“Well—?” he said, when I didn’t answer.
“Yeah. This time.”
He nodded, but the tight lines around his eyes didn’t disappear. “And you’ll keep your mouth shut—?”
I frowned, touching the scabs on my lips.
“I’m protecting you! I’m taking the blame for everything that happened, so that you don’t have to! That ought to make up for a few extra bruises, for God’s sake.” He jerked his hands. “All right—I was angry, I wanted to see you suffer like you’d made me suffer. I admit it. But I didn’t mean for it to go that far. I thought I could control him, I didn’t think he’d.… He always stopped, before.…” Finally admitting, to me and to himself, that at the end he’d been as powerless to stop Stryger as I had. He looked down, remembering his own fear as he’d watched Stryger go out of control.
I wished he was lying to me; hut he wasn’t. I looked away as he tried to meet my eyes, tried to guess what was on my mind. He’d never know what he’d really done to me … and telling him the truth would only make it harder for me to bear. “All right,” I whispered. “You want to go on living your lie—go ahead. Maybe I don’t even blame you.” Realizing that if the choice was mine to make right now, I’d make the same one he would. I looked up at him again, through a single round-pupiled eye. “You know, for a minute I almost thought you felt something real while you were serving all that shit to the Net. That maybe you finally understood why it was important to get Stryger, now. That it mattered to you that you’d stopped him.” I touched my head, grimacing. “It must’ve been the concussion.”
He glanced away. “No,” he said finally. “You were right.” He’d enjoyed playing his private games with Stryger, being in control, cheating him like he’d cheated the rest of the universe. Last night he’d enjoyed watching Stryger torture me; thinking that he hated me as much as Stryger did. But his own hatred had let the pain get too personal, sucked him in too close to its heart, ruptured the membrane of lies that let him feel safe—just like it had ruptured mine. He’d seen the truth about Stryger, and about himself. About his worst nightmares.…
“In the middle of the night,” he said, “while I was trying to drag that self-righteous, perverted slug to somewhere discreet and safe, all because he was no better than anybody else … I had something of an epiphany, I suppose. And then I actually wanted to see the son of a bitch broken on the rack of public opinion today—and not just for my own sake.” His hand tightened on the tabletop. He stared at it, forced it to relax again. “Auntie was brilliant, wasn’t she?” He grinned, like he’d never considered the possibility before. “You know, for a moment while I was being interviewed, I actually thought, what if I did tell them I was a psion—?” He looked back at me. “But it passed, mercifully. I’m so glad you’ll be leaving soon. A little truth is a dangerous thing.”
I started to smile in spite of myself, as wide as my mouth would let me; realizing I never would have heard those words out of his mouth if it hadn’t been for what had happened to me last night. “What kind of trouble is the Assembly tampering going to make for you?”
He raised his eyebrows. “Everyone will sling legal and political rubbish at me. It will be unpleasant. But little of it will stick. It may even improve Centauri’s relations with the Feds, in the end—I mean, I was obviously so right about Stryger.… And besides. I’m a taMing. You know what they say.” The mocking smile came back, and he shrugged. “‘Cats and Gentlemen always land on their feet.’”
I grunted. “What about your father?”
The smile froze over. He looked away, and didn’t answer. I wondered which of them would end up hating me more. “Even Argentyne has begun to forgive me, after all.…” He smirked as he looked up at me again. Even though I’d done all I could to ruin it between them … Even though she knew his secret. Terror and exhilaration tilled him at the thought of it. “A relationship based on trust—who knows where that will lead? I suppose I’ll have to be nicer to her.…” He laughed, nervously, and got to his feet. “Maybe I should even thank you. But I truly hope we never meet again, Cat. Don’t think I intend to forget you, though.…” He stopped, just out of reach, and looked back. “I have a copy of that tape of you with Stryger. I intend to use it for my own personal recreational pleasure.” He laughed again, at the look on my face, and started away.
“Daric!”
