Look to Windward (46 page)

•   •   •   

He woke up spluttering in the shallows, being dragged on his back toward the river bank. He looked up and behind and saw Tersono pulling him with a maniple field colored gray with frustration.

He coughed and spat. “Was I out for a bit there?” he asked the machine.

“A few seconds, Composer,” Tersono said, hauling him with what looked like enormous ease up onto a
sandy bank and sitting him up. “It was probably just as well you went under,” it told him. “The Kussel's Janmandresile was looking for you before it crossed to the far side. It probably wanted to hold you under or drag you to shore and stamp on you.” Tersono went behind Ziller and thumped his back while he coughed some more.

“Thank you,” Ziller said, bent over and spitting up some of the river water. The drone kept thumping away. “But don't,” the Chelgrian continued, “think this means I'm going to go back to conduct the symphony in some fit of gratitude.”

“As if I would expect such graciousness, Composer,” the drone said in a defeated voice.

Ziller looked around, surprised. He waved away the machine's field doing the thumping. He blew his nose and smoothed his face-fur down. “You really are upset, aren't you?” he said.

The drone flashed gray again. “Of course I'm upset, Cr. Ziller! You nearly killed yourself there! You've always been so dismissive, even contemptuous, of such dangerous pastimes. What is the matter with you?”.

Ziller looked down at the sand. He'd torn his waistcoat, he noticed. Damn, he'd left his pipe at home. He looked around. The river flowed on past; giant insects and birds flitted over it, dipping, diving and zooming. On the far bank, something sizeable was making the deep fractaleaf sway and quiver. Some sort of long-limbed, big-eared furry thing was watching curiously from a branch high in the canopy. Ziller shook his head. “What am I doing here?” he breathed. He stood up, wincing. The drone put out thick maniple fields in
case he wanted to lean on them, but did not insist on helping him up.

“What now, Composer?”.

“Oh, I'm going home.”

“Really?”.

“Yes, really.” Ziller squeezed some water from his pelt. He touched his ear, where his terminal earring ought to be. He glanced out at the river, sighed and looked at Tersono. “Where's the nearest underground access?”.

“Ah, I do have an aircraft standing by, in case you don't want to bother with the—”.

“An aircraft? Won't that take forever?”.

“Well, it's more of a little space craft, really.”

Ziller took a breath and drew himself up, brows furling. The drone floated back a little. Then the Chelgrian relaxed again. “All right,” he breathed.

Moments later a shape that looked like little more than an ovoid shimmer in the air swooped down between the trees overhanging the river, rushed toward the sandbank and came to an instant stop a meter away. Its camouflage field blinked off. Its sleek hull was plain black; a side door sighed open.

Ziller looked narrow-eyed at the drone. “No tricks,” he growled.

“As if.”

He stepped aboard.

•   •   •   

The snow flew up against the windows in swirls and eddies that seemed sometimes to take on patterns and shapes. He was looking out at the view, at the mountains on the far side of the city, but every now and
again the snow forced him to focus on it, just half a meter in front of his eyes, distracting him with its brief immediacy and taking his mind off the longer perspective.

~ So, are you going to go?

~ I don't know. The polite thing would be not to go, so that Ziller will.

~ True.

~ But what is the point of politeness when some of these people will be dead at the end of the evening, and when I certainly will be?

~ It's how people behave when they're faced with death that shows you what they're really like, Quil. You discover whether they really are as polite, and even as brave, as—

~ I can do without the lecture, Huyler.

~ Sorry.

~ I could stay here in the apartment and watch the concert, or just do something else, or I can go to hear Ziller's symphony with a quarter of a million other people. I can die alone or I can die surrounded by others.

~ You won't be dying alone, Quil.

~ No, but you will be coming back, Huyler.

~ No, only the me I was before all this will be coming back.

~ Even so. I hope you won't think I'm being too sorry for myself if I regard the experience as being rather more profound for me than for you.

~ Of course not.

