The Elysium Commission

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  Odilia eased down the steps toward the front, then ges­tured to the two seats in the middle of the first row. I seated her.

  "Will anyone be joining us?" I had my doubts because there were only two programs laid out.

  "Hyperion is very much a period piece these days, Blaine. Few in the Thurenen elite enjoy period pieces. They remind them too much of their mortality."

  "You support the opera." I'd checked the program. Odilia was one of the larger donors. "Couldn't you change that?"

  "I could, but a few period pieces are necessary. Contemporaneity for the sake of contemporaneity is even worse than senseless veneration of the past."

  Was Hyperion senseless veneration of the past? It certainly was an ancient opera. At one time, I'd guess it had been considered futuristic, but it was merely derivative from one of the even more ancient poems written in proto-Anglo, which had been derived from even older myths. Not that either the story line or the music mattered, although I'd always been partial to the music. It, too, was derivative. Lamarque had evolved and improved melodies from some­one called Lloyd-Veber, back before the collapse and Ter-ran Diaspora.

  When you get right down to it, everything anyone does is a pastiche based on the interaction of the past with present motives, civilization, and technology. I suppose it's always been that way.

  The point of going to L'Opera was as much to be seen as to see, to be heard as to hear. More than a few pairs of eyes strayed upward. Uncomfortable as it made me, I reminded myself that some visibility was necessary. It was a way to get clients. Not the only way, but easier man many, and far more pleasant. If I had to be visible, who better to be visible with man Princesse Odilia?

  The murmurs died away as the first notes of the overture filled the theatre.

  As the curtain rose, Saturnus sat under a glitter-tree, not exactly in a vale, and the notes came from the Naiad. "Far from the fiery noon, and eve's one star..."

  I'd always liked those words, far better than the others mixed with them by time—the ones about the last day of life as we knew it and the carousing that followed.

  Sitting beside Odilia, as the opera proceeded, I was aware of those lustful yet virginal pheromones she was ex­uding. Any normal male would have been, and in that re­spect I was very normal.

  At the end of Act I, she turned and smiled at me. "There is a botde of Angelique Blanche on ice on the sideboard. There are two goblets. If you would ..."

  "I would." I rose and bowed slightly to her.

  Actually, there were two botdes of the Angelique on ice, but she had been right about the number of goblets.

  When I turned, Odilia had reseated herself in the second row. I stepped down and extended the goblet to her, then sat down beside her.

  I had a difficult—hard, really—time concentrating on Act II. Odilia's head was not quite on my shoulder, and I could feel and sense the palpable desire emanating from her. Yet she only looked at me in passing as she watched and listened to the conflict and desire on the stage below and before us, amplified by the lushness of the music.

  We also finished the first bottle of Angelique. Rather, she finished most of it.

  "Would you open the second bottle?" she asked after Act II.

  "Of course."

  She was on the couch when I turned after refilling her goblet. I knew what was coming, and I couldn't say that I was displeased. Anyone who says that pheromones boost­ing virginal lust is an oxymoron has no idea what they're talking about.

  She took only one sip before setting the goblet aside and touching my cheek with those soft and slender fingers. The pheromones swept over me, and I was barely able to set down my own goblet before Odilia's arms went around me.

  The world indeed lay before me like a land of dreams, and knowledgeable as we were about ignorant armies, still we filled that darkling plain with what certitude we could.

  13

  One may describe ehperiences and events in an absolutely factual fashion, with concrete evidence to support that description, and still lie.

  Odilia and I did manage to gather ourselves together be­fore the applause at the finale died away. We actually looked presentable. I still was bemused at how easily she'd been able to shed all that faux-Victorian finery—and then redon it without looking disarrayed in the slightest. I felt di­sheveled and worse as we rode back to the palacio in her limousine.

  I didn't love Odilia. I never would. She didn't love me, and never would. That might be because it is impossible to love and be wise. I have never been that wise, but we under­stood each other, and sometimes understanding and lust are an acceptable, if bittersweet, substitute for love. Why should we give all our bounty to the dead?

