F&SF 2011-11-01 - Nov_Dec

by F

  He dismounted from the cab and retrieved an object from the tool bay, carried it to the edge of the wood, and set it on the ground. The fat man spoke a coded phrase, at which the object energized itself, rose into the air, and flew off along the same course Imbry had been following. If Tshimshim had set the device's systems correctly—and in Imbry's experience she never failed to meet his requirements—it would now be giving the impression to any remote surveillers that an attempt had been made to render the carryall invisible, with only partial success.

  The thief waited in the shade beneath the trees until the decoy was over the horizon. He then returned to his vehicle and instructed its integrator to activate the overlapping fields of energies that would make the carryall appear to be a ground transporter of the kind commonly found in agricultural districts. Skimming just over the rutted track, he directed it to continue on through the woods and out to where the path met a graveled country road. Here he turned east and went at a trundling pace toward the county of Ambroy. By midday, after pausing to purchase a traveler's repast of bread and fresh fruit in the ancient market town of Upper Grippen, he arranged for the carryall to resemble a passenger volante, then took it up to where the air grew thin. With his wards and watchers informing him that no one was taking an untoward interest in his doings, he circled back at an unremarkable speed toward his true destination.

  When the tired old sun was more than halfway between zenith and horizon, Imbry touched down at the southern edge of Hember Forest, at the top of a long slope that overlooked the once populous Vale of Drom, now long since disinhabited. He backed the vehicle into the darkness beneath the intertwined branches of the high canopy and bade its integrator remain on standby. From the toolbay he extracted a folding seat and a multifaceted viewer. He found a level spot between the massive boles of two black deodars and settled himself. He instructed the viewer to observe the vine-shrouded tumulus that had once been the Summer Pavilion of Grand Minthereyon and to awaken him if anything of note should occur. Then the fat man rolled the travel-stiffness from his shoulders, stretched his flesh-padded arms, and fell into a light doze.

  The sun was a half-disc bisected by the tree-serrated horizon west of the estate when Imbry brought the carryall down near the north boundary of Grand Minthereyon. He disengaged the drive and stepped out into a silence broken only by an evening breeze that stirred the flagrantha trees within the wall of the estate, but after he had stood motionless and listening for a short while, the hum and rustle of insects and small life revived around him. From the toolbay he took a harness that he swiftly strapped on over his torso. He individually checked each of the devices hung from the harness attachers or snugged into its pouches. All were in working order, as he had expected; but he reminded himself, as he always did at this point in an operation, that if an item of equipment was going to fail, the best time to discover that fact was before one's life, limbs, or liberty depended on it.

  His inspection completed, he unfolded a headpiece and slipped it on over his eyes and ears. Immediately, his senses sharpened and broadened. He applied his augmented perceptions to the wall and determined that it was unguarded. A nearby small gate, however, showed a flutter of energies sufficient to deter small creatures from passing through its bars. That fact confirmed what Imbry had suspected: that at least some of the estate's wardens and watchers remained active; the place might have been abandoned for millennia, but the social upper tier of Old Earth had never stinted when providing for their own comfort and security. What they bought was meant to last.

  Imbry tasked another device with analyzing the forms and frequencies of the fields and beams around the gate. It extrapolated from that information the types likely to be encountered beyond the wall and prepared itself to intercept any such inquiries and return innocuous replies. As far as whatever sentience remained in Grand Minthereyon could tell, Imbry ought to register as a large moth flittering through the twilight.

  The fat man now retrieved the case that contained the life mask of Waltraut Voillute. He slipped his feet into assisted footwear, then sprang lightly over the wall, landing silently on the vegetation beyond. Another sweep with his enhanced senses brought no cause for alarm, and he set off at an easy pace for the heap of slag that had been Summer Pavilion.

