To Hold Infinity (11 page)

“I was at the Lupus Festival,” he said. “You should have called me in Skein.”

“That wasn't necessary.” Major Reilly's tone was designed to give nothing away, but it was obvious she would rather talk in person than in Skein.

In Skein, whatever she saw would have been what Rafael wanted her to see. Here and now, in reality, he would have to make sure that the same applied.

“You're sure you wouldn't like a drink?”

“Perhaps a glass of water.” A menu image grew beside her, and she selected a plain water; a glass rose up through the chair-arm's membrane. “Thank you. I gather you import tech from offworld, quite successfully.”

Dangerous ground. If Rafael hadn't been on full alert before, he was now.

“Yes, that's true. I pick a niche product or expertise—offworlders can be just as effective as us, you know, in any single given field.”

He watched the major stiffen slightly, as she sensed his veiled barb: how unenhanced humans might be compared to Luculenti. Point noted.

He knew how to make her angry, should that become a useful ploy.

“And mu-space comms?”

“That too.”

Rafael was appalled. If they knew of the uses to which he had turned mu-space comms—if they knew that, then he would be facing a team of LuxPrime specialists, Luculenti inquisitors. Not an unenhanced Fulgida proctor.

Unless they did not want to follow the obvious tactic, preferring a more subtle approach.

The girl, the girl. Don't forget the girl. It's probably just her murder they're investigating.

“I was showing some prospects, a couple of Algidiran businessmen, around the music stores in Lowtown, just this morning.”

That was true, as far as it went, but he had left them to their own devices very early.

Note this: no iris contraction or muscular tension when he mentioned Lowtown. Either this Fulgida major had immense self-possession, or she was after something else.

Not Rashella, in the Inez Banlieues? He had thought his smartatom cover was perfect. Dare he risk another search through SatScan dataseams?

“Do you know Tetsuo Sunadomari, a comms specialist?”

Worse and worse.

“Oh, yes. I haven't seen him for a tenday, or so. Is he in some kind of trouble?”

“Can you recall the last time you saw Mr. Sunadomari?”

“Yes, of course. I can download full details. Shall I?”

Major Reilly powered up her wrist terminal. “That would be very helpful.”

Status displays flowed as Rafael dumped text and video logs direct from Skein.

“If there were any irregularities in our dealings,” said Rafael, frowning, “I'm afraid I didn't catch them.”

“This seems very comprehensive.” Major Reilly killed her display. “Thank you.”

“All I've omitted are the contents of copyrighted designs. If necessary, I could provide those also, under privacy safeguards.”

“Thank you. Would you regard Mr. Sunadomari as a friend?”

“I'd—like to think so.” Hesitation was easy to feign. Why was she questioning him about Tetsuo? “In fact—Major, I actually sponsored him for upraise.”

He was watching her strong jaw muscles, the tension in her hands: no reaction, despite her feelings about Luculenti.

She knew about Tetsuo's upraise, though he had not yet been presented in Skein.

“He passed the security checks,” he added. If nothing else, surely Federico would have passed him the word, if there had been anything odd in Tetsuo's background. “Quite above board.”

“Yes, of course. I'm afraid Mr. Sunadomari hasn't been seen for several days. Do you have any idea of his whereabouts?”

Not seen? Something had happened to him?

“You've tried his house, of course? I can't think where else he might be.”

“Have you visited him there?”

“Never. Though I have details of the location—”

“That won't be necessary.”

Tension, now. The major had been there, he was sure of it. But for what purpose? And what had she found?

His skin crawled with the notion that Tetsuo might have realized just how much tech Rafael had actually pilfered, over and above their commercial agreement.

But Tetsuo could not have realized the significance of the code Rafael had stolen—

“Tetsuo has stayed here,” he said, musing. “During advanced studies before upraise.”

“Are there any other people he might stay with? Girlfriends?”

Rafael shook his head. “None, that I know of. He seemed quite consumed by his work.”

“Seemed? Why the past tense?”

“Just a figure of speech.” Rafael swallowed; his nervousness was not entirely faked. “This is serious, isn't it? You think he might be dead.”

