Serpent's Reach (20 page)

“Queen-threat,” a Warrior ventured.

The Drones sang otherwise, Remembering. The Mother of Cerdin blue-hive lived in Kalind blue’s message. There was a song that was Kethiuy, and death, abundant death, the beginning of changes, premature.

“Meth-maren,” Mother recalled, feeding into the Mind. “First-human. Hive-friend.”

Then the message possessed Her, and She poured into the Drones a deep and abiding anger. The Mind reached. Its parts were far-flung, scattered across the invisible gulfs of stars, of time, which had never been of significance. The space existed. Time existed. There was no synthesis possible.

The Drones moved, laved Mother with their palps, increasingly disturbed. They rotated leftward, and Mother also moved, drawing from Warriors and Foragers far-ranging on the surface—orienting to the rising sun, not alpha, but beta Hydri, beholding this in the darkness of the Hill.

The Drones searched Memory, rotated farther, seeking resolution. Full circle they came, locked again on the Istran sun. Workers reoriented; Warriors moved.

The circling began again, slow and ponderous. Seldom did Mother move at all. Now twice more the entire hive shifted prime direction, and settled.

A Warrior felt Mother’s summons and sought touch. It lacked into Mother’s chemistry and quivered its entire length, in the strength of the message it felt. It turned and ran, breaking froth the Dance.

A Worker approached, received taste, and likewise fled, frantically contacting others as it went.

The Dance fragmented. Workers and Warriors scattered in a frenzy in all directions.

The Drones continued to sing, a broken song, and dissonant. Mother produced no egg. A strange fluid poured from Her mandibles, and the Workers gathered it and passed to the egg-tenders, who sang together in consternation.

The house-comp’s memory held a flood of messages: those from the Dain-Prossertys, who had lost no time; anxious inquiries from the ITAK board in general; from ISPAK, a courteous erecting and regrets that she had not stayed in the station: from the police, a requested list of casualties and next of kin; from forward ITAK businesses, offers of services and gifts.

Raen dealt with some of them: a formal message of condolences to the next-of-kin, with authorisation for funeral expenses and the sum of ten thousand credits to each bereaved, to be handled through ITAK; to the board, general salutations; to the Dain-Prossertys a suggestion that any particular license they desired might be favourably considered, and suggesting discretion in the matter.

She ordered printout of further messages and ignored what might be incoming for the time, choosing a leisurely breakfast with Jim, the while Max and Merry ate in the azi quarters, and Warrior enjoyed a liquid delicacy in the garden—barely visible, Warrior’s post, a shady nook amongst the rocks and spiky plants, a surprise for any intruders.

A little time she reckoned she might spend in resting; but postponing meetings with ITAK had hazard, for these folk might act irrationally if they grew too nervous.

There was also the chance that elements of the Family had agents here: more than possible, even that there could have been someone to precede her. In the
Jewel’s
slow voyage there was time for that.

She toyed with the idea of sending Council a salutation from Istra, after two decades of silence and obedience. The hubris of it struck her humour.

But Moth needed no straws added to the weight under which she already tottered. Raen found it not in her present interest to add anything to the instabilities, to aggravate the little tremors which were beginning to ran through the Reach. Kontrin could act against her on Istra; but they would not like to, would shudder at the idea of pursuing a feud in the witness of betas, and very much more so here at the window on Outside. No, she thought, there would be for her only the delicate matter of assassination…and Moth, as every would act on the side of inaction, entropy personified.

No such message would go, she decided, finishing her morning tea. Let them discover the extent of their problem. For herself—she had them; and they had yet to discover it…had a place whereon to stand, and, she thought to herself, a curiosity colder and more remote than all her enemies’ ambition: to comprehend this little hall of yam the while she pulled it apart.

To know the betas and the azi and all the shadows the Kontrin cast on the walls of their confinement.

Jim had finished his breakfast, and sat, hands on the table, staring between them at the empty plate. The azi invisibility mode. If he did not move, his calculation seemed to be, then she would cease to notice him and he could not possibly bother her. The amazing thing was that it so often worked. She had seen azi do such things all her life, that purposeful melting into the furnishings of a room, and she had never noticed, until she persisted in sitting at table with one, until she relied on one for company, and conversation, and more than that.

