Strings

by Dave Duncan

  Then everyone was roaring. Cedric saw fists being shaken at him. He stumbled instinctively to the lectern, putting it between himself and the angry mob, and gripping it tight while trying not to show his nausea. His head was swimming, and he could not think. Why would Gran have done such a thing? Why insult all those important people? Why then throw him to the dogs? He did not know what he could have done to deserve this sort of punishment.

  He looked up, and the room was full of eyes. Dozens of eyes, angry eyes, hundreds of eyes, and all those goggle camera lenses, all glaring at him. And behind those would lie millions—no, billions—of other eyes, all over the planet. All watching him.

  He gripped until his fingers hurt, and he forced himself to return the stares. He could come to no harm. No one was going to kill him before such an audience. He felt a little better when he had worked that out.

  Then there was sudden silence. The crowd opened to let the Secretary General come shuffling forward. His face was a wan gray shade, and he seemed to have shrunk—and aged. He stopped beside the lectern, peering up at Cedric with an inexplicably bleary gaze. The room was as silent as the moon.

  “You want to come back with me, lad?”

  Cedric tried to swallow the rocks in his throat, without success. He looked into filmy eyes the exact shade of his own. Was this really his grandfather? Could such a man truly not know he had a grandson? But if he was not Cedric’s grandfather, then Cedric must be his clone, and if Hastings had been cloned, then he should certainly have been aware of the fact. That made no sense, either. There was no sense in any of it. Cedric had expected the world to be a more logical place. He shook his head.

  “She’s mad!” Willoughby said wearily, and all the cameramen were watching. Hundreds of millions might have heard those words. Billions would hear them later. “There’s no way that this could help anyone. She’ll have to be replaced. She’s gone crazy!”

  Cedric tried to speak and could not, suddenly choked by sorrow at the old man’s distress—or perhaps by fear.

  “You better come with me,” Hastings said throatily.

  He had tin legs. Cedric’s flesh crawled. Freezerful of spare parts, Ben had said—warning him of what? Cedric did not want to donate his legs to anyone. They were too long and ridiculously skinny, but he wanted to keep them. He wondered what had happened to Hastings’s own legs, and when. About nineteen years ago, perhaps, or twenty? He shook his head.

  “I swear I didn’t know…” The old man’s voice faded away.

  “I think I have a job to do here, Grandfather.” Cedric’s voice was little better, a dry rasp. “Thank you.”

  Shaking his head like a tortoise, the old man shambled to the door.

  Other people were dribbling out, also.

  “Job to do?” The shout came from Frazer Franklin, who elbowed his way forward to accost Cedric across the lectern. His face was almost purple above his sky-blue tunic, his jaw thrust out far enough to look bony. Owls shimmied and jostled, hunting a good angle. “Did you know that this was going to happen?”

  Cedric licked his lips. He should have known. Dr. Bagshaw had said that only Gran and the deputy directors ranked live bodyguards. System had told him he had Grade One access. He might have guessed, had the idea not been so crazy.

  “The director told me I would be doing media relations work, but not that she—not that I would be a deputy director, no.”

  “Awright, sonny! Where’d you get your doctorate?”

  Cedric felt an insane desire to weep. “Nowhere.”

  “Masters, then?” Frazer shouted with disbelief.

  “I don’t even have grade school. You know where I came—”

  “Never mind that! Have you any qualifications for this job at all?”

  “None.” Cedric shook his head and hoped that his misery would show enough to cool the rage that the mob was radiating at him.

  “Tell me what you want,” he said suddenly. “What do you want from me?”

  A stunned silence was followed by drumrolls of laughter.

  Then the man with the funny accent shouted, “We want you to comb yer hair!” The laughter swelled.

  “We want to know why!” Frazer Franklin bellowed, raising a roar of agreement. “Why’d she sucker us all like this?”

  It did help to be able to look down at them—Cedric raised a hand in the way he had seen his grandfather do, and there was a momentary pause. He must assume that this was some sort of insane test. He could not win, but he had nothing to lose.

  “Did she? Did she really? Was your name on the invitation?”

