The Octagonal Raven

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  “I appreciate the care.” I paused, then nodded. After a moment, I let my eyes close — almost.

  After a time, he left, and I did sleep, if uneasily.

  * * *

  Chapter 5

  Fledgling: Yunvil, 416 N.E.

  * * *

  Supposedly, there was a cold August fog across the Bay. You sure couldn’t have felt it on the hilltop tennis court a hundred klicks to the north. My relatively new internal nanite sensors told me that the temperature around my knees was over thirty degrees, and the sweat oozed down the back of my neck.

  The court was old-style clay, except it was harder than those used by the ancients old Rosenn exalted and condemned. I waited while Gerrat went through his serve routine. He always showed off when he tossed up the ball. His serve was fast, maybe two hundred and fifty klicks per hour. He’d even told Ertis how fast it was, giving her his dung-eating smile the whole time.

  My racquet was moving before the ball even crossed the net.

  “Got that one!” I called as my return angled toward the tape on his backhand side, nearly as swiftly as the serve.

  Gerrat stopped dead, then reversed three steps. He even got set enough for a solid stroke.

  I saw it coming, but couldn’t quite reach it. It should have been out, but there was no flash from the line sensors. Somehow, he managed to nick the tape — a lucky shot if I’d ever seen one.

  I nodded and walked to a point behind the baseline on the left side of the court and waited for Gerrat’s next serve. It was another laser, but I got my racquet on the ball. Sweet drop shot, too, right on his backhand.

  He’d been charging the net. He was there before the ball dropped, and his return sliced along the tape on my backhand side again. I went after it, but skidded on the sand enough that I didn’t get there fast enough. He’d have been dead if I’d hit a lob, but he’d guessed lucky again.

  Most of the match went like that. If I hit a good shot, his return was better. Sometimes, it was skill, but he was lucky more than a few times, and I wasn’t sure that all the line sensors were working, either.

  Then … our matches usually were like that. At times, I wondered why I bothered, except that there was no point in playing someone who wouldn’t challenge me, and in all of Syerra Calfya the only one who could was my own older brother. He was pretty good, but not nearly as good as he thought.

  Then, while I didn’t like being beaten, I didn’t like to concede, and Gerrat would have to prove he could beat me — each and every time. And, once in a while, he couldn’t, even with all his luck, and when he wasn’t lucky … he usually lost.

  At the end, I smiled. “You played well.”

  “I had to.” He returned my smile with one that flashed both warmth and understanding. “I’m not sure you’ve ever played better.”

  “Not often, anyway.” I slid the racquet into its case, then blotted my forehead. “But as I get better, so do you. And you are lucky, you know.”

  “That’s life.” He grinned. “I’ll take the luck any day.”

  We walked off the court and down the magnolia-shaded walk of the Contra Tennis Club. Father never believed in private luxuries like tennis courts. The only exceptions were our house and the pool behind it, and Father justified both on the grounds that so many family members enjoyed them that neither was really a totally private luxury.

  As we continued down the path to the glider-bark, I had to blot my forehead again. Gerrat didn’t. For all his words, he hadn’t worked as hard, and he didn’t sweat as much. Maybe people who are blond don’t, or maybe his pre-select profile included less active sweat glands.

  We were almost at the end of the walkway, where the ramp turned into steps leading onto the flat thick grass of the glide-park, when someone on the other side of the hedge spoke — in a low voice, not meant for us.

  “There go the modern gods.” The words were whispered, and tinged with bitterness.

  I let my head turn, and my eyes swept over the two youths. Then I realized that they were norms who had been watching the match. They were probably within a year or two of my age, although they could have been even older, even if neither stood much higher than my shoulder, let alone to Gerrat’s. Gerrat stood nearly two meters; I was a good three centimeters shorter, and fractionally stockier.

  I let my head keep moving, not to embarrass them, and followed Gerrat down the low steps.

  “… the best genetics and nanites creds can buy …”

  “They’re people.”

