To Hold Infinity (12 page)

The statue was draped in canvas; the laser array hung lifelessly above it.

Vin sang.

A choir grew into being all around her. Vin was part of a semicircle of Luculenti boys and girls; in front of them, conducting, stood a tall Luculenta. She was Mediterranean-dark, dressed in a baggy white trouser suit.

The laser array high in the groined ceiling glowed with life; no doubt this was generating the holo choir below.

Yoshiko was impressed: a hi-res array powerful enough to carve stone, but intricate enough to create images which looked perfectly real, even in the daylight which poured through the high windows.

The other singers, Yoshiko guessed, were in their own homes or elsewhere, participating in realtime in this choir practice.

The song built to a sweet climax, and the voices softly died away.

“Very nice,” said the Luculenta, and she applauded the grinning singers, as a thousand pairs of disembodied hands appeared around her, clapping also.

Yoshiko, who had been standing rapt, joined in the applause. When it suddenly stopped, she clapped twice more then stopped, embarrassed.

One by one, the singers winked out of existence, until only Vin and the tall Luculenta remained.

“Hi, Yoshiko. This is Xanthia Delaggropos, our choir mistress.”

“Pleased to meet you, Yoshiko.”

The illusion was staggering. If Yoshiko had not seen Xanthia's image appear, she would have assumed that she was here in person.

“I'm honoured. That was very beautiful.”

“Oh, no.” Humour danced in Xanthia's dark eyes. “Though it may grow acceptable, if certain singers practice their deci-tones and breathing.”

Vin covered her eyes in mock despair.

“The guilty parties,” added Xanthia, “know just who they are.”

Yoshiko laughed.

It felt good. She hadn't laughed for such a long time.

“I'm sorry your visit's not been a happy one.”

Xanthia, too, had that uncanny knack of almost reading thoughts.

Yoshiko sighed inwardly, as Xanthia and Vin stared at each other. There must be a high-bandwidth infoflow between them. What wonders must a Luculenta experience!

“The proctors,” said Xanthia, holding Vin's gaze, “assuming Tetsuo's culpability, may not backtrack among the optimum inference chains.” She looked at Yoshiko. “Your son was overextended, on nine parallel projects.”

Vin looked as though she were going to interrupt, but stopped herself.

Yoshiko understood: nine overlapping projects were child's play for a Luculenta, but not for anyone else.

“These two people, Fulgidi merchants,” Xanthia continued, “have the largest stake in Tetsuo's ventures.”

Two static disembodied heads appeared: a lean, grey-haired man, and a redheaded woman.

“Sylvester Stargonier and Elizabeth Malone.”

“I know him.” Yoshiko pointed. “He called me, on my first morning here, looking for Tetsuo.”

“That was pretty sharp of him,” said Vin. “Sorry, Yoshiko.”

Xanthia waved the holos out of existence. “They're the place to start, then.”

“To start?” Yoshiko was puzzled.

“Our investigation,” said Xanthia.

 

Silvery ripples passed over Brevan's grim bearded face: reflections from the holo's shifting infoscans.

Tetsuo shifted his couch to see more, and Brevan started at the sound, hand flying to the graser pistol at his waist.

“Sorry.” Tetsuo swallowed.

Brevan merely glared, then turned back to his work.

Tetsuo sighed. “You're holding me here. We might as well talk.”

“Shut up,” muttered Brevan, intent on the display.

“Maybe I could help you with your analysis.”

Tetsuo's heart beat faster as Brevan slowly took out his pistol.

Yellow and red reflections played across the transmission surface. It was the first time Tetsuo had ever seen the business end of an energy weapon. He didn't want it to be his final memory.

“Maybe I could help you keep quiet.” Brevan's voice was soft.

Tetsuo nodded, throat tight. He closed his eyes in relief as Brevan returned the pistol to its sticky-tag on his belt.

If only Dhana would return. Tetsuo pulled back his sleeve, checking the colour of the med-insert which Dhana had fixed onto his forearm. Blue had almost entirely given way to green: the healing process was well advanced.

He lay back on the couch, avoiding any twisting motion which would set off the pain in his ribs.

