by M. K. Wren
And it came to Alexand that this wasn’t unexpected. Unconsciously, he’d been waiting for it, waiting for Rich to choose his time. He rose and went to the bed where his black Confleet cloak lay.
“I haven’t called Hilding yet. The landing roof will be deserted and a good vantage point for the sunrise.”
The eastern sky was banded with pink and orange and only a few stars were visible in the north, away from the encompassing glow of the city. Alexand fastened his cloak against the chill as they emerged onto the landing roof and crossed in silence to the far edge, his footfalls a solitary cadence against the hum of Rich’s chair. The metalite railing was still glowing, delineating safe landings. He gripped it with both hands as he looked out over the Estate. The rambling palace still slept, but at the foot of the wooded ridge the factory was awake and working at full capacity; it never slept. Nor did Concordia. The city might doze a little through the night, but its distance-dimmed, rumbling hum never entirely ceased.
He looked around at Rich, who had stopped his chair beside him at the railing, and saw the longing in his eyes as he gazed out at the lights veiled in dawn mist.
A turning point.
Alexand recognized this dawn as a turning point. At least it would be that for him. Rich had passed his turning point five days ago in the squalid terror of the Selasid compound. Toward what would he turn now?
“Alex, I have something I must tell you.”
“I know.”
Rich smiled faintly at that. “I told you I’d made a decision and that it might mean a separation.”
Alexand held himself in tight rein, recognizing the quickening of his pulse as a product of fear.
“Is this to be a permanent separation?”
“No. At least not a complete one.”
“I’m grateful for that, then.”
Rich paused, his eyes fixed on his brother’s still, taut face, feeling the aching question behind it.
“Alex, I won’t leave you without explaining why. I couldn’t stand that barrier between us. It would be more deadly than the barriers that will have to exist. At least I’ll explain as much as I’m free to. This was one of the terms I made, and it was accepted with great misgivings.”
Alexand hesitated, frowning. “Accepted by whom?”
“I’ll explain that. But first I must warn you, you’ll be given information no one else has ever possessed without the protective mechanism of conditioning.”
“Rich, what—”
“All in good time,” he said, raising a quieting hand. “The word ‘conditioning’ should give you a clue to my intent. I’ve been a sort of part-time member for some time, but now I’m going to become a full member. I’ve investigated it thoroughly, and I’m convinced that my peculiar talents will bear fruit through this organization as they never could otherwise. I’ve found a tool that will serve my purposes—my hopes—by letting me become its tool.” A pause, then, “I’m speaking of the Society of the Phoenix.”
Alexand at first could only stare at him, stunned. The Phoenix. The quicksilver phantom as apocryphal as its namesake; Conpol’s elusive scapegoat.
It occurred to him that he should feel some sense of outrage. Rich’s declared intention amounted to treason. Yet it was a contradiction in terms to equate Rich with treason. Still—and the thought was numbing—membership in the Phoenix was legally an act of treason and punished as such. By death. Yet Rich was willing to risk that, even the precious scrap of life left to him.
“Ah, Rich, what a pair of sons Phillip Woolf has sired. You think me a potential Mankeen, and you’re joining the Phoenix. I wonder what he did to deserve us.”
“His error was in insisting that we be taught to think.” Then he sighed, and there was a mordant regret in his voice as he added, “I hope he won’t ever have to know about this.”
Alexand was silent for a moment, then. “Rich, what can you tell me about the Phoenix? I’d at least like some assurance of your safety and your . . .”
“My health? Don’t be concerned about that. I’ll have the best of care; in some ways better than I can get anywhere in the Concord.”
“From a revolutionary organization?”
“It isn’t a revolutionary organization, and it has many aspects, one of which is intensive research programs in all fields, including medicine.” He hesitated, perhaps reading the hope in Alexand’s eyes. “But they can’t work miracles. They can give me a little more time, possibly, and make me more comfortable.”
