by S. J. Ryan
“Matt,” Ivan said. “Your pulse and breathing rate have increased significantly, as has the adrenalin level in your bloodstream. Do you wish me to regulate?”
Matt didn't answer either of them. His expression glazed, he ascended to the courtyard and stalked as he fumed.
“Every time I tell her the truth, she thinks I'm a fraud. What am I supposed to do here, tell Archimedes the truth and have him decide to fire me because I'm crazy? I believe in telling the truth, but sometimes you have to lie in order to survive.”
Ivan didn't say anything, but Matt had the impression that if Ivan had a tongue, something would have been on the tip of it.
Archimedes wasn't around, so Matt went for a walk. The winding side streets were ominously deserted, the main thoroughfares were unsanitary and jammed. Street performers, vendors, beggars – everyone wanted money, and wasn't shy about asking. The woo seekers of Seattle had none of the desperation that Matt encountered around every corner of Rome.
"She just me feel so – " he said. "I wish I knew what it was."
Ivan asked, "Do you wish me to conduct an analysis of your biometric telemetry to identify the nature of your emotional reaction to her presence?"
"You can do that? Uh . . . okay."
Ivan was quiet for a moment, then answered, "She is causing you to feel exasperated."
Matt laughed. "You actually have a biometric definition of exasperation."
"Bio-metrical correspondence with emotional states is not an exact science."
"Well, I already knew I was exasperated. I was hoping you could tell me why."
Ivan pondered and said, "Your exasperation with her is caused by her behavior toward you and your interpretation of such behavior as provocation intended to stimulate exasperation."
"Hmm, I think you're being tautological."
"I will take that into consideration. However, please consider that sometimes the contemplation of tautologies can yield useful insights."
Who programmed that into you? Matt thought.
The cut of his now-professionally-tailored clothing allowed him to enter Victory Square without being challenged by the ubiquitous constables. He wandered past marble-faced upscale business establishments: restaurants, theaters, baths, and – most upscale of all – bordellos.
As a former resident of Seattle, Matt impulsively stopped at an open-air cafe and ordered a cup of cappuccino which – praise the mentors – tasted just like the ones in Seattle. The only difference was the cup, which was hand-made from clay and had an emblem of a naked woman riding a dolphin while holding a harpoon above her head.
He watched the throng pass as he sipped, but his thoughts were still in the basement library.
"She just – hey, Ivan, take a picture of that guy!"
Ivan took a close-up snapshot before the passerby vanished into the crowd. He showed it to Matt.
“Now compare it against all the faces recorded in your video telemetry archives. I'm sure I've seen him before.”
It took a while even for Ivan, but he did come up with a match.
Matt read the caption that Ivan provided. “'Wilson Lang, Star Seed Project Pod Prep Supervisor.' Now I remember. He was one of the last people I saw on Earth just before they sealed me into my pod. No wonder he looked familiar.”
“Matt,” Ivan said. “I was briefly in contact with the implant of Wilson Lang at the time you were loaded into the star pod. The person who passed us moments ago does not have an implant.”
“Because it's not Wilson Lang. It has to be his great great great – well, it's a descendant. But not really a descendent either, because they probably just copied his DNA without his knowledge and loaded it into the seeder probe.”
“By 'they' you mean the leaders of the secret project to create life on Delta Pavonis III.”
“Yeah. The secret project to irresponsibly create human life.” He paused. “No wonder that girl back at Fish Lake looked so much like Mom. They may have copied the genomes of everyone in the Star Seed Project medical data base and loaded the files into the seeder probe. I suppose then we'll be meeting other likenesses of people we knew on the Project – whether they were part of the conspiracy or not.”
“Use of person-specific genomes to create clones or other forms of progeny without consent is illegal.”
“Another reason they did it two hundred trillion kilometers from Earth.”
“Again, by 'they' you mean – “
“Yes, same 'they.' This whole planet is their experimental genetics playground.” Matt downed the rest of his cappuccino in a gulp. “I'll bet that mutant back at the house knows more about it than she's letting on.”
