Asimov's SF, June 2006

by Dell Magazine Authors

  Simon's stomach gave an uncomfortable lurch at this change in topic. “Not well, sir. But the doctors are hopeful."

  Oswalt shook his head. “Then we must hope, but it grieves me to see such a bright promise so lost. So sad..."

  Their interview trailed off into commonplace exchanges, and Oswalt's repeated assurances that Simon should not hesitate to come again if he had questions. Simon descended the stairs, more dissatisfied with himself than before.

  What did I expect? he wondered.

  He took a footpath to the nearest gates—away from the University. Away from the recent deaths. The day had turned unseasonably warm; the sun had already burned away the fog, and the sky overhead had cleared to a brassy blue. Outside the University grounds, motorcars and carriages choked the wide avenues. The world in general appeared oblivious to the murders.

  “News! News of the day!” A boy in a shabby coat thrust a newssheet at Simon. “News of the day, governor? Death in high places. Scandal in the capital."

  Still preoccupied, Simon paid the boy and stuffed the newssheet into his pocket. A horn blatted nearby, and an argument broke out between a cabbie and his customer. Simon hurried down the sidewalk. He had to get away from the crowds and the noise.

  He hailed a cab. “To Aonach Sanitarium,” he said, climbing inside.

  “Right, sir."

  The cabbie maneuvered his horses and cab into the thoroughfare. Simon settled back and pulled the newssheet from his pocket.

  Sensation in Court, read the headlines. A renowned balloonist and scientist, the Queen's presumed lover, had plunged to his death. Causes uncertain. Investigation to be conducted by the Queen's Constabulary.

  The rest of the article disappeared into hyperbole and incoherent smudges. Simon crumpled the paper in his hand and looked out the cab's window. As though to confirm the news, a line of blue messenger balloons glided north toward the capital. Idly, he wondered if Dee regretted working on this case and not that of the Queen's lover.

  The cab stopped abruptly. The cabbie swore. Ahead, voices rose in complaint, and someone shouted about a blockage in the square. Simon leaned out the window and saw a long motorcade creeping through the plaza. Small pennants lined one car's roof—the mark of a visiting dignitary.

  Lord Kiley.

  He drew back into the cab, feeling sick. Maeve's father must have arrived by train that morning. Death in high places, indeed.

  The noon bells rang, and still the traffic did not move. Simon glanced at the newssheet, but he no longer had any desire to read about Court gossip. He stuffed the paper into his jacket pocket and closed his eyes to wait. The closed cab smelled strongly of sweat, old leather, and horse—it reminded him of the stables at home. Soon he was dozing and hardly noticed when the motorcade eventually departed the square, and the lines of traffic oozed into motion.

  He stood on a high peak, his gaze turned upward. Night had fallen. Bright digits, like pinpricks of fire, stippled the dark skies. Simon tilted back his head, trying to take in the entire number...

  “Aonach Sanitarium,” bawled the cabbie, rapping against the cab's roof.

  Simon jerked awake. Still groggy, he paid the cabbie and dealt with the gate guards. By the time he reached the main building, his head had cleared.

  His visit was unexpected, however, and there was a delay before Doctor Lusk arrived in the lobby. The man frowned, obviously unhappy to see Simon.

  “Mr. Madoc. Sir. You realize today is not your regular day. I'm not certain we can accommodate you."

  “I realize that,” Simon replied. “However, you once mentioned increasing the frequency of our visits, as a means of anchoring her memories."

  “True...” Lusk frowned again. “Normally I would venture to experiment with our program, but I fear to disturb your expectations. She spent a somewhat restless night."

  “I understand,” Simon said. “If you might indulge me this once, I promise not to distress her."

  Lusk studied him a moment, his round face uncharacteristically pensive. “Perhaps you are right, sir. Perhaps we should not slavishly adhere to Minz's beloved patterns. Come with me."

  He dispatched a crew of orderlies to prepare a room for Simon's visit, while he and Simon followed at a much slower pace. “I've requested a different room for this visit,” he told Simon. “The room contains an observation window, so that we can watch without Miss Madoc's being aware. Just a precaution, you understand. Do you object?"

