Archform Beauty

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  It was already past eleven, and I needed to look at whatever Jorje had. I was also starving. "Could we make it twelve-thirty? I can stay as long as you need, but noon would be close…”

  He nodded. "That shouldn't be a problem.”

  As his image faded, some of what I'd heard finally sank in. The senator was using my ideas in a commercial that he wanted me to sing? Why? He'd been interested, but not that interested. And they wanted my image, dressed in the way I was when I taught?

  By the time I'd finished with a formulated sandwich in the student center and waited for a shuttle, it was almost eleven-forty. I had a seat on the near-empty shuttle. I marked out three possible passages in the Schumann. I really didn't want to do the Moore. Slightly after twelve, I left the OldTech station and began the fifteen-minute walk along the South Ridge pathway to the older building that housed Crescent Productions.

  This time, I remembered the passcode without having to mentally rummage through my linkfile. My steps slowed as I walked down the ramp to the lower level.

  Mahmed was pacing just inside the door to Crescent. His smile was one of relief, even as he thrust a sheaf of hard copy at me. "You need to read this first. It's not a script.”

  I must have frowned, because Mahmed went on immediately. "It's really more of an interview, plus a short take of a song… I told you about that.”

  "That's a long rezad.” An interview? Of me?

  "We're doing three versions. Long… medium… short. His campaign guy is going to place the long one as an infoshop with the educational netslots. They'll also be running it as a site-marker.”

  I shook my head. I had to say something. "That's going to help your receipts.”

  "Yours, too,” he pointed out. "Read through all this, and let me know when you're ready.”

  I settled down in the worn gray synthleather armchair outside the studio box and read.

  The first part was the interview. They'd probably have some gorgeous male with a resonance-enhanced voice in the final version, but Mahmed would just read the questions to me, and there were more than a few.

  "Why do you think classical music education is important?"

  "Why is beauty in the arts important?"

  "What does it really offer students?"

  "What would you do if you could…”

  The scary thing was that while there were suggested responses, the responses were based almost verbatim on what I'd told the senator. He'd either recorded our conversation, or he had a very good memory, and I couldn't have said which.

  When I finally finished reading, Mahmed had the studio set up, all in blue, so that they could put the final against any background.

  We did the VRing backward. Mahmed had me sing all three selections, several times each, but that didn't take all that long, about forty-five minutes, maybe less.

  Shooting the rest of it was agonizing. Mahmed must have asked each question a dozen times, if not more, insisting that I give a better or a slightly different answer each time.

  It was nearly five o'clock before he nodded, then smiled. "This is going to be good.”

  "Good?"

  "Good" wasn't a word I would have used for a political rezad. I still had to wonder why the senator had decided what I had to say would make a good campaign issue. I walked slowly out of the studio area and gathered up the music, slipping it into the folder I'd brought.

  Mahmed followed me. "You really come across on this, Luara. You should have been an actress.”

  "I wasn't acting. Music's important. I couldn't do that if I didn't believe in it.”

  Mahmed laughed. "That's why you're a singer. But you're partly an actress. You couldn't sing rezads if you weren't.”

  That was disturbing, too. Was I acting, selling myself, and my ideals, to survive? Of course I was. I hadn't been given that much of a choice, not if I wanted to sing. I knew that. I'd known it for years. I smiled politely and slipped the folder under my arm.

  "The direct pay will be in your account by noon tomorrow.” He shrugged. "The residuals won't start showing up for at least a month. It could be longer.”

  "I understand.” I also understood that I'd just made more credits in one afternoon than I had in the previous four months of working for Mahmed. That meant that now I'd still have extra credits, even after paying Brazelton for the repairs on the conapt's nanite systems.

  "There will be another round of rezads for his campaign in about three weeks. It could be sooner. They want you, but those will be like the ones you did before.”

  "That's fine.” At least, I thought it was. Certainly, the thought of being able to pay my bills on time was fine.

