Implied Spaces (17 page)

“What line are you in?”

“Sales. Well—
formerly
sales. I’m about to be a manager.”

“Congratulations.”

Rajan cocked his head and grinned at Aristide. “You here for a visit?”

“Yes, but I’m thinking of immigrating.”

“Yeah, it’s a beautiful place. I’m going to be sorry to leave.”

Rajan ate slices of mango and pineapple as he asked Franz Sandow about himself, and where on Hawaiki he’d been—which amounted to the wormhole gate and spectacular underwater sites within a radius of twenty kilometers from the Manua Resort. Rajan offered advice on a few other nearby places to visit, then leaned forward, his eyes intent.

“Say,” he said. “You said you were immigrating, yah?”

“I said I was thinking about it.”

“The reason I asked is that I’ve got an apartment for sale. I’ve got to sell it quickly, and I’d give you a good price.”

Aristide looked over his shoulder at the chaotic bulk of the resort. “They have private apartments here?”

“No, it’s on another island. N’aruba—” Pointing. “Over there. The apartment is right on the lagoon, with underwater access. Three bedrooms, two under the surface for amphibs, a third for walkers.”

Aristide sipped his tea while he feigned consideration of the offer.

“How much are you asking?”

“A hundred and fifteen thousand. It’s worth one-thirty easy—it’s just that the market’s soft right now.”

Aristide passed a hand over his bald head.

“I’ll take a look at it,” he said, “with the understanding that I’m not really in the market.”

“Great! Is your morning free?”

Aristide gave a self-conscious smile. “Actually, this morning I’m rehearsing for the massed chorale.”

“Really? I love those. Afternoon, then?”

“Certainly.”

“Pick you up at two?”

They chatted a while longer, and then Aristide excused himself. He returned to his room, Bitsy following on her short legs. As soon as the door closed, Aristide turned to Bitsy.

“I’ve updated
Let’s Be Friends!
”

“Good.”

“I’ve gone through all the databases I can dig into without doing such a thorough job it might seem suspicious,” she said, “and I can tell already that Ravi Rajan doesn’t add up.”

“Is the identity phony?”

“No. Or rather, Ravi Rajan is a genuine person, though I don’t think we just met the real Ravi. According to the latest databases, the real Ravi is married, is the father of three bouncing little amphibians, and lives eight hundred kilometers away on Mora, not on N’aruba.”

Aristide lowered himself into the great pool that led to the sea, and warm waters rose around him.

“So we’ve got a man with a false identity trying to lure me alone to another island,” he said. “I wonder what he wants.”

“
Woof woof
,” said Bitsy. “There’s your official warning.”

The massed chorale was exactly that—seven hundred fifty aquatic and amphibian residents of Hawaiki hovering in meticulous formation in a bowl-shaped amphitheater carved out of a piece of rock. The concave face of the amphitheater didn’t face skyward, as on land, but on a horizontal line toward the audience, who would be hovering in the water.

But this was a rehearsal, and there was no audience, just a group of busy officials, a worried composer, and one energetic, preternaturally patient, preternaturally sympathetic conductor. About two-thirds of the participants were experienced vocalists, the rest amateurs and sightseers who had volunteered for the hell of it. When Aristide had volunteered, two days earlier, his part had been assigned by an avuncular machine intelligence and all necessary information downloaded into his own personal AI. His part, like that of all the amateur volunteers, wasn’t particularly difficult, but he had taken it seriously—he had listened to his part and studied it on his own, practicing in the morning and late at night in the pool in his suite.

He hadn’t known how to make some of the sounds called for in his part until he experimented.

At the rehearsal Aristide rippled just the edges of his wings to hover in his assigned place. And he sang.

He gurgled deep in his abdomen. He boomed out in full voice. He squirted ultrasonics from the bulge in his forehead. He shrieked and wailed and whistled.

The amphitheater caught the sounds and radiated them out like the beam of a sonic searchlight. Aristide vibrated in the vast ocean of sound. His viscera quaked, his bones hummed at a hundred different frequencies.

There was choreography as well. Dancers shot through the open space in front of the theater, forming graceful patterns, swooping in a frenetic solo, or engaging in passionate pas-de-deux. The dancer leaped to the surface to land, wings outspread, with percussive slaps, or blew lacy networks of bubbles that shimmered like aurorae in the ocean of sound.

