"Not much useful there," said Amnier thoughtfully.
Jerril Carson's head came up. His smile looked ghastly. "Not exactly. Marc Packard--I correlated the five for prior links. I think we want to be careful about touching Packard directly, but Packard's bodyguard is Neil Corona."
Darryl Amnier actually whistled. "Oh, my."
Eddore and Gabrielle looked puzzled. Amnier said gently, "That was the name of the young man who surrendered the Marine Corps of the old U.S., outside of Yorktown. He'd be in his sixties by now?" He glanced at Carson.
"Seventy, almost seventy-one. He was born May 7, 1991. He's apparently in rather remarkable physical condition, even given modern geriatrics; he's one of those lucky few the treatments just seem to take with...like Kalharri. He's been with Packard nearly twenty years now. I don't have records on his activities before that time--it was a while after the end of the War before record keeping was taken up again."
"Coincidence?"
Gabrielle said, half to herself, "It hardly matters, does it? We've got Kalharri. Two high-ranking leaders of the old Sons of Liberty, meeting in secret the day after the telepaths are freed?" She smiled beatifically. "Darryl, if you want Kalharri, I do not think you will ever have a better opportunity."
Amnier nodded, resumed pacing. A conflict he had not expected ate at him. Forty-five years, he thought; who plans for forty-five years? Finally he turned back to Carson. "Talk to Sandoval. Find out why Corona was there. Find out about Kalharri's contact with him."
"Why?"
Amnier stared at Carson until the other man looked away. "Because," he said flatly, daring the man to object, "I want to know."
There was no contest of wills; Carson looked back down into his cooling coffee and muttered, "Certainly."
A smile flickered across Charles Eddore's features, and vanished before Amnier could be certain it had been there.
Eddore returned to his computer.
There is, as I know from personal experience, no meaning to simultaneity, no validity to the concept that there can ever be two events happening at the same time. It is no more possible that two events can occupy the same instant than that two objects can occupy the same space. Space separates events from simultaneity in the same way, and as certainly, as time separates objects from occupying the same space.
All of this is true at the level of quantum physics.
In the gross physical world of early Man, as Darryl Amnier was being presented with an ethical dilemma of which he had not suspected himself capable, at that moment, the object of his dilemma could not sleep.
Malko's bedroom on the second story overlooked the demonstrators at the north gate. Lying in bed with the curtains open, he could not help but see the flaring lights of the dramasuits, casting laser-bright light in half a dozen primary shades through the transparent window. He could have risen and opaqued the window himself, or else called in the housebot and had the housebot do it; but either alternative called for more effort than he cared to invest.
It astonished him, how his body had begun to demand sleep as he grew older. There was little else to indicate how old he was; with modern geriatrics his appearance, his wind, and his strength were consistent with that of a forty-year-old of a century or so past. But for a man who had spent the last fifty years getting by on three to four hours' sleep a night, the need to sleep every night, as much as seven to eight hours, was infuriating.
But now he couldn't get to sleep though he was vastly tired, and that was worse. Finally he sat up at the side of the bed and opened the drawer in the bedside table.
For the first time that evening he was glad that none of the women who were still awake had been able to spend the night with him. None of them would have stopped him from taking the fadeaway he kept at his bedside, but neither would they have approved. Psychoactive drugs were not popular among the telepaths.
Fadeaway was only mildly psychoactive. It was the by-product of research by the Peaceforcers into a water-soluble drug for use in crowd control. Sprayed over a crowd at the proper dosages, it would indeed put an unruly crowd to sleep. It was safer than sonic stunners, and much safer than anesthetic needlers. Physical side effects were minimal; the sprayed crowd went to sleep, and awoke two to four hours later.
The form of the drug Malko took was vastly diluted from the dosage the Peaceforcers used for crowd control.
He drowsed and suddenly found himself down in the dream.
It seemed at first that he was still awake, with the laser hololights playing across the walls of his suite, splashing across the walls in shades of blood and gold and emeralds. Suddenly he realized that even through the shut window he could hear the faint chants of the picketers. He rose and touched the point that swung the bay windows up and out.
The cool night air rushed in to touch him, and the howl of the crowd grew louder. He stood at the window, shivering, watching the surging mob at the gates. One dramasuit lased into existence, and showed a genie, a horned, tailed djinn, arising from a copper lamp. The djinn floated over the crowd, howling wordless rage.
Malko was cynically surprised that it had no pitchfork.
The devil turned, the laser of its eyes traced out to meet the flesh of the man who stood before it, and its howl became a supersonic scream that dug into Malko Kalharri's skull and burrowed, seeking his soul.
And finding.
He stumbled through the remains of the camp, a ghost in a landscape from Dante's Inferno, laser rifle clutched in his left hand, autoshot in the right. The camp of the Sons of Liberty was spread out across two square kilometers of Virginia forest. The day was blisteringly hot and humid, and sweat trickled down Malko's body. He beheld the world through mirrored sunglasses. The shades amplified light at night, cut down glare during the day; if he were unlucky enough to take a laser across the eyes they would protect his eyes for about two seconds, except at point-blank range. Porous polycarbon was painted across every exposed skin surface except for the palms of his hands. His fatigues were woven through with green and red fiberglass that matched the optical frequencies of the commonest laser rifles.
