Loralynn Kennakris 4: Apollyon's Gambit

by Owen R. O'Neill

  She appended a contact report of her meeting with Lieutenant Lev Anson. It contained nothing sinister or even unusual, but the service liked its officers to be tidy about such things. The fact that it concerned the scion of an important colonial family—ex-colonial family, Kris corrected herself—made it only slightly more interesting. Somewhat in spite of herself, Kris had to admit that she rather liked the young lieutenant; that he was charming in his eccentric way. It was clearly an act, but it was a decent act and there was something to be said for that. She had no doubt he would act equally well if required fit in at the most urbane and stuffy Home Fleet gathering. But his admiration for Major Lewis was genuine, if somewhat boyishly enthusiastic. Kris, although knowing nothing of the major’s predilections, thought the two of them might actually get on well: they had something of the same cockeyed sense of humor.

  As she sealed the memo with her signature and consigned it to the network, Kris considered the propriety of suggesting to Mr. Loews that Lieutenant Anson be invited to the match between Vasquez and Minerva Lewis, now three days away. The admiral would probably object and he’d certainly be well within his rights to decline any such request, but she didn’t think he would go so far as to refuse Loews a diplomatic and personal favor.

  Loews would undoubtedly applaud the idea. He had been eloquent in asserting that it was high time that Iona and the League reached a reasonable accommodation; that their shared interests outweighed their differences, and while there were critical issues, they were not insurmountable to men of imagination and principle. Loews was naturally expected to say such things, but Kris felt that he honestly believed that there was no one he could not convince of the essential rightness of his position (whatever it might at that moment be) if he could only get them in a room and talk to them for awhile. And inviting the other side to this kind of social event was just the sort of thing that went far towards establishing the collegial atmosphere that Loews could turn to his advantage.

  But Loews, as Admiral Rhimer had said, had not a military mind. In truth, he seemed to view the military as a sort of necessary nuisance; something with which the reasonable man might threaten (regretfully, of course) an implacable and unreasonable party to get them to come to their senses, without any real appreciation of how the military did its job (once men like Loews had failed in theirs, Kris could not help mentally adding), or when a military solution was feasible and when it wasn’t. That responsibility seemed to have devolved to Kris under the broad rubric of “appreciating the situation.”

  Despite some vague misgivings, Kris could not see how Iona would benefit from a visit to Polidor’s hanger deck, the place where the match was to be held. And although she was mostly ambivalent to politics, she had come to see that the Ionian situation was an inconvenient distraction to the business at hand—defeating the Halith—and that there might be something in Loews’ approach. Besides, the Ionians, with their live-fire exercise, had done their bit to cause her some concern, and Kris was not at all against returning the favor. Having them observe the major and the corporal in action might answer fairly well in that regard.

  She dictated a brief email to the Envoy requesting an audience of five minutes. The response, commendably prompt, told her that the Envoy would shortly be traveling downside again—a reception at the home of the Commerce Secretary to which Kris was not invited—and if Kris chose to accompany him on the shuttle flight, he would be glad to give her five minutes somewhere along the way.

  Kris did so choose, but the promised five minutes were not forthcoming. As they approached the landing zone outside the Secretary’s official residence in a posh government enclave on the north side of Caernarvon, Iona’s capital, Loews apologized, managing to be both profuse and offhand at the same time. Details, endless details, he explained; he was not the master of his time; he regretted any inconvenience. He would try to accommodate her on the trip back.

  Thus Kris ended up cooling her heels on portico of the Commerce Secretary’s residence, along with the other guest’s drivers, some orderlies and aides, and a carefully nondescript batch from IPS, Iona’s planetary security forces. She reflected wryly that she was now in an Ionian city, but had still not set foot of Ionian soil: Caernarvon was a kilometer or more above the ground. Kris had been told that the Ionians did not build cities on their planet’s tectonically overactive surface; they floated them over massive piezoelectric matrices that harnessed the crust’s restless nature to power massive antigrav units. Only in recent years had the residents starting building specially designed dwellings on the ground, mostly the younger set who considered it ‘sporting’ to ride out an earthquake. Sensible people keep to the cities.

