In the Hall of the Martian King

by John Barnes

  Since Shadow would not care that Jak was in the bath, Jak fought down his Hive-bred impulse to get fully dressed before messaging, and recorded a short reply immediately, confirming that it really was that dull on Deimos, and passing on what little gossip there was.

  The butron brought in dinner, the Lunar Greek meal that Jak had loved since he was a small boy (baked hamster with bechamel on glutles, mango pastry for dessert), and set it up on a lap table over the tub. Jak finished the main course and another glass of wine; it was so pleasant to eat his favorite meal, and to have something to hold off loneliness this evening. He had saved the second message from a friend to enjoy over dessert. Maybe Dujuv would have an interesting story to tell, or perhaps Phrysaba would want to talk about the concept of solidarity and why it was necessary, something she had been arguing with Jak about for years—“All right, let’s see the second message.”

  “It’s from Princess Shyf.”

  Jak swallowed hard. “Mark for reverse semiosis, then.”

  “Marking …” for about two minutes the purse analyzed the message, identifying hypnotic effects and enhanced images. It restored Shyf’s original message, putting in a small green “emphasis bar” in the upper right-hand corner to indicate where effects had been added.

  “Ready.” Jak would have sworn his purse sounded as if it were bracing itself.

  “All right, let’s see it.”

  Shyf was nude, her back turned. Gracile genes in the Karrinynya Dynasty’s official genome (some ancestors had liked models and courtesans) gave her long limbs and small globular buttocks; her red hair brushed them as she stretched up on her toes, arched her back, and turned her hip. She revealed one beautifully formed breast, and peeked at Jak with one twilight blue eye beside the beautiful red curtain of her hair. “Hello, Jak. I know it’s been a while, but you’ll forgive me, because after all” —her smile deepened—“I know that I’m your special little princess. I know what I mean to you, my darling.” The tip of her tongue delicately rested on her upper lip.

  His usual surge of desire proceeded directly into his usual overwhelming feeling of guilt.

  “A long walk together sometime, Jak, just you and me, holding hands,” Shyf said, in the message, turning to show herself full on. “You know how I hate the silly ceremony and restrictions in the Royal Palace. How I wish I could be plain old Sesh Kiroping, your demmy, once again …”

  “That’s a lie,” Jak said, to her unhearing message.

  The green bar flickered. “And you’ve lost all those people that you thought were your toktru toves—they deserted you as soon as times got tough—”

  “You did your best to make me lose them,” Jak said, staring at the steady, bright green bar. Whatever she wanted was coming next.

  “It kind of makes me feel extra bad that while you’re so lonely and stuck in such a dull job and feeling so deserted by your friends, I have a wonderful new correspondence with Duke Psim. I so need to know that you love me and I’m still your princess, and I want you to look into my eyes and pledge yourself to me, and then … if you do that … maybe sometime soon …” She smiled and struck a more overt pose.

  Jak tensed, grunted, and sighed. “Frankly,” he said to her image, “fucking you isn’t half the fun of taking a good dump.” His bowels coiled at having said that to her.

  The message clicked off, and Jak said, “Report that call to Hive Intel, please.”

  The purse said, “Accessing Hive Intel AIs. This might take several minutes.”

  “Thank you,” Jak said.

  He gulped his cold, tasteless mango pastry, and thought about having the tub rewarmed—no, too much trouble. He set the tray aside, swished in the not-quite-right slightly-too-soap-gray water, and stood up to towel off. All around him, blobs of gray bathwater, drifting in the microgravity, swirled away into the exhaust system.

  “Call in high-private scramble. It’s from Doctor Mejitarian, Hive Intel, Deimos office,” his purse said as he slipped his hand back into the fingerless blue glove.

  “On screen.”

  Mejitarian was a kobold, with that breed’s characteristic large scoop ears and big intelligent kind-looking eyes like an orangutan’s, about 175 years old, gray hair just starting to come into his curly beard. “I’ve been through your latest message from Princess Shyf. We’d better apply some de-conditioning. Can we download software for that to your purse?”

  “Please do.”

