Reality Matrix Effect (9781310151330) (34 page)

“But that’s the point,” Tauber
continued, his voice becoming progressively deeper and quieter. “He
instructed the robots to install a remote destruct device in the
storage dome.”

 
He waited for the significance
to sink in. “Then, when the bastard decided the time was right, he
used his own private access code to trigger an
explosion!”

Watching Rensselaer and Tauber
exchange ominous glances, Keith felt his skin go cold and his knees
become weak.

  “
Maybe it was a mistake,” he
found himself blurting out. “You can’t really be sure of all that
just from a few printouts, can you?  I mean, maybe you should
talk to him, and—”

A stern look from Tauber cut him off
in mid-sentence. “Ethan,” Tauber said a moment later, “I’m afraid
I’ve been very rude. You two haven’t met, have you?  This is
Keith Daniels. Our lawyer. He’s the one I told you about. The one
who’s handling the lawsuits.”

Rensselaer ran his fingers through his
hair and stroked his mustache before extending his hand—more out of
forced politeness than interest, Keith thought.

“Good to meet you, Daniels.... 
Now what about the Nitinol, Hank?  And what about this Wraggon
idiot?  I’m out there on the firing line. I don’t want any
more surprises.”

Tauber gave Rensselaer a steady look
that seemed to last forever. “Don’t worry about Wraggon,” he told
the admiral. “Charlie won’t be causing us any more problems. As for
the Nitinol....  Well, give me a little time. If things went
too easy, it wouldn’t be worth the struggle, now would
it?”

“Easy’s just fine with me,” Rensselaer
grumbled.

Tauber smiled tightly. “Like I said,
Ethan, don’t  worry. Every disaster’s really an opportunity
just waiting to happen. Isn’t that what they say in
Fleet?”

Rensselaer grimaced. “That’s what the
desk pilots tell the boys with their asses on the line, but let
me
tell you, I’ve been there, and it still adds up to a bum
leg as far as I’m concerned. Don’t go pulling crap like that on me.
I didn’t decide to work with you just so I could listen to a new
bunch of bromide pushers.”

Tauber patted the admiral congenially
on the shoulder. “I know that, Ethan. You joined forces with me
because you figured I could make you President. And you were
right.”  His expression suddenly turned hard, and his fingers
dug into the flesh near the older man’s neck. “Now just go about
your business as planned until you hear from me again. And make
sure you destroy those printouts the usual way.”

Rensselaer nodded silently, and Tauber
released him. Rubbing his neck and shoulder, the admiral turned to
leave. “Keep up the good work with the lawsuits, Daniels,” he said.
Though there was no overt act of deference, Keith could sense the
salute in Rensselaer’s manner toward his former junior
officer.

***

“Astie turds!” Tauber said as the
apartment door slid shut behind Rensselaer.

“Uh, maybe I’d better—”

“No, no, Daniels,” Tauber said, fixing
Keith with an odd look. “Stick around for a while. You’re the one
guy I can talk to, and—”  Tauber suddenly snapped his mouth
shut and stiffened into a military posture. “I’ll only be a
minute.”  He indicated the firm cushion of his dingy, brown
couch, “Sit down.”

Keith swallowed and reluctantly took
the offered seat. He didn’t like it when Tauber started getting too
friendly. It made him ill at ease—and all the more conscious of his
conflicting loyalties.

“Sounds as if there’s some trouble,”
Keith commented as Tauber darted back and forth, inserting a disk
into a free-standing, off-line computer on the other side of the
room.

“Yeah,” Tauber droned, “but it’s
nothing I can’t handle. Just need to make some notes here, and I’ll
take care of the rest later. Got to tell some people to revise
their plans. Got to take care of Wraggon, too.”

Keith shifted uncomfortably in his
seat. “Maybe Wraggon had a good reason for doing what he did. Maybe
you should talk to him before you do anything else.”

Tauber stopped tapping the keyboard
and turned to Keith. “You’re beginning to remind me of an old
friend of mine, Daniels.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. Merchanter pal name of Derek
Marsden. Used to be my best friend—till he had an accident out in
Beta Colony and went soft on me.”

