“I enjoy her company. What makes you think I’m up to anything other than the obvious?”
“Bat-snake shit. You’re a matrix.” Clementine scowled. “Matrix-talents are anything but obvious. The stronger they are, the more secretive, devious, manipulative, and downright sneaky they get.”
“We’ve gotten a bad rap.”
“Sure. And I’ll bet you refund to your customers all the money you take from them at your casino, too.”
“I didn’t say I was stupid.”
“No one’s accusing you of stupidity. What are your intentions toward Zinnia?”
“My intentions?”
“I know you’re registering on the sly with a match-making agency. And I know Zinnia’s registration is inactive because she was declared unmatchable. Which pretty much means that you don’t plan to marry her.”
“Do you always leap to conclusions?”
“Come off it, Chastain. Zinnia says you want a wife from a wealthy upper-class family. Her clan used to meet that criteria but it doesn’t anymore. It’s fallen a long way since the bankruptcy. Besides, even if everything were hunky dory in all the other departments, I doubt that the two of you could be matched. Every one knows the agencies never match high-class talents and full-spectrum prisms.”
“I hear it happens occasionally.”
“Try hardly ever.” Clementine’s mouth curved with disdain. “Zinnia says you’ve got a plan to buy respectability.”
“It’s a good plan. What’s more, it’s working.”
Clementine gave him a mocking sneer. “The daily photos in Synsation are part of your master plan?”
“Minor setbacks,” he assured her. “They won’t be allowed to get in my way.”
“Doubt if anything much gets in your way.” She took her foot down off the chair and planted her hands on her sturdy hips. “So we’re back to the basic question. Where does Zinnia fit into your matrix?”
“I’m going to marry her.”
Clementine gaped at him for a few seconds. When she closed her mouth her teeth snapped together. “Are you crazy?”
“I think maybe I was for a while. But I’m not anymore.”
“Have you told Zinnia that you plan to marry her?”
“No. And I’d appreciate it if you’d keep your mouth shut until I can deal with that end of things.”
“Why in hell would she marry you?”
“She says she’s in love with me,” Nick said.
“I was afraid of that. But it doesn’t make any difference. She would never marry someone who wasn’t a good match. And she’s unmatchable.”
“I’m in love with her.”
“I think we’re talking lust here, not love. And maybe you like the fact that she can handle your talent, too.” Clementine snorted. “Easy to see how a matrix could mistake that for love.”
“I know the difference now,” Nick said steadily. “There’s nothing like looking into the face of chaos to help a matrix make a few obvious connections.”
“Think so?” Clementine looked distinctly skeptical. “There’s still the other problem. You and she are hardly likely to get matched. Especially given the fact that Zinnia’s registration isn’t even active.”
“Don’t worry about it. I’ve got a plan.”
The ringing of the phone awakened Zinnia. She opened her eyes and glanced at the bedside clock. Nearly four in the afternoon. She had been dozing most of the day since she had returned from the hospital that morning. The long night had exhausted her physical as well as psychic energy, but she sensed that she was recovering swiftly.
She listened while the answering machine picked up the call.
“Zinnia? This is your Aunt Willy. I have been trying to reach you all day. Why didn’t you tell me that Mr. Chastain was a member of the Founders’ Club? You never mentioned that you were going to the annual charity ball. By the way, I wonder if Mr. Chastain ought to consider a lawsuit against that dreadful tabloid and Rexford Eaton, too. Give me a call as soon as you get in.”
Zinnia heard the new note of respect in her aunt’s voice. So it was Mr. Chastain now, was it? Maybe Nick was right. Maybe one could buy respectability. A single photo of him inside the Founders’ Club, even though it showed him stretched out on the lobby floor, and Aunt Willy was starting to think he had possibilities.
Zinnia got off the bed and headed for the shower. The phone rang again just as she was about to step into the bathroom. She paused on the threshold to listen.
“Zin? It’s me, Leo. I just got back from the hospital. Nick is chomping at the bit. The doctor says she wants to keep him for another day or two for observation, but I have a hunch he’s going to check himself out soon. I called to see how you’re doing. Guess you’re still asleep.”
Zinnia hurried across the room and scooped up the phone. “Hi, Leo. I’m awake. Just about to take a shower.”
“Feeling better? I was worried about you last night. You looked as if you’d been dragged through a Western Islands jungle after you finished focusing for Nick.”
“Nothing like having a younger brother when you want to know the truth. I’m recovering fast. Almost back to normal. How’s Nick?”
“Like I said, getting ready to check himself out in spite of the doctor’s orders. Clementine was visiting with him when I got there.”
“Uh-oh.”
“I think they’d had what might be called a heated discussion about you just before I arrived. But they looked like they’d called a truce when I walked into the room.”
“A truce?”
“I heard Nick say something about having a plan.”
Zinnia winced. “Not a good sign.”
“Zin? Level with me. What’s happening between you and Chastain?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’re in love with him, aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
Leo was silent for a moment. “Think he’s in love with you?”