  They had arrived at the room, and Simon had laid his hand on the door latch. He paused and searched Lusk's face, but found only a doctor's reasonable concern. “No. Not really."

  He went inside. Gwyn sat by the window, hands circling through the air as she murmured her numbers. She wore a dress today instead of her usual hospital gown, and someone had brushed and plaited her long fair hair. Simon scanned the walls, noting the small round window at the far end. The observation window.

  Gwyn appeared unaware of his presence. She continued to move her hands in a rhythmic pattern, her long fingers catching and stroking the air, as though weaving the sunlight. “Seven,” she whispered. “Seven and thirteen and seventeen."

  She had returned to the early stages of her illness, when she recited only the simplest primes. Was that a sign of regression? He even recognized the old intensity in her whisper, as though her numbers represented words in a different language....

  Simon's skin prickled as he made the connection at last.

  “Seven,” he said, when she paused briefly. “That's when our parents died."

  Gwyn trembled, but did not look in his direction. “Thirteen. Seventeen."

  He remembered thirteen, when their uncle arranged a meeting with Glasfryn from Awveline University. Seven and thirteen. These were dates burned into Gwyn's memory, which even madness could not eradicate. But seventeen?

  He glanced toward the observation window. Witnesses be damned, he thought and crossed the room to Gwyn's side. Gwyn stiffened, her jaw working in sudden alarm. Simon stopped a few paces away and knelt so that his face was level with hers.

  “Nineteen,” he said softly.

  Her eyes widened slightly. Simon waited, hardly daring to breathe. His patience was rewarded when, at last, she whispered, “Twenty-nine."

  Keeping his voice calm, he repeated the number.

  Again, he had another long wait before Gwyn spoke. “Thirty-one,” she whispered. “Thirty-seven."

  Simon drew a pencil and the newssheet from his jacket pocket. Gwyn immediately tensed. He waited, motionless, until she calmed down.

  This time, he initiated the exchange. “Seven."

  “Thirteen."

  “Seventeen."

  They repeated the sequence, Simon writing down each number in the margins and empty spaces.

  “...Thirty-seven. Forty-one. Forty-three."

  The third time through the sequence, Gwyn stirred restlessly, her gaze shifting rapidly from Simon's paper to his face, as though she expected something more. He tried repeating the numbers, but she struck the pencil from his hands. Before he could soothe her, the attendants arrived and led an unusually pliant Gwyn away.

  Lusk escorted Simon to the lobby in uncharacteristic silence. “You were right to come, sir,” he said, when they arrived at the front doors. “Quite right. We have made true progress today, you and I and Miss Madoc. Kindness—that is the key to your sister's illness."

  Only part of the solution, Simon thought as he walked along the sanitarium's winding paths, between the stately trees and their rain of falling leaves. A very small part. The true key was written on the smudged sheet of newsprint in his pocket.

  * * * *

  That night Simon pored over Gwyn's numbers. He started by applying a series of basic formulae, each designed to expose any underlying patterns. When these proved fruitless, he turned to the newer analysis methods discussed in academic journals. No success. Finally, on a decision based midway between frustration and whimsy, he turned to more fantastical methods—
Lîvod's color theories, Frankonia's exploration into the electrical properties of numbers, the latest research from the Prussian Alliance, even ancient treatises from the Egyptian and Persian mystics.

  Seven. Thirteen. Seventeen. Nineteen. Twenty-nine. Thirty-one. Thirty-seven. Forty-one. Forty-three.

  He found himself doodling numbers on his scrap paper—huge numbers interspersed with smaller ones. Their pattern echoed Gwyn's patterns and recalled his dream of numbers burning like stars across the night. Numbers whose voices sang to him, the notes changing as he transformed them through calculations.

  He had Garret brew a pot of strong tea, then requested privacy for the evening. Garret, ever deferential, withdrew to his own rooms.

  Simon pulled out a well-thumbed primer on mathematical history. He skimmed the sections on Pythagoras, with his belief in mystical properties; on Fermat and his seemingly logical theory on primes, which had proved false; on Fermat's correspondent, the monk-conjurer Mersenne, and Euclid, who had posited that the list of primes was infinite, and therefore led to immortality.

