To Hold Infinity (29 page)

Death.

“Replay.”

Yoshiko watched it through again, her face like stone. Watched, until the end.

“Again.”

Blossoming scarlet, Vin's temple.

“Again.”

 

Sight almost gone now.

Desperate, mouth dry, sucking from the failing resp-mask.

Cold, dark waters, calling him.

Like frozen claws, his fingers hooked beneath the rock, holding him down.

Hold on.

The darkness was pressing down, the cold seeping in, as his jumpsuit's heaters failed. Losing energy: the energy for chemical reactions, the processes which made a mind, a soul.

Laughable.

Yeah, laugh. Cry. Whatever. Just hang on.

Fingers like frozen claws.

Here he was, a pitiable organism descended from the bacterial sea and the aquatic transparent unicellular life of a distant fragment of a far star, half dead and about to give up his molecules to sustain more life but
there it was again
, crawling across his face,
don't move or they'll shoot you—ignore it
—then sudden pain lanced through him.

Biting his ear.

Panicking, he pulled the wriggling thing away from him, wrenched it sharply away, tried to slam it against the rock but the resistance slowed him and it slipped away.

He thrashed, struggling, losing track of which way was up.

For God's sake, stay down.

Shocking cold against his cheek: water, inside his resp-mask.

Move.

“Up, up.

This way?

Cold air.

Slippery rock, but his grip held and he hauled himself upwards, using both hands now. He slipped but caught again, and then he was lying half out of the water, gasping for breath, coughing as acrid fumes burned his lungs.

He resealed his resp-mask.

Air slicing into his lungs and hurting like hell, but the pain was a gift. Life. He lay there, trembling, until he could raise his head.

Nobody there.

No armed Agrazzi waited by the pool with grasers trained on him
as he emerged—No one. Only the wet slapping sounds of water, and his own harsh breathing.

 

It was awful.

The extended coverage showed the victims—Yoshiko recognized Felice Lectinaria, the Luculenta biologist—limping or being carried by drones to the profusion of emergency flyers.

Felice did not look badly injured. Yoshiko, remembering that they had been due to talk privately later that night, shook her head.

She let the cube play through. Peripheral displays covered scenes of tragedy and occasional triumph as bare-handed heroes of the moment dug bloody victims from the rubble. Dawn, the lynxette, crawled out, and rubbed her whiskers against the image-Yoshiko's face.

Another Yoshiko caught Vin again: always, always too late.

She looked away.

A flash of white.

“Stop.” She pointed to a small cube off to one side. “Current thread. Magnify by ten. Replay from origin.”

From a corridor just off the main atrium, medics pulled a twisted figure from the wreckage, its once-elegant white suit now stained and tattered. The hat was gone, the dead man's hair in grey disarray.

Sylvester Stargonier.

 

They had moved his flyer. Brevan had told him that.

Even if he could make his way back to Nether Canyon, there was no way out of here.

His damned ear was stinging like hell.

Hide. Run. Fight.

What to do?

He tried to slow his racing heartbeat.
Can we think logically here? Just try.

Hiding and running suffered the same disadvantages. If the Agrazzi
knew of him, they would hunt him down regardless. If they didn't, but he couldn't find his flyer, he would die of starvation, possibly thirst.

I'm scared.

Scared, scared, scared.

He remembered that big bugger Morio in the schoolyard on Okinawa, forearm pressed across Tetsuo's throat until he handed over all his lunch, and the sudden exploding pain in his stomach and the ground coming up to meet him and the belated realization that Morio had kicked him anyway, just because he felt like it.

I am not a brave man.

No one who knew Tetsuo could ever have accused him of bravery, or recklessness. So what was he doing?

It was as though someone else was moving Tetsuo's body, and he just did not care. The head-high cupboards opened at his gesture.

Each reagent container bore a tiny display: contents, graphic of molecular structures, concentrations, hazard warnings. He read them through twice, carefully.

Not brave.

Fighting was stupid, got you hurt. Had he not learned that? It got you thumped in the head, where you actually lived. Risking your brain, opposing mindless violence, when the struggle never mattered in the final analysis.

While his thoughts were running, his hands continued to move.

He pulled down four heavy containers of liquid reagents, moving quickly. Another cupboard held empty flasks, and he chose six of them—five blue, one red, to avoid confusion.

Displays flickered as he poured. Precisely calibrated volumes, despite his shaking hands.

When every flask was half full, Tetsuo took a sphere of smartgel sealant from the cupboard, tore off half a dozen tiny blobs, and dropped one into each of the flasks. Each blob melted into a thin layer across the liquid's surface.

Getting there.

Terminal. Where was the terminal?

