by Robin Craig
With his words, Lyssa realized how dreadfully tired she really was. She had dozed and been woken so often that she had fooled herself into feeling it was the normal state of affairs. But now that she was leaning back into comfortable leather in a warm car, with a friendly voice telling her nothing was demanded from her, she could feel her eyelids drooping.
“Thank you, Dr Beldan,” she meant to reply, but she was already asleep.
Beldan continued to drive, thinking furiously. He glanced occasionally at her sleeping form, but it held no answers. What the hell am I going to do with her? She seems so innocent, so harmless. But she has to be lying. Doesn’t she? Those damned Spiders can’t be conscious! So what’s her game? I need to find a weakness. Some lever to prize the truth out of her. He drove on into the darkening sky and his thoughts paused as he admitted what he really feared. And what if the truth is what she says it is?
He hit the accelerator and felt the wind on his car’s shell as if it was his own body flying through the night. But the wind held no answers to the questions or the contradictions that spawned them.
Chapter 35 – Secrets and Lies
Beldan’s headlights glowed along the long driveway toward his house and he thought about the girl asleep beside him. For the entire trip he had wrestled with the problem of how to sift truth from falsehood, when any attempt to test it could tip his hand to the wrong party and he didn’t even know who the parties were. It was like navigating a minefield where the only way to detect a mine was to step on it.
He glanced again at the girl. She was young and beneath her exhaustion and grime, attractive. There was something about her, not in her appearance or her circumstances but perhaps her spirit, which reminded him of Miriam. He thought of the occasions when he had driven home like this with her, in that distant past when they were lovers. He had driven other women home since with a similar motive, but not many, and none serious. There had been no rebound from Miriam that sent him into another woman’s arms for more than a brief affair. However many intelligent and attractive women he had met since, it was if his inner soul was in abeyance. As if it still waited to understand what had happened with Miriam before it could give itself to another in more than a physical act bereft of spiritual promise.
His car’s arrival activated his household systems as it drifted to a gentle stop in his garage. He gently prodded Lyssa’s shoulder. “We’re here,” he said softly, when she opened her eyes. For a moment she looked at him as if she had expected someone else, then she smiled in recognition. “Thank you again, Dr Beldan,” she said. “You are very kind.”
He gave her a rough smile. “Don’t thank me yet,” he warned.
Beldan had servants – he could have had a fully automated house but preferred the human company, and they were as happy to work for him as he was to use his wealth to pay them for it. But he had called ahead to dismiss them for the evening. They would not intrude upon him and his guest this evening.
The passenger door of the car lifted and he extended his hand to Lyssa, helping her out. He smiled at her but it was a strange smile, she thought. Like a smile that shared a secret, but a secret of a different nature from the one she knew and had come all this way to share. You’re imagining things, she scolded herself. You’re tired and confused. Stop seeing shadows.
He led her into the house and sat her at a table. “As I said, we have a lot to talk about. But you look hungry. Eat first. We’ll talk about other things for now.”
She smiled, and allowed him to carry her along. They shared a meal prepared by his autochef and she found it delightful. Whether it was truly delightful or was reaping the benefit of a hunger both chronic and acute she neither knew nor cared. As promised, they did not discuss the issues that hung in the air like an invisible presence, but the trivia of her trip and abstract rather than concrete discussions on science and technology. The only personal note he injected, and the only allusion to the true purpose of the evening, was one question; of all the questions he might have asked it was a strange one.
“In the photos on your holochip,” he had said, “there was one of you with a man. Who is he?”
She had smiled fondly, unable not to talk about that one particular subject. “That’s Charlie. We were going to get married.” She had stopped smiling. “Whether we will, remains to be seen.”
“You love him?”
Nobody could have faked that smile, he thought, when she said, “With all my heart. But either of us could die tomorrow. It’s just… hard. We take each day as it comes.”
He nodded, and did not pursue the subject. Finally the meal ended, and Beldan’s look changed from that of a polite host to one more pointed. So did his voice. “All right, Lyssa. As you have no doubt guessed from the fact I sent Cam to extract you, I’ve seen what you wanted me to see – assuming that what you wanted me to see was a metal killing machine asking for my help.”
Lyssa looked at him, startled by the abrupt change in tone, then nodded.
“Well, the situation might be more complicated,” he said. He had already decided he could lose nothing by revealing this particular ace, for if she was lying she knew it already. “Watch this.”
He waved his hand, the lights darkened, and the recording Sheldrake had provided played in the air before them. Beldan watched the video with one eye and Lyssa with the other.
Lyssa looked on, first with cynicism at the publicity video then in horror at what followed. An odd horror, thought Beldan: not the horror of discovery, but the horror of reliving the already known.
When it was over they were both silent. Then Beldan rewound to an image of the victorious Spider and displayed one from Lyssa’s video next to it. “You see my problem,” Beldan noted harshly. “Those are the same machine: you can tell from that burn scar on the front. You bring me what is frankly, from my knowledge of the state of neurocyborg technology, a very unlikely story. Allied Cybernetics, who make the damn things, give me a totally different story: a rogue machine, probably hacked somehow, off on a killing rampage for God knows what purpose. So what? Are you with the hackers? What’s your game?”