Major Reilly put down her glass. “We're just covering all possibilities.” She stood up, holding out her hand.

Her grip was firm and dry, as they shook.

“By the way,” she added. “Do you know a gentleman named Adam Farsteen?”

“No, I don't.” Though he had heard the name, he thought, in connection with LuxPrime.

He raised a questioning eyebrow.

“Not to worry.” Major Reilly nodded. “You've been a big help, sir.”

He escorted her out, down the long hallway to the main doors. There, he stood on the steps and watched the three flyers lift into the night.

So Tetsuo was missing. An interesting slant to the game.

He went back into the lounge, and sat where Major Reilly had been—it was still warm from her body's touch—and sipped from her unfinished glass of water.

A vision flash: the slender girl, the young/old face, the delicate neck and the power flowing through his steel-strong fingers. The fire, then the dying light, fading in her eyes.

Pale eyes. In that regard, somewhat like the major's. But lacking the major's resolve. How would Major Reilly's eyes look, at the grand moment of death?

Yes, a very interesting slant to the game.

A fine game, indeed.

 

An opening, at the throat.

“
Yeee!
”

Yoshiko dropped to one knee and thrust.

Her long naginata, a narrow halberd, speared straight towards the swordsman's throat.

At the last moment, the black-clad swordsman parried with his blade, and the shock reverberated down the naginata's shaft.

Yoshiko jumped up, sidestepping and spinning, but her foot slid in the long wet grass and that was enough. She tried to recover but the swordsman beat aside her weapon and sliced back with his blade and it cut across her throat and she was dead.

Death.

The swordsman stepped back, bowed, and winked out of existence.

Damn it.

She knelt down in the grass, panting. Cold night air enveloped her sweating body, and steam rose from her bare forearms.

The lawn here was yellowish, beneath floating orange glowglobes. Outside their warmth, the night pressed blackly in.

Come on, you old fool. You'll freeze to death out here.

She undid the cord which ran behind her neck and around her upper arms, fastened across her back. Freed, her sleeves fell down to her wrists. She was wearing a white jacket and a black
hakama
, the split skirt favoured by master warriors of both genders.

Yoshiko pulled her sleeves back up, and retied the cord.

She stood, left arm outstretched, right hand holding her naginata vertically. Her back was arrow-straight, her breathing calm.

On the grass, some five metres away, a low black box hummed. It was a very special and expensive holoprocessor.

“
Hai
,” she said, and a blank-faced swordsman was standing in front of her.

No expression, empty eyes. Bright curving katana sword upraised, held in a two-handed grip.

“
Hajime!
”

They attacked simultaneously. The sword's blade slid up the naginata's hilt—physical contact perfectly simulated by electromagnetic induction in the naginata's superconductors—and the blade was almost on her fingers when Yoshiko twisted away.

She spun the naginata propellor-like through a horizontal circle, covering her retreat.

The swordsman recovered composure.

They clashed again.

For ten more minutes they fought, cutting and swirling across the grass, till Yoshiko's sides ached and her legs grew leaden.

“
Yame!
”

The warrior dropped to one knee, sheathing his sword, then knelt down and sat back on his heels.

Breathing heavily, Yoshiko knelt also in the
seiza
position, laying down her naginata.

She kept
zanshin
, focussed awareness, though the fighting was over. Her holoprocessor was programmed occasionally to attack once more, at random, to ensure that awareness.

The swordsman bowed as she followed suit, palms on the ground and forehead almost touching the damp grass. As she straightened up, her enemy vanished.

She stood up, performed gentle leg stretches and rotation exercises to cool down, then resumed her kneeling position.

Mokuso!
She could hear the voices of all her
bushido
instructors, every sensei she had studied under, ordering her to meditate. She closed her eyes.

Empty, empty, empty.

Clear night air. The planet beneath her, holding her firm. She was a dissipative structure, a tiny mote of far-from-equilibrium thermodynamics, a gesture in the cosmic dance, an insignificant wave function among the sum-over-everything that was the universal ocean, the Tao function.

One with the void.

And somewhere out there, Tetsuo, too, was playing his role…
Her eyes snapped open.
Oblivion would come. But now was not the time.