Alexand nodded bleakly. “I’m relieved at that.” He leaned back against the railing, hands tight on the luminous metal. A little more time. Rich’s calm acceptance always seemed beyond comprehension. “Exactly what kind of separation are you talking about? How does one join the Phoenix?”
“Well, it varies with individuals. Some members enter the Society by the expedient of ‘dying.’ As for me, within the next month, I’ll be offered a research professorship at the University in Leda.”
“Leda?” Pollux; the Twin Planets. It seemed immensely distant.
Rich said, “With SynchShift ships, Leda is only about four hours from Concordia.” Then he frowned down at his folded hands. “And don’t ask me why Leda. I can’t answer that. Nor should you draw any conclusions about the Society from my future location. The Phoenix is ubiquitous in the Concord. I’ll simply be working where I’m most useful.”
“This offer of a research professorship—I assume it’s valid on the surface?”
“Yes, and I did have a similar offer from the University in Toramil a few months ago. It isn’t at all unreasonable. A high honor. High enough, I hope, that Mother and Father won’t be surprised when I accept the Leda offer.”
Alexand saw the shadow of remorse in Rich’s eyes when he spoke of his parents. It would be hard for them, especially for Elise, and Rich was keenly aware of it.
“Will you be going alone?”
“No, Dr. Bettis will be with me.”
“Kairn?” It would seem natural enough; she was his physiotherapist and a qualified physician. “Rich, is she—”
“Yes.” He sent him an oblique smile. “Kairn is a Phoenix agent. I can tell you that because she won’t be coming back to DeKoven Woolf—ever.”
Kairn Bettis. She’d been born to the House, and after her allegiance shift to Conmed, returned to serve it, and Rich, with skill and devotion. Alexand felt a fleeting sense of betrayal. A Phoenix agent. Then he laughed inwardly. Rich was also a Phoenix agent.
“Rich, has the Phoenix other agents in the House?” He turned in time to see a curious expression of confusion on Rich’s face, and wondered at it; he’d seen it before.
“I told you, Alex, the Phoenix is ubiquitous. We have agents in every House and every level of the Concord. I can’t be more specific.”
“No. Forgive me. Will I be able to communicate with you or see you?”
“Yes. I’ll return to Concordia for holidays. It would arouse suspicion if I didn’t. But I can’t risk talking so openly again, and when I return I’ll be under stronger conditioning. The professorship will be in the name of Richard Walden, by the way. I’ll have to give Father a name.”
“You’re still not admitting to Richard Lamb?”
“No. Richard Lamb is associated with certain doctrines Father would find . . . embarrassing. Walden will be given an academic history and even a few noncontroversial published works. He’ll be on record to the last detail, in case anyone checks. I’ll correspond with Mother and Father—and you—by regular vidicom and lettapes. The ’com and ’tape seqs will go through a special exchange the Phoenix has for what it calls its double idents. Everything will be retransmitted to me.”
“You won’t actually be living at the University?”
Again, Rich displayed that odd, fleeting confusion. “I . . . can’t say where I
’ll be.”
“It doesn’t matter, as long as I can stay in contact with you.”
“We can’t talk freely. The dangers of monitoring at your end are obvious, but there may also be some danger at my end. I’m entering the Phoenix as Richard Lamb, and only a few members will know my real identity, and they’ll be conditioned. I’ve been assured that my personal communications can’t be monitored by other members, but I still don’t want to increase the risk of revealing Richard Lamb’s connection with Richard Woolf. I intend to protect the House.”
Alexand nodded, looking up at the sky, a deep, cold blue at zenith; all the stars had faded.
“Rich, how . . . how will you be ‘most useful’ to the Phoenix?”
“Doing what I do best,” he replied with a brief smile. “Studying the Bonds. I’m something of a rarity—a qualified sociologist with an interest in the Bonds and an established rapport with their leaders. That is, the Shepherds. I have expertise in an area vital to the Phoenix, and it can offer me means of gathering and interpreting data the Concord can’t match.”
Alexand’s eyes narrowed. “Why are the Bonds vital to the Phoenix?”
