The Octagonal Raven (19 page)

Fledgling: Earth Orbit Station Three, 442 N.E.

Somehow, everything was less eventful, less mysterious, after the discovery of the forerunner Gate. I kept looking for stories about it, in the scientific netpubs, the journals, the pop news…but there was little outside of a few short articles on the basic inscrutability of the alien science, and one series of stories about how there had been a single huge energy spike from the Gate, but no sign of anything except what appeared to be a puff of gas that dispersed into deep space almost instantly. The stories went on, but no one had figured out how it had happened or triggered or why, and eventually those disappeared as well. Someone had begun to unravel the mystery of the composite hull and was hopeful that the material could be duplicated commercially within the decade.

As Gerrat and Father had said, if there’s nothing new, it’s not news, and there wasn’t anything new, and the pop news went back to the VR entertainment hoaxes, and the scaps that were and weren’t, the latest epidemic to come out of Southeast Eurasia, blamed on the uncovering of pre-Collapse biowar stockpiles in Chung Kuo but curtailed by rapid deployment of specialized nanites.

Along the way, I became and remained the senior pilot on the
Newton
, until I decided to put in my papers on our way back from Delta Felini. Ten years was the minimum to fill the FS obligation for a pilot, and I’d put in sixteen, almost seventeen years, thinking I might go for retirement, before I decided that I couldn’t see myself bucking for command and playing all the political games. Being senior pilot had shown me enough about that.

We were in the last few hours of decel coming into Earth, and I was scheduled to go on duty in an hour. I was looking around my cabin wondering if I should start to pack when the link chimed.

“Major?” The voice was that of Captain Matteus. She had finally succeeded Andruhka as the commander of the
Newton
, and she was personally the opposite of Andruhka—slighter, physically deft, soft-spoken, and with an understated sense of humor. She also never forgot a favor or a slight.

“Yes, ser?”

“I’m in my office. I’d appreciate it if you could stop by.”

“Yes, ser. I’ll be right there.”

“Thank you.”

What did she want? To wish me well? Change my mind? Tell me I was making a mistake? I didn’t know, and wasn’t about to guess, since Matteus had been the toughest officer to read of any I had served with or for. Unless she wanted you to know, you didn’t. It was that simple. She had summoned me personally, rather than just talking over a private netlink, and that was unusual, to say the least.

I closed the locker I had been studying prior to packing and made my way out of the small cabin and along the passageway to her office. There I knocked on the door. “Major Alwyn, ser.”

“Come in, Major.”

I stepped inside and closed the door.

She gestured to one of the chairs, fastened firmly to the deck, like everything in a Federal Service ship.

I sat and waited.

“You’re one of the best pilots in Federal Service, you know,” she said quietly. “If you decide to change your mind, I’d take you back and offer you ops.”

That was an automatic promotion to subcommander. “I didn’t know we needed an ops officer.”

“Subcommander Vehrens is being transferred when we reach Orbit Three.”

I nodded.

“You don’t seem surprised, Major.”

“No, ser.” It was better that I not say I’d been totally unimpressed with Vehrens, particularly since some of his duties had been delegated to me, and since it had been obvious that the captain and the exec had been covering for his lack of ability.

“He’s eligible for early retirement. He was once a very good pilot.” The captain smiled sadly. After a moment, she spoke again. “Before you make up your mind, there is one thing you should know. All transfers to and from orbit station have been frozen. No one who’s been augmented or pre-selected can go Earthside until they’ve been medically screened.” She gave a rueful smile. “And the equipment’s Earthside and likely to stay there for a while. Then they’ll have to sterilize Kuritim….”

“Ser?”

“It came in about an hour ago. There’s another plague or virus. It started in the Sinoplex…and a few other locales on the Pacific Rim. This one only attacks pre-selects who are augmented. All FS officers are both, and many of the senior techs as well.”

I shook my head. I couldn’t even leave the FS without difficulty. “Does anyone know how it started? Or why?”

“I’m sure someone does, but they haven’t seen fit to tell me, or anyone on Orbit Three. I talked on the longlink with Marshal Hylui. He said they had matters under control, but since the orbit stations are effectively already quarantined, if they leave them isolated, then they can concentrate all resources on the affected areas and people.”

I sighed. “I take it that if no one’s coming up, then I wouldn’t be going down.”

“No…you could wait on Orbit Three….” Her tone conveyed I would be waiting a long time.

“Do you still want me back?” I grinned at the captain. “Even as a pilot?”

With a rueful smile, she shook her head. “If you’ll extend for six months, you can have ops, and the promotion. There’s no one else close to you that’s available right now.”

And she wanted Subcommander Vehrens off the ship. That was quite clear.

“The quarantine?”

“That…and the rotation schedules. Sometimes, it happens.”

