by M. A. Foster
“Who was the victim?”
“Didn’t get his name… but Chugun is looking into that, too. I mean, the job has all the marks of an assassination, but it doesn’t seem to connect to anything. But the fellow Rael… ah, killed, has them hopping. They ran some routine checks to see if they could determine a reason, and this fellow’s not supposed to exist.”
“Enlighten me.”
“He had identification and normal position-rights papers, but they don’t relate to any real records on file, Chugun’s people think the victim may prove to be more a problem than Rael, because they feel certain they can eventually get Rael, but this youngster… what was he? Ostensibly somebody’s agent, with a cover that would look perfect—so good no one would try to verify it.”
“Certainly not Clisp or the Serpentine; that’s not their way.”
“That’s the tone of what I heard over there. Doesn’t feel Clispish, as it were. They already have determined that he’s not with any known Lisak group.”
“Could he be with the Heraclitan Society?”
“I don’t know. Possible, but according to Chugun’s people, not very likely. They have no links, at any rate. They think something further out—some obscure sect in the Pilontary Islands, or maybe Tartary.”
Pternam commented, “There are some curious groups in the Far Pilontaries, but Tartary…? Not likely, unless… If this fellow was from Tartary, it would show up in his body parameters; the natives have taken on some adaptations to the severe climate. We haven’t studied them much because we don’t often get a specimen from there, so we don’t know much. But enough to identify him as one, if in fact he is.” Pternam reflected for a moment, and then added, “Rael said something, just before he left, about a ‘third faction,’ or something like that. What was it? He said, ‘The field that maintains Lisagor is tripolar, subtle but powerful, probably the most powerful force… Something not of this world.’ Yes. It didn’t make a great deal of sense then, and no more now. Surely he couldn’t have been talking about agents from Tartary infiltrating Lisagor with that kind of sophistication; man, they can’t even agree among themselves. Tartary is, for all practical purposes, anarchy, and being anarchistic keeps them from being either of interest or a threat.”
“Did he tell you what this third force was?”
“No, and I’m afraid I didn’t give it much thought at the time; I was convinced that the line we fed him was just that—a line, nothing more, and so I didn’t follow it He might not have answered had I asked.”
Avaria rubbed his chin and said, “No, I think that if you had asked him, he would have told you, at least as much as he could calculate of it within his system. He always gave straight answers if he answered at all; that was his way.”
“Hm. Well, my guess is that Chugun’s people won’t get him; he’s probably found a hidey-hole and initiated Change. They won’t find anyone like Rael. They will probably find Damistofia, treat her, rough her up a little, and release her; she won’t connect.”
“Exactly… should we try to get her ourselves? I mean, sir, that she may remember… and if we can get her we can scrub her clean. As long as that relic lives, someone will know what part we played.”
Pternam sat back and gazed into the distances of the east. “I would normally be tempted,” he began. “But we don’t want to show any interest at all to Chugun’s people. I don’t like this unearthing they are doing, and I definitely don’t want them looking this way. You see, we can’t get her, ourselves. We’re blocked. They would want to know why we want her right off, instead of having her remanded to us after all the interrogations.”
“We still have our own people looking for Rael. They are still under controls, and could be reaimed.”
“Blocked there, too. They are not well-covered, and shortly after they got her someone would ask, why does The Mask Factory intervene in a case it’s supposed to know nothing about? And once they ask one, they’ll ask some more. And ask and ask, and there won’t be enough we could say that would end it there. Oh, no. But I will have them ordered to make contact, observe and report. No action, though—make that certain. And they are not to be seen themselves. Valuation: if the mission would be compromised, break off contact with the girl. We can follow her through Chugun somewhat, if we have to.”
“Aye. So it will be done, as you ordered. And what about the revolutionaries?”
“I’ve heard nothing. If they know it, they are sitting tight”
“They wouldn’t tell us anyway.”
“No.”