He stopped, looking back, still smiling.
I got my voice under control, and said, “There’s something else you ought to know. I’ll keep my word about you. But before I knew you were the teek, I told Braedee there was another psion at the estates.” I smiled this time, as his grin faded. “It’s something to keep in mind.”
He looked at me for a long time, with his throat working. And then his smile started to grow back. “Well, good for you.…” he murmured. “You’re just as human as the rest of us.” He turned away again, and went looking for Argentyne.
I lay back in the pillows with my eyes shut. “Eat shit and die,” I muttered.
The threedy images were fading up on the stage, turning to fog, mutating as I opened my eyes and began to watch again: becoming Argentyne and the symb beginning a performance. She’d said they weren’t going to perform tonight; I wondered which of the things that had happened today had changed her mind.
I held my psi back as the rippling wall of light and sound opened up, not wanting to find out as I let my other senses pull me into the symb’s hallucinogenic vision. Maybe Argentyne had been better than this, but I hadn’t been there when it happened … and watching, listening, letting the lightsong surround me and draw me out of myself, I realized that this might be the last time I’d ever see her perform. I didn’t need her any more; and she didn’t need me. Whatever happened now, my time here in Purgatory was over.
The jack was gone from the back of my head already. I wasn’t real to her or the players any more on that other plane where their minds were now, and soon I’d hardly even be a memory to them. But I didn’t really need a socket to reach them. And now, while I still had my Gift, I wanted to use it. I pushed out through the haze of painkillers until I found Argentyne’s mind. I let myself in, and set free the things I saw there, feeding her mood poems into all the players’ minds at once, letting their reactions flow back to her—doing freehand what I’d done before by tracing the lifelines of the symb … until I knew they knew I was in symb with them one last time, giving them the best gift I knew how to give.…
THIRTY-SIX
THE NEXT DAY’S news was full of Lady Elnear Lyron/taMing being named to fill the empty slot on the Security Council. I missed it, because when I went to bed I slept for three days straight. When I finally came to again the pain had eased up enough that I could stand it without drugs. Most of the swelling had gone down, and my reflection in the mirror looked like it belonged to somebody I knew again. I peeled the pad away from my bandaged eye. It looked like Deadeye’s. But at least I could see out of it again. I thought about being blind for life; thought about Oldcity. They’d told me at Soule’s that there shouldn’t be any scars this time. None that showed, anyway. Two green eyes with round pupils that were beginning to seem too familiar searched my face, and looked away.
I went downstairs, one step at a time. As I limped into the kitchen, Shander Mandragora’s face up on the wall was telling the Federation that Sojourner Stryger had committed suicide.
My stomach pushed up into my throat; I drank a cup of stale coffee that was sitting on the kitchen table, forcing it back down where it belonged.
“He left a message,” Aspen said, putting his arm around Midnight’s shoulders as he looked at me. “Something about going where he was wanted.…” For a second I thought he was joking; but he wasn’t.
“Do you think there’s a heaven?” Midnight asked.
“I don’t believe in heaven,” I said. “But I hope there’s a hell.”
They looked at me, and they didn’t say anything else.
“Where’s Argentyne
?” I asked, to till up the silence.
Aspen looked down; I felt the stab of his embarrassment. “Out at Daric’s.”
I made a noise.
“Sorry, man,” Midnight said. “Don’t take it too hard.”
“Like they say,” I muttered. “Cats and Gentlemen always land on their feet.”
“Lady Elnear’s been trying to reach you,” Aspen said. “She left a lot of messages while you were out.”
Out. I half smiled. Out of my head. “What did she say?”
They told me the old news then, about her appointment. I nodded, not surprised, but relieved. “She just said she wanted to talk to you as soon as possible. That it was important.”
