No, his logic-mind stated firmly. Satisfying idle curiosity is not worth the computational allowance.
Instinct is not merely idle curiosity, argued his free-mind. Instinct is a most profound and valuable ally.
Employ the VI, Tekton told his moud.
The list came back seconds later. It was lengthy but not interminable.
Now, see if you can connect someone on this list with your available known facts about Labile Connit, he told it.
Godhead?
For Lostol’s sake, do I have to spell it out! Can you think for yourself?
Of course, Godhead, in a restricted way. The moud sounded rather hurt.
Do any of them have a male offspring of Labile Connit’s age? Are any of them engineers? Commonalities. I WANT COMMONALITIES! Tekton’s mind-shout brought on the beginnings of a throbbing temple but when the moud reinserted a new list in his virtual eye the headache was swept away by a rush of akula.
Three Connits had commonalities but Tekton knew immediately that only one mattered. Lasper (Carnage) Farr-Connit: progeny—one male child, whereabouts unknown. Mother: Tekla Connit, deceased. Lasper Farr was currently reported as holding the ownership of the Savoire Refuse System.
Even Tekton had heard of Carnage Farr, the man who had thwarted OLOSS’s plans to invade Extropy space by leading a small but effective force against League warships. The Stain Wars, the conflicts were called, and Farr had proclaimed himself keeper of the balance.
On some worlds he was considered a hero of peace, but Tekton’s impression was that the man was a violent opportunist who railed against order, an anarchist who wanted indeterminate rules so that he could pursue his own shady ends.
If Labile Connit was his son then OLOSS were harbouring the ultimate viper in their bosom here on Belle-Monde.
Tekton’s minds clamoured with opinions.
How titillating! declared free-mind.
Dangerous! proclaimed logic-mind. But potentially useful.
Informing OLOSS would cause a stir and possibly attract some type of commendation. But blackmailing Connit could mean some useful ‘impartial’ contacts.
Which did he want more? Applause for being a good citizen? Or to beat Ra and all the other tyros, and impress Sole?
A plan blossomed in Tekton’s thoughts, as beautiful as a new design.
Moud, extend an invitation to Labile Connit to attend a soiree at my room tomorrow evening.
Yes, Godhead. Would you care to make arrangements for the event? Is there food to order? Are there others to be invited?
No. Tekton smiled. None and no one.
* * *
Connit arrived a little late, carrying a bottle of yellow liquid not dissimilar in its hue to that of his normally golden skin, which today looked sallow and dehydrated.
He glanced around the room. ‘Late, am I? Or early?’ His eyes lost focus for a moment as he consulted his moud.
‘No, no,’ said Tekton. He closed the door and stood between it and Connit. ‘A little misunderstanding. The soiree is for another night. But I had some... personal business to discuss with you.’
Labile’s eyes narrowed. ‘Tekton? What trickery are you up to? You know I will record this.’
Tekton folded his arms in a mild but confident gesture. ‘Actually, Labile—may I call you that?—while you are welcome to record our little talk it is most likely, I would think, that you would be disposed to erase it later.’
Labile’s look of suspicion deepened into a frown. He took a step forward as if to brush past Tekton and leave.
But Tekton raised a hand. ‘I also think it would be in your best interests to hear what I have to say. That is... better you hear it than OLOSS do.’
Connit froze. He reddened. For a professional and one of the foremost in his field, he was alarmingly ingenuous. ‘Out with it, Tekton.’
‘I know who your father is.’
‘I do not have a father and I find your insinuation in poor taste.’
‘The circumstances of your gestation and birth are not the issue here,’ snapped Tekton. ‘Your genetics are. So pray tell me: how is it that the son of the League’s most infamous agitator is being educated at their expense?’
Connit looked, Tekton fancied, as if he might collapse. His body began to tremble in a way that suggested it might actually unglue.
‘Are you in contact with Lasper Farr?’
Labile took a gasping breath at the sound of his father’s name. ‘What, Tekton? What is it that you want from me?’
