To Hold Infinity

by John Meaney

  From his image library, some classic holo sculptures completed the room.

  Perfect.

  Poor, plain Maggie. Unused to all this luxury.

  He would do his best to make her feel very special. If that failed, then he would make use of her child's, young Jason's, vulnerability.

  Whichever way the meeting went, he would be ready for her.

  It nibbled her fingers.

  The day was warm, and Yoshiko trailed her hand over the boat's edge, enjoying the cool feel of the water. Huge goldfish drew close, and the touch of their lips was feather-soft. Opposite her, lounging on the boat's other bench seat, Xanthia Delaggropos sipped from a fruit cocktail.

  The boat, canopied against the sun, drifted languidly.

  The slow, dark river, bedecked with floating lilies and bankside rushes, wound through the gardens of Xanthia's house. Beside them, a weeping welig-tree, bright with scarlet catkins, trailed so low it almost touched the placid water.

  Yoshiko sighed.

  “I suppose I'm ready. Are you sure we shouldn't see them in person?”

  “I'm sure.” Xanthia smiled gently. “A lot of the Fulgidi merchants, the successful ones, try to conduct all their business through holo. It does save time…but the real reason is, they imagine it's more like the way Luculenti work, in Skein.”

  “Oh,” said Yoshiko.

  “They won't see me. The viewfield ends around here.” Xanthia's fingers sketched a wide vertical circle in the air. “They'll see just you, and the boat and surroundings up to half a metre in front of you, and a long view to the rear as a backdrop.”

  “OK. I understand.”

  A hatch slid back in the bottom of the boat, revealing a powerful holoprojector.

  “Elizabeth Malone is a mother, with two children,” said Xanthia. “Shall we try her first? She may be the more sympathetic.”

  Yoshiko nodded.

  “She's responding to our call.” Xanthia's eyes held a slightly unfocussed look. “OK, here we go.”

  It was startling.

  Though Yoshiko knew she was really on the boat, Xanthia disappeared from sight.

  Instead, a stark room grew into being in front of Yoshiko.

  The room was composed of walls and columns of glass of varying hues, pale ambers and wine-dark reds and greens. Behind a blue glass desk sat a pale woman. Her reddish hair was pulled back into a tight bun.

  “I'm Malone.” The woman looked severe. Not a trace of sunlight leaked through, though the sun lay behind the holo image. “This is about the twenty-third layer protocol project, I take it?”

  “In a way.” Yoshiko cleared her throat. “It's more to do with my son, Tetsuo.”

  “You've a plan to make reparations for our losses? If this continues, we're going to lose the contract.”

  “As you may know, my son hasn't been seen for several days. I was hoping you could tell me about him, whether he seemed upset, or—”

  “Our relationship was purely commercial. Our contract was negotiated in good faith, and there were no indications that anything untoward might cause slippage.”

  “Yes, but if we find him, we can sort this out. I know nothing of his business.”

  “Then there's little to discuss. Has he been reported missing? Are the authorities looking for him?”

  “Well, yes.”

  “Then I'll assume the proctors can do the job we pay them for. Good day. Out.”

  The room disappeared.

  Xanthia leaned forward and touched the back of Yoshiko's hand.

  “I'm sorry. That was rough.”

  Yoshiko shook her head. “I'm OK.”

  “Shall we take a break before the next call?”

  “No,” said Yoshiko. “This is the man who called me, Sylvester Stargonier?”

  “That's right.” Again, Xanthia assumed a distant look. “Connecting now.”

  The boat wheeled under a tree's shadow as another room grew into being before Yoshiko. In the shade, the room glowed perhaps a little too brightly. All the same, Yoshiko felt she could just step forwards and she would be in Stargonier's office.

  Lean and handsome, he lounged beside a desk. Behind, a red desertscape was visible through a picture window. Soft eerie pipe music played in the background.

  “Thank you for seeing me,” she said.

  “No problem.” Stargonier ran a hand through his longish grey hair. “In fact I owe you an apology.”

  Yoshiko shook her head.

  “Oh, yes.” Stargonier frowned. “When I called you at the spaceport hotel, you'd just arrived on Fulgor. Then I gave you an earful about your son, when you must have been worried sick.”