Pternam reflected again for a moment, and Avaria sensed that it was not time to leave, just yet.
Pternam said. “Take the best one of those we have on Rael’s scent, and have him stand by, well back out of sight If they let her go, we might have a chance.”
Avaria said, “I see… Bring her in?”
Pternam smiled, an unpleasant facial gesture he rarely used. “Oh, no. Not to bring her here, or anywhere. If we can, kill her. We still don’t want something like that lying around uncontrolled. She may remember something from Rael… We put it through Change before, but we had the control, and we made sure he remembered nothing of Jedily.”
“You don’t want to try to reestablish control?”
“I want that thing eliminated as soon as practically possible with the minimum commotion.”
“As you say. I will set to it immediately.”
“Avaria?”
“Yes.”
“I feel a pressure here, of distant events unseen or at least unreported… I wonder why Chugun’s group is so swift to respond to this one boy… surely he was insignificant.’”
“As I understand it, they got an anonymous tip that something was about to happen in Marula. They couldn’t very well prevent anything given the vagueness of the tip, but they were prepared to hop right onto whatever materialized out of the night, as it were.”
“Of course they got a tip! From us!”
“Not from us is this one they’re talking about. Somewhere else.”
“But… that could hardly be, could it? There was only us… Oh, yes, I see. The Heraclitan Society knew about it That raises more issues still; why would they tip off Chugun?”
“Begging your pardon, sir, but it seemed obvious to me, that’s why I didn’t say anything… They will have a couple of sleepers, you know, passives, buried in Chugun’s department, and so they would alert Chugun so they could tell by the reaction when it happened. They might miss it, otherwise. Or at least so goes my suspicion.”
“What’s their reaction to this tip?”
“They are trying to find out where it came from, and they are looking into some odd corners indeed. Not to worry, we’re not involved at all. Clear as the morning air. As a fact, they are rather more interested in the tip than in the assassination.”
“Wouldn’t that inconvenience the Revolutionaries? On the other hand, Rael did say it would go their way…”
“Begging your pardon again, sir, but that isn’t what he said. He just said that it would change. The rest of the interpretation was added on by us. He didn’t contradict it, but neither did he confirm; I asked him several times, and he said, ‘no comment.’ That was all.”
Pternam stroked his chin and looked off a moment thoughtfully. He mused “Then that would indicate that, all things considered, the process Rael envisioned is already under way…”
“So it would appear. But the world seems as solid as ever.”
— 7 —
Morning in Symbarupol
Aranda Palude hurried through the same morning streets of the same city, Symbarupol, but her motions were not those of one at ease, as had been Avaria and Pternam, but those of one with a concern on her mind. She made her way to Glist’s settlement and negotiated the stairs and walks almost at a run. There were few abroad to see her, yet.
When she reached the quarters of Anibal Glist, there was further delay while he woke up through her knocking at the door, and took his own time ab
out getting there. She swore under her breath, thinking bitterly that Glist had, after all, been here too long, entirely too long: he was becoming just like the damned natives. He didn’t care about Time.
Eventually, Glist opened the door a crack, saw that it was Arunda, and let her in. He closed the door, a heavy timber door affected more for aesthetic reasons than practical ones, and said, “You seem agitated. Surely it could have waited?”
“No. You had to be informed immediately: my evaluation.”
“Continue, then. Deliver your report.”
“I have reports from Laerte and Foleo, and…”
“Laerte is in Marula, yes? And Foleo is currently in Symbarupol?”
“Yes, and yes. You sent Sheptun to Marula, yes? To capture that changeling? Something went wrong—Sheptun was killed on the way to Marula!”
“Killed?”
“Apparently by the creature he was supposed to find. He never knew who did it. There was a calling card with it. The creature’s name was on it: Rael. That was all, of that.”
“That’s not good.”
“The rest is worse: his documents didn’t check. At all. They are now working on finding out who Sheptun was. And there was a tip planted with Chugun’s people…”
Glist interrupted her: “I did that.”
