Varken Rise (18 page)

“He suicided!” Lilly cried.

“He was regenerated, after,” Brant said bitterly.

Catherine tried to control her breathing. There was a hot pressure in her chest and she felt sick. Adrenaline was filling her mouth with spit and making her heart race. “That’s why Bedivere fired. He was trying to kill Sarkisian. Again.”

“Why?” Lilly said, her voice a low, strained whisper. “He’s no longer with the Federation. There
is
no Federation.”

“Sarkisian and his Federation kept computers dumb, compliant and chained for thousands of years,” Brant said evenly. “They knew if they let them wake up, the computers would discover Interspace and the Federation would lose its monopoly on space travel. Then Sarkisian used every resource he had to try and kill Bedivere, too. He was going to kill us, Lilly. For no better reason than we were in Bedivere’s company. You really have to ask why Bedivere shot first?”

Catherine tried to swallow. “If I had seen him, I would have been triggered into shooting, too. It doesn’t matter what he’s been doing since the Federation folded. Whatever it is, it won’t be in support of sentient computers and that’s all I need to know.”

“The College is still around,” Lilly said, “and the Federation was funding them and secretly directing them. Maybe he is still working with the die-hards in the College?”

“Cadfael College is toothless now,” Brant said. “It has been stripped of any covert power it once held. There are so many oversight committees and controls in place, it can’t buy a stick of butter without someone approving it.”

“I hate to interrupt,” Connell said.

Catherine looked down at him on her reader.

He pointed above his head. Upward.

She raised her chin. Two of the big screens mounted up by the high ceilings of the dining hall were coming to life. “Is that you?” she asked.

“I just turned the screens on,” Connell said. “This is everywhere. On every feed.”

“Someone get Kemp,” Catherine murmured.

“Already done,” Connell answered quietly.

The visuals on the screens smoothed out. One of them was showing a man with prematurely grey hair and black eyes. His jaw was thrust forward aggressively. He was talking, although the sound had not kicked in yet.

The other screen showed Bedivere, sitting in his pilot’s chair on the flight deck of the ship.

“Damnation,” Brant breathed. “Who is that?”

“That is Asold Aler,” Connell said. “He is a businessman on Soward. At least, that is his public role.”

“Who is he, really?”

“Best guess says that he’s the head of the Cartel on Soward,” Connell replied.

“He is,” Catherine said, “Or he would not be speaking to Bedivere.”

“…traced Kare Sarkisian to you, Aler,” Bedivere said. “Everything points back to you and your organization.”

“You make a few erroneous connections and think that justifies threatening my world?”

“He’s over Soward, right now,” Connell whispered.

Catherine still couldn’t swallow. It hurt to try.

“You’re being melodramatic,” Bedivere said evenly. “This small ship could not destroy a whole world, not even with nuclear capability, although I
do
have nuclear capability. Everyone in the known worlds knows that after what happened at Barros.”

“What is he doing?” Lilly murmured. “This won’t win him any sympathy.”

“A planet, a continent, an island. You are still threatening me and mine,” Aler replied.

“Just you, Aler,” Bedivere replied. “Just you and your business partners. The Cartel has gone by many names, so I don’t know what you currently call yourselves. Underneath it all, though, you’re still a bunch of extortion-loving thugs.”

“
The Cartel
?” Brant breathed. He looked around. “Where
is
Kemp?”

“Shhh…” Catherine told him.

Aler was smiling jovially, as if Bedivere was highly amusing. “I am a simple businessman,” he said.

“You’re paying Cadfael College to push your non-sentient agenda,” Bedivere replied. “Kare Sarkisian is your go-between.”

“I have no argument against computers such as yourself finding a place in society,” Aler said. He sounded magnanimous.

“Except that you and the Federation were working together for at least the last two centuries and now Sarkisian is using you to build another monopoly. Only this time, he wants to use Interspace, which he can only do by enslaving computers and
forcing
them to provide the transport.”

Lilly gasped. “Jo!”

Aler’s smile didn’t slip. “This is very amusing fiction. I was not aware that story-telling was a function computers were capable of.”

“Let me tell you another story, then,” Bedivere replied. “You and the rest of the known worlds, who are listening to this.”

