The Crystal Variation

by Sharon Lee

  “I merely wished to be certain that I would have transport back to port,” he said politely.

  “Not a worry,” the nearer guard said, and smiled, displaying extremely white and very pointed teeth.

  They were surely attempting to unnerve him—and, truth told, succeeding in some measure. However, he had been the youngest amidst an abundance of elder cousins and siblings, and had furthermore survived the hazings which were the lot of the juniormost pilot; thus he possessed some strategies for dealing with bullies.

  Accordingly, he bowed—slightly, to demonstrate that he was a man of worth who was not intimidated by mere large persons, no matter how obviously armed—and sent a grave look into the nearer soldier’s face.

  The artwork—an eight-pointed star and a ship on the right cheek; a vertical series of four blue stripes on the left—was disconcerting, but he concentrated his attention and met her eyes, ignoring her amusement.

  “My name is Tor An yos’Galan of Alkia Trade Clan, out of the Ringstars,” he said steadily. “Pray announce me to your commander. I bear information of some value.”

  The soldier was unimpressed. She moved her shoulders, and the discharge slot described a casual arc across his chest. He ignored the weapon and kept his eyes on hers, waiting for his answer.

  “What kind of information?” she asked at last, grudgingly.

  “I believe it would be best for me to impart it directly to the commander,” Tor An said. “Or to the commander’s designated aide. If you are that person . . .” He let the sentence trail off delicately.

  The farther guard snorted. The other frowned.

  “We don’t pass people to the commander just so they can chat,” she said sternly. “Tell us what you want. If we think you’ve got a case, we’ll pass you. Otherwise, you can start walking back to port.”

  He had not wished . . . And yet, she had a point, this large, rude person with her painted face. Did the doorman at home allow every self-claimed investor access to Alkia’s Voice?

  He bowed again, even more slightly than previously.

  “I have information that the Ringstars are—” his voice cracked. He cleared his throat and began again. “I have information that the Ringstars are—missing. A ship sent to known coordinates within the system falls from transition and reports that the target is unavailable.”

  The guard’s mouth tightened, and she sent a quick over-shoulder glance at her mate.

  “Old news,” he said, his voice conveying vast boredom.

  “Right,” the nearer guard answered after a moment. She sighed and turned back to Tor An.

  “We are aware of the situation, little one. Get out of here.”

  For a moment he simply stood, the words not quite scanning—and then her meaning hit and he gasped, spine tingling with outrage.

  “You know that the Ringstars are missing?” he asked, voice rising out of the tone of calm reason most appropriate for a trader.

  The nearer guard frowned. “That’s right,” she said, and shifted her weapon meaningfully.

  He ignored the hint. “What are you doing about it?” he demanded.

  The farther guard barked—or perhaps it was laughter.

  “Not doing anything about it,” the nearer guard said. “What do you expect us to do about it? It’s not like the Ringstars are the first system that’s gone missing in this war.” She raised her weapon this time, and again displayed her sharpened teeth—not at all a smile. “Get out of here, little one. Go back to port, get drunk, get laid. When you wake up sober, hire yourself out and get on with your life.”

  But Tor An, awash in disbelief, had stopped listening. He stared up into her face. “Other star systems have gone missing?” he repeated. “That’s impossible.”

  “You’re the one who came here with information that your precious Ringstars are gone,” she snapped. “If it can happen once, it can happen twice. Or don’t they teach you civilians stats and probability?”

  He took a step forward, hands fisted at his side. “What are you doing about it?” he shouted. “You’re supposed to protect us! If whole star systems are going away, where are they going? And why aren’t you stopping—”

  “Shut up, you fool!” the nearer guard snarled, but the warning—if it were meant as anything so kindly—was too late.

  A section of the wall behind her parted, and a third tall soldier stepped through.

  The two guards stiffened, their weapons now definitively trained on Tor An, who was staring at the newcomer.

