"There's more hot news,” stated Theandra. “FL-Sixteen has just uncovered new information relevant to the mystery surrounding the disappearance of Susan Quint, grandniece to Councilor Inez Hernandez."
Ghandi came upright from his slouch and leaned across the table.
"As you might remember, Karl, Susan Quint has been missing since the time of the Honshu massacre, over six weeks ago. In fact, Inez Hernandez just conducted a private funeral service for her grandniece—sans body, of course."
Zork scowled. “Theandra, I just hope that when it's my time, they'll have the decency to make sure there's a corpse to look at before they start in on the eulogies."
"I'm sure they'll be decent about you, Karl. At any rate, knowledgeable sources now say that Susan Quint was in the Honshu terminal, that she witnessed the massacre there, and that she possibly recognized one of the assassins—one of the tways. She escaped, but was later believed to have been hunted down and murdered by the creature."
Ghandi frowned. Except for the fact that Calvin had never found Susan Quint, that she had truly disappeared, the freelancers were reporting nothing that wasn't already known.
Zork echoed Ghandi's thoughts. “So tell me something new, Theandra."
She produced a warm smile. “Karl, recall our story from a few days ago, when we reported that the man Gillian—the ex-tway who hunted down and destroyed the liege-killer fifty-six years ago—had been illegally reawakened from stasis. Gillian was the one involved in that deadly skirmish last month at Venus Cluster."
"Bravo!” chortled Karl, clapping three times. “Anyone with the balls to hunt Paratwa is my kind of hombre!"
"A chip off the old block,” agreed Theandra. “At any rate, we also reported that Gillian disappeared several days ago, after being contacted by that priest from the Church of the Trust."
"Lester Mon Dama."
Theandra's smile brightened. “Well, Karl, it turns out that Susan Quint also knows this priest. When she was still a little sliver—when her zoned-out parents killed themselves—Lester Mon Dama was there to comfort her."
Zork did not look impressed. “Ancient history, Theandra. It's probably just a coincidence that Susan Quint and Gillian both know the priest."
"Here's some more ancient history for you. Twenty-four years ago, three Church of the Trust practicing obstetricians died in a car crash. Their vehicle went out of control on a transverse boulevard right here in Irrya. Somehow, it went straight through the guardrail—a two-hundred-foot drop right onto the cosmishield strip. Naturally, their car never touched the sun sector. Burn screens cut the vehicle to pieces before it could do any damage to the glass."
"Hell of a way to go,” offered Zork.
"After an investigation, the crash was officially ruled an accident, although the owner of the vehicle was briefly investigated for manslaughter. It seems that the car's navcom survived partially intact and showed possible signs of tampering. No one ever proved that the owner deliberately sabotaged his car, but a few of the E-Tech Security investigators on the case apparently suspected as much.” Theandra paused. “And guess who the owner of this car was?"
"Lester Mon Dama?"
"Score one for you, Karl. It turns out that Lester Mon Dama was buddy-buddy with all three of these doctors. And one of these dead obstetricians actually cared for Susan Quint's mother during her pregnancy."
"Coincidences are mounting,” Zork admitted.
"They certainly are. And here's another one for you. These three doctors took care of a lot of pregnant women, all of whom were devoted members of the Church of the Trust. And ninety-four percent of the babies delivered by these obstetricians were female."
Karl frowned. “A Church mandate perhaps? The women were ordered to bear female children?"
"There's no evidence of such a mandate. But there is evidence that at least some of these young women—if not all of them—have flowered into extraordinary adulthood. The ones that we've been able to locate—all of whom are now in their twenties—are, by the standards of our era—stunningly beautiful. At least five of them are superb athletes. Three play on championship gee-well teams. One is currently ranked third fastest on the Pocono speed slopes. Another goes by the moniker of Slim-trim Three—she is a famed competitor in Sirak-Brath's brutal Fin Whirl."
Zork narrowed his eyes and rubbed his zigzag beard, as if he was lost in deep thought. “Theandra, I'm going to take a wild guess and say that these women you're describing are genejobs."
