Paradox (13 page)

“Retrograde amnesia,” the voice was saying. “Not unusual in cases like this.”

“Shouldn't have left him there, damn it.” Corduven.

“You couldn't have known”—even now, with the ceiling a distant, swimming vision, he could recognize Sylvana's silver voice—“what the message was about.”

“No, I—”

Everything went away.

Jak was sitting beside the bed the next time Tom awoke. “How are you feeling?” Tom's throat was dry. “OK…Better.”

No!

Panic rushed through him and he raised his head, heart pounding, but the outline of both legs was there under the thin blue sheet, and he wiped sudden sweat from his forehead.

“You're all there.” Jak smiled grimly. “As much as—Well, you know.”

As much as before, yes.

“What about you?” Coming out of his own misery, Tom could see the translucent amber cast, filled with sparkling silver motes, which encased Jak's forearm.

“No problem.” Jak brushed lank black hair from his eyes. “But Driuvik's dead.”

“You've taken logotropic treatments before.” Medic-servitor, white tunic. “That'll make this easier.”

Holodisplays shifted and pulsed.

“I'm ready.” Tom lay back.

Behind the medic, a junior officer of Lieutenant Milran's Palace Dragoons waited.

“Femtocytic infusion starting. And…go.”

“…
Go, Erivan!” Hands waved in the air as the lead lev-bike flashed overhead. “Go!”

Tom leaned forwards in his balcony seat, everything else forgotten, as the next three riders flashed past in a tight group, the rest strung out behind.

Last lap.

A bald man down below called out: “Come on, Pitrov!” with hysteria in his voice. Tom wondered how much he had bet on the race's outcome.

Great circles of light leaped into being, and he saw her.

They were vertical rings, three of them hanging in space. Just for a moment, among the crowds, their white light illuminated Feng-ying's ivory-pale face, but then she was gone.

Tom stood up, searching.

But hundreds of people below were shouting encouragement and even noble spectators in other balconies were on their feet, clapping and cheering, as two lev-bikes whipped into sight, flying side by side.

They flashed through the rings—one strobing strontium-crimson, one copper-green—so close together that Tom could not tell the winner. Third: flashing orange.

The remaining lev-bikes were still hurtling to the finish as the first three slowed, dipped, and came back towards the rings. Teardrops of light streamed backwards from snub nose to rear: crimson on the winner, emerald for second place, orange for third.

Tom swallowed, and breathed. The riders must be insane, to fly at such speed, risking so much.

From the spectators below, a high jubilant cry: Pitrov had won.

As the presentation began, the three lead lev-bikes took up position.

At floor level, the crowds parted for a white-haired gentleman in ceremonial military uniform—mirrored breastplate, lev-bazookette hovering over each shoulder—who marched stiffly to a golden lev-disc, and stood to attention as it lifted him upwards.

“Field Marshal Belnikov,” murmured someone.

Applause grew as three young women, with bejewelled torcs on velvet cushions, followed—robed in crimson, green and orange respectively—and each stood on a silver lev-disc.

He must have been mistaken.

But the discs revolved as they ascended, and just for a moment he saw her full-face: Feng-ying, clad in crimson and bearing the winner's torc.

Clapping and hooting echoed from the crowds below as the Field Marshal, from his golden disc, shook hands with the winning rider. Then he turned to the silver lev-disc behind him, held out a hand for the torc—

And stopped.

The Field Marshal crouched, raising an aged fist to activate his bazookettes, but too late. The young woman, Feng-ying, clasped her hands and bowed.

Tom tried to yell—

White light exploded.

“That's all?”

Cold tears tracked down Tom's cheeks. “I'm sorry.”

“Are you—?” The medic stopped. The Dragoon officer's hand was on his shoulder.

“I think you've distressed your patient enough.”

“If necessary I can—”

“No.” The officer looked at Tom. “We won't trouble you again. Thank you.”

“My Lady said I should check your needs have been taken care of.”

“I'm…grateful for her concern.”

Did I betray Feng-ying? I don't think so—

“The medic thinks you'll be out of here in a tenday.”

—
but I'm not sure what I said under trance.

“It was awful.”

There was a kind of shiver in the servitrix's voice, and it dragged Tom out of his own concerns.

And Feng-ying's dead, anyway.

The servitrix was sitting by Tom's bed.

“Of course,” he said. “You were there.”

She had auburn hair, a pointed face and those turquoise eyes. This time, Tom could see what had half caught his attention at the race meeting: her left iris was a pupil-less turquoise disc, beautiful but nonfunctional.

“Yes.” She swallowed; Tom noticed how slender her throat was. “My name's Arlanna, by the way. Arlanna U'Skarin.”

“Tom Corcorigan.”

He lay back for a moment, as the chamber seemed to keep shifting left, without ever moving: a kind of pulse effect.

“Shall I get a medic?”

“No, I'm—” He stopped at the cool feel of her palm on his forehead. “Just a dizzy spell, I think.”

Arlanna took her hand away.

Silence, then:

“I—”

“There's—”

They started simultaneously, and stopped.

“There's no need to stay,” said Tom, “if you don't want to.”

“Well, all right.” She began to rise.

“No, I didn't mean—” Tom bit his lip. “I'd appreciate the company.”

Arlanna looked at him, then sat back down.

“It must have been worse for you,” said Tom, after they had traded Palace gossip for a while. “I just saw a flash of light, and then I woke up in here.”