  "Domingo wasn't as good as he has been," she said with a smile. "Or perhaps I was distracted."

  "I believe the word is distracting, Princesse." I couldn't deny I had enjoyed the evening, and I was glad I hadn't been left loitering amid the sedge, hollow-eyed, where no birds sang.

  When we reached the palacio, I walked her to the edge of the portico.

  "Good evening, sweet knight of shadows." Odilia wrapped herself around me for a moment—and that was very out of character—providing a long and lingering kiss and some indiscreet fondling. As she stepped back, I realized she had slipped an envelope inside my cummerbund.

  "I had a lovely evening, a truly lovely evening. Thank you." Her smile was seemingly without guile. 'Thank your

  Without another word, we parted. Sometimes, "good-byes" or "good nights" are redundant.

  Her limousine had slipped away, but the full-sized spe­cial one I had engaged pulled up. My flashcode confirmed that it was my hire.

  Once settled in the conveyance, I extracted the envelope. Inside was a miniature datafiat, and several printed sheets. I slipped the datafiat into my bodywallet, then leaned back, exhausted and involuntarily relaxed as I was, and began to read the sheets. I'd read halfway down the first when the limousine came to an abrupt halt.

  "There's a wall... across the road." Drivers were sup­posed to be impassive. "Right across the end of Boudicca. It wasn't here fifteen minutes ago."

  Walls didn't just get built across roads in minutes. Had the driver been suborned somehow?

  I could feel a sudden pull, like a singularity beam fo­cused just on me. Except such a beam would have been in-stantiy fatal. I triggered the full nanoshield, just before a jolting twist ripped me out of the limousine and into swirling brilliant chaotic white. I closed my eyes, but they still burned. I could feel heat building around me, directed back at me by the shield.

  Then the whiteness vanished, and I was falling. I didn't fall far, but the jolt, even inside the shield, was enough to immobilize me for a moment.

  I dropped the nanoshield, but the relief wasn't that great. Even at eleven hour, under the stars of the Arm, I'd been dropped into a moist, almost junglelike environment. I was still on Devanta, because I caught a glimpse of the smoky red three-quarter disc of Bergerac in the east, but how could I have been moved and so quickly?

  Not possible.

  Sir? came the reply to my inadvertent comm. Max, interrogative my location. Soonest.

  Ten point three klicks at 326 degrees from Thurene city center.

  That was close to the shielded IS installation above Glen Lake. The lake couldn't be that far... not with the humidity.

  A whining rose behind me and grew into a shrill buzz.

  I recognized it instantly. It wasn't a sound an operative ever forgot—nanogenetically modified Aswaran wasps. Nasty creatures. Near-immediate massive anaphylactic shock if they stung you. What were they doing outside of confinement? The entire swarm was almost on me when I triggered the shield again.

  Frig! One was inside my jacket.

  I contracted the shield, hoping to crush it—and that my shirt and undershirt and skin would protect me.

  I sensed the crunch and eased the shield, enough to be able to move. I had to get clear of the swarm. I only had minutes before the shield
cooked, me, unless I went to par­tial porosity, and that would open me up to snipers. I headed downhill, toward where the locator said the lake was. It was off-limits, too.

  The shield flared orange. I dropped to my knees. Someone—something—was firing at me. The particolaser had to have been a defense-response weapon. That meant I was inside the IS restricted area. Double frig!

  I could sense even more heat building inside the shield, but partial porosity was definitely not an option. If I didn't get moving, I'd be out. I'd also exhaust my oxygen before long, even with the limited screen vibro-diffusion.

  My systems had the lake at 143 degrees absolute at three hundred yards. I turned, centered myself, and started mov­ing, trying to keep low, and out of sight line from the crys­talline towers that held the response particolaser. I tried to keep an even pace. That delayed internal heat buildup.

  The trees and vegetation ended a good forty yards from the water, and the low grass that sloped down to the lake was open to the towers and the laser. There was no help for it I kept moving toward the water.

