He stopped at the entrance to Citron Alley. It had been some shade of yellow-green; the paint on shutters and doors and occasional building fronts still told his eyes that much. It had been his first home in the city, as a seventeen-year-old boy fresh from the Windwards. Fate Ravenglass, the maskmaker, had lived here then … still lived here, as Fate Ravenglass the sibyl. She had heard his music, and taught him how to survive as a street musician; had taken him in and given him shelter, until Arienrhod found him, and claimed him for her own.
Even after he became the Snow Queen’s favorite … after he became her consort, and then her henchman, her Starbuck, he had returned here. Even after he butchered the sacred mers and drank the water of life, he had returned to this alley seeking sanctuary, when what he had become was too much for him to bear. He had come back to see Fate, whose eyes saw almost nothing; whose soul saw everything, but seemed never to pass judgment on it.
He had never known why she continued to welcome him on her doorstep, any more than he had known that she was a sibyl, the only one in Carbuncle, hiding her secret from Winters and offworlders alike—the way Starbuck had hidden his identify behind a mask and gone all in black. But she had hidden her secret identity to serve a greater good, while he had hidden his reality behind a faceless lie, his only reasons for existence to commit treachery and murder.…
He shook his head, driving out the shadows as he started into Citron Alley. He had not visited Fate in a long time—not for the reasons he had visited her in the old days, or for the reason he was about to visit her now.
The buildings nearest the Street were occupied by a mix of new Winter-run businesses and a few Summer shops, although farther down the alley the ancient buildings were shuttered and abandoned, waiting with inhuman patience for someone to return. The transparent storm walls let in the garish colors of the sunset; twilight came late in the northern latitudes, as the lengthening days of the annual spring moved on toward annual summer, adding their warmth to the High Summer of the system’s approach to the Black Gate. Fewer and fewer people passed him as he made his way down the alley. By the time he reached Fate’s doorstep he was entirely alone, and glad that he was.
He knocked on her closed double-door, lightly at first, and then harder, when there was no answer. Still he got no response, except for the faint yowling of her aged cat telling him impatiently that she was not at home. He swore under his breath, wondering where in hell a blind woman could be at this time of night. Probably she had gone to a tavern somewhere with Tor Starhiker, to listen to music. He knew she did that sometimes. He even thought he knew where. But he did not want to see her with Tor Starhiker, not tonight, with his head too full of the memories of all their former lives, and how they had spent them at Winter’s end.
He went back along the alley toward the Street; stopped at the corner looking uphill along its spiral, facing the prospect of his return to the palace. He took a deep breath and made himself start walking. He had nowhere else to go, no one else to talk to, nowhere else to turn.…
As he walked he thought of spending the night there, lying alone in the darkness, sharing his bed with Arienrhod’s specter, with the chill touch of her ghost arms turning his flesh to carrion, the memories of what they had done together in that place leaving him sleepless.… He thought of lying beside Moon, Arienrhod’s ghost made flesh—how she would turn her back to him in anger when she joined him, far later, her body cold and tense with exhaustion and resentment. She was held captive not just by her obsessions, but by something even more profoundly inescapable, something he could not begin to comprehend. He thought about its pitiless hold on her … the bitter spines of the trefoil she wore, the same symbol tattooed at her throat, inescapable.
He felt a brief surge of compassion, knowing that she deserved more than she had gotten from him tonight, of kindness, of understanding, of love—that she had always deserved more from him than he seemed able to give since they had been reunited. But he also knew that he needed more of her than she could give him ever again. The space around them, the space within their lives, was too small, they had nowhere left to turn; the future had filled it all in with inescapable truths.…
His steps slowed as he reached the corner of another familiar alley: Olivine Alley, which held the Sibyl College. His office was there, where he spent his days working with his wife: asking questions that would send her into Transfer, and recording the answers; trying to make sense of what the Transfer told them, as the sibyl net answered queries in its own strange and elliptical fashion.
