Nova (20 page)

Cyana looked up. "You do? What sort of book?"

"A novel, I think."

"A novel?" They passed beneath the gallery's announcement screen: gray.

"You're going to write a novel. How fascinating. I had an antiquarian friend some years ago who attempted to write a novel. He only finished the first chapter. But he claimed it was a terribly illuminating experience and gave him a great deal of insight into just exactly how the process took place."

"I've been working on it for quite some time, actually," Katin volunteered.

"Marvelous. Perhaps, if you finish, you'll allow the institute to take a psychic recording under hypnosis of your creative experience. We have an operable twenty-second-century printing press. Perhaps we'll print up a few million and distribute them with a documentary psychoramic survey to libraries and other educational institutions. I'm sure I could raise some interest in the idea among the board."

"I hadn't even thought about getting it printed ... " They reached the next gallery.

"Through the Alkane is the only way you might. Do keep it in mind."

"I ... will."

"When is this mess going to be straightened out, Cyana?"

"Dear nephew, we have much more material than we can possibly display. It has to go somewhere. There are over twelve hundred public and seven hundred private galleries in the museum. As well as three thousand five hundred storage rooms. I'm fairly acquainted with the contents of most of them. But not all."

They ambled beneath high ribs. Vertebrae arched toward the roofing. Cold ceiling lights cast the shadow of teeth and socket on the brass pedestal of a skull the size of an elephant's hip.

"It looks like a comparative exhibit of reptilian osteology between Earth and ... " Katin gazed through bone cages. "I couldn't tell you where that thing comes from."

Blade of scapula, pelvic saddle, clavicle bow ...

"Just how far away is your office, Cyana?"

"About eight hundred yards as the arolat flies. We take the next lift."

They walked through the archway into the lift-well.

The spiral carrier took them up some dozens of floors.

A corridor of plush and brass.

Another corridor, with a glass wall ...

Katin gasped: all Phoenix patterned below them, from central towers to fog-lapped wharf. Though the Alkane was no longer the tallest building in the galaxy, it was by far the tallest in Phoenix.

A ramp curved into the building's heart. Along the marbled wall hung the seventeen canvases in the Dehay sequence, Under Sirius.

"Are these the ...?"

"Nyles Selvin's molecular-reproduction forgeries, done in twenty-eight hundred at Vega. For a long time they were more famous than the originals— which are downstairs on display in the South Green Chamber— but there's so much history connected with the forgeries Bunny decided to hang them here."

And a door.

"Here we are."

It opened on darkness.

"Now, nephew of mine,"— As they stepped inside, three shafts of light fell from someplace high to circle them on the black carpet— "would you be so good as to explain to me why you are back? And what is all this business with Prince?" She turned to face Lorq.

"Cyana, I want another nova."

"You what?"

"You know the first expedition had to be abandoned. I'm going to try again. No special ship is needed. We learned that last time. It's a new crew; and new tactics." The spotlights followed them across the carpet.

"But Lorq— "

"Before, there was meticulous planning, movements oiled, meshed, propelled by confidence in our own precision. Now we're a desperate bunch of dock-rats, with a Mouse among us; and the only thing that propels us is my outrage. But that's a terrible thing to flee, Cyana."

"Lorq, you just can't go off and repeat— "

"The captain is different too, Cyana. Before, the Roc flew under half a man, a man who'd only known victory. Now I'm a whole man. I know defeat as well."

"But what do you want me— "

"There was another star under study by the Alkane that was near the point of nova. I want the name and when it's likely to go off."

"You're just going to go like that? And what about Prince? Does he know why you're going to the nova?"

"I couldn't care less. Name my star, Cyana."

Uncertainly troubled her gauntness. She touched something on her silver bracelet.

New light:

Rising from the floor was a bank of instruments. She sat on the bench that rose too and looked over the indicator lights. "I don't know if I'm doing right, Lorq. Outrage? If the decision did not so much affect my life as well as yours, it would be easier for me to give it in the spirit you demand. Aaron was responsible for my curatorship."