  The spectacle of a floating city was one thing seen on a display screen and quite another seen up close. Kris had spent relatively little time in cities of any size—her home colony had none—and to encounter a flying one required some adjustment. The city’s foundation was a shallow bowl like an amphitheater, if one could imagine an amphitheater 80 kilometers across, and the buildings and causeways within were arranged and colored so that, from the air in the noon light, Caernarvon resembled a great mandala.

  Like a mandala, the city was divided into four districts surrounding a central industrial complex; largely automated and fed by the municipal fusion plants, three tall featureless spires the color of polished bone, that also supplied the city grid and could provide auxiliary power to the antigrav units, should it ever be needed. The government complex made an eye in the middle of northern quarter, with the capitol building as the unwinking pupil; whoever the city designers were, they had a taste for heavy-handed symbolism.

  High government officials, honored ex-officials and various dignitaries lived in neoclassic mansions on the brow to the north of the eye; a structure, elevated some 100 meters above the city proper, that was otherwise given over to park land and elaborate hanging gardens. Iona’s well-to-do—powerful landowners and wealthy industrialists; aristocrats in all but name—lived on a similar structure in the city’s southern quadrant, not quite so high and formed in the shape of a lazy eight, the symbol for infinity. Kris could not fathom what the architects had intended by that particular motif, juxtaposed with the eye of government to the north. (The thoughts that presented themselves—an official all-seeing eye, Iona’s infinite vision—did not seem worth pursuing.) Around Caernarvon’s outer walls ran a bell-shaped skirt made of huge titanium plates that directed Iona’s often violent winds up and over the bowl within, sparing the buildings and girding the mandala in gleaming silver. Below the bowl projected the housing for the antigrav units themselves, much like a starship’s keel but vastly more massive, its four pair of outstretched wings (actually heat sinks for the grav plant) lending the whole a touch of grandeur or whimsy, depending on one’s point of view.

  There were over one hundred such cities on Iona, though none of the others were as large as Caernarvon, housing an estimated population, the briefing materials said, of 700 million. That seemed to Kris to be an awful lot of people to crowd into these floating bowls, however pretty they were from a distance, and even here, where green lawn and free air stretched all around she felt cramped.

  It occurred to her only dimly that perhaps it was the sky itself that made her feel cramped; the thin shell of air that separated her from what she’d come to view as her natural habitat. When Iona’s sun set, Cygnus Mariner dipping below the horizon in a fury of brass and amber, and the stars came out she felt better. Iona’s sky was never truly dark—the trio of moons, the great banded bulk of Thetis, and ever present auroral activity ruled that out—but the stars shown forth brightly in spite of all and Kris found she did not object to the sky’s deep purple glow. She watched the sky for awhile, occasionally detecting the glim and flit of a low-altitude satellite, but as a breeze came up and grew chill, she retreated back into the portico and sought out a quiet place to sit.

  The portico’s main feature was an elaborately landscaped replica of a trout stream, discr
eetly lit and stocked—not with trout as might be expected—but with what Kris took to be Japanese koi. The fish had the long, fanciful iridescent fins and ranged from pearl pink told a striking gold, with a few albino specimens whose scales refracted light in delicate rainbows, weighted somewhat heavily towards the violet. Keeping the fish company were a number of turtles with wickedly hooked beaks and polished mother-of-pearl shells whose beady black eyes watched Kris steadily from just below the surface.

  But it was the koi who came swimming over when Kris sat down on the rock ledge and dipped her fingers in the water. They were expecting to be fed, it seemed, and in this they were disappointed, Kris having sampled some of the little orange canapés that had been set out on trays, along with some tiny indescribable balls served in cultured scallop shells, had decided that they were not fit for man or fish. But the fish didn’t seem to hold it against her, one of the pretty white ones going so far as to stand on its head so that Kris could lightly stroke its belly, a charming if somewhat ridiculous display. The fish remained thus for quite some time, blissfully blinking its large curiously shaped eyes. Kris had not been aware that fish were equipped with eyelids with which to blink. She smiled and stroked, watching the gauzy fins undulate in a pattern that was almost hypnotic, very much at peace.

