by Steve Perry
Kifo rounded the sharp curve and as always, his breath caught, his throat clenched, and he was nearly overcome with awe as he beheld that which had been built by the hands of the gods Themselves.
Here the gods had dwelled, in a city made of a substance harder than diamond and stronger than any material men could produce. Five hundred million years past the Zonn had built their city, and while the roofs and doors and interiors were gone, the larger walls remained standing, untouched by the natural elements of weather. Five Major Walls still stood, ten meters high, half a meter thick, with two dozen shorter and thinner Inner Walls connecting them. During the revolution a group of rebels had chosen to hide in the ruins, and the Confed committed the worst of sins by attacking them there. Even as enduring as they were, two Major and six Minor Walls had been knocked askew in the bombing. Kifo was certain that the Confed’s action had been the pivot upon which the revolution had turned: desecrating the home of the gods had surely guaranteed the fall of the Confederation.
He stood there, staring, aware that he had been joined by others stopping to take in the view. The Five Walls were impressive, dull, midnight blue-black against the green backdrop, dark and brooding giants.
Scientists had done computer projections; electronic and viral-molecular brains had tried to reconstruct what the city must have looked like when whole, but most of the projections made no sense. At least not to human minds.
Kifo smiled. Can a dog understand its master’s house? Hardly.
He stared at the ruins, impressed again, though he had been here a hundred times. Kifo knew the ruins better than the lines on his own palm, knew the shapes and dimensions, the joinings and connections, those things other men could know. But there was more that the Unique knew, more than any man alive could possibly know.
Kifo put his right hand into his pocket and touched the Glyph he carried there. The talisman felt cool as it always did to his touch, and a faint ripple of energy spread into his fingers.
The vouch millimetered forward.
“Stay, foolish machine. I am in no danger.”
Not yet. Soon, perhaps. Though he was certain he had not failed the gods in any way, there was no way to be sure. The true answer to that question lay down there in the ruins.
Kifo turned away from the view and continued his walk down the trail.
The labbos had come up with precious little, nothing that help Taz directly. Maybe if they had a suspect, one they could match with some of the loose molecules scooped up by the nanocops, but you couldn’t stop every person on the street and demand tissue and pheromone samples.
It would have been nice if the perp had left something a little more concrete at the scene.
Yeah, like his ID cube and maybe a map to where he was staying.
Saval was in the fresher, composing himself after his adventure in the lobby. Taz grinned. Hard to figure a guy like her brother. She knew he was smart, had an IQ up on the edge of genius. She’d seen the setting on her workout gear after he’d finished using it, and according to those records, he was stronger than anybody she knew on this planet. Then he’d outshot her at the range, outshot everybody who’d ever used the place, done it cold, no practice. And then, then, he’d sung a lullaby to his kid, in a voice that would shame a professional opera singer. Blew the stereotype of the big strong mope right out of the sky.
Her com chimed. She pulled the tiny unit from the patch on her belt. “Yeah?”
“Personal communication holding,” the routecomp’s tinny chipvoice said.
“ID of caller?”
“Ruul Oro, number six-four-five-zero-”
“Record it,” Taz cut in. Her voice sounded harsh. “I’m unavailable at the moment.”
“Acknowledged,” the computer said.
She stood there rubbing the com with her thumb as Bork returned from the fresher. “Everything okay?”
She looked at him. “Yeah, why wouldn’t it be?” She tucked the com back onto her belt.
She was going to have to talk to Ruul sooner or later, she knew. That idea scared her much worse than the killer she was hunting.
There were guards at the Zonn Ruins, though hardly anybody could understand why. The Walls themselves were impervious to almost anything a tourist might do to them. True, an explosion of sufficient force might damage the material, but anything short of that was pretty much a waste of effort.
Paint or ink or gluestat graffiti all wiped off with a damp cloth no matter what kind of applicator was used. You couldn’t cut the stuff with any kind of knife-metal, vibroor molecule chain. The Walls absorbed lasers without damage or even undue heating. Maser, ultrasound, tachychroma, plasma, none of them did any significant damage. It was unlikely a tourist could even transport a device with sufficient energy to cause any real harm, unless they had access to military-grade weaponry, and if they did have such access, why would they do such a thing? Even the walls the Confed had knocked down were still in complete sections, no chips lying about.
There was always a chance that somebody poking around the ruins might find an artifact small enough to steal, of course, though this was not one of the ten major sites where such things had been discovered.
Then again, the Sacred Glyph had come from these ruins. Yes, the Few were chosen to receive it, under the direction of the Zonn, but who knew but that other such objects were still hidden here, awaiting the proper time to be revealed?
