Endgame
Page 23
A boy, however, had different priorities: "Like when you see your voice in the air on raw, damp morning?" Denny examined the apparatus at close range with his hands clasped tightly behind his back.
"Like that, I guess," Richard replied absently, as interested in Denny's abandoned box as Denny was in the transceiver.
"So—where do you talk into? What's the paper for? I mean, I seen tappers, but not like this. How come—?"
Richard grabbed a thick sheaf of paper and waggled it in front of the boy's face. "Read this, if you're so damned curious—and don't touch anything. And stay right here until I get back."
" 'The Starscout Explorer's Manual. Part Four. Radio—' Did you copy this? Is this your writing?—I can hardly read it—"
Richard flinched midway between his stool and the door. His script had always been labored; he never wrote unless he had to, and since becoming Househead he could pass almost everything to a secretary. But copying Juarez's manual had been one of the conditions for receiving the transceivers; he wanted the apparatus, so he'd dutifully copied each page and diagram— paying scant attention to its legibility.
"Read it or not," he said irritably, thinking mostly of the white pills on the shelf in the lavatory and the hot-water plumbing that reached across the roof to his Househead's quarters but not as far as this office. "But don't touch anything!" He turned and tripped over the box, lunged to catch his balance on the doorframe, then stayed bent-over with his hand clutched over his gut until the knifing pain passed.
"Dammit, Deneb!—what is this you've hauled up here?"
The boy was off the stool in a flash, leaving the manual to flutter page by page to the carpet. "The sword, m'ser Richard." Meaning the sword of his own house, the Takahashi of Nev Hettek, forged on Old Earth and sent to Kamat of Merovingen for safekeeping. "I waited for Raj to come—t' show me how to pack it up. He remembers, y' know, but I don't; I was too young. But Raj ain't here and he isn't at the College—"
Richard blanched at the thought of Denny spying out the College earlier this afternoon, and blanched with the pain that followed the thought.
"I should've gone with Great Uncle Bosnou. I should've taken the sword with me."
Denny's shame and despair were real enough. Bosnou had a gift for taming wild creatures, including teenage boys. He'd offered to take the boy back to the stancia. Denny wanted to go as he hadn't wanted anything just for himself in a long time, but Raj was mooning over a girl again and Denny felt obligated to stay behind. Raj, as he said, got involved, and more than once Raj had needed his younger brother's canni-ness to get un-involved.
"But I couldn't find Raj, and I didn't get the sword wrapped and into the box until after m'ser Greg left so I couldn't give it to him to take with him to the Chat ship in the harbor—"
God help us, Richard thought, imagining the consequences if Denny's plans had not gone awry. Taka-hashi's sword with Greg bound for the Chattalen: the mind boggled, and he'd been a fool not to spare one thought for the brothers since this whole fiasco began.
"—So I was bringing it to you—to put with the Kamat jewels while I went lookin' for Raj—just in case something happens—"
"Nothing's going to happen. You're not going anywhere." The knife spun in Richard's gut. "Just stay here—right here—until I get back." He stumbled down the twelve steps to his quarters.
The regulator clock on the mantel in Richard's office marked off an hour before the downstairs door reopened. Eleanora, it seemed, was in league with Dr. Jonathan, and not about to let her beloved escape without proper care. She let him take the chalk pills and insisted he eat the bland, acid-absorbing meal the cook had prepared for him earlier. She wanted him to lie down and rest, if not sleep.
"Merovingen can get by without you for the night. You know whatii happen if that ulcer perforates."
Richard did: blood poisoning, peritonitis, and a hideously lingering death. Courtesy of history, Dr. Jonathan could diagnose most of humanity's infirmities; courtesy of the Scouring he lacked the skills to heal them. Ulcers were not something to be taken lightly or ignored.
"Denny's still up there—with the transceiver and with his family sword."
Eleanora accepted defeat graciously. "Try not to be long, and try not to get upset with him."
The boy didn't hear Richard coming up the stairs. He was hunched over the spark-key, with the headset clamped over his ears, scribbling in the margins of the Starscouts' manual. Richard's inclination was to get upset, but he took pity on his gut.
"You've just been listening, haven't you?"
Denny was properly startled and chastised. "You was gone so long—"
"But you didn't send anything?"
