Polity 4 - The Technician (12 page)

Move, I must move.

He
glanced back again at the corpse. Sanders was, to his best knowledge, the first
person he had ever killed, and he could not believe that what he felt now was
the same thing other killers felt. How could they kill again? As he headed down
towards the beach, his legs unsteady at each step, it occurred to him that perhaps
they had managed to make inroads into his faith, for surely, his faith being
strong, he would not feel such regret on taking the life of an enemy?

Beach
sand sank soft under his slippers and, glancing across, he saw her fading
footsteps leading up from the sea. How could such fading images be all anyone
left to the world? How could those like Sanders believe that this was all there
was? Heaven and Hell respectively awaited the faithful and the faithless.

Sanders
would be burning in Hell now.

Jem
flinched, a memory of pain so sharp to his perception, a brief image in his
mind of her screaming, forever. He found himself on his knees in the sand. God
had just allowed him a glimpse of Hell to harden his resolve, yet why did the
very idea of what was happening to her now hurt so much?

Move.

He
glanced aside, gazed at the object pulled up on the beach. He had no
recollection of this boat being here before but perhaps, from his wheelchair,
it had been out of his view. He forced himself on to his feet and stumbled over
to peer down at the vessel.

It lay
five metres long, had a folded-up outboard of a design he did not recognize,
twin propellers exposed. How so small, almost infinitesimal an engine could
drive such large propellers and propel so large a boat he could not understand.
He checked it over, saw that it must be supplied with power from the small
cubic unit on the deck below it to which two thin wires ran. He tried the
simple controls on the rudder handle and soon had the propellers whirling up to
vicious speed, then he stepped back and studied the vessel again. In his
weakened condition he doubted he could drag the thing into the water, but he
must try. Any time now the guards might return and find Sanders, then they
would be after him. With everything he now knew, they would be utterly
determined to stop him returning to the Theocracy.

Moving
to the bow of the boat he detached a thin line from a post driven into the
sand, tossed the line on board then grabbed the ring it attached to on the
prow. To his utter surprise the front of the boat lifted with ease – it must be
made of bubble metal, like a proctor’s aerofan. In a moment he dragged it into
the sea, then with a shove propelled it from the shore before rolling aboard
and making his way unsteadily to the seat at the rear.

Only
when the outboard was tilted back down again and those twin propellers foaming
a wake behind did he think where to go. It seemed likely to him that though the
island behind him could not be Heretic’s Isle, it did sit in the same crowded
island chain. This meant he must head north to reach the mainland. He studied
the position of the sun, the position of Amok vaguely visible over to his
right, and realized he had no idea which direction was north. Only when his
eyes strayed down did he see the small console set below the rudder arm and
above the power supply and, inset in that, the compass and map display. The
electronic map clearly showed him departing a crescent-shaped island named
Heretic’s Isle. This had to be a lie, so he ignored it, gazing only at the
compass, and set the boat on a course northwards. Still pulling away from the
isle he glanced back at the building high above the beach, felt a terrible
tightness in his chest and experienced a sudden blurring his vision. Reaching up
he touched tears streaming down the covering over his head.

Another
lie.

The Underground had not changed its physical appearance much over the
last twenty years, but it was emptier now, and the wind sometimes issuing from
the cave-borne central river of Cavern Andromeda seemed to be mourning this
desertion. Grant, having wended his way down the long stairway from the
surface, walked through a shimmer-shield that was not a recent Polity import,
but something bought at the cost of lives before the rebellion, from a trader
in squerm essence in Zealos. It had always been a dangerous option to approach
those who traded with the Theocracy, because the proctors were always on the
lookout for such action, such a chance to kill rebels. They succeeded on this
occasion too, only one surviving of the party of seven sent to collect the
shield projector. Grant sighed. He always felt resentful stepping through that
shield, since one of those who had not returned had been his brother.