  “I was—I am worried. That's true.”

  “I'm sorry. I had my own concerns, but that's no excuse.”

  “That's quite all right. I understand.”

  Stargonier smiled grimly. “I just had a message, an infoburst, from Elizabeth.”

  From Malone? That was quick.

  “I gather the proctors are looking for Tetsuo? That he's really disappeared?”

  “I'm afraid so,” said Yoshiko.

  Stargonier looked away. “Maybe Elizabeth and I were pushing him too hard to complete on time.”

  “Was he very stressed?”

  “Yes, I'd say so.” He looked up at the ceiling, or possibly at the sky on Yoshiko's side, and thought. “He didn't look physically ill. Stressed, but not to breaking point, I wouldn't have said.”

  “How much was riding on this project?”

  “A fair amount, though nothing I couldn't recover from in a pinch. I can't speak for Elizabeth, you understand.”

  “Of course. Were there any friends he might have gone to, if he were in trouble?”

  Stargonier shook his head slowly. “Sorry, Mrs. Sunadomari. I—had the impression of a man with few friends. It can be tough for outsiders, here.”

  Yoshiko tried not to think about that.

  “What about his other projects? I gather he had several things on the go at once.”

  “Nothing, ah, crucial,” said Stargonier. “As far as I know. Here you are—”

  He gestured as a control volume grew to his right, and there was a beeping sound.

  A small icon appeared to float by Yoshiko's wrist: an in-basket with a sheaf of paper.

  “—I've sent you what details I know. But I don't think you'll find anything there.”

  “Thank you.” Yoshiko did not know what else to say.

  Stargonier looked at her. “I can't think of anything more I can do to help.”

  “No, you've been a big help. Thank you.”

  “Er, you understand, I'll have to dissolve the contract and subcontract Tetsuo's design work to someone else?”

  Yoshiko breathed out slowly. “I'm sure it's what he'd expect.”

  “But I will have more work to send his way. I hope everything turns out OK.”

  There was a sudden movement near the bottom of the boat, where it melded into the floor of Stargonier's office, and Yoshiko started.

  A small text volume appeared.

  WHAT ABOUT TETSUO'S REPLACEMENT?

  Thank you, Xanthia.

  Yoshiko nodded as the text faded. Stargonier had noticed nothing. The image had been directional, constructed for Yoshiko, a prompt for her eyes only.

  “Can you find someone else to replace Tetsuo?”

  “Well, yes.” Stargonier looked unhappy. “I'm afraid I already have, though we haven't activated the agreement yet.”

  “Oh. May I ask who it is?”

  “Yes. Pierre d'Androux, a local man, very successful. This is quite a small task for his group. He's really doing it as a favor.”

  That didn't sound like someone desperate to get the business which Tetsuo had lined up. It certainly wasn't a likely motive for murder.

  Adam Farsteen's death had not been mentioned anywhere on the NewsNets or even in Skein, according to Vin and Xanthia—so Yoshiko had better not mention it, either.

  “This m
an, d'Androux. He owes you a favor?” she asked.

  “Well, no. There was some brokerage involved. I've got to pay commission to a man called Rafael de la Vega, for finding someone with mu-space comms tech skills I can use. D'Androux owed de la Vega, so I gather.”

  Yoshiko sighed. Perhaps Tetsuo's upraise sponsor, Rafael, was merely helping his protégé. Nothing suspicious in that.

  Perhaps she owed a debt of gratitude to this Rafael.

  “I'm sorry.” Stargonier's voice intruded. “None of this helps, does it?”

  It might. She just didn't know.

  “You've been very kind,” she said. “Thank you very much.”

  “OK, look. If there's anything else I can do, just call me.”

  “I will. Thank you.”

  “Good luck,” said Stargonier. “Out.”

  He and his office disappeared.

  Yoshiko blinked, disconcerted, as she realized she was on Xanthia's boat and had been here all the time, its gentle rocking forgotten during her conversation. There was a flash of blue by the riverbank as a kingfisher dived to feed.

  “Rafael de la Vega,” said Yoshiko. “His name's come up again. But it may mean nothing.”