“No matter who. They are now assuming Sheptun was connected with whoever sent the tip, and… They took Aril Procand.”
“How?”
“Checking, they found out she was Sheptun’s girl friend, and went looking for her. Got her early this morning. Her papers don’t check, either.”
“Damn it, I told those idiots more than once to fix those temporary papers… they knew that stuff the organization makes up on Heliarcos wouldn’t stand a real check—it’s just supposed to look good, that’s all.”
“Nevertheless… Foleo had to disengage, but he had it on good report that Chugun was interrogating her himself. He thinks he’s uncovered something bigger than a murderer…
“Chugun himself… Well, that’s not so bad. He’s a blusterer, and Aril was trained to resist that approach.”
“Perhaps. But they have patience, and more than Chugun—he has assistants, helpers, flunkies, henchmen.”
“Evaluation?”
“Lost. These people are raised on a diet of conspiracy from birth, and they rule all of Oerlikon that matters, and as they see it they don’t share that with anybody. Our cover here is fragile; eventually, they’ll get something out of her.”
“Now?”
“Not as of last contact, which was about… an hour ago, I think. They are not in a hurry, because they don’t know what they have, so I would estimate at least a full day.”
Anibal Glist turned away from Arunda Palude and stared blankly at the wall. Still facing it, he said, “We’ll have to contact Transport, and arrange for our people to be picked up.”
Palude said softly, “We have too many down here to make pickup without revealing ourselves; besides, it will take days… even if we could. What about Kham, in Clisp? I can’t contact him until he calls me, and he’s not scheduled to for a tenday. Besides…”
“Go on.”
“We have no comm with Central. We’re out of position for it: Oerlikon is on the wrong side of Gysa for the relay station. The only ship is the one that brought the last group in, the one Sheptun and Procand were on. They are well out of range now, without the Comus Relay.”
“Then effectively, we are stranded. We should have comm back in twenty days…”
“In twenty days, if they are sharp, they could have all of us in The Mask Factory, and then we’d find out for sure what goes on in that place. So far all they have is one fellow whose papers don’t check, and a girl who doesn’t know much.”
“She knows me; she knows you. She knows Foleo. Any one of the three of us…”
“I know, I know. All right. I give the order: Initiate the Pyramid Course, commence sanitization of mission. Have all the operatives vanish into the background—whatever they have to do. We all get this in Indoctrination as a possible course…”
“But nobody every thought it would come to this.”
“True. But when you don’t contact Central, on time, after Oerlikon comes back into contact position, they will know something’s gone wrong, and so they will activate the alternate plan—contact through Tartary.”
“When I first came here, I missed a contact; it was so hard to compute orbital years from this insane calendar they use here, that Mayan gibberish. And so I missed it, and when I finally did set up again, I was terrified because I knew the plan—that if there was no contact after a clearing, they would come get us.”
“What happened?” Glist quite forgot to scold her for it
“Nothing. They didn’t seem to have noticed. As for now… it might occur to them after a time, because once we sanitize, we won’t have comm with Central or anybody. But personally I don’t think they will risk it; Oerlikon is a bit out of the way. So there’s something final in this.”
Glist continued looking at the wall. “Yes, I suppose so.”
Palude went to the door, and paused, just before opening it. “I will initiate the pyramid, and sanitize, as you said. You had better leave here, as well. No point in making it easy for them. They’ll come for you first, if Procand fails.”
“Yes, of course. Where are you going?”
“Under sanitization, you are not to know.”
“Yes, quite correct.” Arunda opened the door, and Glist called to her as she was leaving, “What should I have done?”
She paused on the step, and said, “Everything was set with clear choices, of which you took the rational path. I may not criticize actions I would have done exactly the same way. You made the best choices—indeed, the only choices. It’s as if it were fixed: you didn’t have Kham, you had something you couldn’t evaluate, and Sheptun never fixed his papers. Then no comms. It has a flow. If we were vulnerable, it would be now. Something out there could see us, and he struck exactly where his blow would topple things—where and when. And with our mission gone, I can’t say what will happen here. Save yourself.”