  I wanted my name written in the same list, Simon thought as he turned the page. An arrogant wish, but arrogance seemed a prerequisite for mathematicians, especially those who put forth unpopular theories, such as his own. Dee had mocked him. Oswalt had tried to discourage him, but Simon knew the proper sequence of numbers could transform lives. He distinctly remembered...

  Cold washed over him. Slowly, he laid down his lead stick and stared at the open book on his desk. The scrap paper was gone—possibly now another crumpled ball upon the floor. Instead, the once-empty margins of his book were decorated with a tapestry of miniscule numbers. When had he written them?

  He reached for the book to shut it. Paper crackled inside his breast pocket. Simon stopped, hand hovering above the book. He'd emptied his shirt pockets before the assembly—he was certain of that. Just another bit of foolscap, he told himself. He was always storing bits of paper in his pockets. He'd simply forgotten about this one.

  He reached inside his pocket. His fingers met a rigid square unlike the usual crumpled note. Hands trembling, he plucked it out and dropped the object onto his desk.

  It was a thin packet of stiff brown paper, its edges sealed and one flap folded over to make an envelope. Simon rotated the packet, looking for some marking, a label to indicate its contents. He heard a faint hissing from inside. Cautiously, he tore off the corner and tilted the packet.

  A stream of white powder poured onto his desk. He stared at it warily. Not sugar. The grains were too fine. Where had he seen its like before?

  You remember. You and Emmett...

  He wet his forefinger and touched the white pyramid, making a slight dent in its smooth surface. After a moment's hesitation, he transferred a miniscule amount to his tongue.

  A sweetish bitter taste filled his mouth. Within a moment, his tongue went numb.

  Cocaine. He and Emmett had experimented with it one night, after reading texts from the addict philosophers of the previous century—another of those laughably regrettable incidents from their first year at the University. Simon had forgotten it until now.

  Simon closed his eyes. He had no memory of acquiring this substance, and yet he must have. But when?

  Certain symbols have a mystical significance, Pythagoras believed. Our reality is mathematical. Our souls can rise to union with the divine.

  Discounted theories from a long-dead mathematician, sometimes remembered as a genius, persecuted in his own time, whose secret society ended in bloody and violent suppression.

  Seven. Thirteen. Seventeen. Nineteen. Twenty-nine. Thirty-one. Thirty-seven. Forty-one. Forty-three.

  Now I remember.

  * * * *

  The summer of their seventh year, an unusual heat wave muffled Éireann's northern provinces. Every breeze had died off. Even the messenger balloons appeared stranded, and the buzz from their engines set the air vibrating, as though from gargantuan mosquitoes. Simon and Gwyn spent their hours in their playroom, or in subdued conversation with their aunt and uncle, who had come to supervise them while their parents traveled on holiday through Italy.

  The news came on a Monday. That day, the skies were empty of balloons; the sun was a bright smudge against the dull sheets of clouds. Simon and Gwyn had retreated to the mansion's cool cellars with boxes of colored chalk. Simon drew a series of squares, then rectangles, then circles. Whatever came to mind.

  Gwyn worked more deliberately. She brushed the wall clear of grit, then laid out her pieces of chalk with care. Simon paused from his drawing to watch as she sketched the gardens surrounding their house. It was more than just a picture—woven in between the lush foliage and graceful trees, he could pick out a three curling between the branches like a snake, a six that also looked like a ripple in the pond, a seven disguised as the gardener's scythe.

  “Master Simon. Miss Gwyn."

  Gwyn paused, her chalk poised above the next number. Simon, always obedient, called back, “Down here, Sally."

  He expected her to give the usual retort, “That's Miss Sally to you, scamps.” Instead, Sally clattered down the stairs, her face pale and her eyes bright with tears. “Come quick, Master and Miss,” was all she said. With gentle hands, she laid aside Gwyn's chalk, brushed down their clothes, and smoothed their tousled hair. No time for washing their faces. It didn't matter, she said as she led them upstairs and into the grand front parlor, before retreating with a final whispered encouragement.

