The Paratwa (#3 in the Parawta Saga)

by Christopher Hinz

  Thyme: INDIVIDUALITY HAS PERVERTED SAPPHO. SHE LEADS DUALITY OF LIFE. SAPPHO LOSES SIGHT.

  Rhubarb: colonial DESTRUCTION NOT DESIRABLE NOW. COLONIAL DESTRUCTION DESIRABLE THEN.

  Third Os/Ka/Loq from the left: THEN CANNOT BE CHANGED. ONLY NOW CAN BE CHANGED. MUST FOCUS ON PRESENT, NOT PAST.

  I knew that the interpreter was capable of providing only basic fractional segments of their complex and multihued thought patterns. Rich subtleties were being excised, nonverbal expressions indiscriminately ignored by the machine's limited expressionism. To suggest that Os/Ka/Loq “language” did not translate well was to be guilty of wild braggadocio.

  The tway of Sappho responded to the attack with habitual aplomb. NECESSARY LIMITATIONS OF EARTHLY ENVIRONS. KASCHT REEKS OF THE LACKING.

  Rhubarb: FACT KNOWN. EXCUSE UNACCEPTABLE.

  Sappho: EXPLAIN/ENLIGHTEN.

  Rhubarb: SUCCESS/FAILURE HINGED ON IDENTICAL AXIS.

  It was an oft-repeated phrase, and one whose precise meaning remained vague. As near as I could ascertain, when an Os/Ka/Loq accused a brethren of hinging success and failure on the same axis, it was tantamount to calling him/her a mindless bastard.

  Sappho rose to the occasion. SKYGENE INFECTIONS SERVE TO GUARANTEE PREMEDITATED STRUCTURE OF VICTORY.

  Thyme released a particularly hideous bray. NO GUARANTEE POSSIBLE.

  Rhubarb: COLONIAL DESTRUCTION NOT DESIRABLE NOW. COLONIAL DESTRUCTION DESIRABLE THEN.

  The tway on the far left moved. Behind the screen, there was a blur of motion as this heretofore silent Os/Ka/Loq repositioned himself/herself in the center of the seven shadowy figures. For several minutes, I sat in a vacuum of dead silence, waiting patiently, hiding my boredom.

  Eventually this newly centered tway spoke.

  AN ERROR IN JUDGMENT HAS MUTATED. TWO AND ONE HALF EARTH CENTURIES HAVE PASSED. OUR CUMULATIVE OS/KA/LOQ COMMITMENTS NOW TOTAL NEARLY THREE AND ONE HALF EARTH CENTURIES.

  There was no mistaking the interpreter's clarity: This tway was deliberately shaping its thoughts for my benefit. He/she desired my complete understanding.

  INDIVIDUALITY MAY HAVE TRULY PERVERTED SAPPHO. SHE MAY LEAD A DUALITY OF LIFE. IF THIS EVENT HAS OCCURRED, THE SIDE EFFECTS MAY ALTER OUR DESIRED OUTCOME.

  Sappho obviously did not agree. INCORRECT ASSESSMENT. SKYGENE INFECTIONS COUPLED WITH RAPID RESEEDING OF PLANETARY SURFACE COUPLED WITH POLITICAL PRESSURE WILL YIELD CONQUEST. HUMANS ARE HANDICAPPED WHEN FACED WITH COMPLEX ACCELERATED EVENTS.

  The center tway was not impressed. IF THERE IS FAILURE, YOU WILL SUFFER COMPLETE DISINCORPORATION.

  They all became silent again for a time. I knew what disincorporation was. For the Os/Ka/Loq, it was a fate considered worse than death.

  Sappho finally responded to the threat, as best as she could. DISINCORPORATION WILL NOT BE NECESSARY.

  The Os/Ka/Loq in the center moved forward, closer to the translucent partition. Something resembling a tentacle extruded itself from the creature's body. The tentacle sprayed the wall. Thick globules of some pasty fluid trickled to the floor. I was unable to ascertain whether the Os/Ka/Loq was blowing its nose or reacting to Sappho's optimism.

  O}o{O

  The Lion of Alexander wished to stop pondering his betrayal. He had grown tired of running yesterday's events across a field of conscience that offered no sympathy.

  It's done. I must not dwell upon it. I must forget.

  He could not.

