The Octagonal Raven

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  I broke the connection and sat there. I’d done what I could, and it had been too late when I’d started — except maybe for Gerrat’s children.

  By keeping my belt repeater off for the trip to the Sinoplex, I’d been trying to minimize direct tracking by those trying to kill me, and that meant I’d missed even a chance to talk to my father. But the way the disease struck, I might not have had that. Then … I might have … but I’d never know. Not for certain.

  I could feel both rage and frustration building. Rage, frustration, and sorrow … just trying to find out what was happening and trying to stay alive was costing me more and more.

  Slowly, I checked the incomings stacked on the gatekeeper. Besides a long message from Klevyl with all sorts of attachments, finally, one from Elen Jerdyn, and one from the director of the EDA Trust, Lyenne DeVor, with an attachment, there were several from Kharl. I decided those from Kharl needed returning — immediately.

  His sim came on, immaculate in a gray singlesuit with a blue vest. “This is Kharl. If you would leave a message …”

  “Kharl, this is Daryn. I just got back from a quick trip to Byjin.…”

  The sim vanished. Kharl appeared, gaunt and sitting propped up in a chair, hollow-eyed, a jolting contrast to the picture of health presented by his sim.

  “What happened to you?” I blurted.

  “Whatever happened to you from your friend Elysa — except different enough — and far more virulent.…” He smiled. “I owe you.”

  “What?”

  “I had a culture, if you can call it that, of those replicating nanites in your system. When I heard about the mortality and virulence of this strain, I used some clone tissue to get more of them replicated. I managed to pump enough stuff into Rhedya and her kids and Grete and the kids and me … our systems are sort of adjusting … I think. Not very scientific, and based on hunches …” He coughed, almost doubling over. “… if … we were going to die … we’d be dead.…” He fingered a miniature vyrtor control. “… wanted to make sure you were there. I’m sending you a report.” He gasped, then coughed again. “… too tired to talk, not much. It’s on what we found in your system.”

  Even as his words croaked out the gatekeeper clinged.

  “Go ahead, read it. I’ll stay with you as long as I can.…”

  “As long as you can?”

  “I don’t know, Daryn. Grete and the kids seem all right. I’m not sure about me.…”

  “Get yourself to the medcenter.”

  “Why? There’s nothing there that can help, and damned few pre-selects who’d come near me.” He coughed. His face was red. “Read it … damn it!”

  I opened the file and studied it, noting one thing immediately — the enlarged images beside the test, the images of the nanitic pathogens … that’s what they were called. I quickly studied those magnified images, but I didn’t have to more than look to catch one thing. They were octagonal, elongated octagons, but octagonal.

  “Kharl … those nanites are octagons.” I knew that, in a way, from Eldyn’s ravings, except that they definitely weren’t seeming like ravings. Not any more. The thought of Nyhal and his alien octagons sent another chill down my spine.

  “Exactly … saw the reports on the new nanitic pathogens … octagonal, too, like the first ones that hit you … figured I’d try … sent a culture to Union medical center … they’re culturing, if that’s the right word, more … but no way to create the hundreds of thousands … needed … not in time.…”

  “Are they doing anything?” I had to know that.

  His face contorted into a caricature of a grin. “Oh, yes … someone already discovered the relation of the new bug to the pre-select plague … that was octagonal, too … they were really happy to get the cultures … at least save their skins.”

  “Are they doing more?”

  “What?”

  “Can’t they do something?”

  “What? I forced everything … maybe … maybe got enough of those eight-sided beasts to save one family … this thing moves too fast.…” He doubled over, then slowly straightened. “Might help those who can stay isolated long enough … feel so hot …”

  “What do they do, the new bugs, I mean? Attack augnites? That’s what they do … isn’t it?”

  “… pretty much … Don’t worry You should be fine.… I had a sample of what’s in you.… They’re enough similar that …” He doubled over coughing.

