Geosynchron (20 page)

"Detective work, huh?" Horvil waved Vigal to the kitchenette in
hopes that tea and a clean cup might be unearthed somewhere amid the
clutter. "We'll be just like Holmes and Watson! Or Rajiv and Castrano!"

"`The universe is our puzzle box, Castrano!"' said Vigal with a
chuckle, repeating the catchphrase from the ever-popular fifty-year-old
dramas.

After Horvil had found his way into proper daytime clothing, and
after Vigal had determined that there was nothing even vaguely tea-ish
in the kitchenette, the two decided to decamp to a local chaff bar for
breakfast and strategic planning. Horvil vetoed Vigal's suggestion of
the Ostrich Egg and chose another venue a few blocks down. The engineer ducked into the suite's bedroom to give the still-sleeping Jara a
kiss, and then they were off.

The Cup of Gold was little more than a smattering of tables on a
semi-enclosed rooftop deck. The place was thick with fiefcorpers and
capitalmen sipping flavored tea drinks and looking to soak up the sun.
It seemed an entirely appropriate setting for a mission of hope. There
were two immense potted ferns by the railing that reminded Horvil of
the Proud Eagle hive-and that, too, seemed appropriate. The two of
them found a table between the ferns that would give them some privacy from eavesdroppers. Horvil hadn't found much reason to fear the
Defense and Wellness Council since Natch's disappearance. But Quell's
mysterious errand and its even more mysterious financier hinted
strongly that the fiefcorp had not moved outside the Council's sphere
of influence. It couldn't hurt to be cautious.

"So where do we start?" said Serr Vigal after they had taken their
seats and procured cups of chaff.

Horvil gave the neural programmer an appraising look. Some crucial spark inside Vigal had been ignited during the past twenty-four
hours, since he had summoned Horvil and persuaded him to go
looking for Natch. He seemed younger, more intense, more interested
in his surroundings. Horvil didn't want to squelch that optimism, but
he knew that their chances of actually finding the entrepreneur were
low indeed.

"Where do we start?" repeated Horvil. He drummed his fingers on
the tabletop, an awkward task on iron mesh. "Well, let's think. If you
wanted to avoid being found, where would you go?"

The entire concept seemed alien to Serr Vigal. "The Pacific Islands,
I suppose. Or maybe the Pharisee Territories."

"There's also Furtoid," added Horvil. "And the lawless quadrants
of Mars."

"Let's not forget the diss cities," said Vigal.

"And some of the unchartered orbital colonies. Or even the chartered ones-they say it's pretty easy to get lost in the inner rings of
49th Heaven." The engineer folded his arms on the table and slumped his head sideways onto one elbow. "Wow, we've really narrowed it
down. A couple dozen places spread through millions of kilometers of
human space."

The two of them stared at the mesh table for a few minutes. Horvil
felt embarrassed at how quickly their quest to find Natch had gone
from merely quixotic to thoroughly ludicrous. The engineer could hear
the trio at the next table debating proposed new Union Baseball rules,
and he half felt like slipping over there to join them. "I think we're
looking at this the wrong way," he said. "We're trying to figure out
where we would go if we didn't want to be found. The real question is
where Natch would go."

The neural programmer sipped his chaff and considered this. "And
where would Natch go?"

"Somewhere nobody would expect, of course."

"Well, therein lies our dilemma," replied Vigal, the smile creeping
back to his face. "Natch would expect people to look for him in places
nobody would expect."

The two of them laughed loud enough to temporarily disrupt the
baseball conversation at the next table.

But the jollity soon devolved again into uneasy silence. Vigal's
underlying point was that trying to think like Natch was a futile exercise. Certainly Natch had made his share of mistakes-but had he ever
made the same mistake twice? He had outthought and outplanned the
best strategists in the Defense and Wellness Council for months. He
had evaporated into the aether at the Tul Jabbor Complex with a billion spectators watching his every move. If a man like that didn't want
to be found, Horvil suspected he would not be found. Ever.

