Remains

by Mark W. Tiedemann

  Glim, probably. Or Glims contact, who had been here all along, waiting for whatever it was she had been intended to deliver. That suggested another Lunessa.

  “One piece is still missing...” she mused. What besides vacuum might connect Glim to a trojan on Aea? “Who put me here?” the ghost had asked. Who was running Toler? Who had gotten Toler onto Aea? That was the missing piece...

  Glim had been a devoted attendee of the Temple, a fact that had lessened her respect for the Temple. Lunessa, with a few exceptions, started at the Temple of Homo Relmaginoratus when they first arrived on Aea.

  Nemily continued along the circuit until she saw a restaurant that offered public terminals. Few people occupied the small tables within; one man sat at the far end of a long, chromed bar. She leaned between two stools midway along its length and gestured for the tender.

  “Terminals?” she asked.

  He pointed toward the back. “Sorry, the light’s out. The lock works, though.”

  “Thanks.”

  She settled within the booth and pulled the door shut, thumbing the latch to lock it. The only light came from the display itself. She tapped a request for a schema and scrolled until she found the Temple. She was surprised how close she was.

  She tapped Mace’s number.

  “Macefield Preston’s dom,” the d.p. answered.

  “Is Mace available?”

  “Who is calling, please?”

  “Nemily Dollard.”

  “He’s out. I am instructed to tell you to come directly here if you can.”

  “Right now I better not. There’s been a little difficulty. Tell him I’ll try to call him later if I can.”

  “Do you wish to be more specific?”

  “I can’t. It’s... I’ll explain later.”

  “Very well.”

  She left the restaurant and made her way to the Temple, only four arcs away along the circuit. Traffic thinned as she neared it.

  She went past the broad, austere façade with its lemniscate in fading paint, and drifted across the circuit to the opposite wall. She kept to the shallow impressions and worked her way back, scanning the few people who she passed to see if any looked at her too closely or ignored her too diligently.

  When she felt certain that no one was watching the Temple, she made her way up to the entrance, trying to act as if she did this often, a normal routine. She rapped on the door three times and entered.

  The sanctuary, empty, threatened nothing, and Nemily found it oddly comic. Like a broad play area for children, with pictures on the walls, and a raised space from which the tutor could oversee them, it looked almost carnival.

  She remembered coming to Temple as a child, moving with the enforced slowness of large groups, the monitors constantly reminding them to keep their heads bowed and their mouths shut. The incantations had appealed to her. Latin, she later learned, mixed with other languages, distorted by time and separation from the mother tongues on Gaia into unique shapes, and used only for ritual purposes. Just that struck her as worth a small loyalty, to come and hear those words, remnants of days of connection to Gaia, to Earth. The rest of it might have impressed her if it had not been used to intimidate and frighten, hand in gauntlet with SetNetComb maintaining the ubiquitous darkness of Lunase. The Temple domes offered light, relief from the austerity of the warrens, but it was forbidden to look up. The images on the walls told stories, but it was forbidden to interpret them for herself. The music inherent in the litany offered solace, but it was forbidden to sing along. She did not so much lose faith as leave it. She knew where it was, she had simply chosen not to bring it with her.

  Then there was confession. Her first patri became angry when she offered nothing in the confessional. She had not understood what it was she was supposed to tell him. Later she tried to talk about how unhappy she was working for the alchemists but she was told she was disloyal, sinful, corrupt for thinking such things. Did she not have guilts, errors, or transgressions to confess? Did she not wish to offer atonement for these small violations against her nature and against her neighbors? Did she not steal, deal vacuum, take illicit pharmacopiates, lie, spread false rumor, fuck indiscriminately, resent the rules, hate, fear, fail?

  When Patri Collum had learned that she was a CAP he had refused to confess her anymore and soon after she had been transferred to another Temple. The unexplained banishment stripped away the caul of illusion and broke her connectedness with the larger community. From then on, she lived in Lunase because she could go nowhere else.

  This Temple occupied much less area than those in Lunase. The auxiliary chambers huddled around the perimeter of the sanctuary, compact, almost cramped rooms. The confessional was one booth instead of a row of them; the kitchen was an automated processor with a counter and three tables close together; Patri Simity’s office was a cubicle with a small desk and a terminal.

  The stacks of discs had been searched and left strewn over the floor. Someone had gone through the office in a hurry. Perhaps the search had been interrupted.

  Where was Patri Simity?

  She sat down before the terminal, examined it until she found the direct link, then removed her synthesist and made the connections.

  The system possessed no diorama, only stacked tallies of files that riffled through her awareness. Nemily made an adjustment and imported them into her own sensora, sat down amid piles of documents, and began going through Temple records.

  She located Patri Simity’s personal correspondence and requested a match with the words “Glim Toler” and waited. A sheaf of mail rose to the top of the stack.