Chess. He tried to visualize a chess board; this was one of the visualizations he practised. For once, it came surprisingly easy.

Light glinted on the polished grainy surface, on the solid chessmen.

King's Gambit
, he thought, and suddenly the game was flowing, pieces jumping fast as lightning, and he was both opponents fighting desperately as the endgame appeared and Black won, barely.

Fascinating.

Brevan's presence was quite forgotten now.

Three chessboards appeared in his mind. Each game began, as before, with the King's Gambit, but the topologies rapidly diverged until six scheming opponents, all fragments of Tetsuo's mind, were warring furiously, and again the end-games came in no time at all.

Chess, of course, was easy.

The boards disappeared, replaced by a disembodied grid of 104 by 104 lines. Two porcelain bowls appeared, one filled with white stones, the other with black.

A stone rose from Black's bowl, and clacked into place on a strategic intersection of the grid.

White replied.

Soon black and white armies swirled across the
go
board: fractal outreachings into enemy territory, impenetrable “eyes” of stones around blank nodes, minor skirmishes and major campaigns. Suddenly, the balance tipped in White's favour and the game whirled to completion.

Shuddering, tasting the joy of White's victory and the bitterness of Black's defeat, Tetsuo withdrew to reality.

The cabin was deserted.

Darkness, outside. Flashes of light. In the holding-pens, Brevan and Dhana were inspecting their herd of native lifeforms.

Groaning, Tetsuo levered himself off the couch. There was a distant twinge of pain in his ribs, but his arm was completely healed already. Very sophisticated femtocyte inserts. Just what you'd want for medical emergencies, far from human assistance.

He could get out, now.

Measuring angles, he carefully aligned the couch, so that its end was towards the outer door. If he could run with the couch, leap onto it as it passed through the smartatom film and the door membrane itself, then momentum should carry him through.

Unless there was a recognition-lock, and the door membrane remained hardened. Then he would just be stuck inside the room, lying on the couch with his restraint bracelets snapped together as before.

A shadow passed the window.

Tetsuo moved hurriedly back, and sat down just as Brevan stormed in through the door. Had he and Dhana been arguing?

Glistening membranes retracted into Brevan's eye sockets, nostrils and mouth. “So you don't need resp-masks, after all.” Tetsuo spoke without thinking.

Brevan glared at him.

“You used the term “Shadow People” earlier, when you chased off the Agrazzi. How many of you are there? Dozens? Tens of thousands?”

The latter
, Tetsuo thought, watching Brevan's eyes.
Possibly more.

Amazing. All these people, living in the hypozone.

“And you must have sympathizers in the SatScan hierarchy. You all live permanently here in the hypozone. No one's camouflage is that good for long periods. Your presence must be something of an open secret.”

“Keep talking, Luculentus.” Brevan rested his hand on his pistol butt. “Give me an excuse for getting rid of you.”

“So you're not autonomous? You need to justify yourself to your superiors?”

Brevan turned away, and stamped off, cursing, through the door which led to his own quarters.

Tetsuo's heart pounded. How could he play such a risky game?

But Brevan wasn't here, and that was what he wanted.

He caught sight of his reflection in the dark window: large and rotund, not a warrior at all. Not like his mother.

A whisper of sound. Dhana's hand pierced the outer door's membrane.

With desperate strength, Tetsuo picked up the couch and charged as though with a battering-ram, straight for the door.

“Hey!”

As the couch struck the glimmering film, he dived onto it and momentum carried him through the door membrane, slamming Dhana aside, and then it stopped.

Shock rang through him as the bracelets snapped together, jarring his bones.

Acid in his throat, fire in his lungs.

He couldn't breathe.

It should have been laughable, him lying here with head and shoulders poking outside through the solidifying door membrane, but this atmosphere was not designed for Terran organisms to breathe.

“Damn you.”

Her hands were on his collar, tugging him back inside.

A fit of coughing shook him, and his chest was burning, as the bracelets freed themselves and he staggered into the cabin and fell.

Dhana's hand was pushing into his face, and suddenly something cold and liquid forced itself into his throat and down to his chest. It pulsed inside him.

Tetsuo was drowning.

He rolled over, coughing out smartgel, until all of it had exited from his lungs and gathered into a pool on the floor.

