If so, how would Imbry exact revenge? And, worse, what guarantee did he have that his part in the psychodrama was finished?
These thoughts troubled him as the Opulence hurtled toward the whimsy that would fling it into normal space only a day’s cruise from Old Earth. When the alarms sounded, he took his medication almost gratefully, just to quiet his mind.
In Olkney, Imbry resided at three clubs in which he held memberships, spending time here or there according to no predictable schedule. But he did not go to any of these upon his return. Instead, he followed a circumambulant route to his operations center. This was located on a timeworn street in a decidedly unfashionable district of Olkney; it appeared to be a ramshackle old house occupied by a belligerent recluse who never bothered with repairs, upkeep, or garden maintenance, and who could occasionally be heard ranting about a lifetime’s accumulations of grievances and threatening violence to all who crossed him.
Imbry spent some time in a darkened doorway across the street from the sagging rear gate that led into the property’s overgrown garden. A careful inspection produced nothing to cause him alarm; no disturbance to the gate or the unkempt hedge that it penetrated; no loiterers on the thoroughfare; no surveillance devices hovering in the air or attached to streetlumens or buildings. He crossed the pavement and was through the gate in moments.
The garden’s weeds and creepers disguised a strong complement of insightful percepts and defensive systems that could offer trespassers a range of responses from mild discouragement to corporeal destruction. None had been discharged in his absence, and when he uttered a string of coded syllables he heard a series of tones that told him that the garden had nothing out of the ordinary to report.
At the battered rear door, with its peeling paint and ancient scuff marks, the house’s who’s-there informed him that no one had come within range of its percepts. Imbry had it open the door, and he stepped inside. “Integrator,” he said, moving quickly to the back bedroom where his research and communications matrix was disguised as a battered piece of furniture, “I have returned. Report.”
The device brought him up to date on a couple of matters that had been pending on the day he disappeared, then listed the persons who had been seeking to contact him. One of these was Wellam Krim, head of the Krim clan.
“What did he wish?”
“To see you at your earliest convenience.”
“Tell him I will meet with him at Bolly’s Snug whenever he is available. When you know when that will be, book one of the private rooms.”
But as he entered the small bedroom, with its stained wall coverings and defunct wall lumen, the older man sitting on the bed said, “No need. I am available now.”
Imbry froze in the doorway. “Master Krim,” he said, in as neutral a tone as he could manage, “my integrator did not tell me you were here.”
“That is because it does not know it.”
“To whom are you speaking?” said the integrator.
“Never mind,” Imbry said. “Put yourself on standby.”
“Done,” said the device.
Imbry would have liked to ask Wellam Krim how he had managed to enter his operations center and wait there without its defenses being activated. But there was no point; the Krims’ trade secrets were closely guarded. Besides, they had more important matters to discuss.
“How is Barlo?” the fat man said.
“Dead.” A pair of lines appeared at the corners of the patriarch’s mouth.
“And his spouse and child?”
The lines deepened. “Also dead.”
“And how do you view my part in these deaths?”
From beneath two thickets of white, bushy brows, dark eyes burrowed into Imbry’s. “At present, with a certain degree of ambiguity.”
“May I explain?”
“That is one of the reasons I am here,” said Krim. “Begin.”
Imbry related an abbreviated version of what had happened to him since he had received an invitation to buy a set of knuckle-knackers from the old man’s grandson on the Belmain seawall. Wellam Krim listened without interruption until the tale was told, then said, “The man who caused Barlo to drown in Mornedy Sound, he is dead?”
“Yes. I saw his body.”
“But he was made to do it by someone else?”
“Someone,” said Imbry, “I have not yet identified.”
“But you have identified candidates.”
“Three. In ascending order of likelihood: Popul Deep, Tamarac Firzanian, and Ayalenya Chadderdan.”
The Krim of the Krims said, “Barlo had middled for all of them. Deep, I discount absolutely. Firzanian?”—his face was still for a moment, eyes narrowed—“he might act brashly against you, but not against one of us.”
“That leaves Chadderdan,” Imbry said.
“She is new, though her references were sterling.”
“Did you investigate her thoroughly?”
Sadness suffused the old man’s face. “Barlo did. She was his client.”
“Integrator,” Imbry said.
“Here,” said the voice seemingly beside his ear.
