She poured herself a drink and sat down on the couch that fronted the extravagant windows, far enough back in the room that she could not be seen. There were at least ten gawkers outside her window now, all staring upward as though hypnotized. In a few minutes she would go and lean out of the window, wave to them, call out "Hi, how are you? Great night, isn't it?" Watching for any move in her direction, any weapon. Anything that might betray another assassin.
Though there might not be another one. Not yet. Whoever had sent the first assassin could not know that the would-be killer was dead. For all the sender knew, the assassin might be alive and well and ready to try again. She could say that phrase to herself calmly, "try again," say it almost without fear. It was only when she took the thought further, "try again to kill Don Furz," that her stomach clenched into a knot and bile burned in her throat. "Try again to kill Don Furz because Don Furz knows something she is not supposed to know."
Not that she'd been trying to find out any such thing!
She had been sitting in the large underground library of the Chapter House, three floors below where she was sitting right now, poring through some old papers for references to the Mad Gap. Her Prior thought there might be some early Explorer comments that would suggest a useful method of approach. The Gap was currently impassable. BDL wanted it passable. Thus, Donatella Furz, who thought she remembered reading something about it years ago, was immured in dusty papers and unintelligible correspondence, bored to tears, yawning over the ancient stacks, and longing for dinner. She was skimming the letters between a virtually unremembered third decade Explorer and his Prior when she came upon a page in a completely different handwriting. The half-stretched yawn died on her face and she stared at it in disbelief. She did not need to see the signature to know whose it was. Erickson! She had seen faxes of that handwriting a thousand times. She had seen the handwriting itself a hundred times in the Erickson Library at Northwest City, a library that was supposed to contain every extant scrap of original Erickson material.
But here it was, a letter in the master's own hand! It had obviously been misfiled and had lain unread for the last seventy years.
Misfiled by whom? Reading the entire letter made it very clear. Misfiled by Erickson himself.
It was a letter to the future, couched in such subtle and evasive terms that only an Explorer—and one of a particular turn of mind at that—would find it intelligible. It hinted at possibilities that Donatella Furz found stunning in their implications. "I have further outlined this matter," the letter concluded. "Reference my papers on the Shivering Desert, filed with the Chapter House in the Priory of Northwest."
Northwest was her home House. When she had fruitlessly completed the Mad Gap research, too excited to concentrate on it any longer, she returned to Northwest City and found the papers Erickson had referred to. They took some finding because they weren't included in the Erickson material at all. They were buried in the middle of an endless compilation of permutations used in the Shivering Desert, an area that had been totally passworded for eighty years and was, therefore, uninteresting.
"Buried in boredom," she told herself. "He picked two places no one would look for decades, and he buried them there." The pertinent notes were on two pages of permapaper. Donatella folded them and hid them in the lining of her jacket, then spent hours poring over them in the privacy of her room.
She had taken the papers with a sense of saving them, though protocol would have required her to report them to the Prior at once. Later she examined her motives, finding much there that disturbed her, but coming at last to the conclusion that she thought the papers were safer with her than they would have been with the Department of Exploration.
Even then she had had sense enough to leave other, harmless papers out in her room to explain her study, in case anyone was watching, or wondering.
Erickson had not expected his eventual reader to believe him without proof. At the conclusion he said in effect, "If you want to test this theory, do thus and thus at some unpassworded Presence. If you do it right, you'll see what I mean."
Don had chosen to try it on the Enigma. Everyone and his favorite mule had tried the Enigma, and permission to approach it was almost impossible to obtain. It had taken six months before she had the opportunity to get to the Enigma from the southern coast. She did what Erickson suggested—and more!
When she returned, it was with the recording cubes and notes for the Enigma Score, and she was dizzy with what she knew, bubbling with it. Erickson had only known half of it. If he had had a synthesizer like the current ones … She had hugged the knowledge to herself, glorying in it. Only Donatella Furz knew the whole truth, the truth about Jubal. No one else knew. No one!
Only some time later did she realize that in seventy years there might have been others who knew or suspected, but if they had, they had been ruthlessly suppressed—only after someone had tried to kill her.
On her return, she had arranged for the Enigma notes to be sent to a Tripsinger citadel for transcribing and orchestration—"Send it to that man in Deepsoil Five," she had suggested. "Tasmin Ferrence. The one who did that great score on the Black Tower." Then she had reported a possible breakthrough to the Prior of her Chapter House and had done it with due modesty in language full of "perhaps" and "this suggests." She had made all the proper moves in the proper order; none of them should have aroused suspicion. If only she could have kept it at that! But no matter what motions she went through, what modest little remarks she made when congratulated, she could not hide her elation. Inside herself, she was bubbling with what she knew, what she thought, what she wanted to prove, what she had proved. She had not been so foolish as to blurt it out to anyone—it was obviously information that some people would want to suppress—but neither had she been sensible enough to keep her obvious euphoria hidden.
Who might have observed that euphoria?
Explorers Martin and Ralth, while they were out at dinner one night. "Touch me, boys, because the day will come when you'll tell people, 'I knew her before she was famous.' "
"What are you up to now, Don?" asked Martin, sounding bored. "Another new variation for the Creeping Desert? Don't we have enough Creeping Desert variations already?"
