Ash Ock

by Christopher Hinz

  It was an old-style boardroom, in stark contrast to the hi-tech door. Ghandi had designed the room from a photograph he had once seen on the anteroom wall of a facial palace down on the surface many years ago, during his pirate days. He could not even recall what city; somewhere in the Ukraine, perhaps. But the photoimage had stuck with him, and his recollections had served as the architects’ primary reference.

  The room was long and narrow, with blue velvet walls and six evenly spaced crystal chandeliers sprouting from the carved ceiling. The rectangular table was grained plastic—imitation mahogany—with eleven seating locations: five on either side, and one at the end, for the chairperson. Shiny brass lamps with translucent shades cast dense circles of light on the highly polished surface. A second entrance—a manual door at the far end of the room—lay half-hidden by thick drapes.

  Solemnity. That was the effect Ghandi had been after and he had succeeded. Even the inlaid data screens beneath each lamp did not disturb the tranquility of the room.

  Only Calvin could do that.

  Ghandi did not see his aide, only Colette. She sat at the head of the table, in Ghandi’s seat.

  Ghandi’s wife had changed little over the past twenty-five years. Colette had the same golden curls, the same perfect oval face that he had first laid eyes upon in that shuttle, down in Denver, Colorado. A few lines creased her forehead now, but those were deliberately inscribed; plastic reformations designed to make her appear a bit older, make it seem as if she had aged.

  She did age, of course, but at a fantastically reduced rate. She was the tway of Sappho, the tway of an Ash Ock Paratwa, one half of a mind-linked creature with a lifespan measured in centuries. Colette was almost three hundred years old. Barring disaster, she would still be alive long after Ghandi’s body had turned to dust.

  She smiled. “Hello, my love.”

  “Where is he?” Ghandi demanded.

  “Right here.”

  Ghandi circled the table. Calvin knelt on the floor at Colette’s side, his head resting on her left knee. His tongue was extended. He was licking her skirt.

  The microbes twitched.

  “Get up,” ordered Ghandi.

  In his own inimitable manner, Calvin obeyed. Neck twisting, arms slithering from side to side. Stilted legs wobbling, knees bending. The torso being lifted into an upright position. A snake being charmed.

  He wore a sky-blue jumpsuit overloaded with large zippered pockets. An insignia over his left breast read jet pilot. Twentieth-century occupational clothing—the very latest in Irryan fashions.

  Ghandi moved to within a yard of the six-foot tway. “Did we have fun last night, Calvin?”

  A nod, followed by a delicate smile. The boyish face wanting to grin openly but restraining itself. Calvin did understand the value of self-control, especially in the presence of Colette.

  “Kill anyone else last night, Calvin?” Ghandi prodded. “I mean, besides the two E-Tech officers.”

  Calvin’s mouth opened. Mock surprise. Me? Kill someone?

  “Are we wordless today, Calvin? Or just stupid.”

  Calvin raised his left hand, palm outward. Green holotronic letters took shape in the air above his fingertips, the thought-impelled phrase projected by microscopic inducers built into his false nails. WE ARE NEVER WORDLESS.

  Ghandi hid his frustration. A vocal Calvin, although rare, was slightly easier to deal with. Slightly.

  “Now, Ghandi,” soothed Colette. “Don’t be too hard on poor Calvin. He feels very bad about his mistakes.”

  Calvin turned to stare at his seated mistress. A frown took shape.

  Ream the bastard out, willed Ghandi. Make the scud feel like an idiot. Colette/Sappho could do that, if she so desired.

  “We must not dwell on past errors,” Colette continued. “We must simply make a few adjustments.”

  “Adjustments?” snapped Ghandi. “Each time Calvin makes an adjustment, our problems are compounded.”

  “There’s some truth in that,” Colette admitted.

  Calvin held up his palm. Another set of thought-induced letters sparkled above his fingertips.

  CORRECTION/DOWNGRADING OF ORIGINAL ERROR REQUIRED SEVERE ACTIONS.

  Ghandi scowled. “Original error? Yes, let’s talk about that again. Let’s talk about Calvin the assassin—the highly trained killer—the professional whom I’ve heard so much about all these years. Colette told me you were the deadliest Paratwa ever created, even better than Reemul.”

