The Rosetta Codex (19 page)

They lost half of the remaining stones to the security officers on the other side of the bridge, but entered Karadum with the alien book intact. As soon as they were out of sight of the station, Cale pulled the bag of stones from his rucksack and tossed it into a pile of trash on a side street behind a gambling house. They walked on.

 

The next morning they bought a ride in a trader's van not unlike the one in which they'd come to Karadum. They
would be in Morningstar in a few more days, and then after that they would soon be leaving—leaving Morningstar, Conrad's World, this star system. They were returning home, Sidonie said. Cale wasn't so sure. But now, at last, he was willing to see if it was possibly true.

Lagrima. Home?

 

They began their descent in artificial twilight, then emerged from the orbital station and into the unexpected blinding glare of the sun. Cale shaded his eyes, blinking, just as the steelglass before him polarized and eased the glare. Seated beside him, Sidonie put a hand on his arm. “Sorry, I forgot to warn you about that.”

The passenger ring continued its drop down the outer rim of the space elevator's cargo shaft, rotating slowly, while the sun appeared to be setting in fast-motion, the sky's colors
transitioning from lighter hues to darker, from the palest turquoise blue to wide swaths of deep yellow and fiery orange. Then, as the sun disappeared and their view slowly spiraled toward the south, the sky became a dark rose that blossomed into a rich bloodred. Disoriented, feeling as if they were descending through time as well as space, Cale watched the final transitions through darkening violet and then cobalt and indigo until, as they entered complete night, stars appeared both above and below them.

The thousands of shining points below and steadily approaching were not stars at all but the lights of Lagrima. The city lay spread out beneath them for miles in all directions, its boundaries delineated by a band of darkness blacker than shadow.

The sea came into view, strangely lit from beneath the water near the shore, the shallows a bright aqua that darkened toward slate as the water deepened, and eventually became nearly black. Several thin appendages of the city's eastern perimeter extended out over the surface of the water, buildings and avenues gleaming with light and movement. Tiny sparkling shapes rose and fell with gentle swells out on the deeper darker waters. Translucent cloud-like forms drifted above the sea, trailing gold streamers.

Their rotation and descent continued, revealing a ragged, sparsely lit coastline that stretched far away from Lagrima, somehow separate and independent of the city, and which then disappeared into darkness and heavy mists. Then the main city reappeared, vaster and nearer now, brighter and more alive though they were still miles above it. Multicolored lights of flying vehicles wove chaotic patterns above the city.

Sidonie pointed to a glistening structure of gold and crimson lights near the distant edge of the city, the lights forming the three-dimensional shape of a glowing-eyed falcon with talons outstretched as though reaching for its prey. The image was familiar to Cale in a vague and unsettling way, so that he wanted to turn away from it and yet stare harder at it at the same time.

“Home,” she said. “The Alexandros Family Estates.” She shook her head. “It used to be more than three times that size, before you were born. The largest on this world, the largest on
two
worlds. It was still nearly twice that size when we left, and much nearer to the core of the city. Things change so fast here.”

She gestured at a vast and sparkling emerald enclave shaped like a pyramid, and an enormous tower of silver and blue lattices rising two or more miles above the city. Both were significantly larger than the Alexandros Estates, denser and higher, as well as covering far more territory, and both gave off a blazing luminescence that pulsed into the night like the beating of gigantic and primeval hearts.

“The Saar Family Consortium, and the Titan Consortium,” Sidonie explained. “They used to be weak competitors, much smaller than what you see. Now they're leaving you far behind, and mostly warring with each other. Before long they'll try to completely eliminate you.”

“That might be a good thing,” Cale said.

“Cale,” she said, looking sternly at him. “The Consortium is your inheritance. Your heritage.”

Cale didn't reply, and soon they were again facing the sea. Shadowy forms looped through the water, thin white lines of waves sluiced up the long expansive slopes, never
quite reaching the clusters of people and shelters scattered along the beaches. Smoke rose from dozens of outdoor fires; a scattering of black disks shot out over the water; an elongated balloon drifted above the docks.