Lyssa was at the end of her endurance. She had been arrested, deprived, starved, rescued, helped, then after insufficient rest now saw her rescuer turn on her. She could feel tears brimming in her eyes and all she could do was shake her head, a few wet drops arcing through the air. No, she thought, I’m too late. They got to him first. There will be no end to the war. Just an end to Kali and probably me too. If she is not already dead.
“No, no, no,” she said finally, head still shaking. “It’s lies. Well, lies and truth, all muddled together. The killing is real. It might even have been her. It’s what they do. I don’t know what your friends in AC told you, but the Spiders are search and destroy killers. Except this one saved me. What she says is true!”
“What my ‘friends’ in AC tell me is that the Spiders are peacekeepers. They fight, but they fight against terrorists and looters.” He looked at her with accusing eyes. “And you’re one of them, aren’t you? You’re Resistance. That’s why you wouldn’t tell Vickie anything about yourself, about where you came from!”
Lyssa paused, caught between the truth of his accusation and the lie of its implication. She nodded and looked him in the eyes. “Yes. But we are fighting for our freedom. We are not terrorists. We don’t target the innocent, though sometimes the innocent get caught in the crossfire. We only target the enemy. And the Spiders are not peacekeepers! They’re killers! What he showed you – that is what they do, all of them, all of the time!”
Beldan’s eyes bored into hers, as if trying to read the truth behind them. Then his mind caught up with something she had said. “‘She’?” he asked. “You called it ‘she’…?”
She nodded again. “She has chosen a female name. Kali, the Hindu goddess of death.” She smiled a grim smile. “I don’t know if she did it out of guilt or irony. I don’t know which of them would be more frightening.”
Beldan stare
d at her in shock. Kali? He remembered Steel’s words: As if she knows something, something dangerous she cannot tell, but which gives her a certainty beyond mere theorizing.
Holy Christ!
Then he shook his head, realizing it proved nothing. The Kali arguing that Spiders could be self-aware and the Kali claiming to be just that were part of the one plot. But was this girl an innocent dupe or in on the plot? A pawn or a knight in the game he had glimpsed? Let’s play and see.
“So what’s your explanation of her fight with the other Spider?”
“I wasn’t there. But from what Kali told me, it detected she was no longer one of them and she had to fight it in self defense.”
“And you? You say she saved you. How?”
“We were out in no man’s land, planning on laying some anti-Spider mines. But it came along doing a search and destroy – their usual search and destroy” she added pointedly, “so we scattered and hid, but it found me. It was about to kill me, but I said something that seemed to stop it in its tracks. Then it went all weird and ended up letting me go.”
Beldan frowned. “Curious. What did you say to it? Do you remember your exact words?”
“I said something like, ‘Please don’t kill me, I don’t deserve to die.’ The words just came out; I was sure I was dead already. But I had to say… something.” She shrugged. “I suppose we all deserve our last words. Our last testament to the universe. I don’t suppose mine were very noble, but somehow they saved me – unless it was just a coincidence. But there was nothing odd about her until then. She was about to slice my head off.”
But Beldan had stopped listening. There was something about the words Lyssa had said, some echo of another story he could not recall; an echo that resonated with Kali’s style of speaking in another way he couldn’t fathom. He shook off the feeling.
He studied the young woman, trying to see behind her lies or illusions to the truth. There was something strange about her story. If the plot was as clever as it must be, her cover story was both too thin and too embellished: too short on plausible details and too long on details that made little sense.
She stared at him, afraid of the look in his eyes but afraid to look away. But he had stopped noticing her. He could not see the point of any of it. He had nothing to do with the Spiders, and surely any group sophisticated enough to take one over would know it. They could not think threatening him would accomplish anything. They could hold a knife to his throat and the makers of the things, his competitors, would laugh and say go ahead. So what could they be trying to achieve? If they wanted his help, why go through this baroque charade to get it? Why not just ask? If the Spiders were as bad as they claimed, not only was he AC’s competitor but simple humanity would motivate him to help them.
And if Lyssa was telling the truth about what she had seen, at least part of AC’s video was a lie. And if they had lied – perhaps their entire story was a lie. What if the hackers, or Kali herself, had not turned a peacemaker into a killer, but a killer into a peacemaker? And AC were not only spinning it to their advantage but using the spin as cover for seeking the destruction of their rogue machine?
“Dr Beldan? What’s wrong?” she whispered at his look, which was both intense and focused elsewhere on some sight only he could see.
What’s wrong is none of it makes sense, you’re the only piece in my hands, and I don’t even know what side you’re on! And I damn well have to find out – whatever it takes.
Let’s threaten one other piece I know about, and see just what you’re willing to sacrifice.
“It’s a hell of a story, Lyssa,” he said mildly at last, relaxing into his chair. “But what do you suppose I can do about it?”
The unexpected calm of his reply following on the heels of his wordless intensity disconcerted her. “I… I don’t know!”
“You came all this way – and you don’t know what you want me to do?”
