by M. A. Foster
Plattsman came to the edge of the desk, producing from a portfolio a sheaf of photoprints. One he set aside, and the others he carefully held, indicating that Parleau should look for himself. Parleau bent closer.
Indicating the single print, Plattsman said, “Observe this print: this is the file image of the girl, as she appears now.” He paused to let the image set in the chairman’s mind. “Now this one,” he said, adding one more from the pile, “was taken before she was put in the box. Standard surveillance stuff through one-way glass. Can you recognize her?”
Parleau nodded. “Yes. There are more differences than I would have imagined.”
“Correct. This apparently is an effect of her regression. I should imagine from these alone that whatever happened to her, she lost everything, even the little quirks of personality that really lend us all identity. But the point is that you, not a trained observer, could still recognize her. Now let me show you these.” With that, Plattsman spread out the remaining prints over the dull surface of the desk. He stood back.
Parleau looked at the prints, then to Plattsman. Plattsman pointed to the prints. Parleau looked again.
And again. He saw typical point-surveillance crowd images, much enlarged to center and to expand upon single persons, the pictures somewhat fuzzy along the edges from enlargement. At first he failed to see what Plattsman was obviously leading him to. He saw pictures of a girl, mostly dressed after the styles of the day, more rarely in ler clothing, the overshirt, short hair, dark complexion, although not as swarthy as Plattsman, intent expression which could have meant anything . . . in some of the images, he could make out the shape of clean, strong limbs impressing their shape on the garments. He looked again. He had almost given up when something nagged at his mind’s eye, caught it. And again. And then Parleau saw what had captured Plattsman’s attention. The chairman made a choice, reached for two of the prints, removed them and set them aside.
He turned to the Controller and said, “Those two are not our girl, Item forty-six.”
“No, Chairman, they are not. You and I have a greater depth of discrimination than the machine, no matter how sophisticated it gets. Especially where faces are concerned. Faces are more complex than retina patterns or fingerprints, but we are tuned to them by our own heritage of natural programming. You are correct. There are a couple more in question. We are analyzing the events.”
“You didn’t come back here to tell me your machine made a mistake.”
Right, What we can tentatively project from the data we have—sensors, time of day matching, and the like—is that the second girl, whose face we can’t make out so well, was involved in some way with the first one, Item forty-six. Same place, virtually same time, with the second passing the sensor after the first.”
“Shadowing?”
“Seems so, although why is a mystery. Also, from the chemonitors, we know that both are ler, female, contemporary in age, more or less, and that the stress level of the second was always lower than the first, Moreover, Physiology informs me, again tentatively, that the kind of stress is different in the two. The first, Item forty-six, always has a fear-component. It may be with other emotional sets, or pure, but it is always one or another variety of fear.”
“The second?”
“The second’s emotions equate to nothing we can identify by analogy with humans. But whatever internal state it reveals in her, it is always seen pure, absolutely alone.”
“I’ve heard something about the way you use those tracers. Something about mixed and pure sets . . . refresh my flagging memory.”
“A pure chemtrace in a human almost invariably indicates a psychotic condition, usually a psychopath, I believe the ler system is similar enough for us to draw the same conclusion. I am presently having the idea verified.”
“But think of it! Two of them! What is the connection?”
“We’re going after it, Chairman. But it looks like nothing simple, that’s a fact.”
“Well, by all means pass that stuff on to Eykor. It will not make him feel any better, but he needs it all the same.”
Plattsman nodded, gathered the prints, and left. And Parleau sat back in his chair and stared at a blank, random spot on the wall opposite him. He did not pick up his routine paperwork for a long time.
SIX
What, they ask, is the Game? Most simply put, it is a recursive sequence of changes in state, which are varied by the Players according to rules. It can be as simple as a sequence of digital data, or numbers; it can take more complex forms in arrays of repeating cells deployed over a two-dimensional surface; it can occur in three-dimensional matrices, yea and more. It can be played with blocks, on a checkerboard, inside frameworks; it can be played on paper, or with a computer, or, best of all, totally inside the mind. Now they ask, what good is it? And we say that through it we learn to understand consequences and the recursive patterns of Life and the Universe. And through it we learn how much we do not know.