  Even after I'd left Crescent, Mahmed's observation about my being an actress bothered me. It worried at me all the way back to the OldTech station, and back to my conapt. So did the idea of having my face in a political rezad. There was a difference between singing background vocals and actually being pictured. I couldn't say why, but there was.

  Chapter 38

  Parsfal

  Thursday's big story was that the PDF had found a section of the Super-C underwater base stage of the torpedo-missile that had taken out the Russean shuttle.

  Bimstein wanted something new there, as well, even after my first crash effort. Before that, I'd just finished another set of weather facts and graphics to help Istancya. Since I hadn't heard anything from Chiang—or anyone else—about the McCall story, and since I'd run out of obvious people to contact, I took a minute to link in on the midday update Kerras was doing—before I went back to the orbiter story, while also working my way through the daily news confirmation sheet.

  * * * *

  "… quite confident that our technical experts will be able to track the source of the components used in the device.”

  * * * *

  Kerras's voice came in over the clip of an officer in the blacks of the PDF, an officer with a substantial amount of gold braid on the epaulets of his uniform.

  * * * *

  "That was PDF Commander Ibrim Fortas. Fortas refused to speculate on a timetable for PDF action.

  In a related action, Ayatollah Karasi of the Aganate denounced the secrecy behind the PDF's actions and said that any attempt to implicate the Agkhanate would result in serious consequences. Karasi refused to explain what those consequences might be.

  "The Martian Republic issued a communique which applauded the PDF efforts to track down the guilty parties and stated that it would withhold immediate economic sanctions pending the results of the PDF investigation…

  "NorAm Executive Snowe applauded the restraint shown by the Republic and repeated her pledge of NorAm cooperation with the PDF probe…”

  * * * *

  I clicked off the news link and sat back in my cubicle. Outside of the reheated orbiter issue, the news week had been slow.

  The mysterious ODs were still in the news, but just as baffling as ever. They were now occurring in other large cities, but deaths seemed rare or nonexistent in lower population density areas. There could have been more than a few reasons for that Cities would get a new undetectable drug—if that were what it was—before other areas. Also, if the deaths were being caused by some sort of strange disease that only hit a small percentage of people, then the deaths would appear more in cities—and they'd be noticed more there. I still thought the rezrap connection was the most likely.

  My thoughts kept drifting back to Professor Cornett, and I wondered how old she might be. She wasn't old. That was clear. She didn't have the stiff mannerisms, and she was junior faculty, and when I'd talked to her accompanist, I'd managed to find out that she'd been married once, but that she'd been divorced for at least several years.

  I shook my head. A set of words drifted into my mind.

  She smoothes her hair with automatic hand, And puts a record on the gramophone…

  I laughed. Luara Cornett would never be that absent-minded about music. I couldn't help but smile when I recalled her story about insulting Senat
or Cannon. Passion showed all the way through the professor, even through a holo projection. I could almost see the quick jerk of the head that she used to flip her hair back from her face.

  Parsfal?

  I managed not to jump out of my chair at the volume of Bimstein's link. I'm here.

  Know anything about an Edward Smythers, used to be dean of the UDenv Law School?

  Smythers? Dean Smythers? I swallowed. I'd meant to follow up on that lead, but with everything else, I'd just plain forgotten. I know he was once dean there. That's about all. Why?

  He had a small house in southside. Small for south-side, anyway. There was a fire and the fuel cell room exploded. He was killed last night.

  What do you want me to do?

  Not a lot. Just pick up what DPS will release and a short piece summarizing his life. Try to keep it around a minute.

  How soon?

  Won't run before early evening. Before four, if you can. Feed it to Kirenga. When you're done with that, see if you can put together a follow-piece on how what the PDF has found could lead to whoever nuked the orbiter. Feed it to Metesta. With that, Bimstein was gone.