“Where is Ayalenya Chadderdan?”
The reply was instant. “She departed Old Earth on the Amboy Fleet’s Prestige five days ago.”
“Where bound?”
“Holycow. And she had an open ticket.”
The old man said, “Holycow is a transit point to more than a dozen foundational domains and three times that many secondaries.”
“And with an open ticket,” Imbry said, “she could be going to any of them, or even beyond.”
Wellam Krim stood up. Stooped with age, he nonetheless radiated power. “We will find her,” he said.
“Please let me be there when you do,” said Imbry.
“You need have no doubt of that,” said the old man. “When I said ‘we,’ I did so inclusively.”
“I see,” said the fat man.
“I hope you do.” He fixed Imbry with a look that Imbry knew he had to meet. “We have done business, you and I. This is more than business. And you are part of it.”
“Yes,” said Imbry. “I am.”
“I will book tickets on the next liner to Holycow. From there we will charter a ship.”
“I know,” Imbry said, “a good one.”
The patriarch nodded. “Be ready to leave. I will send a volante to collect you. At which club will you be staying?”
“Quirks, I think,” said Imbry.
Krim turned to depart, looked back at Imbry from the doorway. “Don’t make us have to look for you.”
Imbry raised one hand, made the halfworld gesture that signaled unalterable commitment. The old man pursed his lips and nodded again. Then he was gone.
“Integrator,” Imbry said, “book me a room at Quirks.”
“Done. I believe the rear door just opened and closed, though the who’s-there said it did not happen.”
“It does not matter,” Imbry said. He placed his hands in his pockets. In one of them his fingers encountered the recording bead that contained the analysis of clitch that the Archives on Odlum had performed and transmitted to the Pallistre. “Integrator,” he said, “deploy the research and communications matrix.”
The scarred piece of furniture unfolded itself and said, “Ready.”
Imbry inserted the bead into a receptacle and had the device display the analysis. An unlikely molecular structure, fantastically complex, appeared on a screen in the air. He studied it and said, “Where have I seen that before?”
“Here,” said his integrator. It displayed a simplified version of the diagram. The attribution line underneath the schematic referenced “Nineteenth-Aeon Ceramics: A Summing Up by Shinath, Baron Mindern.” It was his rendering of the long-sought-after secret ingredient that made possible the blazing glazes that colored Nineteenth-Aeon pots and vases.
Imbry found the small valise he had brought with him from Tintamarre. In its bottom, wrapped in some soiled small clot
hes, was the lump of clitch.
“Integrator,” he said, “arrange for the purchase of a potter’s wheel, a tub of finest white clay, and a first-class kiln.”
“Done.”
“And have my snouts start a whisper that Imbry is on the trail of a perfect Nineteenth-Aeon pot, previously unknown.”
“Notifications have been sent.”
He decided he would take the clitch to Quirks and have it placed in the club’s secure facility. Nothing short of a direct command from the Archon could broach that safe.
“Were you expecting,” said the integrator, “a ticket to be booked for you on the Graz Line’s Prominence?” said the integrator.
“Yes. When does it leave?”
“Late tomorrow afternoon.”
“Then advise the kitchen at Quirks that I will want their finest offering tonight and a good, soft bed to digest it in.”
He rubbed his hands to clean the smear of clitch from his fingers. The future beckoned radiantly, he thought, though not so brightly for Ayalenya Chadderdan.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Matthew Hughes writes science-fantasy in a Jack Vance mode. His latest novels are Hespira: A Tale of Henghis Hapthorn (Night Shade), Template (Paizo), and The Damned Busters (Angry Robot). His short fiction has appeared in Asimov’s, F&SF, Postscripts, Storyteller, and Interzone.
He has won the Canadian equivalent of the Edgar, and been shortlisted for the Aurora, Nebula, and Derringer Awards. For 30 years, he was a freelance speechwriter for Canadian corporate executives and political leaders. At present, he augments a fiction writer’s income by housesitting and has no fixed address.
Web page: http://www.archonate.com
THE OTHER
Copyright © Matthew Hughes, 2011
Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination and are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to events or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Requests for permission should be emailed to [email protected].
Underland Press
www.underlandpress.com
Portland, Oregon
eISBN : 978-0-982-66397-4
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