—The Game Texts
MORLENDEN AWOKE, MAKING the transition from dead sleep to awareness with no apparent symptom of change. Beside him, he felt the warmth of Fellirian’s body, and along his neck the contrast of the night-chilled air of the yos in winter. There was light showing on the translucent ground-rock panes of the narrow windows, a soft dawn peach light, but also a light with a hard steel-blue undertone to it, a sense of the clean air of winter, morning and clear sky. He moved slowly, cautiously and experimentally feeling the air, testing it, as it were, before committing himself to it. He stretched, hearing soft creaks and pops, slowly and gently disentangling himself from Fellirian without waking her. She moved, shifting position, but the rhythm of her breathing never varied.
Morlenden slid free of the comforter, listened: all he could hear were the sounds of the forest in the beginning of whiter. Outside, the animals were already up and about in their pens and barns, complaining, as usual, that no one had come out to see them. On the other side of the yos, beyond the children’s sleeper, the creek gurgled and bubbled contentedly . . . there was no rain-sound, not even a hint of a rain-drip from the trees overhead.
Now he was beginning to feel the bite of the cold; he took a deep breath, shivered violently, stood and began rummaging along the wall shelf for a fresh winter overshirt, estimating the cold. Not so bad, today, he thought, selecting a pleth of medium weight, slipping it over his head, and then retrieving his long single braid out of the back of it.
Rubbing his eyes, Morlenden climbed down out of the sleeper into the hearthroom, listening carefully to see if anyone besides himself was awake yet. There was no sound, save Kaldherman’s light snoring from the sleeper. He must have moved, he thought. He wanted to knock over a pan, or something, so someone would wake up. He restrained himself: he did not wish to awaken Sanjirmil . . . but as much as he hated bad news, he wanted to get on with it and speak with the Perwathwiy. But no, there was no one up besides himself, not even the youngest, their little addition, Stheflannai, who was always the first to hear anything. Morlenden shrugged, and began rekindling the cookfire in the hearth; after a time, when he could see that something was coming back to life from the ashes and coals of the night before, he continued his way to the entryway to collect his boots, noting as he pulled them on that they were stiff and cold.
Stepping out on the platform, he paused to test the air, reading the morning, as they said. The sky was indeed clear, an astonishing clear, deep blue; in the east, the sun was rising out of the remnants of a shredded fogbank, shining through the spidery network of bare trunks and branches, starting to put some life back in the cold. It would be crisp, all day. Very fresh, as he was fond of saying, a phrase Fellirian always twitted him about when the weather was behaving at its worst. He went down the stairs, feeling better already, taking the turn in the paths across the yard leading toward the outhouse, reflecting upon the things that needed doing, as he always did. First would be the recording and cross-referencing of all the material he had gathered on
his last field trip; then properly entering it in the record ledgers, indexing, tagging. They would need to start a new batch of paper, too. Stock had been getting somewhat low, he recalled, and that was one of their Braid obligations—the paper concession. What a pain! Probably would need at least two weights unless Kal had done up a batch of Number Three ordinary while he had been out in the field. And, of course, meeting with the Perwathwiy, whatever it was she wanted. Perhaps that wouldn’t take so long, and they could get on with matters at hand.
He remembered to watch for the root, which he had tripped over for several years on the way to the outhouse, climbing the ridgelet behind the yos. He was barely in time; he saw it, on the verge of tripping over it once more.