  He, too, displayed various signs and sigils on his face—more than either of the guards, those on the right cheek so numerous that they overlapped each other. Over his maximum duty ‘skins he wore a vest hung about with many ribbons, and the belt around his waist supported both a beam pistol and a long ceramic blade.

  “Captain,” the nearer soldier said respectfully.

  “Corporal,” the newcomer responded, coldly. His face was turned to Tor An, the light brown eyes startling among the riot of color. “What seems to be the problem?”

  “No problem, sir,” the corporal said. Tor An gasped.

  “Very true,” he said and was mortified to hear that his voice was shaking. “You have made it quite clear that the fact of entire star systems vanishing is no concern of yours.” He took a breath, and inclined his head toward the captain. “This officer, however . . .”

  The officer’s cold eyes considered him. If his face bore any expression at all beneath the artwork, it was more than Tor An could do to read it.

  “You have information,” the captain said, his hard voice free of both inflection and courtesy, “regarding a missing star system.”

  “Sir, I do.” He moved a hand to indicate the two guards. “I had requested admission to the presence of the base commander or an approved aide and was told that news of the vanishing of the Ringstars preceded me. Furthermore, I am told that the event is of no interest to this garrison. Such events are apparently become quite commonplace.”

  “More so,” said the captain, “here on the frontier. I heard you asking the corporal what the military is doing about these disappearances. The corporal is not empowered to answer that question. I, however, am.” He inclined from the waist in a small, ironic bow.

  “What we are doing is precisely nothing. We are under orders to withdraw. This garrison will be empty within the next thirty days, Common Calendar, and all the rest of the garrisons in this sector of the frontier.”

  Tor An stared at him, suddenly very cold.

  “Does this,” the captain asked, still in that inflectionless, discourteous tone, “answer your question?”

  Tor An was abruptly weary, his thoughts spinning. Clearly, he would get no other satisfaction here. Best to return to the port, to his ship, and work out his next best move.

  So thinking, he bowed, low enough to convey respect for the man’s rank, and cleared his throat.

  “My question is answered,” he said, hoarsely. “I thank you.”

  “Good,” the officer said. He turned his head and addressed the two guards.

  “Shoot him.”

  SIX

  Osabei Tower

  Landomist

  THE PLACE WAS A WARREN, Jela thought as he followed Errant-Scholar—now, he supposed, Seated Scholar—tay’Nordif through twisty halls so narrow that he had to proceed at a sort of half-cant, in order that his shoulders not rub the walls, and with knees slightly bent, so as not to brush the top of the tree against the ceiling. The logistics of trying to secure such an anthill were enough to give a tactician permanent nightmares.

  Lucky for them, they didn’t have to worry about securing the premises, just lifting some files and making an orderly retreat. He expected to have a line of withdrawal mapped out and secured well before it was needed. But his first order of business was keeping up with the Scholar and her guide, who moved ahead at a rapid walk without ever once looking back.

  That guide, now. A soft man of about Can—Scholar tay’Nordif’s hei
ght, with a plentitude of shiny brown hair rippling down past his shoulders, his skin was the pure true gold by which the citizens Inside judged a man’s worth and value. His gaze had passed over Jela as if he were invisible, though the tree took his interest.

  “Now, this is something we seldom see!” he’d exclaimed. “Have you brought us a bit of the frontier, Scholar?”

  “Not at all! Not at all!” Scholar tay’Nordif extended a reverent hand and touched a leaf. “Yon specimen hails from fair Shinto, a token of regard given me by none other than Horticultural Master Panthera vas’Chaler. A most gracious lady, Scholar; I esteem her greatly. Her many kindnesses—of which the gift of a green plant to cheer me in my scholarly closet is but the most recent—her kindness is without boundary. Truly, I am at her feet.”

  “She sounds a most gracious and generous lady,” the second scholar said seriously. “You are fortunate in her patronage.”

  “Most fortunate in her patronage,” Scholar tay’Nordif reiterated worshipfully. “I challenge anyone to produce a patron more thoughtful of one’s comfort, or more understanding of the demands of one’s work.”