He realized suddenly that he enjoyed what he did there, was proud of it … that when he worked and did research for Tiamat, it was as if he united his two heritages, Summer and offworlder, in a way he had longed to do when he first came to Carbuncle. Discovering the perfect beauty of the mathematics which underlay so many forms and functions, both of human progress and natural order, filled him with a pleasure and satisfaction he rarely found in the randomness and pain of human relationships.
On an impulse he turned into the alley, turning his back on the uphill climb toward home and family. He walked until he came to the entrance to the College; let himself in, moving through its familiar, twilit halls until he reached his office. He turned on a light and sat down at the regulation Police-issue desk, abandoned there by its former owners at the Change. Its useless terminal stared back at him like a sightless eye. Shuffling through the disorder of typewritten papers, handwritten notes, and fiches, he picked up an aging text on fugue theory he had found in an abandoned data shop. He leaned back into the embrace of the shapeshifting chair and put his feet up on the desk. He opened the book and began to read, losing himself in thought.
NUMBER FOUR: World’s End
Reede Kullervo rested moodily on a freeform couch in the Port Authority hotel suite, gnawing a hangnail and staring out across the artificial stars of the landing field, into the black heart of the jungle beyond it. He watched another shuttle rise without seeming effort and disappear into the greater blackness of the night. His fist tightened around the bottle of ouvung he had been drinking straight; the cheap plass crumpled under his grip, and viscous ruby liquor oozed out and down over his fingers like blood.
He could hear muted voices and unintelligible noise coming from the next room, where Niburu and Ananke were lost in some time-wasting interactive on the entertainment unit. He sighed, and took another drink from the ruined bottle, staring out at the night. This room stank of newness, like everything here did—of restless molecules still escaping from wall surfaces, fabrics, furniture. Somewhere behind him, if he could have seen through walls, was the sea of light that was the Stardrive Research Project and the prefabricated instant city that had sprung up around it, here in the middle of nowhere, on the edge of World’s End.
“By the Render—” He swore and sat up abruptly, felt the couch re-form around him. He took another handful of iestas from the dish on the table and stuffed them into his mouth, chewing them up pods and all. The pods tasted like shit, but they were supposed to have more natural tranquilizer than the seeds themselves. Not that it would do him any good. He washed them down with another gulp of ouvung. No matter how much garbage he put into his system, the water of death annulled the effects. It was virtually impossible for him to get drunk or high, to get even the slightest bit numb, no matter how hard he tried. He kept trying, hoping for a miracle.
He could not have come all this way pointlessly! Damn that stupid bastard Tubiri, who was supposed to have provided the verification that Reede Kullervo had been sent here by the Kharemoughis—who had gotten himself wiped off the face of Number Four so damned inconveniently, so short a time ago. “Incinerated in an accident with the stardrive plasma.” That was what they had told him. Was it possible that it wasn’t an accident…?
No. Accidents happened, even to the Brotherhood. If it hadn’t been an accident, it would have happened to Reede Kullervo instead.… He was still safe and alive, but he was stranded, with no way to get the
access he needed to the research that was going on. If he couldn’t get inside and show these shitbrained fools how to contain and control the stardrive material—and in the more than two and a half years of their time it had taken him to get here, they had failed to be successful at either—then he would never be able to get a stable sample of it for himself, to carry back to Ondinee. To Mundilfoere.… Mundilfoere. If only she was here with him, to tell him he had done the right thing, to tell him what to do next. To hold him in her arms.…
He rubbed his eyes, muttering another curse. The Brotherhood had members on Four, but they were few, and he had to be careful about contacting them. They had no one at all on the inside at the Research Project, now that Tubiri was gone. And he knew the security around this place. Between the ruthlessness of the locals and the obsessive technological innovations of the Kharemoughis, this place made the paranoia of the Tuo Ne’el cartels seem like an open market square. He had tried every argument imaginable to make them let him in today, but nothing had worked. And he needed not just the access, but cooperation. Now he would have to go back at least to Foursgate—that was the most cosmopolitan city center on the planet, the heart of their offworld trade. He would have to start all over.…
There was a knock at the door. He pushed to his feet, frowning. He was not expecting visitors. He did not want visitors. “Niburu!” he shouted. But the noise and the laughter went on, undiminished in the next room. Swearing under his breath, he crossed to the door; he stopped, reaching inside his overshirt, checking the weapons he had rearmed himself with as soon as he left the Project.