  Another blast of light flared the shield and raised my temperature.

  I jumped into the water. You don't dive when you don't know the depth, even within a shield, because if the shield hits anything hard, the shock still get transmitted. I went down, but only about a meter and a half before my shielded dress boots hit gooey mud.

  Another blast struck shield and water, raising steam all around me. I lurched forward and tried an awkward surface dive. If I remained exposed, the tower laser would boil me alive. Underwater, there was no oxygen diffusion at all, and that was another problem, because the re-breather unit in my belt would only provide oxygen for a quarter stan. I'd al­ready used some of that.

  Still underwater, I cut off the nanoshield. I just hoped that the mechanism would stay dry. I didn't have much choice. If I left it on, I'd end up boiled in my own heat. The cool of the water around me was both a shock and refresh­ing. I kept swimming underwater. I hadn't had the water mods. Even if I had, I couldn't have kept them when I'd been retired.

  I came up and took a quick breath, then dropped below the surface.

  Light flared behind me, so close that I could feel the heat from the laser. I angled slighdy to the right and kept swim­ming.

  I finally managed to get to the overlook on the east side of the lake. It took a good quarter stan before I clambered out of the water.

  Max... time check.

  Eleven past eleven hour.

  That was a only few minutes later than when I'd been sit­ting in the private limousine. How could that possibly be? I knew I'd spent a quarter stan swimming. I was soaked and tired.

  I didn't have a chance to puzzle that over because a Garda flitter arrived and fixed me in its lights. Water was still dripping from my dinner jacket and trousers, and my boots were probably ruined.

  "Walk toward the flitter. Keep your hands away from your body." The patroller's projected voice didn't sound like Javerr's. I was thankful for that.

  "Stop."

  My enhancements picked up all the sensors and remote probing. They didn't pick up anything, because there wasn't anything to detect. I'd gone to the opera, not out on an oper­ation.

  "Sensors confirm you are Blaine Donne, Fifty-One Cuarta Calle, Thurene."

  "That's correct."

  "Can you explain what you were doing in Glen Lake?"

  "No, Officer. I cannot. You can verify that a few standard minutes ago I was in a limousine roughly at the intersection of Boudicca and Vallum. The next thing I knew I was at the edge of the lake on the far side with some very angry wasps chasing me. I ran into the water and swam here. I imagine that since the far side is an IS installation, that, if they choose, they can verify my appearance."

  "How do you know that it's an IS installation?"

  "I'm retired IS, Officer." I didn't mention the medically retired part.

  "Glen Lake is a restricted water source. Bathing or swim­ming is forbidden."

  "I understand that, Officer. I also know that even stand­ing on the IS reservation is prohibited, and they have lasers. I just wanted to get away from there."

  "I'll have to take you in, Seignior Donne."

  The change in salutation was anything but good. He'd tapped into my dossier at the Garda.

  The hatch behind the guidance section opened. The flit­ter was remote-operated. "Get into the flitter."

  I did. The space was confined enough that my knees were tight against the bulkhead. The hatch closed, and the flitter lifted off. The flight back to the Garda station took less than five standard minutes. I spent the time gently easing the wasp carcass into a jacket pocket.

  Within minutes of the time I stepped out of the flitter I was in an interrogation room across a table from an officer Donahew. The walls were a pale blue. That was a shade de­signed to relax. I didn't. There was a scarcely visible nanite shield between us.

  "Swimming in reserved waters is an offense against the Codex, Seignior Donne." Donahew was stocky, dark-haired, and had pale green eyes. His voice was almost a bass.

  "As I told you—or whoever was the RP on the flitter— that was the least dangerous alternative."

  "Ah, yes." His lips curled into an amused smile. "We did check as you suggested. You were where you said you'd been when you said you'd been there. That raises a most interesting question. How did you manage to traverse ten klicks in a few minutes?"

  "I told you. I don't know."

  He consulted the miniature console I couldn't see. "Interesting"

  I waited.