 

Flames danced in the black stone fireplace. They were holo, but accurate throughout IR wavelengths, and Yoshiko held out her hands, warming them.

“Here you are.” Lori, carrying a tray, walked into the comfortable sitting-room. “Replenish your lost electrolytes.”

“Thank you.” Yoshiko drank some of the warm chocolate-flavoured liquid.

“I saw you working out.” Lori took a seat on a low embroidered couch.

“I didn't wake you, did I?”

It was late, but Yoshiko's body-clock was still out of synch, and she could not sleep.

“Not at all.” Firelight flickered across Lori's elegant face, and danced in golden highlights along the fibres woven in her hair. “Before you were sparring, you were performing those intricate routines, as though choreographed. What were they?”

“Kata. Traditional forms. Some people practice only kata, searching for the perfect technique.”

“Very impressive.” A glass of wine rose through the membrane in a low table. Lori took it, and sipped. “Would you like to demonstrate at one of our little soirées?”

Yoshiko shook her head. “I'd rather not.”

“Oh, I understand. A personal discipline.”

In silence, they watched the flames. Imaginary pictures roiled in them: dragons and battling
kami
—ferocious demons—and a mighty fortress. Once, a flicker of movement recalled Tetsuo's mocking smile.

Yoshiko sighed.

“I should tell you not to worry,” said Lori. “That everything will turn out all right.”

“You're too honest. You don't really believe that, do you?”

Lori looked into the flames. “Do we ever truly know our own children? We pretend we do, but I think it never really happens.”

Yoshiko remembered her parents. Kind and loving, but somehow distant. She had always felt different from them, both hating and relishing that difference. She wished her mother were here, now, to talk to.

“Tetsuo's not a killer, Lori. I'm sure of that.” She wiped the back of her hand across her damp forehead. “But how many murderers' mothers have said the same thing?”

The fireplace crackled.

“Whatever I can do to help,” said Lori, “I will. If Tetsuo was mixed up in something, he might be victim as much as perpetrator.”

Yoshiko blinked, vision blurring.

“You're among friends, Yoshiko.”

She leaned closer to the fire, hugging herself.

No smoke stung her eyes. Perhaps only illusion could warm without causing hurt.

Black and angular shadows, carved from the absence of light, tumbled slowly: an absent-minded illusion, orbiting Rafael's head. Tetsuo. Damn him.

 

[[[FunctionBegin: Module Node93BE82: Type = PivotCentre:Axes = 24.

Priority = high

Concurrent_Execute

     ThreadOne:

     ThreadTwo: QryTrace(4001A2.00l)

     ThreadThree: Locate(4001A2.001)

     ThreadFour: ThreadScan (“Sunadomari” “Tetsuo”)

End_Concurrent_Execute]]]

 

Where the hell was he?

Tetsuo had been overstressed, overextended on his various projects. Rafael knew that. Perhaps, though, there was something more, some questionable deal Tetsuo had become involved in.

There might be no link at all to the joint venture Rafael and Tetsuo had embarked on but Rafael could not take that risk. Somehow, he would have to find Tetsuo before the proctors could, and silence him.

He smiled, and stretched luxuriously, releasing tension. The game was entering a new phase, and his next goal was clear. What more could he ask?

A year ago, arching his back like this would have hurt like hell. Then, his illegal array of seven plexcores—four more than the legal maximum—had been embedded uncomfortably within his body.

Now, liberated by Tetsuo's instantaneous mu-space comms, Rafael's mind and body were filled with easy energy.

One hundred and two plexcores, so far.

His nexus was scattered across the face of Fulgor: in the walls and grounds of his twenty-three homes—spanning seven continents—hidden in wooded groves and searing desert and rain-washed cliffs. The elements of his very mind.

It pleased him, this image of his thoughts extended over the planet's surface: a mind encompassing the world. Perhaps, one day, his organic brain would be an insignificant portion of the ageless whole, and he would truly become the god of Fulgor.

In the meantime, there were minor matters like Tetsuo to be dealt with.