Keith pressed his lips together and
lifted an intricately carved chess piece from the board on the
block-like table next to the couch. The set reminded him of a 
finely crafted army of toy soldiers. Each one was complete and
unique and finished down to the smallest detail.

“You play?” Tauber asked as,
temporarily finished with his other business, he pulled up a chair
and seated himself on the other side of the chess table. “Most
people these days use holographic sets,” he said without waiting
for Keith’s response, “but I like a chessman I can
feel
.” 

He picked up a king. “This set’s made
of zero-gee tempered creatinum. Got it on my last trip to the
colonies,” he said. “Snuck it aboard ship.”  His voice dropped
to a conspiratorial hush. “Not supposed to carry any ‘extraneous
material’ on board, you know.”  He winked.

“It’s a beautiful set,” Keith agreed.
“I used to play a little. Haven’t for a long time, though. I was
never very good, I’m afraid. Never could think enough moves ahead
to do very well.”

Tauber’s mouth curved into what, for
most men, would have been a friendly smile. On Tauber, it was more
of a sneer. “Chess is more than a game, Daniels. It’s life. You
know?”

Keith looked at him
questioningly.

“Take Operation Strong Man. We have
our kings and queens and knights and bishops and rooks. And
pawns.”  He smiled again. “We have lots of pawns.”

“And what are you, Hank?”

“Me?  Hell, Daniels, I’m nobody’s
chessman. I’m the guy who moves the pieces!”

“
Thanks for bringing me back.” 
Rayna greeted the familiar surroundings of home like an old friend
as she and Keith crossed the threshold into her apartment. “Even
with all the modern  conveniences, a week in the hospital’s no
fun.” 

One sniff confirmed what she had
suspected. “Smells like the inside of a cheap permastore crate in
here!”  She activated the mechanism to clear the opaqued glass
of the patio door, then directed the door to slide open, welcoming
the fresh air with a stretch and a lung-cleansing
breath.

“You sure you want that open? 
It’s a little chilly today.”

Rayna couldn’t help laughing. “I had a
concussion, Keith, not pneumonia.”  Touched by his worried
expression, she took his hand and kissed it. “Honestly, I’m all
right. No headaches for the last 48 hours, and all the tests show
my brain is perfectly normal.”

Keith frowned, but his eyes had that
familiar, devilish twinkle. “Normal?” he repeated gravely. “Well, I
don’t know about that.”  The sentence ended with a grunt as
Rayna jabbed him in the solar plexus. He grinned and hugged
her.

“So,” he began, flopping down onto the
sofa, “what are you going to do now?”

“Oh, I guess I’ll just take it easy.
Maybe there’s a concert or a good play on HV tonight. Want to stay
for dinner?”

 “
Can’t. Got an appointment with
a client. Besides, that’s not exactly what I meant. What’re you
going to do about living expenses now that you’re out of a
job?”

Rayna pursed her lips unhappily. “Oh,”
she sighed. She gazed out the patio door, noting the lengthening
shadows cast by the low afternoon sun. “The school board wants to
avoid any possible controversy over my—” she cleared her throat
theatrically “—over my sudden departure. So they’ve got me on
medical leave for the rest of the academic year. I keep drawing my
teacher’s salary, and they avoid a scandal.”

“What about your health-care
expenses?”

“No problem there, either. I’m still
covered by MediNet. Last I heard, they didn’t cut off your medical
benefits for taking an unpopular political stand.”

Keith ignored the bitterness. “That’s
great. Then you don’t have any financial problems for the
moment.”  She nodded grudgingly and sat down next to him. What
was wrong with him?  Didn’t he realize what had
happened?  Here she was, her career ruined by a bunch of
small-minded bureaucrats, and he figured everything was just fine
as long as she could pay her bills!  What she wanted from him
was a little righteous indignation!  What she wanted
was....  What she wanted....  

“Mmmmm—that’s nice,” she purred as his
fingers began kneading her shoulders.