  The most recent one read: “I am sending an acolyte of questionable ethics to Aea to deliver a package. He will no doubt seek the Temple. His name is Glim Toler.”

  Nemily skimmed through the pile. The dates ran back nearly two years and many of them referred to other letters in other files. She set loose a collation program that gathered all the related correspondence together, and began a search for the start of the chain, which seemed to trail throughout Simity’s large body of communications.

  She found one finally from a rector named Vin that began “Simity: It has come to my attention that our people are engaging in a program not in keeping with the principles of Gaia or common sense. It is not, of course, an ‘official’ program, but it has support among the more extreme members of SetNetComb.”

  Nemily sat back to read.

  When she finished, she downloaded Simity’s correspondence into a single file which she forwarded, after a few moments’ thought, to Cambel Guerrera. She hesitated, feeling she should do more. Reluctantly, she sent a copy directly to Structural Authority, selecting three separate departments.

  She had told herself then that she needed to leave, but she was tired and worn from the last several hours. Nemily wandered from room to room, uncertain what to look for, scanning the walls and furniture and floors—

  In the kitchen she noticed that several pots and pans had been stacked on a countertop near the large double sink. She picked a few of them up. All clean. She went back to the office. The floor to the right of the desk was wet. She squatted over the small puddle and dipped her fingers in it. Coffee perhaps, or tea. Then she saw the cup, halfway under the desk. She returned to the kitchen.

  From the third cabinet she opened, a small, folded body fell out onto the floor. The head cracked against the tile. Blood pooled beneath the skull.

  Nemily backed away, pulse racing. It was Patri Simity, though it was a far different face than the smiling icon that kept appearing on her home comm with polite invitations to come back to the Temple. Her immediate impulse was to run. But she stood still, trying to force calm on herself and be rational.

  She noticed, then, a faint pinkish trail that ran across the floor to the entrance. It had been wiped up, but traces of the blood still remained. The floor was cleanest right before the cabinet where the assassin had hidden Simity. The entire attempt had been hasty, interrupted. Which suggested that th
e killer would possibly be back, given a chance, to clean up better. But more likely not. The possibility that Simity had already been found would be greater the more time passed.

  She needed to call pathic, get Simity medical attention. She could not tell if the old woman was alive.

  Before she could reach the door, it opened.

  Glim Toler glared at her. Then, slowly, he smiled.

  “Surprise,” he said. “Tell me you’re glad to see me, Nem.”

  She lunged, thrusting her left arm out to catch him in the sternum with the heel of her hand. He stepped aside, caught her wrist, and sent her flying through the door, across the narrow hallway, into the wall. She collapsed on the floor, her wrist in bright, sharp pain.

  “Shit,” he hissed when he saw Simity. He let Nemily go and crossed the floor to kneel beside Simity He began examining her carefully, looking for life. “This fouls everything up. I needed her.”

  “You didn’t do this?” Nemily asked.

  “No. Patri Simity was my way off Aea. Some of my other exits have been closed off.” He looked up. “How long ago did you find her?”

  “Just now. I—”

  “She’s still alive.” He went to the sink and found a towel. He soaked it in water, then carefully placed it beneath Simity’s head. “Come on.”

  He took her back to the office. He tapped in a call to the local pathic.

  “Why are you doing this?” Nemily asked.

  “What did you expect? She’s a patri. She’s old. We have to leave.”

  “We? I’m not going with you.”

  “For now you are,” he said, reaching for her.

  She tried to knock the hand aside, but her wrist erupted in sickening pain when she struck him. Glim took hold of her right arm and steered her out into the sanctuary.

  “We’re going back to your dom, Nem. Least, till I figure a way off this can.”

  He opened the doors and pushed her through, then left them open. Out in the main circuit, the pain subsiding slightly, she looked around for someone who might notice them, recognize that the situation was not normal and help. But this was the Heavy, more like Lunase than Aea, and all the faces seemed to turn away just as she found them.

  She looked at Glim. He seemed thinner than she remembered, even though he had obviously gone through adapt treatments. The bones in his face protruded more sharply. His face was tight, his eyes wide and too alert. He surveyed the crowds with barely concealed fear.

  A loud whine approached—the emergency pathic team, on its way to the Temple—and Glim tightened his grip for an instant. Then he relaxed. Too much.

  Nemily stepped forward onto her left foot, stopped, and deftly jammed her right foot into Glim’s knee and jerked her arm free at the same time.

  He screamed, both hands reaching reflexively for the knee. Nemily braced herself and threw her elbow into his cheek. He spun away and she ran.

  The pathic team was twenty meters away. People moved aside at the sound of their siren and Nemily squeezed between the medtechs and the crowd.

  She made the elevator. As the doors closed, she saw no sign of Glim.