Damned thing! I’ve tripped over that one root since I was five years old, and, total recall or not, I still trip over it! And every time, I threaten to cut it off, root and branch, the whole damned tree. But I never have, he thought reflectively. It’s a sourwood, and they’re rare . . . and what is it that Perwathwiy wants? Damn elders anyway! She could have sent Sanjir down anyway, by herself; probably wants us to start keeping all the records of membership of the lodges as well. They’ve been after us for years to do it for them, as if we weren’t busy enough just keeping up with the Braids. Now he’d have to repeat the whole tiresome argument all over again from the very beginnings. Yes, the whole argument. Perwathwiy wouldn’t sit still for a simple negative. And even if it was only her own lodge, Dragonfly, that wouldn’t change it: start keeping their records, and all of them would want the same thing. Service. Balls on a goose! Let them keep their own records! He reached the outhouse, a rustic little shanty carefully hidden in the midst of overage Lilac bushes. . . .
Walking slowly back to the yos, coming over the ridgeline, Morlenden could see now that a fine plume of smoke was rising from the largest ellipsoid, the one of the hearthroom. Nobody was visible, but the smoke was evidence enough someone was up and about now; he guessed one of the children had got up and was tending the fire, putting on a pot for an infusion of root-tea, a pan of meal to boil, a couple of the fine sausages from the locker that he and Kal had put up earlier this fall.
Higher up the hollow, toward the watershed, he saw the elder, Perwathwiy, approaching him on the path, negotiating the way in a measured, careful manner, but at the same time not betraying any hindrance arising from her age. He had not seen her the night before, or in years, nor ever well. But he knew Perwathwiy well enough; she never changed. He couldn’t recall ever seeing her any different than she was now, a stern, agile ancient with iron-gray hair and the sourest disposition this side of the Green Sea, at the least. She was known never to smile, and little children repeated the doggerel that she had been born just as she was now.
The starsrith approached, stopped, nodded politely. Morlenden returned the gesture, acknowledging her respect for the holding. So this was the Perwathwiy, “First Spirit of the Eagle-cry,” as the name went in Fire aspect. Morlenden knew the data without having consciously to recall it. A lifetime of recordkeeping, ordinary full-memory (or was it the elder’s overbearing sense of presence? A Fire trait to be sure), but there had always been something more than simply aspect to the Perwathwiy. Sanjirmil also seemed to have that trait. Perwathwiy was and had been for years the elected chief hetman of Dragonfly Lodge, certainly the most powerful of the elder lodges. There were rumors, too, of secret influences, but Morlenden had never given such theories much thought; Dragonfly was quite powerful enough in his mind without the additional reinforcements of sinister conspiracies conducted in stealth. But they were secretive, and also the most conscious of themselves: powerful, sure, almost arrogant people who veiled their comings and goings in mystery and arcane mannerisms.
The Perwathwiy was small in stature, thin, her skin wrinkled and darkened from decades of exposure and weathering. As befitted an elder, her hair was arrayed in two long braids that hung down neatly in front. The hair was absolutely gray, not a hint of color in it. Gray, not white. He could not recall ever hearing what color her hair had been. There were deep crow’s-feet around the eyes, but the eyes themselves were bright, clear, birdlike, and of no particular color. Save perhaps rain-wet rock. Morlenden knew her age, and was surprised that the old woman was still in such good shape.
She spoke first, “I have been at my meditations. The letters are always clearer at dawn, as they say, but one must arise to see them, eh? You do not know the letters? The Godwrite of the ancient Hebrews, the cabalists: Hm. It is a defect you should remedy. I should have preferred to speak with all of you last night, Morlenden Deren, but savoring as I do the subtle essence of second-thoughts, I think the better of the morning. I might have said more than I intended. Yes. I was in haste, tired. One makes mistakes then, and in this matter there must be no more.”
“The matter is . . . ?”
“To be revealed to you all. It is no light thing, but something all the adults among you must decide. It will seem like nothing at first, but I fear it will become a burden beyond bearing before you are done with it, if you agree to it. There are unsuspected depths in it, and once committed, your silence must be absolute. But for the now, let us return to the yos of the Derens and gather a good meal. I am hungry, and can lay to rest the horrid legend that elders subsist upon nothing more than a diet of boiled clabber, lentils, groats, and spurge.”
Morlenden redundantly indicated the way she should go, and they went down the path to the yos. As they neared the stairwell on the downhill side of it, Kaldherman emerged, rubbing his eyes.