  Their aunt and uncle sat on the magnificent sofa where their parents so often entertained guests. With a twinge of apprehension, Simon took in his uncle's black suit, his aunt's black veil and dress, unrelieved by any jewels.

  Uncle Niall stood and held out his arms. “Simon. Gwyn. Come here."

  When neither one moved, he glanced at his wife, as though puzzled how to proceed. Aunt Sophie swept her veil to one side and knelt. “Simon. Gwyn, love. I have terrible news."

  Their parents had died, she told them. The cause had been a freak accident—two balloons colliding in mid-air had scattered their wreckage over the train rails in the remote Italian countryside. Moments later, a train had rounded a curve, and despite the engineer's efforts, the engine had derailed and plunged into a ravine, taking all the passenger cars, and Simon and Gwyn's parents, with it. There had been no survivors.

  “You'll stay here, in your own home,” Aunt Sophie said. “We'll take care of you, I promise. Your Mama and Papa made every provision for your upbringing."

  Simon opened his mouth. He wanted to say something, but his throat and chest hurt too much. Gwyn went rigid. She stared at their aunt and uncle, her pale blue eyes bright and angry. “No,” she whispered. “That's not true. Not true. Not true. Not—"

  She turned and fled. That night, Simon heard her whispering the same words as they both pretended to sleep.

  * * * *

  Simon flung the cocaine out the window and went to bed. He had no dreams, for which he was grateful, but when he awoke, a strange lethargy enveloped him. He washed his face, shaved, and ordered a hearty breakfast. Coffee and eggs revived him, and he set to work at once.

  The greatest purification of all is disinterested science, Pythagoras said. It is the man who devotes himself to that who is the true philosopher. Who frees himself from the wheel of birth.

  He worked from mid-morning to midnight and later, drinking pot after pot of strong tea brewed by the faithful Garrett, while searching for the key to Gwyn's numbers.

  Late on the third morning, a loud knocking broke into his concentration. Simon paused, his pencil poised to finish off an equation, expecting Garret to answer the door.

  But Garret did not appear, and another series of knocks rattled the door. “Simon! Simon! Open up, man."

  Emmett. He sounded panicked. Simon rose, unsteady from sitting so long. He had the strange impression of doubled voices, and though the hour bells were just ringing, he was convinced they'd rung not five minutes ago. He smoothed ba
ck his hair, arranged his pencils, and hastily covered up his worksheets.

  And stopped, his heart racing.

  A snowy white pyramid, the size of his thumbnail, occupied the center of his desk.

  “Simon! Open the door, or I'll get the key from Mrs. Dugan."

  Simon covered his eyes with his palms, willing himself to see nothing but blackness. No cocaine. No numbers. No dizziness after which the day had mysteriously dissolved into night. Emmett showered more knocks against his door, jerking him back to the present. “I hear you, Emmett. Give me just a moment."

  He swept the cocaine into an old envelope and shoved it into his desk drawer. With a damp rag, he wiped his desktop clean, then tossed the rag into the waste bin and stirred up the contents. A glance into the mirror showed that his face was pale but otherwise ordinary. He rubbed his hands over his trousers, then opened the door.

  Emmett stood in the corridor, shoulders hunched, hands shoved into his coat pockets. Except for a stark white shirt collar, his clothes were entirely black. Simon gestured for Emmett to come inside, but Emmett did not move. “They held Colin's wake yesterday,” he said in a clipped voice. “Why didn't you come?"

  “I—I didn't know."

  “They sent a notice around."

  A red haze washed over his vision, and his stomach roiled. He wished he'd not drunk quite so much tea the night before. “I haven't been well, Emmett."

  “So Garret told me,” Emmett said, still in that hard voice. “And Mrs. Dugan. So that is the excuse I gave Commander Dee, when we spoke at Maeve's funeral."

  Pennants fluttering atop the long black motorcar. Lord Kiley, come to fetch his daughter's body home. Dee saying, We've had another death.

  “Simon!"

  Simon flinched. His gaze swung immediately to his desk. He half-expected to see the cocaine again, but the desk remained innocently clear.