The last thing he did that evening was call Walter Trevany out in the Juggernaut for the latest eavesdropping news from Troy. Major Cobert and all his men were now showing clear signs of Banks & Co.'s condition, and Dr. Farquist had been advised that the entire contingent—Zorken people and the military force—would be moved to a hospital in Lowell before the end of the day for further observation.
Everyone—in Asgard, at Troy, and in Hamil's group—was equally mystified as to who had been in the Airchief that had been driven off at Troy earlier, and what they had wanted. Trevany believed that whoever it was had presumed the camp to be still occupied by the archeological expedition that had been there previously, but it left him none the wiser as to who or why. Kieran had a pretty good idea where the intruders were from and what—or more accurately, who—they had come looking for. Tomorrow morning would be a good time for him to disappear again for a while, he decided.
18
When Kieran checked his mail the next morning, a reply had come back from the communications-expert friend out in the Belt. The frequencies that Kieran had specified for activating the nano-synthesizers were outside the bandwidth of regular phones, so their coils couldn't be pulsed in the way Kieran had proposed. However, a power oscillator circuit associated with the graphics might work, but it would require an external piece of hardware called a multiplex modulator, or "muxmod," to inject the signal into a data channel while the phone was in use. The message detailed several models and wished Kieran good luck. Kieran then called Pierre, who confirmed that he had prepared an additional quantity of the solution as requested. Kieran told him to have it delivered to the room of the "Khal of Tadzhikstan" at the Oasis hotel before the end of the morning. Pierre was beginning to know Kieran sufficiently by now to not even bother asking. Kieran passed on the information he had obtained concerning remote activation of the nano codes via the phone system, along with the details of the muxmod that it would need. Pierre promised to look around and see what he could find.
Kieran showered, shaved, dressed, and downed a snack breakfast from the room's autochef unit, by which time it was close to eight hours after he had set out his four selected lily buds to thaw. He had spaced three well apart around the room and one in the bathroom, so that when he removed the bins covering them, he was able to get a good indication of how effective each had been in dispersing its scent. Samples 1 and 3, although visually undamaged, hadn't worked at all; 2 yielded a strong scent, and 4 a distinct but milder one. He chose 2, consulted his notes for the procedure that he had followed in treating it, and was able to practice more with several fresh samples from the refrigerator before Solomon Leppo arrived. Leppo stood looking around in bemusement at the room's collection of medical gadgets, mutilated flowers, and trash bins. "This isn't from some kind of party you had last night," he decided.
"Don't worry," Kieran told him cheerfully. "We're not getting ready for a funeral. I'm going to give you a crash course on the new science of botanical surgery."
"Surgery? On plants? That's a new one."
"I've just invented it. Then, when you've graduated—which had better be in under an hour, since I've got a lot to do—you'll be performing your new art live this afternoon. Now this is what we're doing. In a room at the back downstairs, they'll be packing delayed-opening flowers that are being sent up to Asgard for the wedding." Kieran picked up one of the sprays that he had saved. "The flowers will include bundles of lilies like these. Follow hard and concentrate on what I'm about to show you, Solomon, my good friend, because there won't be any second chance. . . ."
Kieran demonstrated the technique that he had settled on, describing its purpose, repeating it with several of the lily buds and breaking them open to show Leppo the results. He then had Leppo try his hand, doing it over until he seemed to have the hang of it. Kieran then gave him the syringe, the remaining test liquid, and the rest of the buds. "Take these away and practice until you can get it right every time," he said. "I'll meet you down in the lobby at two o'clock this afternoon. Make sure you've got the syringe with you. We'll take it from there."
"Does anything ever run sane and normal around you for long?" Leppo asked, shaking his head.
"I've let it sometimes, just out of curiosity, but it tends to get boring," Kieran replied. "Piece of philosophy: if any two days of your life are the same, one of them was unnecessary."
The packages from June had all arrived by this time. Kieran spent the next hour using the makeup kit and wardrobe to transform his appearance. When he was satisfied with the graying, brown-eyed, swarthy-skinned patriarch of indeterminate central Asian origins staring back at him from the mirror, he turned his attention to the gift item that she had picked.
It was a carved Martian Cross, cut and polished from a gray-green native rock that Kieran recognized as an igneous type similar to dolomite, found below the red layer—which was essentially a surface feature now generally accepted as having blanketed Mars from an external source some time in the not-so-distant past. The design borrowed elements from the Maltese and Celtic crosses, combining them in a distinctive angular style in some ways suggestive of Navajo sand-pictures. It had originated with one of the religious sects that had come to Mars in the early settlement days, and had since been adopted as a generic symbol of the culture, like the Japanese sun or the Irish shamrock. It was ideal—just what he wanted. The box with it was of a silver alloy inlaid with patterns built from polished grains of variously colored local stones and minerals, some of them quite rare and pricey. Inside, it was padded and lined with a satiny maroon material.
