Palace (56 page)

‘No, it sounds brilliant. But you’re letting yourself in for a lot of work. And it could be dangerous if you end up going against the Peronidas.’

‘I’ll start small. And I’m only going to be married to Wan for twelve years. By the time I’m rid of him and them, I’ll know what I’m doing.’

‘That’s true.’ Samante considered for a moment. ‘That’s very true. Once we get this ceremony planned, we need to do something about hiring you a political secretary. I’ll put it on my to do list.’

‘Okay. And the bids?’

‘Pansect all the way. We were right. The control over the video was the deal-breaker.’

Samante wrinkled her nose. ‘Now I’ve got to call Leni. Wish me luck.’

* * *

When Rico returned to the suite in East Tower, he found Nju in the gather, watching sky hockey on the vidscreen, and Jevon in her office, sorting out a guild meeting agenda with a comm unit clamped to her ear and her Mapscreen up and running. Since the door to his uncle’s office stood partway open, he walked in without knocking only to find Hi jacked in. Rico closed the door behind him and stood waiting. Hi was lying, three-quarters reclined, in his leather chair, his cyberarm melded with its jack panel. Although his body lay dead-still, his eyes moved, looking up and down at something, and every now and then his hands twitched, or he mouthed soundless words. It was like watching a pet animal dreaming. On the Mapscreen in front of him, bits and pieces of his work flashed by, but the screen and circuits could never keep up with a human brain, properly trained and merged with Map. Broken lists, distorted graphics, half-finished commands, torn directories - only fragments of the access session ever showed onscreen.

Rico was just considering leaving when Hi finished. First the screen went dead; then Hi opened his eyes, shook his head with a yawn, and disengaged his cyberarm. He sat up, glancing at Rico.

‘How long have you been back?’

‘Just a couple of minutes. Mom sends her love.’

‘Yeah? Shuttle lift off okay?’

‘Sure did.’

Still yawning, Hi got up and considered the dead screen.

‘I was just talking with Dian Wynn. She was showing me how they’ve set up the stake-out for the candles. None have turned up yet, and I bet none ever will. Tell me something, Rico. You trained with Wynn. Think we can trust her?’

‘Yeah, actually, I do.’

‘Why?’

Rico thought for a moment before he answered.

‘Because she cares about the Map as much as she should, but no more than that - she doesn’t care enough to turn bitter. She’ll never be master of the guild, and "so what" is her attitude. She’s got the job she wants, and she’s got enough money, and what she really likes is enjoying life.’

‘Sounds good to me,’ Hi said. ‘I think we can tell Wynn a little more about what’s going on. I’ll have Jevon call her factor and set up lunch or something. The less honest talk we do over the Map, the better.’

‘How could anyone monitor without you knowing it?’

‘How could anyone create candle icons that burn holes in the Map and give witnesses sunburns?’

‘Oh. Oh, well, yeah.’

‘Did you talk with Vida?’

‘I did, yeah. She told me that we could take a look at the ferret any time.’

‘Good! Call her now.’

Calling Vida so casually, so easily, as if he had every right to pick up his comm and speak her number, made Rico’s heart pound. He’d called before, only to find her gone - but she had returned that call, after all. If she were gone, she’d return this one, wouldn’t she? Still his pulse thudded in his throat until at last her factor answered.

‘Hello, Samante. This is Rico Hernanes y Jons, and I’m calling on Cyberguild business. Is Se Vida available?’

‘I’ll ask.’ Onscreen Samante looked faintly irritable; then the screen greyed out to ‘hold’. Samante’s voice resurfaced but not her image. ‘I’m switching you over now, Se Rico.’

Vida’s image appeared, smiling at him, her russet hair gleaming in its tumbled waves around her face. For a moment Rico could only smile in return. Behind him Hi cleared his throat loudly.

‘Uh, sorry,’ Rico blurted. ‘Vida, I’ve got my uncle here, and we were wondering if we could have a look at Calios.’

‘Sure. You picked a good time. I don’t have anything on my calendar.’

‘Great.’ To Rico it seemed that God himself must have had a hand in this piece of luck.

‘We’ll come by.’

Vida herself met them at the door of her suite and ushered them in to the green, ivory, and maroon gather that he’d seen onscreen so many days ago. Rico felt as if he’d walked into a glorious cavern of treasures from some fabulous tale. Every piece of furniture, every work of art on the walls, every passage of stencilled decoration -she’d chosen all of them, she saw them every day, they’d soaked up the magic of her presence.