  “That was very nicely handled.” Xanthia leaned forward in her seat. “You should have been a Luculenta.”

  Yoshiko, startled, almost blushed. “Why, thank you.”

  The research station was a stack of tiered concrete discs, piled up against a rocky outcrop.

  Twelve days ago, thought Tetsuo, I was stuck in my office at home, working on Stargonier's damned protocol converter. Now look at me. A manual labourer.

  Puffing, he staggered down the twisted path with a ten-litre container in each hand. The farther he walked, the heavier they seemed to grow. No pain from his earlier injuries. If only his grip were stronger…

  Sweat trickled down inside his resp-mask. His forehead itched, despite the smartgel which covered all of his otherwise exposed skin.

  Another klick to go. He stumbled, but caught himself before falling.

  Watch it.

  The narrow handles were digging grooves into his hands. He stopped for a short rest.

  OK, pick ’em up. Carry on.

  He almost tripped again, but recovered his stride, and continued across the caramel-coloured broken rock. The cabin was dead ahead.

  He stumbled through the doorway. Panting, he lugged the containers past Brevan's door, to the feed tank's input valves. Awkwardly, he tipped the brown foul-smelling liquid out of each container in turn. Then he gratefully sealed the caps, and the stench faded.

  Brevan was in his small study-bedroom, running projections of possible forced mutations in their native stock. Tetsuo leaned against the door jamb to watch.

  Brevan froze the display. “Slacking off?”

  “Need the rest,” said Tetsuo.

  “It'll get you fit.”

  “I've lost three point two seven kilos in three days.” Tetsuo wiped sweat from his face. “I'm exhausted.”

  “Oh, right.” Brevan smiled. “Very precise.”

  Tetsuo had spoken without thinking; the knowledge of his body-weight was an intuitive fact, another example of the changes taking place inside him. Let Brevan think he had used the lab scales to weigh himself.

  “If I were to ask you about the Agrazzi,” said Tetsuo, “would that be one of the things that might make you shoot me?”

  The two men who had tried to kill him were Agrazzi, but just what did that mean? A different clan, tribe, among the Shadow People?

  “Depends on what you ask.” There was a glint in Brevan's eye. “Go on. Shoot.”

  Tetsuo winced. “Well how many, ah, groups, cells, whatever, are there?”

  “A little over two hundred,” said Brevan. “Some of the bigger septs have tens of thousands of members.”

  Tens of thousands? Just among the Agrazzi? But they were just one group among the Shadow People, weren't they? One group among how many?

  “How long has this movement been going on?”

  “Oh, come,” said Brevan. “You've heard of the Shadow People, haven't you?”

  “No,” said Tetsuo. “Or—Yes, in a bar once. Something about…Ghost Folk?”

  “An old name for the movement. You thought it was all native ghost tales, I'll bet.”

  “But the Ghost Folk are an old story, a century old at least.”

  Brevan said nothing.

  “Oh. I see.” After a pause, Tetsuo added, “So why were the Agrazzi raiding this place?”

  “Ah, now.” Brevan's expression grew bitter. “Seems like those bastards have always been raiding our Simnalari camps. We've been lucky when it's just been a few animals they've stolen.”

  Simnalari. So that's what Brevan and Dhana called themselves.

  “The Agrazzi need the food, is that it?”

  “No. Well, sometimes…Oh, hell. Look, you understand that we can only settle in the upper reaches of the hypozone?”

  “That makes sense.”

  At lower altitudes, extremes of temperature and pressure and wild chemistry began to dominate.

  “So watch.” Brevan waved away his current display and caused a globe of Fulgor to appear. Small red blobs dotted its surface, with surrounding loops and whorls of blue. “Red represents the terraformed altitudes, and the blue shows the hypozone.”

  “Five percent of the planet's surface.” The acid seas, and the hyperand epizones, were shaded in grey. No one could live there.

  “Very good. Now, originally there were a hundred and fifty councils formed among the Shadow People—or Ghost Folk—as we were then all of equal status.”

  “A century ago.”

  “Longer,” said Brevan. “The Simnalari and Agrazzi councils were two of the original members of the Shadow League, the league of councils.”

