Adiamante

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  Then, I just sat in the center chair and shivered for a while, letting Dorgan and Wiane run through the diagnostics.

  Wiane’s eyes unglazed first, and she looked at me. “That last link, ser, you shivered the whole field.”

  “I know. What about the draw-downs?”

  “I couldn’t find any. The net’s clean.”

  I hoped so. Then I shivered again. I should have stopped with two node links, but, as Morgen had pointed out so often, I had a tendency to overreach myself.

  At that point, Dorgan blinked and turned his head to me. “Power checks clear, ser.”

  “Fine.” I waited another few minutes before I tried to stand. A few white spots flickered in front of my eyes, but disappeared. I walked slowly to the door to the center, then waited for them to leave.

  Outside the door above the shuttle platform, I cleared my throat, then flicked the net-command. “Stand by, one red.” That left two fusactors up, and the center powered at low-level, until countermanded. It also meant only a few minutes before the center was essentially functional because I wanted to keep the lags short. I had the strong feeling that, when the cybs moved, we’d have little enough time.

  Powering the center fully would, unfortunately, trigger too much mistrust among the demis because most would have noted the continual power on the uppernet—the power required for the defense netlinks. And that much mistrust would have been a Construct violation on our part—meaning that if I tried to use the net subsequently, it would crash, leaving us with little or no protection. Even my brief test probably had some of the purists muttering about mistrust and nursing headaches.

  My head ached with theirs, and I made my way down to the bullet slowly. Dorgan and Wiane followed.

  “Do you have any ideas how soon the cybs might act?” Dorgan finally asked. He was more restrained than most would have been.

  “I’m intuiting that we have twenty-four hours.” I gave a half-shrug as I climbed into the bullet. “Maybe more, and there’s a slight chance that they’ll leave us alone.”

  “How slight?” asked Wiane. “You left the center on high standby.”

  “Very slight. But several have pointed out that I could be wrong.” I leaned back in the bullet seat.

  “I hope so, Coordinator.” She paused as the doors closed. “But we have a Coordinator, and they’re cybs, and that combination doesn’t look good.”

  I thought so, too, but I just closed my eyes for the ride back to the admin building. No flitter trip back to the house this night—just a bunk in the transient area. I’d thought that might happen sooner or later; I did have a spare set of blacks and some sanitary necessities stashed in the office, and I was glad I did.

  I also needed to eat. I just hoped Locatio didn’t have any more problems—and that no one else did, either.

  XXVI

  “You let them toss a webbed marcyb through the locks?” asked Weapons, his question reverberating along the netlines.

  “Outside of blasting their shuttle, what would you have suggested?” asked Ideomineo. “Or would you have had me blast their planetary Coordinator? That wouldn’t set well anywhere, not when he arrived in an unarmed shuttle.”

  “The effrontery … the gall …” Gorum’s words hissed and spat fire through the net.

  “Also, the stupidity,” snapped Weapons. “Marcybs aren’t much more than constructs.”

  “Why don’t you think, Weapons?” suggested Ideomineo. “Don’t you think the demi Coordinator knows that?”

  “What are you suggesting, Exec?” asked Gibreal, his words cool against the residual fire of Gorum’s outburst.

  “This was the same demi who was on the prairie creature expedition. There he was angry at Viedras and the nav. Today he didn’t show much interest in the marine officers, and he treated the marcybs like valued machinery. Here on the ship he was matter-of-fact.”

  “Then why would he care about a single marcyb?” questioned Gibreal. “He’d have to know that Henslom was the responsible one.” A barrier blocked any further questioning, as if the fleet commander were holding back information.

  “What else could you tell us, ser?” asked Gorum too politely, with honey wrapped around the acid of yet unpulsed words.

  “I think we should hear the rest of the Exec’s analysis, especially since the nav is already headed planetside.”

  The image of wiggling hips crossed the net.

