The Summer Queen (118 page)

He jerked around, startled, to find BZ Gundhalinu, Chief Justice
of Tiamat, leaning against the doorframe at the entrance to the room. “What are
you doing here?” Reede said stupidly.

“I live here,” Gundhalinu said. He wore a pair of hastily
pulled-on pants and a loose robe hanging open, baring his chest and an expanse
of bandageskin. His hair was rumpled. He looked like a man who had been rousted
out of bed; as if he had not been expecting this meeting any more than Reede
had himself. But the expression on Gundhalinu’s face said that he had been
anticipating it for a long time.

Reede leaned forward, with his hands tightening over his
knees. “Where are my men?”

“Niburu and Ananke?” Gundhalinu half smiled, almost as if he
remembered them more fondly than he remembered the man who was his guest. “Waiting
for you,” he said simply. But his eyes changed as he went on looking at Reede,
and for a brief moment his smile was real. “It’s good to see you again,” he
murmured, as if the truth surprised him. He looked down suddenly.

Reede stared at him, remembering in abrupt, vivid detail the
moment of their parting at Fire Lake. And yet he felt his disbelief become
something truer and far more unsettling, as more memories began to rise. His
hand rose to his mouth, touching his lips; dropped away again. He leaned back
into the comforting embrace of the native-made couch and forced himself to
relax. “What do you want, Gundhalinu?”

Gundhalinu came on into the room, moving as though it hurt,
and settled heavily into a wooden chair. He glanced at the display on his house
system, checking the time, and grimaced, before he looked at Reede again. “It’s
about what I’m doing here, Kullervo—and what you’re doing here.”

Reede’s mouth quirked; his grip on his knees eased. “Congratulations.
How do you like being Chief Justice of Tiamat?”

Gundhalinu shrugged, shaking his head. “It’s not my occupation
of choice. It’s not like research. In politics there aren’t any right answers,
so you never win.”

“That’s because you have a conscience.” Reede smiled
faintly. “Lose that, and you’ll start winning again.”

Gundhalinu’s mouth turned up in an ironic echo of Reede’s
own smile. He pulled his robe closer across his chest, covering the bandages,
and fastened the seal. His hand stayed there, unobtrusively holding his wounded
side. “If only life was that simple,” he murmured. He looked up again. “How do
you like working for the Brotherhood?”

Reede glanced away. “Same as always.’’

“Becoming the Source’s brand hasn’t changed anything for
you?”

Reede looked back at him abruptly.

“Jaakola has a bad reputation, even for someone in his line
of work. And what shows in the real world is barely the surface. He goes deep,
doesn’t he?”

Reede frowned. “Did you pick me up to bleed me about the
Source? I can’t tell you anything you don’t already know.”

“I know.”

“Am I under arrest?”

“You haven’t done anything illegal here on Tiamat, that I
know of.” Gundhalinu reached into a shallow ceramic bowl sitting on the table
beside him, picked up a piece of fruit, and put it back again.

Reede laughed incredulously. “Then what the hell do you want
from me?”

“You’re on Tiamat to synthesize the water of life for the
Source, aren’t you?”

Reede didn’t answer.

“Why did you set up that clue pointing it out to me, at the
Survey Hall?”

Reede shrugged, and shook his head, still frowning. “I don’t
know .... Just for the hell of it. To see if you were still smart enough to get
it.”

“Were you warning me off? Or asking me for help?”

Reede’s hands fisted silently on his thighs. “You’re the one
who needs help, from what I see.” He gestured at Gundhalinu’s wound, at the
fatigue and discomfort obvious on his face. “What is it with you and the mers?
I know you—you don’t want the water of life back, you’re afraid of it. But you’re
studying them like you want what I want. And at the same time you say you don’t
want anybody killing them, but they’re killing them all the same, and trying to
kill you too.”

“Politics,” Gundhalinu murmured.

“Love,” Reede whispered, leaning forward. “The rumors are
true .... It’s the Queen, that’s why your policy doesn’t make sense worth a
damn. She’s the one you told me about, back on Four. That you’d change the
future of the entire fucking galaxy to get back to her.” He laughed once. “And
I thought you were making a joke.”

“We both underestimated each other, I think,” Gundhalinu
said, a little sourly.

Reede laughed again, with more feeling. “You could say that.”
He met Gundhalinu’s half frown, saw it transform into something that looked
strangely like regret. Gundhalinu glanced away, his fingers moving restlessly
over the geometries of his robe’s sleeve. “I hope she’s worth it,” Reede said.