‘I require a neutral engineering facility on Rho Junction and I thought, my dear fellow, that you might be just the person to negotiate it.’ Tekton slapped the Geneer on the back as one might an old friend.
Connit’s shoulders squared and for one second Tekton thought that the younger man might hit him.
Duck, screamed logic-mind.
Hit him first, urged free-mind.
But Connit replied before Tekton had a chance to do either. ‘And your silence is what I will get in return?’
‘Precisely,’ breathed Tekton. He loved this sort of bargaining. It was almost as sexy as conceiving a new model or overcoming a design flaw. Perhaps he should have been a Lawmon.
‘What assurances do I have on that?’
‘I’m choosing to consort with dubious types, my dear Connit. I will have just as much to lose as you.’ Tekton paused and sniffed, allowing himself a small smirk. ‘Well, not nearly as much, actually, but some, all the same. Our collusion itself will ensure my silence.’
Connit’s fists clenched so tight that the golden skin of his knuckles turned a bright yellow.
Tekton took half a step back. It would not do to get the fellow overanxious. ‘I understand discretion better than most,’ he soothed. ‘I have a need that you can help me fulfil and you have a secret that needs to be kept. It is quite simple.’
‘No. It is not simple. Lasper and I do not have a close relationship. Fatherhood is not his strong suit.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘We are estranged.’
‘But only for the purposes of distancing yourself from his nefarious activities, surely?’
‘No.’
Tekton could see that Connit was recovering some composure.
‘What of your mother, then?’
‘She is dead. And she is the reason.’
Tekton felt the edge of frustration rising. He should have realised that the politics of such a family would be fraught—yet he would not lose his advantage. ‘It would not matter to an OLOSS inquiry who speaks to who. You are Lasper Farr’s biological son. You must have access to information outside OLOSS channels. Find me a place and this will be the end of it.’
Connit trembled again and the pair stared at each other for long moments.
‘Very well,’ said the Geneer. ‘Send me a list of your basic needs and I will find you suitable premises.’
Tekton beamed. ‘I’ve always admired your common sense.’
Connit took a deep, settling breath. ‘There is NOTHING at all that I admire about you. Or your cousin!’
THALES
Thales counted the days of his imprisonment, five now, which he’d spent largely in meditation. In the moments between contemplations he pondered Amaury Villon’s fate and the future of his own marriage. Did Villon’s beliefs have some sound basis or were they simply the imaginings of a brilliant mind left alone for too long? And what of Rene? Thales was angry with her, sure enough. But more than that, for the first time in their life together he questioned the compatibility of their values, their ideological harmony. Rene had always—to him—been the most beautiful of minds.
‘Msr Berniere?’
Thales relinquished his inner world slowly.
The door to his prison was ajar, and expressionless Brown Robes stood in front of him. One of them extended his hand to assist Thales from his meditative position on the floor.
He did not take it. ‘Is my fate to be the same as Villon’s?’
‘He wishes an audience? And what if I refuse? It appears to be a fallacy that one is able to maintain a free mind and spirit on Scolar.’
The guard did not react.
Thales uncoiled and stood without assistance. He gave one sweeping glance around the prison apartment remembering all he could: remembering Amaury.
The guards escorted him, one before him and one behind, in a brisk march along narrow corridors and up dimly illuminated stairs. The stairs gave way to the high, elaborately-carved ceilings and diamond chandeliers of the Sophos assembly halls, and finally to the Eminence offices.
Sophos Mianos, Rene’s father, had one of the more prestigious rooms. Thales had been there, once only, to ask for permission to wed the man’s daughter. As he entered it now, he experienced the same impression of beauty and opulence.
An aquarium occupied one entire wall, while another was decorated with a huge Mioloaquan wall-hanging that reflected from its scales a soft rainbow of lights across an intricately pearl-inlaid escritoire. This time, though, Thales was not nervously seeking acceptance into a family.
‘Berniere,’ said Sophos Mianos without preamble. ‘It is a grave occasion when I have to talk to you about the circumstances of several days ago.’