  “Indeed?” The other scholar turned from his study of the tree, and moved along the hall, walking flat, and with his hands tucked into his sash—the walk of a man used to consistent gravity, and hallways that maintained their orientation. “This way, if you will, Scholar.”

  “Follow me, Jela,” Scholar tay’Nordif had snapped, and that was the last word or attention that either had squandered on him.

  They were well ahead of him now, out of sight around a bend in the hall, though he could hear Scholar tay’Nordif’s voice clearly enough, extolling the seemingly limitless virtues attached to Master vas’Chaler.

  “Will you believe me, Scholar tay’Welford,” she was saying, “when I tell you that nothing would do but that my patron give me apartments in her own home, and a servant whose sole duty it was to attend to my comfort and bring in meals so that on those occasions when I became immersed in my work, I should not be obliged to break my concentration in a descent to the mundane . . .”

  It certainly sounded like a soft post, Jela thought, ducking through an arch that was even thinner than the hallway—and damned lucky he was to skin through with the pack on his back, and without breaking any branches off the tree—if it had been in the least part true.

  The hall took a jig to the left, to the right, and opened suddenly into a high octagonal shaped lobby. The white light which had been an uncomfortable glare in the tight halls was easier to take here, and Jela breathed a very private sigh of relief as he stepped out onto the dark tile floor. The room extended upward for several stories; a surreptitious glance, under the guise of making sure that the “specimen” could now be held higher without endangering it, found balconies and walkways overhead, but no clear means of attaining them.

  From the center of the floor rose a ceramic rectangle as high as Scholar tay’Nordif’s shoulder, rich in mosaic-work—

  No, thought Jela, looking more closely. Not mosaic. Memory modules, set into the conductive material of the rectangle, creating a single computational device—but to what end?

  Scholar tay’Nordif bent in close study of the comp, then straightened and stared upward, spinning slowly—and unsteadily—on a boot heel.

  “I theorize,” she said, yet craning upward, “that yon device is the engine by which the stairways are driven.” She described an additional quarter-circle and lowered her gaze to Scholar tay’Welford, who stood yet with his hands tucked in his sash, an expression of interested amusement on his round, pleasant face.

  “The question remaining,” Scholar tay’Nordif continued, on a rising inflection, “is how the device is induced to call the proper stairway.”

  Scholar tay’Welford inclined slightly from the waist. “If you will allow me, Scholar, I believe that I may offer you the key to this puzzle.”

  “By all means, Scholar! Produce this key, I beg you!”

  He smiled, and slowly—even, Jela thought, teasingly—withdrew his right hand from its comfortable tuck in his sash, turned his palm up, and opened his fingers.

  Across his palm lay a ceramic lozenge, pale violet in color; insubstantial as a shadow.

  “Behold,” he said, “the key.”

  “Ah.” Scholar tay’Nordif leaned to inspect it, her hands clasped behind her back. She glanced up at the other scholar. “May I?”

  “By all means.”

  She picked the thing up delicately with the very tips of her fingers, and subjected it to close study before folding it into her palm and turning her attention to the comp.

  “I fear me,” she said after a moment, “that I have been given but half the key.”

  “Is it so?” The other scholar stepped closer to her side. Jela felt himself stiffen; deliberately relaxed. “Surely, you have seen something like, in your travels along the frontier?”

  “Alas, I have not,” Scholar tay’Nordif replied, sending a sideways glance into the other’s face. “Is this a Test, sir?”

  It seemed to Jela as if the other scholar intended to answer in the affirmative, and amended his course at the last instant.

  “Certainly not!” he said lightly. “We are not so uncivilized as to present a Test before even one has shared the evening meal with colleagues.” He put his hand atop the rectangle, palm down. “Place your key just here, Scholar; the device will read the imbedded data and fetch down the proper stair.”

  Scholar tay’Nordif stepped forward, and placed the lozenge flat on top the comp. For a moment, nothing happened, then Jela noticed that the conductive material was glowing a soft rose color, and that various of the embedded modules were also beginning to shine. Air moved and he looked up as one of the high walkways swung out from its fellows, canted—and unfolded downward in deliberate sections until the leading edge touched the floor at the base of the wall.

