complete disinterest.
“But let me tear first,” said the woman.
An intense look suddenly exploded across both of Reemul’s faces; a hunger that widened the eyes and tensed the muscles.
The bishop responded quickly. “You used to have better self-control.”
The twin gazes fluttered momentarily, then broke into identical smiles. They spoke in unison. “The mighty Codrus knows that the sword must be used lest the swordsman grow dull.”
Reemul became motion. The woman leaped—the man lunged. A tablet of hand-scrolled documents was knocked from the bishop’s desk. By the time the tablet hit the floor, the black light of a Cohe wand wavered inches away from the bishop’s neck.
The woman stood off to his side, the weapon clutched in her fist. He could feel the heat of its unbound energy. A slight twist of the wrist and Reemul cou
ld decapitate him.
The man leaned across the desk until their faces were only inches apart. The bishop smelled orange cologne. He saw the hunger in Reemul’s eyes.
The bishop felt no fear. “I told you there would be more ... many more.”
The man hissed. “I cannot wait.”
“You must.”
“I cannot.”
The man backed away. The black light of the Cohe vanished. The bishop turned and watched the woman replace the wand in a slip-wrist holster beneath her sleeve.
“I cannot wait,” the man repeated. He was calm again, but a hint of wildcat remained in his eyes.
The bishop folded his hands on his lap. Reemul must be allowed to flex. I’ve got to turn him loose ahead of the plan.
His monarch, Codrus, had intended using the Jeek slowly and with discretion—the murder of Irryan diplomats on their way to a bioconference in Jordanian Paris next week, the destruction of an E-Tech warehouse on Oslo a few days later. But Reemul’s needs would have to take precedence.
Flexing—the mental orgasm of being totally out of control. No one—not even Sappho—had ever fully understood the deep-seated urges afflicting all Paratwa. One theory suggested that flexing was a way for pain to be released from the system, for the interlace to keep itself healthy. Many Paratwa had been raised under rigorously imposed discipline and had learned to equate suppression of feeling with virtue. Such training produced a burden of internalized pain. That pain needed to be periodically expunged.
Whatever the theory, Reemul’s flexing urge would have to be relieved. The Jeek had to go mad—kill without restraint.
Codrus had allowed for this eventuality. Reemul could not yet be permitted to carve an open path of destruction through the Colonies. But there were other ways for an assassin to flex.
“Come, Reemul. I have decided to give you an assignment that will allow your spirit to excel.” The bishop keyed his desk terminal and a multicolored geomap of the colony of Northern California appeared on the screen. The woman circled the desk and peered over his shoulder.
“Right here,” the bishop pointed. A cursor flew across the screen to stab into a heavily wooded area in the center portion of the sixteen-mile-long colony. He sensed, rather than saw, the double smile alighting on Reemul’s faces. “Here is a place where you may have your way.”
* * *
Reemul exited, one tway at a time so as not to arouse any suspicions. The bishop watched his surveillance monitors and was pleased by the way the Jeek blended into the crowded Irryan thoroughfare outside the Church. At the end of the block, the woman crossed the street and stopped to help a very old man who was weighted down with packages and who was having trouble getting over the curb. A few moments later, Reemul, the good Samaritan, vanished into the masses.
The bishop dimmed his office lighting until only a dull glow surrounded the desk. From the top drawer, he withdrew a small mounted photograph depicting the original Church of the Trust. The squat rectangular building had stood at the corner of a narrow London street over two hundred years ago.
At the time of the photograph, the Church had just begun to attract millions into its fold, becoming a powerful symbol of the planet’s hope—an icon for human salvation from the madness of a doomed world. The bishop remembered well those early days. He had gone by another name, of course, but his sermons had been as powerful as they were today and he had drawn crowds from all over the planet. Back then, the Church had even attracted worshipers from the new orbiting colonies; converts inspired by one of his frequent satellite transmissions. In an era of massive human misery, a church that responded to the antithesis of that misery could not help but succeed.
Inscribed at the bottom of the photograph was the phrase Spirit of Gaia. The bishop touched the letters in the proper sequence and the image of the Church dissolved into speckles of silver. In a moment, the transformation was complete. His own reflected face appeared in the frame.
He threw his thoughts into the mirror, knowing that his tway was doing the same. The bishop was powerful and so was the one he was interlacing with, but neither of them could hope to match the intense mind of Codrus, their monarch. And Codrus had to learn of the bishop’s decision regarding the flexing of Reemul. Only an Ash Ock Paratwa could hope to grasp all the ramifications.
O}o{O
He spoke clearly. “I am Councilor Rome Franco.”
The imposing black door silently activated its scanners and made hundreds of instantaneous comparisons between the squat curly-haired man standing before it and the rome franco contained in its data banks. The door was intelligent enough to ignore some slight discrepancies, concluding rightly that the councilor had expanded his caloric intake in the four days since the last Council meeting, without a corresponding increase in physical exercise. The door was not programmed to chide him about such things.