  The sound rose, and then dwindled further, and his heartbeat surged in excitement as he saw that his guess might be going to work. He raised his voice and heard it echo as System amplified.

  “It was a mistake! I don’t think she meant this to happen. She was trying to offer—to make friends. She invited the networks to send people to a meeting to tell you that she’d appointed a media deputy. That was all! She didn’t expect all you high-power types to come!”

  Skepticism rumbled like summer thunder in the background. “It was you that jumped to conclusions!” Cedric shouted desperately. He wished he believed that himself. His grandmother had looked so smug when she talked about the champagne…

  “So try it! Pretend it’s for real!” he begged. “Tell me what you need from me.”

  He won a stunned quiet then—for a moment.

  “You wouldn’t last long working for your precious grandmother if you gave us that!” Lacking much of his usual dignity, Quentin Peter had arrived mysteriously before the lectern and was brazenly trying to ease Frazer aside.

  Cedric shrugged. He was on the right track, even if he could feel sweat dribbling down his neck. “Fine by me! What do you want?”

  “Access to System!” several voices shouted.

  “I’ll ask. If not that, then what?”

  “Hold it!” Quentin held up a hand for order and had to settle for shouting. “You’re serious? You think this is on the level?”

  “If it isn’t,” Cedric said, gathering strength from somewhere, “then I don’t know otherwise. What I mean is…When I’m given a job to do, I try to do it.” Oh God, that sounded prissy! “If Gran hasn’t been releasing the data you want, then maybe she’ll let me see to it. Tomorrow…let’s set up a commeeting in the morning, and you tell me how you think I should try, and what you’ll need from me. Ten o’clock?”

  The hubbub faded, the audience exchanging puzzled looks and incredulous shrugs. Their fury had faded to a bitter, shamefaced resentment. Further show of anger would merely increase their absurdity.

  “It’s worth a try, isn’t it?” he pleaded.

  “Right!” Quentin said. “Ten it is. I’ll put someone on it—but I’ll believe the results when I see them!” He headed for the door, and the crowd began to disintegrate, angry and baffled.

  Cedric clung tight to the sides of the lectern, ignoring the hot glares going past him. He heard angry words coming from the anteroom as bulls and clients argued about precedence. He ignored those also. He hung his head and sucked in long, deep breaths, feeling dampness cool on his forehead. He had not been lynched, anyway. Was he really supposed to try this job? It needed a Ph.D. Nowadays any job needed a Ph.D. Even a short-order cook required a masters. Deputy director of the Institute was no chore for a dumb hayseed who moved his lips when he read and chewed his tongue when he wrote.

  More likely he had just been set up to annoy the media super-stars. Anything he tried would fail—and would make matters worse.

  He wanted to be a ranger and go exploring.

  He heard the door slam behind him, and then he thought he could relax. He looked up and wiped his brow. Only a dozen or so people remained.

  One of them was Eccles Pandora Pendor. She was standing slant-hipped before him, a cherub in ghostly pink, smiling with Glenda’s smile.

  “Dear Cedric!” She fluttered eyelashes.

  Suddenly his nausea and weariness
had gone and he was choking with rage and hatred. “Dr. Eccles?”

  “You’ll be watching the holo tonight, I expect. Part of your job? You’ll be on all the newscasts.”

  “Big deal.” Even fifteen minutes ago he would not have believed that he could ever speak to the great Eccles Pandora in that tone. His hands were shaking with fury.

  “Watch WSHB. I’ve got something special. More than the others.”

  “Right.”

  She moved enticingly closer and peered up at him. “Don’t you want to kiss me goodbye, big boy?”

  Mockery! His fingers were hurting again—maybe he would break the lectern. “What did you do with the rest of her?”

  She pursed her lips—Glenda’s lips. “In storage. I’m thinking of using the tits next. Nice tits. Firm—right?”

  “Go away!”

  “So brusque?” She waggled a finger at him. “You know, my property had been damaged? It wasn’t quite as—perfect—as it should have been. Were you the naughty man who did that? Did you have help?”

  Cedric raised a clenched fist. He had very large fists. “Go away,” he said, as quietly as he could manage. “Just go away.”

