Loralynn Kennakris 3: Asylum (48 page)

Northern California Territory;
Western Federal District, Terra, Sol

Antoine Rathor paused with his hand on the entry pad of Mariwen's room and turned back a second time. There in the bed lay Mariwen, asleep and looking so peaceful that it was next to impossible to reconcile with what he knew of her actual state. Beside the bed sat their mother, her long, dark gray hair, shot through with a wide silver streak, unbound so that it fell about her small frame like a cloak, holding his sister’s hand in both of hers.

“Are you sure there is nothing else I can get you?” he inquired, keeping his voice just above a murmur.

Amari Rathor twisted to face him, keeping a hold on Mariwen’s hand. Her face, its contours formed by a lifelong habit of cheerfulness that even the past two years had not been able to fully erase, was still remarkably smooth for all her years. Now, it wore a pensive smile.

“We are quite fine, I think.” Her voice was light and musical, its lilting intonation, which inclined to singsong, so much like Mariwen’s and so unlike his own. “No need to trouble yourself further.”

“Not even a last cup of chai?” He smiled as he offered it, as if part of an old and cherished play.

His mother dipped her head; her dark shining eyes could still produce an impish gleam. “Not even a last cup of chai.”

“As you wish.” His tone became more conversational. “I’ll be in Simla through the day after tomorrow. Then I’m at the office all next week and will return here for the weekend.”

“Of course, dear”—with a motherly bow of the head.

“Is there anything from the house I can get you?” Their mother lived in Simla, in the brightly painted two-story house with a steeply peaked red roof where he and Mariwen had both been born.

“Not that I can think.”

“Call if you do.”

“Certainly, dear. You should go before it gets any later. And try not to worry so much. It will be as it will be.”

Things usually are.
But Antoine just smiled and stepped through the room’s doorway with a parting nod, closing it by hand as gently as possible.

“Everything quite alright, sir?” asked the night attendant at the front desk.

“Perfectly, Carol. I’ll be back weekend after next. Have a good week.”

“You also, sir. Of course, we’ll notify you immediately if there is the slightest change.”

“Thank you, Carol. Goodnight.”

“Goodnight, sir.”

He palmed open the two armored doors of the reinforced entrance and stepped into the garden outside, the stars overhead glimmering through the security enclosure. Taking out his xel, he tapped up his escort.

“Evening, sir,” the man answered. “All correct?”

“Yes, thank you, Watts. Everything in order?”

“Signed, sealed and delivered, sir. The flyer’s warmed up and waiting. The bots are up, all is green, and we can promise you clear air from here to Simla.”

“Very good.”

“Sure you wouldn’t like some company on this jaunt?”

It was unusual for Antoine to pilot himself on these flights, but tonight he just wanted to be alone. Besides, it wouldn’t do to become over-reliant on others. “Not this time, thank you.”

“Very good, sir. Lyllith and Sean are standing by at the other end.”

“Excellent. Anything else?”

“Just this—a call came through for you about an hour ago. Unregistered device but looks clean. Said it was a Mr. Taliaferro.”

“Nikolai Taliaferro?”

“No first name. I put it under
query and hold
. Would you like me to release it, sir?”

“Route it to me in my car.”

“Wilco, sir.”

“Goodnight, Watts.”

“Have a nice flight, sir.”

Crossing the garden in the enclosure’s eerie greenish-purple light, he popped the hatches of his groundcar and slid into the driver’s compartment. Sealing them, he tapped the car’s console to life while the engines warmed up. The call was there, and a trace showed it as originating from Colombo, of all places. Of course, if it was Nick Taliaferro and he was calling for the reason Antoine thought he was, that was no guarantee of anything. He listened to the message, ran a print on it, and the system produced an opinion that it was a live voice and the speaker was who he claimed to be.

He took out his xel, brought up the contact screen and pressed
CALL
.

Nick answered almost immediately. The call automatically locked in secure mode, but only at the most basic encryption level. Nick wasn’t using his own device then. It was probably a resort line—a lot of them provided unregistered devices to give their guests a false sense of privacy.

“Hello Nick. You appear to be in Sri Lanka.”

“I know. It was Ceylon last time I was here. They seem to have a devil of a time making up their minds.”

“The exigencies of politics. Are you enjoying yourself?”

“The fishin’s great! Caught this thirty-foot bastard on a long line yesterday. You ever heard of a Nantucket sleigh ride?”

“I have not.”