And that was just the difficulty of finding Natch under ordinary
circumstances. Add Natch's precarious emotional state to his cunning
intellect, and the problem only grew exponentially. Horvil had seen
the way his old hivemate had been acting during the Prime Committee trial, under the pressure of Magan Kai Lee's onslaught, Mar garet's peculiarity, the Patels' duplicity, and the drudges' ruthlessness.
Not only that, but Natch had been pumped full of black code-from
multiple sources-that had done grievous harm to his sanity. Who
could predict where that man would hide?

"How do we know he's still ... alive?" said Vigal under his breath.
Sometime in the past minute, he had raised his mug of chaff to cover a
pair of eyes on the verge of tearing up.

The engineer waved his hand in a dismissive gesture. "Of course
he's alive," he said. "Is there anyone in the world who knows how to
take care of himself better than Natch?"

"That's not proof."

"You want proof?" Horvil thought quickly. "Here's proof. You and
I are both listed in the will Natch filed with his L-PRACGs, right? If
he went to the Prepared, they would have contacted us by now."

"And if he changed his will?"

Horvil frowned. "Natch wouldn't have done that," he said with an
assurance he didn't feel. Hadn't Natch threatened to send the drudges
a doctored-up list of all the sketchy things Horvil had done during his
whole career? And hadn't he left Serr Vigal lying unconscious on the
floor of the Tul Jabbor Complex without making a single move to help
him? Those were the actions of a man who might very well cut his best
friend and his legal guardian out of his will.

"What if-what if Natch wasn't able to go to the Prepared?" said
Vigal in a hoarse whisper. "What if he ... they might have ..." He
couldn't even finish his conjecture.

Horvil had had enough. "Come on, Vigal," he said, leaning forward and thumping his closed fist lightly on the tabletop. "You're
starting to act bipolar here. We can't indulge in all this negativity. If
we're going to go through with this-if we're going to drop everything to try to find him-we have to assume he's still alive. We have
to. Otherwise, there's no bloody point, is there?"

The neural programmer would never know if Vigal was convinced by this bit of desperate logic. Because at that moment, an enormous
shadow fell over them as someone stepped up to the table and blocked
out the sun.

The engineer looked up, startled, and found himself face-to-face
with the Pharisee from the courtroom.

Not only were the Pharisee's features totally occluded by the sun, but
he was dressed in a robe as black as midnight, with a massive head of
tightly curled black hair and a large black beard to match. Bits of gold
jewelry dangled from his neck and ears, catching the sun and tossing
it mischievously into the air. The man's nose was almost large enough
to merit its own L-PRACG.

"I'm sorry to intrude," said the Pharisee in a pleasant baritone, his
accent thick and unplaceable. "But since I'm desperately in need of
speaking with the two of you, I suppose it's necessary. Yes, necessary.
To me, of course, and also to you, though you don't know that yet. I'm
certain that I'll need to convince you of that fact-which I am
absolutely prepared to do."

Horvil cast as subtle a glance towards Vigal as he could muster. He
was relieved to see that the neural programmer was just as flummoxed
by this gust of empty wordage. Other patrons of the chaff bar were
craning their necks to stare at this odd person standing in the middle
of the chai bar like a refugee from ancient times. A Pharisee? Here?
Horvil could hear someone say. Not knowing what else to do, the engineer waved the Pharisee towards an extra chair at the next table. The
big man appropriated it from the table's occupants with a respectful
bow, then moved it over and sat down.

"Can we ... help you?" said Horvil.

"Yes, yes, you can help me," replied the Pharisee. His voice carried
a mixture of intensity and geniality that was surprising for someone whom Horvil had considered a threat only twenty-four hours ago. "But
also, as I mentioned before, I'm certain that I can help you. So. Let me
back up, as they say, and begin at the beginning. Towards Perfection."
The Pharisee paused, looked Horvil and Vigal in the eye as if waiting
for a response. "Oh. My apologies.... May you always move towards
Perfection."

