“That’s ours, I think,” Rhita said. It wasn’t the most elegant of receptions. There were no security guards present—none she could see, anyway.
As they approached the passenger wagon, she felt bucolic in her innocence. The city, a palpable, odoriferous presence now—thick acrid fuel oil, sweet spattering clouds of steam, gassy horse dung, unwashed masses of travelers and merchants—could swallow her whole, chew her up, and not be held to any kind of account. For the first time, Rhita acutely felt her lack of power. Her grandmother had always seemed so self-assured; how could she possibly be emulated, in the face of such a huge, overpowering place?
Rhita and Lugotorix presented themselves to the driver, who stubbed out his smoke against an often-smudged door guard, stuffed the butt into a grimy pants pocket, and climbed into the elevated front seat. They boarded the wagon. With a hiss and a jerk, the wagon labored them down a broad boulevard lined with ancient marble colonnades. Turning left into a high marble archway, it took them onto the grounds of the Mouseion, the great Library and University of Alexandreia.
“She’s a very handsome young woman,” said the bibliophylax of the Mouseion, adjusting his floor-hugging stool before the queen. “She has more of her mother’s looks than her grandmother’s, but her former pedagogue assures me she is the equal of the sophē Patrikia. She’s arrived in the harbor with some great Northern brute, a servant, my scouts say, and will be in her temporary quarters within the hour.”
Kleopatra the Twenty-first shifted her short, stout body on the informal throne. The scar that sucked a line across her face from left temple to right cheek, marring the bridge of her nose and half-closing one eye, was a pale shell pink against her fair, otherwise smooth skin. She had little of the beauty of her youth; the Libyan hasisins had seen to that twenty years before, during her state visit to Ophiristan. Having no further interest in lovers—she had lost her three favorite consorts on that one hateful day—she did not mind her appearance any more. Kleopatra was simply thankful she still had her health and a sound, agile mind.
The famous dry Alexandreian sunshine crossed the foot-worn white marble of the royal dwelling’s inner porch in a golden stripe and touched the queen’s left slipper, highlighting an unpainted but finely manicured toe. “You know I indulged that sophē beyond reason,” she said. Her grandfather had decreed that Patrikia Luisa Vaskayza set up an akademeia on Rhodos. The Rhodian Akademeia, named the Hypateion after a woman mathematician none in Alexandreia had ever heard of, had for the last fifty years competed with Kallimakhos’s Mouseion for research funding, more often than not receiving substantial royal awards. Useful and even startling work had come out of the Rhodian Akademeia, but everyone in the palace—and in much of the popular press—knew that the sophē’s highest priority had been finding a way to return to her home. Most had thought her more than a little mad.
“You are stating a royal opinion, my Queen.”
“Be straight with me now, Kallimakhos.”
The bibliophylax’s syrupy expression acidified. “Yes, my Queen. You overindulged her at the expense of far more worthwhile scholars, with more formal backgrounds and useful proposals.”
She smiled. Hearing this from the bibliophylax made it seem less true. “No one in the Mouseion has done so much for mathematics and calculation. For cybernetics,” she added, pronouncing the word as the sophē would have. She dabbled her toe in the sunshine as if it were a stream of water. For a moment, the simple color of the sunlight—warm and full of God—and the dry, cool breeze from the sea took her away from reality. She closed her eyes. “Even a queen needs a hobby,” she murmured.
Kallimakhos kept a respectful silence, though he had much more to say. The Oikoumenē Mechanikoi League had made its weapons procurement proposals to the palace two weeks ago. The rebel government of Nea Karkhēdōn, across the Atlantian sea, had twenty times in the past year raided the Oikoumenē’s southern hemisphere supply routes. The rebels had, a decade before, repudiated all contracts made by Karkhēdōn and were forming an alliance with the island fortresses of Hiberneia-Pridden and Angleia. The bibliophylax hoped that all the necessary defense work could mean fine rich contracts for his Mouseion. Instead, he sat discussing the sophē Patrikia’s granddaughter. The sophē and her family had dogged his footsteps for all the thirty years he had been in office, and the footsteps of his predecessor more decades before that.