Anger rushed through Thales but he smothered it, knowing that Mianos needed little excuse to find fault with his son-in-law. ‘Four days and six hours, Sophos, to be precise. I remember every second with great clarity, particularly my precious moments with the prophet Amaury Villon.’
‘Aaah, he could not resist telling you who he was? Well, I had hoped you would learn something from the experience.’
‘On the contrary, Sophos, it was your politic guards who informed me. And what I learned is that the Sophos are as autocratic as the most backward feudal planets, and that free thought is endangered on Scolar.’
The skin around the edge of Mianos’s nostrils whitened. He stood and walked over to the aquarium wall. With a tap of a dispenser he loosed dried blood flakes into the water. A flotilla of tiny scalpel fish nibbled the disintegrating pieces. ‘Your foolish impudence is divisive, young man. You have seen now what happens to those who choose the path of agitator. Our great world, indeed our species, needs harmony and unity, not—’
‘Not what?’ Thales interrupted. ‘Challenging, inventive thought? Harmony does not mean that we must all agree. It means that we must be able to agree to disagree.’
‘Are you lecturing me, young Thales?’ Mianos returned to the escritoire and rubbed his fingers against the side of his aspect cube. ‘Disguise your poor and irrational behaviour how you will, but know the consequences of your behaviour for yourself and your wife.’
‘I want to see Rene.’ We must leave this place.
‘But she has no wish to see you.’
‘Liar!’ Thales accused.
But as he spoke a screen on the darkest wall of the office began to unfold. It blinked alive like a watching eye.
Rene appeared, standing against vast glazed windows—Thales could not place where—her thin figure outlined by filtered sunlight. She clutched the ruche of the curtains as though they were a support and Thales had a sudden fierce desire to take her in his arms and kiss her extreme pallor. She seemed agitated and distressed. ‘Thales?’
‘Why will you not see me, Rene?’
‘I’m not sure that I can trust your reaction to... me. Father thought this way would be best.’
‘You are a grown woman, my wife. Could you not make that decision for yourself? Could you not trust your heart?’ Thales asked her softly. ‘I would never hurt you.’
Rene turned to stare out of the window. ‘My head is my heart, Thales. You know that.’
Thales sensed Mianos’s satisfaction. It compelled him to provoke Rene.
‘I met the prophet Villon. He was in the room in which they imprisoned me.’
She turned back sharply. ‘Villon? What nonsense is this, Thales?’
‘Nonsense, Rene? Why do you assume that I speak nonsense and your father speaks the truth?’
‘Villon left Scolar many years ago when he discovered that his extreme propaganda left us unmoved. He took it to the Extropists. They have need of belief. Any belief.’
Thales was struck by the naivety of her perception. Did she really believe that the Extropists had no beliefs?
‘Everyone has beliefs, Rene. I am saddened that ours have diverged so. But know the truth of this. I have seen Villon.’
‘Your words are delusional, Thales. You must seek help.’
‘I don’t need help. I need someone to believe me.’ Why am I the one she can so easily deny? Anguish swamped him. She would not leave with him. Not now or ever. ‘The Pre-Eminence had Villon—’
Mianos touched his aspect cube and the screen folded away, breaking Thales’s link with his wife.
‘Now remove yourself from my sight, Berniere. Your imprudence is dangerous. If you were not married to my daughter I would not have allowed you out of detention. She has pleaded for your release but you will stay away from her. And you will hold your tongue. Or you will lose it.’
* * *
The same politic guards took Thales to the foyer of the Eminence building and watched him walk across the marbled floor to the doors.
‘Msr Berniere?’
Thales turned, his heart pounding.
It was not the guards, though, but the concierge. The humanesque extended a note-film to him on a glass salver.
Thales snatched it up and read it. Rene had rented him an apartment off the Eminence Boulevard. His possessions were already there, waiting for him. That was all.