  “Xanthus Polycarp,” Dr. Leidecker said, coming up on her left side. “And a particularly fine specimen too. She seems to like you.”

  Kris snatched her hand from the water, acutely embarrassed at being disarmed by a fish. The fish, for its part, resumed it normal orientation and blinked up at Kris, rather disconsolately she thought, and swam slowly off.

  “There,” Leidecker said, “I think you hurt her feelings.”

  Kris wiped her fingers on her trouser leg. “I hope you’re just pulling my leg, Doctor. It’s just a goldfish, after all.”

  “Not quite just,” Leidecker replied, seating himself beside Kris and trailing his fingers in the water. The koi immediately congregated around them and one, a large gaudy red-and-gold specimen, assumed the head-down position so Leidecker could rub its belly. He smiled and the other fish milled about, perhaps waiting their turn. The white one Kris had been petting stayed some distance away from the others, fins drooping. “Go on,” he said, “put your fingers back in the water.”

  Feeling a trifle foolish, Kris complied. The little white fish immediately turned towards her hand, swam a few inches and then stopped, undecided or reluctant; Kris had no idea which.

  “Wiggle your fingers a bit, like this.” Leidecker demonstrated. Kris wiggled and the little fish came over, presented her belly to her fingertips and the stroking and feelings of peace resumed.

  “You see?” Leidecker said. “They are really quite intelligent. Not on the scale of a cetacean or even a higher primate. Perhaps similar to a very smart canine.”

  “Smart fish?” asked Kris. To be sure, their actions were most unfishlike. “Then don’t they mind being cooped up in this little pond?”

  “Oh no,” Leidecker said, patting his fish goodbye. “They would hardly survive in the wild, you know. They are uniquely adapted to a domestic environment. Pleasant to touch, are they not?”

  “Yes,” agreed Kris distractedly. Her little white fish was wriggling harder now, the equivalent of a fishy smile, perhaps?

  “They’re low-grade empaths,” Leidecker explained. Kris glanced up, forgetting to stroke in her surprise and the fish slapped her with a pectoral fin. She resumed her duty. “Yes,” Leidecker continued, “they were originally engineered to help treat cases of severe pernicious depression. As a dedicated, low maintenance pet that creates feelings of wholeness and self-worth when touched, they are most effective.”

  “I had no idea,” Kris said, continuing to pet her fish who (she thought) was showing signs of being a demanding little hussy. “I thought they used dogs and cats for that.”

  “Oh we do,” agreed Leidecker who’d attracted one of the few large black koi this time. “If truth be told, dogs are easier to work with, being half-emphatic in they natural state—cats less so, except for special personality types—but dogs and cats have extensive personal needs which some patients find difficult to meet, nor are all environments suited to keeping them. Nor do all cultures view them in a positive light, which would cause certain difficulties. In such cases, these Xanthus koi are best.”

  He bid his rotund black fish good-bye with the same parting pat and said, “Nowadays, however, they are more often kept as pets in arrangements just such as this, by those who can afford them. For persons in high-stress occupations having a few Xanthus koi at home can be just the thing.”

  Kris smiled at the thought: coming home from a hard day at the office to pet your fish. It was charmingly ludicrous. She doubted very much that the Service would take to issuing a couple of goldfish to new recruits however, whatever the stress level. Not that it was the worst idea she’d ever heard.

  Her fingers were growing tired and waterlogged. She gave the little white coy—which, though she would admit it to no one, she’d been on the verge of naming Millicent (the name had unaccountably popped into her mind)—the same little parting pat on the nose she’d seen Leidecker use, removed her hand slowly from the water, and Millicent—now stop that dammit!—the fish swam jauntily off to join her fellows, mission accomplished.