I got up. “Thanks.” I went to the phone and tried to call her, but I couldn’t even get through. Everyone else in the galaxy was probably trying to do the same thing, and that wouldn’t end soon. I stood in the hall for a minute, letting my frustration ease off, trying to think. And then I called Natan Isplanasky. He actually came onscreen himself when I gave my ID. He stared at me, at my face, like everybody else had; but he listened to what I had to say without interrupting. He half frowned when I finished, rubbing his beard. “I don’t know if it’s even possible,” he said. “She was installed today. The period of adjustment for a new Council member is difficult.…”
“I have to see her,” I said. “And I’ve only got a couple of days left.”
He looked surprised. “What happens after that?”
I shrugged. “I’m not sure.”
“Are you in trouble over the Stryger affair?”
“No.” I shook my head.
“Are you all right?”
“No.” I looked away, knowing he could see that tor himself.
“God damn it,” he said. “I don’t know if it’s the things you do say or the things you don’t say that grate on me more.” He broke off as I laughed; a grudging smile pulled at his mouth. “I’ll see what I can arrange.”
He called me back later in the day. “Come up to the office,” he said. “I’ll meet you there.” That he’d kept his promise surprised me nearly as much as anything that had happened the past few weeks. But I only nodded, and did what he told me.
He met me at his office door, tried not to flinch as he got a fresh look at me, and took me inside. “Elnear will join us as soon as she’s able.” He handed me one of his thousand-year-old beers. “You earned it,” he said. “What you did took a lot of guts. The people of the Federation owe you more than a beer.” For destabilizing Stryger’s orbit.
I looked down, studying the bottle so that I didn’t have to meet his eyes. “I didn’t do it for them.”
“Well,” he said, “very few things seem to get done for the reasons they should get done.” He moved restlessly. “As far as that goes, I owe you more than a beer myself.”
I raised my head again. “What for?”
“For proving that I am not all-seeing.… Elnear finally told me about what happened to you at the Mines.”
I swallowed a mouthful of beer, and didn’t say anything.
He looked down, this time. “I’ve been exploring options to streamline the system, so that I have more direct access to all its parts.” He didn’t look away from the look on my face. “And to put more of its resources into protecting its clients. I don’t know if that will be enough to satisfy someone who has been abused by it.… I hope it will be enough to make some difference.” What he didn’t say was what we both already knew, each of us in our own way—that even he was just another mouse in the machine, in the end. There was only so much he’d ever be able to do. The system was more than its parts.
And yet changing it still mattered to him. What had happened once to a nobody like me mattered to him, here in this private office at the top of the world, at the top of the FTA’s power structure. I thought about the last time I’d stood in this office, and what I’d been feeling then. Standing here now, feeling the anger, frustration, hope behind his eyes, I realized suddenly that knowing he actually felt that way made a hell of a difference to me. And I realized the difference that having Elnear for a friend had made in him.
“Hello, Cat.”
I turned as I heard Elnear’s voice, startled because I hadn’t sensed her coming in. She was standing there behind me, smiling. I started toward her; stopped again, blinking. “You’re not here.” It was an image, a holo. It looked real, it reacted in realtime, but there was no one inside it. I stood still, sending out my mind through wider and wider circles, searching for her. “Where are you? I can’t find you—”
“I know.” Her smile changed, until it wasn’t really a smile any more, and I couldn’t tell what lay behind it. “I’m afraid this is the best I can do. I’m on the Council now.”
“I know, but…” I shook my head. “Where are you, then?”
She turned toward Isplanasky. “Natan, didn’t you explain?”
He shrugged. “I thought he knew.”
“What—?” I said, ready to yank it out of his mind.
“Could we have some time alone?” she asked him.
“Of course,” he said. “I need to get back into the system, anyway.” He looked at me. “Goodbye, Cat. Good luck to you. Just let yourself out when you’re finished.”
I watched him cross the room to the wired lounge where I’d first seen him. He lay back in it, linking into the Net, taking all the energy of his mind and body with him. He was still in the room, but inside of a minute we had complete privacy.… I looked away from him, hunching my shoulders. Seeing Elnear but not seeing her didn’t make me feel any better.
