The Octagonal Raven

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  Another figure — a tall pre-select stood from near the back row. “For what it may be worth, I’d like to support the advocate who wants change in management. There’s been enough autocracy in UniComm.”

  Unfortunately, that was something I couldn’t deny, but I didn’t have to address it.

  People began to pop up here and there.

  “… trying to ruin a perfectly good multilateral …”

  “… enough of family dynasties …”

  “… ten years of declining market share is enough …”

  I just sat and smiled, and listened. It was obvious enough to me to see who had been coached by the PST team and who were those speaking their own thoughts. The coached ones were smooth, and each brought up a different point, and all came back and hammered on the declining market share.

  As I sensed the debate was winding down, I went back on the link to Majora. “I’d like to meet with Nyere after the meeting, if someone could arrange it.”

  “I’ll see what we can do.”

  “Thank you.”

  Nasaki stepped back up to the podium. “Are there any other points of discussion?” He paused and surveyed the audience. “Seeing none, the question is on the motion to remove the existing acting director general. A ‘yes’ vote is a vote to remove. A ‘no’ vote is a vote to confirm acting Director General Alwyn as director general until the next general meeting of stakeholders. You have five minutes to record your vote.”

  The Federal Union auditor joined Nasaki and took possession of the console as the votes began to register.

  For a moment or so, I watched everyone. Diera D’Ahoud smiled at me, and I wondered how many shares she was voting.

  Then I voted my bloc and waited until the voting was over.

  Nasaki looked over the results, and his eyes widened. “The results are as follows. In favor of the motion to remove present management, forty-four point three percent. Those opposed, fifty-five point seven percent. “The motion is defeated, and Director General Alwyn is confirmed.”

  “Congratulations, Director General,” offered Drejcha quietly.

  Nasaki surveyed the hall once more. “The business of the special meeting having been concluded, the meeting is adjourned.”

  I turned to Tomas Gallo. “Thank you, counsel.” Then I addressed Brin. “Thank you, Brin. I have a meeting now, but we should get together later this afternoon.”

  “Yes, ser.”

  I couldn’t help but overhear some of the comments from the seats below the stage.

  “… how did he do it?”

  “… EDA Trust sold out to him …”

  I just smiled and nodded to those remaining before making my way back to the office that was mine — at least until the next general meeting in November.

  Majora was waiting in the office with Aloys Nyere.

  I inclined my head slightly to the dark-skinned counsel of the Society of Dynae. “I appreciate your comments, and your willingness to take the lead in the debate against the PST group.”

  Nyere studied me for a long time. “They say you were an interstellar pilot, and a good one. I can see why. You had the votes from the beginning, didn’t you?”

  “Yes, but I needed to see what was out there.”

  “Did you?”

  “I saw enough.”

  “I’m certain you did. Will you tell me what you plan with UniComm?” His dark eyes twinkled.

  “I could tell you that we’re a hardworking team, and that we’ll reclaim market share.” I laughed. “We won’t, not immediately, because I have to fix a few things, but I’d be very surprised if we didn’t make a sharp turn-around by about a year from now.”

  The advocate for the Dynae raised his eyebrows.

  “If you’re asking about our approach to various matters, all I can say is that Mertyn Rosenn was my teacher, and I learned a great deal from him, and I intend to repay that debt.”

  “You knew?”

  “I found out about two weeks ago. I might have discovered it earlier, but it happened while I was in the medcenter. A wall fell on me, instead falling off a cliff. I was luckier.” Not wanting to spell it out, knowing that even within UniComm the walls had ears and not all the ears were friendly, I hoped he understood.

  Nyere nodded. “I fear interesting times lie ahead for us all.”

  “They do, but I intend to do what I can.”

  He bowed. “I won’t impose on you more, Director Alwyn, but I do appreciate your taking the time to speak with me. If I can do anything for you or for your assistant, please do not hesitate to let me know.” His smile was genuine.

  “We will be working on a project where perhaps your knowledge and expertise might be valuable.” I returned the smile. “It may be a few days before we’ll know.”

  “As I said, we would be happy to work on efforts of mutual benefit.”

  I understood the parameters. “I would not ask otherwise.”

  He bowed, and I bowed again, and then he departed, like a silent shadow.

  “You have a friend,” Majora said.

  “Not exactly. He’s a friend because Mertyn was my friend.”

  “They’re not going to be happy,” Majora said.

  “Deng, TanUy, and the rest of the PST group? No … not at all. We’ll need to get moving, first thing tomorrow.” I needed word to get around UniComm.

  * * *

  Chapter 64

  * * *

  The words of poets distill truth, though their lines may be terse or florid, short or long, and those lines left in dusty tomes, few of which have ever been converted to electrons and bright screen images. For, after all, all they offer is the truth of the past, and the future differs from the past. It must, must it not?

  And yet …

  Is a great disorder an order? One poet claimed such, but few read his words a generation beyond his death.

  Another claimed that old violence was not too aged to lead to a new order.

  Yet another claimed that men are hollow, and proved he was more so than most, while fretting about the intolerable wrestling of words and meaning.