"Put money on it, Karl. It's more than a fair hunch to say that these three obstetricians were responsible for fetal modifications—highly illegal modifications, I might add. And circumstantial evidence would indicate that Susan Quint was also a genejob."
"But where's all this leading us, Theandra?"
Ghandi asked himself the same question.
"Frankly, Karl, we don't know. One thing's for certain. Lester Mon Dama has some explaining to do. But guess what?"
"Lester Mon Dama has also disappeared?"
"Jackpot, Karl. The priest has been missing since the day he contacted Gillian."
"Mighty strange happenings."
Ghandi agreed. Often, Zork-Morgan blew stories way out of proportion to the facts, reaching conclusions that stretched the parameters of imagination. But in this instance, the freelancers were not even attempting to speculate as to what it all meant. In Ghandi's mind, that fact alone blessed their data with the ring of truth.
And Susan Quint as a genejob made sense. Calvin, after failing to kill her in the Honshu massacre, had suspected as much. But what could be the purpose behind such genetic modifications? Surely not just to create a batch of super-athletic females. Was Susan Quint—and these other young women—part of some crazy Church of the Trust scheme? Had the missing Lester Mon Dama arranged for the fetal modifications?
Before Ghandi could consider the puzzle any further, the boardroom door fragmented into a checkerboard array of miniature rectangles, which quickly dissolved into pink vapors. The vent system was still sweeping the remnants of the hightech door up into the ventilation system when Colette charged across the threshold. Ghandi rose from his chair, surprised by his wife's appearance. “I thought you were going to—"
"You saw the report?” snapped Colette. Behind her, the door began recoagulating.
"Yes, I was watching—"
"You have conclusions, Corelli-Paul?"
Her hands were shaking; forehead creases, normally faint and delicate, rippled with open fury. He studied her face, looking for signs of Sappho, signs that she had melded with her distant tway, merged into Ash Ock monarchy. The voice seemed to belong to Colette, but it was difficult to tell for certain with so much anger blemishing her features. Colette rarely displayed such fury. But Sappho? Who really knew the extent of that one's emotions?
"I'm not sure what to think. Zork-Morgan didn't summarize—"
"Zork-Morgan doesn't possess the collective intellect for such a task! You do. Analyze. Coordinate data."
"I'm not sure what it means—"
"Guess!"
He gazed at her helplessly.
"Fool Ghandi!” Skirt flaring, she leaped up onto the board table, stomped her low heels sharply into the grained plastic, and then began a turbulent waltz—pure three-quarter time—from one end of the table to the other. Her shoes smacked against the imitation mahogany, producing a sharp interplay of clicking sounds that reminded Ghandi of tap dancing, but distorted somehow, weirdly nonsynchronous, almost vulgar and malevolent. He stepped back from the table, too astonished for words. In their twenty-five years together, he had never seen her do something so extraordinarily bizarre.
She continued dancing back and forth on the plastic surface, heels crackling furiously, arms flapping at her sides as if they were useless appendages, unrelated to the flow of her silent romp. Words poured from her mouth, slurred and syrupy.
"Incomp'tence modified ... by the inherent weaknesses of this dist'rted kascht. It reeks of the lacking!"
She froze in midstride, unnaturally, as if she had run into an invisible barrier. “Reeks of the lacking!” she repeated whirling to face him. Her head snapped back, as if it had been taken over by some invisible force; her mouth opened wide.
A braying sound—an animal cry bubbling with undercurrents of what Ghandi sensed to be desperate rage—shook her torso. Never before had he heard such a harsh utterance. It was so far beyond the range of human sounds that for a moment Ghandi felt disoriented, uncertain of his surroundings. He fell back, against the wall, into the blue velvet, grateful for the pressure of something that could be touched.
She leaped from the table, landing a pace in front of him. Her arms came forward; fingers trickled across his shoulders, began massaging flesh through the thin fabric of his gossamer shirt. Hungry digits, armored for lust. He stared fearfully into her eyes.