“Me neither. Till afterwards. Nothing like hooking a thirty-foot fish in a fifteen-foot dinghy. Good for a few white hairs, lemme tell ya.”

What remained of Nick’s hair was, of course, already white. “Who won?”

“He did. Got towed under after a few miles. Shore patrol docked me three-fifty to haul my sorry ass outta the drink. Then I had to pay for the boat.”

“So you’re enjoying your vacation then.”

“Never better!”

“What can I do for you?”

“I was wondering if you got my email?”

“Regarding possibly meeting at the Cumberland event? Yes, I did. Apologies for not being able to respond more promptly.”

“No worries. How about it?”

“I won’t be able to make that, I’m afraid.”

“Worse luck. Maybe another time?”

Nick’s email had been an invitation to the Cumberland Windsurfing Championship Trials being held in New South Wales, outside Sydney. Why the retired Nedaeman Chief Inspector, whom he’d only known professionally, would issue such an invitation—and why for windsurfing, which had never captured Antoine’s attention—had been extremely obscure. And it remained obscure until Antoine took note of two items.

First, Nick had signed off the email with the phrase, “Remember Arroyo!” It seemed a superfluous bit of eccentricity, in keeping with his fondness for odd phrases. But Nick also reveled in making abstruse connections, and “Remember Arroyo!” and the name
Cumberland
were indeed connected. It took some digging, but “Remember Arroyo!” was a battle cry of an ancient British regiment, the 34th (Cumberland) Regiment of Foot. It referred to the Battle of Arroyo dos Molinos, which took place during the Peninsular Campaign of the Napoleonic Wars.

This affray was notable in that the 34th Foot fought and soundly defeated their opposite number in the French Army, the 34th Ligne Infantry Regiment, going so far as to capture their regimental band, the instruments of which—most especially the drums and the band major’s gilt-headed staff—became the Cumberland’s most prized possessions for over a century after. Indeed, it appeared they were still preserved in a British museum (although Antoine took leave to doubt the items on display were in fact original).

Other than this historical curiosity, the potential relevance was that a major case he and Nick had worked together involved an interstellar gunrunning organization known as the Molinos Clan, which, for a time, had operated out of Cathcar. The Molinos Clan was no more—their efforts had seen to its demise—and Antoine wondered if they had possibly resurrected themselves. But if so, why would Nick, who was retired, be interested in them?

The next item was an email he’d had received at his work two days earlier, through the ONI liaison office. It had asked for a report relating to the Molinos Clan—one of those typical interagency boilerplate requests that did not identify the original requestor. He thought little enough about it—ONI was always interested in gunrunners—until he went to retrieve the report.

Checking the serial number listed in the request, he found it was wrong. In fact, it was not an OTI serial number at all. Unwilling to guess, and not wanting to indulge sloppiness, he shot the email back with a request for clarification. It would take a week or two at least to get a reply, and he put the matter from his mind.

Then, suspiciously, Nick’s private email arrived.

Antoine’s reputation was for being exacting, thorough, dedicated and punctilious to a fault. Yet he was no stranger to extracurricular activities: a year ago, he had provided Rafe Huron with all his office’s data, including that which had not been released, on Nestor Mankho to support an operation to capture the terrorist which was being conducted off the books.

As Mankho had been behind his sister’s kidnapping—during which she was implanted to carry out a terrorist plot—he had a deep personal motivation, set against which departmental regulations and ordinary propriety were no bar. The operation failed, but Antoine had heard unofficially from Rafe that Mankho had gone to ground on Cathcar, with which the Molinos Clan had been associated.

He went back and looked again at the serial number of the requested document. It seemed clear he was supposed to do something with it. But what? It was not in a format used by any document retrieval system he knew of, and Nick would not be directing his attention to a document anyway. If he wanted a document, better to just ask for it.

If, on the other hand, Nick wanted to get a confidential and untraceable message into his hands, the logical way was a single-use lockbox. But the serial number was too short for a lockbox address—fifteen characters too short.

Fifteen characters.
Remember Arroyo
.

Antoine smiled at the memory. Nick was indeed after Nestor Mankho, and the lockbox indicated by adding
Remember Arroyo
to that serial number, contained a request for whatever data he could supply on Cathcar. It included a well thought-out list.

“I’m sorry to disappoint,” Antoine replied, still smiling. “I’m sure the competition is great fun. But I’m on my way to Simla now. As you’re in Colombo, we might meet there, if your schedule permits. Perhaps we could share a drink or whatever you like. Have you ever visited?”