Ghostly fingers round his throat. Morio's fingers. Strength draining from Tetsuo's muscles. Open-handed slap: Morio's hand smacking into Tetsuo's head. Vision swimming, ear stinging…

Concentrate.

As he retrieved the terminal, he tentatively touched his ear. No blood. The pain of the bite was fading.

Careful.

He poured the last reagent, a complex acid, into the six flasks. Gently, so that the smartgel film remained unbroken. Then he closed the red flask, fastened it.

He thumbed the terminal pad.

“Smartgel compile: distribute.” The microwave opcodes should reach only the gel in the open blue flasks, not the red. “Time limit: thirty minutes.”

Shut down the terminal, closed the flasks.

Thirty minutes, before each smartgel film ravelled up into its original shape, allowing the reagents to mix.

Not a brave man.

All he needed now was to place them where they would do the most good. Looking around, he spotted a black and silver scarf lying on a small stool. Dhana's, left here from her last work shift.

When attacked, the warrior steps forwards.

He unfolded the scarf on the bench, carefully stood all six flasks on top of it, then gathered up the scarf's four corners, enclosing the flasks, and tied the ends together with a simple knot.

Still afraid.

His hands were very nervous as he lifted the whole bundle from the workbench.

But, this time, I won't let that stop me.

Was it the mindware which granted him confidence?

It didn't matter. Mindware or circumstances, the effect was the same. His life was undergoing a sea-change, here among his newfound friends, and he was not going to allow anyone to hurt them.

The flasks shifted as he slung the makeshift bag over his shoulder, and sweat sprang out across his forehead.

Step forwards. Into the eye of the storm.

Move.

 

Perhaps she was mistaken.

She touched the display with her palm, freezing it, and pointed for a biographical link. The elegantly smiling face of Sylvester Stargonier appeared. Beside it, text unfurled.

Current status:
deceased
.

“Zap playback. Main display.”

Stargonier, too, was gone. Stargonier, with his admirable, frostily elegant style.

Yoshiko wondered why Stargonier had risked going into the house, when he could have walked from the aviary directly outside and gone straight home.

The wistfulness in his voice, when he suggested that Yoshiko and Maggie rejoin the party. Envy?

Hermes interrupted her thoughts. The cherub-faced icon was an annoyance; she would have to change the system settings—

Black-on-black eyes. Young, narrow face.

“I'm Pilot Noviciate Edralix Corsdavin.” The young Pilot, his manner deferential. “Perhaps you remember me?”

Yoshiko nodded, though this was a recorded message.

“Pilot Jana deVries will be here today, Troi'Day, the thirty-third of Siebenary,” he continued, “from thirteen hundred until twenty-six hundred hours. After that, she will be off-planet. Please call her any time, during her stopover. My respects. Endit.”

The volume winked out of existence.

Heart pounding, Yoshiko requested a real-time comm to the Pilots' Institute. Shaking-head icon. Unavailable.

An incongruous memory-flash: using an Eastern European system, when she had been at the Bratislava conference in person, where a nodding head indicated no, and a shaken head meant OK.

She tapped at the ethereal image twice, indicating her intention to leave a message.

“Pilot deVries: thank you. I would dearly like to see you.” She crushed a background complaint in her mind. “I'll be there at fifteen-thirty today, thank you. Endit. Send.”

Current time: 11:17.

She did not want to go today.

11:18.

She had been awake for thirty-two hours and eighteen minutes, her eyes tense and gritty.

Jana would be gone again tomorrow. And, after the disappearance of Rafael's image from the house system's video logs, Yoshiko dared not risk a call through Skein.

“Command: reserve me a taxi. Pick-up here, fourteen hundred hours. Destination—” She paused. Better not be too specific. “—Lowtown, Lucis City.”

Lori had said the Pilots' Sanctuary was near Lowtown.

Sleep?

No, she might not be able to wake up. She should work out what she was going to say to Jana.

“Help,” perhaps.

The cabin looked deserted.

Puffing, conscious of the hardness against his stomach, Tetsuo followed the trail. Dry throat. He stopped, and looked around—rubbing the small of his back, starting to ache from the extra weight—at the bright, serene canyon.

No shadows moved behind the windows, but they were there.

Pulse:103 min
^–1

Behind the cabin, he could see the snub-nosed front of a parked skimmer. Very basic: a lift-platform with seats.

Systolic pressure increase: 43mmHg.

The cabin's door-membrane softened at his approach—

Adrenaline production: 9.7 g min
^–1
.

—and he stepped inside, into darkness.

“This the one?”

Someone grabbed his left arm, and a hard object was pressed against his temple.

Adrenaline production:10.2 g min
^–1
.

A graser's transmission end.