Matt slammed his cup. He got up and left Victory Square, and strode rapidly through the streets, back to the House of Archimedes. Inside the courtyard he found Jaros watering the roses.
"Where's Carrot?" Matt asked.
"Buying wood for the stove," Jaros replied. "She does it every day. Carries the bundles all by herself. Isn't she amazing? So helpful and strong!"
The normally dour-faced head servant was gushing. Matt suppressed an eye-roll. He'd suspected psycho-manipulative chemicals at work in altering the perceptions of the household toward their mutant invader, but Ivan's scans turned up nothing of the sort. Apparently Carrot charmed simply by being respectful, cheerful, and helpful. Except toward Matt.
"Yeah," Matt replied to Jaros. "So strong."
He stomped up the steps to his room and drew the door curtain to block sight from the hallway. He picked up a candle stick from the nightstand.
"All right," he said. "We need to practice hypermode a lot more than we've been doing. So right now, I'm going to toss this across the room, and then be over there in time to catch it."
"Matt, while your training progress has been satisfactory, I don't think you're ready yet for an intermediate level hypermode exercise."
"We may not have that much more time before we have to use hypermode. Ivan, please initiate hypermode warm-up now."
"Very well. Suspending automatic pain management functions for hypermode standby. Please remember that you must give verbal command to re-initiate automatic pain management."
"Yeah, I know the routine.”
After what seemed like an eternal wait, Ivan said, “Hypermode in standby mode.”
“Okay, here goes. Get ready to activate. One, two, three –" Matt tossed the candle stick and shouted, "Hypermode!"
The sunlight filtering through the window grew red and dim. The breeze rustling the tree leaves stilled. A sparrow's chirping dropped to baritone. Matt felt as if kilos were lifted from his frame. He grinned. He was getting the hang of this!
The candle stick, still hurling from his toss, seemed to hover at the top of its arc. Ivan supplied a countdown timer at the corner of Matt's field of vision. It started at three point zero seconds, and went to two point nine, two point eight . . . each tenth of a second seemed to Matt to last a full second. The candle stick lazily entered the descent portion of its trajectory.
Matt coiled his legs. Two point seven. He lunged. Two point six. He flew past the candle stick. Two point five. He slammed against the wall.
The counter aborted to zero. The sun turned to yellow and bright, the chirping and breeze to normal rates. Matt felt his full weight, and then some. He collapsed.
The doorway curtain swished. From the hallway, the two servant girls gaped while Matt lay sprawled on the floor.
"I'm all right," Matt said. "Must have tripped."
They turned to the wall. He'd left a dent in the plaster, and some of his blood in the dent. Without comment, the girls bowed and scurried off.
Matt gritted his teeth and rocked on the floor, every nerve on fire. Even his face hurt, apparently from grinning too fast – or from being the cause of the dent. Also, judging by the excruciating agony, he had broken his arm again.
The candle stick had rolled to a stop by his face. Matt suspected it was mocking him.
Ivan said, "I rec
ommend that we attempt a less challenging exercise."
Matt groaned. "Pain management. Now."
31.
Carrot went shopping soon after with Gwinol, the household's servant girl closest to her age. Gwinol chatted incessantly about boys, with seemingly all the blooming manhood of the Empire at risk to her charms, and Carrot only half-listened – until the incident with Matt was mentioned.
"He said he had tripped," Gwinol said. "But there was a dent in the wall as if he had flung himself at it with great force."
“I know he claims to be Britanian,” Carrot said, “but don't expect me to explain him.”
"Shall we have ice cream?"
They stopped at the stand just outside the northeastern end of Victory Square and Gwinol offered to treat, opening her pouch and withdrawing a fifty gram silver coin. Sunlight glistened from its features so intensely that a bright spot was cast upon the wall.
"I doubt I've seen a coin shine so brightly," Carrot said. "It looks like it's never been in circulation."
Gwinol shrugged. "Jaros gives us each a haddie a week for our allowance. You know, he's really an old soft pillow. I'll talk to him about including you in the dole."