“Not Simla, no.”

“It’s an interesting city—very picturesque. Though I admit to being partial.”

“Sounds grand. Aside from fishing, I’m here doing a favor for Fred Yu—was gonna head in that general direction anyway. Maybe the day after tomorrow? Would that suit?”

“Perfectly.”

“Where would you wanna meet?”

“The Shire of Hanuman, perhaps? It’s a famous landmark and the view is spectacular. If you only have time to see one thing in Simla, that’s what I recommend. Anytime in the PM.”

“Sounds spectacular. Say 1400?”

“I’ll see you then. Enjoy the fishing, Nick.”

“Count on it.”

Simla, State of Himachal Pradesh;
Pahari Republic, Terra, Sol

The Thousand Steps up Jakko Hill to the Shrine of Hanuman wound through forests of fragrant weeping deodars and, in the lower reaches, clumps of hardy rhododendrons. The pitiless sun in the brilliant sky overhead sent golden shafts through the branches, but the temperature dropped noticeably during the climb as the air thinned. Nonetheless, Nick was sweating freely as he labored up the path scooped out by countless feet.

Located at an altitude of 8,000 feet, the shrine occupied the loftiest peak above Simla, and Nick had been long in the flatlands. In the bloom of his youth, he would have sprinted the whole way—he was stupid like that back then—but now, many decades and pounds of heft later, he must pause every hundred steps or so, while countless monkeys, hanging about the trees or loafing insolently on the leaf-littered ground, heaped scorn and derision on his bowed head as he puffed and wheezed.

At last he reached the temple grounds, surrounded by a high, crenellated wall of honey-colored stone that was decorated with scenes from Hanuman’s life. Beside the massive gatehouse, which was pierced by an archway fitted with intricate wrought-iron gates, a welcoming bench of that same stone, set against the wall, offered itself to him. He gratefully lowered his perspiring bulk onto it. Pulling off the soft-crowned bush hat, he produced a neckerchief from one of the many pockets of his beige cargo pants and began to mop his brow and naked mahogany scalp above the sparse fringe of hair.

Either the faint whispering or pure instinct warned Nick, and he lurched aside as a dark object hurtled through the space where his head had lately been and smashed resoundingly on the bench. Instantly, he was on his feet, right hand grasping futilely for the sidearm he did not have. Then came the sound of running men and the shriek of whistles.

“Are thee all right, sir?” an elaborately costumed guard asked earnestly, as Nick scanned the carved battlements above and detected furtive movement there.

“Capital,” Nick answered, keeping his eyes on the battlements. The object that had come so close to punching his ticket for him, and now lay shattered across the bench and the paving stones beneath, looked very much like it had once been a flowerpot. “What the hell was that?”

“An accident, sir. Regrettably, it sometimes happens.” The guard swept his extravagantly sleeved arm to one side. “It is best to walk this way, sir. Much better, you will see. But better still to keep eyes aloft.”

“Yeah, I can see that.”

Crossing the courtyard without further incident, Nick paused at the ‘Shoe House’ plastered about with signs urging
Right Conduct
, with verbose details. Squatting in the entrance and armed with a long switch adorned with tassels at the end was a wizened little man with long white hair in a whitish, dust-stained, toga-like garment and battered sandals. That was taking things a bit far, Nick thought, as he bent to unseal his ammunition boots. It was inconceivable that anywhere on Terra there was anyone suffering from vitamin deficiencies and nutritional deficit sufficient to produce that withered face and puckered skin. He wondered if the fellow took something to achieve the effect.

As his hands touched the first seals, the man called out in a musically nasal falsetto voice: “Oh no, sir! Please desist in thy motions.”

“Huh?” Nick coughed, looking up. Two small boys—well, children; it was hard to tell what variety, but slim, barefoot and wearing nothing but loincloths—leapt from the dark recess the old man guarded and squatted jointlessly at his feet, nimble hands busy with the boot seals.

“Please, sir,” one piped, and Nick understood he was supposed to step out of the boots. Doing so, the urchins bowed thrice—they moved as if their bodies were made of rubber and springs—and vanished inside with little leaps.

The old man, grinning to show a few cosmetically yellowed teeth, held out a chit. It had a barely legible number inked on it. “Please observe all right conduct during your time here, sir. The entrance is just there.” The leathery old arm pointed. “Have a most enjoyable visit.”