“Yes.” Brevan's voice. “He's OK.”

Tetsuo swallowed, as the weapon's pressure disappeared.

“Thanks for your vote of confidence,” he managed to say.

The interior lights came up.

A lean, white-haired man was reclining in one of the chairs. His face was gaunt and lined, but strong: a distance runner, with a hard life.

Brevan sat nearby. No sign of Dhana.

“So you're Sunadomari.” The white-haired man.

“Yeah.” Tetsuo felt embarrassed, his bravado empty.

“Never seen a Terran elephant.” Beside him, the man holding the graser sniggered. “Till now.”

Tetsuo looked at him sidelong. “Wanna wrestle, without the hardware?”

The Agrazzus, much smaller than Tetsuo, stiffened. He raised his graser.

“No,” said the white-haired man.

The Agrazzus lowered his weapon, and stared angrily at the floor.

“Where's Dhana?” Tetsuo looked around. “What have you done with her?”

From beyond the lounge, where Brevan's and Dhana's quarters lay, came the sounds of people moving about.

“Tell me something.” The white-haired man leaned forward. “What's it like to be a Luculentus?”

“A barrel of laughs.” Tetsuo leaned back, easing the strain. “Where's Dhana?”

The white-haired man looked at Brevan.

“Anomalous behaviour,” he said. “Doesn't match the psych profile.”

You're telling me.
Tetsuo could not believe his own actions.

“He's undergoing a time of changes.” Brevan stared at Tetsuo, but addressed the white-haired man. “I told you that.”

Changes.

The mindware? If there was a courage module, a combat procedure, now was the time for it to execute.

“I don't like it.” The white-haired man's voice sent shivers down Tetsuo's spine. “His presence introduces another unknown.”

Nothing. No help from the ware.

“Damn it, Kerrigan. We need him.”

Tetsuo started to shift the weight at his stomach, but forced himself to stand still.

“We planned everything to the last detail—” The white-haired man, Kerrigan, pointed at Tetsuo. “—long before he turned up.”

“And then we reconsidered, remember? It's too risky for—a certain party—to reveal her affiliation in public. We need another Luculentus.”

That time in Brevan's study, when he had been talking to a Luculenta via his terminal…

“So Felice,” Tetsuo said, “can't risk exposure, huh?”

Kerrigan stared accusingly at Brevan, who shrugged.

“And the Skein conference only lasts another three days.” Tetsuo looked at them all in turn. “Not much of a time window.”

Kerrigan looked furious.

“I didn't tell him a thing,” protested Brevan.

A third Agrazzus stepped out, frowning, from the corridor which led to Brevan's quarters.

“You're allies. Planning some demo. Don't want it hushed up by the authorities.” Tetsuo shrugged. “Lots of offworld reporters at the conference. Obvious.”

“And who,” said the newcomer, “told you about Felice Lectinaria?”

“Oh, her surname's Lectinaria, is it?”

Kerrigan glared, and the Agrazzus who had spoken shut up.

Brevan smiled sardonically.

The Agrazzus by the door had his graser out again. “I think we should off him now.”

“You would.” Tetsuo watched the man's knuckles whiten on the firing stud. “That's why Kerrigan's the boss.”

“Good point,” said Dhana from the corridor.

She was leaning against the wall, casually holding a small silver cylinder in her left hand. Pointed in the Agrazzus' direction, as though by chance.

“Tetsuo volunteered his help,” she added.

“Why would he do a thing like that?” Kerrigan's eyes were flat, dead-looking.

Tetsuo stared at Dhana and said nothing. Every detail of her gamine face was familiar to him, as though he had known her for years.

Brevan gave a dry laugh.

“See? I told you so.”

 

Dhana's room.

“You're a bloody idiot, mouthing off like that.” Dhana glanced at the silver cylinder attached to her belt. “I should have shot you myself.”

“I was worried about you.”

An awkward silence descended.

Tetsuo looked around. He had not been in here before.

A fourth Agrazzus, who had been busy in Brevan's study, passed by the door without glancing in.

Her room, like most of the cabin, was sparse. Holostills of relatives, and of a furry thing which might have been a pet. Infocrystals.

“Holodramas are on that shelf.” Dhana pointed. “Historicals and mysteries, there. Music. Science.”

“So who's your favourite—? Never mind.”

“Some other time, perhaps.” A smile flickered across Dhana's face.

“Right.”

Ten minutes. Mustn't lose track.

“So how many septs of Shadow People are involved in this demonstration?”

“Most of them. But it's a whole group of demos, all simultaneous.”

“OK.” Tetsuo considered. “But Kerrigan's here for something more, isn't he?”

“Poss—Yes. But I don't know the details.”