  His route took him through the part of the estate that had been a garden planted with ultraterrene species of flora and near-plants. He found it interesting to note which species had managed to survive without tending or encouragement in an alien environment. A stand of strangler vine had spread spectacularly, colonizing a bed of meat-flowers and diverting their ample juices through a network of hollow tubules. The walking sticks had also scattered themselves in thick patches. As Imbry passed, they took a few tentative steps toward him, though they clattered back when he made a brusque gesture. But when a fibrous black pod suddenly split open as he neared it, ejecting a hand-sized symbiote that whirred determinedly toward him while deploying barbed thorns whose tips secreted a milky substance, Imbry did not hesitate to draw a hand weapon and incinerate the thing in midair. The action brought an inquisitive probe from some sensor deeper within the estate, but the thief's systems quickly cozened the watcher into mistaking him for a brighter-than-usual firefly.

  Imbry passed beyond the ultraterrene zone and came to a lawn that had been recently clipped and aerated. The gardener that tended the grass was nowhere in sight, but the quality of its work told the fat man that the estate's awareness was not to be discounted. He consulted his own devices again and was reassured. He crossed the lawn, wove his way through what might have been a group of abstract statuary or the elements of an outdoor game abandoned in midplay, then saw through an arched gap in a featherhedge the wall of the pavilion.

  The orange sun was now set, the umber shadows of evening giving way to a purer darkness. The thief paused in the dimness of the archway and regarded the ruin ahead. The pavilion had been made of some light-colored natural stone whose elemental bonds had been internally rearranged so that the builders could whip it into the fanciful curlicues and frothy excrescences that had dominated the architectural fancies of the age. The Archonate cruiser had stood almost directly overhead when it discharged its weapon, so that the energy had melted the roof and top floors, causing them to run down the lower sides of the building like gobbets of candle wax. The gardener would have had no instructions regarding the pavilion and had therefore ignored the plant life that had inserted itself into crevices and cracks, so that creepers and hard-hangers now grown as thick as Imbry's not inconsiderable waist covered the walls in an impenetrable tangle.

  Not that the fat man intended to penetrate the vegetation. The maze below the pavilion had had several entrances, one of which ought to be at the center of a flagstoned patio ringed by a low half-wall of black stone a short distance from where he stood. His augmented senses pierced the darkness without difficulty. The little plaza was where it was supposed to be. A moment later he stepped over its knee-high wall and scanned the pattern of its bicolored, checkered floor. It matched the results of his researches.

  Imbry set down the leather case and drew out the mask. He removed his sensory net and lowered the globe over his head, felt its systems engage. Now he was looking at the little patio through Waltraut Voillute's eyes. Her voice spoke inside his head, a wordless syllable of surprise that slid toward melancholy.

  "It hasn't changed," she said.

  "The estate's systems remain functional," Imbry said, aloud but softly.

  "That will be helpful," she said. "They should respond to my commands."

  "But it also means that the inimical capabilities will be undiminished."

  "Then you must step carefully."

  "Indeed," said Imbry, "but exactly where?"

  "This way," she directed him, turning her gaze toward the edge of the plaza nearest the pavilion. Imbry cooperated, turning his head so that they were both looking that way, which brought the ruin of the building before their shared perception. Again sh
e made a sound within his head, but this time it was an expression of shock and regret.

  "None of us ever saw Grand Minthereyon again. The Archon forbade it," she said. "I had no idea. It was so beautiful, rich in fey charm. Now it is only...sad."

  "It has been a long time," Imbry said. "But let us concern ourselves with the now and the immediate task."

  "Yes," she said. "Look down, let me guide our eyes. There. Step on the dark square, twice and quickly." Then, when Imbry did as he was bid, she said, "Now that one, once, then step over the next. Then one to the left, tap it three times."

  As the fat man finished the sequence, he heard a heavy dragging of stone over stone. A portion of the floor subsided, then slid into a concealed recess, revealing a narrow flight of stone steps. "Go down," the remnant said. "It will light your way."

  Imbry stepped into the dark hole. As his foot touched the first step, a pale illumination arrived from indirect sources. The stairs gradually curved, their bottom out of sight. "Are there defenses?" he said.

  "Not before we reach the door. And I know the pass-safe."

