Against A Dark Background (21 page)

Miz sighed and stood. `Well I’m going to take a look round the house, starting with the next floor up; I’ll get Dlo or Cen to take a look down in the valley.’ He reached down, put his hand on Sharrow’s head for a moment. ‘You going to be all right?’

`I’ll be fine,’ she said.

‘Good girl.’ Miz walked quickly away.

‘Girl,’ Sharrow muttered, shaking her head.

‘Let’s get you to bed, eh?’ Zefla said.

Sharrow used Zefla’s shoulder to help her get up. Eventually she stood, supported by the other woman. ‘No; I was having a swim. It’s gone now; I feel fine.’

‘You’re crazy,’ Zefla said, but let Sharrow shrug off the towel she was holding round her shoulders, and walked with her to the side of the pool. Sharrow stood there for a moment, composing herself, drawing herself upright and flexing her shoulders. She dived into the water; it was a rather ragged dive, but then she surfaced and struck out strongly for the far side.

Zefla sat down on the side of the pool, her dark red-brown legs dangling in the water. She grinned at the pale, lithe figure forcing its way through the lime-glowing water to the far side, and shook her head.

‘How’s our patient, Doctor Clave?’ Bencil Dornay asked.

‘Fit and healthy, it would seem,’ the elderly clinician said, entering the lounge with Sharrow at his side.

Bencil Dornay was a compact, clipped man of late middle years with small green eyes set in a pale-olive face; he had a neatly trimmed beard and perfectly manicured hands. He dressed casually, almost carelessly, in clothes that were of the very best quality, if not the last word in fashion. His father had left the employ of Gorko, Sharrow’s grandfather, when the World Court had ordered the dissolution of the old man’s estate; Dornay senior had gone into business and been highly successful, and bought himself a shorter name. Bencil had been even more successful than his father, reducing his own names from three to two. He had no children but he had applied to the relevant authorities to be allowed to clone himself, and hoped the succeeding version of himself might be able to afford the next step, shedding one more name to instigate a minor noble house.

‘Fit enough to dance, perhaps, Doctor Clave?’ Dornay asked, eyes twinkling as he glanced at Sharrow, who smiled. `I was planning a small party in the lady’s honour tomorrow evening. This little dizzy spell won’t prevent her from dancing, will it?’

`Certainly not,’ Doctor Clave said. He was rotund and heavily bearded and had an air of amiable distraction about him. He seemed so much like how Sharrow remembered doctors were supposed to be that she wondered just how much was an act. ‘Though I’d-’ The doctor cleared his throat. ‘Advise having medical attention on hand at this party, naturally.’

Bencil Dornay smiled. ‘Why, Doctor, you didn’t imagine I would dare conduct a soiree without you in attendance, did you?’

‘I should think not’ The doctor looked at a small clipboard. ‘Well, I’d better see if those lazy techs have got all that stuff back in the plane . . .’

Let me see you out,’ Bencil Dornay offered.
Lady Sharrow,’ he said. She nodded. He and the clinician walked to the elevator. She watched them go.

Sharrow could just remember Bencil Dornay’s father from a single one of those seasons when she had visited the great house of Tzant while the estate had still technically belonged to the Dascen family yet its administration-and fate-had been in the hands of the Court.

Dornay senior had left Gorko’s employ twenty years earlier, and had already become a rich trader; it had been his particular pleasure to revisit as an honoured guest the residence he had served in as house-secretary. He had been a stooped, kindly man Sharrow remembered as seeming very old (but then, she had been very young), with a perfect memory for every item in the vast, half-empty and mostly unused pile that had been house Tzant. She and the other children had played games with him, asking him what was in a particular drawer or cupboard in some long-neglected room of some distant wing, and found that he was almost invariably correct, down to the last spoon, the last button and toothpick.

Breyguhn had said she thought he was a wizard and had had every grain of dust numbered and filed. She delighted in moving things from drawer to drawer and cupboard to cupboard and room to room, trying to confuse him when the others came running back, breathless with the news that he was wrong.

Sharrow couldn’t honestly claim that she remembered Bencil Dornay himself; he had been sent to college before she was born, and if they had ever met, she had quite forgotten the occasion.

Dornay senior must have been in Gorko’s genetic thrall for over four decades by then. The code that would - according to Breyguhn - tell Sharrow where the Universal Principles was had been added to the message in his cells shortly before Gorko had fallen; just by the very act of fathering him, Dornay senior had passed that message on to his son, where it waited now - if Breyguhn was right- half a century later.