Trudging
wearily down the path to Pillar Town Assos, Grant studied the crop ponds to his
right, glancing first at the big blue robotic beetles crouching on the banks,
then watching some stilt-legged thing like an iron heroyne stabbing down a beak
to remove a deader, a dead squerm, from one pond – a task that Human workers
had to do before so as to prevent poisoning of the water. These machines came
from the Polity, as did the fusion reactor standing on the banks of the river
providing power for the whole cavern, and for the oxygen generator squatting
beside it. As always he tried to concentrate on the undisputable benefits now
trickling in from that massive realm, and as always could not dismiss his
feelings of disapproval.

Entering
the pillar town he crossed the lower coin of the building – an area once a
weapons workshop but now being converted into a museum. Glass cases contained
some of the weapons that had been made here, along with uniformed mannequins
and old original-descent boring equipment – the collection gradually growing by
the addition of other items of historical significance slowly being unearthed
in abandoned stores. There were holographic interactives too, where people
could experience a near-facsimile of past events. Grant had tried one once, and
abandoned it in a cold sweat, swearing never to try that again. His memories
were quite enough. Glancing round he noted that the only people here were
parties of schoolchildren come to learn about their past. Beside the teachers
other adults were few in number – the memories still raw for them too.

At the
end of the museum he climbed into one of a bank of elevators and ascended,
finally stepping out into the upper coin and heading out to his apartment on
the rim. A hand against the new Polity palm lock gave him access and, as was
his habit, he made straight for his fridge, took out and uncapped a bottle of
beer, then went out to his chair on the balcony.

Grant
perfectly understood his feelings of dispossession and had known for twenty
years that he needed to resolve some things in his mind and move on. During
that time he had mooched about from job to job, profession to profession –
private security, aerofan manufacturing, ATV driver at the Tagreb, the
Taxonomic and Genetic Research Base which was the centre of most Polity
research on Masad, even tourist guide, and recently vacuum construction on
Flint – but was never able to settle. Now, back here from Flint, it seemed no
time had passed at all and memories twenty years old had not lost their
immediacy. He needed to find a new direction now, not to sustain his existence,
since the intermediate regime had assigned him a pension and this had later
been confirmed by the planetary governor, but to give his existence meaning. He
had fought the Theocracy for most of his life, and even now the gaping hole it
had left remained open – the same rift that all soldiers returning from war
found. He sipped his beer, then reached out and picked up a palmtop from the
table beside him, which activated to the display he had been looking at prior
to his trip to the surface: memory editing.

Apparently,
during their war against the alien Prador, soldiers of the Polity had edited
their own minds to enable themselves to go on functioning. Upon his return he
had discovered that some here on Masada, mentally damaged by the horrors of
Theocracy rule and events during the rebellion, had also taken this option. A
few surviving members of the Brotherhood had taken it too, as had many other
believers trying to rid themselves of the burden of religious indoctrination.
Perhaps he should get his head seen to. Perhaps he too should rub out the
memories that kept him tied to the past, so he could at last step into the
future he had been fighting for?

No.

He put
the palmtop aside. That option just seemed too much like cowardice to him. He
was the sum of his past. He was Commander Grant and so he would remain for the
rest of his life, no matter if he never fought as a soldier again.

‘The
editing techniques are much more refined now,’ said a voice. ‘You can actually
retain memories, but have them scrubbed of emotional content. You can be
reprogrammed to acceptance, have old habits excised and the pleasure and pain
wiring rerouted.’

Grant
sipped his beer again, then glanced over to his left at a wide stretch of
apparently empty balcony. ‘I’d say why don’t you use the door just like anyone
else, but I’d have to have it widened.’

Amistad
appeared like a scorpion-shaped bottle filling with iron colour. The drone
reached out one long claw towards him, then down, delicately closing claw tips
on the palmtop and picking it up for inspection. ‘I knew someone whose mind was
edited when he was a child – his mother trying to save him from pain. Only when
he reintegrated those memories and that pain did he become whole.’ The drone
put the palmtop down again. ‘I too edited my own mind to return it to sanity,
and only after I’d gradually put back those cuts, absorbing the pain as I did
so, did I find the way to my future self.’