  “The message was reinforcement for your existing conditioning; otherwise, there was no hidden content we see. Do you have any unusual sensations or feelings?”

  “Just sick and disgusted. Nothing unusual about that.”

  While he was at Greenworld, Princess Shyf had drafted Jak into the Royal Palace Guards and had him conditioned to her; conditioning was one of the favored tools of the aristos because it produced a state of psychological slavery that was far more reliable than mere loyalty, self-interest, or terror. Jak had returned to the Hive from his second great adventure completely conditioned into doggy devotion to the Princess’s whims.

  Seeing an opportunity, Dean Caccitepe, both the Dean of Students at the PSA and a senior Hive Intel operative, had recruited Jak to serve as a double agent. Hive Intel doctors had deconditioned him enough to be able to resist commands, but left as much conditioning in place as possible, so that Greenworld Intel continued to think Jak was conditioned, and that they had a valuable asset inside PASC. Hive Intel obtained copious information, and Jak’s career in the colonial bureaucracy was supposedly being pushed along. Caccitepe and Mejitarian often assured him that if he performed this assignment well, he would eventually cross over to Hive Intel with high rank and a dossier full of strong recommendations.

  When Jak had first arrived on Deimos and been assigned to Mejitarian, he had thought him kind. He knew now that the kobold was merely a thorough professional, good at expressing empathy and warmth for the same reason that Caccitepe was good at putting together clusters of stray facts, or that his uncle was good with a gun. Mejitarian’s job was to be Hive Intel’s doctor, not Jak’s, and he was indifferent to everything except his job.

  As he usually did, Jak gazed steadily at Mejitarian’s right eye, to avoid looking at the notched left ear and the faded outline of a brand in the fur of Mejitarian’s left cheek. On Mercury, where banking and other archaic horrors were still practiced, several banks marked children born into peonage in that way. How Mejitarian had gotten away from that life, and into his present one, was doubtless an interesting story, and one Jak was almost certain never to hear.

  The kobold seemed to be seeing something in Jak’s face. “Something else? I’ve told you to report unusual feelings and thoughts. Something you’re not sure you should report, perhaps? Or something you feel curiously reluctant to report?”

  “Oh, I know what it is, and it didn’t come in the message,” Jak said, shivering because he was still wet and naked. He set the dial on the towel to “extra absorbent” and gently pressed himself all over with it. “It’s frustration. How long will I have to live like this and do this? I know you don’t have an answer, like a fixed date or anything, but I want to get really deconditioned, go into Hive Intel on a regular mission, draw a Hive Intel paycheck, and stop infiltrating PASC. Sometimes it’s hard to wait.”

  “Perhaps Dean Caccitepe has not been clear. If you rise to be the head of PASC while giving us a marvelous backchannel into the Karrinynya palace, and you do that across fifty years, you will have been a very successful agent. There’s no particular virtue in drawing one of our paychecks, after all—rather the contrary, since the whole idea is to accomplish as much as we can within our budget, so having our agents paid out of other offices is good. You are in your most valuable possible assignment. You are a fast-rising star within PASC, which is noticed. And you are invaluable as a double agent. You are extraordinarily useful where you are, doing what you are doing. Now, when you sleep tonight, be sure to run the deconditioning program that we’ve download
ed to your purse. Any other questions?”

  “No, sir.”

  The screen blinked off.

  “Do you want to record your script now?” the purse asked. “Hive Intel has already sent it over.”

  “Sure,” Jak said. “I’ll put on a shirt and let’s do it in the recording room. Prompt it from right below the camera.”

  After each message from Shyf, the Hive Intel AIs wrote a short script, which Jak then read from a prompter with as much sincerity as he could manage; its purpose was to convince Greenworld Intelligence that Shyf still had functional control of Jak, plant some disinformation, aid the Hive, and keep Greenworld from gaining too many advantages. It’s nice that we’re allies, Jak thought. Because if we were enemies, this whole business might be toktru nasty.

  The room camera recorded him reading the script as it rolled across the end wall of his sitting room, and his purse uploaded it to Hive Intelligence for editing and enhancements. Nowadays he tried not to think about any of the words he was reading.