"No, m'ser. I thought—I put it together that if you had one o' these, maybe all the other Houses did. And I was going to see if maybe somebody knew where Raj was." Richard glowered and Denny hurried to reassure him. "But I didn't, m'ser—honest. I just been listenin'. Ever'body else's been sending stuff. . . ."
Richard believed the boy. "It can get pretty thick sometimes," he agreed. He began to scoop the sawdust from the carpet back into the sword box.
"I'll say. And sneaky, too."
"Eh?" He froze with his hands full.
"Yeah, somebody'll start something, and then somebody else'll sort of slide in on top to try to finish it. I'll tell you one thing, m'ser Dick, I wouldn't make secrets on this thing. Not the way it is now."
"I figured that the moment I saw the recorder. It's like whispering in a crowded room, Deneb: you only say things you want everyone to hear. The wireless is useful, but it surely isn't confidential."
"Not the way it is now," the boy agreed, "with ever'body using the same fre-quency."
He'd read the manual carefully, but not—Richard decided—carefully enough.
"We've got to use the same frequency to receive and transmit," he said, joining Denny at the table. "There's no other way."
Denny hesitated, he was bold and brash, but not stupid, and not knowing how Richard Kamat took correction he wasn't sure he should say anything at all.
Except for Raj—who wasn't where he was supposed to be or anywhere else—and Tom and Jones.
"There's two things you could do. First you could make another code, instead of this 'un, that'd fool whoever was listenin'. But you could also change the freq'ency—" Deneb got excited and his hard-won grammar went to hell.
"Who'd be able to listen?"
"Anyone who knew what we'd changed it to; anyone you told. See—look here:" Denny pointed to one of Richard's sloppily transcribed schematics. "That's supposed to be a modulator, and you can set it wherever you want. You could have as many different waves as you wanted, and no one'd be able to spy on ye 'less you told 'im what your wavelength was. I can't find the real 'un by looking at this thing—but it's got t' be here, 'cause everything else is. Unless whoever made these left it off—" Denny swallowed the rest of his words when Richard moved away from the table to stare out the windows at the early evening light.
"A modulator?"
"Yeah," Denny said, then added, softly: "Didn't ye read what ye wrote, m'ser?"
Richard shook his head. "No, I didn't." He was certain Juarez Wex hadn't said a single word about modulators or wavelengths when he demonstrated the transceivers. And he was just as certain Juarez knew about them and all the boy implied with them, and so, therefore, did all of Wex which wouldn't be above taking advantage where advantage was to be taken. "Dammit."
"M'ser? M'ser, I'm sorry—but you said to read it, and I did. Maybe I don't read so well, and you don't write so well, neither. And this Starscouts' manual— it's old, m'ser. It's got a lot of words I never saw before—so maybe I'm wrong about it all."
"You're not wrong, Deneb. You're smart. Your grandfather knows what he's doing. He's got one of these machines, too—you should know that, along with the rest. ..."
There was an explosion to the west. Thick black smoke shot into the sky. Night was coming and it was starting a
gain.
"What's goin't' happen to us, m'ser?" Denny left the wireless untended and stood in front of Richard, watching the smoke billow.
"I don't know." Richard draped his arms over Denny's shoulders. "I've got to get you out, though, you and the sword. I owe that to your grandfather. I'll send both of you to Uncle Bosnou. You'll—"
Denny twisted free. "You can't. I won't go—not without Raj."
They bargained then, and swiftly. Denny wanted to find Raj only so they could leave Merovingen together. Richard promised he'd search Merovingen island by island until they knew where Raj was, or where he had gone. Besides, the Kamat packet boat wasn't due for four days. Denny figured—silently, of course, that he could find anything in four whole days. The agreement was sealed with a man-to-man handshake.
Together they closed the sword crate and stood it carefully by the mantel.
"What about the wireless?" Denny asked. "Shouldn't somebody stay up here listenin'?"
Richard nodded. He hadn't settled in his mind who that would be. It wouldn't be Denny—though desire burned in the boy's eyes and he seemed to have an aptitude for it. He put a hand on the boy's neck and herded him to the door. Uncle Bosnou could deal with that enthusiasm, Richard thought; and formed an image of the two of them in a shepherd's hut hunched over the Voice of Doom. It would probably come to pass, given the personalities involved, and Merovin would never be the same.