  “No … they’re not. They can bend iron bars bare-handed. Could you have raised your racket before one of their serves went by you?”

  The murmur that was almost silence was answer enough.

  I couldn’t conceal a frown. Better genetics didn’t mean that much. Not in a world where brawn had limited usefulness. Besides, the Federal Union genetic selection program operated by Genetic Services was open to anyone who wanted to pay for it. I knew that from all the times Father had drummed into us — too often, for me — how deferred payments were available even for the poorest couples.

  “You guide,” Gerrat said, settling into the passenger side of the glider and leaning back under the canopy.

  “This time. Next time it’ll be you.” I grinned.

  “Maybe.” He just spread his hands before adding, “You’re the one who’s always fiddling with it.”

  “That’s because I don’t like not knowing how things work.” I checked the systems before easing the glider around.

  The loser always controlled the glider on the way back to the dwelling, not that the trip was that long, only about two klicks. I would have just as soon used a magscooter, but Father wouldn’t have them in his household. So we’d walked to the tennis club until Gerrat was old enough to use a glider, even if he didn’t understand how it worked, and later, until he could set it up so I would drive him.

  * * *

  Chapter 6

  Raven: Vallura, 458 N.E.

  * * *

  My lungs still burned if I took too deep a breath, and I kept smelling, intermittently, an acridity that made everything taste a shade bitter, but I was back in my own dwelling, back in my own study, looking out over the valley, past the empty bird feeder that I needed to refill, and toward the red Navaho sandstone ramparts of the East Mountains — and too far behind in my contract work for OneCys. I sat down behind the flat surface that served as desk, console, snack table, and whatever, and called up the comm plan I’d been working on. I still had a week, and I could probably make the deadline.

  OneCys had decided to invest the resources in a comp analysis of all the profit centers of UniComm — from the porndraggies to high opera VRs, from double-bluff chat salons to Gate-dropping interstellar space combat simmies — not that the Federal Union had ever had any space combat or had run across anything but the comparative handful of artifacts found beyond Pavo 31.

  I smiled, briefly, recalling my own first encounter with a forerunner Gate. We still weren’t sure if it had been a Gate, no matter what I or any scientist claimed, but the similarities were there, and the location argued for it being a Gate — and there had been some odd occurrences.

  Reminiscing wasn’t going to pay the tariffs, and I began to go over the work I’d already done on the comp analysis, beginning with the VR high music dramas. I liked them, but I had to wonder about their appeal. Still, UniComm was scooping in creds, especially on some of the revivals, camp stuff like Socrates in Corinth. The orchestration was lush. I could tell that the UniComm contractor, probably Vebyr, had used a real orchestra — maybe even the Warsha. Competing with that would be expensive for OneCys, but not competing would cost even more, especially if UniComm managed to reclaim market share it had been losing before revitalizing the VR high music stuff. Of course, the ancient philosopher hadn’t ever gone to Corinth, not so far as I knew, anyway, but that didn’t seem to matter in getting netshare, especially in entertainment.

  My providing analysis to OneCys — t
he netsystem trying to take back market share from UniComm, the family firm run by Father and Gerrat — was more than a little ironic, but while Father occasionally gave hints of appreciating my abilities, Gerrat never had, and Gerrat was the one half-running the operation and being groomed to succeed Father.

  When I finished running through the analyses and comp recs I’d already completed, I put through the screen to Myrto. I just toggled the two-way holo, rather than using the headset for a complete VR interaction.

  Immediately, an image appeared in the middle of the study, that of a man of average height for the pre-selected, not quite two meters tall, with short black hair, deep blue eyes, and a winning smile. “As you can see, I’m really not here, but I’d like to hear your message, and I’ll get back to you when I can.”