“Thanks,” Nick said. “‘Preciate it.” And he walked barefoot up the last few smooth, worn steps into the deep-shadowed, spice-scented interior.

“Ah, you made it,” Antoine Rathor greeted him warmly from the gloom.

“Damn near didn’t.” Nick squinted about, waiting for his eyes to adjust. “Almost bought it out there. Falling flower pot.”

Antoine’s dark handsome face expressed deep alarm, unmistakable even in shadow. “The pot-dropping monkeys. Yes. My apologies. I should have said something.”

“That was a
monkey
?”

“Unfortunately, yes. They like to filch flower pots and drop them on the unsuspecting. Tourists, mainly. I am very sorry. For a time, it was happening only rarely, but now it seems they’ve picked it up again.”

Nick was still grappling with the fact that after all he’d been through in his long and storied career, he’d almost been done in by a cheeky simian assassin. “And folks here are fine with this?”

Antoine offered an apologetic shrug. “I’m afraid local tradition considers such occurrences to be an ‘act of god’. We do take steps, however. There was once an attempt to ban flower pots, but the monkeys resorted to rocks and, at one point, construction materials. It was felt the flower pots were safer, as they make more noise in falling.”

“That does strike one as a sensible policy.”

Antoine smiled, perhaps at the unintended—or was it?—pun. “After all, one can hardly ban monkeys from the Monkey God’s own temple. Nor chastise them.”

“Might do to hang a sign over that bench to the right of the gate as you come in. The hairy little bastards seem to have it pretty well zeroed.”

“A good notion, though the government has always been reluctant to ‘mar’—as they put it—the outer wall. It’s older than the temple, in fact, although not original.”

“How many people do they cap usually? The monkeys, I mean. Out of professional curiosity.”

“Not more than one or two a month, perhaps. Often less.”

That worked out to roughly ten to twenty casualties a year due to monkey business. Nick chuckled deep in his chest. Nemeton would suffer collective apoplexy if faced with such carnage.

“All in a day’s work then, I guess.” He gazed up at the tall, brightly painted figure on the large plinth, its front worn almost featureless by the cherishing of many hands. Unseen windows high above directed sunlight onto the gilded face, set with pearlescent eyes and a wide grin, wreathed with crimson dots and streaks. “Interesting looking beggar, if you don’t mind my saying so. Has quite the reputation hereabouts, I gather.”

“Hanuman has been associated with this place since the earliest times. Once there was a great statue of him erected near here, overlooking the city. It was held to be the tallest on Earth at the time of its construction.”

Given his recent experience, Nick wasn’t sure about the wisdom of having a giant image of the monkey god overlooking a city—especially if there were equally oversized flowerpots handy.

“It was destroyed in the Troubles, of course, as was the original temple. This one was built only a century ago. The first reconstructions were thought to be too modern.”

That explained the old man and little kids at the Shoe House, Nick figured. “Kinda wondered about that. The setup outside seemed a bit Drury Lane.”

“Yes, they insist on the employees learning the ancient accents and recreating all the elements of the period. I admit it does seem rather affected. Though it also has advantages.”

“Like no electronics.” He’d been initially surprised when Antoine had sent a message telling him to be prepared to leave his xel behind, and giving him directions to a local government office where, as a retired law-enforcement, he could have his held in safekeeping while he visited the shrine.

“And no monitoring.” Antoine pointed a hand heavenward. “It is essential people know their private devotions are not being recorded. The government takes that most seriously.”

A nice humanitarian attitude they were busy exploiting. “Convenient.”

“Yes.” Antoine took out his wallet. “I believe the god of mischief will not take it amiss.” He held up a chip. “It took me most of a day to figure out your scheme, I’ll have you know, but here it is. This is our data on Cathcar. I cannot swear it is fully up to date. In such a place, the situation is always—fluid. I’ve added my own notes on the major personalities where I could, especially Robin Volt. The scans of the environs are at least twenty years old, except for the starport—that is recent. As most of the settlement is subterranean, the details are sketchy but the broad outlines will not have changed. I’ve compiled a list of infrastructure with details of the starport and its facilities, along with what we know—or can conjecture—about vulnerabilities, of which there are some. I wrote an appreciation of my own regarding their notions of IT security. You’ll see they primarily employ the ‘thug by the door’ methodology. They appear not to fully comprehend what current bots can do. I hope you’ll find something you can use.”

“It sure sounds like it.” Nick accepted the chip and sealed it in his own wallet. Antoine had certainly gone above and beyond, getting all this info. Which Nick had counted on, given his motive.