  “Oh, my! This is not good media relations, Cedric.”

  He thumped the lectern. “Go—away—now!”

  Eccles sniggered triumphantly and sauntered toward the door, swaying her hips. Two guards were standing there—Bagshaw and a short, thick woman. They closed the door behind her, and again Cedric relaxed with a rush.

  For a moment he closed his eyes. If prayer does any good, he thought, then this is a prayer for Glenda.

  Madge had wept when Glenda left. That was almost worse. Madge and Ben had known what they were rearing in their organage.

  Glenda…Glenda…Glenda…

  Was he different from the rest? Madge had not wept for him.

  Joe…Bruce…Janice…Meg…Shaun…Liz…

  Butchered, wrapped, and stored until required.

  He raised his head, and it weighed a ton. The room had the used, shabby look that parties always left, with empty glasses everywhere and crumpled paper on the rugs. Waiters were moving around, clearing up.

  Food!

  “Hold that!” he shouted, and strode over to a man bearing away a tray big enough to bed a horse. Cedric grabbed it from him and carried it to the nearest chair. Sitting, he laid the tray across his knees and began to stuff himself with handfuls of tiny triangular sandwiches. There were little sausages and things wrapped in bacon. Lots. Cheese and crackers. He was starving, absolutely starving.

  “When did you eat last?” a voice inquired.

  A girl in shiny gold had just settled on a spindly, fragile-looking chair beside him. She had gleaming hair like a black waterfall all down her back.

  He pondered, gulped down his cud, and said, “A pizza—last night.”

  She laughed. “And before that?” Her skin was cocoa-colored, the sort of skin that looked smoother than anything else in the world, that a man wanted to stroke very, very gently with the side of his finger. Her eyes were deep, dark, and twinkling; her thick black hair was long and unbelievably enticing.

  A gorgeous girl. With dimples.

  “An apple, in the morning.” He felt his face returning her smile. “I was in a hurry to get away.”

  “Then carry on! Don’t let me stop you.” She helped herself to a slice of peach from his tray and grinned at him as she bit it.

  A man in a tan-colored suit came and stood behind her. He had a narrow beard and a green turban. Cedric went back to sneaking glances at the girl’s slender arms and legs and thinking how gorgeous she was. She did not bulge in front as much as the women on holo shows did. She had small breasts that came to points, and they looked firm and very nice indeed. Yes, he would not change a thing.

  “Er…ma’am?” the man behind her said. “I’m told that the director will see us now.”

  “In a minute.” She did not look around. She seemed to be returning Cedric’s detailed inspection, and that was a rather alarming experience for a man.

  He tried to speak, and his mouth was full again. Trying not to be too obscene, speaking mostly in sign language, he mumbled, “Who’re you?”

  She had a round, happy face, and yet very delicate features. Her nose was small and perfect. Her lips were made for smiling, and she had the cutest dimples he had ever seen.

  “Princess Alya of Banzarak.”

  Cedric said “Oh, shit!” very messily, and felt himself starting to go red.

  “You’re an antimonarchist?” She raised very thin eyebrows in mock alarm.

  “No! No! But Gran said there was a princess around, and I was to—oh—” He swallowed and said carefully, “Oh bother!”

  She laughed again, but she seemed to be laughing with him and not at him, although he felt all gangly again, all arms and legs like a dumb kid. And pink.

  “Highness!” the man said warningly.

  “In a minute! May I call you ‘Cedric’?”

  “Of course, Your Majesty!”

  “Call me Alya!”

  “Yes, sir!”

  She grinned again. He would do anything to earn another smile. But he was feeling better. It must be the food. Then he pulled a face. “Ugh! This jam’s gone bad!”

  “I think it’s caviar,” the princess said seriously. “Try those—they’re shrimp.”

  “Not bad.”

  “They used to grow wild.”

  “What’s this?”

  “Papaya, looks like.” She edged her stool closer and began naming the things he did not know as he tried them, sometimes sampling them herself. Princesses were apparently very friendly folk. He did not think this one had stolen any bits of other people.

  Musn’t think about that.