  "For a space of five minutes a wall seemed to appear at the intersection of Boudicca and Vallum. What did you have to do with that?"

  "The driver said it was there. Before I had a chance to look, I was on the IS reservation with wasps chasing me."

  "That seems rather unlikely. Yet you're smart enough to know that we'd find it so. Why are you telling me that?"

  "Because it's what happened, and if I tried to tell you what didn't happen, all those sensors focused on me would tell you that I was lying."

  Donahew's smile grew broader. I didn't like the expres­sion.

  "Now how could someone—or how could you—hop out of that limo and get onto a flitterjet and reach the lake with­out registering on the satellite scans?"

  "I don't know how any of it happened, Officer Donahew.

  I only know that one minute I was in the limousine, and the next I was above the edge of the lake with wasps targeting me."

  "Exactly what kind of wasps? Or do you know?"

  "They sounded like Aswaran wasps."

  "Nasty littie creatures, but I haven't seen any in Thurene in years. They're interdicted, you know. I can't see as any­one would break the interdict just to have fun with a small­time regen spec-opper."

  "You're absolutely right, Officer. Neither can I." I care­fully eased the insect carcass out of the pocket of my damp jacket and onto the table. "This is one of them. I offer it to you."

  Donahew looked at the insect and swallowed. His expres­sion wasn't quite an old revolt from awe. More like disgust. The sensors refocused on the dead insect, playing over its black-and-red stripes, the shimmering, if now tattered, dou­ble wings, and the smooth long injector stinger.

  "It is an Aswaran wasp." He shook his head. "That'll play Hades with the EPs." He paused, probably forwarding an alert to the environmental police. "You aren't exactly mak­ing this easier, Seignior Donne."

  "I can't change what happened, Officer Donahew. Some windows are always broken when people play ugly Yahoo tricks."

  He gave me an odd look, but then, it was an odd, if ap­propriate, old misquote.

  "If I were the guessing type, Seignior Donne, I'd suspect that someone might be targeting you. You wouldn't care to speculate on that, now, would you?"

  "Officer... I could speculate a great deal, but I have no idea who had the ability to carry me ten klicks without my even knowing how it happened." Donahew wasn't pre
ssing me, not the way Javerr had, and yet he'd clearly accessed my Garda dossier. I wasn't about to ask why, but I made a mental note to keep that in mind.

  In the end, Donahew sent me back to the villa in a Garda van—sealed. I'd still had to pay the fine—three thousand credits—for contaminating a public water source. The sis­ters have always frowned on that sort of thing, no matter what the reason. I did take the wasp carcass with me—in a case Donahew supplied after he entered the information into the files. He didn't want it anywhere around. That was also troubling.

  Once I was inside my villa, I immediately went to my study and copied the dataflat's contents to a quarantined section of my systems, then stored the datafiat itself in the secure section below the study. I set Max to using the equip­ment on the lower level to dry and decipher what I hadn't read of the dossier Odilia had slipped me. I hoped he could do it. I had no idea if it were a summary or something new, and I was far too exhausted to try to make any sense of any of it until I got some sleep.

  14

  Selfless spirit glistens brightly whose selfish soul barters nightly.

  Before the projection failed, I saw the shadow knight heading downhill toward the lake. He took one laserflash and kept moving. I knew Donne was fast, but he'd been wearing a full nanoshield and had it on even before the projection field had fully focused on him. I'd wanted to vanish him without a trace, but with the nanoshield in place I was rapidly losing control of the field, one of the inevitable consequences of attempting to focus the projection beam on a moving individual in a gravity well. Dropping a section of wall in front of his transport had reduced the motion vectors enough for the system to catch him initially. Even so, I'd had to precalculate the possible options, and trying to iso­late a moving individual or locate one through defense screens verged on the impossible. That had meant using location B—dropping Donne into the nearby restricted area and the wasps onto him because they didn't take much power—and sending a coded alert through Legaar's system to the Garda. Javerr was reliable enough for that, and Shannon couldn't do much about it.