Again more than satisfied, Kieran called Walter Trevany for an update on intercepts from Asgard via Troy. The most interesting snippet was an exchange between Velte and Banks, in which Velte confided that while talking to Marissa down on Mars within the last hour, Hamilton Gilder had told her about the affliction that had broken out among the survey group at Tharsis and their military support unit, and the rumor that it was somehow connected with the ancient builders whose works were being violated.
"She was the influence that got him into all this in the first place," Velte remonstrated. "If Hamilton starts listening to her now, we could get bogged down forever."
"There isn't much I can do from here," Banks grumbled. "I've still got squabbling doctors who can't even agree what it is. Anyway, you're up there with him. I'm not."
"But it's the squabbling doctors that we need to play down," Velte replied. "If anyone checks with you, don't open up that can of worms. Tell them there's no question that a perfectly rational explanation lies behind it all. It's just going to take a little time. If Hamilton goes off on one of his tangents, he'll be throwing wrenches in everywhere."
"Okay, Thornton. You can count on me," Banks promised. But Kieran got the feeling that Banks might be starting to wonder himself now.
"Perfect," Kieran muttered to himself as he cut the connection from Trevany.
Taking the blank card that June had enclosed with the cross, he opened it and penned inside in a flourishing hand:
Let this guardian talisman watch over your future together,
From he who watches the future.
K. of T.
He placed the card on top of the cross, closed the box, and set it to one side. Then he used his comset to compose a message which read:
The most profuse greetings, Marissa.
Your forgiveness if this form of address seems inappropriate from one who has not met you; but then, in a way, I have—on the planes into which our psyches do indeed extend, and where they interact. You may not have become conscious of it yet at your early stage of material life, but you possess rare gifts of insight and understanding which one day will play their part in the further growth and enlightenment of the soul, which is the reason for our Earthly journey.
But I write now on a matter of a more immediate and serious nature, which concerns the disfigurement suffered by your father's agents and their defenders, which he revealed to you today. Your
father seeks the truth, but he is in danger of being misled by those close to him who will never see and cannot believe. The Plague of Akhnaton is a warning from the creators of the ancient mysteries. Empires have fallen, armies have been destroyed, cities crumbled to ruins . . . of those who would not heed.
I have come from afar to instruct you in the workings of the realms that have been hidden, and to beseech your cooperation now, while there is time, before calamity befalls us. I will be arriving before noon.
Earnestly,
He who is known as:
The Khal of Tadzhikstan
Kieran read the message through, complimented himself, and despatched it over an external channel to the Oasis hotel with a request for it to be printed out, sealed, and delivered to Ms. Marissa Gilder.
Which took care of everything on his list for the time being. He cleared away the evidence of his horticultural experimenting before leaving the room to be serviced, wrapped himself in a topcoat with the hat in a pocket to be less conspicuous, even among Lowell's exotic display of styles and garbs, and taking the Martian Cross in its box and the white work coat, left the Oasis by a rear service exit to the parking area.
He strolled through to the spaceport terminal and went to the baggage locker that June had indicated. Two of his bags from the apartment were there, along with a short, ornately embroidered cloak that June had evidently decided to add—the ideal thing to set off the rest of the outfit. Kieran changed it for the topcoat, put the topcoat inside one of the bags along with the white work coat, and then went out onto the concourse to hail one of the electric runaround cars used for local public transportation. Minutes later, he was conspicuously set down at the main lobby entrance to the Oasis, where, leaving a bellman to take care of the bags, he swept inside in full regalia to announce himself. His reservation was confirmed; also, he was informed, he had a message waiting. The desk clerk presented him with a stiff, rose-pink envelope. The note inside read:
Please come to my suite on the penthouse floor as soon as is convenient. Present this to the security guard at the elevator.
Marissa Gilder
* * *
Meanwhile, in an apartment suite on Embarcadero that had been rented by visiting clients of the Zodiac Commercial Bank, Lee Mullen was taking a call from a henchman who had spotted Solomon Leppo coming out of the Oasis hotel earlier and followed him to an address in Gorky, where he was still ensconced.
"Don't let him out of your sight," Mullen instructed. "I'll send more of the guys over. If he makes a move before they get there, call me."
"Wait." Henry Balmer, who happened to be with Mullen, raised a cautioning hand. "You've got Leppo now any time you want him. But Thane might not still be out there in the desert—especially after that fiasco yesterday. If he's back here, Leppo could lead us to him."
Mullen held his reaction to returning a sour look. "Nobody crosses me and walks," he said, repeating what had become his regular theme lately. "Thane is your problem. Of course he's still out in the desert. You weren't there. Why else would they be hiding behind all that artillery that nearly blew us away?"
"You don't know that," Balmer retorted. "Thane is also the problem of the people who are paying you. A big problem. Your job is to cover all bases. I don't think they'd like it if they found you'd let someone who crossed them walk."