  “Time for bed,” he told the purse. He slipped into his prewarmed bed. “Play the deconditioning program that they just sent you. If it doesn’t specify how often, repeat it all night. Wake me at four. Bright lights, lively music, lots of coffee, and something I like to eat.”

  “Tomorrow’s going to be a good day,” the purse said, cheerfully, trying to catch his mood—something at which it was still less than perfect.

  “Tomorrow’s going to be a day,” Jak corrected.

  CHAPTER 3

  I Have the Most Complete Confidence in You

  The next morning, the bright lights came on almost with a pop, some gutty old blues singer belted out a lively version of “Saint James Infirmary,” and the waitron flew into the room towing a container with a big flask of hot strong black coffee and a mountain of delicate pastries.

  Jak untethered and pushed off the warming pad, feeling as if he had a hangover, and slowly, slowly dispensed coffee into a bulb. Usually when he was sleep-deconditioned, he had threatening dreams, frightening dreams, dreams that made him weep, none of them coherent, all of Shyf; this time had been no exception. Jak had a sour taste in his mouth, a raw feeling in his throat, and an oozy gray mess in his brain.

  He drew a breath, told himself to be a grown-up, and stripped off the old “PSA Maniples First Chair” shirt he usually slept in.

  The music changed over to a medley of medieval American musical theatre songs, bright bouncy happy things about cockeyed optimists, four-leaf clovers, and figuring that whenever you’re down and out the only way is up. (Conservation of momentum was apparently unknown to medieval Americans.)

  He ate only two small puff pastries, despite all the temptations the waitron offered. It would be close to dinnertime for Sib and Gweshira, and Sib always sprang for a great meal.

  Not that he would ever admit it to Sib, but Jak was looking forward to seeing him. Sibroillo Jinnaka had raised Jak, taught him the Disciplines, pushed him to excel at everything, and usually been everything you would want your uncle to be. Of course, there was a downside. Jak had gotten caught, more than once, in Circle Four’s deadly feud with Triangle One. Jak’s life could have been much easier had his family name been something other than Jinnaka. But still, Uncle Sib had been right there whenever Jak needed him, and if his advice had sometimes proved dead wrong, he was still Jak’s model of brains, skill, and courage.

  Besides, I haven’t seen the horrible old gwont, or had a chance to tease him in person, for a whole year, Jak thought as he airswam swiftly through the tunnels. Hope I haven’t lost my touch.

  Most passengers off Eros’s Torch had taken the launch directly down to Mars. Sib and Gweshira were the only passengers on the ferry. As Hive citizens entering a Hive possession, they cleared security swiftly, and were out in the receiving area, pounding Jak’s back, hugging him and laughing, within a minute of the green pressure light.

  They went to the Parakeet, a pleasant-enough all-shifts restaurant. On the way, Sib commented, “Except for some minor changes in the uniforms, this could be a hundred eighty years ago, when I used to come up here to go drinking and whoring.”

  “Since I’m in charge of the place, I’m supposed to go somewhere else for that.”

  “The burden of command,” Gweshira said, her eyes twinkling. She was a tiny woman, all muscle and gristle, and the deep brown skin stretched over her square jaw was still firm and tight, though she must be close to two hundred years old herself. Her silver hair had escaped from its clip, bobbing around her face as they airswam.

  The Parakeet was centrifuged to one-tenth g, the grav that made “light” synonymous with “rich” or “high class,” in which soup stayed in a bowl and one could walk, but lying on a hard floor was comfortable and motion easy. On the partitions in the dining room, which blocked the view of people dining upside down over one’s head and doors whirling by every few seconds, screens showed views from outside cameras; the restaurant appeared to be freeflying in Mars orbit.