He went straight there, bagged a selection of clothes and his personal aspect cube and crossed town where he checked into a boarding house in the Hume quarter. The boarding house’s facade was differentiated from those of the many other buildings by the unsightly aubergine-striped awnings tacked onto the window frames, and a stand of large potted plants gathered around the entrance.
The location made his journey to the Jainist temple more arduous than he would have liked—he had to travel back across the city—but in truth he had little stomach for meditation right now. Restlessness had beset him.
* * *
For the next few weeks Thales sought company in the seamiest klatsches, hoping that carousing would crowd his thoughts enough to give him some peace. But was it peace he sought? Or was Rene right? Did he really seek conflict for its own sake?
He found himself drawn to a circle of Skeptics: young humanesques and aliens who followed the ancient philosophy that everything could, and should, be doubted. Thales hoped that they of all clusters would question the Sophos.
‘Thales Berniere, Jainist,’ he said, seating himself in the narrow corner section of the couch.
‘Welcome, new face. I am Pascale,’ said a tall, thin Pagoin fellow.
‘Or is it new?’ offered another from the group. This fellow was short and solid and had gill scars on his neck. A Mioloaquan, perhaps, who had had the change.
‘Don’t mind Lieffried,’ said Pascale. ‘It is our... joke.’
Thales bit his tongue. Did they really think that he would not understand their juvenile humour? He summoned an engaging smile. ‘I would like to introduce a topic to your discourse. I apologise if it is not new but I am in need of some intelligent debate, having recently found such discourse to be lacking. Do you not think it contemptible that we are unrepresented to the new Entity? OLOSS really must be challenged on their selection process.’
‘Which Entity?’ a Balol/Lostol hybrid asked.
Thales searched the circle of faces. Could it be true that they did not know about the discovery of the godlike Entity?
‘If you mean the energy anomaly out near Mintaka that we are calling God, then we have little interest in goblin tales, Thales Berniere,’ said Pascale.
‘Why so, Pascale?’
�
�We are bored with discussions of God. Even if the Entity’s existence is well cited, we believe that our focus should be on the demonstrative.’
Thales did not disguise his incredulous tone. ‘Demonstrative? You mean your belief is based only on what you can see before you? Here on Scolar?’
Lieffried stood up and stretched. ‘Frankly, who cares what the southern sector busies itself about? Or if it is even there.’
The circle of listeners tittered.
‘But your attitude is so... exclusivist,’ Thales protested.
‘You sound like you are a probable-ist, Thales. Perhaps you would do well with the archiTects of Lostol,’ said Pascal.
‘One can see why you would make that judgement, Thales,’ added Lieffried. ‘But we are done with vastness and mystery. Concretism and pragmatics are our new muses. And they are so rewarding.’ He added slyly: ‘As is the Pre-Eminence when one adopts their beliefs—twenty thousand gals.’
‘You are being paid to believe?’ exclaimed Thales. ‘That is outrageous. You stagger me.’
‘Why do I think that you are not being complimentary?’ said Pascal.
Thales stood and placed his drink on the table, unsure if inebriation or shock caused him to sway so. ‘How can we inspire and lead our species with such a prosaic and self-centred ideology?’
‘Inspire?’ said Lieffried.
‘Lead?’ said the rest of the group in unison.
The tittering started again.
‘What about Villon? What of his teachings?’ asked Thales.
‘Villon? Villon was of the past,’ murmured Pascal. ‘I heard he was dead.’
‘No, no,’ corrected Lieffried. ‘He joined the Extropists. They are far more concerned with evolutionary possibilities than anyone else. It was best for all.’
Thales leapt to his feet. ‘He did not join the Extropists,’ he shouted. ‘He is a victim of our own—’
The kafe’s entire sea of faces turned upward to him, their owners as eager for rumour as the scalpel fish in Mianos’s aquarium had been for blood flakes.
Thales felt their attention and thrust back from the table before his mouth betrayed him further. In doing so he collided with a Mae ji in a black kaftan and full veils. ‘Careful, young Sophos,’ the Mae ji murmured.
The Sentients of Orion Page 43