Zinnia clutched her robe tightly and sank down into a chair. “The last thing he said to me before the crazy-fog got him was that he loved me. But I’m sure he only said it because he thought he was going insane. He was facing what, for him, was the ultimate horror. I was the last human being he saw before he walked into chaos.”
“In other words, you think the drama of the situation had a profoundly motivational impact on his decision to declare his love,” Leo said dryly. “The final farewell before the great battle, et cetera, et cetera.”
“I think we can assume that, yes.” Zinnia reached for a tissue to blot the sudden dampness from her eyes. “Perfectly understandable.”
“It’s also perfectly understandable that he might actually be in love with you.”
“I don’t fit the profile of the woman he intends to marry. And he’s not exactly my ideal mate, either. It’s one thing to have an affair with a matrix, but what intelligent woman would marry one?”
There was a short loud pause on the other end of the line. “An affair?”
“That’s all it can ever be.”
“Do yourself a favor, Zin. Don’t make any snap decisions here, okay? You’ve been through a lot during the past twenty-four hours. Give yourself some time to calm down and regain your sense of balance.”
She sniffed into the tissue. “Okay.”
“Take care. I’ll check back with you later.”
“Thanks, Leo.” Zinnia put down the phone. For a long time she gazed morosely at the Early Exploration Period seascape on the wall.
After a while she crumpled the tissue, tossed it aside, and got up to take her shower.
She did not hear the phone ring a third time because of the noise of the pulsing water and the closed door. But when she walked out of the bath half an hour later the answering machine was in the midst of recording another call.
“Miss Spring? Newton Deforest here. Say, I did some checking in those old files. The ones I have stored down in the family crypt. I was surprised to find that I did have some inform
ation on the financial aspects of the Third Expedition. Not much, but if you would like to take a look at it—”
Zinnia snatched up the receiver. “Hello? Professor DeForest? Hang on.” She punched buttons madly until the answering machine clicked off. “Sorry about that. What were you saying?”
“I have a brief note taken from an old interview with a New Portland University clerk here. For some reason, I jotted down the fact that a company by the name of Fire and Ice Pharmaceuticals had expressed an interest in underwriting the Chastain expedition. The firm went out of business years ago, however. Is this the sort of thing you were looking for?”
“Oh, yes. Yes, indeed.”
“I may have a few more bits and pieces here somewhere. Not a lot, but you’re welcome to what little there is.”
Zinnia glanced at the clock. Five-fifteen. “Would you mind very much if I pick it up this evening?”
“I’ll be waiting for you, Miss Spring. If I don’t answer the door, come on around the back. I’ll be in the garden. I like to use these long summer days to get in a little extra pruning. My dear little blood-creepers grow so quickly.”
Chapter
22
* * * * * * * * * *
Nick looked up from his notes when he sensed the hulking figure in the doorway of the hospital room. “Come on in, Feather. It’s safe. Zinnia went home to get some sleep.”
“Too bad.” Feather ambled into the room. “I was going to make my report to her.”
“What report?”
“She didn’t like me being here in the same room with you last night so she ordered me to go make myself useful.” Feather’s shaved head gleamed in the glow of the overhead light. He came to a halt beside the bed. “She sent me off to find the twin-snakes that jumped you in the garage.”
Nick had a vague memory of an argument that had been waged across his bed sometime during the night. “Any luck?”
“Yeah. Kind of interesting. One turned up in the morgue.”
“Don’t look at me. I didn’t put him there. The last thing I remember, he was on the floor of the garage but he was still breathing.”
“He was still breathing when he and his pal got away during the confusion before the cops arrived, too,” Feather said. “But he had a real unfortunate accident later. They found him in an alley in Founders’ Square about five this morning.”
“What happened?”
“Someone stuck his own knife in his chest. The official verdict is that he was just a dealer who got into a quarrel with one of his crazy-fog clients.”
“He was carrying far too much crazy-fog to be a street dealer or a fog-head.”
“Yeah, that’s what Miss Spring said, too. Y’know, she’s prickly as a cactus-orange, but she’s got a brain on her shoulders.” Admiration gleamed briefly in Feather’s eyes. “So we have to assume someone paid two street toughs to dose you with the stuff.”
“And later that same someone killed one of them to make sure he didn’t talk. What about the second man?”
Feather shook his head. “No sign of him so far. I’ve put the word out that we want him and we’re paying top dollar for information. My hunch is he’ll turn up in the same condition as the other one.”
Nick glanced down at the notes he had been making. “Two more connections in the matrix. Whoever sent those men after me knew that I was a matrix and probably had a good idea of what a heavy dose of pure crazy-fog would do to my kind of talent.”
“Shit synergy. You mean whoever is behind this wanted to drive you insane?”
“Yes.” Nick mused over that for a few seconds. “But why go to all that trouble? Why not just kill me instead?”
Feather’s mouth twitched. “You’re a hard man to kill. Easier to hit you with a batch of crazy-fog. Safer, too. The police would probably spend a lot of time looking into the murder of a guy in your position. There’d be a whole bunch of dumb speculation about gangster connections and stuff. Be all over the newspapers for days.”
