When she is utterly still, he releases her. She falls limply into his arms.
INTERSECTION
Two of the Rakehells have decided to wrestle. They are stripped to the waist, bodies glistening in the light of the surrounding helmets. The others shout and cheer as one wrestler throws the other to the ground.
Orel sits in a corner, using his sonar helmet for a seat. Shadows of the wrestlers roll and bounce around him. He has ceased pretending to be a guide, and the Rakehells have stopped pretending they are interested in seeing a Rat. This is just another vacation for them, a chance to blow off steam.
And yet, they are clearly deep within the Rats’ domain. This cavern is the intersection of four or five different tunnels. The floor is worn smooth by the traffic of many feet. Even the walls betray a line of smoothness where a Rat’s fingers would guide him through the darkness. Orel has found a few strands of hair on the ground, and an occasional spot of blood where a Rat must have stumbled and hurt itself, but other than this, the tunnels are clean and deserted. Orel had expected to find droppings. Perhaps the Rats have some understanding of sanitation.
The Rakehells are tiring of their games. Orel can see that they will want to move on soon. He dusts off his helmet and puts it back on his head. As he is tightening the strap, he sees movement in the green and black field. “Hey, everybody,” he announces. “I think I see something!”
The Rakehells do not seem to have heard him. The sound of their scuffling continues. He expands his range to encompass the nearby tunnels. He rotates in place, trying to orient himself and ascertain which direction the movement is coming from. He hopes he can pinpoint it before the noise the Rakehells are making scares it off.
With a start, he realizes there is second blip on the screen. There is now movement to the south as well as to the north. As he suspected, this cavern is an intersection for a great deal of Rat traffic. “Quiet, you guys,” he says. “We’re in luck.”
Suddenly the blip to the north ripples and splits into two, then three . . . four blips. It was a group, not a single individual. The blip to the south also begins to divide.
“Guys . . . guys . . .” Orel feels blindly around him for one of the Rakehells, but no one is within reach. The sound of their laughter continues unabated.
More blips appear, converging from all directions. The blips that Orel saw first are waiting in place, pulsing in anticipation. The blips on the sides ripple and split into smaller forms, like multiplying bacteria filling the viewing area of a microscope.
“Guys!” Orel’s voice breaks. “Everybody, listen to me!”
The fear in his voice finally catches their attention. One of them asks what is wrong, but Orel’s attention is all on the sonar screen, which is still filling up with pale green dots. They form a tight circle around the small group of Rakehells.
“Koba . . . they’re everywhere. Everywhere,” Orel whispers. The blips have stopped moving now, but Orel can feel them all around. The pressure and heat of the cavern have risen from their overwhelming numbers, just around the corners, just out of sight.
“What is it?” Thraso asks. “What’s wrong?”
Orel hears a sharp squeal, so high-pitched that it is almost out of the range of human hearing. The blips begin to move inward, pouring through the tunnels, and Orel can hear their raspy breathing and the slap of bare feet on the cold, stone floor.
REGRETS
Cadell bounds up the steps to the Courthouse three at a time. The guards at the door eye him dubiously and take their time clearing him for entry. Looking at his reflection in the polished stone walls, Cadell can see why. His eyes are red and his long hair is disheveled. His coverup is soiled with sweat.
Finally he is cleared. He enters the building and runs down the curving hallways. Amarantha is sitting just where he’d left her outside the court, her hands in her lap, her chin against her chest so that her hair covers her face. He sits down next to her and puts his hand on her shoulder. “Sorry I took so long,” he says between gasping breaths. “Any news on when they’re going to call you?”
She lifts her head, glaring at him furiously. She swings her fist at him, a clumsy, straight-armed sweep that nonetheless catches him flat in face because it is so unexpected. Cadell shouts in pain, and cups his nose with his hands.
“Where the hell were you?” she demands. “What took you so long?”
For a moment he cannot speak, he is so shocked. “I . . . I got here as fast as I could,” he says finally. “I’m sorry.”