  The fingertips flashed. INCOMPARABLE.

  “I suppose so,” said Ghandi, “considering that Reemul’s been dead for fifty-six years.” He paused. “But I’ve heard it said that Reemul would never have been foolish enough to give himself away in public.”

  Calvin smiled, but it was the defensive smile of the chastised child. The face projected meekness; the eyes plotted murder.

  Ghandi drove the barb home. “If you hadn’t recognized that girl in the Honshu terminal—and allowed her to know that she’d been recognized—we wouldn’t be faced with this mess.”

  WHAT MESS?

  Ghandi laughed. “So it’s denial today? Good, Calvin. I enjoy it even more when you entwine yourself in rationalizations. I’ll be happy to untangle you.

  “Let’s begin at the Yamaguchi Terminal. Not only do you make eye contact with this Susan Quint woman, you fail to kill her on the spot. Errors number one and two.”

  EYE CONTACT WAS AN UNFORTUNATE COINCIDENCE. UNAVOIDABLE.

  “And why weren’t you able to kill her?”

  SHE WAS VERY FAST. POSSIBLY, SHE POSSESSES A GENETICALLY ENHANCED NEUROMUSCULAR SYSTEM.

  Ghandi sighed. “That’s pretty flimsy, Calvin. You know how rare such enhancements are in humans.”

  NONETHELESS, SHE WAS VERY FAST.

  “So you send Donnelly and Tace to her apartment here in Irrya. They ascertain—to your satisfaction—that she’s spoken to no one about the incident. Then comes error number three—you order those two E-Tech morons to kill her. ‘Make it look like a rape murder,’ you say. Instead, Susan Quint disables your people and escapes!”

  Colette reached out her arm, stroked Ghandi’s shoulder. “Now, my love, you’re getting yourself a bit too worked up over this. Donnelly and Tace have paid for their stupidity.”

  PERMANENTLY DISABLED, said the fingertips.

  “And what about Susan Quint?” demanded Ghandi. “She’s out there somewhere, probably spreading her tale . . .”

  “True enough,” interrupted Colette. “But she has to turn up sooner or later. And when she does, Calvin will deal with her.”

  The tway smiled.

  “And what if she identifies Calvin before we get to her?”

  Colette shrugged. “That would be unfortunate. But it is unlikely to occur. Susan Quint made eye contact with a tway she’s never met. It is this Calvin—your aide—who actually knows her. Even assuming she deduces that Calvin is actually a Paratwa, there is no evidence to connect the tways.”

  Calvin wagged his head. I WAS ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE TERMINAL FROM HER. SHE NEVER SAW ME.

  Ghandi was still not satisfied. “And what if someone checks the travel records, gets a list of all the people who were passing through Yamaguchi Terminal that day? Calvin’s name is on that list. And Susan Quint would recognize that name.”

  “Calvin’s name was on that list,” said Colette. “But I made certain adjustments early this morning. I sent our sunsetter on a little foray into the transit computers. The travel records have been changed. On the day of the Yamaguchi massacre, Calvin KyJy, your aide, has been officially listed as being in the colony of Michigan Deuce—not Honshu. I even forged hotel reservations for him there, along with a few other flourishes that should fool any investigating team.

  “And since Calvin KyJy’s traveling companions were all killed in the Yamaguchi massacre—as planned—there will be no one to connect him with the tway that Susan made eye contact with.”

  Ghandi shook his head. “I though
t you said it was dangerous to allow the sunsetter to work outside the E-Tech archives.”

  “Dangers are relative, my love.”

  DANGERS ARE FUN, said the fingertips.

  Ghandi circled the table. “E-Tech Security probably got a full transit report immediately after the massacre, before the data was altered. And there are other ways to place Calvin in Honshu that day . . .”

  “True on both counts,” admitted Colette. “But E-Tech Security will not release that data, nor will they use it in an investigatory capacity. Doyle Blumhaven will do exactly as ordered. And it’s unlikely that anyone else will take an investigation beyond a standard check of the transit records.”

  “Just for the sake of argument,” said Ghandi, “what if Susan Quint does somehow connect Calvin with the tway she saw in Yamaguchi? What then?”

  Colette was silent for a moment. Then: “If that occurs, we will have to alter our plans.”

