Sirius Academy (Jezebel's Ladder) (31 page)

Trina and Red worked out on one set of equipment while Zeiss
made a pretense of helping Daniel. Red wore a black and maroon Lycra outfit
that highlighted her curves.

“That’s a nice new outfit she has,”
Zeiss noted during one exercise. During the next, he observed, “I’ve never
noticed how gorgeous that curl is over her right ear.”

“Conrad, focus. Don’t let the mean,
metal bar crush your future in-law.”

“Sorry,” Zeiss said, spotting the
weight properly.

Red smiled and waved when she
noticed Zeiss’s attention. Trina stretched, watching the joy in her niece’s
eyes. “What are they talking about?” Red wondered.

“How lucky they are,” Trina guessed.

“Seriously. Z might be telling him
about the present he got me for my birthday.”

“That was last week,” Trina said,
teasing.

“We never really celebrated,” Red
explained. When Trina waggled her eyebrows, the young woman said, “Stop! He had
it ready for the party, but I was such a brat, he never got the chance to give
it to me.”

Trina said, “How does it compare to
the proxy options you received for turning eighteen?”

“Those were a lot of added
responsibility. I don’t have time for voting.”

“Honey, a company needs running.”

Red squinched her faced. “Not by
me.”

“Then who?”

“Um . . . Z says Mary Smith has
been getting her MBA.”

“Those options were left by your
mother for
you
,” Trina accused.

“But Mary’s playing me in Paris as we speak. It’ll look suspicious if she doesn’t exercise the options.”

“What’re you leading up to?”

“Math proofs. He’s infected
me
.
Z says he doesn’t think we’re coming back from the artifact, at least not for a
few years. His dissertation backs that up.”

The ramifications trickled through to
Trina. “You need someone to impersonate you long-term, just in case.”

Red nodded. “Someone we trust.”

“I’ll talk to Daniel. Maybe,” Trina
promised. Then, like a girl Red’s age, she asked, “What’d he get you, a ring?”

“No, but he has been staring at his
mother’s ring a lot when he thinks I’m not looking. He gave me the set of
extra-credit problems he made for me in his class.”

“Cuddly.”

“Trina. He’s a genius,” she said,
smiling. “He figured out that the drive flash from four Cassavettis engines can
release an electromagnetic pulse stronger than any shielding in orbit. Every
eye and computer in range of our launch could be blinded for at least five
minutes.”

“So?”

“He
gave
me the five minutes
my team needed to reach the artifact.”

“The five minutes you’ve been
trying to get for the last seven weeks?” asked Trina, excited. The young woman
nodded in response. “I hope you gave him a deep kiss for that one.”

Mira smiled wistfully. “Yeah. The
best thing for me is when he puts his arm around me and makes that sound in his
mind like Dad did when he got home after a long trip and spun me around. Cotton
candy.”

“Love,” Trina agreed. “What else
did he get you?”

“The next problem in the set told
me we need to do a run on the artifact immediately after one of the scheduled
orbital test runs to leverage the velocity and position we already have. The last
problem he gave me is our team research project for this semester. The four drives
use four times as much fuel, even though only one is providing thrust in our
configuration. We have to find away to carry more fuel or resupply during the
mission.”

“So he’s talking that much for you?
Dr. Marsh is happy when Z uses three syllable words.”

“No, Conrad’s still quiet. He makes
me figure things out for myself. It’s like an Easter egg hunt. Every problem
answers some question I asked or one I needed but didn’t realize yet. It’s
exciting that he knows me so well and spends so much time thinking about me.”

“Math as foreplay. That’s a new one
on me.”

“Not everything is about sex,” Red chastised.

Her aunt laid a hand on her arm.
“It’s another way for him to say he loves you without words. It’s beautiful.
Like him riding along during your flight time to play navigator, when it’s
really a date. How did Australia go?” Trina asked, eager for more vicarious
romance.

“We talked about our families. It
felt good to trust someone with those secrets.”