  Myrto was honest with his sims. He didn’t program them to lead you on or pretend that they were him with various routines. According to Gerrat, some of the UniComm execs had sims so elaborate that outsiders couldn’t tell for certain whether they were dealing with a hurried and harried real person or an elaborate VR. Gerrat did, too, but he’d been careful to instruct his gatekeeper not to use it with me.

  “Myrto … Daryn here. I’d like a few minutes. When you can.”

  I leaned back in the chair, gingerly, looking blankly toward the red stone bluffs across the valley to the east.

  Elysa — the face that probably didn’t even exist any more — drifted into my vision, and the way that she’d blushed, so charmingly … and effectively. I snorted. Had there been the equivalent of a nanite aphrodisiac in that spray that had triggered every histaminic reaction in my system? Kharl’s explanation notwithstanding, I still thought it was that fragrance, and the odds were that it had been deliberate, and that the fragrance had held more than mere altered scent. Did my wondering about Elysa mean that I was a sucker for a woman — or construct — who had nearly killed me?

  I didn’t think so. Elysa was a risk, and I was definitely risk-averse. That might be why I was still unattached. Besides, I was in no shape to go looking for her. A quick read of my nanite monitors confirmed that.

  That thought didn’t help. I still found myself slipping on the headset. Scanners had implants. So did at least half the methodizers I knew, and so did Gerrat, but I’d avoided another set — having a pilot’s set was enough, and those weren’t keyed to any of the popnets. I could have had them re-keyed, but I’d never done that, probably on some unacknowledged principle, or just to be contrary.

  I hated dropping into the net. Most former pilots did. After the clean systems of a ship, after the ice whispers of space, the mists of faint hydrogen, the best human nets were filled with noise and scum. When I could, I just used a holo projection, but the net was where I had to start. First, I wasn’t in shape enough to travel physically, and second, the net was the easiest way to eliminate possibilities quickly. The screen was too slow for that kind of a search.

  For a moment, I felt myself standing in a green-shaded darkness. It could have been red, or a marble entry hall. I’d chosen darkness as my standard entry to minimize the sensory shock, since everything’s slightly off. Even with a full palette, and millions of shades, the colors are too harsh, and they scream past you. And the sounds There are clicks, and hisses, and low freqs that climb up your virtual back like dull knives scraping stone. Some netfans have scent in their systems. I’d avoided that. The last thing I wanted was off-scent roses, and lilacs with the hint of oil and metal.

  Gerrat once told me that it was all in my mind. He was right. I couldn’t trick my mind into believing electronically re-created reality was the same thing as physically experienced and perceived reality. So … don’t tell me that netting and VR beat full-body reality. Unless you’re a dep or down — or a latent masochist — they don’t.

  Finally, I took two virtual steps forward, through the curtain of darkness and into a long hallway, plain metal gray, with roughly a dozen doors on each side of the corridor. Again, I could have had one virtual door, with the name changing each time I blinked. But I didn’t.

  For a moment, I stood there, thinking. Despite what Kharl had said, anyone who had the capability to create an Elysa, and instant anaphylactic shock, had to have left a trace somewhere. And a good methodizer ought to be able to find it. The place to start, obviously, since I had the keys, was with the UniComm net.

  I walked down the VR hall to the third door. Having it third was my own affectation, as was having it of brass, trimmed with silver. I’d always imagined Father would have had his door of gold, trimmed with silver, and perhaps an understated eight-paneled mahogany or cherry door. No matter. My door into UniComm was brass, trimmed with silver.

  After mentally extending the first key, the one any subscriber has, I watched the door vanish, leaving me standing in a yet another VR hallway, this one like the holos of Karnak. The sunlight poured down around me and the pillars. Yet the sunlight had no warmth. Nothing on the net does — all light and no warmth.

  I couldn’t help frowning, since I’d coded in images of a dusty room filled with wooden filing cabinets, not a re-created ancient temple. The frown dropped as a silver cloud appeared, then disappeared, leaving the smiling figure of the director general and chairman of UniComm. Father looked almost as imposing as a VR figure as he did in person.