  "Then here we go."

  The steps wound down, farther than Imbry had expected. He realized that they would be entering the labyrinth below its uppermost floor. Before he had reached the bottom, he heard from above the sound of stone passing over stone, followed by a click. The entrance concealed in the patio had closed over them.

  As if she read his thoughts, Waltraut Voillute said, "You must trust me."

  "Yes," said the fat man, "I must."

  His descent brought him shortly after to a narrow landing beyond which stood a door of black metal, figured with a pale lozenge that enclosed the arms of the House of Voillute. "Touch the diadem in the upper right corner," came the mask's instruction, "then the goblet in the lower left. Now, tap each of the drops of blood dripping from the severed head, starting at the top."

  Imbry did so and the door divided itself vertically, the two halves withdrawing into the wall. Ahead was blackness, but the air that issued from the opening smelled fresh. "Say, ' Abide, persist, endure, '" the mask advised him. It was the Voillute motto, and when Imbry spoke the words in the voice of the Dominance Waltraut, light filled the doorway, revealing a broad corridor whose cream-plastered walls were hung with alternating portraits and landscapes. He stepped within.

  "Welcome, Dominance," said a voice from the air. "How may I serve?"

  "You recognize me?" Imbry said, in the ghost's tones.

  "I recognize your essence, Dominance."

  "And it is sufficient to command your obedience?"

  "I am not authorized to make a distinction," said the labyrinth's integrator.

  "Are your capabilities intact?"

  "To the best of my knowledge, Dominance."

  "Then let us see how we go."

  Imbry glanced at the paintings as they proceeded along the passage. None of them caught his interest; he judged that they had been acquired to suit their collector's idiosyncratic taste, not with an eye to their mercantile value. Aristocrats scarcely considered price when pursuing their hobbies; it was all the same to most of them whether they collected exquisitries or oddly shaped vegetables. Harnessing will to the satisfaction of whim was the aim of the exercise.

  For Imbry, practical issues always predominated. He had known a few members of his own profession for whom the act was more rewarding than the item gained. They were addicts who craved the surge of life-energy evoked by the risks that were inherent to the craft of thievery. Imbry had not known any of them long, however; like any addict, they must increase their drug to experience the same stimulus, but raising the risk inevitably decreased the margin for error. One day the hand of a Brustram Warhanny fell upon the shoulder, or the defenses surrounding some prize overcame the thief's inadequate precautions. Then came, at best, the miserable passage to dine at length with the Archon, at worst, the sudden agonizing transformation of the flesh into lumps of malodorous char.

  Such would not be the fate of Luff Imbry. He cultivated a deep aversion to risk and preferred his operations to go, as they almost always did, without the sudden appearance of the unexpected and the unwished for. He was content with the course of the present proceedings, despite the entry into his plans of the Archon's ancient integrator and the Bureau of Scrutiny. Now all he wished was to make his way to the chamber that contained the Bone Triptych, seize it, and be gone.

  They came to a ramp and climbed. The way ahead automatically flooded with illumination, while what was behind them plunged back into darkness. At the top of the incline was a wide, irregularly shaped chamber from which led five vaulted exits. The ghost turned her gaze toward the second from the right and said, "That way." Imbry pushed on.

  Concealed lumens brightened to light a short corridor that brought them almost immediately into a round room that also offered five outlets. Waltraut Voillute unhesitatingly chose the first on the left and, moments later, after traversing another temporarily lit passage, they came into an octagonal space, the walls covered in a shiny blue fabric into which were woven fantastically complex scenes of town and country, populated by both the high and the humble, who were engaged in pursuits that ranged from the mundane and public to, courtesy of a peek through an open window high on a palace wall, the most sophisticated and private.

  Imbry saw no exit. He waited for the ghost to indicate the next step, but found his eyes being drawn by hers toward one of the panels. It depicted a trio of long-haired, flop-eared dogs romping with a little girl in a pleasure garden. The fat man crossed the floor and squatted so that his gaze was level with the smiling face of the child. He waited, while the essence of Waltraut Voillute studied the image. After a while, he put out a finger and pressed the embroidered cloth, saying, softly, "What do I do? Is it a hidden door?"