"I'm not sure I'll be staying long."
"Oh, Carrot! Please stay!" Gwinol clutched her arm and leaned to whisper. "Frankly, you're the only one who seems able to deal with that . . . boy. He scares me. Doesn't seem quite human."
"He is a puzzle, but he's harmless."
Gwinol made the purchase and handed one of the cones to Carrot. They bit in unison, and Carrot moaned in delight.
"They don't have ice cream where you come from, do they?"
"They have nothing where I come from." Carrot was surprised at her vehemence.
Then she sniffed the air, verifying the scent that had accompanied them from the market. She rose and said, "Stay here a moment, won't you? I'll be right back. I thought I glimpsed someone I knew."
She then had a thought. She bought another cone with her own money. She slumped below the average shoulder level of the crowd, and made a wide circle, doubling back. The strong scent brought her to her target.
"Hello," she said.
The man whirled and glared. His hand plunged inside his cloak. She extended the cone. He stonily stared. Finally, Carrot shrugged and licked it herself, and returned to Gwinol.
"So is your friend man or woman?" Gwinol said. "A suitor, perhaps?"
"I'm not sure what his intentions are. Let's go home."
Carrot caught herself. 'Home?' Well, when was the last time she had lived in a house where she felt welcome? Not since her mother died. No, that wasn't right. While she had been recovering from the attack, she had been in Geth's home for a while and had felt welcomed almost as one of the family. But still, that was ages ago.
On the way back to the house of Archimedes, they passed the mint. Carrot thought of Gwinol's uncirculated coin, and that Archimedes had mentioned that he had business at the mint. It reminded her that Archimedes had business also with Palras, where he had mentioned that he had found the Wizard.
Palras, she thought. Where there are silver mines.
Gwinol followed her gaze to the mint. "Are you thinking of sneaking in? The way you climbed the trellis the other day, I do believe you could reach that open window on the fourth floor."
"I was thinking more of jumping onto the roof from the roof of that building across the street."
Too late, Carrot feared that her joke may have gone too far, but Gwinol only laughed.
In fact, Carrot was musing that there might be a source of silver closer to home.
It was dusk when they returned. Mola the cook was tending a stew in the kitchen, and Carrot habitually started to lay dishes on the table. Mola halted her and said, "Don't set a place for the master and his apprentice. They're at work up on the roof tonight."
"Doing what?" Carrot asked.
That was all that was necessary for Mola to draft her into carrying up the supper trays.
Carrot found Archimedes and Matt standing aside a tube three meters tall and a meter wide, which swung on a cradle. A large box was connected to the cradle, and the door on the side of the box was open to reveal a maze of gears within. As it had grown dark, Matt held a lantern as he crouched and poked at the gears.
"Ah, nourishment!" Archimedes said. "Light the torches, won't you, Carrot?"
Carrot carried the flame from stand to stand, then returned to watch Matt work while Archimedes nibbled and supervised.
"It's a telescope," Archimedes said. Seeing that her perplexity had not diminished, he added, "It's like a spyglass."
"Oh," Carrot said. She had once seen a spyglass captured from a Roman patrol. But how was something the size of this better than something that could be carried about in one's pocket?
The Wizard's hands moved with speed and sureness. Carrot recalled how precisely he had hit the target in the bay. A puzzle indeed, she thought.
He backed out of the housing and eyed her. "I'll need a part in the workshop. Can you go get it?"
She did so, apparently to approval, and for the next hour or so, she assisted in his efforts, holding the lantern and handing him tools and parts while he grunted with his body halfway into the housing. Few words passed between them, their eyes made almost no contact, but somehow she felt that they had become closer than they had ever been. Which, she admitted, really wasn't saying much.
Across the courtyard, pounding echoed from the front door.
"That will be him," Archimedes said. "Carrot, would you mind escorting him up here?"
The insistence of the pounding prompted Carrot and she skipped down the stairwell. Without bothering to check the peephole, she lifted the crossbeam and threw open the door.
