Paradox (35 page)

He had been half expecting to exit straight into the red transport fluid, but this was an ordinary-looking depot: devoid of people, perhaps two dozen vessels being shunted into or out of tangled tubes. Stepping out, he brushed off his cloak as the vessel behind him sank back into its tube and moved on to a holding-volume.

There was a soft whisper of sound and Tom turned.

Ten tunnel-fighter types. Shaven-headed and stocky, or slender with triple-braided hair, all had the stony expressions of syndicate footsoldiers, or 49s. At their rear stood an older man with short-cropped grey hair, a dark scar across one cheekbone.

One of them, eyes half-lidded, clenched his callused fists. Dying to try out for real the techniques he had drilled in for years.

Primary target.

Immature and uncontrolled: Tom would go for him first. But the grey-haired man looked calm, almost dozing—real trouble. No illusions here. Tom could not defeat the whole group.

The grey-haired man moved. “This way, please.”

“After you.”

“Hello, Tom.”

The slender, somewhat frail-looking figure on the chair had long hair and a narrow black moustache, but recognition was instantaneous.

“Zhao-ji!”

They clasped wrists.

Zhao-ji's eyes were as dark and fearless as they had ever been, and his grip was surprisingly strong, given his appearance. But Tom was aware of his own greater strength and physical ability, and a little ashamed of his surge of pleasure.

A chair moved into position for Tom, but he ignored it as Zhao-ji spoke. “Someone special to see you.” Zhao-ji gestured, and there was a hint of sapphire blue glowing inside his left wrist, on his prominent veins. He tugged down his cuff.

Slowly, from a curtained alcove, a golden filigree cage floated into the chamber.

“Oh, my Fate!”

Inside the cage was a white neko with sea-green eyes, large and comfortable. The filigree wound itself back as Tom reached inside. “Paradox! How are you, boy?”

The feline blinked lazily as Tom rubbed behind his ears.

“Just so you know,” said Zhao-ji, “that he's been in good hands.”

“I can see that.” Tom grinned as Paradox purred: a soft steady motorlike buzz deep in his throat.

But we're not just old friends, Zhao-ji and I.
He withdrew his hand; the cage closed up.
This is a negotiation, and we're just beginning.

“The last time we were supposed to meet, I got a little held up.”

Zhao-ji could not help glancing at Tom's left shoulder. “We heard about it. Petyo—remember him?—knew you'd been captured. He had some pretty scathing things to say about Algrin, as I recall.” He looked carefully at Tom, as though worried about giving offence. “Uncle Pin tried to use his influence, but with a Lady decreeing the sentence…”

“I know.” Tom sat down in the vacant chair.

“He did try, though. Used up a lot of
guanxi.”

Debts of honour: Tom recalled the term from evening conversations in the Ragged School's deserted dorm.

Zhao-ji shifted position, and again Tom caught a glimpse of shining blue inside his wrist.

“I wonder”—Tom leaned back in his chair, casually crossing his legs—“how Kreevil Dilwinney fared.”

Trapped in the floating blue liquid; tendril growing from his body—

A small smile grew on Zhao-ji's face.

“You've grown subtle, Tom, over the years. Kreevil…I do know how Petyo fared.”

“Thank you, my friend. What happened to Petyo?”

“He worked for us…until he chose to forget his obligations.”

Tension tightened inside Tom. “I sense that you, too, have achieved a great deal.”

“And now we have a chance to work together.”

A short laugh. “Who'd have thought it?”

“It's something of a paradox”—Zhao-ji smiled briefly—“that we, you and I personally, can achieve so much. Neither you nor I have that much power inside our respective organizations, but we can influence them enormously.”

Meaning…what? That Tom could help Zhao-ji achieve his ambitions?

No. More to it than that.

“You know our traditions, I gather,” Zhao-ji continued. “At times, when it becomes necessary, open warfare—or something close to it—must be engaged in.”

“When defeat is otherwise inevitable.”

“Or when the chance of victory is high.”

Tom nodded. “You think something major is going to happen?”