And all it needed - she thought, with a kind of bitterness was a kiss.

Sharrow turned and walked to the far end of the lounge, where a glassed-in terrace looked out onto an ocean of cloud. The others sat watching a bolo-screen.

`Well?’ Miz said, attempting to guide her into a chair. She gave an exasperated tut, waving his arm away, and sat in another seat.

‘What’s the news?’ she nodded at the screen, where a map showed what looked like a schematic of a war.

The Huhsz are playing things down,’ Cenuij said.
They’ve apologised for the accident on the train; said some munitions went off accidentally; denying there was any attack. They say the Passports will be initiated to a few days’ time, after a period of mourning for the Blessed Ones killed on the train.’

Hey,’ Zefla said to Sharrow.
We saw that house you had on the island. It looked really nice.’

Thanks,’ Sharrow said.
Still standing, was it?’

`Dammit, Sharrow; what did the doctor say?’ Miz said.

She shrugged, looking at the war-map in the screen.
There is something in there.’ She tapped her head.
In here.’

`Oh no,’ Zefla breathed.

`What, exactly?’ Cenuij said, sitting forward.

`Some crystal virus, probably,’ Sharrow said, looking round them.
Just a molecule thick, most places, growing round and into my brainstem. One thread disappears down my spine and ends up in my right foot. The rest branch. . .’, she shrugged,
into the rest of my skull.’

`Gods, Sharrow,’ Zefla breathed.

`A crystal virus,’ Cenuij said, eyes wide.
That’s war-tech.’ He glanced at the corridor leading to the elevator.
How did that old duffer know-?’

‘That old duffer knows what he’s talking about,’ Sharrow said. `And he’s got all the best gear. He mediced for the Free Traders’ navy on Trontsephori during the Barge War, and he volunteered to help metaplegics after the Five Per Cent. He didn’t know what he was looking for - I don’t know he even believed me - but he kept looking and it showed up on an NMR scan. The doc wants me to visit a specialist hospital for more tests; I said I’d think about it.’

`Will they be able to take it out?’ Miz asked, looking worried. ‘Operate or . . . something?’

Sharrow shook her head.

‘Not that stuff,’ Cenuij said, obviously impressed. `It grows less than a centimetre a month, but once it’s in, it’s in. To take it out you’d need the original virus, and that’ll be locked back up in a Court compound in some military habitat. If there’s another war the Court thinks justifies the escalation you might see it again. Not until.’

`Couldn’t we steal it?’ Miz said.

`Are you mad?’ Cenuij asked him.

Dloan shook his head. `Tricky,’ he said.

Zefla put one hand to her mouth, staring at Sharrow, her eyes bright.

`So that’s what was picking up the long-wave signal from the doll,’ Cenuij said, staring straight ahead and nodding.
A crystal virus.’ He gave a small laugh and looked at Sharrow.
Shit, yes, that’s all you’d need. If it was put in while you were in hospital on the Ghost it’s had long enough to grow right down the length of your body; the strand into your foot must be the aerial. The lattice could itself sit there forever and you’d never notice; probably pulls less power than an iris; then the right code comes along and; zap!’

`Ouch, might be a better description,’ Sharrow said.

‘And using the long-wave,’ Cenuij said. ‘Perfect; you don’t need much definition, and it’ll penetrate . . .’

‘So these signals come from the comm net,’ Zefla said. ‘Satellites and shit?’ Cenuij didn’t reply; he was staring out at the carpet of cloud beyond the sun-bright terrace outside. Sharrow nodded. Zefla spread her hands. ‘Can’t we find out who’s sending the signals?’

‘You’ll be lucky,’ Dloan said.

‘Out of the question,’ Cenuij said, dismissing the idea with a wave of the hand.

‘Well, how the hell do we stop it?’ Miz said loudly. ‘We can’t let that happen again!’

‘Live in a mineshaft, maybe,’ Cenuij suggested. ‘Or find somewhere off-net. Though even off-net, if somebody knew where you were they could beam a signal at you; that doll they had in the tanker was just a close-range transmitter . . .’

‘How about a pain-disruptor collar?’ Zefla asked.

‘Forget it,’ Cenuij said. He made a tutting noise. ‘Damn, I’d like to have talked to that old doe.’ He pulled his phone from his pocket. ‘Wonder if I should call him?’

