The Book of the Ler

by M. A. Foster

  Errat listened carefully, finding direction. Smell wasn’t good enough to find, in a situation like this, or in wind. But sound was, almost as good as seeing. He moved his head slightly from side to side as the figure spoke, getting the range. Yes, he had it. He could do it. Just like the time in Zinder, when he had got his man in total darkness. The fool! He had stopped to gloat, and had paid. This one was the same. They all were. The source of the voice seemed a little off, little low, as if the owner were half reclining. Odd pose for a threat. She probably had a needler on him. No problem, there! Needlers were invariably low-velocity. He could do it, and move, playing the slowness of her reactions and the slowness of the weapon against her. Yes, there. He thought he saw the suggestion of movement, a slight shift. Or had it been?

  He said, buying time, “You said that I was to kill the girl and those who came for her, or salt them away, and keep them confused. I did not get the girl, it is true, but much confusion resulted. Seaboard South,” he hazarded, “is now discredited.”

  “You hired reptiles to do primate work.” Errat heard, and thought that an odd turn of phrase.

  “Couldn’t get anyone else.” He was stalling now. He edged imperceptibly closer to the figure on the desk. God, but she was careless, talking while he closed in. Send babes to do grown-up’s work was just not the word. But he could hear the threat in the voice, accent or not. Yes, this one would be easy.

  The voice said, “We are dissatisfied, unfulfilled in our most fervent hopings.”

  Errat listened, still weight-shifting, creeping immeasurably forward, slowly, closer, closer. Shooting in the dark like this, you had to get as close as possible, reduce the CEP44 of a quick-thrown knife. Yes, it was Milar. The odd speech patterns, the accent, the Modanglic of an educatedforeigner, one who didn’t speak Modanglic as a native. Where could that be? There were few places left where it wasn’t spoken, and he thought he knew all those accents. Errat felt some regrets. He would hate to kill this Milar before he found out who she was and who she represented. All the same . . .

  He said, “They may have set hopes too high for realization. And the direction I received was not a model of clarity.”

  “Those are insignificant. Our affair here is with the failure of the prime operative.”

  Errat now had his knife straightened, in pre-throw position, his muscles relaxed, but set and ready to obey for the one swift stroke. He said, taunting, “Not the operative, but the purveyor of instructions!” On the last word he threw the knife at the target he had picked. It would be the throat. He could not risk the blade being turned by the ribs. The throat. Disable now, and polish off in a moment, after some tactical repair and a quick interrogation. He was expert at that. But even as he released the knife he had the smallest hesitation, as if something weren’t right. The feeling had been nagging him all afternoon. Even as it left his hand, he knew there was something wrong, all wrong, and he had made the wrong move. What was it? The knife struck, that he heard, but the sound was not that of a knife penetrating flesh. Instantly, as the fact registered in his mind, he felt a sudden sharp pressure at his back, up and to the left side between the ribs, like a rough shove in a crowd, in a queue, followed by heat and pressure at his heart. Incredible heat! He tried to move, to take a breath. He couldn’t. His feet seemed nailed to the floor, his chest bound with iron. The universe contracted to a node of pain, his chest, his back. So this is what it feels like to be knifed, the rational part of his mind thought, coolly and idly.

  He did manage to start a turn before he completely lost control of his legs. Yes, his assassin had been behind him all the while, waiting by the door, absolutely quiet. He must have almost touched her. How had she projected her voice, been so quiet? These things disturbed Errat greatly, and he thought upon them, as he collapsed to the floor, his consciousness fading. And the last thing he saw was the figure of a woman bending over him, her heavy clothing rustling loudly. And then there was nothing.

