Paradox (43 page)

Mine is real, for sure
…

Tom stared up at the shadowed ceiling, leaning back in his chair, but his thoughts were whirling.

Do you realize what you've given me?

Eerie silence. It was the main teaching-hall, all square lines and elegant, understated, carved decoration, now delineated in shadows: a hundred shades of grey.

A strange feeling of euphoric warmth, of loving benediction
—Karyn's words, describing her exit from mu-space as her lover's ship dissolved into sparkling fragments…Tom did not need to replay that earlier fragment of Karyn's Tale: the words were fresh in his mind.

The implications
…but he was here to say a farewell, of sorts. A full analysis would have to wait.

He was alone at night in the Pavilion School, wondering if he would ever see the place again.

Beneath his tunic, the talisman hung. He had resealed it after playing the final module, using the school's highest-resolution infotablet. The question was, had anyone ever guessed its contents? The crystal's nul-gel coating had been intact; impossible to tell.

Surely it was the stallion itself that was the gift, its secret core unknown.

Subtle, indeed.

Giving him time to think. Letting the night bring doubts among the shadows. It was not fair warning, not an opportunity to escape: there would be soldiers at every exit from the area. Many were patrolling the pedestrian corridors; Tom had seen them earlier.

My fault that they're here.

He got up from the chair and walked around the hall—noting the flat-sheet drawings of the eight-year-olds, the older kids' abstract holos which sprang into life as he passed—then out into the gallery, overlooking the placid, black-looking sea. It seemed that he could hear echoed childish laughter, scampering feet; but the only sound was of waves lapping endlessly against the pavilion.

Letting the doubts prey on him.

An old desire sparked inside: to go for a late-night run, escaping his demons. But there were soldiers around, neighbours who might be awoken.

That was the old way.

Near the water's edge, he sat down on the smooth stone and folded his legs into lotus posture. Closed his eyes, let the waves' plashing sound wash over him.

Then, one after another in his mind, he named the Pavilion Schools' students, starting at the youngest: pictured them, their budding personalities, their bursting potential.

When he had mentally bidden the last child farewell, he blanked out his thoughts, let the sea become his mind, a peaceful flow, and slid into perfect trance

There was a flickering quality to the eyes. It had always been there, just a hint, when they were younger. Now it was part of the man.

“Hello, Corduven,” said Tom.

For a moment, just that flickering stare; then he gestured for Tom to sit.

The Community Hall was three-sided, opening onto the sea, but there was no escape that way. An encircling gallery, high up, was filled with troops: thirty, no, forty of them. Two flat boats floated on the waves outside.

Tom sat down before the green crystal desk, and waited for Corduven to speak. He noted that the soldiers at ground level stood far back, allowing privacy. That was security, not good manners.

How are you doing, old friend?
But openness was not called for, here.

Tom's objective had been clear in his mind when his eyes snapped open this morning: it was to get these people out of here, so they would leave Tom's community alone.

“I wish I could say”—Corduven looked away, out across the waves—“that it's good to see you again, Tom.”

He was even paler than before, stamped with the stress of two years' warfare.

Tom quoted: “'What enables the wise sovereign and the good general to strike and conquer, and achieve things beyond the reach of ordinary men, is foreknowledge.'”

Corduven did not smile.

“At the academy,” he said, “we spent our first two tendays entirely immersed
without sleep
in logotropic simulation of
The Art of War.
Watching and feeling action scenarios while the principles wired themselves into our brains.” He stood up, a narrow figure taut with nervous energy. “So don't quote Sun Tzu to me, my friend.”

Tom's had been a twin-barbed comment: hinting of Oracles, but what Sun Tzu had referred to was the use of intelligence agents; in his view, espionage lay at the heart of war.

“But you found me,” said Tom, “because of rumours about a good school. Who spotted the significance of that datum among all your infoflow?” He paused. “I was complimenting you, I guess.”

A momentary flash: “
Maybe your God is imaginary, and maybe not
…”
Golden fire coruscating across Ro's eyes.
“…
but mine is not.
” Had Corduven accessed the crystal, understood its content?

Tom forced his attention back to the moment.

“A compliment?” Corduven stopped by his chair, put his hand on its back, then let go and resumed pacing. “If you say so…But this is a good location for a garrison; my aim is to have troops on the Ultimum Stratum of every demesne, and I might as well begin here.”

Stare, flickering.

He knows.

Maybe not about the crystal, but…

Tom's mouth grew very dry. What would Corduven do to the community which had harboured his brother's murderer? The youthful Corduven would not have harmed them; but this driven man was different. And revenge was not pure logic, crystalline rationality.

I can be sure of that, can't I?

“I'm aware of the circumstances,” Corduven added, finally standing still, “under which you deserted your own people. It's the one reason you're still alive right now.”

But they could have come for Tom last night, dragged him out and arrested him or killed them. Instead, they had let him worry: softening him up.

They've got other ways of softening people up.

“In fact”—sliding a small silver infotablet across the desk, Corduven leaned over, looking down at Tom—“your actions probably screwed up Flashpoint. They can't have any love for you, either. Your own kind.”

Tom exhaled slowly, keeping control. “What's Flashpoint?”

“Ah.” Corduven pulled his chair back, and dropped heavily into it. “You'd have known it as Prime Strike, is that right? You were going to change the world; that would have been due to happen two years ago, almost exactly.”

Tom sat very still.