  Tetsuo did not smile at the childish name. He guessed that turmoil and violence had grown out of this league.

  “It's territory, you see.” Brevan looked at the slowly rotating globeimage. “It's always been the land.”

  “War?” asked Tetsuo.

  “At times, yes,” said Brevan. “In the very early days, the Agrazzi sent in troopers, heavily armed by Shadow standards, and annexed all the Simnalari territory.”

  There was a cloud across Brevan's features. If any of his family had suffered then, thought Tetsuo, it must have been generations ago.

  “Why didn't the concept of Simnalari just disappear?” asked Tetsuo. “Why aren't you all just Agrazzi now?”

  “Because they discriminated against our people, gave us the worst land, took the best of everything. Even limited the education tapes we could give to our children.”

  And kept their cultural identity alive, thought Tetsuo, though a changed and twisted version of the original.

  When century-old history was alive in people's minds, could violence be far away?

  Tetsuo shifted uncomfortably. The atmosphere in the small room was getting warm and stuffy now, and he would have liked to peel off the smartgel and reset his jumpsuit's temperature.

  He dared not break the mood. This was the first time he had seen Brevan so talkative.

  “So there was an uprising,” said Tetsuo.

  “Several,” Brevan replied. “The fourth one succeeded. Then we made peace.”

  The image zoomed in. Agrazzi territory, bordered by Simnalari, and a sept called Elvenari. A small Agrazzi offshoot, the Phaliborn Enclave, was entirely surrounded by Simnalari: not a happy situation.

  “The Agrazzi have trouble keeping to the agreement?”

  “Sometimes.” Brevan snorted. “They occasionally forget it isn't the old days.”

  “And you're all dedicated to living in harmony with the planet.”

  “Right,” said Brevan, with an ironic smile.

  “Right.” Tetsuo lifted the empty containers. “I've got another trip to make.”

  Brevan nodded, and turned back to his work.

  She was here.

 
Rafael stood in his gleaming entrance hall, waited for the precise moment, then waved the doors open.

  Maggie Brown was standing there, just opening her mouth to announce herself to the house system. Behind her, Rafael's plushest small flyer, the Lectra Seven which had brought her here, rose up from the black and grey gravelled landing area and headed for its garage.

  “Nice timing,” said Maggie.

  “Always.” Rafael bowed. “Welcome to my house.”

  He gestured her inside, and escorted her to the room he had prepared.

  A plentiful array of edibles, on warm silver plates, lay on a low table. Rafael escorted her to her seat, then sat down opposite her and crossed his legs.

  “This is very nice,” said Maggie. “Is that wine I see there?”

  “From our local hydroponics.” Rafael poured a glass for her. “None of your synthesized stuff.”

  She accepted her glass, sipped, and closed her eyes in pleasure.

  “Ah, an educated palate.” Rafael smiled. “Very good.”

  “So.” Maggie put her glass down on the table. She nibbled at a savoury pastry. “Can I run through what I'd like to ask, before I start recording?”

  “Of course. Whatever you like.”

  “OK, just one minute.” She held up a finger.

  Rafael watched, amused, as she drained her glass. He refilled it for her.

  “Oh, that's good.” Maggie sipped some more. “What I'm thinking of, is to talk about Tetsuo's business, maybe from the time he arrived here. Along the lines of—” Another sip. “—of what must it be like for a guy from Earth to arrive here. A new planet. An advanced culture. Competing in business with enhanced Luculenti. What do you think?”

  “Well.” Rafael leaned back. “Most of the time he'd have been dealing with Fulgidi merchants, not Luculenti.”

  “OK,” said Maggie. “Mmm, this is really very good. Right, so we can talk about that. Would it be tough for him?”

  “Some Fulgidi have a lot of drive. They use educational ware constantly, tactical ware to help in negotiations, and so forth. I would say yes, Tetsuo would have had a tough time.”

  “Can we talk about his disappearance? How he'd been behaving for the last few days leading up to it, and so on?”

  “May I top that up for you?” He poured more wine. “I'm afraid I didn't see that much of him socially, and not at all since the upraise.”