“You're lucky we had this stuff ready,” said Dhana.

At that moment, Brevan, roused from his study, came in.

“OK, you bastard.” Brevan grabbed Tetsuo's collar, and twisted it into a stranglehold. “I warned you.”

“Outside—”

“What? Ah!” He pushed Tetsuo away in disgust, as Dhana forced a hand between them.

“My head—” Tetsuo coughed again. “My head—was outside.”

“What?”

Dhana's voice was very low. “He's right.”

“Oh, really.”

Suddenly, Brevan threw back his head and laughed.

“Oh, really,” he said again.

Dhana looked startled. “If he's accessed Skein, there'll be proctors or a TacTeam here before you know it.”

“No, I don't think so.” Brevan wiped his hands across his eyes, as though brushing away tears of laughter. “Not for this one.”

“For God's sake, Brevan. We've got to get out of here. He was outside the null-sheet.”

The pain in Tetsuo's chest slowly subsided. He was as surprised by Brevan's behaviour as Dhana, but had no breath to speak.

“Fat lot of good it did him.” Brevan chuckled. “I've got to hand it to you, boy. That was a nice bluff.”

Another fit of coughing seized Tetsuo.

“—because this one,” Brevan was saying, “is an Earther boy. Aren't you, Mr. Sunadomari?”

“He can't be.” Dhana's eyes were round with surprise.

Tetsuo looked at her.

“Upraise.” A wheeze sounded in his chest, embarrassing him. “Just had—the op.”

“Just as I said.” Brevan chuckled. “Got more balls than I thought.”

Dhana was furious. “You mean you can't access Skein?”

“Don't know how.” Tetsuo shook his head. “Haven't a clue.”

Brevan laughed again.

Dhana, exasperated, looked from him to Tetsuo.

“Then why did you risk your bloody life, sticking your head outside?”

Tetsuo did not reply.

“If we'd cleared out,” Dhana continued, “we'd have left surveillance. No proctors would have turned up, and we'd know the truth.”

“Then I'd have said—” Tetsuo sighed, his chest feeling almost normal again. “I'd have said, you could trust me, because I hadn't called the proctors when I could have.”

“Very subtle,” said Brevan, grinning.

“I'm glad I've amused you.”

 

Afterwards, Brevan removed Tetsuo's restraints. Dhana watched silently from the corner of the room.

“So you do trust me,” muttered Tetsuo.

“I trust you not to access Skein.” Brevan smirked.

“Fine. Aren't you going to tell me about your philosophy of life? Living in harmony with the wilderness, isn't that what you believe in?”

There must be more, obviously, but Tetsuo had not figured it out yet. The Shadow People's presence must really be an open secret, yet he had never heard of them.

Brevan shook his head. “You wouldn't be interested.”

He could guess: they had settled the hypozone, to live according to their own ways, away from what they saw as Luculenti oppression. On the other hand—

“You must have Luculenti supporters.” Tetsuo looked at Dhana, who seemed ready to protest. “Otherwise, you see, Brevan wouldn't have known about my upraise.”

“Not that he bothered to tell me.”

“I might have guessed it,” said Brevan, “from your short haircut, and the healing where the headpiece is connected. If you look closely, your scalp's quite scabby.”

“Thanks. But you didn't just guess it.”

“Maybe not.” Brevan turned to Dhana. “You didn't want him trussed up. He's your responsibility now.”

“My responsibility?”

“After all the excitement, he probably needs a hearty supper.”

“Then he can get it his bloody self, can't he?”

Dhana glared at both of them, then stormed out of the room.

“Bloody hell,” said Tetsuo.

“Just what I was thinking.”

“Thanks for getting rid of those things.” Tetsuo pointed at the restraint bracelets.

“You're welcome. Oh, and by the way—”

“Yes?”

“Those balls you've just demonstrated you've got—” Brevan drew his pistol very fast, and smiled. “—I wouldn't want to shoot them right off, because you'd done something stupid.”

“Ah, no.” Tetsuo breathed out, a long shaky breath. “Let's try to avoid that.”

Brevan returned his pistol to his belt.

“Supper's in the autofact. Help yourself.”