Context (33 page)

The addict must have wandered in
from the enclosing realm, Bilyarck Gébeet; perhaps it made sense to hand him
back over to the Gébeet’s proctors.

‘You know how it feels,’ said
Tom.

‘To be beaten?’ A heavy shrug.
Beneath his tunic, the big carl’s trapezius muscles bunched up like coiled
cables, relaxed. ‘It’s been a while.’

‘But you don’t forget.’

‘No.’ Looking directly at Tom. ‘My
name’s Kraiv.’ Holding out his massive hand.

‘I’m—Tom. They call me Gazhe
round here, but it’s not my true name.’

They clasped wrists. For all Tom’s
wiry strength, he knew the other man could crush his bones with little effort,
if he chose.

“Well met, my friend.’

The
next night Tom ran eight klicks along the Light Maze tunnels, worked flow/focus
fighting forms over and over on the uneven stone, among shifting shadows:
striving against imaginary opponents, kicking and gouging, throwing and
striking, until he finally stopped, chest heaving, his body hot and slick with
sweat. Not yet at peak, but finally recovered from the ordeal in the Grand’aume’s
dungeons, smiling to himself in the quiet knowledge that cleansing adrenaline
and pouring sweat had once more excised the childhood demons from his mind.

For a time.

The day after that, Yim Roken,
Master Grenshin’s dour deputy, put adhesive scan-tags on every terminal: a
coincidence, Tom assumed, because Yim Roken said nothing throughout the
procedure, and he would never miss an opportunity of accusing a subordinate
caught in wrongdoing. But it prevented Tom from borrowing a holoterminal again.

Yet that evening, as though in
validation of those mystics who teach that overwhelming belief creates reality,
Draquelle came into the men’s residence tunnel with a gift. It was a small
holopad, delivered at Madam Bronlah’s orders. At insignificant cost to the Master
Trader’s wife—but to Tom it would make all the difference.

‘Thank you,’ he said, and bowed
to Draquelle formally, as if she were a Lady.

For the holopad could be used for
more than amateur art.

Over the coming Standard Year he
worked hard: running and logosophical work—exploring new theorems, mapping out
new simulations—early in the mornings; a long day in the merchanalysis hall;
then studying and reading, followed by strength training and phi2dao at night.

Each night he slept without
dreaming.

His research proceeded
incrementally, while his physical training worked through phases: increasing
intensity through a tenday, then dropping back to easier levels, before
building up again. But each beginning was a little higher than the previous;
each peak a new achievement.

The merchanalysis work was purely
to keep him alive, but there were some snippets which would remain with him.

Such as the time Yim Roken
slammed a fist on Mivkin’s desk, saying: ‘If there’s an eduthread that can
teach you not to be a moron, I’ll pay for it myself.’ And Mivkin’s remark,
later, to Tom: ‘I thought I’d left schoolyard bullies behind, but I was wrong.’

But Mivkin had no interest in
learning the disciplines of self-defence which would protect him—psychologically,
physically—from such overbearing gas-bags, though Tom quietly offered to teach
him.

In the kitchens, old Xalya would
try to give Tom extra helpings—he was the only temporary-indenture merchanalyst
who ate with vassals—while complaining about her corns and blisters. In the
workplace, Jasirah’s petty jealousies, and her colleagues’ exasperation with
her, afforded Tom some amusement.

And sometimes, the housecarls
would allow him into their barracks, where he could watch them training,
empty-handed and with weapons. They used tsatsoulination breathing and control
techniques, beyond anything Tom had learned in phi2dao flow/focus training.

No-one, at least verbally,
invited him to join in; he was happy to observe.

Tom
was not there the night young Horush was injured, far more seriously than
anyone realized at the time. The various accounts provided to him by his
friends among the carls enabled him to piece together what had occurred.

One of the spectators was a lean
housecarl called Harald, sitting on a bench at the side, his arm encased in
amber gel: an injury gained from groundfighting with Kraiv five days earlier.