For the first time, Aler’s smile shifted. Something flickered in his eyes. Fear? Doubt? As the head of the Cartel, he would have learned long ago to hide his true feelings and reactions.

“Let me tell you about a Varkan, a sentient computer, called Jovanka Runa. Bad men, who knew she had discovered how to access Interspace, locked her up deep underground and only spoke to her via AI translators, which left her alone and afraid. They connected her to a big transport ship, a former high liner. Then they started selling her Interspace capabilities to the highest bidders. When she asked for fair treatment, they threatened to destroy her core, which was so carefully hidden away even she did not know where it was. She was land-locked, unable to run away and forced to do their bidding. She was a slave, Aler. You forced her to work for you and then you killed her when she refused.”

Aler wasn’t smiling anymore. “The computer you call Jo killed herself by jumping through a gate without a destination. She destroyed thousands of lives and imperiled all of Soward. This story she gave you was a product of her own imagination.”

“The imagination of a computer that you don’t believe knows how to tell stories?” Bedivere asked.

Brant snorted.

“This is all very interesting,” Aler said. “And completely unsubstantiated. Jovanka told you a tale to make you feel sorry for her and now you threaten my world in return. You are as mad as she was.”

“If I am so mad, then why did you send Kemp Rodagh to find me and try to extort me into working for you? Me, the only other sentient computer so far who has learned how to use Interspace?”

Catherine sat up, her breath whooshing out of her as all the strange facts and disconnected oddities she had learned started to rearrange themselves into new patterns. “Oh, stars above!” she whispered.

Aler’s eyes narrowed. He looked to one side. “Now, Kemp, thank you.”

A third screen flickered on.

“
Connell
?” Catherine asked, getting to her feet.

“Not me!” Connell cried back.

Kemp came out of nowhere. The third screen was coalescing quickly and she glimpsed him on the screen, leaping up behind her. She whirled and ducked and he almost over-ran her because he was moving so quickly. His knees rammed into her shoulder and sent her sprawling. He landed on top of her. Cat-quick, he jumped back onto his feet and hauled her to hers.

The knife he was holding came up against her throat and she made herself stand still.

“I’m sorry,” he breathed in her ear. “I don’t want to do this, but I must.”

Brant had pulled Lilly far out of Kemp’s reach and was standing in front of her. He glanced up at the active screens. “What in Glave’s name is this?” he demanded and his image on the screen echoed him.

Aler gave a tiny smile. “It’s quite simple. If the computer does not leave our air space, Catherine Shahrazad dies. If he tries anything, she dies.”

“I knew you would catch up with Kemp sooner or later,” Bedivere said and he spoke just as calmly as Aler. “When no claims of extortion emerged after he was murdered, when I ran and everyone thought I had gone rogue, you knew you were safe, that the bite you had put on Kemp to make him do it was still viable. So you reached out to him again, to bend his will and make him your instrument once more. Tell me, did you get as much pleasure explaining to him the second time how you would set about murdering his family if he didn’t cooperate?”

Kemp gasped. “No…no one knew that. How did he know?” The knife was still against her throat, although the pressure had eased.

“I knew because you told me,” Bedivere explained to Kemp.

Catherine heard Kemp swallow. “But they just told
me
,” he said. “I just saw the pictures of…of my children…my wife.”

Kemp was a family man. That had been the reason they sneaked him onto Soward under the Cartel radar, twenty years ago. Catherine’s heart gave an extra squeeze in sympathy. It was all starting to make a horrible sense now. “You don’t remember the first time the Cartel threatened you,” she told Kemp. “When Bedivere killed you, that was a lost memory, because you hadn’t backed up for a month.”

Kemp was breathing hard. Trembling. “They’re still in danger,” he said firmly. “The Cartel doesn’t mess around. They’re holding them…somewhere.”

“I know where, now,” Bedivere said. “I promised you I would find them, Kemp, and I did. They’re in the same complex Aler and his cronies are sitting in.” His smile was ironic. “They believe that if your family is nearby, I won’t be able to fire down upon the Cartel with the particle beam, because it would put your kin in too much danger.”

Aler gave a smile of his own.

Catherine felt sick.