Karma. Endless, cyclic karma harnessed to the dynamic of change and progress.
Once was enough for anything.
ENDGAME (CONCLUDED)
by C. J. Cherryh
The weapons-fire was light through the day, desultory shots from one position toward movement in another. And there was movement going on. Mondragon listened to it with half an ear, from his own position on Spellbridge—a resting position, lying on a slanted timber brace of Spellbridge East High, catching a kind of drowsing sleep in the shadow—never deep sleep, just the kind that an exhausted body imposed on a distraught and busy mind.
He'd lost Min's skip. It had gotten him through the fire, across the Grand and onto Archangel, before the shelling and the rifle fire had gotten too thick: it was Anastasi's yacht he wanted, that black boat that was blasting away with its cannon at the Justiciary, while Tatiana's forces, trying to maneuver from the Justiciary, where they held all levels, invaded the College and battled Anastasi's same-uniformed militia for control of the roof. Won that fight, by what he could tell.
Rooftops and high bridges were the matter under contention just before the dawn made movement difficult, and from what Mondragon could tell, the militia had the roof of Spellbridge, maybe Kass, and the College bottom floor; Tatiana's forces had the Justiciary, were fortifying themselves on the College roof, while, the way Mondragon saw it, the governor's personal guard still probably had the Signeury, and what was probably going on out there in the daylight was setting up better cover and emplacements on the roofs; not mentioning delegations from one faction and the other scurrying about to Signeury making offers to papa Iosef—if Iosef would listen to either of his surviving offspring. Either was offering papa the other's head. Doubtless.
And Mondragon lay up here on a timber broad enough to support most of his shoulders and his feet, wrapped in Min's old gray patchwork cloak, that was the best camouflage he could come up with, and a defense against the chill that blew up from the canals. Mondragon felt a little flutter of his heart when a mild quake shook the timbers: it made a man think of that fall at the edge of sleep. But it wasn't illusion, it was Merovingen settling that much deeper in fear and chaos.
He had resources he could draw on—Kamat, perhaps, but Kamat had betrayed him, Kamat hadn't seen Jones to safety, and maybe that wasn't Kamat's fault: Jones was hard to catch—or maybe Kamat had come through at the last and gotten Jones away. He could construct a scenario in which Jones, straight from a near miss with Chance's men, might have gone to Kamat and gotten snatched upriver—exactly what he'd paid Richard Kamat to do, if Kamat could lay hands on her.
But Jones had never quite trusted Kamat, perhaps because Richard didn't deal with her, only with him, which might suggest to Jones where Richard might get his instructions in her case: which might suggest to Jones that she'd be a fool to walk in on Kamat and trust to get out again.
And he wished he could think that Jones would think the same thing about Anastasi Kalugin. But Jones had never understood Anastasi as well as he had. She had never had the occasion. Thank God.
He turned his head. From where he was, on Spellbridge High, he could see the black yacht lying across Spellbridge West entry off Archangel—he'd learned the cant and the nomenclature of the canals. He'd learned to think canaler and breathe canaler and to understand why canalers hated that black ship, that had as soon run them under as give way.
But Jones only knew that he had ties to Anastasi and never understood how Anastasi threatened her— he very much feared that she didn't; because, dammit, he hadn't explained to her why he couldn't trust Anastasi without getting into things he didn't want her to know—he'd asked her just to believe him; and that, with Jones, wasn't enough. She was like him. She knew how pressure made people do things they wouldn't do, and lie to people they loved, and every damned, damnable thing that might make a person do or say something that hadn't a thing to do with love, and everything to do with self-esteem, or necessity, or whatever else was tangled up in his dealings with Anastasi—
And Fon. One triggered what the other had set up somewhere deep inside and he wasn't rational, Karl hadn't left him rational, rational had died somewhere in prison, in hopes held out and snatched back, in attachments offered and taken away—
He couldn't make her understand that. He couldn't tell her and not telling her—he might have killed her.
That was the thought that went around and around in his mind, that was the thought that had him here instead of down at Moghi's looking. The fact was that Anastasi could have her, and if he didn't she could still turn up here, on that harborside, slipping past him in the multitudinous routes a skip could travel, and if there was a game yet to play, with the power he had left—it was down there, on that black yacht . . .