"Bigger than that," she had replied with a laugh. "Much bigger."
"You've got a Gemmed Rampart score that really works," suggested Ralth. "Or a foolproof way to get through the Crazies."
"Why not?" she had giggled.
"Which?"
"Why not both. Why not everything?"
They had laughed incredulously. They had ordered more wine. There had been laughter and arguments among the three Explorers and congratulations on the Enigma score.
Well, what else had she said that night? Nothing. Nothing at all.
One bragging phrase. "Why not everything?" Had there been enough in that conversation to give someone the idea that Donatella Furz knew something they would rather she didn't know? Not really. It could all be put down to her euphoria. Even an untested score for a Presence as famous as the Enigma lent a certain cachet to her name. She hadn't really said anything at all!
Who else had she talked to? Zimmy. A services employee. A Northwest Chapter House man. Not unlike this Chapter House man, Blanchet, except that Zimmy belonged to Don. He was only hers, he kept saying, and had been only hers for some years now, eager to please her, intelligent in meeting her needs for comfort and affection. Zimmy. She thought of him with both fondness and pleasure. What had she said to Zimmy? Nothing much. "Oh, Zimmy, if you knew what I know." Something like that. He hadn't even paid much attention.
And who else? The woman in Northwest City who usually cut her hair.
Don's head had been bent forward while the woman depilated the back of her neck, quite high, so that the bottom of the wide bell of her hair would come just to the bottom of her ears. "How can you do it?" the woman had chattered. "All alone, out among the Presences. I would pee my pants, truly, lady knight, I would."
"No, it is more. I know it must be. To hear the Great Ones speak, to attempt to pacify them. Oh, a terror, lady knight, truly, a terror."
The woman's use of the words "Great Ones" should have stopped Donatella in her tracks. Those were the words used by Crystallites to refer to the Presences, but Don simply hadn't noticed. "It won't be long before we'll all be able to walk among the Presences much more safely. Not long at all." Don had raised her head, seeing herself and the woman in the mirror.
"Oh, you think some great discovery? Some marvel?" The woman peered at her in the mirror, her black eyes gleaming with something acquisitive and desperate.
And at that point Don had realized what she was saying and had drawn up sharply. "No, no discovery, no marvel, Sophron. Simply the slow accumulation of knowledge … "
Who else had she talked to?
Chase Random Hall, the Explorer King. Could anything she had said to him in the dining room of the Chapter House, during the informal time of day when everyone was on a first-name basis, could anything there have been interpreted as something threatening?
"Randy, you ever think the day may come we'll all be out of work?"
"Mind your manners, silly girl. Don't be obscene."
"No, I mean wouldn't it be terrific if we found The Password?" "The Password" was the apotheosis on Jubal and had been for a hundred years. It was like "The Millennium" or "The Second Coming," a terrible end said to be devoutly desired by some, the single score that would open every pass and permit free travel everywhere.
"I think it's a disgusting thought, one I would appreciate not having raised again in my hearing." Randy had been effete in his youth and was effete still, but there was no arguing with his successes. Now he smoothed his elegantly trimmed moustaches and smiled at her in his best monster-eating-up-a-little-girl smile: glittering eyes in a brown, brown face with his terribly white teeth, teeth that made one weak even while they made one shiver, anticipating voracious kisses. They were inevitable, those teeth, like death. "Do you like living dangerously, stupid child?"
"Is it that dangerous to speculate about The Password?" She had said it lightly. Surely she had said it lightly!
"A little idle speculation here in the Chapter House, over drinks, perhaps not. Anything more than that, decidedly. As a moment's thought—if you are capable of such—should have informed you. Think, silly girl. If you had The Password, there are at least twenty people I could name who would kill you to keep it quiet."
She knew her face had changed then. Changed with horror, in memory. People who would kill! She remembered her friend Gretl Mechas. Or rather, Gretl's body as it had been when Donatella identified it. Remembering this, she turned away. She had had enough of this conversation.
But then he had asked, "Would you like to go to bed with me, Donatella?"
"I am the King Explorer's to command," she had said, stiffly, taking refuge in a ritual answer. This was a new gambit.
"Not at all eager, are you?"
"I … I have other affections, Randy."
"Don't we all know it. Your affections are the talk of the House and most unworthy of you. Speaking of danger then, stupid child, what's the news about the Mad Gap?" And they had talked shop as she detailed her attempts to find a Password through the Gap before moving on to other things. Why had he mentioned going to bed together? Everyone knew Randy preferred men, though he would possess a woman if he thought it useful. Had he thought she might be useful? But not quite useful enough? Had he slipped when he spoke of people killing other people? Was he interested in her reaction? Or was it merely a very effective way to change the subject?
It had been an odd, a very odd conversation. With her well-schooled memory for exact words and phrases, exact tones and progressions of tones, she could play it over in her head, again and again, but it made no more sense now than it had then.