  Sixteen – AEA, 2118

  MACE PRESSED NEMILY’S MICI, then knocked on the door. The hallway was intensely quiet otherwise. He leaned against the door to listen, but heard no sounds from within the apartment. The silence stretched and he knew she was not inside.

  He backed up against the opposite wall and slid to the floor. Possibilities ran through his mind.

  She had more errands to run and he had simply missed her.

  Perhaps she had gone in to work to personally request a leave of absence.

  She had decided not to see him anymore and was staying with a friend till she could move or make sure he would not bother her.

  Glim Toler had found her.

  The last possibility unsettled him the most, but it seemed the least likely. Mace was sure Koeln had surveillance on Nemily in case of exactly that eventuality. Besides, InFlux records were damnably difficult to access, even for an insider like Mace; how would Toler find her address? Privacy was an Aean obsession, even though it seemed most Aeans could care less what they revealed about themselves. But that was just it—the choice to reveal details was personal, no one else could take that away. At least, not easily. Consequently, it was unlikely a newcomer like this Toler could track her down easily, certainly not quickly.

  So was it possible she had changed her mind about him?

  No. Maybe he was simply unwilling to accept that possibility, but it made no sense.

  The first two were the most likely but he believed she would have let him know. She was an ordered person, she would take care of small details like that, especially when something important was at stake. If she had had more to do than simply come home to get a change of clothes, she would have let him know.

  Unless it concerned something she did not want him to know about.

  Toler?

  Or Reese...

  Koeln had lied to him about knowing Reese. He probably thought Reese was his agent, but Mace doubted Reese had ever been so dedicated. The fact that Reese was one of Cambel’s sources attested to his adaptability. It was more likely that Reese worked both sides. Toler had been at his club. That in itself meant nothing, but Mace got the impression that Koeln believed there was a connection.

  He was overlooking something, he could feel it. Probably because he was distracted. Where was Nemily?

  If anyone would know, it would be Reese.

  Would Reese tell Toler where he could find Nemily?

  Mace pushed himself to his feet and headed for the stairs.

  He hesitated at the sound of footsteps coming from below. Mace glanced back down the hallway, but there was no other exit. He started down the steps.

  A man came around the landing, carrying a package. He looked up at Mace, momentarily startled, then smiled and nodded. He was completely unfamiliar to Mace. Tall, broadshouldered, with a slightly rounded face... Mace did not know him. Mace turned aside to let him pass and watched him continue up. He heard him start up the next flight.

  Mace continued on down, relieved.

  He strolled back to the shunt station, half hoping to see her walking toward him, returned from her errand. The more he imagined it the less likely it seemed. By the time he reached the station he felt certain that something had gone wrong, but he could not logically figure out how or what. Nemily was missing.

  He tapped in his number at the public comm.

  “Macefield Preston’s domicile,” the d.p. answered. He could not wait to get the lock off his system so Helen could function again.

  “It’s me. Did Nemily call?”

  “Yes.”

  He suppressed his irritation. The house system did not have the autonomy to assume Mace would want more. He missed the Helen d.p.

  “What did she say?”

  “Would you like me to play it back?”

  “Yes.”

  He listened to the message, relayed verbatim by the house system.

  “There’s been a little difficulty” he heard Nemily say. “Tell him I’ll try to call him later if I can.”

  “Do you wish to be more specific?”

  “I can’t. It’s... I’ll explain later.”

  “End message,” the system said.

  “Damn. That’s... any other messages?”

  “Yes. From Philip Huxley. Do you wish to hear it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Tell Macefield to meet me as soon as he can at the pathic in ring five, near arc ninety. You want to ask to see Patri Simity It’s important.”

  “If he calls again,” Mace told the house system, “tell him I’m on my way”

  The pathic ward was two arcs antispinward from the arc ninety elevator. Mace waited at the reception desk until the attendant noticed him.

  “Visiting?” she asked.

  “Patri Simity.”

  “Just a moment.” She tapped a keyboard and watched a screen. “S
omeone is already with her. Would you mind—”

  “What room, please?”

  “Uh, six... but—”

  “Thank you.”

  Mace strode down the hall before she had a chance to deny him access. He wrinkled his nose at the faint but pervasive smell, a combination, he had always thought, of gin and aloe. He walked down the row of private rooms till he reached number six. There, he glanced back to see if anyone was coming to eject him. No one. He pushed through into the quietly lit chamber.

  Philip looked up from the opposite side of the bed. He began to rise, but Mace gestured for him to remain seated. Faintly, Mace could hear the whir of Philip’s exoskeleton. Mace stopped at the foot of the bed.

  Patri Simity was a small woman who seemed tiny in the bed surrounded by monitors. Across her lap was a tray with a bottle of water and half-eaten bowl of broth. Her face was pale and lined where it was not bruised; her mouth hung open slightly, a trickle of drool trailing down her chin into the pillow