It is something
, she thought,
to begin to see
.

She pushed back from the table without a word, seeking her own invisibility, and went off to the computer.

The printout had grown very long during breakfast. She tore it off and scanned it, found overtures from some of the great agricultural co-operatives within ITAK—suggesting urgent and private consultations. Word had indeed spread. Some messages were from ITAK on the other continent, imaginatively called West: that was the Newport operation; simple courtesies, those. Another had come from ISPAK, inviting her up for what it called an urgent conference. A message from ITAK on East acknowledged with gratitude the one she had sent before breakfast and urged her to entertain a board meeting at some convenient time; the signature was one ser Dain, president, and of a sudden she smiled, recalling sera Dain and her husband…betas too; had their Family, and she reckoned well how the connections might run in ITAK. Small benefit, then, from corrupting Prosserty: Dain was the name to watch.

And finally there was the one she had hoped for, a courteous greeting from ser Tallen of the trade mission, recalling the night’s summons and leaving a number where he might be reached: the address was that of a city guest house…considering Newhope, probably the only guest house.

She keyed the same message to all but Tallen. NOTED. I AM PRESENTLY ARRANGING MY SCHEDULE. THANK YOU. R.S.M.-m.

To Tallen: AT TWO, MY RESIDENCE, A BRIEF MEETING. RAEN A SUL.

She cleared that with the police at the gate, lest there be misunderstandings; and reckoned that it would be relayed to ITAK proper.

And a brief call to ITAK registry, bypassing automatic processes: Max and Merry were legally transferred, even offered as a company courtesy; she declined the latter, and paid the modest valuation of the contracts.

Supply: she arranged that, through several local companies…ordered items from groceries to hardware in prodigious quantity, notwithstanding borderline shortages. Fruit, grain, and sugar were in unusual proportion on that list…distressing, to any curious ITAK agent who investigated.

To the nine neighbours of Executive Circle 4, the same message, sent under the serpent-sigil of the Family: TO MY NEIGHBOURS: WITH EXTREME REGRET I MUST STATE THAT AN ATTEMPT ON MY LIFE MAKES NECESSARY CERTAIN DEFENSIVE MEASURES. THIS CIRCLE MAY BE SUBJECT TO HAZARDOUS VISITORS AND ACTIONS ON THE PART OF MY AGENTS MAY NECESSITATE SUDDEN INCURSIONS INTO NEIGHBOURING RESIDENCES. I REFUSE RESPONSIBILITY FOR LIVES AND PROPERTY UNDER THESE CIRCUMSTANCES. IF, HOWEVER, YOU WISH TO RELOCATE FOR THE DURATION OF MY STAY ON ISTRA, I SHALL BE HAPPY EITHER TO PURCHASE YOUR RESIDENCE OR TO RENT IT, WITH OR WITHOUT FURNISHINGS. I SHALL MEET ANY REASONABLE PRICE OR RENT WITHOUT ARGUMENT AND OFFER TO BEAR ALL EXPENSES OF TEMPORARY OR PERMANENT RELOCATION IN A COMPARABLE CIRCLE, PLUS 5,000 CREDITS GENERAL COMPENSATION FOR THE INCONVENIENCE. KONT’ RAEN A SUL HANT METH-MAREN, AT 47. POISE EXPECTED.

Then she settled back, shut her eyes and rested for a few moments…set herself forward then, having begun the sequences in her mind.

Kontrin-codes. Kontrin had set up worldcomp and intercomp, and maintained both. There were beta accesses, in a hierarchy of authorisations; there were many more reserved to Kontrin, and some restricted to specific Houses, to those who worked directly with specific aspects of the central computers at Alpha—with the trade banks or the labs or the other separate agencies, which met in Council: the democracy of the Family, the secrecy that kept certain functions for certain Houses, making Council necessary. Meth-marens had had somewhat to do with establishing Alphacomp in the very beginning—in matters of abstract theory and majat logic, the mathematics of the partitioned hive-mind: translation capacity, biocomp, and the dull mechanics of warehousing and hive-trade; but Ilit had had the abstract interest in economics.