“Good. Building trust is essential
at this stage. Daniel is overseeing his anti-interrogation Theta training.”

“Conrad taught me how to shop for
produce. It was kind of cool, but . . . you know how whales follow him?”

“Yes?”

“Babies fall silent around him and
track his movements—everywhere we go.”

“Eerie. But it supports your theory
about the complete Collective Unconscious. He’ll be a good daddy.”

Mira chose that moment to look
away. Her aunt asked, “You’ve discussed children, right?”

“No.”

“Have either of you said the L word
yet?”

“No.”

“I think he’s waiting for you.
Everyone knows how he feels. But he’s afraid you’ll beat him up again.”

“That was only a few times.”

“Did you at least ask him to join
your team?”

“No,” the young woman whispered.

“If you were a boy, I’d slap you,”
Trina scolded.

“Oh yeah, old woman, what’re you
going to do instead?”

Trina shouted to the men on the
other side of the room. “Mira says you can be on her team if you convince Lou
to be her copilot.”

Zeiss lit up and ran out of the
room.

Daniel complained, “I’m not
finished here!”

“Go spot your uncle while he stares
at me,” Trina ordered.

Reluctantly, Red went to help
Daniel. It didn’t take long for her to drop an obvious hint about birthday
gifts. He smiled, “Your party was a big gift.”

“But I didn’t know it was for my
birthday, so it shouldn’t count!” she protested.

“I have two presents for you, but I
want a promise from you first.”

She brightened. “Sure.”

“The first gift is from me. I’ve
put Smith’s R&D lab into high gear so they can have a prototype of the
tetra engine the same month as your first team training flight in orbit. If you
make command rank, your team will be the first ones to fly the tetra.”

She shrieked and jumped up and
down, almost splashing him with water as she squeezed her bottle in excitement.

He continued, stressing, “
If
you pass leadership training and earn team status. I’m warning you: that class
has long hours and several field trips. Prolonged separation this early is
going to be too rough on Conrad, so I want you to take him with you as your
second-in-command.”

“He’d be a great choice, but they
only accept people who have their first talent; Collective Unconscious doesn’t
count, no matter how unique his is.”

“You know he’ll be the best Quantum
Computer ever,” Daniel said. “Now that he’s anchored to this world with you, we
don’t have to worry about losing him. There’s no excuse not to give him the
talent.”

Red considered long and hard before
agreeing. “Fine. Why do you need my approval anyway?”

“Because your classes start
tomorrow and the wait for the physical page from the UN vault is three months.”

“Then how can he read it in time?”

“That’s where the second gift comes
in—the one from your mother.”

The young woman stared at him,
dumbfounded. “To be opened on your eighteenth birthday, or the day of your
marriage, whichever came first. I’ve been holding the DVD in my safe in the
sublevel. The alpha-combination for the safe is your given name.”

****

Mira rode the elevator down to the
sublevel with Zeiss at her side. “Are you sure?” he asked. “This seems kind of
personal.”

She nodded. “I plan to be
overwhelmed with emotions. That’s why I want someone to hold my hand who will
remember what she says verbatim.”

“Whatever you need me for,” he
said, his eyes fixed on her face.

When they reached the room, the
young woman punched the word ‘Miracle’ into the safe. What she found inside
wasn’t a simple data disc, but a large platter.

Zeiss grinned. “This is an old 3D
recording. Wait. There’s a player on this rack over here.” He blew off the
dust, plugged the cord in, and pushed the ON button. A slot opened in the
front. “My lady,” he gestured, stepping aside.

Reverently, she slid the large disk
into the machine. A grainy, six-inch image of Jezebel’s face appeared on top of
the device. “Happy Birthday, Mira, my best gift to the world. I’m so sorry my
body didn’t last long enough. I wanted to be here for you, but there were seven
billion other demands on me.”

Her daughter was already misting up
as the holographic woman continued. Jezebel started crying as well. “I know I’m
close to the end because I’ve been talking to Sensei more and more lately.
That’s what I call the intelligence on the artifact. He assures me that when we
get our inheritance—your inheritance, Mira—our people won’t need pages anymore.
The pages are temporary help until we learn what we were meant to be. You were
the first proof of that, born with the talents that others dream of. The skills
you took for granted even as a child awed me.