He was as well protected as the mudfucking Peaceforcers they had fought against, as well protected as Corona's Marines, as safe as any soldier had a right to be.
As safe as Greg had been.
Long stretches of the ground he walked on had been melted into strips, about a meter wide, of a glassy material. Over a dozen small fires still burned in the forest.
For as far as he could see he was the only living human being.
He walked north with the vague idea that he would find the Marines and join whatever remained of them.
That morning, while the two of them sat together outside the tent where Operations was being conducted, Grigorio Castanaveras had confirmed Malko's worst fears.
"The Old Man says we're going to surrender."
Malko hung his head in quiet despair. For two nights they had watched the flashes of light in the night sky; all that was visible, from Earth, of the battle between the orbital battalion of the U.S. Marine Corps and the United Nations Space Force. At 2 a.m. the previous night, the lights had finally ceased. "Shit. Space Force took the orbitals."
"So we hear." Castanaveras crushed a stimtab and inhaled it without pausing. "The President says he's decided to surrender. The Old Man's over at his tent arguing with him, but I don't think it's going to do any good." The whites around Grigorio Castanaveras' brown irises widened as the stim took hold. The sleepy look on his face fell away, as Malko watched, and turned almost cheerful. "Personally, I just want to catch your buddy Darryl and have him alone for a few hours before he dies. Then we can surrender."
"He's not my friend." The dreaming mind whispered, not my friend.
Greg eyed him. The facade of good cheer vanished instantly. "Had better fucking not be. I had him that once, before the war started, and I knew he was no good, and I let the bastard go anyway." He spoke to himself. "I don't think I'm ever going to stop regretting t
hat." He looked at Malko. "You and I and the Old Man; we're it, all of the Secret Service that's left except for Darryl. If they take our surrender, Malko, you and me and maybe even the Old Man, if he's up to it, we're going to take Amnier down. The rest of those bastards who're with Almundsen at least did it because they believed her, did it because they think she's right.
"Darryl," said Castanaveras in a clinical tone of voice that contrasted savagely with his expression, "is with them because he thinks they're going to win."
Malko's earphone clicked on. It made an odd echoing sound inside his skull; he'd almost had time to forget how strange it felt. For most of the last year policy had been to forego using them. There was a slight but real possibility that the radio signals might have given away their location. Now, the policy made no sense; the Peaceforcers knew exactly where they were.
The Old Man's voice said, "Assemble for orders."
Malko glanced at Greg, found that the other man could not meet his gaze. "Come on, Greg," he said quietly, "let's go hear the bad news." He climbed to his feet and extended his hand to pull his friend up. Greg looked at the hand expressionlessly, and then took it and let Malko pull him to his feet. They left the shelter of the trees, with the rest of their troops, the troops who were the cream of the Sons of Liberty, assigned to the battalion the President himself commanded, heading at that last moment out into the small clearing to assemble before the President's tent.
Malko Kalharri was four steps ahead of Grigorio Castanaveras.
Light fell from the sky.
Malko's first thought was, bizarrely, How lovely. The beams of light were pure, monochromatic ruby, with an unreal touch of faerie about them. While part of him stood there looking, the rest of him went into frantic motion, standing stock still, yanking the spraytube of polycarbon skin from one pocket, spraying it liberally across his face and the fronts of his hands. The tube fell from his hand and he pulled his sunglasses out and on. Idiots everywhere dropped to the ground, where their length presented the greatest cross section for the orbital laser cannon, and Greg was standing motionless behind him screaming in almost wordless rage, "Get up, up you goddamn idiot cocksucking sons of bitches, on your feet," but his voice was already being drowned out by the screams of the soldiers who had not been fortunate enough to be killed instantly by the cannon fire.
Malko stood and watched as the tent of the President of the United States went up in flames, and a stocky figure that could belong to nobody except the Old Man staggered, his body burning, from the tent's wreckage. Meter-wide columns of light moved across the clearing, scores of them restlessly sweeping back and forth. They were colorless now; the shades automatically filtered the image, provided him with a stark, enhanced monochrome picture of the horror that ensued.
For hours he stood and watched the beams move randomly across the mountainside. His legs began to cramp but he did not dare move. Heat sensors would be worthless until nightfall, and under video his brown and green fatigues would show only as an indistinct patch against the burnt hillside. But there would be motion sensors upstairs, he was sure, and knew himself correct when one of the wounded soldiers tried to crawl back toward the trees. A column of light swept over him and left behind a husk of burnt flesh that twitched briefly before it ceased movement.
Greg was right behind him, and for a long time Malko heard him swearing, in a mixture of Spanish and English, with a fury and holy passion Malko had never heard from him before.
The morning wore on and the beams of light tracked across the clearing. After the first half hour only six men still stood in Malko's field of vision. He did not know if it was safe to turn his head, so he did not. As the morning passed the beams randomly picked off the remaining soldiers. The air was scorched with ozone, and so hot that Malko could breath only shallowly, through his nose.
