Incarceron (Incarceron, Book 1) (7 page)

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strode up the steps, and stood face-to-face with him. "Fine. But remember this. You and I are joined by sworn contract. If Jormanric finds out you're double-crossing him in any way, we both end up as the last of his pretty little rings. But I don't intend or die, Finn. And you owe me. I brought you into this warband, when your head was empty and you were stupid with fear." He shrugged. "Sometimes I wonder why I bothered."

Finn swallowed. "You bothered because no one else would put up with your pride, your arrogance, and your thieving ways. You bothered because you saw I would be as reckless as you. And when you take on Jormanric you'll need me at your back."

Keiro raised a sardonic eyebrow. "What makes you think--"

"You will one day. Maybe soon. So help me in this, brother, and I'll help you." He frowned. "Please. It means a lot to me."

"You're obsessed with this stupid idea that you came from Outside."

"Not stupid. Not to me."

"You and the Sapient. A pair of fools together." When he didn't answer, Keiro laughed harshly. "You were born in Incarceron, Finn. Accept it. No one comes in from Outside. No one Escapes! Incarceron is sealed. We were all born here and we'll all die here. Your mother dumped you and you can't remember her. The bird-scar is just some tribemark. Forget it."

He wouldn't. He couldn't. He said stubbornly, "I wasn't born here. I can't remember being a child, but I was one. I

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can't remember how I got here, but I wasn't bred out of some artificial womb of wires and chemicals. And this"--he held up his wrist--"will prove it."

Keiro shrugged. "Sometimes I think you're still out of your head."

Finn scowled. Then he stalked back up the stairs. At the top he had to step over something crouched there in the dark. It looked like Jormanric's dog-slave, straining at the end of its chain to reach a bowl of water that some joker had placed just out of reach. Finn kicked the bowl nearer and strode on.

The slave's chain clanked.

Through its tangle of hair, its small eyes watched him walk away.

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6

***

It was decided from the beginning that the
location of Incarceron should be known only
to the Warden. All criminals, undesirables,
political extremists, degenerates, lunatics would

be transported there. The Gate would be sealed
and the Experiment commence. It was vital

that nothing should disturb the delicate balance
of Incarceron's programming, which would

provide everything needed--education, balanced

diet, exercise, spiritual welfare, and purposeful

work--to create a paradise. ;

One hundred and fifty years have passed.

The Warden reports that progress is excellent.

--Court Archives 4302/6

***

"That was so delicious!" Lord Evian wiped his plump lips with a white napkin. "You really must let me have the receipt, my dear."

Claudia stopped tapping her nails on the cloth and smiled brightly. "I'll have someone copy it for you, my lord."

Her father was watching from the head of the table, the crumbs of his ascetic breakfast of two dry rolls gathered nearly in a pile on the side of his plate. Like her he had finished at

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least half an hour ago, but his impatience was hidden with iron control. If he was impatient. She didn't even know.

Now he said, "His Lordship and I will ride out this morning, Claudia, and take a brief lunch at one p.m. exactly. Afterward we will resume our negotiations."

Over my future,
she thought, but only nodded, noticing the fat lord's dismay. He couldn't be such a fool as he seemed or the Queen wouldn't have sent him, and though he tried hard, a few shrewd comments had slipped out. But he was hardly a rider.

The Warden was aware of that. Her father had a grim humor.

As she stood he rose with her, meticulously polite, and drew the small gold watch from his pocket. The timepiece gleamed. It was beautiful, digitally accurate, and totally out of Era. It was his one eccentricity, the watch and the chain and the tiny silver cube that hung from it.

He said, "Perhaps you'd touch the bell, Claudia. I'm afraid we've kept you long enough from your studies."

She went quickly to the green tassel by the hearth and he added without raising his head, "I spoke to Master Jared in the garden earlier. He looked very pale. How is his health these days?"

Her fingers froze a fraction from the bell. Then she pulled it firmly. "He's well, sir. Very well."

He put the watch away. "I've been considering. You won't need a tutor after your marriage, and, besides, there are several

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Sapienti at Court. Perhaps we should allow Jared to return to the Academy."

She wanted to stare at him in horror in the dim mirror, but that would have been what he expected. So she kept her face bright and turned lightly. "As you wish. I'd miss him, of course. And we are in the middle of a fascinating study of the Havaarna Kings. He knows everything there is to be known about them."

His gray eyes watched her closely.

If she said another word her dismay would show and it would decide him. A pigeon fluttered on the tiles outside.

Lord Evian creaked to his feet. "Well, if you do, Warden, I assure you some other family will snap him up. Jared Sapiens is renowned through the Realm. He could name his fee. Poet, philosopher, inventor, genius. You should hold on to him, sir."

Claudia smiled in pleasant agreement but inside she was startled. It was as if the greasy man in the blue silk suit knew what she couldn't say for herself. He smiled back, his small eyes bright.

The Warden's lips were tight. "I'm sure you're right. Shall we go, my lord?"

Claudia dropped a curtsy. As her father followed Evian out and turned to close the double doors, he met her eyes. Then the doors clicked shut.

She sighed in relief. Like a cat eyes a mouse, she thought. But all she said was, "Now, please."

Instantly paneling slid back; maids and men raced out and

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began removing cups, plates, candelabra, centerpieces, glasses, napkins, kedgeree dishes, fruit bowls. Windows snapped open and burned-out candles relit; the roaring fire in the log-filled hearth vanished without a whiff of charred wood. Dust vaporized; curtains changed color. The air sweetened itself with potpourri.