  "Please do not touch the fabric, Dominance," said the integrator. "It is aged and delicate."

  Imbry withdrew his hand. The mask did not answer him. "Well?" he whispered.

  "This was my favorite place," her voice said in his inner ear. "I was the model for this part of the tapestry. These were my pets, Aluel, Florn, and Budro." She made a small sound of affection and loss.

  "We must move on."

  "A few moments. What you seek has waited so long; it can wait a little more."

  It was one of the fat man's rules that he would remain on the scene of an operation no longer than it took to execute his plan. Every minim more than the minimum was a betting chip offered to fortune, and eventually fortune would push forward its stack and call Imbry's bet. "There is no time for self-indulgence. We must go."

  "Oh, my," teased the voice in his inner ear, "who's a timid thief?" She sounded like the girl in the image.

  "Not timid. Careful."

  "Let me linger."

  "What means more to you," Imbry said, "a picture on a wall or reunion with Charan Broosh?"

  Before she could answer, the integrator spoke. "Pardon, Dominance, but it is forbidden to speak that name."

  "Speak to it," said the voice in Imbry's head. "Say that it forgets its place."

  "Let us move on," the fat man said.

  "I will not be spoken to like that, and by a device."

  In the privacy of his mind, Imbry addressed a number of comments to Waltraut Voillute that she would have found even less acceptable. It occurred to him now that he might well lack sufficient understanding of how essences interacted with the world. Perhaps it was ill-advised to take them to their previous haunts. If so, this was possibly the worst place on Old Earth in which to discover why. He stood and said, softly, "We must not remain here."

  She was still waiting for him to reprove the integrator. "Speak to it, or I will lead you in circles until your legs fail."

  "You swore an oath."

  "Oaths sworn by essences are not binding."

  Imbry realized he had no choice. There was no way out or forward save through the increasingly unreliable remnant. "Integrator," he said, hearing her voice issue
from the mask, "I will not be spoken to in that manner."

  "Again, Dominance," the device said, "I beg to be pardoned. I spoke only as the Lord Syce bid me."

  Prompted by the ghost, who still sounded like a petulant girl-child, Imbry said, "It has been more than four thousand years. The Archon's prohibition may be considered to have lapsed."

  "Pardon, again," said the integrator, "but the ban on that name was issued by my Lord Syce, and has been frequently renewed."

  A chill went through the thief. He disregarded the ghost's rising rancor and used the mask's voice to inquire, "Approximately how frequently has it been renewed?"

  "Approximately," said the voice from the air, "one hundred and forty-seven million times."

  With effort, Imbry kept an airy tone. "And the most recent occasion?"

  "Yesterday morning."

  "We must get out of here," Imbry said, for Waltraut Voillute's benefit.

  "Why?" came her answer.

  "Because," the fat man whispered, "either the integrator has fallen prey to the 'vagues'"—he referred to the debilitating condition that could affect elderly integrators that lacked enough activity to keep their processes fresh—"or we now know where your grandfather's essence is."

  The integrator spoke. "Dominance, I assure you that I am in optimum condition. I am, however, concerned by the, shall we say, unusual content of your remarks. I have thought it appropriate to summon His Potence, Lord Syce."

  Imbry turned toward the portal that had admitted him to the eight-sided chamber, just in time to see the exit closed by a barred portcullis that descended swiftly and silently.

  "He will arrive shortly," said the voice from the air.

  THE MOMENTS dragged by, the room silent except for the sound of Imbry's own breathing reflected by the mask back into his ears. He had not noticed it before. The ghost of Waltraut Voillute had fallen silent, like a young girl whose naughtiness has incurred her grandfather's displeasure and who waits for his reproof. Imbry was glad of the respite; it gave him the leisure to anticipate what might be about to confront him, and to attempt to form strategies to meet the likely options.