“When you punished the Somalians,
you frightened us all. It wasn’t just the power you exhibited, but none of us
in the collective even saw it coming. You’re the future of mankind, and it
scares us.”

Her mother swallowed hard. “I know
it seems harsh, but I couldn’t tell you how to use your strongest abilities
until you learned to be more . . . human. It’s my fault for raising you around
scientists and bodyguards. Your father was the only warmth in your life after
the kidnapping attempt. I should have let you spend more time with him, but I
was selfish. I know I won’t have you for long, and I’m greedy.”

The young woman was sobbing openly
as her mother said, “Even if we speak the tongues of angels and have not love,
we are the clanking of a cymbal.”

Mira hit pause and whipped her head
around to face Zeiss. “Did you listen to this before now?”

He shook his head. “Never. These
discs are read-once. They’re used for passing top-secret messages. They melt as
you watch them, erasing the evidence.”

“Then how did you know the saying
for the start of your dissertation?”

“It was my mother’s favorite Bible
verse. She didn’t want me to end up like my father.”

“Oh. Sorry.”

“Listen to your mother,” he said
warmly, indicating the controls.

She pressed play and the image
warped a bit as Jezebel resumed. “I sincerely hope you find someone to love,
someone who teaches you the heights and depths. There’s nothing to compare to
it.

“I’ve given Trina my annotations on
the twenty-seven pages. The one page not mentioned there is the Index. With me
dead, you are the only Index surviving. The only one of my gifts I withheld
from you was Ethics, because I wanted you to be able to hide your secrets. By
concentrating, an Index can tell what talents another person would be best
suited for. But more importantly, an Index can choose to share gifts with
another person. That person has to have a very intimate connection: a child, a
best friend, a lover. It works best when you touch them on the temple, open to
them, and
offer
.”

Her mother asserted, “There must
always be a choice. I gave Trina Simplification to help protect us better, but
we never told anyone what I could do. If I did, people would hound me to pass
out talents all day. That’s not what it’s for. The Index isn’t for teaching
like the other pages. It . . . you are designed to get us to Sirius. The
entrance will open only for an Index.”

Jezebel spent the next few minutes
discussing favorite memories of her daughter: firsts, triumphs, and moments of
surpassing beauty. “You are one of a kind, even without your talents. Never
settle for anyone who doesn’t see that. I made time for your father every day.
It’s how I lasted as long as I did. Think half as much—you’ll be twice as
happy.” Then her mother’s image shifted through the rainbow and vanished with a
flash.

Mira wept to see her mother
disappear again. Zeiss held her close as she vented. Half an hour later, when
she calmed, the young woman gazed at her boyfriend and asked, “I need to know.
Am I really your first?”

He blinked. “What do you mean?”

“Vanessa.”

“You don’t need to be jealous,” he
stammered. “We kissed for an hour but never . . . finished.”

She unzipped her flight suit. “I
want you to do to me what you did to her, offer me everything you offered her.”

He devoured her naked body,
bringing her to the edge of ecstasy with kisses alone. When he paused, she
begged him to go on, to push her over. He smiled and took a seat in a chair. “That’s
about when we had to go to the emergency room.”

In answer, she straddled him on the
chair, with his shorts the only barrier between them, and kissed him on the
mouth. She touched his temple, establishing a mental connection and sharing her
overwhelming excitement. He struggled briefly but the motion served to push
both of them over.

Zeiss awoke in a clinic bed three days later wearing a new
medical alert bracelet. It had instructions for dealing with quantum comas and
overexertion. After days of odd dreams, he took this in stride. However, what
he saw in the chair next to him shocked him. Mira’s hair was styled, and she
was wearing a Caribbean blue dress. He blinked a few times and smiled. Even
asleep, she was radiant. The air conditioning vent was aimed at her bare
shoulders and might cause muscles to cramp. He had to disconnect an IV and
numerous wires attached to his forehead and chest before he could cover her
with the spare blanket from the foot of his bed.

