The Puzzler's War

by Eyal Kless

  Mannes flipped the newsline away with a wave of his hand and brought up his inbox. There were forty-seven work-related messages and a private one from Deborah. She’d won the horse-riding contest—he knew that already, of course, had even snuck away from a meeting to watch the finals on a floating screen in his office—but to see his daughter smile and hear her voice rise with excitement as she told him the news herself, thinking he did not know, was priceless.

  He ran the message three times, then sent her a return voice clip congratulating her on her well-deserved win. Perhaps because he was nervous, he chose to lightly admonish her for the slight decline in her overall grades. He knew she would be pissed off at him for that, and he knew he deserved it even as he uttered the words. His parting “Love you, D” came out too fast and perhaps too casual sounding. Sensing his discomfort, the pad asked twice whether he wanted to change the message, but Mannes just sighed and tapped the send button. Nothing bad ever happened from pushing your kid a little; it had certainly helped him.

  He mentally logged a reminder to send a message to his parents when he returned. Even with his status, corresponding with them was not something he could have done from inside the space elevator. Security protocols would have blocked any contact to a declared enemy state such as the United Northern Alliance, but there were ways to bypass those restrictions in the privacy of his lab. Not that they had a lot to talk about; it was just his own sense of loyalty. Both his parents were getting old, and without Tarakan rejuvenation technology their mental and physical deterioration was making the calls tedious and emotionally draining. His father spoke to him like a preacher filled with God’s wrath. He usually needed a stiff drink afterwards.

  The announcement that the ascension was about to commence caught Mannes brooding. He took a last sip of lukewarm coffee and tucked away the pad. The elevator began to slowly rise shortly afterwards. It moved so smoothly that he would not have felt it but for the breathtaking view of Earth slowly slipping away below.

  Mannes was just a kid when the construction of the Tarakan space elevator was announced. He remembered his father, a bitter middle school science teacher, explaining what a foolish endeavor it was. “It defies the very laws of physics,” he grumbled during their family’s evening meals. “It’s the tower of Babel all over again. Tarakan hubris will end in a fiasco that will bring disaster upon us all.”

  Mannes, who even by then was studying physics at a level that exceeded his father’s, argued in favour, and the argument grew fiercer each time it occurred. In hindsight, Mannes recognised it now as the beginning of their drawing apart. By the time Mannes entered university, the Star Pillar was in the last stages of completion, while two other major world powers fell into bankruptcy trying to build one of their own.

  In a way, Mannes reflected, the last of the world wonders was more than a fantastic tool to bring people and material into space; it was also a constant reminder to the rest of the world of Tarakan’s superiority and an excellent recruitment tool. It had definitely helped recruit Mannes.

  He sat and watched the rising sun. The wall adjusted accordingly to darken the harsh glare, and he caught his own reflection. Instinctively he tucked his belly in and smiled at his own folly. It was a good body, all things considered, and he liked it, especially since it was his natural one. Many of his colleagues had already transitioned to newer vessels, or heavily modified their own bodies to the point that they looked like they were in their twenties again. But Mannes resisted the peer pressure, jesting that his wife threatened to leave him if he upgraded. It was a lie, of course. Nancy would probably leave him even if he didn’t upgrade, and most likely very soon. They had been growing apart, and it was all on him. He couldn’t tell her why he kept such long hours, why he didn’t delegate the work to his perfectly capable assistants, or why he’d refused to create an avatar bot. If she knew what he was up to and why . . . no, he kept Nancy unaware for her own good. Her brain patterns would reaffirm her innocence under investigation, but such ignorance came with a price, and if it wasn’t for their joint love for their daughter . . . He wondered if Nancy was sleeping with anyone else, then adjusted his mental query to whether she was sleeping with anyone he knew.

  The elevator rose above the clouds. Soon they would be leaving the atmosphere. On the community elevator people usually whooped and cheered or clapped their hands. Kids would watch the little balls attached to their wrists for the first signs of weightlessness. Inside his private cabin soft music was playing, his favourite Schubert sonata for violin and piano in A major. The music grew louder when the room sensed Mannes’s perception shift. Damn it, he had to adjust his security protocols when he got back, so that no machine could read him so easily. Then again, it might raise suspicion if he did . . .

  Weightlessness.

  Mannes looked out at the planet he was leaving and fought the illogical premonition that he would not be coming back.

  Chapter 17

  Peach

  Brak smiled at me as I entered the room. “It is good to see you, Lady Peach.”

  “It is good to see you, too,” I said, which, surprisingly enough, was a genuine feeling. There was something endearing about Brak, even for a soul as tarnished as mine.

  He was lying on a mattress, and he winced when he pushed himself up to a sitting position.

  I crouched next to him. “Does it hurt?”

  Brak touched his side gingerly. “Only a little. I’m just weak.” He smiled. “The Healer came to visit me this morning, and he looked worse than I do. I owe him my life.” He looked straight at me. “And to you as well, Lady Peach. If we had left you at the outpost I would have been—”

  “If you had left me at the outpost we wouldn’t have gone on a hike, and then none of this would have happened.”