Mullen considered the point darkly, then turned back to the screen.
"Don't pick him up yet," he told the caller. "Just keep a tight tail on him for now. We need to see where he goes."
"Gotcha," the caller confirmed.
19
Marissa Gilder was curvy, bouncy, and petite, with round blue eyes that seemed practiced in widening to convey awe, wonder, or simply an intensity of fixation that constituted her means of ensuring the attention and special treatment that she was accustomed to. Except that, in this instance, perhaps, the awe that she was directing in Kieran's direction was more solidly grounded and not just contrived as a manipulative device. Her hair was blond, shoulder-length, and bouncy like her person, with a reflective tint that gave it a mobile golden sheen. Her face lived up to the images that the media had made popular: saucily pretty with an upturned nose, pouty mouth, rounded cheeks tapering to a button chin, all no doubt coaxed to a high point of subtly enhanced sensuousness and allurement by the coordinated efforts of an expensively retained team of beauticians and stylists. She received Kieran in a loose, sleeveless cream dress with gold spangles, suitably adorned with an exposition of gold rings, bracelets, necklace, and a hair comb.
The suite itself was a riot of flowers, cards, gifts on display, and unopened packages, with trays of candies and tidbits, a selection of cold snacks, and a corner bar for visitors in the suite's outer room. Hotel staff bustled in and out at intervals, bringing clothes to already bulging closets and removing others for packing in anticipation of departure that evening. Two Zorken security men in dark suits sat in the outer room, keeping a wary eye on Kieran through the open doorway. He had been checked for weapons on arrival, before being brought into Marissa's presence. Even so, she sat at a greater distance back from him than would have been normal for the circumstances, in the center of a couch at the far end of a low table. So far, she had followed his words with the raptness of somebody who has wandered for a lifetime, finally finding her guru. She was stunned by his awareness of events that had transpired between herself and her father, faraway on Asgard, that very morning. The plague that Kieran had named, although unknown to any of the medical authorities that had been consulted, had been described identically by another savant out in the desert with the scientific group that the Zorken people had evicted. Kieran replied modestly that obviously the same truth would manifest itself to everyone in touch with ultimate reality.
By this time, Marissa had recovered from her initial display of wonder. How much of it was genuine, and how much a Socratic way of drawing people out, Kieran hadn't yet decided. She watched him take a sip from the glass of vodka tonic he had accepted and met his eyes curiously. "I always thought people like you didn't touch alcohol and such," she commented.
Kieran waved a hand dismissively. "Imitators obsessed with externals and trivia. Such things affect me to the degree that I allow them to. The truly empowered mind controls its body and itself totally."
Marissa seemed impressed. "You must be from a very rare kind."
"Haven't we already established that?"
"So why are you here?"
"I told you in my letter: to enlist your help in warning your father and his agents against the consequences of interfering with the workings of a superior science that this culture does not yet understand."
"What's a `khal'? I tried looking it up but couldn't find it."
"It's related to `khan,' which means ruler or leader, but relates more to the world of the spiritual than of mundane human affairs."
"I see."
"An obscure central Asian word."
Marissa stared at him, her eyes round and searching, as if expecting a sudden revelation. "Is this superior science the `hidden realms' that your letter talked about?" she asked.
"Yes, exactly."
"It said you were coming to instruct about them. Very well, I'm listening."
Kieran made an expansive motion with his hands, then brought them together as if illustrating the challenge of having to sweep much into a small space. "The universe that today's science imagines to be all is but an infinitesimal part of what exists. The vaster reality contains all that has happened, will happen, and could happen—all of it equally real, just as all the frames of a movie are equally real. Consciousness provides the illumination that focuses on one part, creating what we think of as the `present.' "
Marissa looked intrigued. "Is this the many-worlds picture that they get out of quantum mechanics? I know something about it."
"I prefer not getting tied down to such restrictive language. Scientists have uncovered the workings of the backstage machinery that creates the illusion,
but they see it only as technicians. They miss the point of what the performance is about."
"You mean it serves a purpose."
"Of course."
"What?"
"A learning environment. The fleeting lives that mortals experience are courses charted through the totality of possibilities by personas that souls create, in such circumstances and of such natures as the soul needs to heal and to grow. When the experience is complete, the persona is discarded but the lesson remains imprinted. You could think of them as characters in a role-playing game."
"You're talking about whoever created and directed the movie—what their purpose was," Marissa observed.
"A good way to put it," Kieran agreed.
"I knew it! So tell me more."
"The branchings that lead to all possible outcomes make morally meaningful choices possible. We can decide the kind of future we steer toward."
"Um . . ." Marissa needed to think about that. "More than a rock or a fish can, anyway," she said finally.
"You are correct. Ability to direct will is what really evolves. With the progressive emergence of consciousness, pure randomness gives way to volition."
Martian Knightlife Page 25