Directly after the fall of the Confed, the previous Unique, Brother Pain, had been instrumental in convincing certain governmental authorities to cause guards to be posted at the ruins. Bribes, threats, blackmail, whatever it took, all had been applied properly and justified, rationalized as needed so that the ruins would be watched with care. Great care, for every guard who had been hired in the years since the first had been a member of the Few. With enough money, many things were possible, and the Few had more than a few valuable holdings on Tembo. Timber property in the south, rental buildings in the city, interest in a couple of copper mines, a pharmaceutical plant in Mende Town. When you joined the Few, were selected from the chaff, what was yours became the property of the Temple. It was cheap admission to the house of the gods, and after a certain amount of money was achieved, it took on a life of its own. The Temple of Despair was not poor. Considerable care had been taken to keep that fact secret; dozens of accountants spent their days hiding it, shuffling files, renaming corporations, legal smokescreens, illegal transfers, whatever it took. The end, after all, justified the means. To be one of the Chosen Few meant that human laws became as nothing.
Kifo sat lotus in a shaft of the dwindling sunshine, waiting for night. The ruins were closed at dusk, tourists shooed away like bothersome flies by the guards, half a dozen of whom combed and recombed the entire area until it was free of the unfaithful. The guards would pass by Kifo, nod politely instead of bowing, in case there might be a stray watcher still around, as they went about their business. Once the place was dark, once the tourists were gone, then Kifo would begin his business.
Between the Third and Fourth Walls, a quarter of the way from the southernmost end of the Third, was the Gods’ Chamber. This consisted of three Minor Walls formed into a squared-U shape, once a room it was thought, with a fourth wall covering the opening of the U.
What had happened to the fourth wall, indeed, what had happened to all the vanished walls, was a scientific mystery. Of them there was no trace, no rubble, nothing buried under the ground, no sign that they had ever existed. It was another question that puzzled the scientists, but not Kifo in his role as Unique. The gods gave, the gods took away, and if they chose to snap their digits and make disappear something as simple as a wall, then it was surely a thing of no great importance.
That the gods had allowed their Chamber to remain was important to the Few. For within the confines of the partial room, miracles were possible. Even the densest of tourists, the most unaware among them, could feel something did they tarry in the Chamber too long. For one who was
among the Few, much more was possible. For the Unique holding fast to the Sacred Glyph, there existed the ultimate: Communication with the very Zonn Themselves.
Ah, yes, there were stories that in one of the other ruins there existed a complete Gods’ Chamber, bound against time and space on all four sides, wherein even an unbeliever could speak to and hear from the Zonn. Some said this was on Bocca, some said it was on Zena, some even said it was on Kontrau’lega, in the very heart of the Omega Cage. Ordinary men, so it was said, who went into and stayed in this chamber for more than a few minutes quickly went insane. Their minds were broken so badly they could never be repaired.
Kifo smiled at the thought. Unbelievers, and as such deserved no less.
Perhaps such a chamber existed, but if it did, it mattered not to Kifo. He was the Unique, he had the faith and training and the Glyph, and he could bespeak and hear the Zonn well enough here in these ruins.
And before the sun had settled comfortably into its night’s rest, Kifo would do just that.
Despite the heat of the tropical afternoon, he felt a chill frost him, raising blains over his chest and shoulders. Communing with the gods was not something to be undertaken lightly. Best he calm his body and mind and still his soul before the event. He had done this holy work thrice before and each time had been most arduous. A misstep while dancing with the Zonn could be fatal. Best he be ready.
Chapter ELEVEN
THE OWL WAS, as usual, packed. A waiter led Taz and Saval to a double table in one of the quieter nooks, and Pickle arrived while they were still in the process of sitting.
“Hel-lo, big man. Oh, and you, too, Chief.”
Taz decided not to get in Pickle’s way if she wanted to flirt. Dueling the Owl’s owner was generally a nowin proposition-even if you zapped her, she would bite you on the way down. Taz had no desire to be bitten again, not after last time.
“So,” Pickle said to Saval, “are you ready to go somewhere and screw my brains out? Or here on the table, right now?”
Subtlety was not Pickle’s greatest talent.
“Uh, I don’t think my wife would like that much,” Saval said. He wasn’t Machiavelli’s brightest pupil when it came to indirectness, either.
Pickle brought out her best pout and tried it on him. “You’re no fun at all.”
“Sorry.’
She smiled, the pout vanishing instantly. “You know, I believe you really are. God, Chief, he’s so sincere! I love him.” She turned back to Saval, licked her lips, vamped a little. “You won’t mind if I keep asking?”
“Uh, no.”
“Good. Try the hammerfish and fried kaizis, the fish was still swimming around this morning and the kaizi was in the ground up to an hour ago.”
She flounced away.
Saval smiled a little, shook his head. “Funny woman,” he said. “She used to be a man?”
Taz stared at him. Damn, she wished he’d quit doing that. “How did you know? She’d be crushed if she found out you could tell.”
He shrugged. “Dunno for sure. Just feels like it. Female pheromones too strong, maybe. Probably dusted.”
He would know about that, being married to an Albino Exotic. “See if you can keep the table while I run to the fresher,” she said.
“I’ll try.”
As she walked away, Taz thought about the possibility of somebody taking the table from her brother.
That was enough to make her chuckle out loud.
But once inside the fresher, in a private stall, the humor evaporated. It felt as if there was a block of solid nitrogen in her belly, and her bowels suddenly twisted into frozen Gordian knots. She pulled her com from her belt and stared at it.
You don’t have to call, she told herself. Nobody is making you do it. You can stick the com back on its patch and go back to your table, nobody will know.