Rich looked up at him sharply. “Are you afraid we might use the Bonds in a destructive way? You know I’d never accept that. Remember that in the last thirty years, the most obvious symptom of the Concord’s instability is Bond uprisings. They’re not only a symptom, but a contributing factor, an exacerbating factor. That’s why the Bonds are vital to the Phoenix.”
Alexand felt chastened and vaguely confused. He hunched his shoulders against a chill gust of wind.
“What else can you tell me about the Phoenix? It must offer more than unusual research facilities to induce you to take the risks and make the sacrifices it involves.”
Rich leaned forward, a light in his eyes that stirred equivocal responses in Alexand, both curiosity and fear, and, underlying that, an uncomprehended hope.
“Alex, it offers a great deal more. We’ve shared everything important in our lives, and I don’t think it would be possible for me not to share this with you. And it’s important from a political standpoint that you understand the Phoenix, both for its sake, and the Concord’s. The Concord will have to deal with it eventually as something other than a band of pirates and/or radicals. The first thing you must understand about the Phoenix is that it is not a revolutionary organization. Our ultimate aim is admittedly to change the existing power structure, but not by revolution. By a process of evolution.”
Alexand commented, “Evolutionary processes are notably slow.”
“True, but not nearly so destructive.”
“Still, evolution implies long-range planning and immense patience. It would be a rare group of people capable of that kind of sustained effort.”
“The Phoenix is such a rare group. I’m realistic enough to assume the Society isn’t made up of paragons, and to realize that it constitutes a concentration of power, which is always dangerous. Power vacuums inevitably attract ambitious men, and that could destroy it, or at least subvert it. That’s my main concern, not its capacity for long-range planning or intelligent use of its power. But if I’m wrong, if I’m disappointed in any way, you’ll know. I’ll make sure of that somehow.”
Alexand felt a dry tightness in his throat that continually threatened a break in his voice.
“All right, Rich, but if this is such a benign organization, how do you explain the raids and sabotage?”
He only shrugged at that. “A great deal of that must be laid at the feet of the Outsider pirates and smugglers; Amik the Thief and his Brotherhood, or the petty independent clans. But the Phoenix does indulge in small-scale military operations. It also uses sabotage occasionally to maintain certain power alignments, and even stoops to piracy to procure supplies otherwise unobtainable, or to increase its military capabilities, or simply to make the Concord aware of its existence in terms it can understand. That’s part of the General Plan, but a small part, and a recent development.”
“Recent? It seems to have been going on for a number of years.”
“Recent in terms of the Society’s history.” Rich gave him a crooked smile. “This isn’t a go-by-night organization, Alex. There’s already a second generation born into its ranks. The Phoenix predates the Fall of the Peladeen Republic. It celebrated its fiftieth anniversary this year.”
Alexand’s jaw went slack, then he repeated distractedly, “Its fiftieth anniversary . . . but why is it no one knew about it all that time?”
“That was also part of the General Plan.”
“But how did it come into existence? How many people are involved in it?”
Rich blinked and hesitated. “I can’t tell you how many members there are.”
Alexand took note again of that momentary confusion; it was as if Rich had briefly lost track of the conversation.
“Is that the conditioning?”
“Yes. One form of it; sec-con. Security conditioning. The form the SSB usually encounters is the Total Amnesia Block.” “The SSB claims Phoenix conditioning can’t be broken.” “Not the TAB. At least they haven’t succeeded yet. But they haven’t given up; they still keep trying when they think they have a likely candidate.”
Alexand knew something of the SSB’s methods, and the thought chilled him. Rich was vulnerable to that now.
“So the Phoenix has been in existence for fifty years, but who founded it, and why?”
Again, that momentary blankness. “I can’t tell you who founded it. Only why.”
“Can you tell me if the rumors that Andreas Riis was the founder are true? I mean the Polluxian physicist.”
Rich shook his head. “I can’t give you any names. No—I can give you one. The Society was originally funded and as a fledgling nurtured in strictest secrecy by the Lord Elor Ussher Peladeen. It was his hope that the spirit, at least, of the Republic might one day be resurrected through the Phoenix.” He smiled faintly as Alexand’s eyebrows came up.