Gundhalinu smiled, looking back at him, and nodded. Reede
felt the image of a face he had forbidden himself to see begin to form inside
his own eyes: dark, luminous, veiled in sensual mystery ... her face. Stop it—!

“I’m sorry about your wife,” Gundhalinu said, as if he had
read Reede’s mind, and not just his expression.

“What do you know about it?” Reede snapped, stung.

“We know what happened when you were transferred from
Mundilfoere to Jaakola, Reede; when you lost her.” He hesitated. “We even know
what you really are.”

Reede felt his face flush. Mundilfoere’s meat. A brainwipe.
A lunatic—He pushed to his feet.

“—Vanamoinen,” Gundhalinu said softly.

Reede’s knees went weak, and he sat down again. “What?” he
said.

“Vanamoinen. You are Vanamoinen. We lost you to the Brotherhood.
We’ve been searching for you ever since.”

Reede sat frozen, listening, as something inside him
paralyzed his tongue, stopping his stream of questions and protest. He put his
hands up to his face, touching its contours, so familiar, and yet so strange.
He felt himself starting to sweat. “They called me that—‘the new Vanamoinen,’”
he murmured, remembering. “They knew, they all knew something .... But I don’t
know Vanamoinen. Vanamoinen’s two thousand years dead! More! My name ... my
name is Reede Kullervo—” His fingers dug into his flesh.

“You’re two people, using one body,” Gundhalinu said,
sitting forward, forcing Reede to look at him. “Not even separate signals, but
scrambled. The Brotherhood got hold of a brainscan of the real Vanamoinen, made
thousands of years ago. And they used you to bring him back. But you weren’t
braindead when they fed his memories into your circuits: It must have been like
a head-on collision when it happened. It caused a lot of damage.”

“Like holograms colliding,” Reede murmured, staring. “Shufflebrain
...” He let his hands fall away, focusing on the image, feeling the act of
concentration stabilize him. “How was it done?” he asked, hearing his voice
come back to something like normal. “I’ve never heard of that being done to
anybody.”

Gundhalinu shook his head. “I don’t know how they preserved
Vanamoinen’s ... your—soul, for so long. If you don’t know, I doubt if anybody
does, now.”

“My soul ...” Reede looked down at his body, not protesting
the intimations. He seemed to be seeing himself from a great height suddenly;
his mind spun and fell away. “I don’t remember ...” he mumbled, “but it could
be possible ....”He frowned, and glanced up again. “But why?”

“You tell me,” Gundhalinu urged softly. “Why you’re back,
here, now, after thousands of years.”

“The mers,” Reede said automatically. He broke off,
abruptly, staring. “By the All—yes, I think that ... that I ... I’m here for
the mers. I know them ....” He looked back at Gundhalinu again, in
astonishment. “But it’s not about the water of life. The water of life will
never work perfectly in a human body, because human bodies are genetically
imperfect.” He shook his head, dazed and elated and appalled by the revelation.
“That’s a fool’s errand. The mers are ...”He reached out, groping in the air;
his fingers closed over nothing.

Gundhalmu was staring at him, in that old, slightly
incredulous way. Reede looked back at him, realizing that he had missed that
expression; that it reminded him ... reminded him of ... His train of thought
derailed. “Shit—” he muttered, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes
until he saw explosions of light. “Why? Gods ... why me?”

“I don’t know that either, Reede,” Gundhalinu murmured. “There’s
some evidence you may have been a mistake.”

Reede laughed, a tight, painful sound. His hand reached
inside his shirt, and pulled out the pendant, the ring, chained together. “That’s
always a danger, when you’re a stranger far from home.”

Gundhalinu’s eyes filled with sudden compassion. “But you’re
here, now ... Vanamoinen. You were brought back because your knowledge was needed.
You’re here, and so am I, and I need your help. And I don’t believe that’s an
accident. We were meant to work together again, on this—” He leaned forward, shining
with urgency and hope.

“What?” Reede said thickly.

“You’re right, the water of life isn’t what’s important
about the mers. It’s their survival. It’s what they were created to do—for ...
for ... you know what I mean. You know what I’m trying to tell you—”

Reede looked at him blankly. “No. I don’t. What the hell are
you talking about?”