“Don't you?”

Silence.

From his cage, Paradox complained:
mrrghaow.

Zhao-ji snapped his fingers as two hard-eyed youths entered. “Take Paradox out. Give him fishblock and cream.”

The youths left with the cage floating between them.

Tom watched them leave. “You can't take a chance on his getting loose?” Not quite a question.

“Not here. In…At home, he has the run of the place.”

“Ah.”

“Not that he runs much nowadays. Getting lazy. Not like you, I hear.”

“Maybe.” Tom sat upright. “So what would persuade LudusVitae that your people should play a greater role in any…forthcoming action?”

“Information.”

A pause, waiting for Tom to ask:
What kind of information?

When he remained silent, Zhao-ji nodded, carefully adjusting his cuff, and said, “We know where the Oracles come from.”

“Strangle me.”

The woman went for the small man's collar, arms straight as she applied a loose grip.

“OK, like this.” He hooked his arms around hers in a complicated motion and twisted; her hands lost their grip. “Then elbow.” He turned and leaned sideways for the strike.

“Hey, that's pretty neat.”

Tom, watching, shook his head.

That could get you killed.

They were in a wide white marble chamber, and the outlying corridors were guarded by Zhao-ji's people. The man and woman were part of LudusVitae.

“I like this one, too,” said the small man, leaning forwards from the waist for a flowery elbow-block. The technique was from a traditional form, but sloppily presented, its meaning misinterpreted.

“You interested in this stuff?” The woman was looking at Tom.

“Er…” He checked the shimmering entrance membranes. No-one arriving. Just the three of them here, early for the meeting.

He chuckled. “You could say that. Look.” Standing in front of the man, Tom curled his hand around the back of the man's neck. “If someone grabs you, it's not static.” He jerked forwards. “It's to pull you onto a head-butt or a knee.”

“When I was in school”—the woman looked offended—“and one of the boys, a lightball player, grabbed me—”

Tom stared at her, and she fell silent.

“You grab me,” he said to the small man, and whipped his elbow up between the two arms, right on the point of the fellow's chin.

“Chaos!” The woman.

“Just hit him,” said Tom, “as the hold's coming on. Fast and hard. Keep it simple.”

“Fate! I'm glad I never did grappling, then.” The small man scratched his head. “Grabs and chokes obviously don't work.”

He still hasn't got the point.

Slap of his hand, spinning the small man sideways, hooking around the throat, thumb inside the man's collar.

“If I'd hit here”—Tom tightened his grip: radius bone against carotid artery—“you'd have been out. Forget about struggling for thirty seconds, or even three. Do it just right, and the strangle's instantaneous. Otherwise”—kicking the back of the left knee, lowering gently—“you take him down, put one knee against the spine…”

When Tom released him, the small man stepped back and bowed, followed hastily by the woman.

“Could you show us that again, my Lord?”

They talked afterwards about some of the myths of Terran martial-arts history; Tom kept mostly silent and did not disabuse the other two of their delusions.

“Imagine,” said the small man, whose name was Tarmlin, “the Okinawans smashing their invaders' wooden shields with a single punch…”

The sort of stupid story that gives the martial arts a bad name.

In the Philippines, Magellan was killed by a native using the indigenous Filipino fighting art—but by the time that art became known to the outside world, its name was escrima, and its terminology was in the conquerors' language.

The Okinawans, creators of karate, were invaded many times. The Shaolin temple was destroyed by soldiers. Brazilian slaves formulated capoeira: deadly when used by individual masters—but the slaves remained in chains.

Mostly, Tom thought, it was the Golden Age myth: that pre-nanotech man was a warrior. Fighting tales of the third millennium were both stranger and more likely to be true, but early stories of uncorrupted, natural humans held a mythic power.

But that's not how we'll win
, he realized.
Not hand to hand. There has to be a better way.

Taut, pale skin; hooked nose; white hair. A difficult face to read: was the hair prematurely white, or the skin unnaturally taut?

“Viscount Vilkarzyeh.” He bowed to Tom.