  A soldier poet insisted that death made foreign fields a corner of home … forever Anglian … forever revered.

  Then there were the lines of a ridiculed poet, for he was a militarist, who pointed out all too accurately that our end comes not from staves nor swords, but through the power of small corroding words.

  Yet another claimed that time was indifferent to all physical achievements, but worships language.…

  For all their truths, truths that continue to apply, observations that will outlast dusty tomes, forgotten on archive shelves, why are all the great poets forgotten, unread, unheard?

  Because words alone offer truth, a truth betrayed by images flashed upon a million eyes a moment? Because truth takes more than an image and a moment?

  Personal Notes

  * * *

  Chapter 65

  Kewood

  * * *

  I found myself pacing back and forth in front of the cherry wood desk, glancing through the open nanite-screened barrier to the indoor courtyard, brightly lit by a morning sun set in a cloudless sky.

  Reacting … that was all I was doing … reacting to everyone else’s moves. Reacting to the situation Elora had set up … and to what Eldyn had done … even to what my parents had done years before. And to Elysa’s efforts at Kharl’s party.

  I smiled, not at the thought of Elysa, but because I’d finally reached Kharl, and learned he, at least, was on the way to a full recovery. I hoped I’d fare as well, but I needed to start acting and stop reacting. Even my handling of the stakeholders’ meeting had been a reaction. Then, was everything?

  What did I want? I laughed, softly. Even that was a reaction, because I would be acting based on what I’d been and seen, and the people I’d known and who had influenced me, from my parents to Mertyn, and now because of Majora and Eldyn.

  Perhaps a better question might be to ask what I d
idn’t want.

  I didn’t want a world ruled by a mob, nor one ruled by a handful of people who embodied my father’s worst characteristics and none of his best. I half-wondered if Gerrat had been tacitly involved in one of the plots. From what I could see, he certainly fit the mold of those identified by Eldyn, but I supposed I’d never know. The fact that Elora hadn’t trusted him wasn’t exactly in his favor.

  First off, I needed to make sure that what Elora had done didn’t get undone. So … there was the obligatory call to Anna Mayo.

  She was in.

  “Anna … I need you to revise some legal papers.…”

  My solicitor looked slightly less harried, perhaps because the latest pre-select plague had died out relatively quickly, as it should have with such virulence. “What did you have in mind?”

  “I want a trust and a trustee, set up in the event of my death. Half my estate — and that’s half of everything — to the trustee, the rest split evenly among Gerrat’s children and the children of Rhedya’s brother Haywar, but voting control of all my stocks to remain with the trustee for the next forty years. If anything happens to the trustee, the secondary trustee will be the general counsel of the Society of Dynae.”

  “The Society of Dynae?” Her mouth opened.

  “You’ve got it. I want some insurance for me and the trustee.”

  “I can do it Are you sure …?”

  “I’m very sure.” I paused. “The primary trustee will be Majora Hyriss.”

  Anna nodded, as if that were one of the few points she found agreeable. “She would be a good choice. What took you so long?”

  “I’m not sure she knows. That’s another thing I need to unscramble, and that’s also why the Society of Dynae.”

  “She’s not …”

  “No, but most people would rather have her than the Society, and probably me more than her.” That’s what I was hoping, anyway. “How long will it take? This is urgent.”

  “If it’s urgent … how about four o’clock?”

  “I’ll be there.”

  “I’d better get on it.” After a quick and professional smile, she was gone.

  Then there were a few more items to take care of, from reviewing personnel in UniComm to checking out marketshares and the offnets I’d need to use before long.

  Then I had to get back to outlining the “new” strategy for UniComm.

  I didn’t want to think about what else I was forgetting.

  * * *

  Chapter 66

  Kewood

  * * *

  Even before Majora arrived in my office at three-thirty, I was ready to go.

  Her eyebrows lifted as she saw the leather portfolio in my hand.

  “I’ll be back. Would you mind walking out to the glider with me?”

  She smiled. “Since I’m your special assistant, on company time, I walk where you want.”

  I returned the smile, wishing I could find a way to say what I really wanted to say. “Let’s go.”

  We walked out of the office and down the ramp, without saying a word. I’d been doing that too much, far too much.

  Once we were at the end of the stone steps, I stopped and looked at Majora. “I have a favor to ask of you. Another one.”

  “Ask … and you shall receive. Isn’t that the way the words go?” That half-impish smile crossed her face, the expression that seemed so at odds with her statuesque appearance.

  I shook my head. “It’s hard to ask … for me.” I swallowed. “Bear with me … please. I was going to ask you to be the trustee of all that I have, but then I realized that was because I love you and trust you, and that I’ve never told you that. So …” I moistened my lips. “I have to ask another question first. Will you marry me?”

  “Yes. I will.” Her deep brown eyes met my eyes, and after a long moment I bent forward and kissed her. Then I put my arms around her.

  Her arms were around me, almost as quickly.

  After a very long embrace, we eased back, still holding each other.

  “You’re not the type to ask, either, are you?” I said quietly.

  Her lips twisted into a lopsided smile. “Why do you say that?”