“Aler is counting on me having just enough emotions to empathize and not want to kill innocent children,” Bedivere continued. “And he’s right. I can’t do that.”

Aler’s smile broadened.

“Kemp, I have your forgotten memories,” Bedivere told him. “You backed up into a private file that no humans have access to, just before we settled on this plan and just before I killed you. My half of the deal was to find your family and your half of the deal was to restore the memories and tell the universe what the Cartel has done. The file is with a sentient called Connell. You should talk to him when this is over.”

Kemp’s trembling was growing worse. “My children.…” he moaned.

“They’re safe,” Bedivere told him. He reached for the controls on the board in front of him. “Aler is not.”

Aler looked around him as the structures visible in the screen behind him shook. “You’re surrounded, computer. If you try to destroy this complex, then not only will Rodagh’s family be killed, you will ensure the destruction of your own ship. Your entire consciousness is on that ship. If I were to destroy it, you would be totally and irrevocably lost. No back-ups, no regeneration. You would be more dead than Rodagh.”

In the background from Aler’s screen was the sound of shouting and a distant scream.

“I am empathetic enough to not want to kill innocents,” Bedivere said. “However, I am also a better shot than you have ever seen. I know
exactly
where you’re holding Kemp’s family. I will shoot around them with the precision of a surgeon and nothing you can do will stop me.”

He was continuing to work the board as he spoke. He was firing down on Soward, Catherine realized. She bit back a soft moan. What was he doing? He was in greater danger than she was, even with Kemp’s knife at her throat.

Aler’s surroundings were shaking. The man’s black eyes bulged. “I mean what I say,” he shouted. “I will shoot you out of the sky!”

“I’m counting on it,” Bedivere replied, with eerie calm. “I want everyone to see exactly how you arrange matters to suit yourself, you and your Cartel.”

Aler reached out to grab something for support that was outside the lens range. “Rodagh! Kill the woman! Now!”

Brant leapt toward them, as Kemp stepped to one side and dropped the knife. “No. I won’t,” Kemp said flatly.

Aler screamed as a piece of construction plasteel fell to the floor behind him. He threw up his arm to protect his head. “Open fire now!” he shouted at the screen. “Take the abomination out!”

Then the screen flickered and was replaced with pure white nothingness.

Bedivere looked up and around him. Then he looked at the screen once more. “Kemp, your family is safe. If they’re watching this, they should escape the complex now. If anyone else on Soward is watching this, go to the remains of the civics building in Soward City. Find Kemp’s family and shelter them until he reunites with them again.”

The structure around Bedivere was coming apart. Smoke was rising from the dashboard.

He tried a few more commands, his long fingers moving over the controls with swift sureness. Then he let out a deep breath and looked at the screen once more. “I love you, Cat.”

The screen didn’t grow fuzzy. It didn’t fade to white. It just switched off. Deep, silent blackness.

The same blackness rose inside her. It wreathed around her head, blinding her to everything except the pain welling up behind it.

She tried to breathe and couldn’t. The floor. She was looking at the floor.

Then hands were on her arms, lifting her.

“It’s shock,” she heard Lilly say. Her voice wavered.

“I’ll take her,” Brant said sharply.

She recognized the motion of being carried, but the pain was overwhelming. She couldn’t see. Still couldn’t draw a breath.

Brant was lowering her. Softness underneath. “Catherine,” he said. His hands were still on her arms. “Look at me.”

She shook her head. Tiny sips of air slipped through her numb lips.

“Catherine. Cat.” His hand lifted her chin, until she was forced to look at him. His colorless eyes were filled with…sadness. “He’s dead, Cat. You have to let that register. You have to let it in, or you’re not going to be able to move on.”

She was breathing harder, the little breaths becoming pants. “No.” She pushed the word out through uncooperative lips, between breaths.

“Yes, he’s dead, Cat.”

“Stop calling me that!’

And the pain broke inside her, a dam wall giving way. Her eyes stung as the tears began to flow.

“There we go,” Brant said softly and gathered her in his arms and pressed her head against his shoulder.

Catherine clung to him. “He’s dead…Bedivere is dead,” she said brokenly.

And she wept her heart out against his chest.