Dark as Day (21 page)

“Rezel and Tanya? Those two beauties are the ones who wanted to meet with you today. You’re lucky. I guess I saved you from seduction and drugging and blackmail.”

“Indubitably you did. May I continue, or must we both descend to the level of facetious commentary? Next we have Hector Ligon, who seems capable of any manner of debased behavior provided that it requires no iota of sense or original thought. We could certainly trap him into any number of compromising or illegal activities. Sadly, no member of the family would lift a finger or pay a sou to save him. Even his father regards it as merely a matter of time until some act of folly on Hector’s part leads to his disgrace and dismissal from the bosom of the Ligon family.”

“Bat, I know you like to be thorough. But I have a Board of Supervisors meeting in half an hour, and if I go in unprepared there’s a couple of people who’ll love to chew on my ass. Could you stop listing the Ligon family we
can’t
pressure, and come to the ones we can?”

“A consummation devoutly to be wished, but one that I fear is at the moment impossible. Juliana appears to be as free from vices as her Uncle Prosper. The various aged aunts have been guilty of gross acts, but so long ago that no one today will care. The family members who have chosen to become Commensals offer potential, but I must investigate them further. For awhile I believed that our best hope was Karolus, a man blackened by sins numerous and dastardly; regrettably, I am convinced that he also lacks all shame. If we threaten to expose him, he will laugh at us and admit to everything.”

“Right. Am I being unfair if I summarize what you’ve told me by saying we have nothing?”

“If you are unfair, you are also accurate.”

“So I’m glad I did what I did, earlier today. But if this works out, you’ll have to consider an action you do not want to take.”

Bat finally opened his eyes, so that he could stare accusingly at Magrit. “The logical complement of the things that I want to do forms a near-infinite set. Do you propose to be specific, or merely to taunt me with vagueness?”

“You will have to meet with a Ligon. Now hold on.” She could see Bat beginning to bristle. “This isn’t just any Ligon. It’s a man who works for me. I’ve met him, and I suspect that the two of you may actually get on together.”

“Hmph.”

“I set the bait earlier today in my meeting with the sisters. If they take it, I’m going to suggest that Alex Ligon fly out to see you, there in the Bat Cave. After that it will be up to you. You want to remain on Pandora? Then the two of you have to cut a deal that satisfies the Ligon family.”

“And you, I presume, have no suggestions as to what such a scheme might be.”

“Of course I don’t. That’s your job. I mean, you’re the smart one, aren’t you?”

“Hmph.”

“That’s what I thought. So you’re going to prove it. Now, I have to run.”

She cut the connection, to avoid discussion.

From Bat’s point of view, however, the timing was perfect. Before the communication screen had time to become blank, an irresistible message from Mord had appeared on it.

14

Mord had been designed with great skill. Many times, the suite of programs developed by Mordecai Perlman would pass for a human rather than a high-level Fax.

Many times; but this was not one of them. The image on Bat’s display wavered in its outlines, and the voice that had called for immediate attention lacked Mord’s acerbic tone as it said, as soon as the channel was opened, “It’s everything that I thought it might be.”

The comment also lacked Mord’s usual clarity. Bat studied the wobbly image. “Might I ask
what
is all that you thought it might be?”

“The Seine, and its data banks. There are thousands of new ones, far more than you predicted. I’ve tasted hundreds, and I’m just getting started. Fascinating. But it’s”—Mord paused, as though scanning for the appropriate word—”
scary
out there in the Seine. I had the feeling that I could easily get lost. No, not lost. Swallowed up.”

“That was a danger I already predicted. The Seine has sets of programs designed to locate and eliminate blocks of code with no external pointers.”

“I don’t mean
them
.” Mord was not inside the Keep, but he was still within Bat’s protected environment. The display had begun to normalize, and his voice was contemptuous as he went on, “I know all about scavengers, I’ve avoided that kind of program for half a human lifetime. This is different.”

“I have experienced something of the same feeling. It is as though something new and very large is stirring within the System.”

“Maybe. But you’ve not experienced it the way I’ve experienced it. I mean, you’re sitting there, laughing and scratching, and I’m in the middle of this.”