As he finished, a strange woman
stepped into the doorway of the room. She had long, black hair and looked
vaguely familiar. A trim sixty, she wore a designer pantsuit and a Fortune
Multimedia access badge with a red border—a board member. She crooked her
finger to beckon him out of the room. He felt awkward in his hospital gown and
briefs, but followed nonetheless. From the small window he could tell it was
night, and he didn’t want to wake Mira.

When they reached the deserted
waiting room, he had a seat and whispered, “How can I help you, Ms. Fortune?”

“Considering the circumstances, you
should call me Grandma Claudette,” the mature starlet said wryly. Her voice had
a melodious southern US drawl. Even at this age, she could’ve been on the big screen.

“Most people here call me Z. Your
son, Daniel, calls me Conrad.”

“Did you see God the last three
days, Conrad?”

He considered the question several
seconds. “Not God himself, but his mark is unmistakable, like the signature
Sojiro puts on his code.”

“How so?” She focused a penetrating
gaze on him, letting him know that every word would be scrutinized.

“Primes built from other primes,
for example. I’ve been mentally reviewing every math and physics book I’ve ever
read.”

“Now that you have the decoder
ring?”

“I wish. I don’t have the Theory of
Everything, but I see the same material from a better perspective now. There
are things we teach that don’t jibe, things we’ve skewed.”

“It’s a frightening thing to know
what you’ve founded your life and career on is flawed,” Claudette sympathized.

“I don’t have a career now.”

“Then why do you get up each
morning?” His eyes flicked down the corridor toward Mira. The former starlet
smiled. “Good answer. She’s not the prettiest girl on this island. Why choose her?”

“Are you kidding? Mira’s the whole
package: the eyes, the mind, the behind—” He stopped himself, embarrassed by
the lewd gushing.

“It’s okay,” she said, smiling.
“Connections are still forming in your mind. If it helps, you’re the most
polite and philosophical drunk I’ve met. And you’re right: Miracle’s very special.”
The woman glanced back toward the hospital room. “I haven’t seen her in a dress
since she was six. Is that your doing?”

When he raised an eyebrow, she
added, “I thought maybe since you were her teacher, this was some sort of Henry
Higgins,
My Fair Lady
thing.”

“Nobody makes Red do
anything
.
At best, you learn to think like her and move all the breakables out of the way
ahead of time.”

The starlet whooped with laughter.
“Hon’, you’re obviously in love. I’ll bet you do anything she wants when she
bats those eyes.”

“I want to, ma’am, but sometimes I
have to protect her from herself. It’s not easy; she fights dirty.”

“Well, boy, she’s ridiculously
wealthy; why haven’t you done the only sane thing and proposed?”

Zeiss looked down at his feet.
“Because a man should be able to provide for his family. As the British say, I
have no prospects. My career is ruined and I’m attending a school that I can’t
pay for. Most of the money I still have is promised to someone else.”

“An OB-GYN specialist for Mira, I
hear.”

He nodded.

Rummaging in her handbag, the
Claudette pulled out a letter. “This is addressed to you. Given the security
implications, we opened it first.”

He shrugged. “I signed those rights
away the moment I accepted the job with Daniel.”

“That’s just it, dear. You don’t
work for him; you’re a free agent now.” Handing the letter to him, she said,
“This could solve your problems.”

The letter was from Mr. Mori. The
center two paragraphs cut to the heart of the matter:

Mori
electronics recently prototyped the quantum cryptography invention you proposed
five years ago. To secure the sole rights to this intellectual property and
avoid contention, we wish to offer you the sum of five million US dollars.
Looking at your accomplishments and portfolio at so young an age, you would be
an asset to any technology company. Mori Research is prepared to offer you a
substantial annual salary if you would consent to aid us in the development of
your other scientific proposals.