  “I always stop and go for a walk at that spot, I love the scenery there.” Brak’s eyes shone, seeing the view as he spoke.

  “Where is Trevil?” I asked, just to change the subject.

  “Working on the truck. You have a long way ahead of you. It will take you the winter to drive to the City of Towers and back. Pity I ain’t going to see it with you. I heard it is breathtaking.”

  “You’ve never been?”

  He shrugged. “Too far, and Trevil and I established a solid route here. People know us, and trade was going well. We’ll have to start over, now that our haul is gone.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Brak’s smile was genuine. “My mother used to say that life brings you down so you can lift yourself up. I almost died but I will be okay. Now we must pay the Healer in kind. Trevil will take you to the City of Towers and I will stay here and work off my debt. When he comes back, we will start over, maybe try a different route, away from the naturalist lands.”

  There was nothing more to say. I got up and Brak said, “You take care of Trevil for me, Lady Peach. He’s not one for a chatter, but otherwise he’s good company.”

  I looked at him for the last time. “I’ll do my best, Brak. I hope you heal well.”

  There was a sort of entourage waiting for me at the truck. Trevil was standing among them, his hands black to his elbows. The man with the bone earrings bowed slightly as I approached and motioned to one of his men, who stepped forward and unwrapped a white sheet he was holding. Inside was a small pouch made of the same canvas I wore at the Healer’s, but it was speckled with dirt, as if it had been dug up from the ground not too long ago. Without touching the pouch, the man urged me to take it. It jingled when I lifted it up.

  “This tainted metal is from da Healer man to you,” the man with the bone earrings declared, “to help you on the way. These”—he motioned and two other men stepped forward, each holding long leather coats, which they put on our shoulders—“will help for the winter.” Leather boots were laid at our feet as the man with the earrings stepped forward and handed me a scroll case. “This letter is for you,” he said.

  I looked at the wax seal. “What’s in it?”

&
nbsp; “A letter to T’iar Garadin, an important man in the Guild of Menders. If you be need help, bring da letter to him in the Upper Plateau. He will be helping.”

  I closed my hand over the wooden scroll cases. “Thank the Healer for all his help.”

  “Da Healer says he be just paying his price, but soon you be needing to pay da price, too.”

  That made me freeze in my tracks. “What did he mean by that?”

  The man with the bone earrings stepped closer to me, until his face almost touched mine. “Your old world be dead,” he said in a hushed tone, as Trevil mounted the truck, “and you walk the land dat is close to da darkness. Soon you will be having to be choosing yourself, between light and dark, between old and new, between worlds, so told Nakamura, da man who sees all. Da Healer said to tell you these words of his.” The man paused, took a deep breath, then whispered, “‘Choose wisely, even after death.’” I tensed, as my mind registered the meaning of the words, but the man stepped away before I could respond, and his entourage turned to leave with him.

  The truck’s engine was already running when I slowly climbed into the cabin. A stream of dark smog came out through the upper exhaust pipe and was beginning to sift into the cabin. We needed to move, even just to drive out the pollution, and Trevil did not hesitate. We began driving at a walking speed and slowly gathered momentum.

  “You know the way?” I asked.

  “I have a pretty good idea how to begin,” he answered without looking at me. “The rest I’ll figure out as we go.”

  “How long will it take us to get there?”

  “That depends on the fuel.” He pointed at the jerrycan behind us. “They gave me some vegetable oil mixed with animal fat. That can get us a fair distance but we’ll need to buy decent fuel for speed. Thing is”—this time he did turn his head to me—“I’ve got nothing to haggle with.”

  I opened the pouch of coins on my lap, grabbed a handful, and lifted it up to the light. “Will that do?”

  Trevil glanced at the coins I was holding. “Aye, that can get us a fair amount of fuel and food, so we won’t need to stop and hunt. We can get to the city in two months or less, if we’re lucky. Wouldn’t mind a few more bullets for the guns, too.” He added under his breath, turning the truck slowly around a corner, “Never know who we’ll meet.”

  “Good,” I said. “We’ll use the coin.”

  “I know a place, a farm, two days’ ride or so. They make a decent vegetable oil and accept coin over kind. Not many do in these parts.”

  “Let’s drive there. I can swap with you when you get tired.”

  “We’ve got ourselves a road trip.” Trevil suddenly smiled and shook his head. “Brak says that every time we set out. Says it’s for luck.”

  “Well, then,” I said with a genuine smile, “looks like we’ve got ourselves a road trip.”

  Chapter 18

  Mannes

  A comforting familiarity welcomed Mannes into the visitor’s hall of the space hub. It wasn’t just the amount of times he’d visited the place; it was a lifetime spent helping design, maintain, and upgrade the station, which made it feel like coming back to your childhood home. At least this time he did not need to secretly insert another line of illicit code into the system. That part of the operation was over, thank God. He’d thought this fact would make him less nervous, but he still felt the fluttering in his stomach and his heartbeat racing.