~ At least Ziller's music might take my mind off it for a couple of hours. Dying at the climax to a unique concert, knowing you produced the final and most
spectacular part of the light show, seems a more desirable context for quitting this life than collapsing over a café table or being found slumped on the floor here next morning.

~ I can't argue with that.

~ And there's another thing. The Hub Mind is going to be directing all the in-atmosphere effects, isn't it?

~ Yes. There's talk of aurorae and meteorite showers and the like.

~ So if the Hub's destroyed there's a good chance something could go badly wrong at the Bowl. If Ziller's not there he'll probably live.

~ You want him to?

~ Yes, I want him to.

~ He's little better than a traitor, Quil. You're giving your life for Chel and all he's done is spit on all of us. You're making the greatest sacrifice a soldier can make and all he's ever done is whine, run away, soak up adulation and please himself. You really think it's right that you go and he survives?

~ Yes I do.

~ That son-of-a-prey-bitch deserves … Well, no. I'm sorry, Quil. I still think you're wrong about that, but you're right about what happens to us tonight. It does mean more to you than me. I guess the least I can do is not try to argue the condemned male out of his last request. You go to the concert, Quil. I'll take my satisfaction from the fact it'll annoy the hell out of that scumbag.

•   •   •   

“Kabe?” said a distinctive voice from the Homomdan's terminal.

“Yes, Tersono.”

“I have succeeded in persuading Ziller to return to his apartment. I think there's just the hint of a chance he might be wavering. On the other hand, I have just heard that Quilan is definitely going. Would you do me—all of us—the possibly incalculably enormous favor of coming here to help try and persuade Ziller to attend the concert nevertheless?”.

“Are you sure I'd make any difference?”.

“Of course not.”

“Hmm. Just a moment.”

Kabe and the avatar stood just in front of the main stage; a few technician drones were floating about and the orchestra were filing off stage after their final rehearsal. Kabe had watched but hadn't wanted to hear; a trio of earplugs had fed him the sounds of a waterfall instead.

The musicians—not all human, and some of them human but very unusual looking—went back to their rest suite, doing a lot of muttering. They were troubled that one of Hub's avatars had conducted the rehearsal. It had done a creditable impression of Ziller, though without the short temper, bad language and colorful curses. One might, Kabe thought, have imagined that the musicians would have preferred such an even-tempered conductor, but they seemed genuinely concerned that the composer might not be there for the real performance to conduct the work himself.

“Hub,” Kabe said.

The silver-skinned creature turned to him. It was dressed very formally in a severe gray suit. “Yes, Kabe?”.

“Could I get to Aquime and back in time to catch the start of the concert?”

“Easily,” the machine said. “Is Tersono looking for reinforcements on the Ziller front?”.

“You guessed. It appears to believe I may be of assistance in persuading him to attend the concert.”

“It might even be right. I'll come too. Shall we underground it or take a plane?”.

“A plane would be quicker?”.

“Yes, it would. Displacing would be quickest.”

“I have never been Displaced. Let's do that.”

“I have to draw your attention to the fact that a Displace incurs an approximately one in sixty-one million chance of utter failure resulting in death for the subject.” The avatar smiled wickedly. “Still willing?”.

“Certainly.”

There was a pop, preceded by the briefest impression of a silver field disappearing alongside them, and another avatar stood beside the one he'd been talking to, dressed similarly but not identically.

Kabe tapped his nose-ring terminal. “Tersono?”.

“Yes?” said the drone's voice.

The silver-skinned twins bowed fractionally to each other.

“We're on our way.”

Kabe experienced something he would later characterize as like having somebody else perform a blink for you, and as the avatar's head rose back up after its brief bow, suddenly they were both standing in the main reception room of Ziller's apartment in Aquime City, where the drone E. H. Tersono was waiting.

16
Expiring Light

T
he late afternoon sun shone through a kilometer-high gap between the mountains and the cloud. Ziller came out of the bathroom puffing his fur dry with a powerful little hand-held blower. He frowned at Tersono and looked mildly surprised to see Kabe and the avatar.