“Lord Corcorigan.” Tom's bow held a questioning nuance of insincerity, mocking their noble rites under these circumstances. “Originally of Lady Darinia's demesne, in Gelmethri Syektor.” And, speaking in Laksheesh: “You're from Bilkranitsa?”

“Very astute, old chap. Follow me, why don't you?”

Vilkarzyeh passed the two cell members without a glance, but Tom bade them farewell.

“We'll keep practising,” said the small man, Tarmlin, with a grin.

Through a circular pink-tinged membrane, and along a short, white, round-walled corridor. Tom's skin tingled—
scans of some sort—
then a golden disc-door melted open, and he followed Vilkarzyeh inside.

It was a hall of twisted spaces, real and holo intertwined: curling walkways, Escher ramps, impossible polygons. In its centre, a small area of geometric sanity held a square conference table and a dozen lev-chairs.

Zhao-ji was already sitting there, pensively stroking his moustache. Two black men, both strangers to Tom, sat facing Zhao-ji.

“Sorry we're late.”

The woman's voice was from Tom's left. He turned. She had pale, freckled skin and one good eye; the other was totally green-blue and beautiful, but nonfunctional. Her hair was a deeper auburn than he remembered.

“Arlanna!”

“Hello, Tom.”

She was the first person, of all the old acquaintances he had encountered since his ascension, to use his forename without thinking.

“Great Chaos, Arlanna! How long ago were you recruited?”

“Before you, probably.” A big grin. “How the Randomness are you?”

“I don't know.” He shrugged. “Fine, I suppose.”

“Hmm. Must be a strain, keeping a demesne running and doing all this.”

“I've got Jak helping me.”

“Ah well.” Laughing. “You'll probably make a profit, then.”

“Probably.”

Tom noted peripherally that Vilkarzyeh was watching them closely. He would have to learn more about that man.

“You're taking an awful risk, Tom.” Arlanna frowned.

They were all seated now. Twelve LudusVitae members, all of them in the upper echelons of that organization or else high-ranking representatives of one or other of the member societies. Only Tom and Arlanna were there purely as strategic advisers, without cell networks under their direct command.

“He's not the only one.” Vilkarzyeh. “Turning a blind eye to the Strontium Dragons' activities is one thing—”

Arlanna froze, but Vilkarzyeh did not even notice.

“—but this is infinitely more risky, for a Lord.”

So why are you here, then?
Tom wondered.

Vilkarzyeh stopped, then addressed Tom directly, as though guessing his thoughts. “But I have my reasons, as you do.”

“Time, I think, ladies and gentlemen,” said Zhao-ji, “to begin the technical presentation.”

Spheroid of pearly light, stretched out teardropwise at two horizontally opposite points.

It looked familiar: almost identical to the cosmic model Tom had displayed over a year earlier, before the Convocation's Review Committee.

“I know”—Zhao-ji gestured, magnifying the holo—“that cosmology is not normally on the agenda.” He paused. There was some polite laughter around the table. “But we need to establish a—how do I put it?—a conceptual background.”

Tom watched the others; their attention was focused on the holo.

“This point represents the big bang.” It flared briefly red as Zhao-ji spoke. “The other end is the big crunch.”

Frowns of concentration around the table.

“Pretend that the visible universe is a flat disc instead of a solid volume: then we see the disc expanding with time, starting at a point—the big bang—and reaching a maximum size here.”

A vertical red circle ringed the spheroid, was gone.

“Then the cosmos shrinks inevitably to the big crunch, but with time reversed. That's been known for a thousand years.”

Vilkarzyeh nodded impatiently; the others remained still, intent.

Tom had expected them to start growing bored.

“As Tom would put it”—Zhao-ji nodded in his direction—“it's as though there are two big bangs which meet in the middle, since both halves of the life cycle experience entropic time flowing towards the midpoint.”

Again, the vertical red circle.

Zhao-ji seemed to know the contents of Tom's presentation to the Review Committee, and Tom noted this. Was he deliberately letting Tom know how deeply Strontium Dragons' links were embedded in noble society?