  Here in this twenty-sided chamber, within this shrine where the Council of Irrya would soon be meeting, the Lion sat alone, enclosed within the lush familiarity of the seat he had tenured for the past two years. Walls, gilded in leather and boasting exquisitely rare pre-Apocalyptic paintings, seemed more unreal than he could ever recall. Insubstantial, they were, like holos with the beams deliberately misaligned, as if his very surroundings were attempting to mimic the works of the great 3-D artists of pre-Apocalyptic Earth, the transimpressionists, who light-stroked vibrant chromas with the wild passion of disengaged intellect.

  The Lion shook his head, tried to wash away his sense of unreality. This room is real. There are no holos. The vaulted ceiling, lost in darkness, is a substantial thing. The prism chandelier that hangs from the darkness is real. The pale golden light that reflects up from this polished table is real.

  As real as holos. As real as imitations of stimulated light.

  Yesterday's tragedy had created this metamorphosis, this dreamlike state that forced the Lion to be a detached observer, witnessing his life from a perspective once removed from consciousness. Intellectually, the reasons for his metamorphosis seemed clear: an overwhelming cacophony of shame had transcended the parameters of bearable feeling.

  The shame of wanting to survive.

  I should have spit in its face.

  But the Paratwa assassin had forced him to the edge of nothingness, where life held inconceivably great value. For those few and brief and terrifying moments, the Lion had desired the continuation of his own existence more than anything else in the universe. He would have said and done anything to ensure that the assassin spared his life.

  Again, he recalled that pivotal event of fifty-six years ago, when he and his mother had faced certain death at the hands of the liege-killer, when Gillian and Reemul had danced their final dance—lightning eurythmics—weapons firing with inhuman speed, Paratwa warriors in the heat of death battle. The Lion had always known that he had drawn great strength from that childhood event. His actions in helping Gillian defeat the liege-killer had provided a reservoir of power, a streaming inner force that was always there, always available to be tapped when needed. For bravery in the face of certain doom, the twelve-year-old Jerem Marth had been granted a clarity of will remarkable even among the Costeaus. And that clarity had led him into a life of grand accomplishments. He had become the Lion of the Alexanders; he had become chief of the United Clans and a councilor of Irrya.

  And yesterday I betrayed all of those roles. Yesterday I became a coward.

  Anger mushroomed. He raised his fist and smashed it down on the table.

  Damn that creature! And damn me for my cowardice!

  And he knew that until the full brunt of his shame could be felt, only this disjointed emotional catharsis could occur. Shame into anger. Humiliation turned inside out. And the repression of pristine feelings, keeping him one step removed from the flow of substantiality, a victim of the élan vital instead of an aspect of its current.

  He thought: Is this what it's really like for Gillian? Is he forever banned from feeling the depth of his own true self? Is he trapped outside a sphere of forbidden emotions, condemned to live beyond the grounding sanctity of real feeling?

  The Lion acknowledged an altered sense of shame in comparing himself with Gillian. If he is forced to live like this all of the time, then what right do I have to complain?

  His fist ascended, brimming with new fury. Every right, damn it!

  Propriety spared the table another blow; the chamber's massive black door opened. Three figures entered the room.

  Inez Hernandez came toward him. “Are you all right?"

  "Yes."

  She looked older, somehow, more somber; another victim, perhaps, of excessive emotional repression. Or perhaps it was just that today Inez wore no bacterial skin toners, no fluff earrings, no trace of makeup of any sort. A plain charcoal suit, elegantly cut, complemented her pageboy bundle of black hair.

  A few days ago, Inez had staged a funeral service for her niece. Susan Quint had been missing for over a month now—another suspected victim of the rampaging Paratwa assassin. Even though Susan's body had not been found, the Lion also believed that she had been hunted down and murdered by the creature, following its failure to kill her during the Honshu terminal massacre. Still, the Lion had urged Inez to postpone the exigency of formal rites. There was always the possibility, however remote, that Susan would turn up.

  But Inez had not been swayed by his judgment. Best to get it over with, sh
e had insisted. Best to put Susan's life behind me. These days, there are more important concerns.

  He had not been able to dispute such logic.

  Inez took a seat, as did her two companions.

  "Council of Irrya, September 13, 2363,” uttered Maria Losef, Council president, director of the Intercolonial Credit Net. “Confidential database, standard access,” she continued, for the benefit of the chamber's electronic recorders.