  “Slumming, Daryn?”

  “I thought I’d check out the family treasures, sir.”

  A flat smile crossed his face. “She’s not here. Neither is whoever created her.” He extended a symbolic file, brass-bound.

  I had to grin at the brass edging of the file, but waited for him to continue.

  “Right after I heard about your allergy attack, I had my own team do a search. I don’t believe in coincidence, especially when your companion is unknown.”

  “You talked to Kharl?”

  “Of course. He claims he doesn’t know her, and I think he’s telling the truth there.” Father paused. “There’s not much on the net. That file has what’s there … and the keys you don’t have in case you think we missed something.”

  “Thank you, sir.” I always disliked Father’s superiority … but then, unfortunately, in many areas he was unquestionably superior.

  “I wish you well. Gerrat or I will let you know if we discover anything you might find of interest.”

  I nodded. I wasn’t so sure I’d hear from Gerrat.

  Then the restored VR temple of Karnak was vacant, and the sunlight without warmth fell on my shoulders again. Almost immediately, the temple vanished, and I stood in a room with dusty antique wooden filing cabinets.

  Not that I didn’t trust Father, but the first search was for Elysa Mujaz-Kitab. There wasn’t one person on Earth or in Federal Service with that name — or on the out-of-date data from a half-dozen out-systems. I tried Elysa, but there were over two thousand people with that name as part of their registered identity. I couldn’t sweep for redheads. That was privacy-protected. And a sweep of medical adjustors netted exactly ten Elysas, from what I could tell, none of them anywhere close to the woman I’d met.

  So … I went to a sweep of the multis who acknowledged biological expertise, and who had more than nanite template capability … then ran that against a resource capability macro and a personnel macro and then against a product output macro.

  While those were running, I set up another series of screens, a junk screen that took in wealthy individuals, private foundations and action groups, and netmedia figures, running those against the same resource and talent macros. That took longer, a great deal longer.

  Once I had that personalized search-and-window engine running, I began to set up the parameters that would describe exactly what kind of technical ability was necessary to create advanced nanites of the type that had presumably been targeted at me.

  I hadn’t quite finished putting together that search when the bright green flash from the half-open wooden door — and the gentle bell — informed me that someone wanted to appear.
r />   I checked the gatekeeper, and slipped out of the net and let my vision readjust to the real light of my study, watching as Myrto’s image appeared. He looked less perfect in real-time than his sim, with the black hair longer, slightly on end. “You wanted to talk?”

  “I don’t know if you heard,” I said quietly, stifling the urge to cough — I knew coughing would hurt — “but I got iced with some sort of stiff allergenic reaction. Put me out for nearly two weeks. I’d gotten a lot done before it happened, and it looks like I’ll still be on schedule.” I shrugged apologetically and scanned the OneCys head compositor’s face closely, watching for any reactions.

  “Heard something along those lines. Your brother. I wasn’t certain if he let me know for fairness or to gloat.”

  “Both, probably.” I laughed, very gently. “We’re not immune to sibling rivalry.”

  “How is it — the plan?” Myrto asked cautiously, feeling me out as to whether I’d done anything at all.

  “It looks good, especially the high-culture offerings. How are things going with everything else?”

  “Smooth … we’ve really got something here, and the rest of the team’s humming The option possibilities are almost done.”

  Meaning that I was behind a bit, and that they’d be waiting. Also meaning that nothing else was off schedule. I’d figured that, but needed to know.

  Myrto smiled. “You can have another couple of days if you need them.”

  “I don’t think I will. If I do, I’ll let you know.”

  “Do that.” With a practiced and warm smile, he, or his realtime sim, vanished, and I was once again looking eastward, over the valley, at the clouds that would probably climb into thunderstorms later in the afternoon.

  I slipped back down into the net and checked the results of the first reduction. Among the multis were five possible candidates, just five, although my target could as likely be an individual as a multi team. More likely, in all probability, because teams left more traces.