  I should have followed up with Smythers, but that had been around the time of the nuking of the orbiter, and the PDF had been harassing me, and… it happened. Except it shouldn't have. But I couldn't operate on regrets.

  A quick search of the net revealed that Smythers had lived alone for years. Or at least, there was no mention of a companion or wife or children. He'd retired nearly ten years before. So I began the round of contacts.

  The current dean was Wesley Wilson. He was actually in his office.

  "Ah… Dean, this is Jude Parsfal from NetPrime. I'm trying to find out background material on a former dean—an Edward Smythers?"

  "Dean Smythers. He was a fine man. A fine man, and a brilliant mind… all of us, the legal community, both scholarly and practical, we will miss him greatly. Dean Smythers was eminently respected throughout the legal and academic communities… renowned intellect… always accessible… a credit to his profession…”

  "Ah… what can you tell me about him personally?"

  "Edward was a genuinely good human being, and yet he was able to bring a sharpness of legal focus to the law…”

  "Did he have any close friends?"

  "Anyone who truly knew Dean Smythers knew what a fine human being he was…”

  I couldn't get him beyond platitudes.

  The next three older members of the law faculty that I contacted were all unavailable. Or that was what their simmies proclaimed.

  A professor of institutional law named Rajiv Karamchand was somewhat more forthcoming. Karamchand had a long narrow face with smooth tan skin and black eyes that seemed to smile even on the holo display, even as he was talking about Dean Smythers's death. "I'm sorry to hear about it… I can't say he was the most popular dean, but he was probably the most effective. Very polite, always courteous, but he didn't put up much with academic rhetoric. He tended to emphasize that litigation should be the last resort, because everyone loses…”

  "He must have kept in touch with some of his students,” I pointed out. "Do you have any idea who I could contact among them?"

  "I would think…” Karamchand laughed ruefully, sadly. "Of course. He didn't have any family, and with his death in the fire, there wouldn't be any way anyone would know, would there?"

  "I'm afraid not.”

  "He could be quite forbidding, I'm sure you've heard. I know he kept in touch with Sunjay Mohandas and Austin Ohiri and Pamina Sulla. He was probably closest to Evan McCall, but that won't help you…” Karamchand laughed regretfully.

  "I take it that McCall was something of a scholar, then?"

  "Very much so. He was at the top of his class, and his briefs on privacy are legend. Of course, that was one of Dean Smythers's special interests, as well.”

  "Were there other privacy solicitors the dean was close to?"

  "None that I know of. Not that many solicitors make it a specialty.”

  "Is there anyone else who you might suggest who could tell me more about the dean?"

  "No. I wouldn't know where to begin.”

  So I thanked him and started in contacting the three solicitors he had mentioned. Over the next hour I managed to get all of them. That was a surprise, but not a great help, since none of the three could really add too much, but I took clips and wove them together, and sent the fifty-five-second shot to Kirenga. And that left me with a cold feeling in my stomach.

  Finally, I called Chiang.

  He wasn't in, but I left a message.

  Then I went to work on the Super-C follow-up. I still had everything I'd worked on before.

  My numbers weren't infallible, but backtracking from the point of impact, it was clear that the missile had been launched into the descending orbiter from somewhere in the neighborhood of the Hawaiian Isles. I'd have also guessed that there was a large private yacht, registered in the name of a dispatriate EurCom filch through an Eastlnd subsidiary, with a single torpedo tube below the waterline. There were dozens of yachts continually visiting Kauai during the late winter and early spring, and the Super-C technology meant there was no way to determine which had launched the missile. Perfect cover, even from recsats. Again, mostly suppositions, but I'd just package it and present as one possible scenario, and offer that as an example of why the PDF investigation was likely to take a while.

  Bimstein would like it. It offered a dig at the filch, and indirectly at both EurCom and the Agkhanate.

  Incoming from Lieutenant Eugene Tang Chiang.

  Accept. I flipped on the holo screen.