He peered through the one-way panel beside the door, and froze. And then, slowly, his hand fell away from his gun and he released the lock. The door slid open silently. He stood looking out at the local woman, a worker from the Research Project who had tried to speak to him as he left there late this afternoon, and at the stranger standing beside her. She had been a sibyl, he suddenly remembered; and in his exasperation, as they had shown him the door after six hours of useless interrogation, he had shouted, “For gods’ sakes, I’m a stranger far from home—”
She and the man with her were both wearing dark, shapeless rain slickers, the hoods shadowing their faces. And yet he suddenly knew beyond a doubt who it was that she had brought to see him. Reede held out his hand to the woman. “Hello again,” he murmured, in the local dialect. “I’m sorry I didn’t return your courtesy this afternoon.”
“I don’t blame you.” She took his proffered hand somberly, and he felt her answer the subtle movement of his fingers. “I’m Tiras ranKells Hahn,” she said; last name first, in the local fashion. “I’m sorry I couldn’t be of more help to you then. I’m afraid they don’t make strangers welcome easily at the Project.… May I present to you the Honorable Researcher Commander BZ Gundhalinu—”
“Yes, yes, of course—” Reede held out his hand to the man who accompanied her, feeling his face flush with unexpected emotion. “Gods, you can’t imagine what a pleasure this is.” You can’t. He met the other man’s eyes, with a smile that was completely genuine. “Reede Kulleva Kullervo, from the Pandalhi Research Institute.”
Gundhalinu offered him a hand, raised palm out in the typical Kharemoughi manner. Reede twisted his own hand quickly, so that their palms met in what he hoped seemed like a natural motion. Careless, you ass. He felt the hidden question the other man’s touch asked him in turn, and he answered it with silent satisfaction. Of course Gundhalinu was Survey; at a high level too, he was sure.
“I understand you’ve come all the way from Kharemough to work with us, only to be turned away today by our overeager watchdogs?” Gundhalinu answered his smile with one that looked more reserved. His eyes were so dark they were almost black, and they regarded Reede with frank curiosity.
Reede managed a laugh that might have been rueful. “I seem to have disappeared from your data reality—and they told me my contact has been incinerated.… Your security sets a new standard for the entire Hegemony.”
“Our bureaucracy, you mean.” Gundhalinu shook his head. “I’m truly sorry. This place has always been a godforsaken bottleneck. You should have seen it before there was a research center here, when it was the Company’s town.… But I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy.”
Reede felt his smile pull. He shrugged, loosening the muscles in his back. “You were here then?” he asked, surprised.
“Our histories have become one, I’m afraid.” Gundhalinu’s smile turned sour, and he didn’t elaborate. Reede realized that Gundhalinu’s discovery of the stardrive must have been the catalyst that had precipitated all this change. He had, by his single act, become responsible for the town’s transformation.
Reede glanced at the woman named Hahn again, sensing her restlessness. “Excuse my manners. Come in, won’t you?” he murmured, including them both in the gesture.
Hahn shook her head. “I can’t stay. I have to get back. My daughter…”
“How is she?” Gundhalinu asked, turning toward her with sudden solicitude.
“Better…” she murmured. “I think she is a little better.” She shrugged, in a gesture Reede read as hopeless.
“I’m glad to hear it,” Gundhalinu said, with a peculiar sorrow showing in his eyes.
“You’re kind to remember her, Commander.”
“Schact!” Gundhalinu said abruptly. “Don’t you start treating me like one of your sainted ancestors, Hahn. You know me better than that.”
She turned to him in surprise; smiled, and it was a real smile, given to a real man. “Yes, of course … BZ.” She nodded, looking down again as she did, unable to stop herself.