Kleopatra smiled at Kallimakhos, a sympathetic, motherly smile despite the scar, and shook her head. “You must take her into the Mouseion. She must be accorded the rank of her father—”
“No match for his mother, that man,” Kallimakhos said.
“And she must be allowed to continue her search.”
“Pardon my insolence, dear Queen, but why does she not stay at the Hypateion in Rhodos? Surely she could better carry on her grandmother’s tradition there.”
“Her petition states she wishes the assistance of your mekhanikos Zeus Ammōn Demetrios. Demetrios has agreed, in a private conference with me. I hope this does not tread on your toes, beloved Kallimakhos.”
She knew it did, and she gambled he would ignore the slight. He benefited too much from his relationship with her highness to let small, if constant irritations like the Vaskayza family irritate him unduly. “Your will be done,” the bibliophylax said, bowing and touching the collar of his black scholar’s robes to the floor.
Overhead came a shrill hawklike scream, followed by a shudder in the palace foundations and a distant, innocuous crump. Kallimakhos got to his feet as the queen rose and followed her deferentially, hands folded, onto the outer porch. She leaned on the railing and saw a pillar of smoke in the Brukheion, right in the middle of the Jewish quarter. “Libyans again,” she said. He could see deeper red in her scar, but her voice was smooth and calm. “Have we any news from Karkhēdōn?”
“I do not know, my Queen. I am not privileged in such communications.” The Jewish militia would be even more irritated by this, and already it was common knowledge they did not favor Kleopatra; he wondered how he could use this new outrage to his benefit.
Kleopatra turned around slowly and returned to the inner porch, where she picked up the mouthpiece of an ornate golden telephone. With a nod, she dismissed the bibliophylax.
Within the hour, after a conference with her generals and the head of the Oikoumenē Security Staff, she dispatched a squadron of jet fighter gullcraft from Kanopos to bomb the Libyan rebel city of Tunis.
She then returned to her simply decorated private quarters and sat cross-legged on a Berber wool rug. Eyes closed, she tried to still her deep rage.
She had very little time indeed for her hobbies, but her word was still law in the Mouseion, if not always in the contentious Boulē. Rhita Berenikē Vaskayza…
Kleopatra no longer believed a doorway to another world would ever be found. But even in a time of horrible civil strife, and the worst threat to the Oikoumenē in her lifetime, she believed in allowing herself a just foolish obsession.
8
Earth
Half of the Laniers’ house was century-old stone and rough wood, perched on a stone and concrete cellar and foundation dug deep into a tree-shaded hillside. The other half, added forty years before when they had first moved in, was more modern in appearance, white and austere, though well laid out and comfortable, with a new kitchen and accommodations for the equipment he had needed for his work. That equipment still waited against one wall of the study, a small console of communicators and processors that had allowed him to keep track of the state of virtually any spot on Earth; his link with the Terrestrial Hexamon, through Christchurch and the orbiting precincts. He had not entered the study for six months.
Lanier’s neck hair constantly reminded him of his guest’s presence on the road beside him. They climbed the steps up the hill, Lanier’s leg muscles already aching, and stood on the broad covered porch as Lanier opened the unlocked door. He did not know whether Karen had returned home or not; frequently, when bu
sy on her own missions, she stayed overnight or longer in Christchurch or some of the nearby villages. It actually concerned him little that she might have one or more lovers (though he would have resented it if she had taken Fremont into her bed); he had no evidence of such, and besides, Lanier had never been susceptible to that kind of jealousy, sex being among the weaker of his passions.
She was not at home. That relieved him; he didn’t know how he would describe or explain their visitor. Still, surveying the empty house, he felt a brief, sharp stab of grief. They had lost so much in the past few years, almost all that had consoled them over the hard cruel decades of the Recovery.
