Use of Weapons (26 page)

It
was a cold autumn evening, and the air was bitter. He'd taken off the combat
suit and left it in the capsule, which had buried itself in a sandy hollow. Now
he wore the baggy clothes that were popular here again; they had been in
fashion when he'd worked here last time, and he felt oddly pleased that he'd
been away long enough for the style to cycle round again. He was not
superstitious, but the coincidence amused him.

He
squatted down and touched the rimrock. He lifted a handful of pebbles and
topweeds, then let them sift through his fingers. He sighed and got to his
feet, pulling on gloves, putting on a hat.

The
city was called Solotol, and Tsoldrin Beychae was here.

He
dusted a little sand from his coat - an old raincoat from far away, and of
purely sentimental value - placed a pair of very dark glasses on his nose,
picked up a modest case, and went down into the city.

'Good
afternoon, sir. How may I help you?'

'I'd
like your two top floors, please.'

The
clerk looked confused, then leaned forward. 'I'm sorry, sir?'

'The
two top floors of the hotel; I'd like them.' He smiled. 'I haven't made a
reservation; sorry.'

'Aah...'
the clerk said. He appeared a little worried as he looked at his reflection in
the dark glasses. 'The two...?'

'Not
a room, not a suite, not a floor, but two floors, and not any two floors; the
two top floors. If you have any guests presently occupying any of the rooms in
the top two floors, I suggest you ask them politely to accept a room on another
floor; I'll pay their bills up till now.'

'I
see...' the hotel clerk said. He seemed unsure whether to take all this
seriously or not. 'And... how long was sir thinking of staying?'

'Indefinitely.
I'll pay for a month, in advance. My lawyers will cable the funds by lunchtime
tomorrow.' He opened the case and took out a wad of paper money, placing it on
the desk. I'll pay for one night in cash, if you like.'

'I
see,' the clerk said, eyes fixed on the money. 'Well, if sir would like to fill
in this form...'

'Thank
you. Also, I'll want an elevator for my personal use, and access to the roof. I
expect a pass key will be the best solution.'

'Aah.
Indeed. I see. Excuse me just a moment, sir.' The clerk went off to get the
manager.

He
negotiated a bulk discount for the two floors, then agreed a fee for the use of
the lift and the roof that brought the deal back to what it had been in the
first place. He just liked haggling.

'And
sir's name?'

'I'm
called Staberinde,' he said.

He
chose a suite on the top floor, on a corner which looked out into the great
depth of canyon city. He unlocked all the cupboards and closets and doors,
window shutters, balcony covers and drug cabinets, and left everything open. He
tested the bath in the suite; the water ran hot. He took a couple of small
chairs out of the bedroom, and another set of four from the lounge, and put
them in another suite alongside. He turned all the lights on, looking at
everything.

He
looked at patterns of coverings and curtains and hangings and carpets, at the
murals and paintings on the walls, and at the design of the furniture. He rang
for some food to be delivered, and when it came, on a small trolley, he pushed
the trolley in front of him from room to room, eating on the move while he
wandered through the quiet spaces of the hotel, gazing all about, and
occasionally looking at a tiny sensor which was supposed to tell him if there
were any surveillance devices around. There weren't.

He
paused at a window, looking out, and rubbed absently at a small puckered mark
on his chest that was not there any more.

'Zakalwe?'
said a tiny voice from his breast. He looked down, took a thing like a bead out
of a shirt pocket. He clipped it to one ear, taking off his dark glasses and
putting them in the pocket instead.

'Hello.'

'It's
me; Diziet. You all right?'

'Yeah.
I found a place to stay.'

'Great.
Listen; we've found something. It's
perfect
!'

'What?'
he said, smiling at the excitement in Sma's voice. He pressed a button to close
the curtains.

'Three
thousand years ago here there was a guy who became a famous poet; wrote on wax
tablets set in wooden frames. He did a group of one hundred short poems he
always maintained were the best things he ever wrote. But he couldn't get them
published, and he decided to become a sculptor instead; he melted the wax from
ninety-eight of the tablets - keeping numbers one and one hundred - to carve a
wax model, made a sand mould around it, and cast a bronze figure which still
exists.'

'Sma,
is this leading anywhere?' he said, pressing another button to open the
curtains again. He rather liked the way they swished.

'Wait!
When we first found Voerenhutz and did the standard total scan of each planet,
we naturally took a holo of the bronze statue; found some traces of the
original casting sand
and the wax
in
a cranny.

'And
it wasn't the right wax!

'It
didn't match the two surviving tablets! So the GCU waited till it had finished
the total scan and then did some detective work. The guy who did the bronze,
and who had done the poems, later became a monk, and ended up an abbot of a
monastery. There was one building added while he was head man; legend has it he
used to go there and contemplate the vanished ninety-eight poems. The building
has a double wall.' Sma's voice rose triumphantly; 'Guess what's in the
cavity!'

'Walled-in
disobedient monks?'

'The
poems! The waxes!' Sma yelled. Then her voice dropped a little. 'Well, most of
them. The monastery was abandoned a couple of hundred years ago, and it looks
like some shepherd lit a fire against a wall sometime and melted three or four
of them... but the rest are
there
!'

'Is
that good?'

'Zakalwe;
they're one of the great lost literary treasures of the planet! The university
of Jarnsaromol, where your pal Beychae's hanging out, has most of the guy's
parchment manuscripts, the other two tablets
and
the famous bronze. They'd give
anything to
get their hands on those tablets! Don't you see? It's
perfect!'

'Sounds
all right, I suppose.'

