Mountain of Black Glass (36 page)

“Sandifer, the custodian, said that he was frightening.”

“He was! Even when he was demolishing the logic problems I gave him, it wasn't because he enjoyed them or because he wanted to impress me. He just had to do well at those things because he
could.
Do you see what I mean? It was like dealing with an artist or a mathematics
wunderkind
—he was driven to perform.”

“And why was that frightening?” Calliope gave a stern glance to Stan Chan, who was beginning to make a little cabin of toothpicks on the table.

“Because he didn't care a jot about anyone or anything. Well, that's not entirely true, but I'll come back to that in a moment. But John Wulgaru certainly had no love in his heart for anyone. When he bothered with feelings about people at all, I would guess that what he felt was a sort of detached contempt. And he was physically quick, too—reflexes like an athlete, although he wasn't all that large. He'd look at me across the desk, and I could see that if it took his fancy, he could snap my neck before I could even move. The only thing stopping him was that it was a lot of trouble to go through—the punishment would be irritating, he would lose privileges—and I hadn't done anything to make him particularly angry. But to see that kind of brain sitting across from you, not only a quicker, sharper brain than your own, but knowing that he could kill you if the whim took him, and him knowing you knew, and being amused by it—well, it wasn't like working with a human, even the troubled ones I was used to, not really. It was like being the first scientist to study an alien predator.”

Calliope felt her pulse quickening again. This had to be Polly's killer. Was he really dead? For the sake of society, she had to hope so, although it would make closing the case more difficult and less satisfying.

“And you kept records of all this?” she said.

“I did, but most of them were in his file on the hospital system. I might still have some of my own note files at home.”

“It would be a huge favor if you could look for us.” This felt like a break, although she could not say why. But someone had managed to lose Johnny Wulgaru's records, and even if it had been an accident, she couldn't think of any better reason for wanting to see them. “Just out of curiosity, did he seem interested in myths at all? Aboriginal myths?”

Dr. Danney narrowed his eyes, then chuckled, but it did not have much humor in it. “Funny you should ask that.” The sullen waitress thumped the calculatedly old-fashioned little tray with the bill in it down on the table. In the moment's pause, the old man patted at his pockets, then laboriously drew out his wallet. “I suppose I should be getting back,” he said. “I mean, if you want me to look for those files.” He opened his wallet and examined its contents.

Calliope took the hint. “Let us buy the meal, Doctor. We're very grateful for your help.” She would never get petty cash back for this case, so she was buying it herself. She flicked a glance at Stan, but his smile told her exactly how small the chances were that he was going to kick in.

“Kind, very kind.” Dr. Danney flagged the waitress down and ordered dessert and coffee. When the server had finished rolling her eyes at the interruption of her journey to some other table, and had trundled on her way, the old man sat back and smiled expansively. “Very kind indeed. Now, where was I . . . ?”

“Aboriginal myths.”

“Ah, yes. You said ‘interested.' No, he wasn't interested in them. He thought they were a waste of time.”

Calliope had to work to keep her disappointment from showing. She had been waiting for Danney to pull a last rabbit out of the hat, but instead the only thing inside had been the lining.

“The reason for that,” Danney went on, “was because his mother went on about them all the time. That's what he told me, anyway. Her own mother—his grandmother, whom he never knew—was one of the respected elders, a storyteller. Even though Wulgaru's mother had run away from home to live in Cairns, she still harped on about the old stories—the Dreamtime and so on. It made him furious when I asked about them. He clearly associated them with his mother. I stopped asking after a while.”

Calliope found she was leaning forward. It was there after all! She had known it, somehow, and there it was. At that moment she would have bet everything she had that they had identified Polly Merapanui's killer.

“I said that John didn't care about anyone or anything,” the old man said. “That wasn't true, of course. Negative emotions are emotions, too, and he hated his mother. I think if she had survived he would have killed her one day, but she died when he was still quite young, while he was with one of his first foster families. Drug overdose. Not very surprising. He used to call her ‘the Dreamtime bitch.' ”

A holographic wave broke nearby, sending substanceless spray across the next table, and causing Stan Chan to jerk and tip over his toothpick structure. He made a face and swept the toothpicks into a pile where they lay like small discarded bones, the remnants of a miniature cannibal feast.

“B
ES!” a child called. “Mother, look, it's him!”

The tiny, ugly fellow slowed so abruptly that Orlando almost tripped over him. As Bes grinned his grotesque grin and raised his hand as if to bestow a blessing, the little girl's mother lifted her up above the garden wall, angling the child toward the procession to intercept even more of the domestic god's radiant presence.

The company in which Orlando found himself was already fairly conspicuous, since besides the god Bes and Orlando's own massive barbarian sim, it featured Bonita Mae Simpkins, Fredericks, and a flock of tiny yellow monkeys—but Bes had chosen to lead them all boldly down the narrow streets of Abydos in the glaring sunlight.

