Geosynchron (25 page)

Chandler led them into the entrance of the westmost tower, a
building constructed entirely in green-tinted permasteel and adorned
with the effigy of a man named Micah Brayling. Inside, the building followed the ancient Western model of wide marble hallways and
uncomfortably high ceilings.

The four of them made their way through corridor after corridor
filled with Islanders wearing variations on Chandler's drab green uniform. A few had shock batons clasped at their sides, but most did notinspiring Jara to realize that she had not seen a single Council officer
since crossing the unconnectible curtain. She felt surprisingly liberated.

Finally they arrived in a cozy conference room that looked more like
a lounge than a place of hard-nosed business and diplomacy. In addition
to a small conference table and its attendant chairs, the room had a wet
bar stocked with various expensive liqueurs, a smattering of viewscreens, and a mammoth painting of some ancient battle fought with
muskets and bayonets. "Just sit tight for a few minutes," said Chandler,
giving Robby a farewell handshake before departing out the door.

Benyamin and Robby plopped down on two of the chairs while
Jara examined the wet bar and tried to decide if pouring herself a drink
would be appropriate. She was surprised to discover how emotionally
draining this day had already been. She had left connectible civilization behind, embarked on a dangerous mission, and watched a team of
Council officers spirit away the one man who could tell her what that
mission was. A little rum was warranted.

"So we've learned two new pieces of information today," said
Benyamin, combing his inky black hair with his fingers. "We learned
that this mission of Quell's is being bankrolled by Magan Kai Lee, and
we learned that he's being pursued by Len Borda."

Jara abandoned any thought of a drink and took the chair next to
Robby instead. "This doesn't make any sense," she said. "Why would
Quell team up with the Defense and Wellness Council? He loathes
them. Didn't they kill his father?"

"He's not teaming up with the Council, per se," replied Ben. "He's
teaming up with Magan Kai Lee, the man who's taken up arms against
the Council."

"But Quell took up arms against him. And what's all this mystery surrounding Quell's son? When do we find out what's going on with him?"

"Looks like right about now," said Robby, as the door opposite
began to open. A figure strode into the room and folded his arms across
his chest. Jara let out a gasp.

It was Marcus Surina.

Jara rubbed her eyes incredulously and took a closer look at the young
man who had walked into the room. Don't be a fool, Jara told herself.
Marcus Surina died almost fifty years ago. Even if he managed to escape the
shuttle explosion and jump in a time machine that instant, Marcus was in his
fifties that day. This one can't be more than twenty-five.

So it was not Marcus Surina, then, but unmistakably a man with the
same genetic heritage. He had the same insouciant handsomeness, the same
piercing blue eyes, the same imposing ship's rudder of a nose as the great
scientist. Moreover, he bore that indefinable sense of presence that all the
Surinas bore going back to Sheldon: a surety about the world, a magnetic force that pulled friends and strangers alike into his orbit.

Bali Chandler had slipped in behind the young man unnoticed.
"You shoulda seen him when he tried to grow the mustache," he said,
amused at Jara's befuddlement. "Margaret had a fit."

Suddenly the tumblers fell into place. Quell's son ... a descendant
of the Surinas ... which meant ... Jara didn't even realize she had
stood up, but now she found herself flopping back down into her chair
in shock. Robby Robby had his mouth open far wider than was appropriate, while Benyamin simply looked confused.

There's one mystery solved, thought Jara. Now we know what kind of
relationship Quell had with Margaret Surina.

Josiah turned to greet the fiefcorpers with a diplomatic poise that
seemed to come naturally to him, a poise that definitely sprang from the maternal side of the tree. "Towards Perfection," he said, offering a
deep bow to the fiefcorpers. "As I'm sure you've guessed, I'm Josiah.
Representative to the fourth ward of the Free Republic of the Pacific
Islands." He turned to Chandler. "I believe you're right, Chandler.
Now that I've cut my hair, I won't be able to hide the Surina in me for
much longer."

Jara detected a message in the fact that the Islander had greeted his
guests in the connectible fashion rather than in the custom of his own
people. "I would say that we've heard a lot about you, but ..."

"But if you had," said Josiah, gently interrupting, "then half of the
Surina family's investors would have jumped ship. Who wants to put
money into an enterprise that's destined to be dismantled and parceled
out to the Islanders?" Jara could hear both sarcasm and disillusionment
interwoven in the young Islander's voice. He walked around the table
and took a seat at the head of the table, while Bali Chandler took the
chair to his right. "At least, that's the story I had always been told. But
enough of that. Tell me what happened to my father."

He had that most rare combination of genetic traits: Margaret's
charismatic intellectualism mixed with Quell's scythelike directness
and immediacy. It was enough to inspire an instant feeling of trust in
Jara. She related again the story of Quell's hiring them for this mysterious errand, of his perplexing hints about Josiah, of his capture by the
Defense and Wellness Council.

