Context (9 page)

Gesturing, he interrogated the
White
Glowclusters
tricon. The three-dimensional ideograph changed shade,
unfurled like a blossoming flower, revealing intricate inner facets which read:

... a secret society of Zhongguo Ren
origin, affiliated with the Strontium Dragons and known to be responsible for
the following atrocities...

Enough.

He had friends among those secret
societies.

Tom explored another link.

Consul Populis, a breakaway
LudusVitae action brigade, came to power in Luftwin Sectoris during the second
putsch. They discovered documents implicating revanchist noble houses, led by
Lord Delivglan, in the arming of General d’Ovraison, the notorious Butcher of
Lenkilion
...

‘Stop.’

He waved the holos away.

It was a nightmare.

Corduven’s bias, briefing Tom,
had been different—he hardly considered himself a butcher—but the facts
remained as he had outlined them: for two Standard Years, since the abortive
global action codenamed Flashpoint, there had been bloodshed and confusion in
hundreds of realms. Widespread so-called revolution ... yet nothing had changed
for the better.

Nobles and repressed commoners...
They could all go to Chaos and Perdition, if only Tom could have her back.

Elva. I need you.

But there was no-one there to
answer.

A
low chime sounded.

Elva’s back!

Then he shut down his emotions,
cursing himself.

No, I don’t think so.

Grimly, he waved the doorshimmer
away, and saw Nirilya standing there.

‘I don’t’—he spoke quickly,
before she could interject -’want to see you just now.’

‘I know.’ Nirilya bowed her head.
‘But the .., the Seer is expecting you. In three hours.’

Expecting me?

Tom remembered Elva’s ironic
comment:
‘I dare say the Seer knows we‘re coming.’

Half-laughing, half-sobbing: ‘You
mean, it’s my Destiny to go?’

Nirilya stared at him, confused.

‘Leave me, Nirilya. Now.’

‘All right.’ Stepping back into
the corridor outside. ‘I—’

Doorshimmer, coalescing into
place.

Ice bitch. It’s all your fault.

But he would not have felt such
rage if it had been even remotely true. For there was only one person
responsible for Elva’s death; and now it seemed that he was the one who lacked
the strength to carry on alone.

He
reached inside his tunic, pulled out his stallion talisman. He made the control
gesture—a conjunctive sequence of protokinemes, a compound order: a substitute
for a left-handed gesture—and it fell apart into two neat halves.

Black nul-gel coated the crystal.

‘This was my real advantage. Not
ability.’

He had been fourteen SY old when
a renegade Pilot—a figure out of legend, until she proved they were real—had
given him the comms crystal. It had acted as a teaching document, and more: a
communications conduit to mu-space itself, until the last occasion of use had
burned it out. Scorch marks marred the smooth curves of an equine body: a
stallion, a mythical creature.

Perhaps some functionality
remains.

Before, he had been given
logosophical puzzles to solve, to extract the next portion of a tale whose
exact relationship to historical truth he had never determined. Even with the
comms resonator damaged, perhaps those old tales were in there still: a
comfort, a link to his past.

An escape. Or a reminder of the
first time he had seen Elva, when she was part of the hunt for the Pilot:
though the authorities never admitted just what kind of person they tracked
down and killed.

And it was Father who had carved
the stallion from a solid ingot. Tom could still see those blocky hands guiding
the cutting graser with practised skill; hear the spatter of molten metal;
taste the hot acrid tang upon the air.

I miss you, Father...

Tom inserted the copper download
needle, and began the sequence: expecting a replay of earlier modules, but
finding instead something new—a continuation of what went before—and in its own
way disturbing.

~ * ~

6

TERRA
AD 2142

<Story>>

[1]

‘Race
you!’

Albrecht’s white lanky body arced
through a competent dive into dark waters.

‘Bastard.’ Ro crouched on the old
stone jetty, careful of its slippery moss, then swung her arms forwards,
propelling herself, and cleanly entered the lake.

He’s never won yet.

Swimming fast: freestyle-racer
dolphin-crawl.

Faster.

Speed through superior technique:
the ongoing mathematical self-analysis of attack angle on the stroke, body
alignment cutting turbulence, propulsion from the feet.

Albrecht reached the orange
hydroplatform a second before her, caught it just right. By the time she hauled
herself up beside him, he was whistling nonchalantly, staring at the pine
forest beyond the lake’s edge.

Above, jagged white-capped
mountains looked serene, majestic.

‘You must be getting old.’
Albrecht spoke in English, as always when he was with her.

‘Getting cold.’ She shivered,
aware of her bathing suit’s flimsiness and his proximity.

They were both nineteen years
old.

‘Ro, I’ve been wanting to ask—’

A flyer was hovering over a clump
of pine.

It moved. Ro watched, analysing
its parabolic descent, its minute non-automated corrections.

‘Oh, God,’ she said. ‘It’s
Gramps. With Mother, I’ll bet.’

An
old-fashioned gull door swung up, and two people alighted onto the stone beach:
a slender grey-haired woman, and a stocky, ursine—like a big old Kodiak bear—white-bearded
man with wide shoulders and powerful forearms.