Plans within plans, my friend?

“So, the interesting part,” continued Zhao-ji, “is the midpoint itself. In the real universe, it's the moment when it has expanded to maximum size. But just how, exactly, does time reverse itself?”

Suddenly Tom's attention was riveted.

This is new to me.

Zhao-ji: “Does time somehow flip over
at the same instant
throughout the universe?”

Tom's skin prickled.

What does a criminal society know of this?

As Zhao-ji gestured—once more, a glimpse of searing blue inside his wrist—a central vertical slice of the holovolume was highlighted.

Points of light sparkled.

“Or are there singularity seed-points from which the reversal spreads out rapidly, engulfing the cosmos in a storm of time-reversal?”

Yes
, thought Tom.
A null-time transition boundary, with scattered bifurcation points, breaking the symmetry
…

Arlanna cleared her throat and spoke. “Sir? This is trillions of years into the future, isn't it?”

“Oh, yes.” Zhao-ji wiped the holo from existence. “What I really want to talk about”—he tugged unconsciously at his moustache—“is Oracles.”

He gestured.

Blue tracery: eldritch fire, spreading both ways in time. In neotubulin microstructures, quantum waveguides pulse around bichronic lenses…

Metavectors track emergent neural properties—consciousness, scattered across time in randomly sequenced blips; the sanity-twisting mindset of an Oracle.

For a long moment, the chamber was silent. Around the conference table, the LudusVitae officers could only stare at the analysis: their enemies made manifest before their eyes.

“There is a great deal,” Zhao-ji finally added quietly, “that we don't understand. Oracular brains embody negentropic time, yet contain its cascade effects.”

The holo winked out of existence.

“Shall we take a break?”

“How do you know all this?” asked one of the senior executives, after they had reconvened.

Zhao-ji merely shook his head. But Tom could guess, at least part of it.

The glowing blue fluid, the stuff Kreevil was immersed in.
Tom remembered the sapphire flashes at Zhao-ji's inner wrist.
It's part of the process, and the Strontium Dragons deal in it, somehow.

“How does this help?” Vilkarzyeh looked at Tom. “You already know how to deal with an Oracle.”

“One Oracle, yes.”

Arlanna was staring intently at Tom with her one good eye.

Does she know I killed Corduven's brother?

“We'll have to move,” said Zhao-ji, “against all of them simultaneously. We—the Strontium Dragons and our, ah, associates—can provide detailed information on their locations.”

Really?

But the group's attention was gathering on Tom now. Until this moment, he had felt out of place and somehow unprepared. But, for all their years of planning, their shadowy extended organizations, none of them had achieved as much as Tom.

I did what they've only dreamed of.

Suddenly, everything seemed to settle into place.

“Many Oracles,” he said, “are scarcely able to pull into normal timeflow at all. They spend their lives watching newscasts—which they reproduce as truecasts in earlier times—largely passive. On the other hand, they tend to have larger staffs…They're still the lesser danger, though.”

Arlanna spoke up: “You, ah, somehow create a false future for them, is that right?”

Tom smiled. “Essentially, yes. False memories: from the cut-over moment, all of their future memories will be false.”

“Then we can do anything at all with them. Is that right?”

“Yes, that's right.”

Scarlet, smeared across blue and white.

“So we don't necessarily have to kill them. We can be”—Tom noted the frowns around the table, but pressed on—“more humane than that.”

Father, a grey and empty husk
…

“Humane?” It was a hatchet-faced woman who spoke.

“We have that option.” Tom let out a long breath. “That's all I'm saying.”

I'm not the only one who's suffered because of Oracles.

“These more passive Oracles…” Zhao-ji's tone was contemplative. “We only need to take control of what they see, is that correct?”

Tom smiled. “Absolutely.”

“
Only
take control—?” Vilkarzyeh shook his head, but he was smiling. “That probably involves kidnapping; taking the Oracles, drugged, to exact reproductions of their previous environments. You didn't say it would be easy. I'll grant you that.”