My wife tells
me from your last meeting that you are of fine moral character and an
outstanding Go strategist. You’ve made such an impression that she invites you
to our home when you next visit Tokyo. My daughter can give you directions.
Kaguya is a fine tour guide and eager to show you the fine temples we have to
offer. It is her hope that you will make our home your own.

Zeiss closed his eyes—one blatant
bribe and the promise of another. He handed the letter back. “Keep it. I have
nightmares about that woman.”

“The Bermuda Triangle?”

“No. K . . . K . . . the daughter,”
he said trembling. “You have no idea what she does to people.”

“Darlin’, I’m afraid I do. I’ve met
people like her. But the money for your invention is fair. No one could fault
you.”

He shook his head. “I wouldn’t.
It’s blood money.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Then I have
no choice but to match our competitor’s offer in order to keep you.”

When he hesitated, Claudette
whispered, “You could ask her tonight if you said yes.”

“You’re very persuasive,” he noted.
“However, I can’t take money for the cryptography idea even if I wanted to. The
paper was published in the CERN journal while I worked for them. They own the
rights.”

“Interesting! We never would have
known. That means we need you even more as consultant in several areas:
security, physics, talents, and doing computations for us.”

“Yes, if you’ll help me with the
other problem—the ring. My mother’s wedding was wiped away as if it never
existed. I don’t want that symbol for us. Plus, Red isn’t really a jewelry
person. She’d break a diamond off or slice someone’s jaw with it. I need to pay
for it myself, but I want it to be more appropriate, something like tungsten
carbide—harder than titanium and won’t dent in a car door.”

Claudette covered her mouth to hide
the smile. “I understand. Though I would emphasize the ‘safer in a space suit’
and ‘symbol of enduring love’ aspects. I’ll pick out a set and have it shipped
from Australia. We can probably arrange it while I’m here.”

Zeiss held up a finger. “Wait, I
want to fly there with her myself to pick up an emergency part. We can have
dessert afterwards, maybe a waterfall tour . . . No, we’re too far south.” The
two quickly became co-conspirators. He paused in the excitement to ask, “Do you
really think she’ll say yes?”

“Darlin’, the moment she gave you
that talent, she committed to you. Now go kiss her awake. I’ll see you
tomorrow.”

****

Trina sat in the new cell of the
brig with Kaguya Mori. “Our final offer is this—truce with Mori, no charges.
You’ll stay here the rest of the school year to finish your degree, but you’ll
do it from this room.”

“As a hostage?”

“Call it what you will. If you
write a public letter admitting to being the infamous O, we’ll give you access
to recording equipment. Your former team members won’t be expelled if you give
us their hypnotic keys. If you turn over a list of all converts, we can
negotiate for other concessions. Dr. Zeiss says that all you really wanted to
do was ensure that you led the team that reached the artifact.”

“I wish to speak to Conrad-san.”

“He has declined your father’s
generous offer; the Fortune board has endowed Dr. Zeiss as a consultant on the
new near-light-speed communications project. He’s happy here.”

Kaguya smiled. “One phrase from me
or my phone, one touch and he’d be the happiest man in Ward Seven, moaning
praises to me till he dies. He won’t eat or drink; he’ll be useless to anybody
else.”

“Threaten one of my friends again, and
I’ll reformat you with the Ethics page myself.”

“No judge would authorize that; I’ve
done nothing to violate the treaty. Only rogues have committed violence, some
of it intended for me. As an Empath, I’m incapable of harming others.”

“You turned men into sex addicts!”

“You did the same to my mother,”
Kaguya accused. “Where do you think we learned our techniques? Let me talk to
Conrad, or he’ll never be able to answer another phone or email without turning
into a vegetable.”

Trina grew cold. “Unless you turn
over a list of accomplices and cooperate with us, no human will touch you or
speak to you this year. You won’t even see pictures or a mirror.”

“I hear Daniel-san can’t get it up
on medication or when he’s in pain. Is that why you screw the help?” Kaguya
taunted.

“Write when you surrender,” Trina
said, leaving.