The door opened and Rome entered the inner chamber of the Council of Irrya, paramount governing body of the Colonies. A polished round table, ringed by ten evenly spaced chairs, dominated the twenty-sided room. Data terminals rose from the armrests of the five plushest seats—the other chairs were reserved for Council guests. A huge prism chandelier, supported by wire mesh that disappeared into the darkness of the arched ceiling, hung to within six feet of the table. Wood-framed paintings stared out from leather-veneered walls; oil originals, mostly, dating from before the Apocalypse. Each painting was sealed behind a glare-free humidity partition.
Rome felt a familiar twinge of guilt at the sight of those paintings. Enough wealth to build a colony, he thought.
Many years ago, as a freshman councilor, he had proposed that they sell the artwork and reinvest the money in the general fund. His suggestion had been politely declined. It had been one of his first real lessons in high-level politics. One does not sell the symbols of one’s power.
And in the ensuing years, Rome had come to greatly admire one of the masterpieces: a savagely brushstroked cornfield; yellows and browns on an ancient canvas. He deliberately refrained from learning more about the artist through E-Tech’s vast historical archives. Somehow, he felt that such knowledge would destroy, or at least reduce, his appreciation of the painting.
Angela felt his self-control was paradoxical. When he mentioned the canvas to her from time to time, she urged him to learn all he could about the artist, to enhance his passion. It is not necessary, he would reply stoically. The painting existed as a whole complete thing; its life grew from the colors. Vincent Van Gogh would remain a mystery.
“Greet-ings, Fran-co.” The artificially generated voice came from a pair of tiny wafer speakers implanted in the lower cheeks of a regal, black-haired woman. Nu-Lin, Councilor of Intercolonial Affairs and head of the Commerce League, looked stunning, as usual. A sleeveless blue gown swirled from her shoulders, fell across her breasts, and exploded into a waffled pattern as it reached her ankles. The narrow face betrayed few signs of age, though Rome knew she was at least sixty. Thick hair was pulled back into reverse bangs, allowing the gleaming blue eyes to dominate.
Her mouth remained closed as she spoke. “Re-fresh-ment, perhaps? Drake and I have or-dered.”
Rome crossed the chamber to stand beside her. “I’m afraid Angela and I had a rather large breakfast this morning.” He patted his bulging stomach.
Nu-Lin smiled. “A pi-ty. Drake has had his chef pre-pare fi-let jas-ka à la misk. I un-der-stand that on-ly in the fi-nest res-taur-ants of Vel-vet-on-the-Green can such a del-i-ca-cy be found.” The gold-shadowed eyes widened—a gesture intimating Drake’s passion for expensive dining.
She had lost her speech center in a childhood accident. A person of lesser character would have suffered from such a disability, but Nu-Lin had an innate dignity that overwhelmed her robotic articulation. More lifelike vocal generators were available, too, but Rome felt she had made the right decision in having a primitive model implanted. She distinguished her infirmity rather than tried to hide it.
“Where is Drake?
” Rome asked.
“In his cham-bers ... a pri-vate call.”
“You’ve seen today’s agenda.”
“A full pro-gram.” She stroked the fur bracelet below her elbow. “Those two new Sen-ate bills a-lone mer-it hours of dis-cus-sion. And our es-teemed Coun-cil-or Art-whil-er has made a late ad-di-tion.”
Late, indeed! Rome had just come from the briefing with his aides and no last-minute programming had come into their terminals.
“Art-whil-er wishes to bol-ster our per-i-me-ter warn-ing system. He claims that we are gross-ly un-pre-pared for the pos-si-bi-li-ty of in-va-sion.” Her eyes danced.
Rome would have laughed had it not been for the fact that too many of Artwhiler’s ideas were being endorsed by the Council these days. “What is it this time—the return of the starships?”
Nu-Lin nodded.
Five years ago, Artwhiler had begun a lengthy campaign to gain support for a series of deep-space probes. The unmanned ships would have been sent out in the direction of the original starships, which had been launched from orbit during the final days.
The two great hopes for humanity: the Colonies and the starships. The Colonies had proven themselves, had enabled millions of people to escape the dying Earth. Hundreds of thousands of others had opted for a more distant and precarious future. The Star-Edge project had constructed huge vessels in Earth orbit and had launched them from the solar system in an effort to reach other colonizable worlds.
Something had gone wrong, though. One hundred and seventy years ago, the regular transmissions had begun hinting of trouble. There was dissension aboard the starships—people had been brought out of stasis ahead of schedule; fighting had erupted. Some of the crew had wanted to turn back; others had insisted on pushing on. The conflict had expanded into armed combat. The last message told of nuclear detonations destroying several of the vessels. No further transmissions were ever received.
Artwhiler had publicly expressed concern that some of the star voyagers might have survived and could someday return as enemies of the Colonies. Deep-space probes would give humanity advance warning; allow time for Colonial defenses to be expanded to meet any threats.
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