  “So what brings you out to visit the menials, Doctor?” Kris asked, watching the fish congregate with the odd feeling that they were gossiping. “I thought the party was still in full swing.”

  “Oh indeed it is,” Leidecker affirmed. “Very full swing indeed. I am afraid I’m not much for these riots. The social animals may preen and flock to great advantage, but not I, I’m afraid. It is a pernicious failing.” He too seemed to be observing the fish. Was he also pondering the nature of fish gossip? For a man who had studied rocks that thought, it was perhaps not such an odd concept.

  Reminded by the thought of thinking rocks, Kris asked, “Have you been able to contact your colleague here? As I remember, you wanted to do some field study in the Southern Continent.”

  “Oh yes, certainly,” the doctor said. “Dr. VelSilinjes. I have emailed her. As yet she has not responded. Not unusual, not unusual at all for a woman with her schedule. I yet hope to make my visit, once these talks get underway, perhaps next week or . . .” His answer trailed off, distracted.

  Kris’s intuition told her that Dr. VelSilinjes’ tardy response wasn’t the cause of his distraction, nor concerns about making his visit nor the fish happily milling about and exchanging odd open-mouthed gestures. No, Kris strongly suspected Dr. Leidecker was worried about Mr. Loews. An unsettling thought. To stave off an awkward silence, Kris asked, “There was something in particular you wanted to investigate, wasn’t there?”

  “Oh yes.” Leidecker looked up and brightened. “You aren’t by any chance familiar with the phyla controversy, are you?”

  “No I can’t say that I am, Doctor.”

  “Well, as you probably know,” began Leidecker, a clear indication that Kris probably did not know, “on Old Earth all life was long held to be encompassed by five kingdoms—I pass over various debates about subkingdoms and infrakingdoms—and within the Kingdom Animalia, any number of phyla. Once, centuries before the War, the number was reckoned at about thirty-five; but some put it as high as fifty-odd. They used primarily morphological methods, you see—much nonsense about the position of the mandibles, number of mouth parts, when in the embryo’s development the mouth appeared. Such stuff! Creatures like acorn worms, which appeared to have traces of a notochord yet whose larval stage linked them to echinoderms, gave them a deal of trouble. Worms in general gave them trouble—still do if truth be told—still many fights over worms.

  “So the number phyla multiplied and multiplied, you see. Nothing for it, given their technology. It was a bloody mess. Then efficient paleogenetic methods were finally developed, allowing us to characterize the evolutionary path of a species’ genome; to determine what exact
ly had given rise to mandibles above rather than mandibles below or whatever, and we found that many of the so-called conserved features relied on to distinguish phyla morphologically weren’t conserved at all—just a lot of stuff really, most of it. The genomes of the ancient fossil orders, it turned out, could result in an almost entirely plastic morphology, especially the bloody worms. Makes sense really: the genome of simple organism can express itself in ways that appear to differ radically—would differ radically in a complex organism—but what does a worm care what shape its head is? Or that it has something that looks very much like gills? A worm is worm is worm, genetically speaking, that is.”

  Here Leidecker paused to check for signs of comprehension, aware that he’d gone on rather longer than he’d intended. “Make any sense to you, does it? Not boring you with this prattle am I?”

  Kris smiled and politely shook her head. Leidecker, reassured, forged on. “Well, when all was said and done, the number of phyla—true phyla, that is, in the modern sense—came down to seven. That is seven basic genomorphologic types: mollusks, arthropods, coelenterates, echinoderms, chordates, sponges, and all those worms.” He paused again. Kris, who heard of the first two and last three, nodded. “Well, in all our studies of xenobiological forms, we have added only one kingdom, the lithomorphs, which have turned out to be quite widespread. There are lithomorphs on Old Earth. For many years they were mistakenly classified as exotic molds or fungi, and in one case as mere corrosion. As for animals, no new phyla have been described at all—all known forms continue to be classified into the seven original phyla found on Old Earth.”

  Kris nodded again, thinking Vasquez—absent Vasquez, who was strongly concerned with her bout three days from now—would profit much more from this discussion.