‘Thanks for letting us come over, Vida,’ Hi was saying. ‘I think your ferret has some important information, you see, data that’s been lost for centuries, even, and the guild could use a look at it.’

‘Of course, Se Hivel,’ Vida said. ‘That’s kind of exciting. Lost data of the Cyberguild. It’s like a holonovel.’ She glanced Rico’s way with a slight smile. ‘Rico tells me I read too many holonovels.’

Rico felt himself blush for no reason at all. Mercifully Hi chose to ignore it.

‘This suite must have a Map terminal, then,’ Hi said.

‘It does, yeah. Come down this hall, and I’ll open it.’

The alcove that housed a standard black access pillar was more of a Mapstation than a simple terminal, Rico realized, but he couldn’t tell how much of the equipment - flat panels on a wall, a row of jacks, a capped power strip - would be operational. He’d ran across other such set ups in East Tower only to find them long dead.

‘All I have to do is power up the pillar.’ Vida laid a finger on an icon. ‘And then say, meta One: Calios.’

The silver-haired revenant flickered into life over the obsidian pillar. Rico noted the images of archaic clothing: a pair of light blue, tight-fitting trousers and a white pullover shirt with lettering printed across it. Although he could pick out the individual letters, the words meant nothing to him when he mouthed a few.

‘That’s Inglis,’ Hi said. ‘The language, I mean. This set of images goes way back.’

Calios was looking Vida’s way as if he could see her. Apparently he could - and more.

‘Good evening, Veelivar,’ the rev said. ‘You have company.’

‘Yes,’ Vida said. ‘They want to ask you some questions.’

‘Shall I answer them?’

‘Answer questions on any subject other than those I asked you to keep secret.’

‘Very well.’ The image turned on the pillar and looked at Hi. ‘You have been given secondary access to my databanks.’

‘Thanks,’ Hi said. ‘My name is Hivel Jons, and I’m the current master of the Cyberguild. Do you know what that means?’

‘I do indeed, Master Jons.’

‘Good. To answer my questions, access all the following routines and utilities: Boolean, fuzzy, neural connectivity, Ri Karsh Rol associational.’

‘My neural connectivity routines have been damaged. May I compensate with the Karsh Rol pathways?’

‘You may, yes. Now. Before Vida accessed you, you were dormant. Is this correct?’

‘I was dormant until three days before Veelivar accessed me.’

‘Who woke you?’

‘I do not know.’ The rev faded, then blinked its eyes rapidly. ‘Accessing full Karsh Rol routines. I have no clues or possibilities-of-statement concerning my awakening. I was able to derive the time, date, and my location from the Map itself.’

The rev returned to full strength, an illusion of flesh and blood above the gleaming black shaft.

‘Calios,’ Vida broke in. ‘Tell them how you got out of Pleasure Sect.’

‘Formerly I was confined to the Map segment once designated Quarantine, now known as Pleasure Sect. Just recently, however, some cybertech implemented a new pipe allowing access to the non-segmented over-configuration of the Map.’

Rico stepped forward.

‘Was the pipe implemented on the night of the festival of Calios?’

‘It was, yes,’ Calios turned virtual eyes his way. ‘Who are you?’

‘Rico Hernanes y Jons, journeyman of the Cyberguild, and the tech who opened that pipe.’

‘You did what?’ Hi snarled.

‘When we were at the hotel, you know? And I was fiddling with that antique frame? I set up a pipe just to see if I could do it. I only just figured something out. Pleasure doesn’t normally have pipes to the over-config, does it?’

‘It happens to be against the law, yeah.’ Hi paused to swear under his breath. ‘No-one wants some amateur cybe in Pleasure messing around with public records and erasing someone’s cull status. By God’s great weeping Eye! Remind me to make you go close it down when we’re done here.’

‘Wait a minute,’ Vida said. ‘I don’t want to lose Calios. That’s not fair.’

‘I have relocated my base of operations to the Government House sub-configuration, Veelivar. I will continue to function normally if Master Jons wishes to enforce the Quarantine Laws.’

‘Oh, all right then.’ Vida glanced at Hi. ‘I’m sorry I interrupted, Se Hivel.’

‘It’s all right, Vida. I’ve got a lot of things to ask Calios, but nothing that should upset you. It’s mostly technical stuff. Calios, open a record file under my name.’