  One side of the dining room showed the red-green-blue-white landscape of Mars, spattered with small lakes, interrupted by tight white cyclones and smeared with the black smoke of prairie fires. On the opposite side the screens were lit with the wild rainbow flame of Eros’s Torch, a stream of exotic matter tortured to the borders of existence, cooling into a thin smear of plasma, fifty thousand kilometers long and a million kilometers away, against the black star-showered velvet of space. “Well, the ferry with my boss on it should be reaching Eros’s Torch, right about now,” Jak said. “And since they don’t turn them around for anything, I guess I’m in charge. How long do you think I should wait before staging a coup and declaring a provisional government?”

  Sib laughed, coping with difficulty with his mouthful of salad. “You should call and ask him. It might be a welcome stimulus. The poor man is about to be bored to death.”

  Gweshira nodded vigorously as she picked bones out of her fish. “Neither of us had traveled in decades, you know, we’d spent all our time on the Hive, and before when we traveled, it was always ‘business.’ ” The way she said it meant “Circle Four business.” “We hadn’t quite realized what a month on a quarkjet liner would be like—nothing much to do but the Disciplines, gambling, reading, and catching viv entertainment … they’re mainly set up for younger people to stand around watching each other try to be beautiful. I’m afraid we’re turning into a couple of old gwonts who think life was better in their youth.”

  “Well, maybe it was,” Jak said.

  Sibroillo half smiled. “At least our youth was better for us, eh, old pizo? Just remember that someday you’re going to be describing this as the golden age.”

  “I don’t think Deimos has ever had a golden age, Uncle Sib. At best it’s had a tar age. But I appreciate your not being too discouraging. I’m looking forward to some very dull months, and my orders are to keep them that way if at all possible.”

  Sib beamed. “Now, that was nicely put, pizo. Very nicely put. You’d rather not offend me, but you’d rather not be left holding the bag for whatever I might do.”

  “Um, very blunt, but toktru.”

  “Well, Gweshira and I, having had one good meal and a night’s sleep here, are going to head down to Mars. Deimos is only interesting because you’re here. Is that good news?”

  Jak made a face. “I never thought I’d be saying this, Uncle Sib, but I want to stay out of trouble.”

  Sib and Gweshira roared with laughter so merry that Jak joined in. “What’s the joke?”

  Gweshira shrugged. “Back when we were both at school on Mars—this was in different decades, by the way—each of us had the experience of a certain teacher—also the teacher of Bex Riveroma—”

  Jak shuddered. “That data sliver still in my liver—”

  Sib shrugged. “In a few years the information will be outdated and he won’t care. Till then just be careful. He’s crazy, evil, and dangerous, but rational enough—in fact that’s why he’s so dange
rous. This teacher whose name we won’t mention always said he thought of Bex as one of the two most dangerous people he’d ever trained.”

  “Were you the other one, Gweshira?” Jak asked.

  Jak and Gweshira waited to laugh until Sib’s face was a mask of fury. A moment later Sib was laughing too. “I don’t know why I always fall for that.”

  “Because it gives us such pleasure,” Jak suggested.

  “Possibly.” Sib held up a finger, recalling his point. “Well, anyway, when you said you wanted to stay out of trouble, it reminded us of something. During our training, believe me, we said that often. ‘Out of trouble’ was all we wanted. And every time we even thought that phrase, this teacher-we-won’t-name would say (I can’t intone like he could), ‘You are invoking the Great God Murphy Whose Will Is Law, and he will be moved to act.’ And because we’re planning to visit him as soon as we fly down to Mars, he was on our mind, and you triggered the memory.”

  When Sib and Gweshira had finished eating, they were tired, so Jak called a sprite to guide them to their hotel, and they airswam after the little twinkling glow.

  At the office, the tasks accumulated overnight consumed ten minutes, and it still wasn’t officially start time; Jak had nothing to do for the rest of the day except interview Pikia. While he waited for her, he set up a flask of coffee and two bulbs.

  “Pikia Periochung is here for her interview,” Jak’s purse said.

  “Send her in.”

  The door dilated and Pikia, dressed in a nicer-than-required coverall, airswam in. Jak had met her at many receptions; he was usually the only person present within fifty years of her age, so they often chatted, but only about his brief periods of media fame (which he would rather have forgotten), and the usual “do you like school” things that adults use for awkward small talk with teenagers.