Jack Glass: The Story of a Murderer (50 page)

‘It has nothing to do with loyalty.’

‘Don’t be foolish,’ she chided, vaguely.

‘It’s you,’ he said. ‘I love you.’

‘You told me you don’t even
have
any CRFs in your system. You told me my MOHmies didn’t dose you with them, because they needed your initiative and trusted your loyalty
without them and all that.’

‘All that is true. When I say I love you, it’s – you know. My self speaking.’

She looked at him. Politeness doubtless called for a neutral expression, but the horrible thrill of revulsion went through her, and her features creased. She composed herself, with some
difficulty. ‘Well,’ she said, shortly. ‘Don’t.’

A sad kind of smile broke across his face. ‘It’s not a matter of my
volition
I’m afraid.’

‘Now,’ she scolded him, ‘you know that I can’t feel that way about you – don’t you? I never could. It’s not just the fact that you’re male.
It’s not just the age difference – if I’m honest, both those things play a part. But I don’t want you to think the impediments to, uh, us are, uh,
details
like that.
Fond of you though I am, there is no marriage of true minds between you and I.’

‘I know,’ he said, simply. ‘It’s a love without hope. But love is not a fire that needs the oxygen of hope to burn. It is a different sort of combustion altogether. I
can’t extinguish the way I feel about you.’

Diana opened her mouth and closed it again. This was a problem of a different kind altogether. She tried to consult her feelings on the matter, but discovered she didn’t know what she
felt. Something occurred to her: ‘Is it a sexual thing?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘Oh, it is not.’

‘You’re bound to say that,’ she said. But looking at him, she saw he was genuine. And since sex played, as yet, so minimal a part in her life, she was quite prepared to believe
that it wasn’t quite the big human deal a person might think, from observing art and accessing gossip. But ‘sex’ at least would enable her to categorise the nature of Iago’s
feelings for her. Without that, perhaps counter-intuitively, his feelings for her became more unsettling, not less. So she said again; ‘you’re bound to say that, aren’t
you?’

He wasn’t looking at her. He was blushing. She had seen him blush before.

‘Why? Is it because of my position?’

‘You are you,’ he said. ‘That’s why. Not that you’re clever, and beautiful, though you are: because lots of people are that. But only you are you.’

‘I think perhaps you need to read up on Modulated Ova Haptide technology,’ she said. But she knew, herself, that this was no answer. ‘Jack,’ she said, because using his
real name struck her as the right thing to do at a moment like this (although as she did so she found herself thinking: how do I know whether even that is his real name?). ‘You’ve
explained yourself concisely, and I think I understand. So you’ll let me reply concisely too, won’t you?’

‘Your concision is, no, I think,’ he said.

‘Yes,’ she agreed. ‘I mean no.’ His blush deepened, and after a moment, it faded a little. ‘Goddess, I don’t know what I mean.’

‘I understand,’ he said.

After that Jack Glass slept. He was still recuperating: his wounds were not trivial, and the residue of the nerve toxin made him continually tired.

Diana thought about what he said. Of course she did. She left him, and went off to play Go with the ship AI. Four matches told her that with an eight-stone advantage she could always beat the
machine, but with seven or fewer the machine won.

Eventually the
4
arrived at a long string of bubbles called Judasalem, where Iago claimed to have reliable friends. They finally
took their leave from the good doctor herself. Sapho made enquiries, and rented a house for the three of them – a simple limpet property, against the wall of the third bubble. Iago, who had
paid the doctor her fee, also put up the money for this rental.

That evening, they ate at a restaurant: fish, grown, the owner boasted, in Judasalem’s own aquarium. Sapho did not stay long; she was still feeling the coldturkey effects of the removal of
her dosage, and went back to the house to sleep. But Diana felt her whole mood lifting. It had been so long since she had encountered anything so evidently civilised, so dependent upon at least a
modicum of law and order, that Diana felt a wash of painful nostalgia for the way her life had been before.

Iago looked sad, though. She knew that things between them had changed in an irrevocable way.

They ate with their knees tucked under a bar. The fish was served wrapped in leaves, and accompanied by globes of hashwine. Their view was of the wide inward curving wall of the bubble, patched
over variously with green vegetation and blue habitations.

She asked him: ‘What is it like?’ she asked. ‘Killing people?’

‘What a question!’ he replied, obviously startled.

‘I mean it genuinely. I feel like the outsider here. Sapho killed someone, and you have killed someone. Or many someones.’

Iago thought for a while before answering. ‘It is not pleasurable,’ he said. ‘There is a part of me, as there is of many people, capable of doing it. But I keep that part
locked away inside me. It feels like there’s a – box. A box, inside me.’

‘And inside the box?’

He looked at her. ‘Combustion,’ he said. ‘You’re going to tell me we must separate, aren’t you.’