“As fast as you could? I came out of that awful court, and you weren’t there! Second Son was saying the most awful things about me. I wanted so badly to see you. Where were you, Cadell? What happened?”
“The send-off took longer than I thought, and the transport got stuck coming back. And then I got stopped at one of the checkpoints. I’m sorry, Amarantha. I couldn’t help it.”
She stands up, rubbing her temples with her fingers. “Koba’s teeth, Cadell. I need more than that from you.”
“I know,” he says, jumping up and putting his arms gently around her. For a moment she resists, then she sighs deeply, resting her head against his chest and wrapping her arms around him tightly. “I missed you, Cadell. I wanted you there so much.”
“I’m sorry,” he repeats, shamed by the uselessness of the words. He cannot believe his own stupidity. Twice now he has been elsewhere when she needed him. What will it take before he learns? “I’ll never leave you, Amarantha. I’ll never leave you alone again; I swear it.”
Extremism in any form is the enemy of rational thought. To seek perfection is to embrace destruction and death, because these are the only absolutes.
Lessons I Learned from Image,
Georg Canon, Third Edition
INVENTORY
When Edward looks at Astrid again, he sees she is awake, her body tense and motionless beneath the covers. Her eyes are narrow slits behind her dark lashes. The pale blue irises dart back and forth, taking in the alien surroundings.
“Good morning,” he says. “Would you like some tea?”
Discovered, she raises her head and opens her eyes, blinking in the light. She looks around cautiously. The room is much larger than her own, and she can see another room through a narrow doorway. The walls are a cool gray, accented with ochre and russet trim. “Is this where you live?”
“Yes,” he replies, motioning with his arm, inviting her to see. “Two and a half rooms. A bit extravagant for one person, I know. But I’ve come to appreciate it. It used to be my mother’s.”
Astrid sits up in bed, only to grimace in pain and drop onto the pillows again.
“You’re not going to want to move around too much in the next day or two,” Edward says. “It’s a small incision, but it’ll take a little while to heal.”
Gingerly, she pushes down the bedcovers. She is naked, her body white against the dark sheets. A short scar has been neatly stitched a few centimeters below her navel.
“When your agent had your body resculpted, he implanted a small device in your abdomen. It was a sort of deadman’s switch, designed to activate if it stopped receiving a certain electromagnetic signal from a transmitter planted in your room. If you went out of range of the transmitter, the device would activate, sending an electric shock to your viscera — basically harmless, but very painful.”
Astrid puts a cautious hand to her stomach, feeling the small, red scar. “It’s gone now?”
Edward nods. “I borrowed some equipment from work and removed it myself. Would you like to see it?”
“See it?”
“I’m sorry. Of course you wouldn’t.” He sits down on the edge of the bed. He is dressed in his house clothes: a simple blue cassock with white trim. “The important thing is that it’s gone. You’re free. You can go wherever you like.”
He expects her to smile at this news, but she does not. The casual confidence she had in her own room is gone now. “What do you want from me?”
�
��I don’t want anything from you,” he says, touching her arm. “I just saw you were in trouble, and I thought I could help. You can do anything you want.”
“Could I have something to wear?”
“Of course.” Chastising himself for his thoughtlessness, Edward hurries to bring her a robe and an analgesic. She swallows the drug without question, then climbs out of bed, wincing with pain as the incision stretches. Wrapping the robe around herself, she explores Edward’s domus.
“I hope you’re not disappointed,” he says. “I know I’m not much to look at without the armor. I’m really just an ordinary man, trying to get along.”
Astrid nods without looking at him, marveling at the amount of space he inhabits. She slides her feet across the carpet, enjoying the feel of it. She studies the furniture, the pictures on the walls. She touches one object, then another. “What’s this?”
She is holding the blue crystal vase with intricate silver inlay. It sparkles in the dusty light that filters through the polarized window.