  The Lion, hearing that cold unyielding voice, felt a fresh swell of anger. He glared across the table at her, hoping to elicit some sort of response, but Losef ignored his malice the way she ignored everything else. Ice-blue eyes moved past him, continued scanning the chamber with all the pretensions of a twenty-first century mind-shunted clone. Yet beneath the blond fringe of her DI haircut, Losef bore a sincere and remarkably agile intelligence. The more brazen freelancers suggested that it was perhaps not a human intelligence, but that bothered the “ice dyke” no more than their frequent innuendos intimating that her sexual encounters took place within holo simulations of medieval torture.

  She was as hard as the hardest of Costeaus, and the Lion respected such raw strength. But Maria Losef was also a major dictator of ICN policy. The Credit Net had been hindering all investigations into discovering who controlled the corporation known as Venus Cluster, where Gillian, Buff, and Martha had encountered the two vicious tways of the tripartite assassin. Losef simply would not divulge the information. Never mind the fact that with such data they might be able to track down the crazed Paratwa assassin who had now struck a dozen times in the past five months. Losef insisted that releasing such information violated ICN policy. ICN policy was the glue that kept the Colonies’ complex trade network from falling apart; therefore, the ownership and control of Venus Cluster would remain a secret.

  Madness.

  The third figure was a tall twig of a man, with a somber face, piercing green eyes, and a chin that sharpened into a gray-speckled goatee. Wiry tendrils of dark hair, pulled into a severe ponytail, contrasted sharply with his facial growth; it was as if two distinct genetic lines fought for control of his countenance.

  He was E-Tech's freshly appointed acting director and, thus, today's representative to the Council of Irrya. Prior to assuming Doyle Blumhaven's office, he had been head of the specially formed action/probe assigned to investigate E-Tech corruption.

  His name was Edward Huromonus. The freelancers called him “Crazy Eddie."

  He sat next to Losef and turned to the Lion. “I extend my condolences."

  The Lion nodded.

  "Any word of Blumhaven?” asked Losef.

  Huromonus shook his head. “Doyle is still missing. Foul play is suspected. I will provide a formal report before this meeting ends."

  "Very well,” said Losef. “First order of business will be a discussion of the twelfth known Birch attack."

  Inez said, “We should no longer infer that these attacks have anything to do with the Order of the Birch. The Alexanders’ retreat was attacked by a tripartite assassin. It seems obvious that this creature—and its rulers—have dropped their smokescreen. The recent actions of this assassin no longer allude to political terrorism traceable to the Order of the Birch. We are, plainly and simply, dealing with Paratwa."

  "Any new word on survivors?” asked Huromonus.

  "I'm a survivor,” said the Lion, feeling the anger gestating just beneath the surface, knowing that he had to keep it in, knowing that brutal logic was needed now. “My security chief, Vilakoz, survived. The tway who tricked us into its vehicle calmly drove the car to the E-Tech Security checkpoint outside the retreat.” The Lion paused. “That tway even helped real E-Tech Security officers load the unconscious Vilakoz into a medvan.

  "Unmitigated boldness,” commented Huromonus. He stared at the Lion for a long moment before turning to his monitor. His fingers flashed across the keyboard used to maintain two-way communication with E-Tech headquarters. Although Irryan Council meetings were usually considered closed-door sessions, each councilor was permitted to maintain data links with respective departmental entities.

  Inez started to say something when the small sharp-edged pentagon in the center of the table came to life. A quintet of identical swirling screens exposed the ruggedly handsome face of Jon Van Ostrand, supreme commander of the Intercolonial Guardians, and the fifth councilor of Irrya.

  "Sorry I'm late,” announced Van Ostrand. “We had a minor problem with a nuclear warhead aboard one of our attack ships."

  Inez hunched forward, instantly concerned. La Gloria de la Ciencia was responsible for building most of the defense net's nuclear arsenal. “Another construction defect?"

  "No, we solved the last of those problems months ago. This event was simply a matter of human error. A minicrisis, but one that was fortuitously resolved."

  Van Ostrand's words originated from millions of miles away, instantaneously transmitted via the FTL, the invention purportedly designed by Theophrastus of the Ash Ock and captured from Codrus fifty-six years ago. The semiorganic transmitter was actually located far below street level of the Irryan Capitol building; this pentagon merely served as a remote unit.