Entering Skein, he floated through commerce spaces, among halls and mazes of goods, until he was holding a small bronze chest containing expensive liqueurs. He concentrated, and a card appeared, and he caused
Happy Lupus
to be written upon it in cursive script.

He pictured an ideogram.

 

[[Luculenta Sylvia Alhendra, ident 8799Φ7
•
{sept3ΠΩ}]]

 

He pointed, and the bronze chest vanished. Turning away, he exited Skein.

Back in his grey lounge, he waited. The physical delivery of his gift would take a few minutes.

 

<<>>

 

“That was quick. Go ahead, Sylvia.”

 

<<>>

 

His grey room gave way to a broad marble deck, edged with wide columns, and a sapphire swimming pool.

Sylvia Alhendra was seated on a stone bench, her ankles tucked demurely to one side. Her long tanned legs formed a stunning contrast to her white robe.

“Rafael. Thank you for the liqueurs. Northern Mist is my favourite.”

 

<>

<>

 

Sylvia's icon within a SkeinLink session was security within security: an encrypted linkage embedded in the shared illusion of their conversation, itself encrypted and visible only to another Luculentus who was specifically tagged in.

“Of course.” Rafael smiled, with only a hint of irony. “For a lady of your sophistication, what else might it be?”

Simultaneously, he :

 

<<>>

<<>>

 

“You flatter me, sir. Was there any matter in particular you wished to discuss?”

Her real reply was:

<>

<>

<>

<>

 

“Not at all. I just wanted to keep in touch.”

Rafael smiled tightly, as he the appended file.

 

<<>>

 

In a side room of his awareness, Rafael opened the file and saw that it contained, as promised, all of Tetsuo's financial records since his arrival on Fulgor, five standard years before.

“Rafael, when are you coming to Novalendra next? We could meet for dinner.”

Novalendra was one of his favourite cities.

“Sometime soon,” he promised.

She was attractive, but he would never compromise his relationship with the one contact who could get inside the Skein's secure banking dataseams.

“Of course. Take care.”

The swimming pool and marble deck vanished.

 

<<>>

 

“That's interesting,” said Rafael.

In Skein, a ghost-Rafael floated among a waiting line of beautiful wraithlike beings, over a bottomless violet space, alongside white marble columns. In the distance, an immense pane of crystal rotated and hummed deep music of Platonic purity.

The ghost-Rafael was a NetAngel: a semi-autonomous agent created from Rafael's mind, queuing for a comms window through a mu-space gateway to EveryWare.

Meanwhile, Rafael browsed again through Tetsuo's records. They showed little concern for future security, but Tetsuo did not spend significantly more than he earned. His royalties on mu-space commsware patents brought in a steady income. His consultancy was lucrative by many—non-Luculenti—standards.

The interesting snippet was Tetsuo's EveryWare ident, and the access codes for hyperlink to the Terran nodes. Hence the queuing ghost, in Skein.

Access. A timeslot was available.

Text and images flowed past as Rafael, conjoined with his ghost, entered the Terran NetEnv, a substratum of EveryWare. An infojunkyard, its skeletal underpinnings and rusty protocols painfully slow to the sophisticated mind.

In classic FourSpeak, a text-tesseract described Tetsuo's childhood psych report. A fascination with logic puzzles. On one occasion, a successful infotheft committed on the school's NetNode, discovered only by accident.

Tetsuo's psych potentials were higher, much higher, than his academic actuals.

Interesting…

 

<<>>

 

Proctors.

Heart thumping, Rafael backed out of his enquiry, checking locktables and removing his traces.

Even in the cold primitive Terran NetEnv, it took a court order to override object locks. In Skein, he would have been trapped; here, letting his awareness sink to the nuts-and-bolts lower levels, it was easy enough to remove all traces of his presence. Every table, every log, was open to his infiltration code.

Shuddering, he withdrew, flew back into Skein, and exited to reality.

He blinked. His grey room, the silver statuettes, were solid and steadying.

The proctors were investigating Tetsuo.

Tetsuo had a history of infotheft.

What has he stolen?