“Well I… I’m just Kali’s messenger!” The hard look in his eyes was too much for her. After all she had been through, to come this far, only to see it start unraveling before her eyes – again. She blinked away tears, angry at them for their betrayal. Angry at herself for not having prepared a case. Angry at him for being the kind of man who would demand one; angry at herself for failing to realize it, when she knew what kind of country this was and what kind of men ran it. “Sorry. I just thought you’d care. That you’d want to help. That you’d find a way. Kali was so sure…”
“I see,” he said in a voice as hard as his eyes. “Yes, Kali thinks I can find out what freed her, free the others, and end the war.” He laughed, though there was little humor in it. “That’s certainly – audacious. I suppose we should expect that from a war robot. But a very high-risk proposition, legally as well as practically. Legally she is the property of a foreign government; legally all of them belong to either an army in a foreign country or Allied Cybernetics in mine. None of those owners are going to let me close. Kali herself will be destroyed on sight – if not by them then by your own side. And I certainly have no legal excuse to steal one of the things, even if the damn thing wouldn’t shoot me itself for my trouble!”
Lyssa looked away, not wanting him to see her face.
“Still...” he continued speculatively after a pause. “There are avenues we could investigate. Not easy, and certainly not guaranteed. And not without risk – or price.”
She looked back at him, but there was something in his eyes that left the hope in hers stillborn. “I presume your friend Charlie isn’t going to be a problem,” he added nonchalantly, as if this was the continuation of a negotiation unstated but long understood.
She started. “Why should he be?”
“Do you really need me to spell it out?” The look he gave her, by no means restricted to her face, was spelling enough.
In a small, disbelieving voice, she replied, “I think I do.” Oh God, she thought, realizing exactly what her position now was, how far she was from any help. What have I done?
“While the innocent act is amusing,” he continued harshly, “do you think I got where I am by doling out favors to random strangers?”
He continued more softly, silkily, “You must know the traditional price when a common girl asks favors of a prince, the only payment she has in her power to provide. You knew it before you came here.”
She just looked at him wide-eyed, not knowing what to say. The safety she had felt was oozing out from under her feet like sand pulled away by the waves.
“You don’t have to look so scared, I’m not going to hurt you. It is entirely up to you.”
“What do you mean?” she asked in a small voice, a note of hope creeping into the fear.
“You know those puzzles where you have to choose a door? Well, there’s the guest room,” he said, pointing. “Go there and I won’t touch you. You can leave tomorrow, go back where you came from. Back to Charlie and your damn war. Or there’s my room,” he added, pointing. “Go there and I’ll help you. I don’t want you to misunderstand, so let me be perfectly clear. You will be my mistress for as long as this takes. After that you’re free to go.”
He watched her still staring at him, chest fluttering in short frightened breaths. “Is it that hard a choice? Safety or war? Pleasure or death?”
“Please,” she said at last in a whisper. “Don’t do this. Don’t ask this. It isn’t right!”
“You speak of right? You’re the one who came to me. You’re the one who wants me to take a huge risk for little chance of reward and a big chance of loss – at least my money, possibly my freedom, maybe even my life. As far as I can see, all the risk is mine and all the benefit is yours. So my question is what I’d ask anyone. How much do you want it? There is nothing in this world unpaid for, girl; it’s only a matter of who pays it. So choose!”
She found herself standing and backing away from him, shaking her head. She felt the wall behind her, the door to the guest room; touched the plate that opened it. But she stopped,
swaying on the threshold; knowing the price of crossing it, unable yet to pay that price. This man who’d rescued her, whom she had admired, in whom she’d put her hope and trust, was… what? Not evil. Not even cruel. But it was as if when she had opened her eyes in his car she had woken into a world of color and light, only to find it had been a dream and the reality was nothing but shades of dirty gray.
There are some things it is not right to demand of another. A price you can’t properly ask or pay.
“Choose,” he said roughly, in a tone that allowed no further arguments or pleas, only decisions.
Is what he asks such a great thing, that I should throw the future away? Charlie would understand. The thought was like a knife in her belly. He would forgive me. The knife twisted. But the better a man he is, the worse is my betrayal.
Beldan said nothing, his last command still hanging like a curse, held in the air by his implacable eyes.
I would have died if Kali had not become what she is. I would no longer exist, no longer have this terrible power of choice. Can I now choose her death, Charlie’s death, as the price of not selling my body? All he asks is sex. If there is to be nothing left to me now but betrayal, surely of all the betrayals that is the least of them.
She looked at him as if hoping for a reprieve, but she saw nothing but a judge waiting for her to pronounce her own sentence.
If I go home, and if ever I must look into Charlie’s dying eyes, will I think it was worth it? Will I be proud of my virtue then? Or will I curse the day I chose to spit at the piper rather than pay his fee?
Beldan saw the last flash of protest in her face die and her eyes go dull, as if the spirit that animated them had retreated to some dark redoubt where it could no longer be touched. Then she raised her dark eyes to his and swallowed. “All right,” she said hoarsely. “You win. I’ll do it. But swear you’ll help us.” She looked down and began to undo the buttons of her shirt, unable to look at him, hands shaking.