The directness of this startled her; but she maintained her composure. Her question to him had been an attempt to startle
him
, after all. ‘Why?’ she stuttered. ‘Why do
you say that?’ But immediately she decided there was no point in fencing with him. ‘No, you’re right. I have been thinking. I have been thinking that.’

‘Because?’

‘Oh, Iago,’ she said, feeling tears somewhere inside her, ready-to-hand, prepared to emerge. But she held them back. ‘After what you told me, on Doctor Zinovieff’s ship?
I’m
very
fond of you.’

‘That’s a degree towards love,’ he pointed out.

‘Perhaps it is! I suppose it is. We do have a . . . bond, I suppose, you could say. I
owe
you a great deal. But you and I could never – just, never – oh, dear Iago! Even
if we were young, how could we?’

‘Even if we were young, how could we,’ he repeated, in a neutral voice. ‘The conditional again. You’re fond of the conditional tense.’ He sighed. ‘Ah well, my
darling,’ he said, lifting the globe of hashwine. ‘I will do as you think best.’ To hear herself called darling was like a mild electrical shock. It was impossible to say whether
it was a pleasant or an unpleasant experience. ‘Where will you go, though?’ he asked.

‘I don’t know. Sapho will come with me, of course. I suppose,’ she said, the thought just occurring to her, ‘that I will need money.’

‘I can help you with that,’ said Iago.

‘I will go find my parents, I think,’ said Diana, staring past Iago to the green motley of the sphere’s far wall. ‘They have hidden themselves away, true, and it
won’t be easy to find them. But what is that, except a problem to be solved? And what am I, if not good at solving problems? I may also go visit Anna Tonks Yu, in the flesh. Why
not?’

Iago looked away. It was not possible to see, from where Diana was sitting, whether his eyes were brimming, or not. ‘All this would break my heart,’ he said, in a level voice.
‘If I had a heart.’

‘Don’t be like that, Iago. The mouth can say never, and the rational mind can predict it. But never isn’t part of the heart’s vocabulary.’

He brightened at this, a little: nodded, and even smiled. But he didn’t meet her gaze. ‘There’s a bigger problem to solve than the location of your parents, I think,’ he
said, shortly. ‘That’s the problem of the system as a whole. Revolution. Historically, I suppose revolution has been driven by despair, when a people have nowhere lower to sink and
nothing to lose. But ghunk, and living space have made it harder to fall so low. The problem is: how can we make people make things better for themselves?’

‘Hope,’ she said.

‘Exactly,’ said Iago. ‘Of course I am aware of the dangers. It is an understatement to say:
the stakes are high
. If the FTL pistol had fallen into Ulanov hands –
or into the hands of your MOHsister – or any other faction, it could easily have been a disaster, and on the largest scale. Maybe it would have been more politic simply to destroy the device.
But I didn’t do that. I didn’t, because it represents the seed of hope – that people might be able to leave this System altogether, and go whither they choose.’

‘Freedom,’ said Diana. They sipped their globes for a while, and Diana felt simultaneously excited and mournful, a kind of painful thrill at the open-ended nature of her future. Very
grown up. Very much so. ‘And if we’re to spread hope around the entire solar system,’ she added. ‘Then we can certainly spare a little hope for you. Don’t you
think?’

He smiled again, but again didn’t meet her eyes. ‘That would be nice.’

‘You say you have no heart,’ she added, feeling her way with her words. ‘But I don’t believe you. You have a great heart. You’re resourceful, and clever, and you
have brought me life. That’s probably a cause of hope. Wouldn’t you say?’

‘Wouldn’t I say?’ Jack repeated. ‘It’s one of the better conditionals, that wouldn’t.’

They sat in silence for a while.

‘You understand,’ she asked, shortly, ‘why I have to go off?’

‘I accept it,’ replied Iago, still not looking at her. ‘Which is better.’

Coda

Sapho, however, refused to go with Diana Argent. Diana was surprised at this, but she ought not to have been. Sapho – or I should say,
I
(for I have been the
doctorwatson here, as perhaps you have already guessed) – preferred to stay with Jack Glass, as his companion and amanuensis. He and I have things in common; and the more the CRF diminishes,
unreplenished, in my bloodstream the less I experience that debilitating intensity of doggish loyalty to her and her family. This is not to say that I wished her ill. On the contrary. I helped Jack
do what he could to prepare her for her journeys: we hired a bodyguard – an essential thing, of course – and rented space in a trading sloop. She went, finally, taking the RACdroid with
her (for surety, Jack said); and I wept a little at her departure, and so did she, and only Jack did not, though I think he wished he could. But I have made my choice, now, which is to stay by
his
side. To listen to his account of his time, and his varied experiences. To tell his story.

To tell his story to you.

Jack Glass Glossary