“Come in, please,” he invited. Across the years, he had adopted Karen’s precise, almost Oxfordian style of English. Mirsky, or whoever this man actually was—Lanier had an explanation nearly as ludicrous as the visitor’s own—, wiped his boots on the porch mat and entered, smiling with pleasure at the house’s antiques.
“A fine home,” he said. “You’ve lived here since…?”
“Between missions, since two-thousand-seven.”
“Alone?”
“My wife and I. We had a daughter. She’s lost. Dead.”
“I have not been in a normal house for…” Mirsky lifted his eyebrows and shook his head. “You can talk to Olmy and Korzenowski from here?”
Lanier half-shrugged, half-nodded. “In my study, at the back of the house.”
Lanier hesitated at the closed study door, glancing back at the man. His theory, which seemed more convincing every minute, was that this fellow did indeed resemble Mirsky, but was not—could not be him. Somebody had created a duplicate of Mirsky, though he could not imagine why. How would he explain to Olmy or Korzenowski—or anybody? They’d simply have to see for themselves.
“Come in,” he invited, opening the door and liberating a faint smell of dust and old, cool air.
From this room, Lanier had worked after his official retirement to advise and guide those following in his footsteps. Karen had wanted them both to continue on full active duty, but he had refused; he had had enough. Perhaps that had been the beginning of their rift. More unpleasant memories returned as he stared at the projectors and control console mounted in the south wall of the room. So much misery and confusion communicated; so many missions assigned here, leading to the diagnosis or treatment of so many indescribable horrors.
Mirsky entered the room. “Your own Earth station. Very important for you even now?”
Lanier half-shrugged again, as if to be rid of it all. He sat at the console and activated it. A rolling red status pict formed and then resolved into a live picture of Earth as seen from the Stone, wrapped in a coil of DNA. A smooth simulated voice asked, “What services, please?”
“I need to speak to Olmy. Prior reference individual. Or to Konrad Korzenowski. Either or both.”
“Is this official communication or personal?”
“Personal,” Lanier replied.
The rolling status pict returned, a beautiful spherical skein of intertwined red strands.
“Do you want to meet with them personally?” Lanier asked Mirsky. The man nodded. Lanier lifted his eyebrows and faced the pict again. More suspicious. Yet who could or would want to mount an assassination attempt? Such things were not unheard-of-Terrestrial Hexamon politics—not recently, at least—but they were rare. And Old Natives did not have the technology to create physical duplicates. The more complicated his surmise became, the easier it was to assume the man actually was Mirsky.
“Ser Olmy refuses communication at this period,” the console informed him. “I have located Konrad Korzenowski.”
An image of Korzenowski appeared in the study, projected two meters to one side of Lanier. The legendary Engineer, who had retired from the Recovery to do basic research, glanced with intense eyes at Lanier, smiled abruptly, and faced Mirsky. The image resonated slightly with some unavoidable energy lag or off-world interference, then steadied, seeming as solid as anything else in the room. “Garry. It’s been years. Is Karen well? And yourself?”
“We’re fine. Ser Korzenowski, this man tells me he must speak with you.” Lanier cleared his throat. “He claims to be—”
“He bears an amazing resemblance to General Pavel Mirsky, does he not?” Korzenowski asked.
“I didn’t know you had ever met,” Lanier said.
“We did not meet in person. I’ve studied the records many times since. You are Ser Mirsky?”
“I am, sir. I am honored to meet such a distinguished individual, and pleased that you are well.”
“Is this man Pavel Mirsky, Garry?” Korzenowski asked.
“I don’t see how he could be, Ser Konrad.”
“Where did he come from?”
“I don’t know. He met me on a mountainside near my home…”
Mirsky listened to this without comment, face bland.
Korzenowski considered briefly. He still carries part of Patricia Luisa Vasquez, Lanier thought. It’s obvious in his eyes. “Can you bring him to Thistledown, first chamber, within two days?” the Engineer asked Lanier.