... because Anastasi wouldn't kill him till Anastasi knew what he did know, knew what he might have told Chance, or through Chance, Tatiana. For a man whose intention was war with Nev Hettek the moment he was in power—what Thomas Mondragon might have held back from 'Stasi Kalugin could be critical; and what Thomas Mondragon might have heard inside the Nev Hettek embassy or why Thomas Mondragon was loose now was all information Anastasi would want to have before he signed off.
Which meant the people closest to 'Stasi wouldn't shoot him on sight. Tatiana's folk wouldn't either. An ignorant militiaman might. Which was what he was doing up here in the timbers of Spellbridge High East, looking down on canalside, where he had a view of the gangway that let people come and go from the yacht, and the deck around it; and a hope of seeing someone who could get him to Anastasi.
Couldn't plan on picking 'Stasi off from here, though he had a rifle on that slanted beam above him—a militiaman had provided that last night. He'd tested it during the firing, thought he hadn't that much ammunition, and it was no marksman's rifle. It was a contingency—in the remote scenario that he had 'Stasi in clear sight and standing still, or that he had to discourage someone climbing up here. The rifle was a remoter chance than he liked; and more noise than he liked; and more immediately provocative than he liked—'Stasi liked his victims more compliant, and more afraid—'Stasi liked scaring hell out of you, and the more dangerous you were and the more he scared you, the better it was for 'Stasi—just like Karl.
That was one thing about Karl he'd explained to Chance. Told him things Karl didn't put out in public, and if Chance had known all of it, he'd no way to tell. He didn't think so. Chance was a professional and Chance didn't have damn much patience with fools— as Karl was, on a personal level. That was the great secret: Karl was ultimately a fool. Ultimate
ly someone would find his self-indulgence and kill him with it. But not before Karl had run his course, and alienated enough of his own elite, or chosen an elite who'd alienate the people, and kill the revolution they'd used to believe in. Then there'd be another revolution. Or somebody would just pick off Karl, somebody who had access, and no scruples, and no hesitation.
Somebody Karl wouldn't expect, somebody Karl was still being public Karl with.
Somebody, if he hoped to survive that act, who'd formed a cadre to back him before Karl got wind of it—that was how you could survive: be prepared to take power yourself and ride the storm.
Which Chance Magruder might be, now, coming back from business in Merovingen—if Chance didn't think it over and head elsewhere. If Chance wasn't fool enough to go back to Nev Hettek and pretend he'd never debriefed Thomas Mondragon or heard things Karl wouldn't want him to hear. And he didn't think Chance was that kind of fool at all. Chance Magruder was the best chance the revolution had now.
Thomas Mondragon didn't have a cadre at all, unless you counted the canalers, who'd die in too great numbers, or Jones, who might already be aboard that ship; or old Min, who (God forgive him) was running around somewhere (he hoped) with that fancyboat—the sight of old Min at the helm might get her boarded, might get her searched, might tell whoever was interested that Tom Mondragon was loose somewhere less noisy—and worry Chance and worry Tatiana, and worry Anastasi if Anastasi had anybody deep in Chance's organization. . . .
Couldn't count on that. And he was most thoroughly ashamed of what he'd done. Jones would never forgive him, making Mintaka Fahd a decoy. There was part of him Jones had never understood, Jones being honest and Jones being willing to die for abstracts like friendship and right and fairness and all: and the fact was there was only one human being in the world Tom Mondragon was willing to stay alive for—when he'd had the impulse to kill 'Stasi Kalugin; and there was only one human being in the world he'd protect at all costs, and that meant any human cost. That was the equation Jones wouldn't figure, because Jones liked honest people, and Jones loved him, and Jones wouldn't understand the man who'd come out of Karl Fon's prison and into 'Stasi Kalugin's hands— she only understood the one she'd pulled out of the Det, and made love to in Dead Harbor, and saved from hopelessness. That was the Mondragon that had been, that was the one Jones was in love with, and he never wanted her to meet the one that'd use Min Fahd the way he had, or get in deep with 'Stasi Kalugin— she couldn't imagine 'Stasi because she wasn't, in 'Sta-si's mind, powerful. 'Stasi couldn't be afraid of her.