The Paratwa (#3 in the Parawta Saga)

by Christopher Hinz

  Empedocles gazed into the empty socket. The symbolism of Timmy's action was clear. There would be no more tricks, no more manipulations. No more betrayals.

  Timmy began. “It happened only a few weeks after Aristotle made that first momentous discovery. This was in 2095, four years before the Apocalypse. Aristotle had returned to his villa in Cape Town, accessed the data from the partial's implanted holotronic recorders, and learned why Sappho had been making those frequent and mysterious visits to Brazilian coastal cities.

  "She owned half a dozen jet yachts, harbored along a six-hundred-mile stretch of Brazilian coastline, in seaport cities from Rio all the way up north to Caravelas and Alcobaca. On this occasion, with the partial's monitors secretly recording every aspect of the journey, Sappho arrived in Caravelas.

  "She boarded her jet yacht alone—just her and the partial, that is—and headed out into the Atlantic. Several hundred miles off the coast, at a point approximately twenty degrees south of the equator, she cut the engines.

  "She used a neuropad to render the partial unconscious, took her below deck, and inserted a set of seeker cables into the partial's vaginal canal. The seekers automatically fastened to the nodes or that interface organ, which Aristotle had discovered during his secret examination. Sappho connected the other ends of the cables to a basic terminal.

  "That tiny armless and legless android was not simply a camouflage unit to hide the fact that Sappho's real tway was an Os/Ka/Loq. The partial also had other functions. In this case, the android was being utilized to contact and control this cell of the Os/Ka/Loq. Sappho typed the necessary commands into the terminal and the partial's specialized organ transmitted those commands to this probe ship. The cell rose from the ocean floor, creating its own chameleonic effects to prevent detection. The heavy fog bank inhibited visual ID and the superior Os/Ka/Loq antiscan gear thwarted all other electromagnetic technologies, including low-orbit defense satellites. The cell opened its massive jaws, swallowed Sappho's yacht, and then returned to its resting place on the ocean floor, over two miles below."

  Timmy paused. “Even now, I cannot say precisely why Sappho returned to the cell that day. An Os/Ka/Loq version of the FTL transmitter exists aboard this probe, but the plenary did not make use of it. No reason to, of course—Sappho's tways remained in telepathic contact with each other. This cell also boasts a vast technological alchemizer—an automated data-to-hardware system—capable of creating working copies of practically anything in its memory. But during the visit that I monitored, Sappho ignored that device as well.

  "Fortunately, for Aristotle's purposes, the partial, once vaginally disconnected, followed the real tway everywhere, rolling along in the gyroscopes, still programmed to complementarily pantomime the actions of the plenary. And so Aristotle later bore witness to the inexplicable events, which constituted Sappho's entire three-hour visit.

  "The plenary came to this chamber. She crystallized the walls and stood like a statue in front of this very stasis vault, gazing in at her former body, silently mesmerized by the writhing conglomerate of this now-mindless Os/Ka/Loq. She remained in that position for over an hour. And then, beginning very slowly—only gradually picking up the tempo—the human tway of Sappho began to dance."

  Timmy shook his head. “Perhaps it had something to do with the flexing urges of the Ash Ock. Perhaps it was a dance of mourning, a way to temporarily offset the knowledge that this half of her would never again be able to return to its true form. But whatever the motivation, it was a strange thing to behold. I can only describe her dance as a most bizarre version of an earthly waltz, but even that description does not do justice to what the partial's recorders documented.

  "The entire dance continued for almost three hours. When it ended—slowly and gracefully, as it had begun—the plenary tway returned immediately to her jet yacht. Again using the body of the partial as a control unit, Sappho ascended to the surface, and then skimmed directly to Caravelas harbor."

  Empedocles frowned. “That was the only reason she journeyed here?"

  "If she had other purposes, Aristotle never learned of them."

  Empedocles shrugged both sets of shoulders. “And then?"

  "Over the next few weeks, Aristotle collated the vast amount of data gathered by the partial's holotronic recorders. The partial had been operating with the secret recorders for several months and a wealth of information required processing and condensing. But even after studying that mass of data, my monarch remained unaware of the real nature of Os/Ka/Loq schemes. And although Sappho had repeatedly referred to the Biodyysey, Aristotle still knew little about the great seed ship.