“It’s called a ‘vase’,” Edward says. “I don’t know what it’s for, exactly. But it is remarkable, isn’t it?”
“I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“It was my mother’s. An admirer gave it to her. He said that it was very old, that it had been brought inside by one of the Founders.”
“Wow.” Astrid holds the vase up to the light, turning it. Lambent azure shapes appear and disappear within. “She must have been a beautiful woman to be given such a gift.”
“Beautiful?” Edward considers. “Not in the conventional sense. She was brilliant, though. I could never tell a lie around her. She would catch me out just like that.” He snaps his fingers. “She could always tell when I wasn’t being honest. Even when I didn’t know myself. She hated dishonesty more than anything.”
“She’s dead now?”
Edward is momentarily startled by Astrid’s forwardness, but she is not baiting him. She is not even looking at him. It is not boldness on her part, he realizes, but an utter indifference to social mores. “Yes,” he says. “Yes, she’s dead.”
“Do you miss her?”
“Most of the time. She could be difficult to deal with sometimes. She was very . . . precise. Very demanding.”
Astrid is still studying the vase, holding it up above her head, clutching it with unconcealed envy.
“She wouldn’t have liked you,” Edward says.
Astrid makes a small sound, a short intake of breath. She carefully puts the vase back on its pedestal. She walks away from Edward, not looking at him.
“No, no, you don’t understand,” Edward says, hurrying after her. “That’s a good thing. It’s hard to explain.” He puts a hand on her shoulder. “Listen . . .” he says, but she steps away. “Listen.” He grips her shoulder tighter.
Her response is immediate: as his hold tightens, her body relaxes. Her breathing becomes slower and deeper. She responds to pressure with passivity.
“I’m sorry; that didn’t come out right,” he says. “It’s a funny subject, my mother. I say the wrong thing sometimes. I’m not very good at talking about my feelings. I haven’t had a lot of practice. You’re the first woman I’ve invited here in a long time. You’re the first woman I’ve wanted to have over.”
He puts his arms around her. “There’s something about you. I don’t know what it is, but I like it. I really like it. And I want you to stay with me. Not because you’re frightened. Not because I make you stay. But because you want to. You see?”
She nods. Without turning around, she leans back against him, sinking into his embrace. But it is only reflex, he knows. He has her acquiescence, but her spirit is as far away from him as ever.
“We’ll go out today,” he says. “We’ll buy you a new wardrobe. Something fancy, like you’ve never had before. I’ll get you a temporary ident. We can go wherever you want, buy whatever strikes your fancy. Okay?”
“Okay,” she says quietly.
“I mean it. Whatever you want, you can have. What’s mine is yours. Do you want the vase? You can have it.”
She pulls away from him. “Don’t say that.”
“I mean it. It’s yours.”
She scowls, becoming angry for the first time. “You think you mean it, but I know you don’t. Right now I’m entertaining. I’m a curious little poor girl, and I do funny things. But in a few days, maybe a decameron, you’ll be tired of me. You’ll want me out of your life, and you’ll want your vase back. It means too much to you. So don’t insult me by saying it doesn’t.”
“I mean it, Astrid. I want you to have it. And I won’t change my mind.”
Astrid walks away from him, then back. Her face is set hard. Abstractly, Edward notices marks from the resculpting along her scalp line. “All right,” she says. “I’ll take it.”
He smiles. “Good.”
She looks at his face. She seems satisfied in some way, but not happy. Turning, she walks to the window and runs her fingers across the darkened glass. “This is a window, am I right?”
“Yes.”
“Can you see the Sun from here?”
“Yes. I can depolarize the window if you’d like.”
She puts both hands against the glass. She spreads her finger wide. “I can feel it. The glass is warm.” She closes her eyes, resting her cheek against the window. “It must be beautiful.”
“It is. Would you like to see it?”
She sighs, lifting her head away from the glass. “Not today,” she says. “Not yet.”
VERDICTS
Cadell and Amarantha are at home when the voice of Image comes over the comm: “The veniremen have rendered a decision.”