  I swallowed, deciding I had to ask. “Are you ready to tell me? And explain why?”

  “No … I can’t. Promised …”

  The connection blanked.

  I tried to get back to Kharl, but all that appeared was his sim. When I tried Grete, that was also all I got.

  For a moment, all I did was sit there.

  Then, almost mechanically, I called up the message from the EDA Trust. Lyenne DeVor had said almost nothing except that she was sending an attachment. So I opened the attachment, coded with another set of personal references, and read through the short list of holdings. The largest single bloc of stock was that of UniComm — roughly thirteen and a half percent. But there were also small blocs of several other multilaterals, including DGen, BGP, and AVida. From the bios I’d gotten from Nyhal I recognized DGen — that was the multilateral holding company headed by the Dengs. AVida was the Dymke vehicle. BGP was an acronym for Best Genetic Productions that had long since been transformed into its less controversial initials, but I had no idea why it was in the EDA portfolio unless Elora had some concerns about clones. The portfolio offered no explanations of any of the holdings, even about the most intriguing of all — the ten thousand shares of something called Octagonal Solutions.

  I ran a quick netsearch, and found only a thin sketch, but that was enough, since it listed only two officers — the director general and the managing director. The chairman was Eldyn Nyhal, and the managing director was one Meryssa Elysa D’bou. I had a very good idea who that was.

  I hadn’t really believed Nyhal, not totally, when he’d insisted that he’d created a tailored bug that would simultaneously kill off about twenty percent of the pre-selects of the world and protect the rest against his mysterious forerunner aliens and their projected bugs. Did the aliens still even exist? The Gates existed, but they were old, and there was no proof at all that they still functioned. The one time someone had seen a gas puff … that could have been anything.

  And Nyhal, brilliant and unstable, might have created octagonal nanites, but he hadn’t. He only modified what had been there. But I still didn’t understand. If he hated pre-selects so much … why hadn’t he just let the first plague take its course?

  Or hadn’t it been strong enough? And what had he done to make the latest one so virulent, and yet so able to spread? Those characteristics shouldn’t have gone together, not from what I knew. But it all tied together, just as Octagonal Solutions tied in to everything — again, even if I didn’t know how.

  More important, what could I do? Could I do anything? Kharl had already contacted those who could. And if I did tell anyone, who would believe that I hadn’t had something to do with it? Well … whatever I could do, I could do it as well from Majora’s as from my empty dwelling, and I needed a friendly face.

  I needed a lot more.

  * * *

  Chapter 55

  Helnya

  * * *

  I guided the glider northward along the ridge trail — I wanted the least traveled way possible, and I was wondering about everything. I had packed another bag, and hoped I didn’t lose it as well.

  By the time I’d left Vallura, in the town itself, outside of the norm rally, which seemed to have shouted itself out, nothing seemed that different. There were some people on the walks, but they were all norms, and they looked away from the glider. It was the first time I’d seen that kind of behavior in Noram, but Elysa had led me to believe it was common in the Sinoplex. Then, why hadn’t I seen it before?

  Because it was less obvious? O
r because I hadn’t wanted to see it?

  While it all made sense, it didn’t. The pre-selects had been subject to plagues; the norms hadn’t, even though many had nanitic health protections. Bright or brilliant norms had every bit as much opportunity as anyone else, as witness the success of Seglend Krindottir and Eldyn Nyhal and others. No one was oppressing or enslaving anyone, not that I could see, and brain-damping only occurred to people who had been caught through physically verified evidence. The Federal Union compact was clear on that. Brain-damping could not be imposed without unassailable physical evidence. More than temporary custody couldn’t even be imposed without evidence.

  Still, there was no doubt that people were angry at pre-selects, me among them, even as we were dying all over the globe. I still was half-numb over Gerrat’s death and my father’s death, especially coming on top of Elora’s death. Much as I’d disagreed with them … dead? So quickly? Erased, so swiftly that they might never have been? Because of Eldyn’s resentment and madness? Because he’d been angry and brilliant enough to tweak an alien pathogen into something far more selectively deadly?