'Damn
you, Zakalwe! Is that all you can say?'

'Dizzy,
luck this good never lasts long; it'll average out.'

'Don't
be so pessimistic, Zakalwe.'

'Okay,
I won't,' he sighed, closing the curtains again.

There
was a noise of exasperation from Diziet Sma. 'Well; I just thought I'd tell
you. We'll be going soon. Sleep well.'

The
channel beeped closed. He smiled ruefully. He left the little terminal where it
was, like an earring.

He
gave orders he was not to be disturbed, and as the night deepened, he turned
all the heating up full and opened all the windows. He spent some time testing
the balconies and drainage pipes around the outer walls; he climbed nearly to
the ground and all the way round the facade as he tested ledges and pipes and
sills and cornices for their strength. He saw lights in less than a dozen other
guest rooms. When he was satisfied he knew the outside of the hotel, he
returned to his floor.

He
leant on the balcony, a smoky bowl cradled in his hand. Occasionally he lifted
the bowl to his face and inhaled deeply; the rest of the time he looked out
over the sparkling city, whistling.

Watching
the light-speckled view, he thought while most cities looked like canvases,
spread flat and thin, Solotol was like a half-open book; a rippling sculptured
V sinking deep into the planet's geological past. Above, the clouds over the
canyon and the desert glowed with orange-red light, reflecting the channelled
flare of the city.

He
imagined that from the other side of the city, the hotel must look rather
strange, with its topmost floor fully lit, the others practically black.

He
supposed he had forgotten how different the setting of the canyon made the
city, compared to others. Still, this too is similar, he thought. All is
similar.

He
had been to so many different places and seen so much the same and so much
utterly different that he was amazed by both phenomena... but it was true; this
city was not so different from many others he'd known.

Everywhere
they found themselves, the galaxy bubbled with life and its basic foods kept on
speaking back to it, just like he'd told Shias Engin (and, thinking of her,
felt again the texture of her skin and the sound of her voice). Still, he
suspected if the Culture had really wanted to, it could have found far more
spectacularly different and exotic places for him to visit. Their excuse was
that he was a limited creature, adapted to certain sorts of planets and
societies and types of warfare. A martial niche, Sma had called it.

He
smiled a little grimly, and took another deep breath from the drug bowl.

The
man walked past empty arcades and deserted flights of steps. He wore an old
raincoat of a style unknown but still somehow old-fashioned looking; he wore
very dark glasses. His walk was economical. He appeared to have no mannerisms.

He
entered the courtyard of a large hotel which contrived to look expensive and
slightly run-down at the same time. Dully-dressed gardeners, raking leaves from
the surface of an old swimming pool, stared at the man as though he had no
right to be there.

Men
were painting the interior of the porch outside the lobby, and he had to work
his way round them to get in. The painters were using specially inferior paint
made to very old recipes; it was guaranteed to fade and crack and peel in a
most authentic manner within a year or two.

The
foyer was rich with decoration. The man pulled a thick purple rope near one
corner of the reception desk. The clerk appeared, smiling.

'Good
morning, Mr Staberinde. A pleasant walk?'

'Yes,
thank you. Have breakfast sent up, will you?'

'Immediately,
sir.'

'Solotol
is a city of arches and bridges, where steps and pavements wind past tall
buildings and lance out over steep rivers and gullies on slender suspension
bridges and fragile stone arches. Roadways flow along the banks of water
courses, looping and twisting over and under them; railways splay out in a
tangle of lines and levels, swirling through a network of tunnels and caverns
where underground reservoirs and roads converge, and from a speeding train
passengers can look out to see galaxies of lights reflecting on stretches of
dark water crossed by the slants of underground funiculars and the piers and
ways of subterranean roads.'

He
was sitting in the bed, dark glasses on the other pillow, eating breakfast and
watching the hotel's own introductory tape on the suite screen. He switched the
sound down when the antique telephone beeped.

'Hello?'

'Zakalwe?'
It was Sma's voice.

'Good
grief; you still here?'

'We're
about to break orbit.'

'Well,
don't wait on my account.' He felt inside a shirt pocket and fished out the
terminal bead. 'Why the phone? This transceiver packed up?'

'No;
just making sure there are no problems patching into the phone system.'

'Fine.
That all?'

'No.
We've located Beychae more exactly; still in Jarnsaromol University, but he's
in library annexe four. That's a hundred metres under the city; the
university's safest safe store. Quite secure at the best of times, and they
have extra guards, though no real military.'

'But
where does he live; where does he sleep?'

'The
curator's apartments; they're attached to the library.'

'He
ever come to the surface?'

'Not
that we can find out.'

He
whistled. 'Well, that might or might not be a problem.'

'How
are things at your end?'

'Fine,'
he said, biting into a sweetmeat. 'Just waiting for the offices to open; I've
left a message with the lawyers to phone me. Then I start causing a fuss.'

'All
right. There shouldn't be any problems there; the necessary instructions have
been issued, and you should get anything you want. Any problems, get in touch
and we'll fire off an indignant cable.'

'Yeah,
Sma, I've been thinking; just how big is this Culture commercial empire, this
Vanguard Corporation?'

'Vanguard
Foundation.
It's big enough.'

'Yeah,
but how big? How far can I go?'

'Well,
don't buy anything bigger than a country. Look, Cheradenine; be as extravagant
as you want in creating your fuss. Just get Beychae for us. Quickly.'

'Yeah,
yeah; okay.'

'We're
heading off now, but we'll keep in touch. Remember; we're here to help if you
need it.'