With that, he had a better point. Much better, unfortunately. “And you can’t think of anyone else who might want me dead?”
“Neither Father nor I can, and that worries us both.”
I nodded slowly as I stood. There wasn’t much point in staying. I reached forward and took the small black case. “You’ll let me know?”
“Just as you will.”
I was afraid of that, but I smiled. “As soon as I find something … if I do.”
“Daryn … do be careful.”
“I will. I don’t want to be a rate-hit on your instant AllNews show.” I could certainly assure Gerrat of that.
He actually looked worried as I left, and some of it was real. What worried me most was that he hadn’t even questioned that what had happened to me had been an attack of some sort, and that meant more was happening than met anyone’s eyes, and that neither Gerrat nor Father knew much more than they had already said.
* * *
Chapter 13
Fledgling: Yunvil, 421 N.E.
* * *
Father’s study was on the third level of the dwelling at the rear. There, in cooler weather, the armaglass doors and windows could be slid open to allow the breeze unfettered access. He preferred natural air to the conditioned variety.
I sat in the green leather chair across the replica of a pre-Collapse businessman’s desk from Father. Besides the desk and the concealed vyrtor that he seldom used at home, the study held little except three leather chairs and a real cherry bookcase that stood nearly as tall as I did. Father hated window hangings, relying instead on polarization of the wide sweep of armaglass that overlooked the rear veranda and pool, and the long grassy slope behind.
As usual, I listened as he leaned forward to emphasize each word.
“Federal Service is an obligation of worth, Daryn, and one I cannot gainsay, especially in your case, but that does not mean you need to take it to extremes.” Father’s eyebrows furrowed, narrowing the gap between their bushy edges, the way they always did when he was angry, and didn’t wish to show it.
“I have to get through pilot training first,” I pointed out.
“If you want to, you will.”
That was fine for him to say, but I had more to say, and I could use his own words. “You always told me that if I had to do something, it was stupid to do a poor job. Being a pilot is a good job, not something like managing a supply center on Mars or serving as the logistics officer on a cargo boat that shuttles between Earth and gamma whatever.”
“Being a pilot is a dead-end position,” he countered, straightening in the high-backed antique-looking swivel chair. “There’s no market for interstellar pilots except in the FS. The whole interstellar travel operation is totally uneconomic. It only makes sense for the survival of the species and the gathering of knowledge, and neither pays off quickly, nor well. The times of big payoffs from science ended with the Collapse. That means that actually working with a logistics system would give you an understanding and a feel for what is required in any kind of business. Those are honorable positions, Daryn, and ones in which you can learn much.”
“I can learn more of what I need as a pilot.” I could feel my jaw stiffening, and triggered the mental keys to let the augmentation system relax me. “You always said I needed to learn things the hard way.”
“The minimum obligation is ten years, son, ten years personal objective time. That could be close to fifteen years or more system objective time, even with the Gates.” He paused for effect.
Much of the effect was lost on me because I knew he was exaggerating the time dilation factors. Once they had been that large, but not in recent years.
His eyes focused even more narrowly on me. “Nothing I can do will change that. Ten years is ten years and then some.”
“I understand.” I already knew that.
Father smiled, shaking his head. “You probably do need those ten years, at least in your own way. Just promise me that it won’t be all or nothing. If the pilot training doesn’t work out, and they offer you something else worthy, you ought to consider it.”
I nodded. “I will.”
That meant I couldn’t afford not to succeed in becoming an interstellar pilot. The last thing I wanted was to end up as Gerrat’s implementer and errand boy. If I didn’t make it through pilot training, that’s where I’d be, because I didn’t love running people and their lives the way Father and Gerrat did. I wanted to know how things worked far more than making sure that others worked for me.
* * *
Chapter 14
Raven: Vallura, 458 N.E.
* * *
Although the hangar on the lowest level of my dwelling was cool and dim, outside the open hangar door, the sun shone out of a deep blue late fall sky, and the hint of chill and dusty grass slipped into the hangar on a brief gust of wind. With a smile, I stepped into the glider, on my way to Yunvil to see Mertyn. He’d been my history instructor at Blue Oak Academy before I’d gone east to The College, and we’d kept in touch over the years, as he’d gone in my mind from “old Rosenn” to “ser” and then to “Mertyn.” His insights and advice were usually keen — and applicable, and I needed keen and applicable. And Mertyn refused to talk more than pleasantries on the net. So I needed to visit him.
Every avenue open to me to track down Elysa or whoever had backed her had come up blank. Gerrat’s information on the Society of Dynae had been interesting, and I’d certainly be looking farther in that direction, but the Dynae were strictly philosophical in their opposition to the nets and the VR worlds and those who controlled them. Never had an action of any sort ever been traced to the organization’s members.
Once out of the hangar, its doors irising closed behind me, I turned the glider uphill, and it straightened and began to slide above the grass, only the faintest of humming indicating that the magfield inducers were working. I’d left the canopy back, enjoying the crisp and cool air, and the hint of dampness from the night’s rain.