He took a deep breath. “Thank you for bringing me here. Hahn, if there’s ever anything else I can do … You know.” He shrugged. She smiled at him over his shoulder, and went on down the hall.
Gundhalinu looked back, his dark eyes searching Reede’s blue noncommittal ones. “Her daughter is a sibyl,” he said, his speech slipping from the local dialect into his native Sandhi, as if he took it for granted that Reede would be able to follow. “She wasn’t suited for it. She…” He made a brief, futile motion with his hand, and looked away. “Never mind.” He trailed Reede into the suite. Reede closed the door behind them. Gundhalinu glanced toward the next room, his attention caught by the light and noise.
“My assistants,” Reede murmured in explanation; suddenly, unexpectedly feeling ill at ease. “Have a seat.” He spoke in Sandhi now, as Gundhalinu clearly expected him to. He gestured toward the couch.
“Thank you.” Gundhalinu dropped his rain gear into an empty side chair. He was wearing the full dress uniform of a Commander of Police, the jacket crusted with the hologramic fire of a dozen medals of honor. And lying against his chest, dimmed to insignificance, was the trefoil of a sibyl.
Reede froze, gaping at him, through a moment that seemed interminable.
Gundhalinu looked at him quizzically, as if he couldn’t even begin to guess what was going on inside his host’s expression.
“Do you sleep with those?” Reede said.
Gundhalinu looked down at himself, as if he only then realized what he was wearing. He laughed, suddenly, almost in relief. “Ye gods, no.” He took off the jacket and tossed it into the chair on top of the wet slicker. “I just came from an exceedingly long and tiresome banquet at the Project. Some visiting dignitaries…” He rubbed his neck, loosening his collar as he crossed the room. Reede felt more than saw fatigue overtake him as he settled onto the couch.
“The price of fame,” Reede murmured. He ran his hands over his own clothing, glad that he hadn’t bothered to take off the neat, conservative overtunic and loose pants he had worn for his interview, or the silver clip that kept his hair reluctantly trapped in a tail at the base of his neck. He sat down on the couch at a comfortable angle from Gundhalinu. He could see the sibyl tattoo on Gundhalinu’s throat, now that his uniform collar lay open.
Gundhalinu looked away, his gaze fixed on something beyon
d sight. “Everything has its cost.” His glance settled on the nearly empty bottle of ouvung and the half empty bowl of iesta pods on the clear tabletop beside him.
“Help yourself,” Reede said.
“No, thank you. I don’t drink.” Gundhalinu picked up the dented bottle, turning it around in the light, watching the dead worm swirl past in the ruby liquid. “You must have had an extraordinarily frustrating day, Kullervo-eshkrad,” he said, not unsympathetically. Reede recognized the form of address preferred by Kharemough’s Technician class; the word meant both respected and scientist. Usually they only used the term with each other; it was a rare honor when they used it to address a foreigner. He guessed that in this case it simply came with his supposed position as a researcher at the Pandalhi Institute.
“Yes,” Reede answered, pricked by annoyance at the implied judgment of his habits.
“This stuff will give you a terrible hangover,” Gundhalinu said.
Reede raised his eyebrows. “That sounds like personal experience. I thought you didn’t drink.”
“That’s right. On both counts.” Gundhalinu set the bottle down again, and looked back at Reede. “I have to admit, when Hahn told me you had arrived from Kharemough—from the Pandalhi Institute, no less—I expected to meet a fellow Kharemoughi. My people are … somewhat resistant to admitting outsiders to their more important institutions. You must be a very intelligent man.”
Reede smiled faintly. “I am.” He watched Gundhalinu, almost disappointed. This was not the man his imagination had shown him. There was nothing remarkable about BZ Gundhalinu. He was a typical Kharemoughi Tech: medium height, dark and slender, probably in his early thirties. His face was fine-boned and salted with pale freckles, like a lot of highborns. A compulsive, self-righteous, inbred weakling. Who the hell would have imagined that he would have one of the greatest insights history had ever recorded? Not even his own Technocrat arrogance, probably. Kharemoughis thought they ran the Hegemony—and worse, they actually believed they deserved to.