  All superluminal FTLs operated in linked pairs. One such pair bonded Van Ostrand with the Council chambers. Aboard the Guardian commander's op-base satellite, one-half of a completely different FTL—the one taken from the Ash Ock and used as a prototype for this model—silently resonated in step with its companion. And the other half of that FTL was presumed to be located aboard one of the returning Paratwa starships.

  Van Ostrand's op-base, beyond the orbit of Jupiter, served as the nerve center for the Colonies’ huge defense network. Well over two million Guardians patrolled the outer regions of the system, waiting in their nuclear-armed attack ships, defense satellites, and support colonies, poised to repel the invasion that had been anticipated for over half a century.

  But since yesterday, the Lion's already grave doubts about their ability to repel an invasion had grown deeper. In fact, he no longer believed that the Colonies of Irrya possessed the power to resist the returning Paratwa.

  We're going to be conquered. It was a defeatist attitude—he recognized it as such—but the idea continued to cling to awareness, finding refuge there, bolstered by the schism emerging from his own cowardice.

  "Jon,” began Inez, “we were talking about yesterday's massacre. I was just about to ask the Lion whether he believes that Adam Lu Sang was the target of this attack?"

  The Lion shook his head. “Adam was merely the trigger for the massacre. Obviously, his security was breached.” He gazed at Huromonus. “The E-Tech archives must have been compromised. Someone found out that Adam had helped Inez and me awaken Gillian and Nick, and that Adam was working on tracking down the sunsetter. This person—or persons—leaked that information to the Paratwa. The tripartite assassin was set loose."

  "I read your formal report,” said Huromonus, still typing. “According to you and your coconspirators—Inez, Nick, and Gillian—at least one Paratwa leader, presumably the Ash Ock Sappho, is already within the Colonies.

  "Evidence suggests that conclusion.” Huronomus stopped typing and faced the Lion. “E-Tech is not sure whether to honor Adam Lu Sang as a hero or prosecute him as a traitor."

  "He's dead,” stated the Lion. “If all the facts were known, I believe most people would consider his actions selfless and heroic."

  "Perhaps,” said Huromonus. “Still, many matters concerned with Adam's traitorous archival activities need to be resolved. Lu Sang's violation of his security oath and his flagrant distribution of classified data have created extensive repercussions. Even such tangents as the commencement of death benefits to his family need to be addressed..."

  Inez sighed. “What's the point? I strongly suggest that now—especially now—is not the time to persecute a slain man."

  "Prosecution,” corrected Huromonus, “naturally would be in absentia. But your objections are duly noted.” He pa
used. “I should also point out that under the Irryan constitution and E-Tech charter, the activities of both you and the Lion are subject to legal action."

  Losef jumped in. “I propose that any such legal actions be postponed until the Council has dealt with the more pressing issues of the day."

  On the FTL screens, Van Ostrand looked noticeably relieved.

  "Agreed,” said Huromonus.

  The Lion knew that no one wanted to engage in an interagency dispute that had the potential of ripping apart the Council. If there were any hope whatsoever of defeating the Paratwa, they had to maintain, at least for the immediate future, a common front.

  "Losef,” began Van Ostrand, “could we discuss the technology that was used during this massacre? We received the reports, but my people here are extremely concerned about some of the weapons apparently utilized by this Paratwa assassin. Any additional ideas that might be generated via a rehash might well save lives.” The Guardian commander did not need to add that he and his troops could very well be the first lives thus saved.

  "No objections here,” said Losef.

  Inez cleared her throat and accessed her own monitor. “La Gloria de la Ciencia has been collating all available data, from the Lion's people and from the two E-Tech officers who also survived the attack. The recollections from one of those injured survivors, an Inspector Xornakoff, were particularly incisive.

  "We appear to be dealing with several applications of unknown technology. First and foremost, there was the devastating weapon that destroyed the E-Tech assault craft. ‘A glassy sphere attached to a thick shaft that rose out of the ICN-disguised vehicle'—those are Inspector Xornakoff's words. This sphere apparently produced coils of silvery light that, when they touched the body of the assault craft, caused an implosion, followed immediately by a gravitational anomaly. The crushed remains of the assault craft were hurtled upward—opposite normal-G expectations. The major pieces of the destroyed craft quickly entered a rapidly decaying orbit within Irrya's center-sky. Hub control captured these fragments and transferred them to one of La Gloria de la Ciencia's research facilities.