“Then why were you and Brevan arguing about it, earlier?”

“Brevan's guessed more than he's letting on to Kerrigan.” Dhana let out a breath. “Something to do with an old terraformer station.”

Stone towers, out in the wilderness. Hardly the place for publicity-seekers.

“We're carrying out some stunt, and broadcasting it to a NewsNet, is that it? While the demos are happening?”

“No. The day before.”

They looked at each other silently.

“Why are you doing this?” Dhana asked finally. “It's not your struggle.”

“Is it yours?” Tetsuo leaned back against the wall. “I'm not sure I believe all this ecophilosophy.”

“I—” Dhana opened her mouth, then shut it.

“Politics,” Tetsuo said. “Big surprise, huh? Power groups based on geographic territories. Quite passé, on Earth.”

“There's no wilderness left on Earth.” Dhana's voice was quiet. “We're a younger world—even if the Luculenti make us seem ancient.”

“I know.” Tetsuo looked away. “Did I become a Luculentus because I wanted to, or had to? They can be oppressive, without meaning to be.”

“They're not always that innocent. The TacCorps—”

“I know. I met Federico Gisanthro once—I told you that—and he scared the hell out of me. Examined me, dismissed me in a second.”

“Could have killed you in a second, too. How do we know you're not one of his spies?”

“Pardon?”

“Never mind. Whatever he did would be far more subtle.”

“Thanks a lot.”

Five minutes.

Dhana had fetched a plate of biscuits from the autofact, but they remained untouched.

Had he really thrown in his lot with these people? He still was not certain.

“You're not eating.” Dhana looked up at him.

“I eat too much, you mean? Tell me something new.”

“That's not—Never mind. Look, why did you volunteer to come along?”

“Dhana.” He swallowed. “I'm—changing. Brevan had the right of it. I find myself knowing things I shouldn't know, doing things I wouldn't dream of attempting—”

“What are you trying to say?”

“Only that—the person you see here may be temporary. You want to know if I'm serious about joining you.” He shook his head. “But I don't know…”

“We all change,” said Dhana. “Every day. Sometimes a little, sometimes a lot, but the change is always there.”

“Very wise.”

She looked at him sharply, but he had not meant to sound sarcastic.

“No.” She turned away, colour rising slightly in her pale ascetic cheeks. “I'm not.”

Was it so complicated? Perhaps he had found a place that suited him, people who could become his friends. And—Whatever these people were, they certainly weren't boring.

A chuckle escaped his lips.

“Now what?” Dhana looked at him as though he were mad.

“Ah—Will you do me a favour?”

“What favour?”

“Just stand still for a moment.”

Three minutes.

He leaned forward, and very softly kissed her lips.

“Are your eyes grey or green?” He stepped back. “I can't quite make my mind up.”

“You bloody fool,” she said softly.

Then she reached out to his stomach, and gently rapped it with her knuckles.

“I know you're glad to see me—” Her half-smile was twisted. “But have you got something hidden in there?”

Tetsuo felt the blood drain from his face.

Two point four minutes.
Should have moved by now.

“Come on.” He grabbed her hand. “We've got to hurry.”

 

Guffaws of laughter greeted their return to the lounge.

“Get to the skimmer.” Tetsuo spoke from the side of his mouth. “If it doesn't start in fifteen seconds, then run. Otherwise, fly it to the lab.”

Dhana started to say something, then closed her mouth.

“Girlfriend said no, huh?” The Agrazzus by the doorway smirked as Dhana brushed past him.

“Shut up,” said Kerrigan. “What's she doing?”

“I tell you what.” Tetsuo stared straight at him. “Why don't we go out and check?”

He went outside and waited for Kerrigan and the others to join him.

“What's going—?”

Five seconds.

Dhana, grinning, flew the skimmer centimetres above the uneven trail, then spun it through a spectacular turn, and grounded it.

Zero.

There was a crump of explosion.

Behind them, high up on the rock face, a great chunk of cliff face split away. It toppled slowly, then crashed to earth where the skimmer had been.

Chips and fragments exploded through the air.

“Great Gaia!”

“What was that?”

From inside his jumpsuit, Tetsuo slipped out the red flask.

“I'm fat,” he said, “but not that fat.”

He turned, spun, and threw the flask, arcing over the cabin. A fountain of rock and grit exploded upwards—

Kerrigan cursed, softly.

—and fell like hail, rattling on the cabin roof, while a larger piece smashed through a skylight.

“Oops. Sorry, Brevan.”

“You will be.” Brevan's tone was mild. “That's going to cost.”

Dhana came up beside Tetsuo.

“Don't worry.” She slipped her arm through his. “We're good for it.”

Kerrigan stared at them, then went back inside without a word.