The Octagonal Raven

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  Elora smiled. “Gerrat and Father always guarded the Gates, so that any approach was obvious. I’ve given you another Gate, and it’s up to you to decide how to use it. I won’t care if you fail; I will be very angry if you don’t try. So … do your best to reclaim the family heritage.” There was another pause. “I’d suggest you also talk to your old friend Eldyn. He could prove helpful. And don’t trust anyone in the family, or in any netsystem.”

  That was it.

  I was now among the powerful and wealthy … and my sister was dead because … why? Because she’d “betrayed” the NEN and OneCys conspiracy? And the offhand reference to Eldyn was anything but offhand.

  My guts churned as I looked through the associated files. Elora had planned this for years. She’d never actually held the thirteen percent of the UniComm stock she’d acquired. Rather a trust, the EDA Trust, held it, with her as the first trustee and me as the beneficiary trustee, and the Federal Union as the tertiary beneficiary. And that meant she had wanted the FU to know something … or be forced to look into something … if anything happened to both of us.

  Forcing a weary and clearly artificial smile, I put in a VR to Gerrat. He took it personally.

  “Have you heard?” I asked.

  “I was about to call you.” He nodded somberly. “It was a shock. We haven’t talked that much in years, but still …”

  “I know.…”

  He shook his head.

  I waited, but he didn’t say anything. So I had to. “What’s going on, Gerrat?” I had to be careful, playing it smart, but not smart enough.

  “What do you mean?” He looked puzzled. He just didn’t look puzzled enough.

  “I get dropped by OneCys with no real reason, especially right after they’ve adopted my work and recommendations. Then … a wall falls on me for no reason, and an induction tube train explodes around Elora. This isn’t exactly normal. And don’t tell me it’s coincidence. It has something to do with UniComm.”

  “I don’t know.” He frowned. “It’s no secret we’ve lost a little market share, but we’ve lost most of it to NEN, despite all the credits that OneCys has thrown into their new offerings. You know that the senior director who was also killed was the one who supported Elora?”

  “No. How would I?” Then, that was Gerrat’s way of telling me. “Sorry. I’m not thinking. That almost makes UniComm look guilty.”

  “Doesn’t it, though? There’s also been a request entered for a special shareholder meeting. That’ll be in forty-five days.”

  “A special meeting? For what?”

  “The request was to discuss and vote on possible management changes. They don’t have to be more specific.”

  “Who filed the request?”

  “Something called the EDA Trust. It holds thirteen percent of UniComm. It’s a private trust, and no one knows who holds it. Then another trust, the PST Trust, filed in support of the meeting. With more than twenty percent of the shareholders requesting it …”

  I didn’t like that, but I asked the too-obvious question. “Is someone trying to take over UniComm? That’s what it sounds like.”

  “It looks that way. Are you going to be there?”

  “Of course.” Unless someone dropped another wall on me.

  “Good. I know you don’t like this sort of thing, but we’ll probably need your votes — unless you’d rather give Father or me a proxy.”

  “I’ll be there, and you can explain what you would like.”

  “Good. Take care of yourself, Daryn.”

  I intended to … if I could figure out how. “You, too.”

  I broke the connection. There was no point in talking longer, not to Gerrat. There never was, not really.

  An attempted takeover didn’t seem enough … but was that because it wouldn’t have mattered that much to me? Or didn’t it matter because I’d never thought of myself as part of UniComm? Had someone been after me, trying to get to me before Elora … or before I knew what was happening?

  That was even more disturbing.

  The next thing was to try to reach Eldyn. I didn’t like that, but I certainly had to try.

  The only thing was that, even though I had a netsys address, nothing happened for a long moment. All I got was a blank screen, before a sim appeared. “I am sorry I’m not available. Please leave a message.”

  The sim didn’t quite look like Eldyn, or maybe it did, but that momentary delay bothered me. So I did some research, and came up with the address for his replicator manufacturing concern. Again … I got a sim, a different sim, with the same message.

  I tried for a physical address, but all I got was a general locator, that of a town in the Central Sinoplex.

  I felt cold. Very cold.

  The answer was clear. Someone had infiltrated Nyhal’s systems, very selectively, selectively enough that my codes, and probably only my codes or a very limited number of codes, were being transferred to a sim. That reinforced Elora’s concerns. She had been worried about something, enough that she was willing to try an outside take-over of UniComm — and referred me to Eldyn.

  That meant she wanted to do something Father and Gerrat opposed, and it also meant her position with NEN had been about to become impossible.

  And the transfers of my calls to Eldyn meant something nasty was going to happen soon, because whoever did it knew that if I kept getting sims, I’d start to get concerned, after a few days anyway.

  Again … I didn’t know why, or at least not what part Eldyn played, although the death of his wife was beginning to make very grim sense.

  I looked out at the East Mountains once more, trying to gather myself together for what had to be done, whether I liked it or not.

  * * *

  Chapter 39

  Fledgling: Kuritim, 445 N.E.