"There was no violence?" asked Josiah. "He didn't try to take a
shock baton to anyone this time, did he?"

"No," said Robby. "Quell just waltzed out the door with them."

"Of course," said Chandler, nodding. "Gorda doesn't want to risk
anything happening to your father. Might need him for a bargaining
chip."

From the corner of her eye, Jara could see Benyamin tamping down
an outburst of frustration, but she decided to express her frustration
first. "Gentlemen," she said firmly, "thank you very much for your hos pitality. Sincerely. But it's time someone started telling us what's going
on. Quell brought us down here to help him with something. Something important, I assume. He told me there was a series of things that
have to happen, or not happen."

"Looks like one of those things that wasn't supposed to happen,
happened," muttered Chandler.

"Which was?"

"Len Borda wasn't supposed to find out who Josiah's mother was,
obviously. It's bad enough that Magan found out. If Borda sent a team
of white-robes to pick Quell up, then ..." He threw one hand up in
the air and twirled it around as if prepping for a big finale. "Then he
probably knows too." He let the hand plummet back to the tabletop.

"We're not trying to be rude," snapped Ben, his patience finally
shattering. "But Margaret's gone. She's with the Null Current. Who
cares if Borda finds out now?"

Josiah and Chandler traded questioning looks. Jara knew that Con-
fidentialWhispers were impossible without functioning neural
OCHREs, but she could have sworn that the two Islanders were conducting a mental conversation anyway.

"My father trusted them," said Josiah finally. "He wanted them
here. Brief them, Chandler."

The older man frowned. "Even ... ?"

"In forty-eight hours, everyone's going to know anyway. So yes, tell
them. Tell them everything."

17

Not every building in connectible territory was collapsible, so Jara had
ridden in plenty of elevators before. But connectible elevators were
usually equipped with SeeNaRee to make the ride less tedious, or at
the least, interactive viewscreens. The elevator here in the Micah
Brayling building, however, was a cramped, slow-moving box whose
single viewscreen did nothing but dumbly repeat the same advertisement for waterfront real estate at twenty-second intervals. Chandler
paid it no mind, but after three repetitions Jara was ready to claw the
screen out with her bare hands.

As the box continued its sluggish climb, Benyamin and Robby
tried to make small talk about sports with the Islander representative.
(The Islanders had their own soccer league, but Union Baseball was
almost completely unknown here.) Jara was too preoccupied with the
young Surina they had left back in the lounge below to pay their conversation any mind.

Another Surina in the world, she thought. An heir to Sheldon, Prengal,
Marcus, and now Margaret. How could you keep such a thing secret?

Concealing a secret of that magnitude was no simple undertaking,
especially for a family whose every movement was scrutinized by
drudges with high-tech tools at their disposal. Josiah's offhanded comment about his haircut led Jara to believe that the resemblance had
only recently become an issue. As for Margaret, concealing her pregnancy presented little problem, assuming she followed the regular connectible practice of leaving the fetus to gestate in a hive. But to nurture and parent a child to adulthood in secret? To keep any mention of
that child off the Data Sea altogether? That would require an enormous amount of trust in those around you, not to mention prodigious
sums of money and inhuman diligence. Unless ...

Unless you sent the child away to the Islands at birth.

Yes, suppose you entrusted the child to the care of his father's
family in Manila while you remained in Andra Pradesh. Suppose you
kept your distance from that child, both physically and emotionally,
and relegated the parenting chores to the father. Suppose that father
already had an excuse to shuttle back and forth to the Islands on a regular basis. Yes, Jara supposed in those extreme circumstances it could
be done.

Still, the question remained: why?

Jara knew it was pointless to draw conclusions without having all
the facts in hand. But she couldn't help wondering how much this
explained Quell's orneriness and his peculiar relationship with Margaret, the way he seemed to be both her closest confidant and just
another palace functionary. The fiefcorp master resolved to ask the
Islander about it the next time she saw him ... provided she did see
him again.

Don't be ridiculous, thought Jara. Remember what Chandler said. Quell
will be fine.

"Here we are," said Bali Chandler.

The elevator shuddered to a halt at the building's sixty-fifth (and
uppermost) floor. The Islander led Jara, Benyamin, and Robby through
a nondescript hallway, up a restricted staircase, and onto the building's
roof.

Evening was already gathering around Manila, and up here atop
the Micah Brayling building the dusktime parade of lights was breathtaking. Unlike connectible cities, where the mass transit vehicles
stayed mostly on the ground, here in Manila the transportation network extended up nearly as far as the skyline. Jara was astounded to see
tube trains skating from rooftop to rooftop, something she had not
noticed during the day. She supposed if TubeCo could figure out how
to extend tracks to the depths of the ocean floor, suspending them
twenty or thirty stories wasn't such a difficult feat.