“I'm curious to know what your fallback was, if I proved unequal to the challenge.”

“Ah—get you some place like this and ask you straight out.”

“I suppose that would have lacked entertainment value.”

“Taken more time too. We were pretty sure if we gave you a pretty tangle, you wouldn’t let it alone ‘til you unraveled it.”

“We?”

“I had a little help on this caper. I don’t think you know her.”

“Probably just as well.” Antoine glanced about the deserted temple. “However, I do feel terrible not warning you about the monkeys. May I make partial amends? Dinner, perhaps? Unless you already have plans.”

“I thought I’d flash over to Lucknow. It’s been years since I had a decent kabob.”

“Do you have a favorite place there?”

“Well, I’m not what you’d call a sophisticate. I usually go to Wazir Ali’s.” A well-known establishment, very popular with tourists, and in Antoine’s opinion, respectable enough.

“Have you been to Hurree Chunder Mookherjee’s?”

“Can’t say I’ve even heard of it.”

“I think you are in for a treat then. It’s in the Kimball O’Hara Grand Hotel, near the Serai.” The Kimball O’Hara—
Kim’s
to aficionados—was one of Lucknow’s smaller but more posh hotels. “They don’t advertise it and it’s usually open only to guests, but the owners are friends of ours.”

“Sounds stellar. I’d be happy to give it a lash.”

“We can take my car—it will save time. I recall you saying you were in town on some business with Sergeant Major Yu?”

“Got a commission to fill for him. His family’s up over the hill there.” Nick waved northwards.

“I’d understood the sergeant major’s family to be in Outer Mongolia.”

“That’s right. Like I said—
over
the hill.”

“Quite so”—with a gleam of amusement.

“His great-grandniece is getting married,” Nick explained. “Asked me if I’d deliver this gadget for him. It’s called a dream catcher—they’re a traditional wedding gift in those parts. Said to enhance one’s calm, keep things from disturbing your
wa
. That sort of business. Ever seen one?”

“Not the Mongolian article, no,” replied Antoine, who was quite familiar with the general concept.

Nick reached into one of his capacious pockets. “It’s quite the deal. Now what’d I do with it?”—patting his jacket. “Ah, here we go.” Bringing forth a parcel, he carefully unwrapped it.

Antoine bent over the object, cradled in Nick’s broad palm. It was a complicated spiral network of glowing gems and crystals within a circular frame trimmed with long fur that was almost black in the subdued illumination, but in sunlight would show cobalt blue at the roots, shading to rich amethyst at the tips. “Lovely. An acousto-optic alpha field generator modulated through these crystals, I presume. Is that larl fur, by any chance?”

Larls were the top predator on Pohjola. The average adult stood about twenty feet high at the shoulder, was around fifty feet long (not counting the tail), weighed maybe eight or nine tons, and could bite the head off an elephant.

“It is. Fred’s got a license.”

“A hunting license?”

“Yep. Bloody expensive. And, of course, it’s always an open question who’s hunting whom.”

“I should say as much.” But it did seem a sport in keeping with Yu’s character. “Thank you for showing it to me.”

“Glad to.” He rewrapped the dream catcher and replaced it in a jacket pocket. “Where’d you say your car was?”—knowing full well Antoine hadn’t said yet.

“In the VIP air-park. Just a short ways.”

So Antoine hadn’t hiked up from the tram station down at the foot of the hill. He knew there was a trick to it.

“Is that how we managed to get this place all to ourselves?”

“I asked the governor for a day of private reflection and said you might be joining me. He was most happy to oblige.”

As well he might be, Nick considered. Mariwen Rathor was perhaps the most famous and best-loved daughter of the subcontinent in all its long history.

“It’s the anniversary of the attack, you know,” Antoine added.

Nick was chagrinned to realize he had not noted the date’s significance. Antoine’s request had been much more than just a blind, then.

“How is Mariwen?”

“Not well, I’m afraid.” He gave a brief account of her relapse, to which Nick listened gravely.

“I’m very sorry to hear that,” he said when Antoine finished.

“She’s regained consciousness, but things are . . . We may have to consider alternate therapies.”

“You have my best thoughts on that.”

“Thank you.” They began to head for the entrance, but Antoine halted after two steps. “Stop me if I’m being indiscreet, but I was curious where you might be headed after Mongolia.”

“No worries. Maybe Outremeria. Thought I’d look up some old friends I haven’t seen in years.”