  “Sanitize,” ordered Ideomineo in a weary tone. He waited for the image to fade. “From Majer Henslom’s report, this kidnapping and return was staged,” he continued after a pause. “Black uniforms, a public grab, and an immediate shuttle lift—what does that suggest?”

  “Go on.”

  “I submit that there are certain political realities that the Coordinator must observe. He knows that the marcybs are one step above constructs, but the draffs don’t. That means that the demis are in some way beholden. Or that their power over the draffs is limited.”

  “So we ought to just flatten them,” Weapons suggested.

  “Something else interesting just came from Majer Ysslop,” interjected Gibreal. “As instructed, she sent a two-agent team to attack the major power and systems centers of the Ellay locial. Both agents vanished after inflicting minor damage. Their links were severed, and not even their imbedded tracers seem to have survived.”

  “The demis were ready. They were just waiting,” riposted Weapons. “We shouldn’t give them any warning.”

  “We’re missing something,” suggested Ideomineo.

  “Maybe there aren’t that many demis,” suggested Gorum. “Individually, they’re extremely powerful, but perhaps there aren’t more than a few hundred on the whole planet.”

  “Analysis is flawed,” clipped MYL-ERA. “Energy-web analytics would indicate between one and three million demis.”

  “That still means the draffs are eighty to ninety percent of the population.”

  “Let’s see what happens to their Coordinator after he views our little demonstration,” suggested Gibreal. “He may become more cooperative. If not, well, then we shall proceed.”

  XXVII

  Despite another light dusting of snow the night before, the sky was cold and bright blue when, at 0950 Deseret locial time, I stood underneath the white spire of the tower, watching as the black cyb lander rumbled up. A chill wind blew out of the northwest, gusting and carrying wisps of snow across the landing strip.

  At 0955 the ramp dropped, and Subcommander Kemra stepped onto it, walked halfway down, and gestured toward me brusquely.

  “They’re here,” I pulsed on the net to Keiko. “If anything happens …”

  “I know,” my aide responded, “K’gaio gets the enviable job of Coordinator. She’ll create more problems than you have, and that’s saying a great deal.”

  “I appreciate your backhanded confidence in me, too.”

  “Someone has to put things in perspective.”

  I waved back at Kemra and walked toward the dull black lander that radiated a faint odor of hot composite and metal.

  The cyb subcommander looked down at me, green eyes cool and level.

  “Greetings,” I said.

  “I’m here to convey you to a demonstration.” Kemra remained at the top of the lander’s ramp.

  “You wish you weren’t,” I observed, not moving.

  “That’s right.”

  “Why?”

  “That doesn’t matter. Are you ready?”

  “It does matter. If you’re angry because you said that I had reasons for my actions, and you were disregarded by your peers and superiors, I apologize. If you’re angry because I refuse to fit your expectations, I don’t.”

  “You are difficult.” Her words remained flat, cold.

  “I try to be honest, and honesty is frowned on in most cultures because it’s too hard on people’s egos, and that creates tensions that most societies cannot handle.”

  The cold wind rippled through her sandy hair, and the cold
green eyes remained fixed on me. “You demis are different?”

  “We try.”

  “So you’re honest? I find that rather hard to believe.”

  “No human is totally honest. Our egos can’t take that kind of honesty. I know that I tend to be slightly self-pitying, that I have an exaggerated sense of self-importance, and that I equate physical conditioning with superiority. That’s the tip of the iceberg, but if someone told me those things, I’d be angry.”

  “You do take yourself seriously.” A trace of a smile flitted at the corners of her mouth.

  “So do you.”

  The smile vanished.

  “See what I mean?”

  She shook her head. “We need to go—if you’re still interested.”

  “Is the subject of this demonstration a secret?”

  “Only until it’s over.”

  “We don’t much care for alterations to Old Earth.” I glanced up at the fifteen-meter-high cyb lander, and its winged black lifting body.

  “We’ve gathered that.” She half turned, then paused. “Why did you bring that marcyb back to the Gibson?”