  "He did learn that Theophrastus was fully aware of Sappho's secrets. That fact in and of itself was a severe blow to my monarch. Aristotle felt ... cheated. He learned that Codrus, too, had been kept in the dark about these matters. Why had Theophrastus been made privy to these great secrets? Why had Aristotle and Codrus been denied?

  "Aristotle became very angry. And he decided that it was time to consider Sappho and Theophrastus as actual enemies. He knew that the only way to gain more information—to learn the entire story—would be to get aboard Sappho's underwater vessel. He made his plans.

  "A few days later, Sappho's European hotel was vaporized. All occupants and staff perished under the blistering heat and radiation of a tactical smatter nuke. A fundamentalist Christian terrorist brigade, the White Lights of Jesus, who were very active throughout Europe at that time, claimed responsibility."

  Empedocles permitted a knowing smile to touch the cheeks of the Susan/tway. “These terrorists, I presume, were doing Aristotle's bidding."

  "Yes. The White Lights were experiencing some cash flow problems. A series of large credit transferals into their global accounts provided the necessary inspiration for their deed."

  "And Aristotle managed to kidnap the partial shortly before the smatter nuke was detonated?"

  Timmy nodded. “And Sappho never knew. She assumed that the partial had indeed been destroyed. The plenary owned extra partials, of course—backups stored at various locations around the globe. She merely acquired a new one and bragged to Codrus and Aristotle of her extreme good fortune, telling them that the partial had not been inside the European hotel at the time of the incident.” A faint smile wafted across Timmy's swollen cheeks. “Codrus was suitably impressed by Sappho's close brush with mortality.

  "At any rate, Aristotle now possessed a key for entering the cell of the Os/Ka/Loq. But even as he made plans to use it, he made his fatal error."

  Timmy paused, softly rubbed the back of a sleeve across his real eye. His hands began to shake. “You must excuse me. Aspects of my monarch's demise ... they still provide difficulties for me...

  "Of course,” said Empedocles, allowing impatient frowns to appear on both faces. “Take your time,” he urged, meaning just the opposite.

  Timmy overcame his turmoil and continued. “The mistake that killed my monarch was a simple one. Aristotle turned to Meridian—the one Paratwa who he thought could be trusted. There was little reason not to trust the Jeek. Meridian, intensely loyal to the Ash Ock, also managed to remain honest and forthright with the other Paratwa who served our cause. And Aristotle considered Meridian something of a friend. While teaching you, the two of them had developed a camaraderie."

  Timmy sighed. “And so, Aristotle shared some of his new discoveries with Meridian. My monarch provided just enough information to one of Meridian's tways to whet the Jeek's curiosity. Aristotle concentrated on the facts that had first inspired his own detective work. Aristotle told Meridian nothing about the makeup of the partial. Nor did he reveal the secrets learned from the holotronic recorders.” A bitter smile fattened Timmy's cheeks. “My monarch, like all of the Ash Ock, practiced manipulation as a way of life. In Meridian's case, Aristotle had intended to dole out just enough data to inspire the Jeek to undertake his own investigation. Meridian would be supplied the information in stages.

  "But stag
e two never arrived. Less than twenty-four hours after my monarch made his first revelations, both of the Jeek's tways arrived at Aristotle's Cape Town villa. Meridian claimed to be very upset by Aristotle's disclosures. He wished to discuss the various inferences of Aristotle's ‘unbelievable’ tale."

  Timmy stared at the floor. “But Aristotle knew immediately that he had been betrayed. Meridian was a shrewd liar, but Aristotle was shrewder. My monarch listened to what the Jeek was saying and he listened to what the Jeek was not saying, and he realized that Meridian was also part of the conspiracy.

  "Meridian must have gone directly to Sappho. And she would have ordered the Jeek to return at once to Cape Town, to ferret out the rest of Aristotle's information. And on Meridian's second visit, both of the Jeek's tways had arrived at the villa. My monarch was forced to presume that Meridian had been given discretionary orders...” He trailed off.

  "Aristotle was to be assassinated?"