  And I hadn’t even known, partly at least, because I had been trying to minimize the ways in which people could track and find me.

  As I watched the guideway, and tried to make sense of the chaos of the world around me, I listened to the snippets of news. Distracted as I was, and with possibly more assassins after me, I wasn’t about to use a screen in the glider.

  … Federal Union forces have restored order in Ankorplex, and authorities have captured several of those thought to have incited the riots.…

  … secretary director has a convened an investigatory panel.…

  … the number of deaths has peaked in Eastasia, but deaths continue to rise in Noram, Easteuro, and Sudam.…

  … medical researchers at the High Plains Center in Noram have discovered a complimentary organism that confers immunity to the latest plague strain.… unconfirmed reports indicate that it is effective against all versions of the so-called pre-select plagues.…

  … medcenters requesting that no one come to a medcenter except for treatment; visitors will be turned away.…

  … contingents of Federal Union forces have arrived in Westi and Geneva to ensure Union functions continue uninterrupted in the administrative centers.…

  … off-planet travel has been temporarily suspended.…

  … one of the bodies uncovered in the rubble of a house in Tyanjin has been confirmed through DNA testing as that of Doctor Eldyn Nyhal, the noted medical specialist whose work was critical in halting the first pre-select plague … apparently a victim of the violence which rocked Tyanjin late yesterday and into the night.…

  I shook my head. Just like that. First accused of complicity in the death of his wife, then a victim of violence, and now he was once again noted and respected.

  The shadows were long, and the sun was almost ready to drop behind the trees by the time I reached the glider pad at Majora’s cottage. I’d been ready to use all the special features built into the glider, but the ways were almost empty, and I’d seen no one.

  I decided to take one precaution.

  I cut off the ground limiters and lifted the glider over the trees and set it down on the grass practically next to Majora’s front step.

  She was standing by the door when I linklocked the glider and turned.

  “I said I’d be here.”

  For a moment, her face crinkled into a wry smile. “I should have guessed you had some tricks under your singlesuit.”

  “The glider is a little special.”

  She nodded somberly. “Have you eaten?” After looking at my face, she shook her head. “Come on in. You need to eat.”

  Eating … I hadn’t thought much about it. I was still dazed — or half-numbed — by the near annihilation of my family, and I had to wonder how Kharl was doing, but, again, there wasn’t much I could do personally. There didn’t seem to be much I could do.

  Majora closed the door. “I probably should have come to you, but I only have a magscooter — and the way things are now …”

  “That’s all right.” I just stood there.

  “What’s the matter?” she asked softly.

  I realized I hadn’t told her. “The plague … whatever it is … my father and Gerrat … my mother … she’ll recover … Rhedya and their children are all right.”

  “And you still came here?” Her voice was soft.

  “Where else would I go? I can’t even VR Mother. Rhedya has her family and the children. You don’t have anyone.”

  Her arms went around me, and we just held each other for a long time.

  Finally, she eased away from me. “You didn’t have to come.”

  “Yes, I did.” Even if I didn’t happen to know whether I needed her warmth more than she needed mine.

  “Tell me what happened.” She gave my hand another squeeze before she turned and stepped into the kitchen corner.

  “I’m still not sure.” I stood behind her shoulder as she programmed the replicator.

  “I hope you don’t mind. I’m not in the mood for cooking.”

  “Anything is fine. If you scanned it in there, it’s better than fine.” I could understand that, and I put my hand on her shoulder. After a moment, I went on. “I left messages with my parents, and with Gerrat, just like I did with you. But … it was already too late, I think, by then. I hadn’t talked to them for several days or so before I’d left. I got Mother’s sim, and then Rhedya took over. She had a hard time talking. I don’t know the details, except … except …” I shook my head. The words were hard. “She said that Gerrat and my father had died from the new plague, and that Mother was recovering, but wasn’t that strong. She and Delya and Daffyd are all right. So are Haywar and his family. They were visiting.” My voice sounded flat in my own ears. “I didn’t even know. I had the belt repeater off so that the PST types couldn’t use it to track me. I’m looking over my shoulder all the time. I didn’t even know” My eyes were blurry.