A short while later, they walk through the wide brass doors of the Axial Court hand in hand. Second Son is already there, waiting. His eyes follow them silently. Amarantha’s legs are weak with anticipation as they walk across the parquet marble floor. The three of them are alone in the round hall except for a pair of clops who stand on either side of the doorway. There are no benches, no tables, no decoration other than the stone carvings of the six most important Founders that glare down at them from far end of the room. In one corner, almost hidden behind one of the carvings, a tiny black door leads to the Place of Execration.
The subdued voice of Image issues from somewhere beyond the carvings, echoing around them. “The Second Pandectors, who established this court, believed in swift justice without ceremony. Their guiding principle was that justice rendered by the state was a luxury, not a right, to be dispensed only in the most compelling cases.
“This attitude may seem curious today, or even callous, but the Second Pandectors found that universal justice pursued vigorously in all cases consumed inordinate time and resources. And only rarely did the citizens of the Hypogeum ever seem contented by the results of this extraordinary effort. So the Second Pandectors decided to take a different course, one in which only the most serious cases were heard, in which the demands of evidence were high, and punishment was immediate.”
Amarantha glances nervously at the small black door. She knows that when he was younger, Cadell was taken for execration. He does not like to talk about it.
Image’s restrained voice catches her attention again. “Miss Kirton, though the veniremen have been moved by your words, they have been presented with no compelling evidence to substantiate your claim. They therefore find Second Son of the Orcus family not guilty of sexual assault.”
Amarantha feels a wave of nausea wash over her. She hears Second Son snicker somewhere behind them. She bows her head, clutching Cadell’s hand tightly. With his other arm, Cadell pulls her close. “It’s all right,” he says. “It’s all right.”
“Second Son,” the simulated intelligence continues, “the veniremen likewise find no evidence against Miss Kirton in this case. They therefore cannot endorse your claim of defamation. The court renders no penalties in this matter. You are both free to go.”
Second Son snorts disgus
tedly, but says nothing.
Amarantha leans against Cadell. It seems impossible that it is all over so quickly, with so little to show for it. “I’m sorry,” Cadell whispers to her. “I’m so sorry.”
“Forget it.” She straightens up, trying to reclaim some of her lost dignity. “It’s not important. Let’s go home.”
“It’s over now. At least it’s over. We can get on with our lives.”
They walk back toward the wide brass doors. As they pass Second Son, he smiles and tilts his head at Cadell. “Don’t worry about me.” His tone is light, mocking. “I don’t hold a grudge. I got what I wanted out of this matter.”
“Ignore him,” Amarantha whispers, but Cadell stops and turns toward Second Son. It is very hard to disturb Cadell’s equilibrium, but now his face is red with anger. His hand is gripping her shoulder so tightly it hurts. “What does that mean?” he says, his voice low.
“Never mind,” Second Son says with a smirk. “Say hello to Thraso for me, next time you see him.”
As Second Son turns and walks toward the exit, an expression of almost physical pain crosses Cadell’s face.
“What’s wrong?” Amarantha asks. “What did he mean by that?”
Cadell squeezes his eyes shut tight, then opens them. Amarantha can feel his hands trembling. “He set us up. Him and Thraso, together. My promotion was just a ploy, a means of getting close to you. I should have seen it. I just didn’t want to.”
At the threshold, Second Son pivots on his heel, his surtout swirling out around him. For a moment he looks very much like his father. “I shouldn’t complain if I were you, Cadell. I’d say you got the better part of the exchange. After all, you got a new job, and you still got the girl back.”
Before Second Son has finished the sentence, Cadell has crossed the distance between them. His fist catches Second Son solidly in the mouth, knocking him to the floor. The clops by the door react swiftly, but not swiftly enough. Cadell manages to hit Second Son twice more — throwing his whole body behind the punches as though trying to drive Second Son into the floor — before one of the clops pulls him off, his shockstick around Cadell’s throat.
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