Geosynchron (18 page)

Jara felt the ping of a Confidential Whisper request. "He's lying,"
said Horvil, confused. "Why the heck is he lying?"

She didn't know. All she knew was that, by the looks on the faces
of the drudges, of Suheil and Jayze Surina, of the judges, of Martika
Korella, the fiefcorp had just lost its case. Jara turned to the engineer
with her forehead buried in her palm. "Check and mate," she said with
a sigh.

I2

Jara didn't give herself any time for self-loathing. No sooner had the
Islander left the stand, as strangely unemotional as he had arrived, than
she was pinging Horvil again over ConfidentialWhisper. "We've got to
follow him," she said. "I need to know what would cause him to lie. To
turn on us like that."

The engineer gave her a look that said he had concluded the same
thing. "You think he was bribed? Or threatened?"

Jara snorted. "I'd like to see the person capable of bribing or
threatening Quell."

"What about the Council?"

"You mean the people Quell tried to beat to a pulp with an electrified stick?"

Horvil tried to restrain a laugh, failed. "Good point. But we've got
a problem. There's still an hour of courtroom bullshit to deal with." He
shifted his eyes in the direction of their attorney. "We can't exactly
jump up and run after him."

Jara glanced at Martika, who was listlessly shuffling virtual papers
around on the tabletop like a hive child pretending to be studying.
Had she known about Quell's testimony ahead of time? Jara wished
she had taken note of the lawyer's reaction when the Islander had
walked into the room, but the thought hadn't occurred to her.
Somehow she sensed that Martika's awareness of the hidden machinations in this case was much more nebulous than that. A warning from
a colleague, perhaps, or veiled threats from a third party. Council
troops parading loudly past her windows in the infant hours of
morning.

Horvil cleared his throat. "Any ideas ... ?" he said on the silent
channel.

Jara turned and saw that the Islander had nearly made his way out
the main doors of the courtroom. She felt an awful premonition that
she would never see him again. Judging by Martika's grim demeanor,
the lawyer saw little hope in achieving much through crossexamination. And outside of this trial, was there anything tying Quell
to connectible civilization? MultiReal had vanished, Margaret was
dead, and Jara couldn't imagine that the remaining Surinas bore a
great fondness for him, today's testimony notwithstanding. Yes, it was
entirely possible that Quell would disappear back to the Islands for
good-assuming there wasn't a Council hoverbird waiting outside the
courthouse to return him to prison.

Jara had a sudden inspiration. "The Creed Elan security people,"
she said. "Did they ever show up?"

"I totally forgot," replied Horvil, swiveling in his seat to scan the
audience. "Yeah, there they are." Within seconds, he had made contact
with Berilla's security team. Jara saw a trio of muscular men in highclass purple uniforms steal into the aisle after the Islander, who had
just exited the courtroom.

Confident that the Elanners would keep an eye on Quell, Jara
focused on slogging through the next sixty minutes of official proceedings. The Surinas went through the motions of resting their case,
motions that required a numbing amount of back-and-forth slathered
with ceremony and legal jargon. Protocol dictated that Martika respond
with a number of pro forma declarations that Jara couldn't comprehend.

As this tiresome charade of justice continued, Jara had to sit and
endure the gloating of Suheil and Jayze Surina. The two seemed quite
pleased with themselves, and had no hesitation about showing their
smug expressions to the defense table and the room at large. Sen Sivv
Sor and John Ridglee, for their part, did not appear upset at all to see
their theory disproven-on the contrary, the reappearance of Quell had
provided a dramatic new angle for their stories and would likely cause
a small spike in their Data Sea traffic. Through it all, curious members of the audience kept fixing Jara with their voyeuristic stares, as if
waiting for a spat of emotion or volatility. It's only a matter of time before
some drudge starts zooming in on my face and psychoanalyzing my facial
expressions, thought the fiefcorp master sourly.

Jara would have almost been happy to give them something to see.
But the outcome of this case still made little difference to her. So the
fiefcorp would be forced to cede over a pile of money they weren't
using, and the title to a product they hadn't seen in over two months.
Did any of that really matter? She could barely muster up enough emotional energy to feel disappointed.

Much more important was the question of whether Jara's refusal of
the Surinas' settlement offer had provoked Quell's testimony. And if
so, what did that say about the mysterious powers behind the chessboard? Had Jara appeased or enraged them? Had she simply done what
they had expected?

"Well, we can rest easy about one thing," said Horvil over Confidential Whisper.

"What's that?"

"Quell's not hustling off to the Islands. I just heard from the Creed
Elan guys. They followed him to a nitro bar, where he's just sitting on
the patio watching soccer."

Jara nodded. "Which bar?"

"It's the Ostrich Egg-the place across the street from our hotel."

Quell's choice of the Ostrich Egg was obviously no coincidence. Jara
had been frequenting the bar every morning since the trial began and
had grown quite attached to their baklava. For the Islander to lounge
around the same establishment in full view of the passersby was a
resoundingly clear signal that he was not avoiding Jara's presence. That
he might even be inviting a conversation.