  “I am instructed,” said Scholar tay’Nordif and bowed.

  “A small secret, I assure you,” the other said with a smile. He stepped back and swept an arm toward the waiting walkway. “Please, Scholar, mount and ascend! The stair will take you to the correct floor, and the key will guide you to the correct door! I will look for you at the common meal—ah, and another hint, out of kindness for one who comes into my own Department: It is not done to be late to the common meal.”

  So saying, he swept around and went on his way, but not before he had sent a measuring look straight into Jela’s face. He produced his very best stupid stare, and wasn’t especially pleased to see the Scholar smile before passing on.

  “Jela, come here!” Scholar tay’Nordif snapped and he stepped onto the ramp behind her as it began, rapidly, to rise.

  Both of his hands being occupied with holding the tree, he braced his legs wide and sent a look down to the receding lobby, but there was nothing to see other than the shiny floor stretching away like some dark sea to break against eight white walls in which eight identical archways were centered.

  The ramp turned, folding back up into the high ceiling. They passed one floor, moving so swiftly that all Jela retained was an impression of a long hallway lined with yellow doors. The ramp turned again, its far end, just behind Jela’s boot heels, giving off to empty air and a long fall to the dark floor below. The leading edge—ahead of the scholar’s position, snapped into a slot in the floor of the walkway.

  She moved forward briskly, setting her feet firmly against the floor, her tabard billowing slightly.

  The tree offered an image of the slender golden-scaled dragon, wings full of wind, gliding effortlessly down the sheer side of a cliff.

  Jela refrained from answering. He followed her off the bridge and to the left, down a hall lined on both sides with identical orange doors, then again to the left—and abruptly halted to avoid walking on her, the tree’s branches snapping over his head.

  She slid the shadowy tile into a slot in the surface of the door; there was a loud snick as it opened, lights coming
up in the room beyond as it did.

  THE QUARTERS WERE featureless and functional: smooth white walls, smooth white floor; a basic galley and sanitary facilities to the right, work space, screen and a convertible chair to the left. In the absence of orders, and out of respect for the three spy-eyes that were too easy to spot, Jela stood just inside the door, cradling the tree’s pot in arms that were beginning to ache. Scholar tay’Nordif strolled into the room, giving it a casual, bored inspection. Whether she saw the spy-eyes—which the woman she had been would never have missed—he couldn’t say. She stepped to the chair and tapped the control on the arm; it shifted, stretching out to form a cot. Another tap, and it returned to its chair configuration.

  She walked over to the work table, and touched the corner of the dark screen. The darkness swirled into gray, the gray into white. Blue words and images floated upward through the whiteness—a timetable, Jela saw, from his vantage near the door, and a map. The scholar raised her head to consult the time displayed on the smooth wall over the screen, and uttered a sharp curse.

  “Jela!” she said sharply. “Put the specimen down gently and bring me my pack. Quickly!”

  Gently, and with considerable relief, he eased the pot to the floor. That done, he skinned the pack off his back, remembering to work slow and stupid, for the benefit of those spy-eyes, opened it and had the scholar’s case out. Moving heavily, he went across the room to where his mistress was bent again over the computer—memorizing the map, he hoped—and stood patiently holding the pack out across his two palms, his eyes aimed at the floor.

  She spun away from the screen, grabbed the pack and took it to the table, unsealing it hastily and snatching out a tablet, the squat book with scarred covers that she kept always to hand, her extra tabard, a data-case. Muttering under her breath, she reached back into the bag and brought out a second case, but in her haste, she fumbled, and it slid from her fingers onto the floor, data-tiles skittering noisily across the smooth floor.

  Another curse, this one more pungent than the first, and the scholar was on her knees, scrabbling along the floor, sweeping the tiles in toward her. Body bent protectively over the case, she began to slot them quickly—sent a distracted glance over her shoulder at the clock and abruptly rose.