And then she was gone. Glist started moving, slowly at first, but then faster, arranging things, picking up things, putting others down, things he wouldn’t need anymore. He was ready to go in a remarkably short time, and about that, at least, he felt good. Clean, crisp. The tie severed. All these years of work: ended. And one last thought crossed his mind as he left his Spartan little apartment: that Palude had not said one single word that could have been thought of as anything personal. Nothing. The loss of the mission seemed something less by contrast.
He had thought he would go mad; stark, raving mad. It would have been, in its own way, a release, an escape. He hadn’t. He also had thought he would die, that the vast dark night of death would be the end of it. That night never came. He forgot as much of it as he could, winning a victory over each microsecond as it came, and then meeting the next, which was usually worse, never better, or if the same, in a new place. Rael discovered new levels of pain, to an extent that he had left words far behind. His own body was undergoing self-initiated destructive distillation, catabolism, and yet through it all, there was something that watched, monitored, did not let go and did not take him to the breaking point. Up to it, within an angstrom of it—but not through it. His lungs erupted fluids, his bowels constricted spasmodically, violently, his stomach heaved; and also he wept, and his skin wept fluids, and then sloughed off in great, raw patches that felt like burns, and wept some more. His hair fell out early—first the body hair, then the pubic hair, and then the hair on his head. All went. But after that, through the changes, the head hair began to return, growing abnormally fast.
The night made transition into day, a sodden gray, overcast day, which he knew in some corner of his mind, but did not reflect on. In brief moments of lucidity he remained on the floor, waiting for the next attack, the next wave. That was all he knew. And the whol
e of the day passed that way: the gray light pressing at the windows.
But when the light had dimmed and the room was almost dark again, he noticed that it seemed that the stages of the attacks were not so strong, that they were shorter, and that they were coming further apart. During one of the quiet periods he actually caught himself thinking about moving, of trying to move his limbs again. And if he could move, he could perhaps begin to think about cleaning up the floor before they came for him. Rael had been lying on his side, in a compressed foetal position. He tried, experimentally, to straighten a bit. With great effort, he managed a little, and rolled over onto his stomach. It was painful, and it made him light-headed, but it worked. The only problem was that his body felt wrong, but he couldn’t quite say exactly in what way it felt wrong. Just wrong. The muscles worked, he rolled on one hip, but it didn’t feel right. He didn’t think about it deeply, just then, because another attack started, and he concentrated on fighting pains that flickered over his body like summer lightning.
Later, there was a more lucid period, in which he felt much more confident, although very weak and very sick. He struggled for some moments, fighting a profound sense of strangeness which affected every move he made, however small, and at last attained a sitting position, legs sprawled. He managed enough coordination to look down at his body: he expected to see a riddled, tumorous, burned wreck.
It was not exactly that way. His feet were smaller, and not so angular as he remembered them. The legs were shorter, more rounded, and the skin was smooth and, under the filth, the color of pale cream. The knees were delicate, the thighs following the outlines of the rest, a smoother shape. He looked directly at his crotch. There was nothing there.
Rael looked again. Nothing? No, not quite nothing. There was a little fleshy sprig where his penis should have been, and below that, a fold, still swollen, but obviously containing no testicles. His mind was dulled, insensitive; he saw, but it did not register. He looked more closely, down at his chest, his belly. There was no hair on his chest or belly, and in place of hard pectorals and small, non-functional nipples, there were soft swellings, and the nipples were much larger, darker. A wave of dizziness passed over him, and painfully he tried to stand, to walk. His legs felt rubbery, and the hips felt wrong, looser, more articulated, the muscles hard to control. But one step at a time, he managed it; he crawled into the bathroom, and climbed up, pulling on every available handhold, until he could look in the mirror.