She touched the board, and above them appeared— "Till now I have always been as welcome in Aaron Red's home as I was in my own brother's. But the machine has worked round to a point where this may no longer be. You have placed me in this position: of having to make a decision that ends a time of great comfort for me."

— appeared the stars.

Katin suddenly realized the chamber's size. Some fifty feet across, massed from points of light, hung a hologramic projection of the galaxy, turning.

"We have several study expeditions out now. The nova that you missed was there." She touched a button and one star among the billions flared— so brightly Katin's eyes narrowed. It faded, and again the whole domed astrarium was ghosted with starlight. "At present we have an expedition attending a build-up— "

She stopped.

She reached out; and opened a small drawer.

"Lorq, I really am troubled by this whole business— "

"Go on, Cyana. I want the star's name. I want a tape of its galactic co-ordinates. I want my sun."

"And I'll do all I can to give it to you. But you must indulge the old woman first." From the drawer she took— Katin formed a small surprise-sound in the back of his mouth, then swallowed it— a deck of cards. "I want to see what guidance the Tarot gives."

"I've already had my cards read for this undertaking. If they can tell me a set of galactic co-ordinates, fine, Otherwise, I have no time for them."

"Your mother was from Earth and always harbored the Earthman's vague distrust of mysticism, even though she admitted its efficacy intellectually. I hope you take after your father."

"Cyana, I've already had one complete reading. There's nothing that a second one can tell me."

She fanned the cards face down. "Perhaps there's something it can tell me. Besides, I don't want to do a complete reading. Just pick one."

Katin watched the captain draw, and wondered if the cards had prepared her for that bloody noon on Chronaiki Plaza a quarter of a century ago,

The deck was not the common three-D dioramic type that Tyy owned. The figures were drawn. The cards were yellow, It could easily have dated from the seventeenth century or before.

On Lorq's card a nude corpse hung from a tree by a rope tied to the ankle.

"The Hanged-man." She closed the deck. "Reversed, Well, I can't say I'm surprised."

"Doesn't the Hanged-man imply a great spiritual wisdom is coming, Cyana?"

"Reversed," she reminded him, "It will be achieved at great price." She took the card and put it, with the rest of the deck, back in the drawer. "These are the co-ordinates of the star you want." She pressed another button.

A ribbon of paper fed into her palm. Tiny metal teeth chomped it. She held it up to read. "The co-ordinates are all there. We've had it under observation two years. You're in luck. The blowup date has been predicted at between ten and fifteen days off."

"Fine," Lorq took the tape. "Come on, Katin."

"What about Prince, Captain?"

Cyana rose from the bench. "Don't you want to see your message?"

Lorq paused. "Go on. Play it." And. Katin saw something come alive in Lorq's face. He walked over to the console as Cyana Morgan searched the message index.

"Here it is." She pressed a button.

Across the room Prince turned to face them. "Just what the hell"— His black-gloved hand struck a crystal beaker, as well as its embossed dish, from the table— "do you think you're doing, Lorq?" The hand came back; the dagger and the carved wooden stick clattered to the floor from the other side. "Cyana, you're helping too, aren't you? You are a traitorous bitch. I am angry. I am furious! I am Prince Red— I am Draco! I am a crippled Serpent; but I'll strangle you!" The damask table cloth crumpled in black fingers; and the sound of the wood beneath, splintering.

Katin swallowed his shock a second time.

The message was a 3-D projection. An out-of-focus window behind Prince threw light from some sun's morning— probably Sol's— across a smashed breakfast.

"I can do anything, anything I want. You're trying to stop that." He leaned across the table.

Katin booked at Lorq, at Cyana Morgan.

Her hand, pale and veined, clamped brocade.

Lorq's, ridged and knot-knuckled, lay on the instrument bank; two fingers held a toggle.