“You feel in danger of your own destruction?”

“That’s not quite it, either. It’s not like I’m a parasite. It’s more like I might be
absorbed
into the Seine’s overall structure and become part of it. I don’t want that.”

“If this disturbs you, you could remain here and reside within the Keep. Its integrity and separation from Seine influence appear to be complete.”

“Nah.” The shake of Mord’s head was perfect human simulation. “It’s interesting out in the Seine, a whole new universe to play in even if you do have to watch your ass. I didn’t come here looking for protection, or to tell you I’m running a bit unstable and over my head. I’ve got a goodie for you. Do you remember asking me to keep a look out for anything that mentions the asteroid Mandrake?”

“I did so with good reason. Mandrake was the home of Nadeen Selassie. She was the legendary genius of the Belt, the weapons-maker who among other things designed the Seekers. She died on Mandrake at the end of the Great War, reputedly while developing some kind of ultimate device of which no details are known. It was reported, however, to be not a weapon for reprisals. Rather, it was designed for universal destruction.”

“Hey, I know all that. You told me, so I remember. I’m not some dumb-ass human. But did she? I mean, did she die? Are you sure?”

“The whole of Mandrake was heated to more than three thousand degrees by a direct hit from a teraton bomb. It became a ball of bubbling magma. I have myself seen those images.” Bat paused. “May I anticipate your next question? You are going to ask me, am I sure that Nadeen Selassie was on Mandrake at the time.”

“You got it.”

“I have no direct evidence for that fact. Nor, however, do I see reason to doubt it.”

“Well, sit tight, Fat Boy, because I’m going to give you a reason. I’ve been wandering the new data banks, the places nobody else bothers to go. There’s thousands of them, little stashes of information that were totally isolated before the Seine. I located a bank from one of the Amor class of asteroids, the ones that cross the orbits of both Earth and Mars. This asteroid was—and is—called
Heraldic
, and it had a little colony on it at the time of the Great War. Although it belonged to the Belt it wasn’t important enough for Earth to hit, so it wasn’t touched by any weapons at all. That didn’t do much for the people living there, because they weren’t self-supporting and afterwards the supply systems got totally screwed up. Everyone was starving to death. So they all took off.”

“To go where?”

“Not clear. According to the files left behind on Heraldic they were headed for the Callisto rehab camps, but I found no evidence they ever made it. If they did, they never wrote home. The Heraldic data bank sat abandoned and ignored until the Seine remotes went in a few months ago, set up the connectors, and hooked it into the general base.”

“Do you have the reference code?”

“Does Rustum Battachariya eat chocolate? Of course I have the reference code. You can see for yourself when we’re through. But I’ll tell you what caught my attention. After the war was over, but well before the colonists gave up and left, three refugees from the Belt arrived at Heraldic: a woman and her two little children, in a beat-up ship with planetary landing capability. One of the kids, the baby boy, seemed all right, but the little girl was going to die no matter what. Her lungs were a mess of dissolving tissue. The woman had a chance, provided she received immediate medical treatment. She damn near died anyway, what with seared lungs, skin burns, and a broken back. They couldn’t do too great a job on her, because their medical supplies had run low and they didn’t have a good treatment center to start with. But they tried. Before they were finished with the treatment, while the woman was still a wreck, the baby girl died. After her daughter’s cremation—she insisted on that rather than space burial—the woman upped and left, taking the baby boy.”

“For what destination?”

“You tell me. The record’s blank. She said they’d come from Ceres and were going back there, but that was almost certainly a lie. The orbital geometry was all wrong, with Ceres on the other side of the Sun when she arrived and when she left. The people on Heraldic didn’t much care. They had their own worries. She also said her name was Pearl Landrix, but my guess is that was false, too.”

“Mord, I am a patient man.” Bat ignored the snort from the display. “However, so far you have offered me not one scintilla of evidence to suggest that the woman who arrived on Heraldic was anything other than she claimed to be, a poor and disabled war refugee and her injured children. Certainly, you have no reason to associate her with the presumably-deceased Nadeen Selassie.”