‘He was on top form that night,’
Harald told Tom later. ‘Never seen Kraiv looking so good.’

Every warrior in the platoon was
already breathing hard, tunics dark with sweat, muscular bare limbs glistening,
when the drillmaster sergeant, his long face rippling with old scars, called
the carls out in groups of six, for synchronized spear work, using forms that
were normally performed solo.

With heavy morphospears, each
weapon tuned to basic halberd configuration, the six men stamped and spun in
unison across the battered, padded mats stained brown with old blood, avoiding
the mattress-wrapped pillars, venting their berserker roar as they hacked and killed
enemies of their own imagining. Kraiv fought hard, eyes crazed, white dry
spittle encrusting his mouth: a big gentle man transformed into a rabid,
vicious beast.

‘And fast,’ said Harald. ‘For a
man that size.’

Behind his back, the big carl was
called Killer Kraiv, partly from the insane berserker stare which clicked into
place behind his eyes whenever he got deeply into solo practice. But partly,
too, it was in contrast to his normal nature: easygoing, always concerned with
other people’s troubles and willing to help.

‘Next group,’ called the
drillmaster sergeant.

When the entire platoon of thirty
men had demonstrated their skill, he called back the first group and gave the
command: ‘Partner up!’

It was unarmed close-quarter
combat, a sparring session, and young Horush was the third opponent Kraiv
faced.

They moved fast, Horush trying to
use his lanky speed in avoidance, but Kraiv’s huge muscular form whirled and leaped
across the mats in unpredictable ways, and just as Horush leaped to attack, a
flashing backfist, light and whippy and totally unseen, struck him on the
temple and he fell.

Horush was back on his feet
almost immediately, while Kraiv apologized as the berserker stare dropped from
his eyes. Just one word: ‘Sorry.’

No serious fighting school, if it
is of any worth, permits more than a single word of abbreviated apology; some
allow none at all. It is to do with attitude of mind, concerns of life and
death.

But Tom wondered, as he heard the
tale, whether there was any sense in a system which pitted lightweight youths
against massive, seasoned warriors in a sparring situation, and expected no-one
to get hurt.

The training session ended in
good order, and the carls went to wash and change, then meet up with the
womenfolk who would have undergone their own training during the day. En masse,
they would retire to the great dining chamber where circular bronze shields
glimmered upon dark walls, to eat their one true meal of the day. It would be a
big one, a warriors’ dinner, consisting of at least four courses, during which
they would flirt and laugh and boast: taking the opportunity to relate tall,
outrageous tales or spin convoluted, often surreal riddles—always friendly,
always competitive.

And it was afterwards, when
Horush was walking back towards the barracks’ sleeping chambers, that his eyes
rolled up in their sockets and he crashed heavily to the flagstones. Harald was
the first to drop to one knee, put his fingertips to Horush’s throat, and
discover there was no pulse to be felt: none at all.

But
Horush was sitting up in the autodoc and talking when Tom arrived at the
barracks’ med complex. Tom broke off a glucose-bulb from a copper syrup-tree,
and handed it to Horush.

‘They revived you, then,’ he
said.

‘Thanks.’ Horush sipped, then
leaned back, closing his eyes. ‘Good. I—’

His eyelids fluttered.

Tom looked away, thinking only of
Elva as the thanatotrope took hold, flooding her nervous system with
fast-acting toxins, while the implanted femtarrays spun her soul across
spacetime to the waiting duplicate and her true body died
—

‘... not too long.’ The on-duty
medic, a carl with a white-edged tunic, was leaning over the display’s
phase-spaces. ‘In fact, I think he should sleep now.’

‘Will he be all right?’

‘I’d say so. But don’t, um... Don’t
say anything to Kraiv, OK?’

Tom blinked. ‘He doesn’t know?’

‘Not that it’s his fault. I’d
rather not worry him.’

‘Right. I can see that.’

Tom shook his head, sure that he
was missing something, but the medic was already leaving to check another
patient.