When the conductor thanked the performers and signaled the end of the rehearsal, most of the performers were reluctant to leave. It was like the first night dive, an experience so overwhelming that the participants wanted to bask for a while in the afterglow.

But in time the great cluster began to break up. The pelagians left first, their torpedo-shaped bodies, with their ring of tentacles streamlined back, moving purposefully away like ominous squadrons of subaquatic craft. Aristide tuned himself to their conversation and found it barely comprehensible.

He moved away himself, gliding toward the resort on its great bay with purposeful beats of his wings. Other amphibians in personal submarines motored past, leaving golden streaks of bubbles. He whistled for Bitsy.

Bitsy turned up half a minute later, holding in her mouth and paws a fist-sized blob of pale flesh. A pair of platter-sized angelfish, black and gold, hovered about her, intent on snatching bits of the treat.

—I found a conch, Bitsy said. Want some?

Aristide hesitated, then took the chunk of flesh and raised it to his lips. The translucent meat tasted of sea and trembling life. He finished the conch, but the hopeful angelfish continued to cruise along with him in hopes of finding leftovers.

—How did you break the shell? he asked.

—Banged it on a rock.

A pod of amphibians swooped past, chattering among themselves. Aristide listened, and after they had passed out of earshot, spoke.

—I wish I understood more than half what they were saying.

—It’s been a long time since you were a noob.

—Yes, he said. It brings back long-dormant memories of adolescence.

—Or of being a parent.

—Not really. As a parent, I could always rely on the pretense of superiority.

By the time he returned to his suite he was tired and hungry. It took more physical work to get from one place to another through the water, and despite the extra layer of fat, water below the thermocline could be cold.

It was nearly time to meet the man who claimed to be Ravi Rajan. Aristide rinsed in fresh water and changed into dry clothes. He let himself into the garden behind his suite, all fragrance and blazing tropical colors. He began to walk to the hotel along the oyster-shell path, with Bitsy following.

“Would you like me to order you some fast food?” Bitsy asked.

“Why not?”

There was a half-second delay as Bitsy scanned electronic menus.

“Noodles with lemongrass?”

“Sure.”

“With chicken, pork, or prawns?’

“Prawns.”

“The robot will deliver to the dock.”

“Thanks.”

Oyster shells crunched underfoot. A white cockatoo screeched from somewhere in the tropical foliage.

“I just received a message from Endora,” Bitsy said.

Aristide stopped. “Yes?” he said.

“She suggests that if we need local assistance, we should contact a Lieutenant Han Baoyin in the office of the Domus in Magellan Town. Contact information is provided.”

“Why Han?”

“He backed himself up about eighteen hours ago. Endora just received her copy of the file.”

“Very good.”

He turned left through a breezeway and walked through the terrace onto the dock. Ravi Rajan, bright in his tropical shirt, waved from the end of the dock.

“All natural fabrics,” Aristide remarked as he picked up his noodles from the robot caterer. “I’ll bet his clothes don’t have a single electronic tag in them.”

“I could check that.”

“Let’s not ping him. He might notice.”

Aristide bought a soft drink to go with his noodles, then joined Rajan at the end of the dock.

“How was the rehearsal?”

“Magnificent.”

“The chorales
are
terrific, aren’t they?” He jumped down into a monohull, then reached up a hand to help Aristide enter the boat. Bitsy jumped down on her own and investigated the boat with apparent interest. Rajan and Aristide each took a swiveling chair behind the cockpit screen, and then Rajan gave the boat his address, and the boat slipped its moorings and began to move smoothly into the bay.

Aristide sipped his drink.

“Is this your boat?”

“No, it’s a taxi. I’ve
got
a boat for sale, if you’re interested, but right now there’s an offer on it.” He looked at Aristide. “If the deal falls through, I’d sell it to you for the amount of the offer.”

“Let’s see the apartment first.”

The boat increased speed and began to slam into waves. Aristide swayed in his padded chair as he dug into his noodles. Lemongrass glowed lightly on his palate. Spray dotted the windscreen. Rajan shouted over the sound of the impellers and the rushing water.