“I’ll extend.”

Her smile was broader. “If you make it two years, you can take early retirement and the higher rank.”

Thinking about Father and Gerrat, especially, there were suddenly reasons for taking her offer, reasons that looked very good. For that I could take the political games, for another year and a half beyond the six months. But only for another year and a half, and only under Matteus.

“Let’s go for two.”

Captain Matteus smiled and handed me a folder. “No one has seen your papers. No one will.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Could I ask why?”

“Yes…but I won’t tell you until you leave Federal Service.” She reached into one of the drawers in her desk and pulled out the gold starburst insignia of a subcommander. “Here. You can have these as a loan, and you can start wearing them tomorrow.”

“Thank you.” I couldn’t help smiling. “What would you have done if there hadn’t been a quarantine?”

“I’d like to have thought I could have come up with something, Subcommander. That’s something captains are supposed to do.” Her eyes twinkled, and I realized, perhaps for the first time, that besides being enormously competent, behind that cool exterior, Matteus was a very warm soul, almost too warm for the FS.

“I think you would have, ser.” I tried not to keep grinning. “I think you would.”

She only raised her eyebrows. “I believe you’re on duty in twenty minutes. Since it will be your last as senior pilot, Subcommander, I wouldn’t want you to be late.”

“No, ser.” I bowed slightly. “Thank you, ser.”

“Thank you, Subcommander.”

After I left her office, I was smiling—at least until I began to wonder about the epidemic…and worry. While my parents and family had the best of medical care, I didn’t like the idea of an epidemic virus, and I resolved to send a tight-beam message once we reached orbit. Quarantines wouldn’t affect that.

From the news reports, it seemed like there had been more and more strange viruses in recent years, despite advances in medicine and a far lower population than in the centuries immediately preceding the Collapse.

Again…I hadn’t recalled reading or seeing anything in the secondhand beamed VRs that we got on the
Newton
, not along those lines.

But there wasn’t anything else I could do…and I had to get ready to take the duty.

I hoped I could stand two more years.

Raven: Vallura-Helyna, 459 N.E.

After the interview with the CAs, even after the next cups of Grey tea, I found myself pacing back and forth.

So, after what I hoped was a decent interval, I found myself in my glider, the canopy locked firmly closed, repeater turned off, gliding northward toward Helnya, and Majora Hyriss, who had been one of the few non-family members to inquire about me, and for whom I’d always had a fondness. As I guided the glider northward, I was already worrying about the distance taxes I was beginning to pile up. Yet I was far less vulnerable in the glider, if only because the energy expenditure required to hurt me there would be more easily detected and traced.

It was still early morning when I eased the glider into the oak-shaded and stone paved spot clearly reserved for gliders visiting Majora. After making sure the glider was secured, I walked along the stone path that followed a small stream uphill, past a cultivated or at least ordered, natural wetland garden. After several hundred meters, the path ended at a short grassy expanse sloping upward and westward, beyond which was a cottage-like dwelling set in a grove of young redwoods—by young, a mere two or three hundred years old.

I walked up the steps, hoping she was home. Although I knew that in recent years she’d done more and more work there, that was no guarantee. But I hadn’t wanted to VR or leave a message.

After a moment of hesitation, I knocked. I could sense the exterior scanner, or maybe I just imagined I sensed the scanner.

The door opened, and Majora stood there in loose-fitting gray exercise clothes, her hair casually bound back and tied. “You certainly don’t arrive when I’m looking my best.” She studied me. “Are you all right?”

I had to trust someone. “No. Not really. Can you take a walk?” While anything anywhere could be recorded, all the skytors would show was us walking, and I could hope that no one had had time to set up outside directionals.

She nodded and stepped outside. The locks clicked behind her. “They won’t do that much good against an expert, but we’ll know if someone does open them.”

I must have looked quizzical as we walked down the steps.

“You’re the most self-sufficient individual I know, Daryn. If you’re here in the middle of the day without a warning, and without flowers, or the equivalent, I’m out of my depth right now.”

“That just proves you’re not.” I offered a gentle laugh.

She shook her head. “We might as well go to the lower garden. I wanted to check the basil anyway.”

I walked beside her, noting how quietly and gracefully she moved along the stone path, and then through the narrower passages in the hedges of the upper garden, where the flowers were barely beginning to spread, and the lower garden, which seemed without flowers at all. The smell was mainly of turned earth, and the underlying perfumes of something I didn’t recognize.

“It’s my herb garden. Herbs don’t replicate, not well,” she explained as she bent down over the green leaves. “The scanners don’t pick up the subtleties.” She frowned as she studied a plant, but didn’t explain. Then she moved to another plant with thin round tendrils, rather than leaves.

Chives, I thought.