‘Trite
philosophy – I expect better of you, Amistad.’

‘Editing
out pain edits out its lessons too.’

Grant
shrugged, sipped his beer. ‘What do you want with me?’

‘Jeremiah
Tombs is on the move,’ the drone told him. ‘After drawing some final penny
mollusc shell, he regained his ability to stand up and then he escaped the
sanatorium.’

‘Escaped?’

‘The
only fiction we have created for him. He believes that he killed Sanders and
escaped, and is on his way back to his Theocracy.’

‘He’s in
for some shocks, then.’

‘Precisely.’

‘You
think the shocks’ll unlock his skull?’

‘I do,
but we need him to stay alive long enough for them to work.’

‘Should
be simple enough for you.’

‘Yes,
even though Tidy Squad assassins have been dispatched after him.’

Grant
glanced up at the drone. ‘I ain’t in disagreement with ’em.’

‘Neither
is the runcible AI, which is why they’ve been allowed to operate for so long –
some Humans are irredeemable.’

‘Yeah,
okay, but you still ain’t explained why you’re here.’

‘I want
you to guide and protect Tombs, and I want him to remember you,’ said the
drone. ‘Your presence will help him find the gateway to sanity. He’ll
reintegrate his pain and become whole, and at last we’ll find out what it was
the Technician put in his mind.’

‘You
seem confident.’

‘The
mathematics of insanity,’ said the drone obscurely.

‘And
you’ll tear his mind apart again.’

‘Do you
accept the commission?’

Grant
glanced at his palmtop, finished his beer and put the bottle aside. ‘Of course
I do – I need the work.’

Shree Enkara gazed through her binoculars at the apartment building,
noting the foamstone construction of the walls, flicking her gaze down to the
cams positioned above the main entrance glassed in above the covered street,
then to the logo on the box they fed into. Old security there: armour glass,
static cameras, palm locks, the armed guard she’d earlier seen enter the
building for his morning shift, and perhaps some extras Mulen had placed in and
around his apartment and in the offices of Glaffren Shipping.

Lowering
her binoculars, Shree scanned across the rest of Zealos City. Lots of new buildings
going up, lots of renovation, and many here were taking advantage of Polity
technology becoming available. But of course Mulen, who now called himself
Andrew Glaffren, had refused to have any of that godless stuff near him;
refused the security drones and AI oversight. He’d foolishly assumed that his
new identity and new face would be enough, and not reckoned with the fact that
the Zealos police, now with its large complement of ex-Underground rebels, was
full of Tidy Squad supporters who had been feeding her and her comrades the
information they required to . . . tidy up. Of course, Shree was fully aware
that their freedom to act here would soon be curtailed as the Polity tightened
its grip. She was also aware that the Polity AIs did not seem overly anxious to
close down Tidy Squad activities – perhaps they did not entirely agree with
their own policies.

She
closed up her binoculars and shoved them into her pack, hoisted that up to her
shoulder then strolled over to the head of the stairwell leading down from the
glassed-over roof. Mulen’s biggest mistake, the one that had made information
on him easier to come by, was that he had not been prepared to give up the
family business. Though he himself had gone on to special training for his
position in the Theocracy, his family had owned numerous squerm ponds. They had
lost half of those ponds – confiscated by Lellan’s intermediate regime – but
retained the remainder which, now kept in business by Polity robotics Mulen did
not seem adverse to, were bringing in a good income.

The
stairwell wound steadily down to the apartment building’s foyer, where Shree
deposited her pack in a rental locker. The items it contained had been very
useful on other occasions, but here she needed none of them, just her skin with
its sprayed-on layer to prevent the shedding of skin cells and other DNA
evidence, and her hands. Inside the public toilet here she checked her make-up
in the mirror, brushed her ash-blond hair, making sure it covered the small
crescent-shaped aug behind her ear, ran her hands down the clingy dress she
wore, ensuring that the neckline was sufficiently low and that the slight
translucency of the material made it quite evident that she wore nothing
underneath.