I would know. Dammit.
She lit the com with a double press of her thumb. “Ruul Oro,” she said. Her com had the code.
He could be rehearsing or taking a shower or hang diving off the cliffs next to his house. His mansion.
Or he could be in bed with somebody or on a toilet or doing any one of a dozen other things that would prevent him from answering a call. A lot of people wanted to reach out and connect with Ruul Oro the comedian, the media light, or the just plain great-looking man. He had secretaries and assistants and hired security to screen and shortstop the masses. It was the first time she had called him since that night at his place and she wouldn’t have been surprised to find that it was difficult or impossible to get him
“Tazzi!”
No such luck. And his computer had read her call code, so she couldn’t discom without his knowing who it was.
“Hello, Ruul.”
“God, I’m so glad you called.”
“I thought you might be busy.”
“It can wait.”
She stared at the com as if it had suddenly become a deadly serpent, curved and hollow fangs ready to sink into her flesh and fill her with poison. Here was the damning part of all this. He was glad she had called. She could hear it as clearly as a monk’s bell in some quiet mountain zendo; the truth of it rang so clean as to be undeniable.
Damn him for being so fucking glad!
“I got your message,” she said. “Just like all the others. Listen, Ruul, you’re going to have to stop calling me like that.”
The silence stretched between them, and the excited particles and waves carrying the energy over space and through time went slow, went mute and stalled to dead stillness, waiting for further instructions from their masters. It couldn’t have been very long, the silence.
Couple million years, maybe.
“Is that what you really want?”
Another eight or ten million years marched past, each fucking second of every fucking minute distinct, unique, quite apparent.
“Tazzi?”
“Goddammit, Ruul-!”
“Come and see me,” he said. Every bit of his talent and skill in front of people flowed through those four words. She could feel the power much as she had once felt the winds of a hurricane beat against her, streaming her hair, flagging her clothes. Stroking her skin …
“Please,” he said. “We need to sit down and talk about this again.”
“No, we don’t,” she said. “We’ve already said it all.”
“Please, Tazzi.”
She felt herself trembling, saw the com shaking in her hand. Why didn’t he just leave her alone? Why was he continuing to torture her this way? Damn him-!
“Tazzi, I-”
“Don’t say it,” she cut in. “Don’t say it.”
“Will you come?”
She took a deep breath to smash him with her denial. The word “No!” was never going to feel so clean and fresh in her mouth.
“All right,” she said. Blinked at the com in horror. Jesu Christo! She couldn’t believe it! She couldn’t have said that; it was impossible!
“Thank you,” he said. “Tonight?”
She was numb, injected by the serpent’s fangs, the chemicals filling her. Dying. Would that she could pass away before the next words came out of her. Hurry-!
But-no. “Okay. Tonight.”
She discommed. Held the unit in her hand and looked around at the inside of the stall. It was unreal, as if she had suddenly been dropped into the middle of a psychedelic dream. The gray everlastplast panels and their extruded flanges and hinges seemed almost to glow with unnatural light. The slunglas bidet was too white, the ceramic floor shined up supernally at her.
God. What had she done? She had lost her mind!
Back at their table she didn’t say anything to Saval about her conversation. He must have noticed that she was a lot paler and more subdued than when she left for the fresher, but he didn’t speak to it. The fish and fried root nodules could have been wonderful, probably were, but for Taz it was like chewing raw and unseasoned soypulp, tasteless, odorless, bland.
She
was going to see Ruul. At his house.
What the hell was she going to do?
Bork saw how shaken his sister was when she returned to their table. Had she run into somebody in the fresher? Only a couple of people had left the unisex unit, both of whom looked innocuous enough, and he kept glancing that way to see if anybody else had been inside with Taz, but it didn’t seem as if they had. Something had rattled her, though.
Well. If she wanted him to know, she’d say something. She wasn’t his baby sister any more, she was an adult and had been taking care of herself for a lot of years without his help. He was curious, but he wasn’t going to pry.
The fish was great, and the fried potato things just about as good. Whatever else Pickle was, she set a pretty fine table.
Taz pushed her food around her plate, eating with a definite lack of gusto. She’d always been a big eater, all the Borks had been. He remembered watching her consume an entire mbwa cutlet once when she’d been thirteen, on a dare. Two kilos of dense meat, highly seasoned with hot spices and thick sauce. She’d thrown up later, but she’d enjoyed every bite of the meal while she was eating it. Whatever was bothering her must be fairly major that she would find no joy in the dinner before them.
He popped a chunk of the fish into his mouth. Well. She would tell him or she wouldn’t. No point in his being worried about it.
As he chewed the delicious fish, he found he was still a little worried about it anyhow. He’d known Tazzimi longer than anybody else in his life, she’d been there since he was four, and if there was anything he could do to help, he wanted to do it.
But it was her move. If he’d learned nothing else in his years, he’d learned that there were times to move and times to sit still. Knowing when to do which was a fairly big lesson. Right now felt like it was time to wait, to watch, to keep his mouth shut. Except for eating this hammerfish. And to be polite, he’d have to tell Pickle how good it was.