“No reason, except for a couple of things that if you’d shut up for a minute I’ll tell you. They put her under when they operated on her back, and beforehand while they were prepping her they did the usual tests to see if she was allergic to any of the drugs they’d be using. As part of that, they did a routine genome map. They discovered an unusual corrected trisomy of one of the chromosomes. Whoever did the test made a note: the only cases in their records of that kind of corrected trisomy came from Mandrake.” Mord paused. “You don’t look any too pleased.”

“I am filled with contempt and disdain—for myself. Since this data bank is online, I should have searched for references to Mandrake. I failed to do so. Nadeen Selassie was born on Mandrake, and she did all her work there. However, if this is your evidence, it is anticlimactic. It offers no linkage of the woman calling herself Pearl Landrix to Nadeen Selassie. The type of genetic abnormality that you describe was not rare on Mandrake. It was in fact rather common among the colonists, and just as commonly corrected. It was merely rare in other parts of the System.”

“I’m not done. The baby girl died and was cremated. But when they first arrived, and before the colonists realized they could do nothing to save the girl, as a matter of routine they did a genome scan and performed a general physical on her. The genome scan proved conclusively that the woman and the baby girl were not related.”

“In times of war and disaster, adoptions are common.”

“Don’t fight it, Bat. You’ve got that gleam in your eye. You believe there’s something there. And I’m still not done. Before the cremation—again as a matter of routine—the girl’s body was subjected to examination. It wasn’t a full autopsy, but whoever did it thought the results were odd enough to include in the data file. The baby had abnormalities that had nothing to do with her injuries. It looked like there had been pre-birth tampering, in the brain and in some of the organs. So you tell me: was Nadeen Selassie a biologist?”

In moments of high excitement, Bat turned to food. He had stuffed his mouth so full with candied orange peel that it was a few seconds before he could chew and swallow enough to answer Mord’s question.

“Even after thirty years and considerable research, Nadeen Selassie remains a figure shrouded in mystery. She was, in terms of weaponry, the Grand Designer for the most exotic forms that were ever found or ever lost. I am forced to rely on rumor and hearsay, but by all accounts she was unique. Her talents embraced biology, chemistry, and physics. If it is possible that she is still alive …”

“No. Not even assuming that Pearl Landrix was Nadeen Selassie. Her medical record at the time of her operation and after is still in the data file on Heraldic. When she left, they told her to go to the best treatment center she could find. If she did that, and soon, she might live as long as ten years. If she didn’t get treatment, she would die within five. But either way, that was thirty years ago. Calm down, Bat. She’s gone.”

“You are undoubtedly right.” Bat had moved rapidly from skeptic to believer. “And the legacy of her work, the ultimate weapon …”

“That’s gone, too. If we’re lucky.”

“Perhaps.” Bat turned to look around the Bat Cave, as though seeking a suitable open spot for yet another Great War relic. “One cannot help but speculate on what it might have been.” He stood up, which in the micro-gravity of Pandora looked rather like an act of levitation. “Even before you called, a variety of incidents today had already made it impossible for me to think straight. I beg your indulgence. I must go now and seek circumstances which will permit me to regain my mental equilibrium.”

“You mean you’re going to gorge. That’s enough for me. I’m out of here.”

Mord’s image vanished. As always, Bat wondered just what it was that had vanished. Mord was no more than a different form of Fax, a set of logical operators embodied as an evanescent swirl of electrons. Today, however, the puzzle of Mord’s incorporeal existence was no more than a fleeting thought. Something more urgent was on Bat’s mind.

Rather than heading for the other end of the Bat Cave and the pleasures of the kitchen, he sank slowly back down onto the padded chair. He said, aloud, “Something more deadly than a Seeker missile. Something more surprising than the super-adapted humans whom we learned about during the incident on Europa. And yet they survived to the present. Why not this? Mord feels it, too. Something is stirring within the System, something big and mysterious. The ultimate weapon? Or the ultimate shared illusion?”

This was why a person needed solitude. This was why a man could not afford to be interrupted by the constant clamor of mailings and messages and media. Magrit—his recent conversation with her already felt old and distant—had stated it succinctly and correctly. He was the smart one.