Blue glare flared over me — glare and heat.
I could sense my personal field nanites ablating as I ducked down in the glider, even though I had to do that by feel since, with the laseflash, I’d gone blind — at least momentarily, while the nanites floating on the moisture of my eyes opaqued faster than I could have blinked. That would help save my vision.
The fingers of my left hand toggled the canopy switch, and I could sense the darkening around me as the canopy slid forward. I also grounded the glider, since I couldn’t see to guide it, and wasn’t about to trust the automatics under the circumstances, not until I had a sense of what was going on.
As the glider settled onto the grass, I could also smell the same scent of flowers and the fragrance I had not been able to identify when Elysa had used the first spray, and that scent filled the enclosed glider. My nose began to run, almost immediately, and my throat was scratchy … but that was all for the allergenic symptoms. My lips quirked. So far Kharl’s special nanites were doing their job.
My fingers brushed the controls … feeling for the stud that would summon the CAs, much as I disliked the whole idea.
Nothing happened after I sent the signal, and I waited. The sensor alarms weren’t showing anyone approaching the glider, and I was beginning to get flashes of vision back. So I touched the “house return” stud and let the glider cart me back inside the hangar.
By the time the hangar door had closed, I was getting back even longer flashes of blurry vision, but I sat in the glider until I could see and feel enough to link with the house security systems. No one was there, and no one was anywhere on the grounds — if I could trust the systems. But they didn’t feel cooked. So after several minutes, I flicked the stud to open the glider canopy.
Then I made my way back up to the study to wait for the CAs.
As I sat behind my flat table desk, blinking, and feeling as though I’d been badly sunburned, I considered what had happened. Someone wanted me dead … and this time, it was
n’t someone trying to use me as a way to get to Gerrat or Father.
Worst of all, I still hadn’t the faintest idea who or why. The heavy-duty nanite personal protection system Father had insisted on when I returned from Federal Service had suddenly become worth the inordinate investment, at least from my perspective. Otherwise I would have been waiting for eye clones to regrow the blistered tissue, and suffering under an artificial epidermis and more.
The ground alarm system noted the approach of two gliders, and then verified the Civil Authority transponders. The CAs had arrived. I stood slowly, then walked from the study out to the front entry. I was still seeing stars, and there were vacant spaces that crossed my field of vision when I opened the door.
Two CAs stood there, a short and slender man and a taller but more blocky blonde woman, both in their off-white and gray singlesuits, both with the streamlined equipment belts and the impact helmets, but with the visors up. Two gliders rested on the grass outside the hangar door, and a third blockier glider hovered next to the stone wall nearly three hundred meters along the side of the hill, the wall that separated my grounds from those of Rokley Barres.
“Ser …” That was the woman.
“I’m Daryn Alwyn, as you probably know from the call. Someone used what seemed to be a laseflash on me as I was leaving the glider hangar a little while ago.” I paused.
“Yes, ser,” she replied. “We checked the skytors on the way.” Her voice and the emotions beneath revealed a certain disgust/dislike.
Why? Because I lived on the lower Hill? Because I was a pre-select?
“Why don’t you come on in?” I motioned for them to enter, and then walked into the front sitting room, where I sat in the straight chair.
The two followed me, the second closing the door. After a moment, they sat in the matching armchairs opposite me, but they sat on the forward edges.
“What did you discover?” I asked.
“There was a single-burst laser set up on the top of your neighbor’s wall. It was set in a plastic. The plastic was the same shade as the stone. According to the skytors, the burst was for four hundred microseconds,” the woman CA replied.
I winced.
“You’re augmented, aren’t you, ser?”
Theoretically, that was none of the CA’s business, but it didn’t matter, and I really didn’t want to give her more reasons to dislike me. “Yes.”
She nodded somberly. “If you weren’t augmented, under that much intensity, you’d be blind and in the medcenter right now.”
But not dead, not from the laseflash.
“I assume it melted down.”
“Mostly, ser.”
“What about past records? When was it placed?” I asked.
The two exchanged glances. The shorter male CA finally answered. “We don’t know. The skytors’ records are on a three week loop. We had the whole loop downloaded and scanned once the energy spiked. It set off the skytors’ alarm. The duty tech thought it might be a fire at first.”
“So no one came near that part of the wall in the past three weeks?”
“No, ser. Except for the gardeners, and they didn’t get that close,” answered the man.
“And there were no remote signals to the unit?”
“It could have been set off locally … but the tech says it looks like it was coded to recognize you and your glider, and to discharge.” He paused before adding, “There was no high-power signal, and there were only three people within a klick, and all of them were … modified.”
Norms hated the term brain-damped, but if the skytors, with their resolutions and scans, had only been able to pick up three people, and all were brain-damped, or modified, those three hadn’t been the ones. The CA wasn’t lying. He was a norm, and my systems could read him well enough to be sure of that.