"And Towards Perfection to you too," offered Vigal timidly.

"You are, if I am not mistaken, members of the Surina/Natch
MultiReal Fiefcorp. Horvil the engineer and Serr Vigal the programmer, am I correct? You, sir, I have seen in the courtroom in the
company of the bio/logic analyst Jara," he said to Horvil.

The man had badly mangled the pronunciation of all three names,
but Horvil was in no hurry to correct him. "And you are ... ?"

"Forgive me for my rudeness! My name is Richard Taylor." He
reached into a knapsack slung over one shoulder and produced a small
business card that was actually made from cardboard paper stock.
Horvil took the card and stared at it. He supposed it provided some
evidence of Taylor's identity, but the engineer had no idea what would
prevent an imposter from printing out the same cards. "I am currently
the secretary of protocol for the Faithful Order of the Children
Unshackled, based out of Khartoum. Two and a half years into a fouryear term. I am-" Taylor reached up and parted the thicket of hair
and beard to reveal the dull metal gleam of a connectible collar. "I am
part of that group I believe you know as the Pharisees, though that term
is not one we ourselves use."

Horvil was amazed how quickly the menace had sloughed off the
man. Beneath the hair and the trinkets, he appeared to have a similar
ethnic background to Horvil's. Horvil guessed that the unfamiliar
accent had originated in the British Isles and taken a bumpy side road
through the past two centuries.

But Serr Vigal was clearly beginning to feel the weight of their
self-appointed task growing heavier by the second. He shifted in his seat. The engineer could read his thoughts: We pledged ourselves to find
Natch. We don't have time for these kinds of distractions.

"Listen, uh, Richard Taylor," said Horvil, interrupting the Pharisee
before he could start reciting his entire family tree. "I hate to be rude,
but we are in the middle of important business, so ..."

"Important business, yes!" Taylor leaned forward and put his massive hands on the table. He had perhaps the hairiest knuckles Horvil
had ever seen. "Yes, you do have important business! And I believe we
three may have some important business together."

"Which is?"

"Forgive me for taking so long to get to the point. I have been
tasked by my order to find your friend Natch."

Horvil could see Serr Vigal withdraw even farther at Taylor's mention of the entrepreneur. It was all part of the profound absurdity that
was Natch. No matter where you turned or who you talked to, he
seemed to be reflected in every facet of life. "I'm afraid we don't know
where he is," said Vigal guardedly.

"He's been missing since, uh, January," put in Horvil. "Vanished
into thin air right in the middle of a Prime Committee hearing."

"The incident at the Tul Jabbor Complex," said Taylor, nodding
soberly. "Yes, out in Khartoum we did hear about that strange affair.
So heart-wrenching! So tragic!"

Horvil could only imagine what someone from an unconnectible
society like the Pharisees would have made of the calamity and chaos
at the Tul Jabbor Complex. He pictured lots of head shaking and moralizing: You see, this is why the connectible way of life is untenable.
Somehow, he was not surprised that news of the event had even slunk
off the Data Sea and into lands where people still got their information
from wired machines and treepaper. "So you see, Richard, I really don't
think we'll be able to help you-"

Taylor leaned his head back and laughed. People at neighboring
tables who had just managed to relegate this odd Pharisee to the realm of background noise suddenly cast curious glances his way again. "I
see, I see!" he bellowed. His mirth was infectious, and Horvil found his
lips curling into a smile despite his best efforts. "You suspect I'm
looking to take advantage of your fiefcorp master-you're trying to get
rid of me!" Taylor continued. "And this is entirely my fault. I can't
blame you for your caution, I have not explained myself well. Horvil,
let me assure you-I have approached you not only because I am
seeking your help in finding Natch but also because I have information
that may help you find him."