He looked at them sleepily and said, between yawns, “I see that you two are the early birds. The girls are, however, yet abed. Ayali is now snoring in a most girlish manner, but you don’t have to say that I was the one who told you. They proved impossible to awaken. Peth and Sanjirmil have temporarily buried the knife and are busy at the hearth. I imagine we shall prove the poorer for it, but at the least we shall be well-fed.”
From within the yos, they could hear a voice floating bodilessly, saying, “I’m coming, I’m coming, just this minute!”
Morlenden asked the Perwathwiy, “Where will you take yours?”
“You require an answer? On the stairs, here, of course. Finish yours and join me here, in the yard, without the children. Only Sanjirmil will witness for the Zanklaron28.”
Morlenden reflected a moment, then asked, “Then you didn’t come all the way down here to remonstrate with me about the Derens keeping elder records of enlistments and transitions.”
“Hardly. On that I should approach Fellirian anyway. She is Klandorh, is she not? But on that subject, yes, I know I have hectored you for years, and I will doubtless continue. All of you Derens are stubborn, whether born to the role or woven to it. It is a most important matter, ever on our minds, but rest assured that I would not walk leagues in the rain to hector you some more. This, in fact, may change the requirements . . . but never mind. Go and see that all are fed. I have far yet to go, and one among you may indeed have to go farther.”
And not long afterward, with everyone up and about and fed (as Kaldherman had predicted, with a stock of the sausages he and Morlenden had put up), the four Deren adults joined the elder Perwathwiy and Sanjirmil, who were waiting silently by the creek a little below the yos, out of earshot, so they hoped, of the curious adolescents required to stay behind.
As the Derens approached, the Perwathwiy continued to keep her silence, appearing to listen to the creek, as if meditating, choosing her words. The sound of the rushing water filled the cool air. Then Perwathwiy turned and stared at them pointedly, finally speaking.
“Dragonfly Lodge, with the cooperation and encouragement of Braids Reven, Perklaren, and Terklaren, has empowered me to request of our community registrars the finding of a person. This is to be regarded as a most important thaydh29 for which Klanderen will be compensated. Mielhaltalon30 to determine the whereabouts, fate thereof, or confirmation of transition of this person, restoring aforementioned person to us,
specifically Dragonfly Lodge, if alive. I may say no more than this. We are on very dangerous ground here, and since we have no police as such, decision was made and implemented to come to you. You know everyone, you trace relationships, and in addition are known to be adventurous and resourceful.”
At this last remark, a fine description to be sure, everyone save Cannialin raised their eyebrows. Yes, save Cannialin. She lived entirely in the present, never anticipating, and thus was almost never surprised, neither at the things people said, nor what they did. It was all one.
Perwathwiy paused. Then she said, “Upon your concurrence, you will receive from myself a packet containing a name on a slip of paper. What say you?”
They did not answer. The hint of danger, the secrecy, all put them off; but the amount offered for the service was even more astounding than all of these, for nothing any of them could imagine could cost hardly more than a tal of gold, and here were offered, in decimals, 2,744 of them. Of the Derens, Fellirian was the most shocked, for she was accustomed in part to the standing-wave inflation of the human world and its corresponding devaluation of currency. In 2550, with such an amount in pure gold, Fellirian could have bought outright title to every building in Seaboard South Region. Even having so much to offer was unimaginable.
But she was first to find her voice. “And why us? Or perhaps I should ask, why not you yourself or the parties you represent?”
The Perwathwiy answered forthrightly: “Eventually, someone will have to trace these things out. You have all the records and, moreover, you are all used to meeting people, going among them, ferreting out relationships. You are known everywhere, trusted, and hence will be able to make discreet inquiries. Most importantly, you are now and initially ignorant of certain aspects of this affair, aspects which may well turn out to be matters of survival. Our survival. We think that eventually you will have to go outside, which Fellirian does weekly, and it will arouse no particular suspicion. And why not one of us? We do not wish it known that it is we who are interested in this person. We suspect foul play.”