When they came around to face the city once more, farther down the shaft, Cale finally began to appreciate how extensive Lagrima was. Structures that were clearly several hundred stories high still seemed quite small, and he now realized that the city boundaries were sixty or seventy or more miles distant. Lagrima would completely dwarf Morningstar if they were to be set side by side.

One final slow rotation and he could make out swimmers in the sea and diners at outdoor tables on long floating docks, distinct roadways and smaller individual buildings, and the throngs of people in the streets around the port facilities.

The passenger ring slowed, and eventually came to a stop far above the street, at a featureless platform that extended several hundred feet from the elevator and hid the streets below. Several hovering vehicles waited at the edge of the platform, sleek and expensive in appearance.

The seat restraints remained in place, and Cale glanced at Sidonie. “Not for us,” she said with her amused and crooked smile. “We get off at street level. This is for the elites. Would have been us, I suppose, if we weren't coming in unannounced and under different names.”

Two women and a man emerged first from the inner elevator compartments and stepped out onto the platform. Bodies enclosed in elaborate coppery exoskeletons, they walked leisurely across the platform toward the waiting vehicles. They were followed by a family of two adults and several children all dressed in simple hooded brown robes;
behind them trailed three self-propelled carts stacked with crates and metal tubes and elaborate yellow baskets, guided by an old man with two tufts of white hair sprouting just above his ears. Last to emerge were four masked and helmeted figures wearing what appeared to be military uniforms, dark green shock suits with insignia on their upper arms.

As the first three slid their exoskeletoned forms into the rear compartment of a long blue and silver vehicle with blacked-out windows, the elevator resumed its descent. It dropped into a dark shaft, then emerged with a burst of light into a vast terminal swarming with people and vendor carts and jinrickshas.

The seat restraints unlatched and retracted. Cale and Sidonie stood and retrieved their bags from the locked cubicles behind their seats—rucksack and duffel bag for Cale, two duffels for Sidonie. Everything they owned. “Hang on tight to your bags,” Sidonie warned him. “What security they've got down here is just about worthless.” They stood in front of their seats, and after an unintelligible digitized voice sounded, the steelglass before them rolled up into the ceiling, letting in an incredible rush of noise. They stepped out into the terminal.

The heat washed over him, heavy and damp and enervating, and he stopped and swayed, momentarily dizzy. “Wait until midday,” Sidonie said. “You'll see why so much of the city is climate controlled.”

“Where to now?” Cale asked.

“We'll walk. It isn't far.” She pushed her way into the crowd and Cale followed.

Sidonie had decided not to go to the Alexandros Estates
right away, to wait until daylight when people were more likely to be awake. She knew of an inn that at one time had been run by one of her cousins, and they would stay there if it still existed. If not, there was no shortage of places to stay here in the port sector.

Cale felt overwhelmed by the unfamiliar smells and sounds and lights of the streets. Music and barked orders and the aroma of cooking foods and sputtering signs and a blaring klaxon and squawking animals and the stench of burning plastic all became mingled so that he could barely distinguish one from another. He tightly gripped his bags and tried to stay focused on Sidonie as they walked past jinku parlors and taverns and stunner arcades and day spas and neural hook-ups, soup sellers and street preachers and ratpacks and pedalcart cabbies and two barking dogboys crawling past them on all fours.

Fifteen minutes later they discovered that the inn had changed names and ownership several times in recent years. Now it was a stunner arcade. They stood for a while and watched the jerking forms in the stunner booths through the front window, then turned away. They'd have to find some other place to stay.

A straw hat bobbing in the mass of people across the roadway caught his eye. Something very familiar about that hat . . . not just the hat but the way it moved, something about the gait it implied.

“What is it?” Sidonie asked.

“Don't know,” Cale replied. “That hat. I thought it . . .” He pushed forward through the crowd and stepped into the street, weaving his way through the vehicles and pedestrians, trying to keep the straw hat in sight. He followed it
around a corner and across another street, steadily gaining on it.