As Jara threaded her way through the streets of Andra Pradesh
between shopkeepers, tourists, and bodhisattvas preaching the virtues
of obscure creeds, it occurred to her that Quell's choice of venue sent
two more disturbing messages as well.

It said, I know where you've been staying and where you've been having
breakfast.

And it also said, I've got plenty of protection from the Defense and Wellness Council.

Jara rendezvoused with the three Creed Elan security staffers on
the corner opposite the nitro bar, where she thanked them for their
assistance. She recognized one of them from the frenzied escape out of
the Tul Jabbor Complex two months ago. The Elanners pointed out
the shadowy figure of Quell on the patio, though even from this distance he was difficult to miss. Jara thanked the security men again,
asked them to give her regards to Berilla, and then dismissed them.

Quell had taken a seat in the sunniest part of the patio, not too far
from the locals who had flocked there to enjoy soccer on the
viewscreen. Somewhere between the courtroom and the Ostrich Egg,
he had discarded his connectible collar altogether, leaving him with
only the coin to provide the sights and sounds of the virtual world.

Jara sat down opposite the Islander as the bar patrons erupted with
applause. She looked over her shoulder just in time to see a handsome
soccer player leap over two defenders and head butt the ball into the
net. Jara felt a rush of deja vu. She had actually met this man a few
months ago, back when the company was preparing for its aborted
MultiReal exposition. Wilson Refaris Ko, that was his name.

Quell had clearly been expecting her. "Perfection," he said, gesturing at the cup of steaming nitro that was already sitting on Jara's
side of the table. "What, no Horvil?"

Jara shook her head. "Serr Vigal wanted to talk to him about
something."

The Islander shrugged and reached for the gargantuan mug of tea sitting in front of the chair where Horvil presumably would have sat.
"Tell him I say hello."

The fiefcorp master gave Quell a thorough visual examination. If
his decision to perjure himself on the witness stand and betray his
former employers had caused him any mental anguish, it was not
evident in his casual, almost nonchalant expression. With his natty
attire, the Islander might have been just another businessperson
arranging to meet a colleague for an afternoon chat. He looked almost
... connectible.

"So I'm waiting," said Jara abruptly.

Quell raised his eyebrows. "For?"

"For an explanation. For a reason why Len Borda would release you
from prison, just in time to testify on behalf of the Surinas. Just in
time to ensure that Suheil and Jayze get the title to MultiReal."

"An explanation." Quell stretched his arms over his head and
clasped his hands together. Jara couldn't help but notice from the
stitching on the Islander's suit jacket that it had been custom tailored
for his enormous frame. "I can't give you an explanation just yet. No,
you're going to have to wait a little while before this will make sense
to you. Another forty-eight hours at least."

"Why?"

"It's ... complicated. But in the meantime, I can offer you something else. Something that might make up for-for what those two
jackasses put you through."

Jara was starting to get very frustrated with all of this careful
ambiguity. "Like what?"

"A job."

"I'm perfectly satisfied being the master of-"

Quell interrupted her. "That's not what I meant. I'm not offering
you a position, I'm offering you a gig for the fiefcorp. A consulting job."
He put his immense hands onto the table, palms down, and fixed Jara
with a penetrating stare. "I need your help."

This whole game was making less and less sense the longer Jara
played it. Quell wanted her help? His motivations, never particularly
transparent in the first place, had become completely opaque to her.
Jara supposed she should feel grateful that she had a place on the
board. That the forces at work wanted her continued involvement. The
fiefcorp master reached for her cup of nitro and stared at the murky
liquid. If ever she needed the beverage's unique powers of stimulation
and concentration, it was today. Jara raised the cup to her lips and
drank deeply.

But she wasn't about to acquiesce to Quell's request without a
little more detail. "So what's the job?" said Jara.

"It's not one specific thing," said Quell. "It's more like ... a series
of things that have to happen, or not happen." He squinted out the
window, not looking at any particular object, but rather sweeping in
the chaotic ambiance of Andra Pradesh.

"And how do I do these ... things?"

"Well, I don't really know yet. I won't know until we get there."

Jara could feel the impatience bubbling inside her like lava. "Get
where?"

"The Islands."

"Listen," Jara snapped, smacking one clenched fist onto the
tabletop and momentarily drawing some of the bar patrons' attention
away from their soccer game. "You're being unreasonable. You can't
just appear out of nowhere and expect me to wander out to the Pacific
Islands without telling me why. Especially not after what you did to
the fiefcorp." She jabbed her index finger out the window in what
seemed like the direction of the courthouse. "I'm not in a very charitable mood right now, Quell. I've just had my company yanked out
from under me-again-and this time I don't even have any idea why.
So you'd better give me something to work with here, or I'm out the
fucking door."