  “There wasn’t a single reason. A sense of responsibility, a need to affirm that injustice cannot be imposed at the focal point of a laser or de-energizer or particle beam. Some anger. Some frustration. Some male egotism.”

  “Is that all?”

  “Probably not.”

  “You never answer anything completely.”

  “That’s because there are no complete answers, except death, and that’s one I’d rather avoid.”

  She walked up the ramp past the pilot I’d met before. I shrugged and followed, nodding to Kessek as I stepped past him. He did not nod back.

  The ramp rumbled upward before I reached the left-hand forward officers’ couch. Kemra sat down and slipped her harness into place without looking toward me.

  “Ready for liftoff, Kessek,” Kemra pulsed to the pilot.

  “Stet.”

  I pulled the restraint harness around me and leaned back in the supple black couch. A residual stiffness permeated too many muscles, and my hands remained sore, but they hadn’t bruised—not yet. Still a trace shaky from my tests on the alternative control center the night before, I took a slow, deep breath to help relax myself. The lander had no scent of use except ozone and hot metal and oil—as if it had carried few troops or passengers indeed. After a second deep breath, I closed my eyes.

  Kessek turned the lander into liftoff position, and we began to accelerate down the strip.

  The entire liftoff and the climb to orbit were at full power, clearly to test me in some way, since there were several scanners focused in my direction.

  As Kessek finally cut back on the acceleration, and comparative quiet filled the cabin, Kemra looked at me, then away.

  “Coordinator!” Keiko honed in on the uppernet. “Nearly a dozen cyb agents attacked the power, admin, and distribution nexi in Ellay. Locatio reports that they destroyed them all, but that there were several draffs fatalities.”

  Another presence lurked behind her on the net.

  “Do what we did in Deseret. Have the deaths reported as caused by massive systems failures. But announce that the cause of the failures has yet to be fully determined.”

  “Ecktor!” whined in Locatio. “People are going to know.”

  “That’s fine. I don’t want anything outside the direct nets. The hard nets, the screen news—anything the cybs can access—there I want the official line. Ysslop may try again. Bring in more demi squads. I want the cyb agents to keep disappearing, like into a black hole.”

  “Ecktor …”

  “That’s it.” I closed off my net access for a few moments and waited, held in place by the couch restraints. My stomach felt unsettled in the virtual null gee.

  “He used something there, Subcommander,” Kessek pulsed to Kemra on the cyb net. “We couldn’t even record it.”

  “You aren’t quite as honest as you’d like me to believe,” Kemra began, turning in the couch to face me.

  “In what way?”

  “You seem able to use some sort of net to penetrate even a lander hull, and you’re carrying no noticeable equipment. That’s rather deceptive.”

  I laughed. “Since when is not announcing all of one’s abilities deceptive? Would you care to describe all of your abilities, including personal and sexual attributes?”

  She flushed, then glared.

  I ignored her reaction. “Somehow, you people seem to think that we’re supposed to parade all our talents, technology, and ability for you to analyze, in order for you to decide whether you can get away with either attacking or attempting to conquer us—or trying to steal knowledge. And if we don’t cooperate, we’re deceptive?” I laughed again.

  “I told Henslom you were a dangerous man. I think I underestimated you.” Her words were thoughtful in the comparative silence of our approach to the cyb fleet.

  “How is Majer Henslom?”

  “He’s angry, extraordinarily angry.”

  “I can see how that might be. He’s been deceived into believing that no one would or could stand up to him.”

  “How many demis are there like you?”

  “Exactly like me? None. With roughly the same level of ability … I’d say a quarter of a million.”

  There was silence.

  “He’s lying … he has to be,” pulsed Kessek.

  “How would you define ‘roughly’?” she pursued.

  “In quantifiable terms … within five percent on any measurable ability, and within one percent overall.”

  Silence.

  “Then why are you Coordinator?”