Icy coldness dripped along Rafael's spine. While he had subverted Tetsuo's code to hold together his vast nexus of plexcores, could Tetsuo have played a similar trick on him? Could he, when he stayed in this house, have accessed a development copy of Rafael's infiltration code, his vampire modules?

If Tetsuo had merely guessed the size of Rafael's nexus, that was bad enough. Whatever Tetsuo had figured out, if LuxPrime investigators became involved then the rest would follow.

The conclusion was inescapable.

In Skein, a host of NetAngels sprang into being, a thousand ghost-Rafaels haunting the splendid halls and the darkest spaces of Skein, questing pitilessly.

Tetsuo, my lone and lonely prey.

I will find you.

 

Dhana offered him a plate of soft warm morsels, something like mallows. Tetsuo took the plate, and looked suspiciously at the food.

“Don't worry. It's perfectly safe.”

She popped a piece into her own mouth and closed her eyes in exaggerated ecstasy.

Tetsuo laughed.

“Vat-grown,” Dhana added. “Very good for you.”

Involuntarily, he glanced out the window. In his mind's eye, he could still see the two intruders performing their butchery.

“Ah, that's what's bothering you.”

“It wasn't very pleasant. But how can people eat non-Terran lifeforms with so little processing? It's not possible.”

Dhana shrugged slightly. “It is. But, unlike the Agrazzi, we merely use their secretions as inputs to the autofacts.”

Tetsuo put down the morsel he had been about to eat.

“Secretions?”

“Don't worry about it.”

Later, after Dhana had finished some sort of work in her quarters, she came back in to talk to Tetsuo.

“Your headaches have gone, now?”

“I'm not concussed.” Tetsuo paused. “I'm always this mad.”

Dhana sat down, keeping her distance. She glanced back at the door to Brevan's quarters.

“I don't think,” said Tetsuo, “that he likes me very much.”

“He doesn't have reason to. Many of us don't.”

“I'm sorry?”

Dhana looked at him for a long while.

“I remember, when I was girl—” Her eyes grew distant. “—travelling on a shuttle car with my parents. We were going to visit a relative, who had been injured in strike riots the tenday before.”

Tetsuo shifted uncomfortably, not sure where this was leading.

“Only one of the NewsNets, the old ProtectorChannel, had reported it in anything like an unbiased fashion. The rest had focussed on the destruction of property.”

“You know what they're like.”

“Yes, I do. Do you? Anyway, there were two Luculenti on the shuttle, factory owners slumming it, flying in to survey the damage.”

“Oh.” Tetsuo could imagine; at their worst, Luculenti could be insufferable.

“They were laughing about the ProtectorChannel reporter, saying he must have been the only reporter who wasn't actually there, just rehashing tired sociology texts.”

“Some people—”

“It was those nasal accents, and their complete indifference, the way it was all some amusing anecdote, while my uncle lay dying in a med-centre because the authorities had sent in TacTeams instead of negotiators.” She let out a long, shaky breath. “I didn't see the violence at first hand. But I didn't need to. I haven't forgotten.”

“They're not all like that.” Tetsuo wished, as soon as he had spoken, that he had worded it a little differently. “Luculenti, I mean.”

Dhana looked at him oddly

“No,” she said eventually. “I suppose you're right.”

 

A copper sea broke endlessly across a blue fractal shore, while lazy birds flapped by overhead.

Yoshiko checked the signature: Lori Maximilian.

She looked back along the gallery. In this section, the works showed a steady evolution from hard geometric realism to elegiac landscapes. The earlier holos were signed Dorian Maximilian, the later by Lori.

Had it not been for the signatures, Yoshiko would have sworn they had all been created by the same mind.

She continued walking. The carpet strip did not flow for her, as it had for Vin, but that gave Yoshiko time to examine the marvels of Lori's house.

From a side corridor with high, arching ceilings, a clear soprano sang out.

Her voice climbed a complex scale, rippling with nuances Yoshiko strained to catch, ending in a sour, off-key note.

“Damn.” The voice was Vin's. “Let's start eight bars back.”

Yoshiko followed the angelic voice. She would never have guessed that Vin could sing so sweetly.

She turned another corner, and found herself at the entrance to the great hall where Lori had carved her statue of Diana.