As Rico had expected, the first round of questions concerned Calios’ abilities which, while amazing by modern standards by no means made him omnipotent. Although he could perform all of the everyday functions that citizens needed - banking, shopping, voting, and so on - his access codes were strictly limited. He could socket into Caliostro, for instance, to ferret data, but the socket was strictly one-way: he could change not one bit of an AI’s code or core databanks. All his authority lay in odd jobs.

While Hi and the revenant talked back and forth, Vida leaned against the wall and listened, frowning now and then when the jargon left her behind, but most definitely absorbed in the data.

‘Se Hivel?’ she said at one point. ‘Let me see if I have this right. Calios can’t access anything that’s been marked secret or off-limits by a high-level cybe, right?’

‘Right.’

‘Then how did he know I was a L’Var before I knew it?’ She glanced at Calios. ‘You called me Veelivar the first time I accessed you, back in Pleasure.’

Although revs of course had no feelings, Rico could have sworn that Calios looked embarrassed.

‘I do not understand your question,’ the rev said.

‘Oh come on!’ Vida snapped. ‘You’ve got to.’

‘No, not really. It’s all right, Calios,’ Hi said. ‘Some cybe embedded that data in core consciousness of the old Citizen Assist net while you were still dormant. That’s my guess anyway. You woke up knowing without knowing how you know.’

‘Master Jons, that explanation seems true, but I can do no more than label it highly probable. I do indeed know without knowing how. This then is not an early sign of malfunction?’

‘No, not at all.’ Hi frowned, considering. ‘Though damned if I know why anyone would do that.’

Rico and Vida exchanged a glance. It was Molos, Rico thought. And I bet she’s thinking the same thing. But again: why? Hi shrugged as if dismissing the problem and returned to his questions. These first concerned the limits and locations of the old Citizen Assist net, then moved on to the mysterious repairs that someone or something had made to the Caliostro AI. Calios could tell them little when it came to damage control for an AI system. His own net had provided sealed toolkit utilities, lacking the code to affect the rest of the Map.

‘Calios, thank you,’ Hi said at last. ‘I’ll have to study what you’ve given me before I can ask you more questions. Vida, if I could come back in a few days?’

‘Of course, Se Hivel.’

‘Thanks.’ Hi glanced at the revenant. ‘Calios, you said that your neural connectivity routines had been damaged. Journeyman Hernanes here can fix those for you, if you’d like.’

‘Any return to full functioning is desirable, Master Jons.’

‘Fine.’ Hi turned a perfect poker face to Rico. ‘Hernanes, think you can find time to come over here and repair Se Vida’s access revenant?’

‘Sure.’ Rico lost words, swallowed heavily, found some at least. ‘Calios, is that row of jacks operational?’

‘It is, Journeyman. If you uncap the photonic power strip, I can test and restore it as well.’

‘Fine.’ Rico summoned courage and looked at Vida to find her own expression a pleasant mask. ‘I’ll call your factor and see when it’ll be convenient.’

‘That’ll be fine, yeah.’

They dared not look at each other. Rico knew it in his soul that she felt it as deeply as he did, that there with witnesses they had to turn away and look elsewhere.

‘One last thing, Calios,’ Rico said. ‘Do you know the location of any archives concerning the process of constructing an AI unit?’

‘A search on those terms will take several minutes.’

‘Start search now.’

The rev turned pale and froze, held that pose for some minutes more, then finally snapped back to full strength.

‘I have encountered an anomaly,’ Calios announced. ‘I have found location coordinates where that data should be housed. When I attempted to access the housings, I found them non-existent. I failed to find any redirection notices giving their current locations.’

‘That’s probably because they’ve been destroyed,’ Hi put in. ‘Please record those addresses, though, for further manual searches.’

‘Locations recorded in a note in your new file, Master Jons. File has also been tagged with access for Journeyman Hernanes. Requesting input: why would those records have been destroyed?’

‘For religious reasons. During the Schism Wars, several factions believed that any cybernetic approximations of sapient - particularly human - forms and functions were an affront to God. I know as proven data that these religious factions were the sapients who disabled the Citizen Assist network and sent you dormant. Mark as a probability only that the same human sapes destroyed all archival information on AI construction.’

‘Done, Master Jons. Requesting input: were these factions responsible for the second disabling of the Caliostro AI?’