“Good…” she murmured. Abruptly, she stood, and I realized, again, that she was nearly my height.

“Now…why did you bring yourself and your glider all the way here from Vallura?”

We stood in the circle of sunlight, with the faint rush of water over the rocks from the pond in the background.

“I need a friend, and I need your help.”

“I’m flattered that you’d turn to me.” Her smile was off-center. “And worried. Why me?”

“Because I trust you, and it’s getting rather clear that I can’t trust very many people.”

“You’re just discovering that?” Her thick eyebrows arched.

“No. Let’s say I’m discovering that I’m into something that has to stay out of the family, and…” I shrugged.

“You mean that the mighty Alwyns…” She broke off. “That’s petty and unfair, and I’d rather not stoop to that….” She laughed, warmly. “Not any more than I already have, anyway.”

Her laugh was infectious, and I smiled ruefully. “I probably deserve that.”

“What can I do?” Majora asked.

“I’d like to run a search routine off your equipment. Mine’s been snooped, and then some.”

“You mean you want me to run it?”

“That would be better.”

“And what are you, or we looking for?”

“A woman.”

“I’m not helping you find a wife, am I?”

I tried to defuse that. “This is the woman who tried to kill me once. She doesn’t exist—officially. Gerrat couldn’t find her. Neither could Kharl. But there’s one track…and someone else sent a destruct-clone after me when I was tracking down the one lead.”

“The one lead?”

“She wore some unique jewelry…only one person makes it. It was made more than fifty years ago…for someone of the same name, but I’m hoping there’s a connection.” I shrugged. “It seems to be the only one I have. It’s enough that people have tried to kill me twice following it.”

“Twice?”

“That was where I was headed—the stonesmith’s—when that wall fell on me.”

“Why haven’t you called in the CAs?” she asked.

“I have. They haven’t found any trace of anything in the one case that was definitely an attack, and the investigation of the third time just showed that somehow the wall had eroded, and just happened to fall when I walked by. I didn’t report the fourth time, although…well…there didn’t seem to be much point.”

Majora frowned. “Why don’t you start at the beginning?”

So I did, and told her everything from the suspected nanospray at Kharl’s to the clone with the filament knife, and the latest conversation with the tired-eyed CA. I didn’t tell her much about the possible UniComm tie-in, except that I’d been released by OneCys. “…and after that…well…that’s why I’m here.”

“There might have been residues from the knife,” she pointed out.

“Unidentified hydrocarbons and silicates and other common chemicals, plus the few cells of a standard monoclone…” I shook my head. “They couldn’t even track a laser caught on the skytors and melted down on a wall by my house. Their scanners were either intercepted or reprogrammed to eliminate the men in the glider-van, and not even Kharl’s equipment could trace the nanospray used on me in the first attempt. I somehow don’t think the CAs are going to be much help.”

“I’ll only ask once.” Majora moistened her lips. “Are you sure all this happened this way?”

“There’s not much question about the first two. You can ask Kharl about the first one, and the second. There’s also a CA record about the third. We both know that a wall fell on me, and I guess it is just my recollection about the holo projection and the men in the glider-van. There might be something somewhere on a burned patch in the middle of Helyna—besides my recollections and the VR from the CAs.” I spread my hands. “I’ve told you what I know.”

“It might be worth checking to see if anyone reported the latest incident, or whether they’re trying to keep it quiet.” Majora said. “I could scan the local news.”

“I don’t think they’d suppress that.”

“Because the suppression would leave more trails—or could?”

“They aren’t leaving many trails, one way or another.”

“Why would anyone go to such great lengths?” she asked.

“If I could figure that out, I might have a much better idea who’s behind it. I’m no one, comparatively. I’m not in Unicomm; I’m not
that
well-known an edartist. I don’t know any secrets.”

“Let’s head back to the house. I need something to eat, and we might as well get on with your search. I still have a report due by four this afternoon.”

“I’m sorry. This can wait.” And I was sorry. I’d dropped in on her without even asking if she had the time to help.

“If what you’ve said is true, then it can’t wait. You’re not like Gerrat, who’s always subtly exaggerating his importance.”

We walked quickly back toward the cottage, as peaceful-looking and solid as ever, and I had to wonder if I’d just been dreaming about all the attacks. I shook my head.

“Anything wrong?”

“No. At times, I just have to wonder.” I gestured toward the stone stoop and the solid oak door that opened to her touch. “Everything here seems so peaceful and solid.”

“I’d like to think so. I’ve tried to make it that way.” She motioned for me to enter, and I did, coming into a foyer with white plaster walls. Beyond was a small version of a great room, with a stretch of mullioned windows overlooking yet another garden, this one of flowers, including golden daffodils. “Just sit down at the table there.”

Her voice brooked no argument, and I sat, watching as a green-winged hummingbird darted from blossom to blossom.

