The Octagonal Raven (42 page)

Kewood

From Majora’s reports, it appeared as though most of the assignments would be done on schedule. I had also decided against any advance publicity before my massive programming change flooded the UniComm channels. So far I hadn’t gotten any rumors through third parties, but those would come. With any luck, they’d come in a few more days.

I frowned. I hadn’t heard from Brin Drejcha about the commentaries. I pulsed the link.

All I got was his sim.

“Brin, this is Daryn. Get back to me when you can.”

Then I started to review some of the boards that Majora had set up, looking to see what was missing—or more important, what
felt
missing. I didn’t get far before the gatekeeper chimed.

“Director Alwyn…this is Mustafa….”

Mustafa—what was his assignment? Residential and lifestyles—a not-so-subtle way of highlighting the vast gap between pre-selects and even well-off norms.

“Yes, Mustafa?”

“I was getting some footage of the Mancha Polo Club. Let’s say we had some trouble….” His dark face beamed. “But we’re all right.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, ser. Got some good footage, too. Already sent it back. Hadn’t thought this was going to be that much of a story…but, you know, ser…really is one.”

“I’m glad you’re finding it so. Make sure you’ve got plenty of facts and numbers to go with the footage.”

His smile broadened. “We got that, ser. Wier’s already boarding it.”

“Good!”

“But someone might be calling you. Security here wasn’t too happy. They were less happy when I pointed out that we were shooting from a public thoroughfare, and that we weren’t shooting people. Buildings aren’t protected by privacy.”

“Be careful.”

“That we will, ser.”

From Mustafa’s smiles, I had the feeling he’d found something more than I’d thought.

The gatekeeper clinged. It was Brin. I put on a smile as his image appeared.

“You were looking for me, ser?”

“I was. I wanted to look at those commentaries.”

“Ser?”

“The ones about pre-select programming being dictated by the pre-select cabal…”

“Oh…yes, ser, what about them?”

“Why don’t you come on up to my office and let’s look at them.”

“Things are pretty rough.”

“That’s all right.” I broke the link.

Brin appeared within five minutes, and I motioned him to one of the green leather chairs on the other side of the desk.

“What do you have?”

“Just this so far.” His words were flat as the projection appeared before the bookcase.

The opening montage showed the word “Commentary” in red in a hard-to-read script, followed by a scan of the marble arch leading into UniComm, then by a glittered stone pyramid before a black building. Someone’s voice rolled over the montage. The sonorous voice wasn’t Brin’s, but the effect was merely dull.

I recognized the words. I should have since they were mine, word for word. Unfortunately, they got worse.

“That’s enough.” My words were quiet, but Brin cut the images.

My first instinct was to yell—or to throw Brin right through the nanite screen and into the courtyard. I didn’t. I smiled. “Tell you what, Brin. Your team’s efforts have shown me that perhaps these commentaries weren’t such a good idea after all. Just scrap them.”

“You mean that, ser?”

“Absolutely. Scrap everything—all of the commentaries I assigned to your team, I mean. We’re probably a lot better just staying with a far more factual format.” I smiled more broadly. “In fact, I’d like you to spend some time looking at the factual material OneCys is using on their reports on education and multilateral developments. Look into it in some depth, and we’ll talk about it, in say, two weeks. Use the same team.”

I could feel his confusion. He’d clearly expected me to dress him down. I’d sensed the defiance. “I appreciate your efforts more than you’ll know, Brin.” And I did, if not precisely in the way in which he would understand.

For one thing, it was clear that the system personnel and I were thinking on a different level than Brin, and possibly some of the other senior managers. And second, it was all too clear where Brin’s sympathies lay. For now, it was best to do nothing with him, except try to keep him out of the program development and presentation loop.

“Actually…who do you know at NEN?” I asked him.

“Several of the managers…Piet DuGroot, Georg Sammis…”

“Could you set up some meetings—face-to-face, next week—with them? Feel them out on how they’re handling both the OneCys program changes and the personal attack approach that OneCys seems to be adopting. You know these people. I don’t, and I think they’d be far more open to you. Maybe you could set it up for me to meet them later, but I’ll leave that up to you.” I smiled. “Do you think you could do that? We’ve got to address this continuing attack style, and maybe you could get some insights.”

Brin didn’t know whether to beam or to be skeptical. “I suppose I could. I don’t know how much they’d say. You really want me to go there?”

“People don’t say as much on the net, and it’s harder to read their body posture, and you’re closer than anyone but me to the problem.”

That got a smile, if tentative.

“See what you can do. If you have to take a week, then do it, but I’d like you to see everyone you can.”

Brin nodded, a bit more enthusiastically.

“When you get back, we’ll talk about how to integrate what you discover with the late fall specials I’ve got people working on.”

“Late fall?”

I shrugged. “That’s the way it looks. You can’t create new products overnight.”

“That’s good, then. We’ll have plenty of time to do it right.”

“I want it done right,” I affirmed. “I need to get onto to some other things, but keep me posted on the arrangements and who you’re going to meet.”

“Oh…I certainly will.” He was already itching to get out of my office, and I thought I knew why.

After he left, I found myself smiling sadly, wondering why Father and Gerrat had let Drejcha stay. Because he was so transparent? Because anyone who replaced him would be more dangerous?