  Timmy squeezed his hands together to prevent them from shaking. “Before the meeting ended, both parties realized where things stood. Although no direct accusations were ever made, Aristotle knew the full extent of the betrayal and Meridian knew that he knew. My monarch, in an effort to buy time, played his final hand—he told Meridian about the secret existence of Freebird within the newly created E-Tech archival computers. Aristotle made it clear to the Jeek that Freebird contained more information than he had revealed. ‘Should an untimely accident befall me,’ Aristotle warned, ‘Freebird's data will fall into the hands of E-Tech.'

  "Meridian accepted this threat in his typical fashion—with a sort of cordial aplomb.” Timmy hesitated. “You remember that unsettling demeanor of his, don't you?"

  Empedocles remembered. Cordial aplomb was indeed an appropriate phrase to describe the Ash Ock lieutenant. Even when the Jeek killed, it was done with a sort of quiescent grace. If Reemul had been considered the mad assassin, Meridian had been the courteous one.

  Timmy continued. “At the end of their meeting, Meridian's tways, still as poised as ever, offered Aristotle the two-score.

  The two-score, thought Empedocles. The Paratwa handshake—eight hands clasped together, forty fingers molded in friendship.

  "Aristotle assumed that this was the end. Meridian would kill him in the middle of their farewell gesture. But surprisingly, Meridian shook hands and departed in peace. Only then did my monarch realize that the two-score had been intended as a real gesture of their friendship, that it had been the Jeek's way of saying good-bye.

  "Meridian would not be doing the deed. But Aristotle knew that little time remained. Sappho would be dispatching another assassin, one without any qualms.

  "Like all of the Ash Ock, my monarch had made numerous contingency plans—false identities in countries all over the world, caches of hidden supplies, clandestine bank accounts ... Immediately, Aristotle dispatched one of his tways to an area north of Cape Town, to his closest storage bunker. Sappho's captured partial was being kept at that location, in a state of induced sleep. Aristotle planned to flee to a town in the Russian steppes, where he had prepared identities as a geostrand engineer and a NewNam bankrep."

  Timmy's whole body began to shake. He leaned against the wall in an effort to control himself.

  "But my monarch was too late. The end came quickly. A fire-fall nuke was detonated high above Cape Town. The tway of Aristotle who remained at the villa bore witness to his own incineration."

  Timmy clasped his arms tightly across his chest. A final tremor seemed to pass through him and then his voice fell to a deep-throated whisper. “Later, when I came to this cell and penetrated the Os/Ka/Loq data net, I learned the identity of the assassin."

  "It was Reemul, wasn't it?"

  "Yes,” murmured Timmy. “The liege-killer nuked the entire city just to destroy my monarch."

  Empedocles frowned. “When I've heard the tale of your monarch's death, it was always suggested that Aristotle had been attempting to bribe South Africa's president when the firestorm hit."

  Timmy laughed hard, but it was a laugh on the edge of madness. “My monarch did bribe that nation's leader from time to time. But such a story remains just another muddled fable from the final days. Perhaps this particular tale was encouraged by Sappho. She certainly would not have wanted the other Paratwa to learn of dissension within the Royal Caste. Better to intimate that Aristotle's demise was related to international politics."

  Empedocles nodded slowly, in tandem. “So one of your tways perished. And the other one?"

  "Jalka made it to that storage bunker, just beyond the lethal range of the detonation. He escaped, but not without injuries. He lost an eye...

  "But worse than that, of course, he suffered the madness. You know what it was like. You too have lived through the horror of being torn in half.

  "For many days—weeks perhaps—Jalka wandered aimlessly ... lost in the pain of what was lost...” Timmy's real eve blinked rapidly, as if it were a malfunctioning circuit. “After a time, Jalka emerged from the bunker. He had survived the devastation. Still, he continued to burn in that womb of pure pain, endlessly reliving the incineration of his other tway.

  "But eventually, the spirit of a new being emerged from that womb. Jalka and Aristotle were fused. And from that blasphemy of tway and monarch, I arose. I was born. And I christened myself Timmy.