  Someone held out a glass of orange juice. Surprised, Cedric looked up and saw that it was Bagshaw, grimly inscrutable.

  He realized what Bagshaw had guessed—eating was making him thirsty. He said thanks and looked around. Bagshaw and the security woman; the turbaned man in tan, who had a narrow, dark face and must be in attendance on the princess—all clustered around him, as though his feeding habits were something remarkable. The waiters had gone. The five of them had the enormous place to themselves.

  “I think you did wonderfully,” the princess said. She seemed to be serious, but she saw his skepticism and smiled. “Jathro?”

  “Highness?”

  “How would you rate Doctor—Mister—Hubbard’s performance?”

  “He astonished me,” the man with the beard said. He was trim and smooth and dapper, everything Cedric was not. “I thought the mob was going to riot and throw things. He didn’t lose his head at all. I was impressed.”

  “Jathro knows,” Alya said. “He’s a politician. He makes his living rousing rabbles. Don’t you, Jathro?”

  Jathro responded with an exasperated sigh. “Highness…”

  “But was Cedric right,” Alya asked earnestly, “when he suggested that this shambles of a meeting was a big accident? You’re the political expert. Tell us.”

  “Princess! Anything said in this building will be monitored. The director—”

  “This,” she told him sternly, “is important!”

  He blinked at Cedric with doubt. “It is?”

  “It is.”

  Doubt became strong dislike. “You’re sure?” he asked the girl.

  “I’m certain! Now tell us.”

  Jathro scratched his beard, glanced at the watching guards and the distant doorway, and then sighed again. “Very well. No, he was wrong. Dr. Hubbard is one of the great minds of our age. She does not make mistakes on that scale. She was thoroughly enjoying herself. Didn’t you see how she was enjoying herself? Whatever happened, she had planned it down to the last cough. It was a deliberate slap in the face for everyone in the room—including her boss and former lover, the Secretary General. She spat on the massed media of the world. Incredible! I would not have believed it possible. Did you choose that
suit, Deputy?”

  “Huh?”

  “That green monstrosity—did you choose the color?”

  “Er, no.”

  “Don’t be jealous, Jathro,” Alya said sharply. “Cedric didn’t ask to be made a deputy. He wasn’t told anything about this in advance—were you?”

  “No,” Cedric said, stuffing lettuce in his mouth with the enthusiasm of a caterpillar. He liked lettuce. It had been underneath the fruit.

  Jathro nodded. “The hair was just luck, I suppose, and the fingernails; but the bright green was a masterful touch. In English the color green carries connotations of immaturity, Highness. You were sent up as a human insult, Mr. Hubbard.”

  Cedric sneaked an unobtrusive look at his nails. They were even worse than usual. Damn! Girls noticed hands.

  “Why they didn’t tear you in half I can’t guess,” Jathro added with interest. “But tonight’s newscasts will.”

  “Why?” Alya asked. “Why did she?”

  Again Jathro sent a fidgety glance toward the door. “I have no idea. I am completely baffled. BEST is reported to be stepping up the pressure on her, and the Chamber is threatening to replace the U.N. altogether. If Hastings Willoughby and the U.N. fall, then 4-I will certainly go also. BEST and the World Chamber will take over. Hubbard Agnes will be lucky to reach jail in one piece.”

  Cedric exchanged puzzled stares with the princess.

  “Then how did today help?” he asked. “Why did Gran do this?”

  “I told you—I don’t know. Short of public murder, it was about the worst thing she could have done. She played right into Grundy’s hands. Remember, while the General Assembly is officially a collection of government representatives, in practice the delegates and their backers are bribed and coerced into giving Hastings his own way. He is puppet master of the world—or he was, until today. Now he’s a public sucker.”

  He pondered a moment. “Grundy’s ambition is to unionize 4-I. For years BEST has been urging the nations to replace Hubbard as director. Hastings has defended her, using the money she plucks off Stellar Power. They have been a great partnership, those two, for most of this century. After today’s performance, though, he will not be able to resist the pressure. The media will be after her scalp, claiming she is senile or insane. Him, too.”