A middle-aged man in a loose, haphazardly-tucked shirt slouched in the street. He looked rather familiar, but at first she couldn't place the face. She didn't spend much time looking at it anyway. Her attention was instead drawn to the score of soldiers surrounding him. She had seen many Roman soldiers, but none in polished golden armor with helmets sprouting plumes.
"Good evening, young lady," the middle-aged, rather smallish man said nonchalantly. "Please inform the master of the house that his old friend has come to visit at the appointed time."
By happenstance he turned, and even in the low light she instantly recognized the profile that for years had been struck on every fifty gram coin of the Imperium. Then she noticed the floral print on his shirt. The blossoms were white, red, yellow, and purple. Purple – the same color as the helmet plumes of his substantial bodyguard.
"You, you're – "
"Yes. Yes, I am. And you are?"
"I am – Carrot."
He bowed. "It's most pleasant to meet you, young lady Carrot. Again, could you inform the master of the house of my arrival?"
"He – he said for me to bring you to the roof."
"Stay here," he said to the soldiers. Switching from stern to mellifluous, he said to Carrot, "Well, we mustn't keep the great man waiting. Lead the way, my dear."
She wasn't certain if she was dreaming or if it counted as a nightmare. In a trance, she brought the Emperor to the steps. To her surprise, he stopped twice in the stairwell to rest. She dared a glance at his face. His skin was ashen and waxen. He was perspiring and huffing too much to be natural for a healthy man of his age.
Running an empire must be dreary, she thought. Why do men fight for the burden?
At the top of the steps, the Emperor regained his breath and asked, "Am I on time for the show?"
Archimedes consulted an hour glass. "A few minutes early, if my assistant has calculated correctly."
Introductions were made and then the two older men chatted about the weather and the brightness of the stars in the clear sky. Carrot stood and stared while Matt doused the torches and their eyes grew accustomed to the dim light from their lanterns and the torches in the streets below.
Matt cleared his throat and gestured to the wester
n horizon. "It's starting to rise."
They were looking at the speck of light called Moonstar. It was just creeping over the horizon, peeping behind clouds as it ascended to the open sky above. It rose higher than it ever did in Britan, Carrot noticed, yet the others didn't seem surprised.
Matt threw a switch and the gears in the housing whirred. Ever so slightly, the telescope's great tube shifted, rising and turning with the track of Moonstar, at which it was pointed.
Archimedes guided the Emperor to the eyepiece. The Emperor gazed in silence, then drew back.
"Well," Hadron said. "It looks the same as it always did. Don't get me wrong, that's a relief."
"Actually," Archimedes said, "there is a slight difference in appearance. Many years ago, I observed Moonstar by a telescope much smaller than this one, but in those days my eyes were stronger. And I recall two bulbs protruding at one end that are now missing."
"So long as there are not fairies dancing," Hadron said. He eyed Carrot and smiled. "Perhaps the young lady would like a look."
Carrot cautiously approached the eyepiece, and imitated how she had seen Hadron use it. She did not know what to expect. A rock, perhaps. The ancient texts said that falling stars were rocks that fell from the sky. Perhaps Moonstar was a rock that hadn't fallen yet.
She saw the star field at first, black and filled with many more stars than should be in such a small patch of sky. As the telescope tube tilted, the stars gracefully moved across the field of vision. But in the center a larger, silvery object remained fixed.
It was a segmented cylinder with bulges at each end. Dark blue rectangles extended from the center, like wings.
"It looks like a bug," she said. "Have you checked that a bug hasn't landed on the glass?"
The men chuckled, and Carrot felt sheepish. She noticed, though, that Matt wasn't laughing.
Archimedes said to the Emperor, "Matt here suggests that the wings are meant to gather light which provides energy."
"So he believes it's artificial?" Hadron asked. "Or an even larger bug than Carrot has imagined?" He laughed at his own joke.
Then he coughed, long and deep. Carrot frowned and inhaled. Emanating from the pores of the Emperor's skin was a bitter odor that she had never smelled before but even so aroused alarm reflexively in her own body at first whiff. And she knew what it was that ailed the Emperor, what it could only be.