She gripped his upper arms and shoved him hard against the wall.
"Reeks of the lacking!” she hissed, pinning him against the velvet. “Don't you know what this means, Corelli-Paul? For once, can't you see the obvious!"
He swallowed nervously, tried to concentrate his thoughts, look for a way to escape. Whatever stood before him was certainly not Colette, at least not the Colette that he knew.
"You're Sappho,” he murmured.
She released him, stepped back a pace. Distance seemed to produce cogency. Some of the madness departed from her face.
"I am Sappho. You have witnessed the whelm of an Ash Ock, the dialectic pressure of tways uncontrollably inversed against their monarchy—the equation of perfect balance—which forces the arising of the Paratwa."
He swallowed. “I've heard of it."
A cackling laugh escaped her. “You've heard of it! Bravo!—as the freelancers would say. But you still don't know what I'm talking about, do you?"
"I don't know what you're talking about,” he admitted.
A fresh spasm of fury overwhelmed her. “It was Reemul! Fool Reemul! He failed to carry out orders! Reemul didn't kill him!"
"Kill ... whom? Gillian?"
"Gillian! Hah! A mere afterthought. Disposal of tainted material—elimination of his handiwork. No, not Gillian. He did not matter. But the one who trained Gillian did matter! The one whose twisted vanity turned him against us—that one is still alive! Reemul did not accomplish his assignment ... at least not his full assignment. One tway must have survived."
"Who ... are you talking about?” Intense curiosity began to override Ghandi's fear.
"Genejobs! Female fetuses, altered by him! Hundreds, probably, all created for the sole purpose of finding the right one, the one who could be fitted to Gillian's intact interlace, the one who can be used to restore Empedocles!"
Ghandi knew enough of Paratwa history to take an educated guess. “You're talking about ... Aristotle? He survived the Apocalypse?"
"Aristotle,” she whispered, as if the word were a curse. “Yes, he still lives—at least some incarnation of him, some aspect of what he once was. No other creature in the Colonies could possibly hope to reverse the ravages of Empedocles's affliction. No other possesses the skill to counter arrhythmia of the whelm.” Her face suddenly paled. “The cell of the Os/Ka/Loq ... he may have been the one responsible..."
"What?"
Sappho shook her head. “Nothing."
Ghandi's eyes widened. “Did Aristotle create the program in the archives, the one your sunsetter has been trying to destroy?"
"Yes, Aristotle created Freebird.” She reached her hands out toward him, but this time gently, in the manner of Colette. Palms caressed his cheeks; fingernails played at the corners of his mouth. Ghandi had the distinct feeling that she desired, almost desperately—his full comprehension, desired that he understand the sum totality of Ash Ock intrigues.
Her mouth came forward; her lips touched his chin. She kissed him gingerly on the lower lip. Heat flooded Ghandi's face, but it was an unfamiliar warmth, a passion born of strangeness.
"We thought that only the program remained. We thought that only the E-Tech computers still housed our enemy. But it's now obvious that we were wrong. Aristotle himself—or a part of him—still lives."
She pulled back. A strange expression fell across her face. What is she feeling, Ghandi wondered. Sorrow, perhaps, but something else, residing beneath the sadness, buoying it, providing a watery veneer to hide deeper underswells, vaster disturbances. Loneliness? That seemed to offer a closer approximation, a more vigorous delineation of the brooding murmurs that distended her surface. But even loneliness could not fully explain the depth of her affectation. There was something else, something that Ghandi suspected he would never be able to fully understand.
For the first time in twenty-five years, he felt pity for her.
Reaching out, he grasped her pale elfin face in his hands, held it inches from his lips, suspending her yearning, forcing them to meet as equals.
An incredible sensation passed through him. He felt a renewed sense of control, willpower returning, his true self emerging from the shadows of structured wisdom, vaulting microbes reduced to proper insignificance.
A tremor of fear passed through her. She snuggled against him. “Aristotle ... he knows things that threaten us."
Ghandi caressed the back of her neck. “And that information is contained in Freebird?"