Gundhalinu swore softly, in anger or frustration. “Damn it
... Vanamoinen! You know why it matters. You put the mers here. You have to remember
why, for gods’ sakes!”

Reede felt his mind tumble and spin, fragments of shattered
mirror shaken inside a bag of living flesh, a bowl of bone, until he bled. “I
don’t know what you’re talking about! I’m not Vanamoinen. I’m Reede’. And I don’t
know shit about it, just shut up about it! Leave me alone!” He pushed to his
feet, starting toward the door.

He stopped, as another figure appeared suddenly before him,
blocking his way. For a brief moment he thought that it was Ariele standing
there, pale-haired, wrapped in a man’s robe. But the hair was wrong, long, a
cloud of white ... the face was wrong, grown older—The Queen. He looked back at
Gundhalinu, in sudden surprise, sudden understanding.

“Reede Kullervo—” the Queen said, coming forward, the robe
whispering softly around her as she held out her hand to him.

He stared at her, not knowing what to do. He took her hand
automatically, bobbed his head in an awkward obeisance. “Lady,” he murmured,
remembering the proper form of address, and let her hand go as if it were
burning hot. He saw Ariele again in his mind, wondering what the Queen knew, if
she knew—He looked down.

“You’re the one who helped BZ recreate the stardrive, aren’t
you?” she asked, and her voice seemed to ground him, draining the energy of his
sudden panic, letting him stand still. She studied him a moment longer, with an
intentness that was somehow oddly comforting.

“Yes,” he said, shifting from foot to foot. He glanced at
Gundhalinu again, saw him nod.

“We’ve been trying to find a way to save the mers from the
Hegemony,” she said “We know they are intelligent, but it’s not enough. We
think that their songs contain a—some kind of coded data. But it’s incomplete;
the slaughter has decimated them to the point where they’ve lost their past,
and they don’t even realize what they’ve lost. And the songs are ... important,
somehow, to—to the well-being of the Hegemony. If we can just understand their
purpose, we may be able to save them. But we can’t ... we can’t ...”

Reede stared at her, seeing her suddenly afflicted with the
same inability to say what she meant that had struck Gundhalinu. “What’s the
matter with you?” he said, half frowning.

She shook her head, and her agate-colored eyes closed in frustration.
“I can’t tell you,” she murmured, as if the words filled her mouth like gall. “He
can’t—”

“Literally,” Gundhalinu broke in, rubbing his face. “It’s protecting
itself ....”

Reede felt something gleam in the depths of his mind, a
spark of comprehension threatening to catch fire. He lunged after a memory; it
squirted out of his grasp. “Survey—?” he whispered, empty-handed, empty-eyed. “You
mean Survey?”

Gundhalinu shook his head, like a man who’d had his tongue
cut out.

Reede laughed harshly. “Gods, aren’t we a set!” His hands
jerked. “What the he)! is happening here, is this catching—?” He hit himself
viciously on the side of the head.

“It doesn’t matter—” The Queen reached out, taking hold of
his arm. “You don’t have to understand—just believe that it’s important. That’s
enough. Work with us on the mersong; let your mind do what it was meant to do.
Then maybe it will all come back to you ....”

Reede blinked suddenly, looking down at her hand; his free
hand rose to covei it where it rested on his sleeve, closed over it almost
convulsively.

“Reede.” Gundhalinu got up from his seat, moving toward them
painfully, and almost reluctantly. “I know the Source has some hold over you.
If you want to get away from him, we can help you. Any hold can be broken. Just
tell us what you need.”

Reede’s hand pried the Queen’s fingers loose from his arm.
He took a deep, ragged breath, feeling the skeleton’s fist of the truth close
around his throat. “You can’t help me, Gundhalinu.” He shook his head. “Nobody
can.”

“At least tell me what kind of trouble you’re in.” Gundhalinu
held out his hands. “You know me,” he said, meeting Reede’s gaze with an odd
intensity. “You know you can trust me with your life. And I need your help—”

Reede shook his head, turned away. “Can’t. I can’t help you—!”

“It’s your whole reason for existence!”

Reede turned back; the turning motion made him giddy. He
felt as if his entire life had begun to strobe. “I’ll think it over ... got to
think about it. Got to go now, and think about it.” Unsure of the consequences,
unsure of himself, he started toward door. He glanced back once as he reached
it. “Ask your husband about the mers,
dy
,” he said sourly.
“He knows some things he hasn’t told you, too ....” They made no move to stop
him as he went out.