Lanier felt a mix of deep anxiety, resentment, and an old, contradictory excitement. He had been away from important affairs for so long…
“I think I can arrange that,” he said.
“Is your health good?” Korzenowski asked, some concern in his voice. None but Old Natives and the most fanatically orthodox Naderites refused all methods of prolonging life and health. Lanier was ridiculously decrepit by almost any accepted standard today.
“I’m doing well enough,” he answered shortly, feeling the ache in his legs and now his back.
“Then I will meet you on Thistledown shortly after you both arrive, however long that may take. Ser Mirsky, I must say I am not completely surprised to see you.” The image faded.
Mirsky met Lanier’s astonished glance. “A knowing man,” he said. “Can we leave soon?”
Lanier turned to the console and made the necessary arrangements. He still had influence, and he had never been displeased to exercise influence.
The situation was evolving; Lanier was no less baffled, no less resentful, but more intrigued.
9
Thistledown
Accompanying the old soldier to the first chamber, Olmy had helped Mar Kellen book shuttle passage to Earth. Mar Kellen seemed to have gained a kind of mystic serenity after revealing his secret. They walked toward the bore hole elevators, Mar Kellen smiling faintly, shaking his head as he ran his eyes along the ground, scuffing his heels on the stone paving.
“All I need is a few weeks to think things over. Might as well do it on the birth world. Beni was not quite orthodox, but she would appreciate my going down there. She told me it was beautiful…”
“Star, Fate and Pneuma be kind,” Olmy said.
“Formula, hm? Between two cynical old soldiers?”
Olmy nodded. “Comforting sometimes.”
“Fairy tales after what we’ve seen and done.” Mar Kellen looked up at the tubelight, squinting unnecessarily. “Maybe you’ll need comforting now. I’m almost sorry for you. I thought you were the only one who could handle it. But maybe I did the wrong thing.”
“You didn’t,” Olmy said, not sure himself.
“I’ll climb a mountain for you,” Mar Kellen said. “A real one, not something in the fifth chamber, all carved away by machines. Tall, with wide glaciers and deep places. Taller than anything on Thistledown.” He winked. “Good-by.”
Olmy watched Mar Kellen enter the elevator. He received a mental impression—perhaps intuition, perhaps a quick subliminal pict from Mar Kellen’s mind—that the old soldier would hike into wilderness, deep into a mountainous region, where he could be sure of never being found.
Olmy returned to the old apartment, relaxing, contemplating. He used the library terminal to communicate with various legitimate (and discreet) research programs in Thistledown’s extensive memory stores.
When he had made certain his ch
annels were secure—taking extra precautions to keep Farren Siliom’s tracers ignorant of his present location—he called in an old ally, a tracer he had built himself from the memories of a short-haired terrier. The tracer had proven itself to be remarkably thorough, and it seemed to enjoy its work—if enjoyment could be ascribed to something that was, after all, not a complete mentality.
Olmy set the tracer one task: to find any and all references to the downloaded Jart in the records of Thistledown or the orbiting precincts. Many record centers within the asteroid were no longer active; some were carefully hidden. But the tracer could maneuver into the most inaccessible memory, so long as some potential information link existed.
Olmy backed away from the teardrop terminal and folded his hands, face set in an expression of patient watchfulness, eyes glancing this way and that at the picts thrown up almost at random by the tracer’s beginning progress reports. This would take time.
He had ascertained that Mar Kellen’s implant memory was antiquated and minimal. Beni, as a “not quite orthodox” Naderite, had had only the legally required memory backups. The Jart records had somehow killed the woman, scrambled her backups, and driven Mar Kellen to the edge of insanity, in less than a second of contact.
It seemed unlikely, but it was possible that beyond the security maze the records had been left open and on download status—ready to be transferred. But the console only supported transfer to human minds or implants—there were no connections for transfer to external storage. He could, of course, rig such an interface…But there had to be a reason one did not exist in the first place.