Paradox (46 page)

“Chaos!” Troopers glanced at each other.

I've been getting blasé
, Tom realized,
about the whole concept.
Once more, he was bringing ancient, whispered legends to life before people's eyes.

But if you knew what I now suspect, you'd kill me out of hand.

“Pilots, did you say?” A lean-faced soldier stared intently at the display.

“They do exist—”

Tom forced himself to silence.

“Go on.” Corduven.

“This particular crystal is not, unfortunately, in complete working order.” Tom indicated a tricon in Corduven's holodisplay; he gestured for drill-in to more detail. “We can deduce where the higher-ranking LudusVitae officers are staying. One of them should have a functional crystal.”

Two troopers whispered; Tom caught the word
Pilot
mentioned twice.

Corduven said: “How do you know? About these crystals, I mean.”

“You told me. Three thousand Oracles were affected in Flashpoint. That would have taken three thousand comms relays—probably—and I'm willing to bet the senior officers still have them.”

Corduven and one of the men exchanged looks.

Tom understood: this was something their renowned intelligence services had not picked up, but should have. Which meant Tom could be lying.

He addressed Corduven directly: “You're going to have to trust me, and let me make my own preparations.”

And if you knew whose help I intended to enlist—

A pause, then: “Agreed.”

A hesitant ripple seemed to pass along the corridor wall, then it froze.

“Yes,” murmured Tom. “It's me.”

He touched the wall with a gentle palm, then hurried onwards. He needed complete isolation—
the timing's all wrong
—and the outer courts would be safer.

Timing. He should have had a crystal
first
, before he started: but it was not going to happen. Instead, he was going to have to construct the whole thing in his mind, an algorithmic network comprising thousands of processes in Avernon-metavector contexts.

And Corduven's men would have to get hold of a crystal.

Lev-bikes, hurtling through the air—

But the high-arched halls of Veneluza Galleria were empty, disused. Wild fluorofungus formed random clumps on the groined ceiling, the fluted columns. The thirteen-year-old monument—to the riders and spectators who had perished in the explosion—had been toppled over, and acid-etched tricon projections proclaimed freedom's cause across smoke-blackened walls.

Aleph Hall, reconfigured.

From inside: a vast, dark, hollow sphere, hundreds of metres across. Its shadows were relieved by floating holo-panels and ribbons of glowing blues—royal and eggshell, azure and sapphire, picked out here and there with exotic violet and startling turquoise.

Scalp tingling.

Hard to make out the walls, but they were faceted, with dark panels. The shadows held twisted sculptures: steel and dull gold, tortured figures struggling in the darkness.

Sombre crowds were filing in.

Tom started to reach up to run a hand across his scalp—
stop that—
but prevented himself in time. It would not be appropriate, that was all.

Least of his worries. He did not have that
bloody
crystal.

Other light sources: blood-red vertical bars of baleful light, slowly moving in unpredictable orbits around the hall.

“Excuse me, Your Reverence.”

“Please, daughter.” Tom moved aside to let her past.

Crowds, mostly silent: speaking, when they had to, in subdued whispers. There was just a faint susurration of rustling fabric—long, hooded robes predominating, their colours dark and plain—and the soft arrhythmic slapping of hundreds of padded sandals against the seven spiralling glassine ramps.

Relying on Corduven to come through with the goods.

The revolutionary guards wore crossed sashes—one crimson, one emerald—and, more importantly, bore black-and-silver graser rifles at
port-arms. They were everywhere: in curved rows along the sloping ramps, around the crystal floor's perimeter, and stationed in a grid-pattern among the spectators themselves.

Elva, can I trust you?

If Corduven knew how Tom had obtained the IDs, he would have aborted the operation immediately. But in any case Tom had not seen any sign of—There! Small in the distance, a figure in the descending file. Grey, hooded cape, but it did not disguise Corduven's gait: highly strung and radiating tension.

Scalp tingling, ignore.

Seven ramps, seven men.

It had been a coincidence, and Tom wondered now whether that had influenced their judgement. Corduven and the six soldiers had split up, each coming down a separate ramp spiral. Perhaps they should have stuck together.

Itching—
Keep still!

Too far for Corduven to signal success or failure.

A whisper: “May I have your blessing, Reverence?”

Urge to laugh.

“Of course, my son.”

Do not laugh, do not even think of scratching your bloody head, or Sylvana will
die,
is that plain enough for you?

The thought came like an icy shock, and then Tom was forming the one-hand mudra and dredging his memory for the Old Eldraic words—“
Benehte, syen mir, pre' omnis greche
”—of formal benediction.

It was an image of torture.

The crystal floor was flat, maybe a hundred metres in diameter. High above, at the equatorial level, seven equidistant entrances formed a horizontal circle.

Torture, yes. It suggested torture, and by conscious design. Formed of dark iron and metre-long carbon rods, thousands of them:
a satanic cruciform nest of tortured metal floating at the hall's exact centre, a hundred metres above Tom's head.

Shaven head, tingling.

In the cruciform, restraining-straps hung limply.

Here and there, as Tom adjusted his flowing purple robes, people stopped and paused, craning their heads back to look up at the thing. Disappointed that it was unoccupied?

Some bowed or raised fist to forehead in respect as they passed Tom, and he blessed them with the mudra.

He could have had two acolytes with him, swinging thuribles and filling the place with perfumed violet incense smoke, but Corduven's men would
not
look like apprentice priests, even shaven-headed and purple-robed.

Ripples passed across the crystalline floor.

Melting, beginning to move. Tom and everyone else shifted as clear seats morphed into being. Then, by unspoken consent, the two thousand spectators sat down.

A murmur passed through them.