“Well, we won,” she said softly, smoothing her long blue-gray robe with her hands. Her face filled with pride and something deeper as she looked at me again. “You found a pin sharp enough to make the Assembly jump, after all. What happened was your doing, wasn’t it—not Daric’s?”
I nodded. “But if it hadn’t been for you, Stryger might still have gotten what he wanted. What I did might not have stopped anything, if it hadn’t been for you—” My throat closed up; it took an effort to keep the real expression off my face.
Her smile disappeared. “But in the end, he was his own nemesis.…” She knew what he’d done to himself. I couldn’t tell if she really believed what she said, though—that he was to blame for that, and not us. I couldn’t tell if I did, either. “I am so grateful to you, once again,” she said, and her voice was suddenly too full; her eyes touched my face, glanced down my body, darkened as they registered the damage that showed. “Knowing what I now know, about Stryger and about the real nature of the Security Council.… If he had won this slot, the chaos his instability would have caused could have been unimaginable.” Her hands tightened. “But if I had known what you intended to do—do to yourself—I would never have let you do it.”
“That’s why I didn’t tell you.” I shook my head, not wanting her to say any more; not wanting to hear it. “Lady … Why aren’t you here? Is it security—”
“I’m on the Council now, Cat,” she said again, and hesitated, as if finding the right words was terribly important to her, or terribly hard somehow. “I’m joined with the system, like Natan … but permanently.”
I stared at her, feeling stupid and dazed, not able to read the context of thought that would make the words mean what they were supposed to. “Permanently?”
She nodded.
I looked back at Isplanasky. “You mean you can’t ever walk away from it?”
“Yes. That’s right.”
“Why?” I said weakly.
“Because the Council demands total commitment. Keeping control of any network that spans interstellar distances is a nearly impossible task, and the FTA is the largest coherent network of all. There are systems within systems inside the Authority. Natan is at one level; I was on another one, far lower, before. At each level of complexity, as you ascend, more augmentation is required to make up for the structural limitations of the human mind; to give it the capacity it need
s to process the increased dataflow and make meaningful judgments about it. Most combines never really function on the highest levels; they have to segment their operations, because of the limits of realtime communication.… Only the FTA makes policy on this level, because it has to respond to so many different factors. And at this level the interface is so complex that it has to be permanent.”
“What happens, then … to you?” Muscles twitched in my jaw.
“My body is being maintained. They’ll take excellent care of it … it will probably last for another fifty or seventy-five years.”
I tried not to grimace. “And then what?”
“They’ll have to choose someone else to fill a Council slot. The Charter does not permit Council members to … stay on after death.”
I looked away from the thing that was standing across the room pretending to be someone I knew. “What about Elnear? I mean … Shit, I don’t know what I mean!” My hand hit my leg in frustration; I winced. “I can’t feel you. Are you alive or are you just data? Do you feel human? Do you feel anything at all any more?”
“Oh, yes…” she murmured. “I wish you could know what I feel, Cat. You might understand it better than most people, because of what you are.”
I nodded, because I knew what she meant, better than she realized … maybe even better than she did. But I couldn’t tell her that. “Maybe it’s a nice place to visit. But I wouldn’t want to live there.”
She smiled a little. “I’m only just beginning to grasp what it really is. My sense of individual identity may be no more than an artificial construct, for all I know … and yet I still feel quite human, somehow. Perhaps I’ll always feel that way, because I interact as a coherent personality, all the time, with human beings at all levels of the system—just the way I’m speaking to you.”
“How do I look to you?” I asked.
“Very far away…” she said, and there was sadness in it again. “Perhaps my sense of humanness will fade, with time … perhaps it’s wise that our service is limited by our lifespan. But I am not alone here inside, either, which I think will help me to remember why I exist and perhaps even who I am. I am a part of the Council in a very literal sense, and we are … of one mind.”
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