"You've insulted me; I can be very vicious, simply out of caprice. Do you remember that party where I was forced to break your head to teach you manners? Your existence is an insult to me, Lorq Von Ray. I am going to devote myself to gaining reparation for that insult."

Cyana Morgan suddenly looked at her nephew, saw his hand on the toggle. "Lorq! What are you doing— ?" She seized his wrist; but he seized hers and pushed her hand from his.

"I know a lot more about you than I did the last time I sent a message to you," Prince said from the table.

"Lorq, take your hand off that switch!" Cyana insisted. "Lorq ... " Frustration cracked her voice.

"The last time I spoke to you, I told you I was going to stop you. Now, I tell you that if I have to kill you to stop you, I will. The next time I speak to you ... " His gloved hand pointed. His forefinger quivered ...

As Prince flickered out, Cyana struck Lorq's hand away. The toggle clicked 'off.' "Just what do you call yourself doing?"

"Captain ...?"

Under wheeling stars Lorq's laughter answered.

Cyana spoke angrily: "You sent Prince's message through the public announcement system! That blasphemous madman was just seen on every screen throughout the institute!" In anger she struck the response plate.

Indicator lights dimmed.

Bank and bench fell into the floor.

"Thank you, Cyana. I've got what I came for."

A museum guard burst into the office. A shaft of light lit him as he came through the door. "Excuse me, I'm terribly sorry, but there was— oh, just a moment." He punched his wrist com-kit. "Cyana, have you gone and flipped your silver wig?"

"Oh, for heaven's sake, Bunny. It was an accident!"

"An accident! That was Prince Red, wasn't it?"

"Of course it was. Look, Bunny— "

Lorq clasped Katin's shoulder. "Come on."

They left the guard/Bunny arguing with Cyana.

"Why ...?" Katin tried to ask around the captain's shoulder.

Lorq stopped.

Under Sirius #11 (Selvin forgery) flared in purple cascade behind his shoulder.

"I said I couldn't tell you what I meant. Perhaps this shows you a little. We'll get the others now."

"How will you find them? They're still wandering around the museum."

"You think so?" Lorq started again.

The lower galleries were chaos.

"Captain ... " Katin tried to picture the thousands of tourists confronted with Prince's vehemence; he remembered his initial confrontation on the Roc, Visitors swarmed the onyx floor of the FitzGerald Salon. The iridescent allegories of the twentieth-century genius glazed the vaulted walls with light. Children chattered to their parents. Students pattered to one another, Lorq strode between them with Katin close after.

They spiraled out into the lobby above the dragon's head.

A black thing flapped over the crowd, was jerked back. "The others must be with him," Katin cried, pointing to Sebastian.

Katin swung around the stone jaw. Lorq overtook him on the blue tile.

"Captain, we just saw ..."

"— Prince Red, like on the ship— "

"— on the announcement screens, it was— "

"— was all over the museum, We got back— "

"— here so we wouldn't miss you— "

"— when you came down. Captain, what— "

"Let's go." Lorq stopped the twins with a hand on each of their shoulders. "Sebastian! Tyy! We have to get back to the wharf and get the Mouse."

"And get off this world and to your nova!"

"Let's just get to the wharf first. Then we'll talk about where we're going next."

They pushed their way toward the archway.

"I guess we've got to hurry up before Prince gets here," Katin said.

"Why?"

That was Lorq.

Katin tried to translate his visage.

It was indecipherable.

"I have a third message coming. I am going to wait for it."

Then the garden: boisterous and golden.

"Thanks, doc!" Alex called. He kneaded his arm: a fist, a flex, a swing. "Hey, kid," He turned to the Mouse. "You know, you really can play that syrynx. Sorry about the medico-unit coming in right in the middle of things. But thanks anyway." He grinned, then looked at the wall clock. "Guess I'll make my run after all. Malakas!" He strode down among the clinking veils.

Leo asked sadly. "Now you it away put?"