Arlanna closed her eyes.

“It was awful”—her voice grew distant—“with the screaming, the blood. Clouds of choking dust.” She shook her head, as though to wipe her memories away.

“Sorry. I shouldn't have—”

“That's all right.” Arlanna sniffed. “Nobody's saying, but it was a suicide bomber. Must have been.”

Tom looked away, not sure what his eyes might give away.

“Though I'd like to know,” Arlanna continued, “how someone could get a microtak past the sensor web.”

His right hand started to move, but he stopped himself. The talisman was still around his neck: he had already checked a dozen times.

You could coat a charge in nul-gel
, he realized.
But that's offworld tech, isn't it?

Offworld.

Not a concept Tom was used to: existence beyond Nulapeiron.

“Madness,” he muttered.

“Bravery.”

Startled, Tom looked at Arlanna, but her expression shut down, as though she had said too much.

Referring to the suicide bomber? To Feng-ying?

Tom cleared his throat, and returned the conversation to safer ground. “You know what I'd really like?”

“Anything.” Arlanna forced a bright smile. “That's what her Ladyship said.”

“Can I purchase an infotablet?”

“I…Yes, I should think so. You have a thousand merit points, after all.”

Tom sat further upright in the bed. “That's nice,” he said. “Though I don't really know what that implies.”

She laughed.

“You've never had any merits, and now you've got a thousand. Good start, I'd say.”

“What do you spend your merit points on?” He guessed that she earned some: there was something capable and determined about her.

“You can spend them on clothes, fragrances…”

“But you don't.”

“I tend more towards holodramas, epics.”

Tom looked at her carefully. “What about eduthreads or logotropes?”

“They're available. And you can earn more merit points from the house AIs,” she said, “if you take exams at each module's end.”

“Positive feedback.”

“That's right.”

But Tom detected the bitter undertone in her voice. “Where's the problem?”

“Amassing enough points to begin with. Initial momentum.” She looked away. “With a thousand points…”

There was a stillness in the chamber.

“I don't know my way around the system,” Tom said. “Can I sign points over to you, using them by proxy?”

“I…suppose so.”

“We could start by buying two infotablets. One each.”

She looked at him for a long moment. “Are you serious?”

“Definitely.”

“Well then. Two infotablets. And register for aleph-track prepthreads?”

“Whatever you say.”

A smile slowly grew across her pointed face. “That's a deal, then.”

In her dream, the other girls made her laugh—deliberately, of course—just as Sister Mary Joseph was walking past. Karyn flinched as the pale gaze was fastened on her.

She braced herself for the expected blow, but it never came: instead, the darkness.

No candles in the nightbound chapel.

Kneel and pray.

Burning pain in her knees.

Pray for forgiveness for all your wickedness, girl.

Shivering tension in her torso. Not daring to fall asleep.

Will the Good Lord send his angel for you tonight?

How could you die? How could you suddenly…not exist?

Better pray, girl
…

Tears trickled coldly down her cheeks.

Creaking.

Soft, strange whispers.

Could it be only wooden benches settling in the dropping temperature? Faint wind among draughty stonework? If only that were all! If only she could close her eyes and sleep! But in the darkness, all around, unseen angels and waiting demons crouched.

“No!”

She pushed up, warding off the darkness.

“Bastards!”
She twisted, struggling, with the dark weight upon her.
“Get off me!”

She flung the cover back and rolled from the bed.

Combat stance: bolt upright, heart pounding, feeling dreadful.

Through the study-bedroom window, pale amber sunlight streamed into the clean, sparse room.

The floor was warm beneath her bare feet. Karyn raised an arm and sniffed: not good. Scratchy with old sweat, still wearing yesterday's jumpsuit.

She had no recollection of coming back here last night.

“Dart.”

Her throat felt thick. She took herself to the bathroom, spat into the sink, stripped off and staggered into the shower.

Ten minutes later, blasted awake—clean but unsteady—she tapped a tabletop terminal into life.

“Sal.”

An elegant, mustachioed, top-hatted man's head appeared. He doffed the hat with a disembodied white-gloved hand.

“Two things, Sal.” Karyn addressed her NetAgent, Sal O'Mander, without looking at its image. “One: find the other Pilot Candidate on campus, contact his agent, arrange lunch. Two: ah, God—”

The NetAgent waited while Karyn rubbed her eyes.

“Ah…” The other thing: the mad concept at the back of her mind these last few weeks. Why not go for it? “Summarize missing-vessels info, scan for patterns, and…any mention of mu-space lifeforms.”

The image winked out.

Official briefings were just that: brief. But the attrition rate on maiden voyages was rising, and her own first excursion into mu-space could be just six months away.

Lifeforms.
No-one was considering the possibility. Not publicly.

“Sal?”

“Yes, ma'am?” A ghostly outline; Sal's image did not quite reappear.

“The Pilot Candidate—”

“Pilot Candidate David Mulligan, a.k.a. Dart Mulligan. Room twelve-seventeen, dome nine. Completing second phase of—”

“Enough.”

“By the way, you're due to give your first lecture in quantum chaos at ten hundred hours, VL Institute, room—”

“I remember. Later, Sal.”

The hint of a bow, and the image faded once more.

“Sensei's son.” Taller than his father; but he had inherited Mike Mulligan's muscular strength and easy focus.

Karyn stared out across the campus, squinting at the brightness.

“Bloody hell.”