“Perhaps I’ve underestimated the last Lord of Peladeen all these years.”
“He has been too often underestimated in our histories. The other founders of the Phoenix were nearly all Republicans, and most of them scientists and scholars. They recognized the inevitability of the Republic’s defeat and formed the Society and, with Lord Elor’s help, set up the facilities to carry out their work and maintain themselves in secrecy. The Phoenix has many purposes, and one is the preservation and expansion of knowledge, with particular emphasis on various aspects of sociology. Their work is phenomenal, Alex. They have data gathering systems the Concord can’t begin to equal, and everything is grist for their computer mills from the cost of a kilo of wheat to House alliances to the armament status of Confleet. They have experts in everything from technosociology to psychohistory to correlate the information and pinpoint trends and patterns. It’s like a giant biomonitor; they measure the vital signs of the whole complex of the Concord.”
Alexand found himself smiling at Rich’s enthusiasm, yet it gave him a profound sense of solitude.
“Why the concern for the Concord’s vital signs?”
“Well, to continue the medical analogy, one must understand a patient’s disease before attempting to cure it. And that’s our ultimate purpose, Alex, to cure the Concord’s illnesses, to save its life.”
“And that might involve radical surgery?”
“In one form or another. I’d prefer to say radical treatment. Certainly the patient will have to undergo serious changes, and here the analogy begins to fail. What I’m talking about are major alterations in a societal power structure.”
Alexand leaned back against the railing; its light was fading slowly with the brightening light of the sky.
“Rich, the other night you talked about my potential as a new Mankeen.”
“You’re wonde
ring if the Society was the source of that idea? They didn’t introduce me to it, but they ran some extrapolation sequences that put it in a more objective framework.”
Alexand’s mouth tightened. “Why is the Phoenix interested in me as a new Mankeen?”
“Not to encourage you in that direction. Alex, you’re rated CP-One. That’s our top ‘Critical Potential’ rating, and it means you’re considered very dangerous as a disruptive factor; dangerous to the Concord and the goals of the Phoenix. If you think you might make another Mankeen of yourself, I warn you the Phoenix will do everything it can to stop you.” He paused, then, “You doubt that?”
“If their purpose is to change the existing power structure, I’d think they’d welcome a new Mankeen.”
Rich shook his head. “No. Those ex seqs lead to war and total anarchy on almost every variant. That’s what we’re trying to avoid—not foster. If it were necessary, the Phoenix would destroy you before letting you become a new Mankeen. I don’t mean destroy you literally; we don’t employ methods of that sort, and we’d be reluctant to weaken DeKoven Woolf. But we’d stop you.”
Alexand felt that as an almost personal threat, and from Rich it was deeply disturbing. But the pronoun “we,” he realized, was only a measure of Rich’s identification with the Phoenix.
“What do you mean by saying the Phoenix would be reluctant to weaken DeKoven Woolf?”
“One of our functions is to bolster the more liberal Houses; Woolf falls into that category. Usually it’s a matter of getting the right information to the right people at the right time. Sometimes overt action is necessary—and I can’t explain that further.”
“Then let’s get back to general terms. The Phoenix intends to bring about change in the existing power structure. How can it hope to accomplish that without revolution?”
Rich took a deep breath and looked out at the city. “We must accomplish it without revolution. This patient won’t survive that kind of cure. The Society has worked out what it calls the General Plan. It has three major phases. We’re still working toward Phase I, and the immediate goal is to establish a foothold within the Concord hierarchy, necessarily at the level of the Court of Lords to be effective.” He paused, and Alexand didn’t understand his abstracted frown until he went on. “Unfortunately, Phase I can’t be accomplished without bloodshed, and in a way it will be a revolution, but a limited and controlled one that will not involve the general populace and, above all, not the Bonds. In the General Plan ex seqs it’s referred to as a military offensive or engagement.”