“Shouldn't we be . . . hiding or something?” Orlando asked. Several more people leaned out of the houses to wave to Bes, who returned their greetings with the cheerful nonchalance of a returning hero. Orlando leaned closer to Mrs. Simpkins. “Going through back alleys? Instead of just utterly walking down the middle of the road?”

“Bes knows what he's doing, boy. They love him here—a lot more than they love Osiris and all his Western Palace lackeys. Besides, all the soldiers are busy surrounding the Temple of Ra, not wandering around in this part of town.”

“Right. Surrounding the temple. Which is where we're going.” Orlando turned to Fredericks, who at least had the good grace to share his confusion. “So because we want to avoid the soldiers, we're going where all the soldiers are . . . ?”

The woman snorted. “You have all the faith of a mud puppy, child. How do you get through life?”

For a moment, Orlando was stung. He wanted to lash out at her, to point out that she didn't have an illness like his, so she didn't have much right to be smug about how people got through their lives, but he knew she didn't really mean it that way. “Just talk to me, Mrs. Simpkins,” he said heavily. “I need some answers.”

She darted a quick look at him, perhaps hearing something in his tone. Her hard smile disappeared. “Call me Bonnie Mae, boy. I think it's time.”

“I'm listening . . . Bonnie Mae.”

Fredericks was walking close beside them, anxious to hear whatever was said. The monkeys had lost interest, and were following Bes like a fluttering yellow cape as the little god capered for the children trotting out of the houses to line the impromptu parade route.

“I told you how Mr. Al-Sayyid came to our church, didn't I? And about Pastor Winsallen, how he had us come meet the man afterward, and they explained about this Circle group of theirs?”

“Yeah,” Fredericks said, “but you said something really strange about God—that they were drilling a hole in Him, or something.”

She smiled. “That's what I said, because that's what they told me. More or less. And I can't really explain because I didn't completely understand it myself, but they said that people in religions all over the world had been noticing something when they prayed—or meditated I guess if they were those Eastern folk. Something was breaking through into the part of them that touched God.”

“Like it was a . . . a place?” asked Orlando, mystified. The sun was beginning to tire him. They had moved into a less cheerful part of town—the natives here were poorer, and while they still greeted Bes respectfully, some covert glances were being cast at the god's followers.

“Like it was a place. Or maybe not. Anyway, it doesn't matter, boy—if it's true or if it isn't, what you or I think isn't gonna have a lot to do with it. A lot of very smart people believe it. But all I needed to know was that these Grail people were using innocent children to make some kind of immortality machine, like out of one of those science fiction things the kids rot their minds with. Doesn't take any religion at all to know
that's
wrong.

“So we joined the Circle, and Pastor Winsallen helped us raise some money to go stay with Mr. Al-Sayyid and his friends at one of their special training centers. We told the congregation we were going to do some missionary work with the Copts, which was true in a way. Anyway, the Circle people got us fitted up and sent us here, although I guess they didn't really send us anywhere. Hard to remember, sometimes—it
feels
like we're somewhere. Mr. Al-Sayyid and some of his friends like Mr. Jehani, who was a Moslem gentleman, were Egyptologists, so they had set themselves up here, but there are Circle people in lots of different Otherland worlds.

“It was pretty exciting in those first days—behind enemy lines, like something you dream about when you're a kid, but doing the Lord's true work. The Circle had the whole thing set up—the place you've been staying, that was one of our safe houses, I think you call it. We had a few, since Mr. Al-Sayyid had a good job in the palace. We had other Circle people coming through, updating us on what was going on outside—there's no way to communicate from one of these worlds to another, see, unless you're one of the so-called Grail folks.”

She took a deep breath and wiped sweat from her brow—the sun was high now and the day was becoming uncomfortably hot. Orlando wondered what she looked like in real life. Her small, round, nondescript Egyptian sim fit her personality, but he of all people knew there was no judging people by what they looked like in VR.

“So there we were,” she continued. “Doing research, I guess—the Circle's a big organization, and we were only foot soldiers, you might say. That's how I first heard about the woman with the feather, the one they call Ma'at here. She's in other worlds, too, as far as we can tell. Maybe she's one of the Grail folk, or maybe she's just something the engineers put in more than once—people tell me that these gear folk are big ones for jokes. But she's not the only one. Tefy and Mewat, those goons who work for Osiris? They're in lots of worlds, too. People call them the Twins because they always show up together. There are probably others as well—we never finished our research. The poop kind of hit the fan, as a matter of fact.”

Bes had led them on a winding route through the town's closequartered streets, but they had turned their backs on the river some time ago; because he was already fatigued, Orlando could not help noticing that they were now going uphill more often than not, heading toward the highlands—the gods' own turf. He would have been worried, but he had enough to do in this heat just walking and trying to pay attention to Bonnie Mae's story.