  YOU HUMANS WORRY TOO MUCH, announced Calvin.

  “Only when we’re confronted with stupidity,” snapped Ghandi.

  The tway came forward a step, eyes flashing. His palm shot upward, tight against his chest, so that only Ghandi could read the sparkling green words.

  YOU WILL SOMEDAY OUTLIVE YOUR USEFULNESS TO THE PARATWA. WHEN SAPPHO TIRES OF YOU, I WILL KILL YOU. I WILL ENJOY IT.

  “Don’t threaten me,” growled Ghandi. “If you—”

  “Stop it!” ordered Colette.

  They turned to her.

  “Ghandi, if you can’t control your temper, then lock yourself in a room and release it. I’m tired of these childish displays.”

  Ghandi met the aquamarine eyes, felt some of his rage dissipate. She was so beautiful, so full of herself. Even when she was angry, even when her voice was filled with fury, he could feel himself being drawn to her.

  I am a human needbreeder, Colette had proclaimed on that day in Denver, twenty-five years ago. So true.

  Yet still, the microbes danced.

  “And Calvin,” she warned, “if you shape words in my presence, then you make sure I see them. Understood?”

  The tway became motion. Legs buckling, arms thrust back; a stick figure collapsing to his knees before her. There was grace to his movement, Ghandi admitted, but it was impossible to describe; no human corollaries existed. When agitated, Calvin moved like a machine coming apart.

  He lifted Colette’s long skirt to her knees. His tongue slithered out, licked at the bare flesh above her left ankle.

  Ghandi turned away. He felt no jealously when Calvin subjugated himself to Colette. Nor did he experience revulsion toward the tway’s actions. But there was a feeling.

  I am human and they are Paratwa. I am singular and they are plural.

  There would always be that difference.

  The microbes twitched.

  Calvin moaned softly. Colette petted the tway, her hand caressing his short-cropped auburn hair.

  It had been easier, Ghandi thought, before Calvin had been awakened from stasis last year. For almost twenty-five years, Ghandi had had Colette to himself. If he had known on that day in Denver what was contained in those stasis capsules that his captain and crew had been hypnotized into loading onto their shuttle . . .

  A sleeping Calvin—a Calvin in stasis—could have been destroyed. Ghandi could have found a way to accomplish that. But now it was too late. For better or worse, the maniac was awake.

  And Ghandi was forced to admit that he had never really had Colette to himself. Colette was his lover and his wife, but she remained a tway, one half of the Ash Ock Paratwa known as Sappho.

  The woman he had fallen in love with—the human needbreeder—that woman sometimes vanished, melding herself into her other half, forming a mental-emotional interlace: a dialectic convergence unique to the Ash Ock Paratwa—a singular consciousness that transcended the vast distances separating the two tways. Sappho never spoke, never attempted any form of communication with Ghandi. But he always knew when she had arisen. He would look upon his lover’s face and realize that Colette was no longer there, that she had become a part of something else, something powerful beyond his understanding.

  Colette never discussed her other tway, the one who still remained out in space, far beyond the Colonies. Yet when Colette interlaced—when the two consciousnesses melded into one—when the cold light of Sappho appeared in his lover’s eyes, Ghandi felt that he could somehow see Colette’s other half.

  And what he saw occasionally terrified him.

  The microbes would vault up his spine, sending uncontrollable shivers through his whole body. There was no basis for his fear, no rational source that he could pinpoint. Colette was Paratwa; that Ghandi had accepted from the beginning. Yet he dreaded the moment when he would have to meet Colette’s tway.

  Effortlessly, his wife eased Calvin away from her body. The assassin arranged himself on the floor beside her chair, his head drooping to his chest, his legs folding themselves under his body. Calvin in the lotus position—a contented puppy.

  Colette spoke softly. “In a few days, there will be another massacre. The arrangements have been made.”

  Calvin’s head rose slightly.

  Ghandi nodded. He did not like these insane killings, but there was nothing he could do to prevent them. With or without his approval, Ash Ock plans would be carried out.

  “Where?” he asked.

  “Here in Irrya. It’s time for the Order of the Birch to strike closer to home.”

  Ghandi decided that he did not want to know the details. He changed the subject before Colette could tell him.