But the revolutionary guards did not look up: they were watching the crowd, scanning carefully, and Tom did not like that. Too well trained. There was the glitter of eyes upon him—
mistake: look up like everybody else
—and Tom forced himself to break eye contact and lean back.

Glowing, white.

At the ceiling's apex, a circular membrane glowed. It changed, bulging downwards in seven places, budding, then the buds burst. White light slid across silver as they dropped into view.

For a moment the tribunal bobbed in place, then the seven lev-spheres slowly descended. Open-topped, ringed with gold: one judge inside each.

Destiny!

He must have been mistaken.

Then seven great cubic holovolumes sprang up around the hall, close-ups of the judges, and Tom realized he was right.

Elva
.

No surprise that she was here, a senior LudusVitae officer and locally born…except that she had said
nothing
of this last night.

Malkoril had furnished the information, and Tom had sneaked along to her temporary quarters to talk. To persuade her to furnish the eight IDs, which she had.

Closing his eyes to slits, as though in prayer.

There was no hint that he was the focus of special attention. The guards—at least a hundred and fifty of them—were watching everybody.

So he opened his eyes normally and checked the holos. Three judges were strangers to him, but four were not. Their heads and shoulders were so huge in the displays that it felt as though he could just reach out and touch them: a gentle fingertip along a cheek, or curved fingers raking eyes, take your pick.

His feelings were that mixed.

Sentinel:
blocky and white-haired, formidable-looking.

Elva:
face impassive, eyes giving nothing away.

Viscount Vilkarzyeh:
in a simple uniform without decorations, one of the proletariat, trying his quondam peers.

A familiar pale, freckled face…Reddish-auburn hair, beautiful eyes, the nonfunctional one like a huge turquoise/aquamarine amber-flecked jewel at this magnification. Here to try her former mistress.

Arlanna.

He tried to catch Corduven's eye, but the vectors were all wrong, his view obscured by other spectators.

No crystal.

If Corduven's men had been successful, he would have got it to Tom by now.

“
Are you sure you'll get one?
” Tom had asked.

“
My people
,” Corduven had replied, “
are proficient in neurointerrogation.
”

A paradox-trap, then.

Corduven could not make his move without Tom; Tom needed a crystal.

Lady Darinia's expression is calm, authoritative: in close-up, her eyes are unnaturally steady.

“
The Lady Sylvana will decide the boy's punishment.”

Wide, blue eyes
.

Blood pressure, EEG, normal. Verdict: not unduly stressed.

Clear, young voice.
“
An arm, perhaps?
”

“
Very well.
”
Lady Darinia.
“
Before you deliver him, remove an arm.
”

Impersonal grey gaze.

“
Either arm will do.
”

Why the Chaos had the prosecution begun with this illustration?

Because of the thing Tat had said: One-Arm had been a martyr to the cause, and the crowd would know that.

A subsidiary volume showed
bubbling fat, the rising smoke of burnt blood, as the blade cuts and the youthful Tom Corcorigan screams.

THE FIRST ACCUSED
…

Tricons flow, showing Arlanna's spoken words in light.

…
SYLVANA LIRGOLAN, FORMERLY LADY SYLVANA
…

High up, at the hall's apex, circles of light ripple outwards from the membrane's centre.

…
CRIMES BEING: TREASON AGAINST THE PEOPLE
…

The dark iron/graphite cruciform rises slowly to the light.

…
AGAINST HUMANITY
…

And descends.

Her face was captured in holovolumes, and Tom wondered if they had made a mistake: bound in the cruciform, fine blonde hair in disarray, she was nevertheless heart-stoppingly beautiful.

Sylvana.
He had been right to come here.

Defence advocate.

“
This trial is unfair, in that the outcome is predetermined. As we stand on the verge of a new age, on the world built by the courage
”—raising her voice above the crowd's murmur—“
yes, and the mistakes of those who ruled before…But we should not repeat those mistakes, fellow citizens. The prosecution will argue that she is not without guilt; but I will submit that the defendant had little choice in her actions
…”

Prosecution.

“…
defence's claims force us to do this, though it seems unfair
…”

Sylvana screams.

Tom's hand was clenched against his thigh, fingers digging in like claws. Around him, spectators drew in shaky breaths; even after the years of violence, such primitive means remained shocking.

As the cruciform's mag-field slowly draws them inwards, ten thousand iron rods and carbon fibres…

Biting his lip hard, tasting warm salty blood.

…penetrate Sylvana, writhing within the cruciform's core…

A muffled sob. Near Tom, a woman buries her face in her hood.

…and her blood trickles in rivulets, drips from the cruciform's myriad rods as she dies.

“…
truecast, utilizing an Oracle under our control, shows that the defendant's guilt is not only without question, but that the very sentence to be carried out by this court is predetermined
…”

“Reverence?” A concerned whisper.

“Peace.” Tom gave the mudra. “I'm praying, that's all.”

Not entirely a lie.

“…
since we already know the defendant will be executed, it becomes a matter of following procedure
…”

Bastards.

But the other Sylvana, the real one, was staring at the truecast holo. No panic; but no expectation of reprieve. The prosecution lawyer smiled.

“…
consider that, before we see the first log
…”—defence—“…
by the prosecution's own argument, Destiny forced her to make the decision you are about to see
…”

“…
just as we
…”—prosecution—“…
will be forced by Fate to find her guilty and carry out the tribunal's sentence, as we have
already
seen
…”

“You'll know,” Tom had said to Corduven.

“Not good enough!” Corduven had been livid: it was his men's lives at risk.

But Tom had shaken his head.

“It may not manifest itself the same way as before. Just get me a damned crystal…”

Sylvana.

Dark cruciform, hanging.

I can't do it without the crystal.
He had no processing power…

And no choice.

Tom made his move.