  She gave me another hug, then turned me. “Daryn … you really need to eat. Please sit down.”

  I let her lead me to the table overlooking the small garden and the golden daffodils. The air was so still they looked like they’d been captured in a single frame VR. I sat down. I watched the daffodils. They didn’t move. Neither did I.

  “Just eat.” Majora set a steaming platter of something — a chicken pasta in a basil sauce, I thought, in front of me with a glass of verdyn and another glass of cold water. She sat across from me with some other kind of pasta, with shellfish, the scampi I didn’t much care for, before her. We ate for a time in silence as the shadows lengthened and finally dropped the entire garden into deep shadow.

  I couldn’t finish the pasta, and I only had a sip or two of the verdyn. It tasted bitter, but that was me, not the verdyn. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome. Thank you for coming.”

  There was a silence, not quite awkward.

  “Tell me about what happened in Tyanjin,” Majora asked in the dimness of the room.

  “You know at least some of it. First, you tell me what’s been happening here. With your sister … if you want to.”

  “I’ve told you about Rob, haven’t I, how he just walked out on Melanyi when Syrah was three?”

  “Yes.” That had been years earlier, but I remembered.

  “He called this morning. He was almost grinning. Said I ought to know.” Her voice was hard, as if she were trying to keep it from trembling.

  I could have tried to read more of how she felt, but that wouldn’t have been right, somehow. So I nodded and kept listening.

  “Syrah had called him, and he’d taken them both to the medcenter. The doctors couldn’t do anything, or not enough. He kept grinning.”

  “Hysterical reaction,” I suggested. “I’m sure he cared for Syrah. You said he spent a lot of time with her.”

  Majora shook her head, then paused, as if thinking.
“You’re probably right. I detest him so much, but he was good to Syrah.”

  “But not to Melanyi.”

  “No. He was always trying to manipulate her.” She shook her head again. “So many … they’re cremating them all — and the mon-oclones if they think they’re carriers.…”

  I remembered Rhedya saying something about that. People we’d loved or cared for or both … gone in days. Even their bodies. My hands shook as I thought of Eldyn Nyhal, and his words about paying a price. Who was he to decide what prices were to be paid? Or by whom?

  “Are you all right?” asked Majora.

  “No. I’m upset. I’m angry. I’m angry at myself. I’m angry at Eldyn. He did this. I guess I’m so mixed up I didn’t tell you.” I forced a long, deep breath. “I’m angry that I feel so stupid and helpless. People die, people we care for, and by the time I find out enough, it’s too late. There’s a battle going on. People are fighting, and I don’t know why, except in general terms. People are dying, and those dying aren’t the ones who are to blame.” I wanted to lash out, but lashing out at Majora wouldn’t do anything. She was already hurt enough. “And I’m angry at the situation. Eldyn … when I talked to him … he was stable one minute and almost crazy the next. He kept telling me that the first plague had been caused by alien pathogens from the forerunner Gate builders.”

  “Is that possible?”

  “It could be. Maybe … if we look … there might be something … somewhere. But about that, I could sense he was telling the truth. Then he claimed that he created the current strain to prevent something worse in the future … and to make sure all the pre-selects didn’t carry augmentation and genetic pre-selection too far.” I shook my head. “He said twenty percent of the pre-selects would die.…” I forced myself to slow down and to go over the entire conversation with Eldyn. Majora deserved to hear it, and she might catch something I’d missed. “… after that, I just ran … there was nothing to be gained by staying in Eldyn’s retreat. Good thing I did, because once I was in the escape tunnel the house exploded.” I shrugged.