Behind him, Greg's curses trailed off at last. Malko could see only three men left standing when Greg said quietly, "Malko?"
"Yes?"
"There's a beam tracking my way. If I don't make it you have to kill Amnier for me."
Malko had seen the beam. It was forty meters away, moving about a meter per second. It had crossed the last twenty meters without deviating. "Okay."
"If it doesn't change direction by the time it's within ten meters of me," said Castanaveras calmly, "I'm going to run for it. If I just stand here the heat will kill you just as sure."
Malko could think of nothing to say. At the other end of the clearing, a soldier Malko did not recognize at the distance was watching them, and the soldier shook his head no.
It was the longest thirty seconds of Malko's life.
He heard the sounds of Greg's laser and autoshot striking the ground beside him. Sensible. He'd be able to run faster without them. Grigorio Castanaveras emerged as a blur in his peripheral vision, crossed into the center of his field of vision, sprinting at top speed toward the remains of the President's tent. From deep in the dream Malko wondered why, as he had wondered for long years, why Greg had chosen to run toward the remains of the President and the Old Man.
Chance? As good a place to die as any.
Three different beams converged on him like snakes striking. He stayed on his feet while the flesh peeled back from the baked muscle, longer than Malko Kalharri ever wanted to remember.
Even in a dream.
He did not scream. Dying, Grigorio Castanaveras did not make a sound.
At 11:05, according to Malko's watch, the laser cannon ceased. He was the only living person in sight, in the clearing or anywhere in the burning forests. He waited calmly until 12:30 precisely and then picked up Greg's weapons and began walking north.
Within his mind, Grigorio Castanaveras' last moments, as he burned inside the light, played themselves over and over again.
Within the nightmare.
"So much violence," the old man whispered to himself, alone in the midnight dark forty-four years later. "So many changes." He wondered whether Greg would have blamed him for not killing Amnier. He hoped not.
The nightmare was not an unusual one, though he had it less frequently than in years past. At times they seemed almost irrelevant to him, all of the deaths; four and a half decades passed, and who remembered?
Only forty-four years, and it was history already. Two generations had grown up for whom the Unification of Earth was something that had happened long ago, in a galaxy far, far, away--and the world they knew was vastly different from the world of Malko Kalharri's childhood.
Why, most of them had never seen a room constructed from memory plastics. He himself had been well past his thirtieth birthday before he'd even heard the word inskin.
Sitting up slowly at the side of the bed, he pulled on a modest blue robe before calling Suzanne Montignet.
At first her image did not appear in the darkened holofield. Malko called up the sunpaint and let her look him over. Finally the holofield lit with an image of her sitting at the desk in the office of her Massapequa Park home. She was lovelier now than the first day he had met her, over three decades ago. A faint discoloration showed at her left temple, where the inskin was only partially covered by her hair. She smiled at him rather quizzically. "Hello, Malko. Why the late call?"
"I can't sleep."
"Sleeping alone?"
Malko became aware of the empty bed, behind him in the holofield she was viewing. "Tonight, yes."
Suzanne nodded. Without apparent irony she said, "That's not like you."
Malko shrugged. "We got back from Capital City fairly late. A few of the children were awake, but..." His voice trailed away.
"Sex with them feels like masturbation."
"Something like that." His grin was tired. "Thanks for taking the call."
Suzanne said awkwardly, "Of course." She looked uncomfortable for a moment, and then changed the subject. "I've been meaning to call you and offer my congratulations. You did well."
The compliment warmed him; there were few enough persons in the world whose approv
al mattered to him. "Thanks. It's just the beginning, though. There's so much to do. Too much."
She smiled at him again, with real amusement. "There's always too much to do, Malko. Imagine how boring life would be if there was not."
Malko nodded. "I suppose."
"I received a call this afternoon about Johann. Andrew was quite concerned. Apparently Johann contacted Carl while Carl was in the midst of a psychotic rage. Have you seen him?"
Malko blinked. "Who? Carl, or Johnny?"
"Johann," Suzanne said with a touch of impatience. "I'm sure Carl is fine. These rages are nothing abnormal for him."
"No, I haven't seen him."
"I may need to come visit the Complex, then. He may need therapy."
"I think," said Malko carefully, "that you had better talk to Jany before you attempt to arrange anything like that."
Suzanne seemed surprised. "Malko, of course. I know Jany dislikes me, but it's not mutual." She chuckled. "She thinks I'm an egocentric old bitch without the empathy of an alligator--all of which," she said, still smiling slightly, "is true. But those are not always weaknesses." She studied his image momentarily. "I know you love her. Are you in love with her?"
"No." Honestly, he added, "I don't think so."
"Very well. I would recommend against it. I think she would handle it fairly well; I doubt you would."
Malko said slowly, "I don't think that's fair."
Suzanne sighed. One hand reached out of the frame of her phonecam and came back holding a pointboard from which a thin cable of optic fiber ran. "I wasn't talking about us, Malko. The relationship we have had is not possible between you and Jany. That is probably...for the better."
"Yes."
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