“I love to watch them, too.” Majora set a plate before me on which rested an enormous scone. “The preserves and clotted cream are there.” Then came a large mug of Grey tea.

I was far hungrier than I’d thought. I ate two of the scones.

“You were starved.”

“You ate two, also.” I took a last sip of the tea.

“While you were destroying that last scone, I checked on local events.” The left corner of Majora’s mouth lifted. “There is a little item. Small fire near the center of Helnya, less than half a klick from the tube station…possibly an incendiary explosive device, according to the CAs, but the location under the heavy oaks rules out any direct correlation with sky tors records. The CAs are checking with people known to have been in the area.” After a moment, she added as she took out a small vyrtor keyboard, “Anyone would think that your brother would be the one people were after. He’s not exactly beloved in the networld.”

“No…but he’s probably feared and respected. I’m not.”

“Your father is the one who’s feared.” Her words were matter-of-fact. She gestured to the keyboard and headset she had placed on the corner of the table. “All right. It’s set up for a search under my ID.”

I eased my chair around the end of the table. After setting up the search routines I wanted to use, I slipped in the first inquiry—the historical one to see if I could find a record of an Ahmad who had taken passage to Hezira between forty-five and fifty-five years previously.

Majora watched. “That’s neat,” she said. “I could use that approach.”

“I could explain.”

“No need. I’ve got it. I even recorded it while you were doing it.”

I’d known she was quick, but we’d never talked shop or techniques before. I wasn’t quite sure why—probably because Mother had thrown Majora at me when I hadn’t wanted anyone thrust at me.

We both waited, but the answers were there almost immediately—three names with dates, and the ship involved. Instead of saving or printing them, I committed them to augmented memory and moved to the next inquiry.

“You are worried,” she said.

“After something like four attempts on my life…wouldn’t you be?”

The next inquiry showed five possible matches, with addresses.

“I’d bet on the Sinoplex address,” Majora said.

“Why?” I asked, also memorizing and erasing the queries, and entering another, about the total volume of interstellar cargos, totally unrelated to the earlier questions, except in vaguely general subject to the first.

“I don’t know.” Her smile was more apologetic than generous.

“Are you telling me something? Or trying to?”

“No…” She smiled. “Even if I were, you wouldn’t listen. You have to work things out yourself. I’ll bet you were really hard to tutor for the PIAT.”

“Tutor for the PIAT? It can’t be tutored for.”

Majora snorted. “Of course it can. Any test can be tutored for. Didn’t your parents take you to different places…or tell you stories about imaginary places, and situations, and then ask you what you should do?”

I frowned. “Don’t all parents?”

“And I’ll bet they sent you off to sailing camps and survival camps, and places like that.”

“Didn’t your parents?” I countered.

“Absolutely.” She smiled impishly, an odd expression on a woman so handsome and tall, and one that warmed me, even if I didn’t know why. “Did you find what you needed?”

“I don’t know.” I shrugged. “I’ll have to see.”

“By net or in person?” Majora laughed ruefully. “Oh…why don’t we see? You haven’t ever been here, and after today, someone might know you have been. Let’s just see.” She bent forward.

I could sense she was linking, and before I could stop her, there was a faint chime of a distant gatekeeper. She’d clearly memorized the address coordinates as well.

“Please leave a message.” The sim figure was that of a woman possibly Elysa’s age, but her hair was a dark brown that was almost black, her coloring a faint latte. The image turned slightly, and I caught the hint of the clean profile—and the combs in her hair—not the same combs, but combs worn in the same style. “I may or may not return it.”

Majora broke the connection, almost before the words were finished. “Are you all right?” she asked.

“She…it…they’re…the facial structure’s the same, but the coloration is so different…it can’t be cosmetic.”

“Daryn…that was a sim. It doesn’t even have to be her.”

I managed a grin. “I know that. But…if she doesn’t want to be found…why any similarity?”

“Maybe it’s close enough for her friends to recognize and think she’s just having fun…but enough to throw outsiders off. How did you find the name, anyway?” Majora asked as she handed me the mug of Grey tea that she had refilled.

“The name she gave Kharl was Elysa Mujaz-Kitab. There’s no one by that name anywhere on Earth. But…well…the name had to mean something. I’d found earlier that the key words were from ancient Arabic medical treatises. So I programmed in all the combinations of the physician’s name—”

“All the combinations?”

“His name ran two complete lines of text,” I pointed out dryly. “That didn’t quite work. It came up with thousands of names, but I later found a different spelling of his most popular shorter names, and then I just guessed at some modifications.”

“An interesting way to attract a methodizer…give him a puzzle that’s difficult but not unsolvable, and one that wouldn’t even seem like a puzzle to anyone else. The question is why,” Majora mused.