“You’re all tense,” he said after a
while. “Last time your neck muscles were this tight was the day
Arthur called  and told us he was getting close to finding out
who your real parents were.”

 
Rayna remembered. “Tense” was a
vast understatement. “It’s funny. You know how upset I was about
the whole adoption thing. But I think part of me was actually happy
when I found out.”  She leaned forward and cocked her head to
one side, examining the holographic seascape across the
room.

The holopainting held a special magic
for her. Holography, computer technology and art merged to create a
picture-window view of an active yet somehow calming sea, bathed in
sunlight and set against an azure sky. With the twist of a dial,
Rayna could alter the time of day in the scene. Left alone, the
picture would automatically reveal the passing of the hours. By
nighttime, the moon would replace the sun:  Silver patches of
reflected moonlight would play hide-and-seek in the gently moving
water, and waves would break along the shore, displaying a
phosphorescent glow as they arched onto the beach.

The seascape gave her urban apartment
a beach-house view. Yet, on the other side of the glass was not the
ocean but merely a wall separating two rooms. The scene was
comforting, reassuring—as long as she didn’t think about it too
much, as long as she refused to see it as a techno-artistic
construct rather than a window on the real thing.
Sometimes,
she told herself,
you just need to
forget about the realities and enjoy the
illusions.

She shook her head and leaned back
again. “I guess I’ve always felt sort of incomplete. As if there
was a piece of me that was—well, not exactly missing, maybe, but
something I didn’t know about. Something I
ought
to know about.”  She
looked at him. “Even though I was shocked about the adoption, I
guess I was hoping the records would fill in the
blanks.”

“Well?  Have they?”

Rayna raised her eyebrows. “Yes and
no. I have a lot more of the details, but the total picture is as
big a puzzle as ever. I still don’t really know who I am. I get the
feeling that I have all the information now, but I just can’t seem
to put it together.”

“Not many of us ever do,” said Keith.
“But, then, maybe understanding ourselves is too much to hope for.
Maybe we should just try to be happy. I’ll tell you this
much:  The fact that you’re on the mend sure makes
me
happy.”

“Happy?”  She looked at him for a
moment, searching for the right words to express the dread inside
her. “I appreciate your concern for me, but how can
anyone
really  be happy these days?”  She stood, took a few
steps, and then did an about-face. “Everything’s a mess. Look
around. Everybody’s angry and afraid. And you know what happens
when people get that way.”

His eyes were strangely
expressionless, his mouth firmly set. “I’m not sure what you’re
getting at.”

“People who are angry and afraid hurt
each other, Keith. They strike out blindly, and they hurt each
other. Like at the debate.”  She studied his face, hunting for
a sign of recognition, for some indication that he shared her
concern. “I-I think we’re headed for war with the
colonies.” 

He pressed his lips together. It was
his turn to look away.

“They’re already talking about
converting civilian aerospace plants back into weapons factories,”
Rayna added. “Even if we manage to avoid interplanetary war, it
looks as though we’re in for a lot of trouble right here on Earth.
The Middle East is just an explosion waiting to happen.”

Keith shifted restlessly on the sofa,
muscles twitching at his temples.

“I thought we could make a
difference,” she said, “that we could stop it somehow.
But—”

“What did you expect?” he exploded,
jumping to his feet. “The two of us can’t change the world. We’re
not gods, you know!”  Rayna gaped at him. “Maybe you want me
to be like your grandfather and wish it all better. Well, I can’t
do that!”

“I know,” she said, her body vibrating
with every heartbeat. This wasn’t like Keith at all. She wasn’t
sure whether to say something soothing or to object to his sudden
attack. She decided on the former course. “I didn’t mean.... 
I just meant we should be able to do
something
.”

“Like what?” he challenged, returning
to the sofa.

She raised her hands uncertainly, then
sat down in the old-fashioned armchair next to where she’d been
standing. “I was hoping you could tell me. You’ve spent a lot of
time with Henry Tauber. Haven’t you learned something that might
help?  Anything at all?”