“I brought some drinks for you, if you like!”

At his gesture a footstool-shaped cooler rolled toward Aristide and popped its top. Beer and wine, he saw, and soft drinks.

Any one of which might contain a mickey, or a meme plague. Aristide smiled and indicated his own drink.

“I brought my own, thanks!”

Rajan shrugged, made a gesture that brought the cooler near him, and took a beer for himself.

“Is your pet okay?”

Aristide looked at Bitsy, who was snuffling around beneath one of the bench seats.

“She’s fine,” he said.

The journey across the straight took about twenty minutes. The boat slowed as it approached the island, and then entered a channel. The boat’s wake slopped against mangrove roots as it cruised through the channel, then entered a lagoon. Wind brought the scent of vegetation and ruffled the surface of the water in fractal patterns.

Branches of the lagoon trailed in all directions, separated by small islands. Most of the waterfront, including that of the islands, was occupied by homes, anything from snail-shaped organic buildings grown on the spot from seeds, to traditional tropical bungalows with thatched roofs.

The boat headed for one of the larger buildings, white plaster with a red tile roof, and tied itself to the pier. A woman in an upstairs apartment was watering a box of gardenia, and Ravi waved at her. Aristide took Tecmessa off its scabbard, and held it up.

“I’m going to take the apartment’s measurements, if you don’t mind.”

Rajan didn’t seem entirely pleased.

“If you like. Go ahead.”

“
La-la-la-la-la-la-la.
“ Bitsy bounded ahead as they walked toward the building. A door slid open on Rajan’s approach. Bitsy ran inside. Aristide paused. Adrenaline roared in his ears. He was waiting for Bitsy’s
woof-woof
.

“
La-la-la-la-la
.”

“Look at that view!” said Rajan.

Warily, aware that this was probably when the enemy made his move, Aristide turned.

The view was lovely. Nothing alarming happened.

“
La-la-la
.”

Bitsy came trotting back into view.

“Okay!” she said. “Okay!”

Rajan showed Aristide the apartment. It was lovely and tasteful, with an open floor plan and lots of light. Reflected wavelight danced on the ceiling. There was nothing personal in the apartment except for Rajan’s toiletries in one of the bathrooms, and his suitcase in the bedroom equipped for walkers. The normality of the place fed Aristide’s paranoia: the walls seemed to loom toward him; the sounds of his feet made ominous echoes. He walked with Tecmessa held before him, his nerves leaping in anticipation of attack.

The attack didn’t happen. No one lurked in the closets, no devouring wormholes dwelled in the ovens, no human-sized pea pods had been placed beneath the beds.

“Throw in another thousand,” said Ravi, “you can have the furniture. Otherwise I’ll have to turn to one of the auction houses.”

Aristide had to agree that the apartment was very nice. He said that he’d look into financing.

Then Rajan took him back to the Manua and left him, a bit dazed, on the pier.

“That apartment,” Bitsy said, as soon as Rajan’s boat was out of earshot, “is owned by something called the Elizabeth Daly Trust. Ravi Rajan isn’t mentioned in any of the Daly Trust’s filings.”

Aristide stared after the receding boat.

“You mean,” he said, “that Ravi isn’t a tool of the Venger at all, but an identity thief and confidence man trying to sell me something he doesn’t own?”

“That would seem to be the case.”

Aristide laughed. Adrenaline was still clattering along his neurons, making his hands and knees tremble.

“A thousand extra for the furniture!” he said. “He might sell the place to a dozen different people!”

“I would advise against informing the police,” Bitsy said. “They’d look into
your
background too, just as a matter of form, and your identity won’t hold up either.”

Aristide began his walk down the pier. Fork-tailed gulls floated overhead on the wind.

“This mission is cursed,” Aristide said.

“You’re too impatient.”

“After the massed chorale,” Aristide said, “I want to move to another resort, one where the visitors mix with the locals more freely. We newcomers are too isolated on this private island.”

“Two victims stayed here, including General Tumusok.”

“I’ve given the Venger’s minions every chance to come after me. They may not be here, or have picked another victim. Maybe I’ll show up better when I get within range of another radar set.”

“I advise patience.”