Merely to enter worldcomp or even intercomp, and to touch information of beta’s private lives…any Kontrin could do that. Trade information was hardly more difficult, for any who knew the very simple codes: locations of foodstuffs, ships in port, licenses and applications for license. It was all very statistical and dull and few Kontrin without direct responsibility for a House’s affairs would bestir themselves to care what volume of grain went into a city.

She did. Hal Ilit had realised, perhaps, the extent of her theft from him; perhaps this shame as much as the other had prompted him to turn on her. Certainly it was shame that had prompted hire to try to deal with her on his own, a man never experienced in violence.

He had been in most regards, an excellent teacher.

And the Eln-Kests, according to the statistics on record, had not been lying:

There was a periodic clatter in the next room, the rattle of dishes. Jim was probably at the height of happiness, doing what his training prepared him to do. It irritated her. She ordinarily carried on some operations in her mind, and could not to her usual extent, whether through preoccupation or because of the extraneous noise: she posted them to the auxiliary screens and checked them visually.

The rattle of dishes stopped. There was silence for a time. Then it began again, this time the moving of chairs and objects, a great deal of pacing about between.

She threw down the stylus, swore, rose and stalked back to the main rooms. Jim was there, replacing a bit of sculpture on the reception hall table.

“The noise,” she said, “is bothering me. I’m trying to work.”

He waved a hand at the rooms about him, which were, she saw now, clean, dusted, well-ordered.
Approve
, his look asked, and killed all her anger. It was his whole reason for existence on the
Jewel
.

It was his whole reason for existence anywhere.

She let go her breath and shook her head.

“I beg pardon,” he said, in that always-subdued voice.

“Take a few hours off, will you?”

“Yes, sera.”

He made no move to go; he expected her to walk away, she realised, being the one with a place to go. She thought of him at breakfast, absolutely still, mental null…agony, she thought. It was what the Family had tried to do with her. She could not bear watching it.

“I’ve a deepstudy unit upstairs,” she said. “You know how to use it?”

“Yes, sera.”

“If you can’t remember, I’m going to make a tape that says nothing but
Raen
. Come on. Come upstairs. I’ll see whether you know what you’re doing with it.”

She led the way; he followed. In the bedroom she gestured at the closet where her baggage was stored, and he pulled the unit out, while she located the ’bin bottle in her cosmetics kit and shook out a single capsule.

He set it up properly, although he seemed puzzled by some of the details of it: units varied. She watched him attach the several leads, and those were right. She gave him the pill, and he swallowed it without water.

“Recreation,” she said, and sorted through the second, the brown case, that held the tapes. “You’re always free to use the unit. I wish you would, in fact. Any white tape is perfectly all right for you.” She looked at him, who sat waiting, looking at her, and reckoned that no azi was capable of going beyond instructions: she had never known one to, not even Lia. Psych-set. They simply could not. “You don’t touch the black ones. Understood? If I hand you a black one, that’s one thing, but not on your own. You follow that?”

“Yes,” he said.

They were black ones that she chose, Kontrin-made. The longest was an artistic piece, participant-drama: a little cultural improvement would not be amiss, she thought. And the short one was
Istra
. She put them in the slot. “You know this machine, do you? You understand the hazards? Make sure the repeat-function never adds up to more than two hours”

He nodded. His eyes were beginning to dilate with the drug. He was not ht for conversation—fumbled after the switch, in token of this. She pushed it for him.

There was delay enough for him to compose himself. He settled back, folded his arms across his belly, eyes glassy. Then the machine began to activate, and it was as if every nerve in his body were severed: the whole body went limp. It was time to leave; the machine was a nuisance without the drug, and she never liked to look at someone undergoing the process—it was not a particularly pretty sight, mouth slack, muscles occasionally twitching to suggestion. She double-checked the timer to be sure: there was a retreat function, that could be turned to suicide—dehydration, a slow death as pleasant or as terrible as the tape in question; it was not engaged, and she turned her back on him and left, closed the door on the unit and its human appendage.

Every tape she had had since she was fifteen was in that box, and some she had recovered in duplicate for sentiment’s sake.
If he knew them all
, she thought wistfully,
he might be me
. And then she laughed, to think of things that were not in the tapes, the ugly things, the bitter things.

The laugh died. She leaned against the rail of the stairs and reckoned another thing, that she should not have meddled at all, that she should ravel at other knots that had importance, and let this one alone.