“Hello all. Still not going. Anything else?”.

He threw himself down onto a big couch and stretched out, rubbing the fluffed-up fur over his belly.

“I took the liberty of asking Ar Ischloear and Hub here to attempt to reason with you one last time,” Tersono said. “There would still be ample time to get to the Stullien Bowl in a seemly manner and—”.

“Drone, I don't know what you don't understand,” Ziller said, smiling. “It's perfectly simple. If he goes, I don't. Screen, please. Stullien Bowl.”

A screen, out-holo'd, burst into life across the
whole of the wall on the other side of the room, protruding just beyond the furniture. The projection filled with a couple of dozen views of the Bowl, its surroundings and various groups of people and talking heads. There was no sound. With the rehearsal finished, some enthusiasts could be seen already making their way into the giant amphitheater.

The drone swivelled its body quickly, jerking once, to indicate it was looking at first the avatar and then Kabe. When neither said anything, it said, “Ziller, please.”

“Tersono, you're in the way.”

“Kabe; will you talk to him?”.

“Certainly,” Kabe said, nodding massively. “Ziller. How are you?”.

“I'm well, thank you, Kabe.”

“I thought you were moving a little awkwardly.”

“I confess I am a little stiff; I was neck-jumping a Kussel's Janmandresile earlier this morning and it threw me.”

“You are otherwise uninjured?”.

“Some bruises.”

“I thought you disapproved of such activities.”

“All the more so now.”

“You wouldn't recommend it, then?”.

“Certainly not for you, Kabe; if you neck-jumped a Kussel's Janmandresile you'd probably break its back.”

“You are probably correct,” Kabe chuckled. He put one hand to cup his chin. “Hmm. Kussel's Janmandresiles; they're only found on—”.

“Will you
stop it?”
screeched the drone. Its aura field burned white with anger.

Kabe turned, blinking, to the machine. He spread his arms wide, setting a chandelier tinkling. “You said talk to him,” he rumbled.

“Not about him making an exhibit of himself indulging in some ridiculous so-called sport! I meant about going to the Bowl! About conducting his own symphony!”.

“I did not make an exhibit of myself. I rode that giant beast for a good hundred meters.”

“It was sixty at the most and it was a hopeless neck-jump,” the drone said, doing a good vocal impression of a human spitting with fury. “It wasn't even a neck-jump! It was a back jump followed by an undignified scramble. Do that in a competition and you'd get negative style marks!”.

“I still didn't—”.

“You
did
make an exhibit of yourself.” the machine shouted. “That simian in the trees by the river was Marel Pomiheker; news-feeder, guerrilla journalist, media-raptor and all-around data-hound. Look!” The drone swept away from the screen and pointed a strobing gray field at one of the twenty-four rectangular projections protruding from the screen. It showed Ziller squatting on a branch, hiding up a tree in a jungle.

“Shit,” Ziller said, looking aghast. The view cut to a large purple animal coming down a jungle path. “Screen off” Ziller said. The holos disappeared. Ziller looked at the three others, brows furled. “Well, I certainly can't go out in public now, can I?” he said sarcastically to Tersono.

“Ziller, of course you can!” Tersono yelped. “Nobody cares you got thrown off some stupid animal!”

Ziller looked at the avatar and the Homomdan and briefly crossed his eyes.

“Tersono would like me to try and argue you into attending the concert,” Kabe told Ziller. “I doubt that anything I might say would change your mind.”

Ziller nodded. “If he goes, I stay here,” he said. He looked at the timepiece standing on top of the antique mosaikey on a platform near the windows. “Still over an hour.” He stretched out more folly and clasped his hands behind his head. He grimaced and brought his arms down again, massaging one shoulder. “Actually I doubt I could conduct anyway. Pulled a muscle, I think.” He lay back again. “So, I imagine our Major Quilan is dressing now, yes?”.

“He's dressed,” the avatar said. “In fact, he's gone.”

“Gone?” Ziller asked.