  The person who had claimed to be the bearer of the programmed name Zandro Milar slipped quietly out of the shadows, the deeper shadows by the door, moving stiffly, awkwardly, to stifle the rustling of clothing. The figure bent over Errat, as if listening, or casting for a scent, a gesture curiously animal-like. It did not touch the body. Apparently satisfied, it straightened and stepped over the body to the desk. There, it removed an object from the bundle on the desk, inserted it in a small carrybag it was carrying. Then it stopped, pausing, not so much looking, as it did not move its head, but reminding itself, reviewing circumstances. It recalled something, and went back to one of the windows, carefully opening it a crack. There was a slight draft, and then the night air started seeping into the room. Then it stepped over the body, reaching the door, where again it paused, an interminable moment, listening. There was no presence in the hall outside. It opened the door a crack. There was a stronger draft. Setting the lock, Zandro Milar stepped outside and closed the door, listening for the click of the lock.

  In the hallway, had anyone been there to see, the harsh light would have revealed a slender, smallish woman, dark of complexion, a swarthy olive that suggested a Mediterranean type, sharp-featured, perhaps an Iberian, or an Arab, who might have been attractive had it not been for a predatory cast to her facial structure. She wore the awkward clothing of the day with singular gracelessness.

  Milar walked quietly down the hallway to a room at the far end, entered, carefully closing the door behind her. Inside, she seemed to slump, relaxing, and sat on the bed, removing her shoes, which seemed to bother her more than all the rest of the clothing. She leaned back and wriggled her toes, relaxing at last. After a moment, she got up again, and removed all the clothing she had been wearing, and adding the carrybag, placed all of it in a small suitcase. She finished, straightened, and walked across the room to a closet. Passing before the single mirror in the room, she glanced at the reflection, seeing it only very dimly, even in the city light coming in the windows from outside. She smiled. Out of her clothes, her motions were no longer lumpish and crude, but fluid and graceful. She flexed her hands, stretched until joints cracked. She checked the closet, verifying that another set of clothing was there, a man’s coverall. Satisfied, she returned to the lumpy bed, lay on it, naked, pulling the covers around her, and fell instantly asleep.

  After a time, her breathing became deep and regular, and then she revealed, unknown to her, her only flaw as an operative. She began to mutter, almost inaudibly, in her sleep. Even then, some part of her remembered who and where she was, so that the muttering was very quiet, indeed. It was doubtful if it could have been heard outside the room. Even inside the room, one would have to listen closely to hear it at all. And it would have been valueless to hear it, for the muttering was not in Modanglic. More specifically and strictly, it really wasn’t in a language, at least not in the sense of anyone who might have been there to hear it.

  When the light from the window had brightened to a certain degree, Milar awoke, as if on some internal timer. She dressed, first donning a tight undergarment that smoothed and obscured the shape of her body, which although undeniably female, was also subtle of curve, wiry, and muscular. Then, over that, the coverall of a hard-laborer. Her hair was short, a deep dull black, gunmetal blue in the highlights. This she tucked into a tattered flat cap affected by most heavy workmen. She checked a cheap pocket chronometer, nodded to herself. Then, carefully inspecting the room one last time, picked up the suitcase, left the room, and headed down the hallway.

  Last night’s rain had blown off toward the east, toward the Green Sea; now it was whiter-bright outside, and the light was full of blue overtones, which she saw and appreciated. In the building, she could hear others getting up and being about, getting ready for the events of the day. More significantly, which brought her back to reality, the doorman would have been relieved now by a Daysider, or perhaps no relief at all. She looked, as she entered the lower hall. Correct. No one was there. She walked calmly out of the building, fighti
ng an intense urge to run. She fought with herself, knowing she had to get control of herself. It began to pass. The adrenaline she might release could trip stress-monitors all up and down the street. She forced herself to be calm, repeating certain formulas to herself. She paused by the corner, looked back. Good. Nothing. Now she relaxed in truth, feeling it flood into her.

  Not for nothing had she followed Errat carefully, at great risk to herself from him and from others. She had studied him before she had picked him to do the task for her, and now that it had been bungled, she had used that information to predict his movements. It had been interesting, but also too easy. Not half as hard as the one she had him set up. That one had escaped for almost a year before she finally nailed her down. And of course Errat had to be eliminated, for in him was a trace to her. Unlike Errat, she did not enjoy wetwork, as she had heard him call it. But there had been no cure for it; she had to do it herself. And by the time they discovered Errat, she would be long safe. Yes, and maybe more. . . . Perhaps then she would have the hammer in her hand, the power, and then there would be a reordering, a replacing, indeed. But back to affairs. There was one more tiresome loop to close, a painful one, but one that had to be.