  “Any word on your long-lost relative?”

  A strange glint appeared in Colette’s eyes. For a fraction of a second, Ghandi thought that she was going to interlace—become Sappho.

  The moment passed. “Gillian remains in stasis. Doyle Blumhaven is naturally cooperating.”

  Ghandi said nothing more. Officially, Sappho and the other Ash Ock, Theophrastus, did not want the only other surviving tway of their breed awakened, despite the fact that they had long ago learned—through the distant monitoring of intercolonial broadcasts—that Gillian was but a singular entity and theoretically no threat to their plans.

  Yet when Ghandi brought up the subject, he always had the feeling that his wife was not revealing the whole truth. For some unfathomable reason, Colette-Sappho wanted to meet her traitorous breed-cousin.

  He glanced at Calvin, unable to resist one more taunt.

  “It’s good that we have Blumhaven in our pocket. Although Gillian was only one tway, he somehow managed to destroy Reemul.” Ghandi shrugged, allowing his thoughts to trail off.

  Calvin’s mouth opened slightly and his eyes met Ghandi’s. A hungry puppy.

  Colette smiled and stroked Calvin’s chin. “Gillian would be no match for the special abilities of my Ash Nar.”

  The tway raised his hand. NO MATCH.

  Perhaps, Ghandi thought. Still, he found himself entertained by the perversely pleasant fantasy of Gillian reawakened. By all accounts, the tway of Empedocles was also very special. There was always the possibility that this Gillian could find a way to destroy the maniac.

  Abruptly, the microbes retreated. Ghandi could feel some of the tension leaving his body.

  I must cultivate pleasant fantasies more often.

  O}o{O

  The first thing Gillian felt was the dream.

  A vast ocean. Gentle white-capped waves lapping at his sides. An inner light rising from endless waters, burning through him as if his body were some translucent membrane, a culture slice on the tray of a microscope.

  And then the dream began to fragment, throwing off random pieces of thought, each hardening into word-images—mental constructs, rock-solid in comparison to that endless ocean from which he arose. Visions filled him. Ideas took shape.

  Reemul is dead. The liege-killer is dead.

  The human who does not fear is the human who has lost his boundaries.

  I move . . . I
am. I want . . . I take.

  Catharine, where are you?

  Six hundred years. I can live for six hundred years.

  Catharine?

  A circle of five—the sphere of the Royal Caste.

  A voice said: You have a place in that circle, Gillian. You are Empedocles, youngest and fairest of them all, the child who will someday grow to be our protector.

  He argued with that voice.

  But two are gone. Two have perished. Aristotle and Codrus are dead. Only three of the Ash Ock remain.

  You are Empedocles. You are one of them.

  Yes. But I am also a single human being. I am Gillian.

  Another voice: You were never married, Gillian. Catharine was not your wife. She was your tway.

  He recalled the pain of his tway’s death—Catharine’s death.

  I am being awakened from stasis.

  His body erupted, became a thrashing mass of arms and legs at the center of that vast inner sea. He longed to escape but there was no place to go.

  He screamed with the agony of restoration.

  O}o{O

  The Lion of Alexander had carefully prepared his study for the meeting. The oak desk had been moved outside and a comfortable white sofa put in its place. An array of refreshments covered the coffee table; cinnamon-glazed ice biscuits in a transparent cooler; a tray of synthetic bolognas; coffee, tea, and fresh orange juice—the oranges imported only yesterday from the tropical colony of El Paso Juarez. The study’s large vertical slabs of glass, looking out onto one of the gardens, had been curtained; the Lion wanted all attentions to remain focused within this room.

  He sat opposite the sofa, in a plain, high-backed chair, his hands folded uncomfortably on his lap. A tiny remote rested on the chair arm and every few moments, the Lion found himself touching the keypad, altering the room’s lighting. His choices ran the gamut from an indirect, hazy yellow glow, all the way to blue-white spotlighting, complete with shadow fillers. He simply could not decide.

  Voices. Outside the door. Quickly, he tapped the keypad again, forcing the illumination circuits into yet another adaptation. Reddish backlights, located at the perimeter of the floorboards, ignited, and a quartet of intense ceiling spots blazed across the center of the room.