Her ruminations were interrupted by tapping at the door. Blanchet came in, dressed to the toenails in a one-piece glitter-suit with a plumed hat and multiple chains of Jubal coral around his neck. She made an appreciative sound. "Don't you look marvelous."
"My poor best will be hardly good enough, Ma'am." He gave her an admiring look. "The outfit becomes you."
"So long as I don't become the outfit." She laughed. "Having got into it, there may be some difficulty getting out. The outfit and I may be inextricable. You'd better not call me 'Don' this evening. That might give our truancy away. Call me Telia. My brother always called me that."
"Very well, Telia. My name is Fyne Iron Blanchet, and my close friends call me Fibe. Or Fibey."
"Fyne Iron?"
"Family names both. I don't think my mother ever thought what it would sound like."
"Well, it sounds very … metallurgical."
"So I've always felt." He offered her his arm and they went down the lift to ground level where a city car awaited them. The gawkers were still staring up at her window. None of them seemed to notice her. "Shall I drive?"
"Please. You know Splash One far better than I. It keeps growing! Every time I've been here before I've gotten myself hopelessly lost."
He suited himself to her mood, not talking merely to make conversation but concentrating on his driving. Splash One had grown explosively in recent months, so much so that concentration was a necessity. She stared out at a city raw and gawky in its burgeoning adolescence.
Half the streets were torn up, more were barricaded, though no one paid any attention to the barricades. Stiff, square-cornered new buildings of reinforced brick thrust up beside curvilinear older ones of rammed earth, the hard burnt brown making harsh edges against soft gray. The older buildings were covered with signs offering bargains in entertainment, in used equipment, in new and used clothing, new and used furniture, apartments, rooms. Most of the staff at the military base just outside of the city had dependents housed here in Splash One, and domiciliary space was at a premium.
The newer buildings were labeled with small directories at the entrances; government offices, BDL division offices, purchasing agents, suppliers' representatives, research labs. Every sidewalk was jammed with people; every window had one or two persons leaning out of it, waving, talking to those in the street. Some of those in the streets were engaged in trade of an unmistakable kind, and Don stared.
"Prostitutes?" she asked, breaking her preoccupied silence. There had never been prostitutes on Jubal. At least, none that were visible.
Blanchet nodded. "Recent imports. They say that somebody high up got paid off." He didn't need to specify which somebody. The word among BDL employees was that the Governor had both hands out for himself, which was unnerving. PEC appointed governors were supposed to be unimpeachable, and it made one wonder how high the rot had spread.
At the end of a short side street a building loomed, gleaming like gold and culminating in a high, ornately curved dome. Crowds of people passed in and out through the monstrous doors.
"What in Jubal is that?" she asked, turning to peer over her shoulder.
"Crystallite Temple."
"It's huge!"
"It's huge and there are about four more like it up and down the 'Soilcoast. You don't have one in Northwest City yet?"
"No. And I don't look forward to having one. Where do they get the money?"
"Pilgrims. Contributions. If you haven't seen some of the evangelical cubes the Crystallite hierarchy sends out, you've missed something. Very slick, Telia. The money pours in as though it were piped. The people at the top aren't like the ones you see running around on the streets. The assassins, fanatics, and insurgents are a scruffy lot, but those in charge of the temples are something else again. Very smooth. You ought to see them." His mouth compressed into a grim line.
"Well, let's. We're not in any hurry, are we?"
He gave her a surprised look, but obediently brought the car to a halt and walked with her back toward the Temple yard. The paved area was scattered with
small groups of pilgrims, each wearing a knot of orange ribbon to identify his status, each group led by a soberly robed guide. Blanchet inconspicuously attached himself and Donatella to the rear of one straggling group as they followed the orange ribboned ones into the enormous structure.
Donatella only with difficulty kept herself from exclaiming. Around them were towering pillars, vaulted ceilings high above, dazzling fountains of light and smoke. "Where do they get all this!" she demanded in a whisper. "How could they get this kind of equipment when we're still short of medical supplies and simple things like computers or lift machinery?"
Blanchet kissed his palm in a derisory gesture and she subsided. Obviously someone had been paid off. And why did it surprise her? She turned as Blanchet nudged her, pointing unobtrusively at three figures that had just come onto an elevated platform at the top of a broad flight of stairs. Two men, one woman. The men could have been brothers, both with extravagant manes of white hair, both tall and well built, robed in glittering, vertically striped garments and wearing high domed crowns. The combination made them appear to be about twelve feet tall. The woman, on the other hand, glittered in quite another way. Her breasts were exposed under sparkling necklaces of gems, and her draped skirt seemed to be woven of gold thread, the extensive train slithering behind her like the body of a heavy snake. She, too, was crowned and plumed.
"Chantiforth Bins and Myrony Clospocket," Blanchet whispered. "Half brothers, I understand, with a long, slippery history. Now Supreme Pontiff and High Priest. And the High Priestess, Aphrodite Sells. The three of them are the real power behind all the Crystallites on Jubal."
"Are they the power behind the assassinations, too? And the terrorism?"
"They claim not. Though they say they 'understand' the frustration that leads their followers to commit such acts."
Tepper,Sheri - After Long Silence Page 8