  She placed the suitcase in a public locker, designed to foil the most determined thief, paying the fee into the credit-box, extracting the identification slip, with its magnetic numbers. This she took to the tube-train terminal and threw in a collecting trashpile, wadded up and unrecognizable. After that, she purchased a ticket for the Institute Halt, and settled in the waiting room, smiling an odd little half-smile to herself. She had taken some extra days, it was true, to do this job herself, but it had been good work. Now, if she could only catch the other in time, she would have all the loose ends tied off for good.

  BOOK THREE

  Navis et Arx

  SIXTEEN

  When one extracts all the irrational elements from love, that which is left is a thing unendurable, unreasonable, and it is most irrational that one should care to pursue it.

  —Ibid

  WITH ASSITANCE AND advice from Kaldherman, the aid of a rascally, squint-eyed elder known as Jaskovbey the Smuggler, who lived on the banks of the River Yadh, and an attitude of bored disinterest on the part of officials of Piedmont Region, across the river to the west, Morlenden—using nothing more elaborate than Manthevdam, an assumed name—openly boarded a tube in Piedmont Central, and with one change in Oconee Region, and another on the West Coast, reached a point close by the reputed location of the house of Mevlannen Srith Perklaren. In three days.

  Morlenden had his directions to get there, gained from Klervondaf as they walked home from the northeast: west from the old settlement of Santa Barbara, continuing on the local transport, now aboveground to Jalama, where the route turned north, and follow the coast. It was not entirely without hazard; he was walking in the back door of the main continental spaceflight center, but it was not, by and large, guarded, reflecting the widespread belief that the main concern of Man lay not in ways to depart the Earth, but in ensuring more ways to survive upon it. In fact, the space program had rather languished for the past two centuries, and aside from timid, careful forays around the inner Solar System, and rarer probes into the outer portions, there was little activity. Even the telescope project, which to Morlenden’s ears had sounded amazing, was half asleep. Work progressed at a measured pace. A slow one. And there were no enemies to guard against. . . .

  Morlenden left the transport early in the morning, and aside from a glance around to get his bearings, did not look back. He spent the morning negotiating country given over to pasturage, some desultory farming; but soon the land became too isolated, too precipitous for even that, and even that shred of civilization fell behind him. Now he walked along above the empty cliffs, above a most strange sea in the waning light of afternoon, plodding on toward a holding hidden away in one of the last pockets of wilderness on the coasts of old North America.

  Morlenden was not well-traveled, and had never seen salt water before (Fellirian had seen the Green Sea once, before their weaving. He had asked, “What did it look like?” And she had answered, “Just like a big lake; you can’t see the other side. Oh, yes, it smelled funny, and there were waves.”) and now he was walking along the edge of the largest ocean in the season of storms. He found it fascinating, full of novelty and endless mystery, but also alien and disturbing; this was the Pacific, and the season was winter. A cold wind blew off the sea, and though he could remember seeing palm trees farther back, it was a cold wind that chilled him to the bone. The sky seemed clear, but there was a milky film in it, an unsettled unsteadiness, as if, at any moment, a storm might blow up, or fog, or rain. He had heard as much about the region. And along the way he had walked, he had seen the ruined remains of buildings and posts, eroded and abraded by the constant salt-laden wind.

  Mevlannen reportedly spent her days on Earth, when she was not working, in a cabin perched atop one of the local mountains. Pico Tranquillon it was named in the older human language of the area. Morlenden thought, looking about himself as he walked, that the name was most curious: a tranquil peak above a quiet sea. That was what the name meant. But the sea was not quiet; the surf grumbled away, sometimes roared, sometimes growled, and constantly ground away at shells and rocklings in the shallows. It heaved and crawled, that quiet sea, like some live thing. Morlenden avoided looking into the shimmering, pearlhorizoned distances overly long; he sensed some weakness in himself for this empty place.