I didn’t know, and that bothered me, too, because I hated to think my father had been losing his sharpness. As for Gerrat, for all his winning personality, he’d had never had that kind of perception.

I looked down at the polished cherry surface. My reflection was murky, like everything at the moment.

Kewood

I was leafing through the assignment sheets, the ones Majora and I had put together and never inputted to the UniComm system, when there was a rap on the side of my open office door. I looked up. The senior correspondent—Devit Tal—stood there.

“Come on in. Sit down,” I offered.

Tal closed the inner door as he entered. He sat in the green leather chair across the corner of the cherry desk from me. His gray eyes fixed on me, cool, penetrating. “Mahmad’s missing.”

I winced.

“You gave him a tough assignment, didn’t you?”

“One of the toughest. He’s always been covering the multis, but I asked him to look into the movement to make multilaterals more profitable and accountable to stakeholders and to find out what was behind it.”

“The PST Trust stuff?”

I nodded. “I warned him, and I told him to do as much as he could through more distant research.”

“Do you have the assignment sheet? It’s not in the system.”

“None of them are.”

He raised his eyebrows.

“None of the pre-selects would ask any of you, or think that anything important wouldn’t be there.”

“Do you want to tell me what’s going on, ser, or do you want me to guess?”

“A war, of sorts,” I offered. “It all started when someone tried to kill me, and then someone else tried, and then someone else….” I gave him a quick and dirty summary because he’d heard it, but not where it led, exactly. “Like a lot of people, I went to the CAs. They couldn’t find anything. They also insisted that they couldn’t investigate people just because they had a motive.” My smile was lopsided as I looked at Tal. “Does this sound familiar?”

“I’ve heard it before.”

“So I started looking into it more, and my sister was killed. So was a norm helping her, or maybe she was helping him. That was Eldyn Nyhal.”

Tal offered a low whistle.

“You know about the latest events. The CAs can’t find anything, and the regional advocate general has contacted me twice already, warning me that he doesn’t like my approach to things…all very indirect and most legal, but what it amounts to is that he’s looking for any legal ground he can to stop us. Then, in the middle of all this, I began to follow the perceptual testing uproar, and I started to look at who controlled what.”

“It’s a wonder you’re still alive.” Tal laughed. “Is that why the managing director is in Westeuro?”

“You surely don’t believe that I’d send a noted pre-select who wanted to take over UniComm after my father’s death to Westeuro?” I snorted. “Anyway, for better or worse, I began to see that what I was facing was just a tiny piece of what gifted norms face their whole lives.”

“What about normal norms?”

“I have to admit that I’m an elitist, Devit. People who like porndraggies and shows like
Challenge of the Wild
or
Modern Gladiators
aren’t going to change. I just want any children with talent, wherever they come from, to have the opportunities, and I don’t want the children of pre-selects to get the guideways tilted even more in their favor. You can inspire people, but you can’t force them. So…I thought I’d try to stir things up…to shine some very bright lights into some very dark corners—all at once, and into lots of corners, so that the insects and parasites can’t scuttle from one corner to another.”

“I’m about finished with what you gave me. Can I take over Mahmad’s assignment?”

“If you’d like, I’d be more than pleased. Here’s the outline.” I pulled out the assignment sheet and extended it to him. “Do you want some extra help?”

Tal shook his head. “I think what you’re doing, ser, is going to create uprisings all over the world. You’re dangerous, because you’re the first Alwyn who really understands how to use UniComm fully. That’s why OneCys and the pre-selects are after you.” He offered a cold smile. “I’m not even sure I like you. But you’re the only ship on course. If they stop you, they can stop anyone.”

“I appreciate your ringing vote of confidence, Devit.”

“Like all your folk, ser, you’re arrogant. Like none I’ve seen, you’re honest, and you judge on ability.”

I wanted to wince, but he was probably right. So I nodded. “I try.”

“Director…I’m going to do this. I’ll do it better than even Mahmad. And your project will work. It’s too late to do anything else, now, and I hope we’re not too late. But after they count the bodies, I want you to remember that you used people just like every other pre-select before you. The only difference is that you put your life on the line. You chose to. A lot of people are going to die who didn’t get a choice.”

“I hope there won’t be many. If we don’t do something like this, I don’t think many people, norms or pre-selects, are going to have many good choices.”

“That’s arrogance, Director.” Tal actually sighed. “Maybe truthful arrogance, but arrogance.”

Could anyone with ability not have a touch of what others called arrogance? “You could be right. Do you have a better idea?”

His laugh was almost a bark. He lifted the assignment sheet. “If I did, I wouldn’t be taking this. You were right about who to trust. We told everyone to keep the assignments among us. I’d suggest you move up your start date to next sixday, before week-end.”

“Can we have enough ready?”

“We will. Those that aren’t, cover with reruns of the ones we have. You’ll need overlap anyway. And don’t tell anyone.”

“I haven’t, and I won’t.” That was for certain. I hadn’t even told Mother, although she definitely knew I was up to something.

I stood and looked out over the inner courtyard for a long time after Tal left.

Once more, I was feeling like a very black raven trying to find sunlight in the cracks and crannies of a tall dark cliff guarded by sharp-eyed eagles with long and grasping claws.