As Cale got closer, he could make out the figure beneath the hat. In one hand the man held a string sack filled with two bottles and several paper-wrapped parcels. As Cale saw the skinny bare arms and legs and the ragged shorts, memory rushed through him and he thought he knew who it was, even though the old man was by himself. Cale pressed forward, squeezed his way between two people, and put his hand on the man's arm.

The old man cried out and spun, holding his free hand up as if to defend himself or deflect a blow. It
was
the face Cale remembered.

“Aliazar,” he said.

Aliazar lowered his hand and looked up at him with squinting eyes. He straightened a bit and the tension in his face eased. He regarded Cale intently, then slowly nodded once.

“Ah, young sire. I know you. From another time and another world, yes?”

“Yes,” Cale answered.

“You've grown up. A young man now. But . . . I don't remember your name.”

“Cale.”

“Ah, yes. Cale. I remember now.” He leaned to the side, looking behind Cale. “And who's this with you?”

Cale turned, then stepped to the side, introducing Aliazar and Sidonie to each other. “We met on the other side of the Divide,” Cale explained to her.

The old man laughed, gesturing at the crowd and the buildings around them. “A little different, this place, don't
you think? Where we first met was a little quieter.” He sighed. “A lot more peaceful.”

“What about your brother?” Cale asked. “Is he still with you?”

“Harlock? Of course. Until one of us dies.” He held up the string sack. “I was getting supper for us. He's with the menagerie.”

“Menagerie?”

“Only a manner of speaking. My idiot brother and I signed on with a traveling festival of sorts a few years ago. We're staying on the beach for two or three weeks, performing. Why don't you join us for supper? There's plenty here. And if you need a place to sleep, our tent's big enough, easy.”

Cale looked at Sidonie, who shrugged in reply. He turned back to Aliazar. He was drawn to the old man, even though he suspected Aliazar had drugged him that night all those years ago. Something to do with Harlock and his visions. Still, Aliazar hadn't taken anything from him, hadn't done anything but leave without a word in the morning.

“Okay,” Cale said. “Thanks.”

 

The beach was less crowded than the streets, but not by much. Few people were in the water, but hundreds wandered among the fires and booths and distilleries, or strolled out onto the floating docks lined with bars and restaurants and dance pavilions.

The traveling festival was set up far back from the water, a roped-off encampment of fifty or sixty tents of various sizes and shapes, though all were made of the same green and red wave-patterned fabric. Aliazar's tent stood on the
perimeter, the smallest in sight, its open flap facing the sea. Aliazar asked Cale and Sidonie to wait, then ducked under the rope and clambered through the tent opening. He emerged a few moments later, cursing.

“I told him to stay here,” Aliazar said. “He doesn't realize how easy it is for him to get lost. Half the time he doesn't even realize he
is
lost. The hours I spend looking for him . . .”

They stood together and surveyed the beach, the festival grounds, the streets behind them, searching for some sign of Harlock.

Cale saw him first. Harlock stood hunched and misshapen out near the end of the closest floating dock, staring intently at something in the sea. The dragonlights from the restaurant behind him gave his face a strange flaming glow and cast a long shadow across the water. His clothes were drab rags and his feet were bare.

Aliazar shook his head. “He better be careful not to fall in. He can't swim, he knows that. Hah. Neither of us can.” He turned to Cale and Sidonie. “I almost drowned once, fell off my boat into a swimming hole. Harlock stood on the shore and bawled. Didn't have enough sense to go get someone. I was lucky enough to get hold of the boat and hang on until someone found us.” He started across the sand toward the dock.

Cale and Sidonie followed the old man. They hadn't quite reached the dock when Harlock lifted his head, stepped forward, and dropped into the water. He sank quickly with no sign of struggle.

“Harlock!” Aliazar cried.

Without thinking, Cale shucked his bags at Sidonie's feet, then broke into a run, taking the last few steps across
the sand, up the stone ramp, and onto the floating dock. He ran along the edge of the dock, a mostly clear path ahead of him, jumping over a series of planters, a springboard, and a purging trough, hardly breaking stride.