I blinked. My eyes still watered. “Thank you very much.”
“Do you have any idea who might have done this, ser?” asked the female CA.
“I have no idea. No idea at all.” That was certainly the truth.
“Have you done anything … that might have upset people?” she pursued.
“I’m an edartist … that’s always possible, but I haven’t received any messages or anything to indicate that might be the reason.” That was also true, so far as it went.
“No one has sent you any strange VRs or other … communications?”
“Not anything out of the ordinary,” I admitted.
The questioning seemed to last for hours, but my system told me it was closer to thirty minutes before they both stood and bowed ever so slightly.
I followed them to the door.
“We’ll let you know if we find out more. Ser … if you find out anything we should know … you will inform us, will you not?” asked the woman. Underlying her even tone of voice were hints of contempt and dislike.
“I certainly will.” I could promise that, especially given the way she’d phrased the request. I could ignore the contempt.
I closed the door and walked slowly back to the kitchen where I poured a long drink of cold water — just water — and drank it. I decided against netting Gerrat or Father. They’d find out soon enough, since UniComm had monitors of all the CA freqs.
Someone had set the laseflash well before Elysa had attempted her nanospray, or they had sophisticated enough equipment to bypass the scans of the skytors. I didn’t care much for the implications of either possibility. And either way, I should have noticed the changes to the glider.
I shook my head. Anyone could have gotten to the glider in the time I’d been in the medcenter recovering. Anyone with the right equipment to bypass the security systems, and early enough, and they wouldn’t be on the skytors either. But that meant someone with a great deal of expertise and credits.
The way things had gone didn’t make a great deal of sense, not from what I’d seen, but that meant that I wasn’t seeing enough. After refilling the glass of water, I headed out to the study.
The gatekeeper offered a gentle ring, and a light on the commplate. I looked at the ID — Gerrat — and accepted.
“Are you all right?”
I gave him points for asking about me, first. “I’ll recover. My internal system says so, even without heading back to the medcenter.” I wasn’t about to mention the second nanospray attempt.
“That’s good.”
“Very good.”
“You really like trouble, don’t you?”
“It wasn’t my idea. How did you find out?”
“Our monitors. The energy spike came across the skytors system, and it triggered our alerts. Someone tried to hit you with an FS-type laseflash. It’s a good thing Father insisted on a full protection system for us. For you, anyway.”
“Has anyone ever tried something like that on you?”
Gerrat shook his head.
“So … does the whole world know?”
“Of course.” My brother’s tone turned cheerfully cynical. “Noted edartist Daryn Alwyn — attacked with a laser as he left his home this afternoon. Alwyn was burned, but is expected to recover. The perpetrators and their motivation are both unknown at this time. The Civil Authorities have withheld comment.”
I nodded, trying to ignore the continued blurs and holes in my vision and focus on the holo image of Gerrat that blocked my view of the late afternoon sun falling on the East Mountains. I could have gone VR, but for short conversations, I usually didn’t.
“Real news like this doesn’t happen that often,” Gerrat offered apologetically. “I didn’t put it on … my team had it there almost at the time I found out.”
“And if they hadn’t, OneCys would have had it within a few more minutes on InstaNews,” I pointed out.
“An hour … but those viewcreds add up.”
“I’m certain they do.”
“You still ought to have Kharl or someone check you out,” Gerrat suggested.
“I will.” He was right about that. “Do you have any better ideas a
bout who’s behind this?”
Gerrat’s smile vanished. “Like you, brother, I can speculate, but I don’t even have a good guess. They could be testing your personal systems in preparation for an attack on us, but that doesn’t make sense, because whoever it is can’t be sure they’re the same. Personal systems are personal systems.”
That meant he was more worried than he was saying, and that didn’t help my mood much either as his image vanished.
I looked at the East Mountains until my eyes began to blur. It didn’t help. Neither did another round of searches through the various netsystems.
* * *
Chapter 15
Fledgling: Kuritim, 422 N.E.
* * *
The walk from the long and low one-story quarters building was hot, despite the early morning breeze off the lagoon. Centuries back, the SysCon engineers had enlisted the environmental specialists from HMudd University to develop a hardier coral. They’d rebuilt and reshaped the atoll to meet Union needs because of its near-equatorial location, and it had become one of the principal SysCon Lift Centers. As a result of the storms during the chaos years, it also had the advantage of having few neighbors who might interfere or complain.
I turned from the sunlit blue waters of the lagoon and glanced at the brunette who walked beside and slightly ahead of me. “I didn’t see you last night.…”
A slightly shy smile was her first response as she turned her head. That shyness that didn’t seem contrived or coy. “I came in earlier, on the afternoon lifter … from Mancha. I slept through dinner.” She was almost as tall as I was, perhaps the tallest of the women I’d seen in and around the quarters who had not been wearing FS uniforms.
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