“But it would be easy to label what happened last night as just an unfortunate accident that occurred during a routine mugging. The police wouldn’t have any reason to dig for a murder conspiracy.”
“Right.”
“Okay, the logic makes sense,” Nick admitted. “But I think there’s something else I’m overlooking in the matrix.”
“No offense, boss, but you always think there’s more to a situation than meets the eye. Some things are just what they look like.”
“Not in this case.” Nick hesitated.
“Jeez, boss, don’t go gettin’ paranoid on me now.”
“The bottom line here is that I didn’t have these problems before I started trying to get my hands on the Chastain journal a few weeks ago.”
“If you ask me, you didn’t have any of these problems until you met Miss Spring.”
Nick looked at him. “She saved me last night, Feather.”
“I ain’t arguin’ about that. Point is, would you have needed saving if she hadn’t walked into your life?”
“Now you’re the one who sounds like a conspiracy buff. Concentrate on finding the other knife man.”
“Don’t worry, I will. Hey, almost forgot.” Feather reached into his pocket and drew out a small notebook. “Finally located one of the clerks who used to work in the budget offices of New Portland University thirty-five years ago. Name of Mrs. Buckley. Retired to a little farm in Lower Bellevue.”
Nick swung his legs over the side of the bed. The movement caused a flicker of lightheadedness. He froze, but the sensation vanished quickly. He drew a deep breath of relief and stood on the cold floor.
“Did this Mrs. Buckley remember anything about the funding arrangements for the Third Expedition?” he asked as he yanked at the tie that secured the hospital gown.
“She didn’t handle that project. Said the clerk who processed the paperwork for it died a long time ago. Heart attack or somethin’.”
“Yet another astonishing coincidence.” Nick tossed the gown onto the bed. He was still a bit unsteady but everything felt relatively normal.
“You okay, boss?”
“Yes.” He made his way to the small closet and opened it. The formal black shirt, jacket, and trousers that he had worn to the ball hung inside. They were badly wrinkled and there was a lot of garage-floor dirt on them but he was not feeling too concerned about presenting a respectable appearance at the moment. He reached for the shirt. “Did Mrs. Buckley have anything useful to tell us?”
Feather chuckled. “Turns out she was having an affair with the clerk who handled the Third Expedition arrangements. He talked a little about it after they got word that it had been canceled. She believes he told her that a chemical or pharmaceutical company of some kind had agreed to underwrite the venture. She thinks he said that the company wanted to remain anonymous in order to avoid publicity.”
“A chemical or pharmaceutical company.” A tingle of adrenaline shafted through Nick. It had a remarkably steadying effect. The familiar sense of Tightness told him that the coordinates in the matrix were starting to form a complete pattern at last. He paused in the act of buttoning his shirt. “Yes. That fits. Did she give you a name?”
“She couldn’t remember it exactly, but she thinks the word fire was in there somewhere.”
Nick felt more points in the matrix begin to connect. He stepped into his trousers. “Did you check the—”
Feather held up a hand. “Hold it right there, boss. I’m way ahead of you. I checked the phone books, the tri-city-state registry of corporations, and the lists of all business-license holders in New Vancouver, New Seattle, and New Portland. There are no chemical or pharmaceutical companies with the word fire in their corporate names.”
“The company probably disappeared along with everything else that has to do with this thing.” Nick buckled his belt. “We’ll have to go back to the phone books and the corporate registries of thirty-five years ago.”
Feather scowled. “Where the h
ell you gonna find those?”
“The public library, where else?” Cold amusement flowed through Nick. “Even the most obsessive matrix-talent on the planet would have found it impossible to destroy the microfilm records of every library in the tri-city-states.”
“Never thought of that.”
“Maybe whoever is behind this didn’t think of it either.” Nick considered that more closely. “Especially if he moves in the corporate world. He would have been focused on covering his tracks from the business and financial angles. Even a matrix makes mistakes.”
“You’re sure whoever’s behind this is a matrix?”
“Zinnia’s right. It has the feel of a matrix scheme.” Nick yanked his jacket off the hanger. “I’ll start with the main branch of the New Seattle Public Library downtown.”
Feather surveyed the crumpled black tuxedo. “You going to go back to the casino and change first?”
“No time.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Find the second mugger. By now he probably knows what happened to his friend. He’ll be running scared. Check New Portland and New Vancouver and all flights leaving for the Western Islands. Check the freighters, too.”
“I’ve already got people on it.”
Nick shrugged into his jacket as he headed toward the door. “I don’t know what I’d do without you, Feather.”
Feather reached into a pocket and pulled out an object. “Guess this means you won’t be needing this, huh?”
Nick glanced at the deadly little blade lying on Feather’s broad palm. It was small enough to smuggle into a hospital room but sharp enough to cut the plastic tubing that led to a piece of vital equipment, or anything else that a man facing insanity might want to slice. His wrists, for instance.
“No.” A soul-deep shudder went through Nick. “I won’t be needing that. And for the record, you can cancel all previous instructions relating to it.”
“Glad to hear it. I never did like that part of my job description.”
Zinnia knocked a third time, but there was still no answer.
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