Leaving them to it, Claudia hurried out. She crossed the hall decorously holding her skirts, then raced up the curved oak staircase and dived through the concealed door on the landing, passing instantly from contrived luxury into the chilly gray corridors of the servants' quarters, bare walls roped with wires and cables and powerpoints, small camera screens and sonic scanners.

The back stairs were stone; she pattered up and opened the quilted door, and stepped out into the luxurious, Era-perfect corridor.

Two steps took her across to her own bedroom.

The maids had already cleaned it. She double-locked the door, flipped on all the security blocks, and crossed to the window.

Green and smooth, the lawns were beautiful in the summer sunshine. The gardener's boy, Job, was wandering about with a sack and a spiked stick, stabbing stray leaves. She couldn't make out the tiny music implant in his ear, but his jerky movements and sudden struts made her grin. Though if the Warden saw him, he'd be sacked.

Turning, she slid back the drawer of her dressing table, took

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out the minicom, and activated it. It flashed on and showed her a distorted echo of her own face, grotesque in curved glass. Startled, she said, "Master?"

A shadow. Two vast fingers and a thumb came down and lifted the alembic away. Then Jared sat down before the hidden receiver.

"I'm here, Claudia."

"Is everything set? They ride out in a few minutes."

His thin face darkened. "I'm concerned about this. The disc may not work. We need trials ..."

"No time! I'm going in today. Right now."

He sighed. She knew he wanted to argue, but despite all their precautions, someone might be listening; it was dangerous to say too much. Instead he murmured, "Please be careful."

"As you've taught me, Master." For a brief second she thought about the Warden's threat against him, but this wasn't the time. "Start now," she said, and cut the link.

Her bedroom was dark mahogany; the great four-poster hung with red velvet, its tester embroidered with the black swan singing. Behind it was what looked like a small garde-robe set into the wall, but as she walked through the illusion it became an en-suite bathroom with every luxury--there were limits even to the Warden's strictness on Protocol. As she stood on the toilet seat and peeped out of the narrow window, sunlit dust swirled in motes about her.

She could see the courtyard. Three horses were saddled; her

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father was standing by one, both gloved hands resting on the reins, and with a suppressed whoop of relief she saw that his secretary, the dark watchful man called Medlicote, was climbing onto the gray mare. Behind, Lord Evian was being heaved into the saddle by two sweating stable hands. Claudia wondered how much of his comic awkwardness was an act, and whether he'd been prepared for real horses rather than cyber-steeds. Evian and her father were playing an elaborate and deadly game of manners and insults, irritation and etiquette. It bored her, but that was how things were at Court.

The thought of a future lifetime of it turned her cold.

To hide from it she jumped down, and tugged off the elaborate dress. Underneath she was wearing a dark jumpsuit. For a moment she glanced at herself in the mirror. Clothes changed you. Long ago, King Endor had known that. That was why he had stopped Time, imprisoned everyone in doublets and dresses, stiffed them in conformity and stiffness.

Now Claudia felt lithe and free. Dangerous, even. She stepped back up. They were riding through the gatehouse. Her father paused and glanced toward Jared's tower. She smiled secretly. She knew what he could see.

He could see her.

Jared had perfected the holo-image in the long nights of sleeplessness. When he had shown her herself, sitting, talking, laughing, reading in the window seat of the sunny tower, she had been fascinated and appalled.

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"That's not me!"

He'd smiled. "No one likes to see themselves from the outside."

She had seen a smug, pert creature, her face a mask of composure, every action considered, every speech rehearsed. Superior and mocking.

"Is that really how I am?"

Jared had shrugged. "It's an image, Claudia. Let's say its how you can appear."

Now, jumping down and running back into the bedroom, she watched the horses pace elegantly over the mown lawns, Evian talking, her father silent. Job had vanished, and the blue sky was mottled with high clouds.

They'd be gone at least an hour.

She took the small disc from her pocket, tossed it, caught it, put it back. Then she opened her bedroom door and peered out.

The Long Gallery ran the length of the house. It was paneled in oak and lined with portraits, books in cabinets, blue vases on pedestals. Above each door the bust of a Roman emperor gazed sternly down from its bracket. Far down at the end sunlight made brilliant slanting lozenges across the wall, and a suit of armor guarded the top of the stairs like a rigid ghost.

She took a step, and the planks creaked. The boards were old, and she scowled, because there was no way to turn that

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off. There was nothing she could do about the busts either, but as she passed each painting she touched the frame control and darkened them--after all, there were almost certainly cameras in some of them. She held the disc gently in her hand; only once did it give a discreet bleep of warning, and she already knew about that, a crisscross of faint lines outside the study door, easily dissolved.

Claudia glanced back down the corridor. Far off in the house a door banged, a servant called. Up here in the muffled luxury of the past, the air was fragrant with juniper and rosemary, pomanders of crisp lavender in the laundry cupboard.

The study door was recessed in shadow. It was black, and looked like ebony; a bare panel, except for the swan. Huge and malevolent, the bird stared down at her, neck stretched in spitting defiance, wings wide. Its tiny eye glinted as though it were a diamond or dark opal.

More likely a spyhole, she thought.

Tense, she lifted Jared's disc and held it carefully to the door; it clamped itself on with a tiny metallic click.

The device hummed. A small whine emerged from it, changing tone and pitch frequently, as if it chased the intricate combination of the lock up and down the scales of sound. Jared had gone into patient explanations as to how it worked, but she hadn't really been listening.

Impatient, she fidgeted. Then froze.

Footsteps were running up the stairs, lightly pattering.