  And the tranquil peak? The wind whipped at his cloak, and now it was rising, fretting and fraying the wild grasses, hissing at the windblown trees, dark cypresses. The sky watched, unstable, ready now to permutate and change on the instant. In the place of the peak of tranquility, there was nothing tranquil at all, unless it was the wavelike repose of the land and its life, its sense of steady enduring, in the midst of flux.

  He walked on in the fading afternoon, becoming uncomfortable in the bite of the relentless wind off the cold ocean. He had seen colder weather, even slept out of doors in some of it, back in the reservation. He had seen snow, often, and he knew it was rare here, yet it was still uncomfortable. There was a feeling of unwelcome to it. The wind, the unimaginable sea full of mysteries, the merciless alien surf and its constant grumblings, the iodine reek of the sea close to hand, unescapable. And he was uncomfortable with his role as well—the bearer of bad tidings. And no doubt she would be expecting a younger Tlanhman; she would get a parent phase half-elder long past the change, who moreover was beginning to feel fatigued, snared in cobwebs, enmeshed in a labyrinth of plot within plot. It could be unpleasant. And he could not imagine how the girl lived out here alone.

  The path—once upon a time, long ago, a road—had led him inward from the beach cliffs and across some deserted flats where yellow wild grain glistened and rippled in the afternoon light. There were remnants of buildings, sheds; this had been a prosperous farm once. Long ago. They were all gone now. Out on the point, on a headland, west and to his left, he could make out the shapes of another ruin, some building long since fallen in upon itself. There were pilings in the water. Hawks patrolled the air, rattlesnakes guarded the ground. There was something lonely and beautiful beyond bearing directly here; he could see clearly, although he could not frame it in words. Descriptions wouldn’t do; what it needed was a legendman to set a terrible drama in these lands, for only in lines of action could the true shape of the place be drawn. Now there was a pervasive melancholy in the air, something in the light. One was impelled to heroic deeds, but also to much brooding. Yes, perhaps the light, an odd, porcelain light, half filtered by the sea air. Or the wind, which was definitely rising, now roaring on its own account from time to time. Morlenden pulled his cloak tighter, raised and fastened the hood, and followed the path upward, stopping occasionally to catch his breath.

  He had worked a good part of the way up to the peak when the light began failing, a thickening in the air. The shadows deepened, sprea
d, grew. Clouds began to appear overhead, subtle, close to the earth, vague in exact shape, salmon and rose-colored, tints of an impossible fleeting yellow. He felt more uneasy, although in his life he had walked many a lonely mile; and from somewhere far below him now, he heard, from far away, carried by the wind, a strange howling. Like a dog, but unlike, too, full of idiotic laughter. He shivered, and not from the wind; he had walked there not long before. An eerie place for the girl, full of ghosts and spirits.

  He almost walked into the place before he realized that he had attained it. Morlenden had been following switchbacks, one after another, walking up the unending mountain trail, and suddenly there were no more, and he was in a shallow saddle between the peak itself and a lower western shoulder. He could see into the north, across a tumbled, shadowy land of valley and uplands beyond, now filling like a bowl with darkness. The clouds were closer overhead, moving swiftly, rippling and leaping with eagerness.

  And before him, sheltered under the shoulder of Pico Tranquillon, was a tiny stone cabin, the yellow light inside it spilling out into the darkening evening and the night. A thin streamer of smoke was being torn from the stone chimney. An odd little place, not at all like anyplace a ler would live in, but for the moment, he thought it was the cheeriest thing he had ever seen. And above, on the peak itself, were more ruins: shells of concrete, the twisted frameworks of some metal apparatus tangled above them. The wind hissed in the metal, hating it, wearing it down only slightly slower than it wore at the rocks. Morlenden hurried to the door, knocked.