  "I had my appearance physically altered. A black market tech customized a wetware eye for me. I retrieved Sappho's sleeping partial from the bunker. I purchased a jet yacht and skimmed to the Atlantic coordinates where Sappho's cell of the Os/Ka/Loq lay hidden on the ocean floor.

  "I attached the partial to a terminal as I had seen Sappho do. It took me a few hours to break the control codes, and in those hours, paranoia washed over me. I kept worrying that Sappho was going to appear. Perhaps she could somehow remotely monitor surface traffic that approached her hidden vessel? But my fears were swept away when the jaws of the great cell broke the surface and enveloped my yacht. As I journeyed into the depths, my confidence returned. Soon, I knew I would possess all of her secrets.

  "My confidence was not unfounded. Here within this cell, I first learned of the awesome century-spanning manipulations of this alien race. I mastered their data net, and their powerful alchemizer. I assimilated a knowledge of genetic engineering far beyond the dreams of the most rabid earthly researcher. I spent hours on end, attached to their feed loops, hinging on accelerated memory quantizers.

  "And throughout those days and weeks, I waited for Sappho to return to her cell. I made no plans, however, no contingencies in the event that she suddenly ‘dropped in.'” Timmy hesitated. “Later, I realized that I had a death wish. I wanted her to come. I wanted the witch to complete her half-finished task.

  "But she did not come. I grew aware of my self-destructive tendencies and slowly overcame them. I made a conscious decision to stay alive, though at the time, I did not know why. At any rate, I developed a complex plan.

  "I mastered the nav system of this cell, programmed it to function as a submarine. Underwater, I piloted the great probe ship from Sappho's original resting place to a new location, over a thousand miles to the north."

  "Where we are right now,” mused Empedocles.

  "Yes. After moving the cell, I returned to the surface in my yacht, and then headed for the city of Fortaleza, the closest port. I accessed my secret accounts—drained several of them, in fact. I spent a small fortune in order to carry out the rest of my scheme.

  "Six days after my return, a jet—believed to be carrying a cargo of refinanced opium—was shot down near the original location of the cell. The Brazilian authorities had received word of the jet's cargo and destination through U.S. Customs. Since the Brazilians were part of an ancient agreement to destroy inbound American drug traffic, and since U.S. Customs was making a fuss about it, the Brazilians were forced to shoot down the jet rather than adopt their standard tactic and demand a percentage cut from the smugglers in exchange for safe passage. />
  "But this jet was not bearing opium. Its cargo was much deadlier—one hundred and ninety-two tactical nukes, bound for French Canadian decentralists, in the newly warmed Northwest Territories. And unknown to the smugglers, the nukes had been armed.

  "The jet went down, a scant mile and a half from the location where Sappho's cell was supposed to lie. The aircraft sank quickly. One hundred and ninety-two nuclear bombs mysteriously detonated in a thousand feet of water. Media reports later claimed that some of the tidal waves that ravaged the Brazilian coast were over a hundred feet high."

  Susan was unable to contain her emotions any longer. They're both monsters! They talk about death and destruction as if it were something inconsequential.

  They're Paratwa, stated Gillian. They're Ash Ock—

  I know what they are! But I thought Timmy was different—

  —Then you've been fooling yourself. You have to accept the reality of them. Timmy is just as ruthless and manipulative as the others. Paratwa have always looked upon humans the way humans looked upon cattle. And remember what Timmy said about the Os/Ka/Loq. Our intelligence—our consciousness—is not even a factor in the way that they judge other species. Only the degree of T-psionic force is of importance—

  Go to hell!

  Gillian felt her wave of fury wash over him. You are not angry with me.

  Susan forced control. You're right, I'm not angry with you. I'm sorry.

  Besides, projected Gillian, I suspect that we're already in hell.

  Despite their circumstances, she felt soothed by his gentle humor. Her resolve returned. There has to be a way to break the interlace. If we can't get Timmy to reverse those mnemonic cursors in your mind, then it's up to me—

  —It's not possible, insisted Gillian. It would require both of us, acting in tandem, and under the proper conflux of conditions, to dissolve the monarchy ... He hesitated.

  You have an idea?

  Gillian thought about it for a while. Perhaps there is a way.

  But Susan did not feel cheered by his words, for his thoughts bore an undercurrent of deep and bitter regret.