Ask him tomorrow night,’ Sharrow told him. ‘He’s coming to the party.’

‘That still on?’ Miz asked.

‘Why not?’ Sharrow shrugged, looking at where Bencil Dornay had escorted the doctor towards the elevator. ‘He’s only inviting people he trusts, and he isn’t telling anybody we’re here: She smiled at Miz. ‘He really wanted to throw a party in our honour; I couldn’t refuse.’

Miz looked sceptical.

‘Will you do it then?’ Cenuij asked her with a strange, unsettling smile.

She looked at his thin, inquiring face. ‘Yes, Cenuij; I’ll do it then.’

Zefla got out of her seat and knelt by Sharrow’s, hugging her. ‘You poor kid; you’re in the wars, aren’t you?’

Sharrow put a hand through Zefla’s ringleted hair, fingertips touching her scalp. ‘Actually, a war sounds like just what I need, right now.’

She stood in her room, facing the mirror, her underclothes and dress lying on the bed behind her, the lights on full. She gazed at herself. There was still some slight bruising on her knees from when she’d fallen in the tank in the Log-Jam, though the hint of discoloration on her forehead from the same fall had gone. There was a cut on her shoulder, from the karst, and two broken nails where her hand had gripped the hand-hold in the pool that morning.

She put her arms above her head, watching her breasts rise, then lower as she dropped her arms again. She turned side-on, relaxing, and frowned at the bulge of her belly. She stared at her thighs in the mirror, then looked down at them, wondering if they were getting lumpy yet. She couldn’t see anything. Maybe her eyesight was going.

She had never undergone any type of alteration - apart from orthodontic work when she was a child - and never used any antigeriatric drug, legal or otherwise. She had sworn she never would. But now, even before there were any obvious signs of age on her body, she thought she knew how older people must feel; that desire not to change, not to deteriorate. Was it simply that she wanted to remain attractive? She gazed into her own eyes.

Mostly, she thought, I want to remain attractive to myself. If no man ever saw me again, I’d still want to look good to me. I’d trade five, ten years of life to look like this until the end.

She shook her head at herself, a small frown on her face.

‘So die young, narcissist,’ she whispered to herself.

At least the Huhsz might ensure she never grew old.

She turned to dress.

The body is a code, she thought, reaching for her slip. And froze, thinking of where she had heard that phrase, and of what she was supposed to discover from Bencil Dornay this evening, and how.

In the curving corridor, by one window looking out into a gulf of darkness strung and beaded with the necklace lights of distant roads and the clustered jewels of towns and villages, opposite the wide staircase that led to the house reception floor, its lit depths already bustling with talk and music and laughter, she found Cenuij Mu sitting on a couch, dressed in a formal black robe and reading what looked like a letter.

He looked up when she approached. He inspected her, then nodded. ‘Very elegant,’ he told her. He looked down at the letter, folded it and put it away in the black robe.

She checked her reflection in the windows, severe in court-formal black. Her dress was floor-length and long-sleeved, decorated with plain platinum jewellery worn around her high-collared neck and on her gloved hands. A black net held her hair, constellated with diamonds. ‘Court-prophylactic,’ she said, turning to check her profile. ‘Prissy, constipated style,’ she told him. She shook her head at her reflection. ‘Damn shame I look so drop-dead stunning in it.’

She expected a reply to that, but Cenuij didn’t seem to be listening. He was staring into the middle distance.

She sat beside him on the couch, the dress and collar forcing her to sit very erect, her head up. ‘Was that a letter from Breyguhn?’ she asked him.

He nodded, still staring away round the curve of corridor. ‘Yes. Just delivered.’

‘How is she?’

Cenuij shook his head, then shrugged. ‘She mentioned you,’ he said.

‘Ali,’ Sharrow said. ‘Did she mention anything about this message I’m supposed to get from Dornay?’

Cenuij shrugged again. He looked tired. ‘Nothing directly,’ he said.

‘Can’t help wondering what form it’s going to take,’ Sharrow admitted. The music and chattering from the floor below swelled briefly, then ebbed again before Cenuij replied.

‘If it’s the sort of thing I think she’s talking about,’ he said, ‘it could be expressed in a variety of ways. He might not simply say whatever it is he knows; it might be encoded as a drawing, some body-pose from a sign-dance, a whistled tune. It could even vary according to the circumstances he’s in when the programming takes over.’