  “It takes one to know one.”

  She laughed, and then our arms were around each other once more, if briefly.

  “Does this mean I can’t be your special assistant?”

  “You’ll always be.… No … you’re more than any assistant, but still very special.”

  “Sweet words.”

  “For a very sweet lady with a cynical surface.”

  “Why now?”

  I understood. “Because … well … you always look for the right moment, and the right words, and life sometimes doesn’t provide either. Or, I guess, because I’m not good at creating special moments like that, and I realized that if I waited around, all I’d do would be lose you … again, and I wasn’t about to gamble on getting a third chance.”

  “I’m glad you didn’t wait.”

  Reluctantly, we walked, hand in hand, to my glider, its shimmering surface dusty in the afternoon sun of early summer.

  “We’ll talk about the time when I get back. I didn’t tell you, but I need to see Anna about some legal things. I’m trying to set up matters so that people have a certain incentive to keep me around.”

  “I’d like that very much.”

  “So would I.”

  “Be careful. Please be very careful,” Majora urged me as I slipped into the glider. She squeezed my hand before releasing it.

  “I will be.”

  The way matters were going, especially after Majora’s warning, I made sure all the glider systems checked, and I also made sure the restraint harness was snug and that the canopy was locked closed.

  I hoped I didn’t have to use the glider to take advantage of the special ways in which I’d rebuilt it, but I liked the thought that I could. Most people didn’t realize that a glider was a simplified and limited orbital lifter, linked and heavily limited, for the simple reason that, as I’d discovered in pilot training, most people couldn’t handle it. Even for me, it had taken work — as well as some very special microtronic boards and a full gyro system.

  As I eased the glider out from between the last of the redwood trees and onto the main guideway, I realized that I’d never asked Majora about being trustee. Somehow I doubted that she’d object.

  I’d scarcely gone a klick when a silver-gray glider appeared behind me, moving closer, far too close to be on automatic guideway control.

  There was a crackling sound, and I could feel heat on my neck. Another laser?

  I glanced back, but could see nothing, except the darkening of the rear of the canopy. I eased the inductors up. Momentarily, the distance between the two gliders widened, and the heat slacked off.

  I kept accelerating, but almost immediately the automatic speed overrides cut in and the alert wailed. So did another alarm, the one that signaled I was losing solar cells.

  Sometimes, safety precautions were a real danger.

  I reached down to the hidden panel on the side of the seat and flipped off all the overrides, and accelerated again, noting I was gaining ground all too quickly on a blue glider up ahead.

  Monoclones — even duoclones — didn’t have the ability to guide gliders, except perhaps on automated guideways. Nor to carry FS-type lasers. So my pursuers were real people, and there were probably two — one to operate the glider and one to range and discharge the laser. Why a laser? Simple. Tuned to the right frequencies, the skytors would pick up nothing of interest, except the growing temperature of my glider — not until my glider piled into something or exploded in flame.

  As the gray glider moved toward me again, and another line of energy focused on the rear of the glider, I checked the opposing guideway, then banked the glider into a reverse turn, one far sharper than a standard glider could manage, hoping that the maneuver would gain me some distance.

  It did, but not too much.

&nbs
p; I eased the glider farther above the guideway, not all that much but so that I had more ground clearance. Then I clicked the last stud, and forced the wheel, now a stick controller, almost into my lap, concentrating on maintaining heading absolutely.

  Looping an orbital lifter is frowned on … but there weren’t any prohibitions against looping a glider, because as delivered they couldn’t be looped. I didn’t like the idea, but I liked being cooked less, and while I could have lifted my glider like a flitter, and taken off over rougher terrain, the result would have been the escape of those trying to kill me … or embarrass me … and a citation for use of an unlicensed flitter.

  In less than seconds I was screaming down behind the gray glider.

  I slewed my glider-flitter sideways, scrambling both the ground effect and the magfields of my pursuers, and using the magfields and the ground cushion to drive the gray glider sideways, right off the guideway and toward the bordering redwoods.

  Then I applied full power and squirted out from under the branches. Something might have scraped, but I was clear.

  Behind me, the out-of-control glider careened toward a heavy tree trunk, one that should have crumpled it thoroughly, although most of my attention was on the task of lifting my own glider away, turning to set back down on the opposite guideway, heading in the direction I’d originally chosen. Although I wasn’t sure what might happen, I wasn’t prepared for the violence of the explosion after the gray glider slammed into the redwood.

  My glider was buffeted, but that was all.

  I shook my head. Someone certainly didn’t want any witnesses left. Again.

  And I still needed to get to Kewood proper and Anna.

  I kept studying the readouts and the guideway, but no one appeared, not a CA glider or another pursuer. My breathing was still a bit ragged.

  Once more, the pattern was all too clear. Put me in a position where there was no obvious danger, as seen by an outside observer and where I well might have to break some law to survive. While I was licensed to fly or drive anything, the glider wasn’t, and in my current position, the news coverage would have been brutal — led by OneCys. And, of course, no one would ever have found the pair with the laser, and there would have been absolutely no evidence to support my story.