  Chiang looked as tired as I felt, with circles under his eyes, and a short lock of Mack hair falling across a wrinkled forehead. "Mr. Parsfal, I don't have anything new.”

  "I didn't think you did, Lieutenant, but I do. There was a retired law professor by the name of Edward Smythers, the former dean of the UDenv Law School. He was killed when a fire raged through his conapt this morning. Apparently, he was well regarded, and I was asked to put together a brief news slot. I interviewed several people. One thing that came up twice. His closest friend was Evan McCall, and Dean Smythers was possibly the one man who McCall might have confided in.”

  Chiang's face stiffened. "When did you find this out?"

  "Just before I called you. I didn't want to leave a message.” I decided to push just a little, since he'd find out anyway. "His fuel cell room exploded. I can't help wondering if there's a similarity there.”

  Chiang didn't change his expression. He just nodded. "I want to look into that as soon as I can. Thanks. Be back to you. Our agreement still stands. You get first notice.”

  Then I was looking at a blank screen. Bimstein would probably kill me if he knew I was sitting on what I had. But he—and I—would be looking at a stiff privacy lawsuit if we broadcast on what I had. And I didn't feel like gambling that NetPrime would bail me out.

  I had the feeling that there was definitely a connection between the deaths of Smythers and Nanette Iveson. Everyone who'd died besides McCall had one thing in common. They were people who might have known whatever secret McCall had known as a result of a client.

  I frowned. There was something… something.

  It snapped into place. Caron Hildeo—the junior associate of McCall's. She'd not only gone back to O'Bannon and Reyes. She'd been promoted. So, it had been one of McCall's clients. It had to have been Kemal. Kemal had the connections, and McCall had known something that threatened Kemal.

  I laughed to myself. Great… just great. All speculations. Not one single shred of evidence, and not even one thing that could be used in a newscast.

  It bothered me, and yet… what could I do? There wasn't much. So I jotted down two stanzas and dropped them into my personal linkfile.

  We have seen it all, what will be,

  Yet no one else will turn to see.

  We have written out who will fall,

  Yet no one e
lse will care at all.

  We have no figures on the screen

  No way to prove what we have seen

  And so the earth will end its days

  While ruled and rulers seek self-praise.

  With that, and a sigh, I went back to Bimstein's assignment on Super-C. Sometimes, the beauty of truth and research didn't make it to those who needed it.

  I hoped Chiang could find more than I had.

  Chapter 39

  Chiang

  By Thursday, I wasn't sure where the week had gone. ODs had gone down again during the week. Nothing from CDC. Nothing more that I could tie to the McCall case. Could feel that things were happening, but no signs showed up in DPS.

  Took the white electral. Made another sweep of west-side. Came up with nothing.

  Came back and found Parsfal's message. Worried about returning the call. Wondered if he was going to blow the story. Called him back anyway. He told me about Smythers's death and the McCall connection. He had good instincts. Wished we'd known about the connection earlier. Sometimes luck doesn't come to you.

  Finished with Parsfal, and linked to the system. Searched for Smythers. Only a routine report on the fire. Wondered how much else Parsfal knew. Probably not a lot. Newsies would cast it if they knew anything that a solicitor would back. Neither he nor Kerras were blabbing. Meant they might suspect, but knew less than I did. None of us could prove squat.

  Took a deep breath and linked to Kirchner. Kirchner… Chiang here. Hoped he'd answer. Be easier that way.

  What do you need, Chiang?

  Quarantine and complete workup on a fire site. Smythers… this morning.

  There was a moment of silence. Mind if I ask why?

  Just appreciate if you'd do it. Once we get the results… let you know. Also, I'll be sending some techs as well, specialized.

  You really think this is linked to McCall?

  I didn't answer.

  Couldn't be anything else, could it?

  Could be… might not be.

  Your ass, Chiang.

  Better mine than yours.

  Kirchner laughed.