  * * *

  What with one trip and another, including several back to Epsilon Borealis to deliver more nanites to crush the Ardee Rebellion, the two years which I’d extended passed quickly enough — especially since operations officers were busier than senior pilots.

  I’d sent a few VR blocs to the family, as I always had throughout my years in the FS, but didn’t get much back except news on how well Elora and Gerrat were doing, rising and conquering in their respective netsystem domains. Father did send one suggesting that I give some thought to a post-FS career, as much of a hint that he expected me to work in something productive, preferably UniComm, as anything. I told him that I certainly expected to work once I left Federal Service, but that I’d probably travel around Earth for several months, since I hadn’t seen much of it except Kuritim for more than twenty years.

  I was more than ready to start that traveling when the orbiter glided to a halt at the terminal off the Kuritim liftway. Just as I stepped beyond the lock and began to walk toward the terminal, a medtech stepped forward.

  “Subcommander, ser?”

  “Yes?”

  “If you’d come with me?”

  I must have looked puzzled, probably more than puzzled.

  “You haven’t received an augmentation boost, have you?”

  “An augmentation boost? No. Not that I know of.”

  “You’ll need one before you can leave Kuritim.”

  I shrugged. I’d heard something about an augmentation boost, but I’d figured that would come after I’d checked in at personnel. “Lead on.”

  He even had a small cart, and I did ride in style to the medcenter on the north side of the liftway. From what I could tell, Kuritim looked the same. It also smelled the same, with the salt air and the breeze off the Pacific, just tinged with the faint hint of oil and metal. It had looked and smelled the same every time I’d come down for twenty years. I wondered how places like Yunvil were, though.

  A thin, almost gaunt-looking FS commander with the medical insignia on his collar was waiting for me inside the foyer of the west wing.

  “Subcommander Alwyn?”

  “Yes, ser.”

  “Good. You’re a
bout the last. Please come with me.”

  I followed him into an open room, more like a laboratory than an examining room.

  “You were lucky you were off-planet,” commented the doctor.

  I frowned. “The pre-select plague?”

  “That’s not technically correct,” offered the doctor. “Anyway, you’re getting a special set of augmentation nanites, and you’ll be here in the quarantine wing until we’re sure they’re up to strength. Not more than a day or two, but we wouldn’t want you to leave active service and then keel over.”

  I didn’t like that thought at all, and what were a few days, anyway, especially against something like that? “What caused this plague?”

  “Evolution, I suspect,” the doctor said, as he lifted out a container labeled “AGB-1” and studied it for a moment. “Nanites are biological constructs, artificial constructs, but biological in nature. All the bugs on Earth have been evolving for billions of years, and every time we think we have them beat, nature comes up with another surprise. The pre-Collapse medical types thought they’d destroyed pathogenic bacteria with antibiotics, but in the end, all they did was create nastier pathogens with resistance to antibiotics. Nanites are different, and it took nature longer this time, that’s all.”

  I nodded at that, recalling my history lessons on the incredible death rates during and after the Collapse. But still, I had to wonder. “How come this doesn’t hit norms with basic nanite protection? Why only pre-selects and those with full augmentation?”

  “It doesn’t. It takes a certain concentration of old-style augnites. Why? That, I can’t tell you, except I wouldn’t be surprised if there will be another bug that hits anyone with nanite support. Nature eventually works that way. We’ve developed nanitic augmentation, and now there’s a pathogen that feeds off the augnites. The only problem is that augnites aren’t natural biology, and when this pathogen consumes an augnite, it releases excessive heat. The more augnites, the more heat.”

  “That’s what causes the high fever?”

  “Exactly.” He lifted the nanite spray. “Stand in the circle there.”

  I stepped into the circle and felt the cone of positive air pressure rise around me. As the doctor slipped the nozzle into the cone, there was a hiss.

  “Just stay there. It will take several minutes for optimal dispersion through your system.” He replaced the container and extracted a second, but set it on the table beside him. “The problem with the fever, and that’s a natural response, is that nanites resist heat better than most cells in our bodies. To deal with nanites, so do the new pathogens.” He shrugged. “So people, those heavily augmented, tend to get cooked from inside.”

  I winced.

  “You’re right. It’s not very pretty. I’ve seen it.” He picked up the second spray nozzle and slipped it past the air pressure barrier, releasing it with another hiss. “It’ll be another few minutes.”

  “So … what happened … who … how?”

  “I’ve read the literature. Don’t know all the details, but a medical researcher, brilliant norm by the name of Eldyn Nyhal …”

  “Eldyn Nyhal, from Yunvil?”

  “You sound like you know him.”

  “We went to Blue Oak Academy together.” I laughed. Eldyn had always been brilliant, if eccentric with his bright singlesuits, even if he hadn’t been a pre-select, and I had to appreciate the irony of a brilliant norm saving the pre-selects.

  “Anyway, this Nyhal developed a specialized bug — it’s half-pathogen, half-nanite — that takes care of the mutated pathogen.”

  “Good for Eldyn.” I didn’t feel any different, although I knew that millions of nanites were already swarming through my body. “What now?”