  “I told you. Being Coordinator exacts a high price. I have a lot less to lose than most: I’m older; my soulmate is dead; and I’m considered slightly less sane in demi terms.”

  “Why is being less sane an advantage?”

  I was the one who paused at that, although I should have seen the line of questioning. “Self-preservation is part of sanity. I’m considered less sane because I don’t value it quite so highly at this stage of my life. Besides, anyone who accepts being Coordinator in times like these probably is less sane.”

  “You act like you want to be a target.”

  “All things being equal, I’d prefer not to be one.” But all things were not equal. How could I not try something that would spare hundreds of thousands, if not millions?

  “You talk as if you were an old man, but you look and act as if in the prime of life. How old are you?”

  “Old enough to know better.” Old enough not to play word games. Old enough not to gamble with Old Earth’s future with a green-eyed woman who looked faintly like Morgen.

  Words we whispered flamed in vain … . That soulsong fragment reminded me how different Morgen and Kemra were, that Kemra represented a mere chance physical resemblance that played on my synapses.

  “That’s not even an incomplete answer.”

  “My chronological age is sixty-seven.”

  Her eyes didn’t even flicker. “That’s not ancient.”

  I wasn’t about to tell her that too-sensitive Crucelle was close to two hundred. Instead, I glanced at the screen and the black adiamante wall that was the Gibson. “That was quick.”

  “Fleet Commander Gibreal would not wish to waste anyone’s time.”

  The screen on the bulkhead showed the same enormous lock I had entered the day before, except it didn’t seem quite so large compared to the entering cyb lander.

  The lander slid into the Gibson’s docking bay with scarcely a clunk, and the massive lock doors slid shut like a cage closing.

  “Smooth docking … locking … whatever it’s called,” I offered.

  “You’re not that much of a kaybe.” Kemra almost laughed. “You’re a hands-on flitter pilot.”

  “Kaybe?” That was the first time I’d heard that one.

  “Short for keyboarder. Someone so out of touch …”

  “I get it
.” Someone so out of touch they wouldn’t link directly but were limited to manual dexterity in using systems and nets—a voluntary draff, of sorts. The complexity of competence, anger, and irritation continued to give me trouble reading her, but I was comp-intuit, not an emote or empath.

  I emulated Kemra’s example and unfastened the restraints and eased myself up, swinging out of the restraints in the low gee and toward Kemra. I found myself close to her, within perhaps two dozen centimeters, and I realized something else. She didn’t have much of a body-scent-image—just the faintest whiff of a soap, and a scent-suppressant. I frowned. The scent suppression was another oddity. I’d wondered what had been wrong when she’d stood close to me in the Cherkrik ruins, but I hadn’t identified it. Were they all like that, disassociating themselves from the smells of the world around them?

  “Lock’s pressurized,” announced Kessek. “Hold for the heat burst.”

  A superheated air-steam mixture disrupted the lock momentarily, but brought the ambient lock temperature up a good two hundred degrees absolute. Then the lander’s ramp rumbled down, and a wave of polar air engulfed us.

  “You’ll get a quick tour before the demonstration, but we’ll have to hurry,” Kemra said.

  That was ominous. A tour before the demonstration meant no one expected me to be friendly afterwards.

  The Gibson’s gravity remained at what seemed around point three earth norm, and my legs had a tendency to bound as we crossed the lock. The two unused landers remained at the far end of the lock, shrouded in a frost that boiled off them. The chill of the deck seeped through my boots despite their thick soles and the insulation over the metalite composite. My heavy steps echoed off the composite deck covering, the sounds lost in the huge cavern.

  The lock chamber itself must have been five hundred meters long and nearly fifty high. Just refilling the space after docking had to require an enormous expenditure of mass and energy—an incredible waste.

  “Potlatch and status symbol,” I murmured. “Throwaway power.” Had they built the hull first and then just filled it as they saw fit? Just to have built some of the most massive vessels in millennia?