“Well, it's changed all right.” Corduven. “We've been fighting for two years, and I for one am getting tired of the bloodshed.”

A kind of itch, a tingling. It had been a long time since Tom's nonexistent left arm had actually burned.

“Take a look.” Corduven nodded at the infotablet. “See what you've done. The sequence is for convenience only: they're all from around the same time, two years ago.”

“What's in here?”

“Standard surveillance logs—most of which we recovered later, not
acted on at the time—plus undercover people on the scene. Some reconstructions.”

“From what? Interrogations?”

No answer.

FLASHPOINT ONE

Streamers. Floating platforms, bedecked with ribbons, fanciful sculptures: giant mushrooms, fantastical beasts. Dancing. All around is darkness, save for the candles; the corridor is alive with music and dancing crowds.

Darkday Carnival.

“In beneficence”—a reporter, speaking to the hovering camglobe—“Lord Xaldrugen's steward distributes alms to his poorest subjects.”

In a side corridor, among seated beggars with tattered robes, a paunchy alpha servitor roots in his embroidered pouch and scatters cred-spindles.

An old man, bent with age and poverty, patch over one eye and fingers missing from one hand, sits down at the back. The others, grudgingly, make way for him.

There is consternation among the beggars when the reporter tells them to hand the alms back—“So I can film again, for close-ups, you moronic fools!”—but eventually they get everything recorded. The reporter hurries off, following the carnival floats, and the beggars begin to disperse.

The surveillance system's viewpoint does not change.

One beggar's body ends at the waist, fastened somehow to a smoothplate, and he uses his arms to push himself along the ground. The alpha servitor watches him go, shaking his head as the other beggars limp away.

“Pitiful.” Scorn in his tone. Then, “What are you still doing here?”

The last beggar: old man, hooked claws for a hand, eye-patch. “It's time to go,” says the old man.

Then his hand flashes out, very fast, to the steward's throat. Behind them both, the solid-seeming stone wall dissolves—chameleon membrane—and two hooded figures step out and grab the unconscious steward before he can fall.

Quickly, the old man and his accomplices drag the portly steward back through the membrane, and are gone.

The membrane hardens into opacity, and the wall looks like solid stone once more.

Tom looked up, carefully keeping his face blank. Corduven, too, revealed nothing with his eyes.

No matter. The thing was, not to betray any sign of recognition. But the last time Tom had seen the one-eyed man was in a history lesson at the Ragged School, and he—the Captain—had given Tom a verbal roasting for not knowing the year in which Bilkranitsa Syektor had been founded.

“Don't stop there,” said Corduven.

FLASHPOINT TWO

The young woman, bent over the console, hums softly to herself. From outside the studio, glowglobes cast gentle peach-orange hues: early morning, dark-period just ending.

Holovolumes flicker into being.

PRIMARY:
“Outlying Argenia provinces report severe fluorofungal blight. Damages are estimated to total…”

SECONDARY:
Lightball players, fluorescent costumes, the
piercing whine of the semi-sentient ball. “Just minutes into the final third…”

TERTIARY:
Triconic lattices of economic-forecast data grow steadily more entangled.

QUATERNARY:
“In the Zhinghuan Protectorate today, ambassadors gathered to pay homage to Lord Cheng Yat-Sen, and survey the site of…”

A scraping sound, and she gestures the displays to silence.

“Who's there?”

Three hooded figures walk into the room. Rainbows shimmer across the transmission ends of their graser weapons.

“I'm not stupid,” the woman says hastily. “Whatever you want, I'll co-op—”

But she leaps then, grabbing a power-staff from the wall and spinning, with a yell. Two of the hooded figures are slow to react but the other sidesteps, uses a horizontal hammer-fist above the power-staff's trajectory and strikes the graser butt-first against the woman's forehead, and she drops like a stone.

“Damn it,” says one of the others, voice muffled by her hood. “We need an editor with brains, not a concussed zombie. Did you have to hit her so hard?”

“Sorry.”

The sea was gentle, its reflected waves a slow ripple of light across the cavern ceiling, the gold-flecked pillars.

But here in the Community Hall, the pressure was oppressive.

FLASHPOINT THREE

The woman trips.

“Seeya-seeya-seeya!” In the middle of the chamber, heavy
with ganja fumes from badly sealed masks, the dancers are clapping and chanting in time to broquadeco music.

Around the tavern's edges, the light is dim, and the woman may not have seen the man's outstretched legs before catching her ankle on his boot and dropping her glass.

“Sorry! Er…” The balding man helps her up. “My name's Jyaneto. I'll buy you another.”

Anger in her fine green eyes, slowly dissipating.

“OK then,” she says.

When he comes back with a tray of Salamander Fires from the bar, she giggles and introduces herself. “I'm Karlia.”

Younger than Jyaneto. Very beautiful.

Entranced, they sit together in the booth, shouting above the music, but Jyaneto obviously does not care about the volume. It is the company that is important.

The suspicion comes only after the second drink, but by then he's already slumping sideways, and his attempts to move are useless.

“Don't hurt him,” says the girl, as two burly men lift Jyaneto from the bench. “He's quite sweet, really.”

Tom flicked to the next.

FLASHPOINT FOUR

Immensely huge, naked woman, shaven head, unconscious, being lifted by ten struggling hooded men—“Fate, she's even heavier than she looks!”—pulling her from her vat and into the mobile tank.

She slides beneath the surface of the glowing sapphire liquid.