  “In a few minutes, I’ll point you toward the quarantine quarters, and you rest. Some people get a mild fever for a day or so. You come back here at thirteen hundred tomorrow and get checked. If your modified augnite levels aren’t high enough, you stay another day or until they are.”

  “And then?”

  “You’re free to go wherever you were headed. It’s for your own protection.”

  “And this virus doesn’t strike norms?”

  “It hasn’t yet.”

  “That’s strange.”

  “Why? They don’t offer as well-defined a target of opportunity.” The doctor nodded. “You can step out of the circle now, Subcom-mander. Follow me, and I’ll point you to your quarters. Your gear should be there by now.”

  “I suppose it got some decontamination treatment, too.”

  “Of course.”

  So I followed him toward the foyer through which I’d entered, still wondering about a plague that targeted only augmented pre-selects, but more than happy that Eldyn and whoever had come up with a preventative measure.

  * * *

  Chapter 40

  Raven: Helnya, 459 N.E.

  * * *

  It was almost twilight when I took out the glider to head north once more, and I left the canopy full closed and the remote repeater off. Still … if someone had been willing to destroy an entire car of an induction tube train to kill Elora, I doubted that they’d have much trouble with a glider — except I was probably the only one who knew — outside of the plotters — that she was the target, and they might not want to make matters too obvious too soon. I could hope.

  Then, no one but the unknown conspirators — and me — seemed to know anything, and what I knew wasn’t all that much. Nor did there seem to be much that I could do. What could I do? There was little I could add to what I’d already brought to the CAs. They hadn’t exactly been all that much help. They still hadn’t come up with anything on the laseflash incident, and that had been three months earlier. They hadn’t had much success in following the explosion in Helnya. At least I hadn’t gotten any notice from the gatekeeper about anything on the news about it, and no CA had called me back. From all I knew, they still thought the incident with the wall was an accident.

  Father and Gerrat hadn’t come up with anything — at least nothing they cared to share with me, and Elora had something, but she hadn’t spelled it out, perhaps because, like me, she hadn’t known enough … and now she was dead. But she had been convinced that something was about to happen, or she wouldn’t have requested the UniComm stakeholder meeting, or set up the transfer of everything to me.

  I tried to come up with other approaches to finding out what was happening and who was behind it all as I guided the glider through the growing twilight to Majora’s, where I’d arrive again unannounced, hoping she was home. Not surprisingly, my thinking and speculating still hadn’t produced any new and brilliant insights.

  Majora was home, and she didn’t look particularly surprised at my appearance on her doorstep. She wore a pale blue singlesuit and a darker blue vest, and she looked wonderful. A scent of roses lingered around her.

  “Hello … again.” I offered a rueful smile.

  “You look like the ancient version of Hades”

  “Can I come in?”

  She stepped back and held the door wider.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t announce myself. I have to trust someone … and I don’t know anyone better than you.”

  She smiled, an expression both warm and sad simultaneously, then closed the door.

  “That sounds awful. I don’t mean it that way. I told you before … I mean that you’re the most trustworthy person I’ve ever met.”

  “Daryn … you don’t have to explain.” She followed me down the pair of steps into the room overlooking the garden. “Would you like some tea … and something to eat?”

  But I did need to explain. “My sister was killed. I just found out.”

  “I know. It was all over the news. I wondered if that was why you were here.”

  “That … and her solicitor contacted me.” I shook my head. “I don’t know how she did it or why, but she had almost as much UniComm stock as Father. It’s all mine, and she’d left a code-keyed message that said if
I got it that I was probably in danger as well.”

  “Maybe people were afraid she would use her stock and her position with NEN to merge NEN and UniComm. From what you’ve said, she was capable enough.” Majora’s frown gave her a foreboding expression, and I instantly decided I never wanted to be on her bad side. “Was that why she was killed?”

  “It could be, but that sort of thing’s usually handled in a bloodless way.” I shook my head. “There’s something else going on.” Except I still didn’t know what.

  “There usually is. Let me put on some tea.” She stepped back up to the up-to-date, yet functionally old-fashioned kitchen, with its modified gas-jet burners and the overlarge oven beneath.

  I stood behind her as she put on an old-fashioned kettle for the tea.

  “I hope you don’t mind. I use the replicator just for emergencies, or when I don’t plan well and run out of time.”

  “Sometimes, I brew my tea. It always tastes exactly the same from the replicator, even with different scans.”

  “Failsafe units … idiot units … you have to program it to disable the failsafe.”

  I could feel myself flushing. I hadn’t even considered that. But then, cooking, even with the help of a replicator, wasn’t my greatest talent.

  “It will be a minute.” She guided me toward the lower level, where we looked out on the garden. She linked with the lights, and the room went dark. “Just wait a moment.”

  I did, and my eyes adjusted, and the spring moonlight poured over the garden. I hadn’t thought of moonlight in a long time.

  “You can sit down, you know, Daryn.”

  “You aren’t.”

  “I will be, as soon as I get your tea, and I will have to use the replicator for something for you to eat.”