  Mannes looked around. The rest of the space elevators were still in transit, so the hall was empty except for the several security bots hovering by each door. One of them approached and, after a brief retina and hand scans, it connected through the neural public channel and said, “Captain Ismark sends her regards, Dr. Holtz. She hopes your brief stay here will be pleasurable. Would you follow me, please?”

  Mannes nodded at the meaningless platitude. Captain Ismark was not a woman who hid her opinions, and her feelings towards Mannes, or any other nonmilitary personnel messing around in her hub, had been voiced point-blank to his face on several occasions. It was a surprise that the old iron maiden was still in command. Had the woman ever set foot on Mother Earth?

  The magnetic boots did their job, and Mannes checked absentmindedly that his travel case was space secured and attached to his body. All space hub visitors’ legware was designed to help maintain balance for the low gravity in the ever-spinning hub, and after the first several cautious steps one could easily forget he was in space, until one’s items were spread all over the cabin.

  “Tell me,” he asked as they turned a corner, “is the C wing working at optimum yet?”

  There was the briefest of pauses as the bot internally re-checked Mannes’s security status.

  “The C wing is working at ninety-two percent, but we are hoping to reach ninety-four percent in the next three weeks, after the external pipe adjustments.”

  Mannes nodded with satisfaction. At least he wouldn’t need to spend three more weeks cooped up in the narrow vents in search of leakage. “And what about the plans for the expedition to planet CSX5?”

  This time the answer was immediate. “I am sorry, Doctor Holtz, I am not authorised to divulge such information.”

  “I see.”

  “If you want, I can connect you to Commander Ismark—”

  “No need,” he said, cutting the bot off, perhaps too quickly. He added under his breath, “I was just being nosy.”

  The bot surely heard his words but chose not to respond.

  The walk to the space shuttle area was, of course, short. Transit passengers never left the A wing so security protocols were brief this time. The door slid open and they entered the waiting area, one of Mannes’s team’s designs. It was by far the most beautiful part of the hub, not considering one’s personal feelings towards the four septimum cell hub’s engines, but you had to be an engineer to appreciate such beauty.

  Half the rectangular hall was transparent and the view of Planet Earth and space beyond was breathtaking. Mannes proudly noted to himself that it did not trigger vertigo, unlike the original design.

  Several dozen doors led to the various space shuttles. His name and destination were already imprinted on the gate’s metal hatch but he knew he would have to wait a bit before commencing his journey, and since a private waiting room was too costly and wasteful to build even for Tarakan, soon the place would be filled with the first arrivals from the long queue on Earth.

  Mannes chose to sit in the least favourable part of the hall, hoping to have a moment to do some quiet reading, or perhaps calm his thoughts, which, he suspected, had been too close to paranoia lately. He had to calm down and stop letting Daichi’s nonsense get into his brain. The guy was the most brilliant code designer he had ever met, no doubt about it, but Daichi also put the capital E in Eccentric . . .

  Mannes was spreading his equipment on the magnetic table as his space suit arrived. He decided to take his time and get into it only at the last moment. The suit was bulky and, frankly, an unnecessary precaution for civilian space travel. Instead, he turned on his pad and continued reading the article on puzzle-solving strategies—not that he was planning a bid for promotion in this lifetime. Mannes was, by all means, a high-ranking Tarkanian, but also a man who knew his own limitations. Still, it was a good way to take his mind off things.

  A few more people arrived, including an annoyingly loud family of five. The kids were, of course, ecstatic. Just by looking at them it was obvious the parents were the kind who forewent the responsible use of behavioural medicine and let their offspring run wild in the name of some new age parenting trend. The kids zoomed up and down the hall, screeching and screaming in delight at the effect of the low gravity, while their parents shushed them half-heartedly. Without any success, of course.

  While Mannes was in midsigh, the emergency channel blipped in his inner ear and caused his heart to skip a beat. Only six people knew how to call him on the personal emergency channel, and the last time it was used Nancy had been going into labou
r with Deborah. Mannes touched his left temple to activate the channel.

  “Hello?”

  There was no image coming through on his retina cam, and for a few seconds Mannes heard only quick breathing.

  “Hello?” he said again.

  “Mannes . . .”

  “Daichi.” Mannes swallowed a swear word that was almost uttered. “What’s wrong? Why are you using my emergency channel—”

  “Shut up and listen.”

  That caused Mannes to straighten up in his chair in alarm. Daichi could have ended up being Mannes’s boss if not for his peculiar personality, but the voice resonating in Mannes’s mind had an urgency he’d never heard before—not even from Daichi, who liked to work in complete darkness and usually under several blankets.

  “He’s on to us.”

  “Who?” Yes, it was a stupid question but Mannes needed time.

  “Are you fucking drunk, Holtz? Adam, he knows, man, he knows. You must come to the l—where we discussed . . . we need to launch, now.”

  “No . . . you are mistaken . . .” Seriously, he didn’t need this shit right now, especially where he was sitting at the moment. Mannes managed to control his mental voice to a calm tone. “Daichi, relax for a second. How do you know something’s up?”

  “I’m locked out, okay?” Daichi’s voice rose. “Came to the office and my security clearance is gone, can’t even get into the lab. I split before security came. They would have arrested me, for sure.”