"Yes. But now we have to contend with the creator as well as his program."
Ghandi's heart raced, pulsing with new virility. He bathed in it, allowed it to bubble up inside him, swelling awareness with liberties sacrificed half a lifetime ago for the advancement of Ash Ock schemes. He allowed her to press against him, but he kept her face delicately suspended inches from his own, maintaining a gulf through which intentions could still be ascertained.
"I have questions."
"Yes."
"When you were on the table ... in the whelm. You uttered a word that I never heard before. Kascht."
"Kascht is a part of ... space.” She hesitated, as if groping for a more precise definition. “Kascht is a place ... a time. It is an area of sorts ... an area that either does or does not permit the resolution which enables ... full communication."
Ghandi did not understand, but he had the impression that she was being truthful. He suspected it was a problem of semantics. He pressed on. “And that other phrase. You uttered it several times. Reeks of the lacking?"
"This kascht within which you exist, where the Earth exists, where the Colonies exist ... this kascht reeks of the lacking. It does not permit the normal resolution. It does not allow full communication. It is an aberration."
With that last word, her face broke into a pained grimace. For a moment, he thought she was going to cry.
"An aberration? What sort of aberration?"
A specter seemed to cross her face; aquamarine eyes flared wide open, and Ghandi had the curious sensation that he was being observed by more than one person. And then the moment passed and Sappho was gone and it was just Colette again. He understood. He had just witnessed the transition, the return passage, monarch into tway.
His wife pulled away from him.
He asked, “Sappho ... she was speaking of ... an aberration—"
"Please, Corelli-Paul ... enough has been said. No more. Please."
"All right.” He turned to the hanging monitor, still tuned to FL-Sixteen. A commercial was just beginning: a well-dressed young couple, holding hands, walked down a crowded and noisy Irryan boulevard. Tension was apparent on their faces, tension obviously accentuated by the disruptive amalgam of too many people occupying too small an area.
Colette said, “I'm going to have Calvin investigate the background of this priest. Perhaps there are trails leading to Aristotle."
"Didn't Calvin already look into that when the freelancers reported that Gillian had been contacted by Lester Mon Dama?"
"Yes, Calvin made a few discreet inquiries. But it was not a priority. Now it is. Aristotle must be found. He must be destroyed."
Ghandi nodded. “This information possessed by Aristotle? What is it? How does it threaten you? Does it have something to do with restoring Gillian's tway, bringing Empedocles back to life?"
Colette hesitated, as if debating whether or not to respond. Then, abruptly, she spun and headed for the door. The portal disintegrated, re-formed behind her. Ghandi was alone again.
And he knew that bringing Empedocles back to life—somehow making Susan Quint into Gillian's new tway—was not Colette/Sappho's primary concern. An afterthought, she had said, in reference to Gillian.
It was Aristotle who poised the true threat. Aristotle and his secret computer program, Freebird.
But what was the information that poised such a threat to Ash Ock plans? Had Aristotle developed some sort of ultraweapon, something which the Colonies could use to repel the returning Paratwa?
He shook his head. No, not a weapon—at least not a weapon as traditionally defined. But something that Aristotle knew jeopardized the Royal Caste. Like Gillian/Empedocles, Aristotle was of their breed. Did the Ash Ock possess some secret Achilles heel? Had Aristotle learned of it? Was that why, as Sappho had just intimated, Reemul the Liege-killer had been sent out to kill Aristotle?
Ghandi sighed. There were too many questions and not enough data. He could dance in circles all day and get no closer to answers.
On the monitor, the commercial was ending. Now the young couple who had been walking down the crowded Irryan boulevard were reclining side by side in a tilted airbed, in a spacious sleep chamber colored in soothing earth tones, mostly pale ambers and dark shades of brown. The lovers were still holding hands, but their faces were now hidden by metallic shrouds. Her leg moved softly across his; his hand squeezed hers. The gentle movements, the inclination of their bodies, all suggested a gestalt of peace, serenity.
The Paratwa (#3 in the Parawta Saga) Page 16