Hladik pulled off his hagerobe, donned a yos, and strode into the next room where Bremot stood waiting. “I hope Jamrog is brief this morning. I wish to return as soon as possible.”
The blind guide led his master through Nilokerus Hage to a lift. They rode the tube down to Greengrass level and entered a guarded corridor where an em stood waiting. At the sight of their Director, the two Nilokerus snapped to attention. Hladik frowned, but passed by without a word, too much in a hurry and too preoccupied to offer the obligatory reprimand.
Under Bremot’s precise control, the em sped along the empty corridor as it bent around and down, dipping below Kyan and coming up on the other side in Saecaraz Hage. The corridor had been constructed well before Sirin Rohee’s time, and had served many Nilokerus Directors, providing a well-used shortcut to Threl High Chambers.
At one time Hladik had dreamed of becoming Supreme Director. But he feared Jamrog, and in that he showed wisdom. Jamrog’s ambition was fiercer than his own; he knew Jamrog would ruthlessly remove any rivals to his claim. So, in those early years of Rohee’s reign when the Directors were still vying for position and favor in his regime, Hladik had tipped his hand—a risk, certainly, but a very small risk—and let it be known that he considered himself successor material. Jamrog, still assembling his power base then, had been in no position to challenge him since Jamrog himself was a Subdirector and, technically, wielded an authority inferior to Hladik’s.
This had forced Jamrog into the position of having to win Hladik over through gifts and favors. And Hladik allowed himself to be won, selling his ambition for the Supreme Director’s kraam, but at a very fine price. He had never regretted his choice—except now, when Jamrog interrupted his intimate affairs for trifles.
Eventually Bremot brought the em to a stop and led them to another lift. They rode to the upper levels of Threl High Chambers. “Wait here,” said Hladik as he stepped from the compartment. “This will not take long.” Bremot nodded and remained in the lift.
“I suppose you don’t know anything about this,” Jamrog cried as he entered the Threl meeting room. No one else was in attendance, save Opinski, Jamrog’s guide, standing quietly in a far corner of the room.
Hladik glanced at the flimsy yellow communique fluttering in Jamrog’s hand and said, “Of course not, Supreme Director—seeing as how you have not yet shown it to me.”
“Read!” Jamrog threw the sheet in Hladik’s face.
Hladik took the transcript and read it, “Yes, I see.”
“That’s all you have to say? I see?” Jamrog fumed.
“I see, yes. I see no reason for you to be upset by this—” He snapped the sheet with a finger, “—this routine report.”
“Your own guards caught someone in the Archives, and you call it routine.”
“A Dhog, Supreme Director. What else?”
“A Dhog in the Archives. On the day before Rohee’s funeral?”
“Coincidence. What else could it be?”
Hladik shrugged, outwardly trying to remain unconcerned. Inwardly he seethed. Why had those idiots allowed the Saecaraz to be contacted first? The communication should have been sent directly to him if Nilokerus guards were involved. Or perhaps Jamrog had intercepted it? “What do you suggest, Supreme Director? I fail to see—”
“You fail to see a great many things these days, Hageman,” Jamrog barked, then dismissed Hladik’s hurt expression with an impatient flick of his hand. “All right, I may be oversensitive just now, but it’s only because I am concerned that nothing interfere with Rohee’s funeral. Everything must take place precisely as I have planned. The people must witness a glorious spectacle. There must be no distraction.”
“What could go wrong?”
Jamrog dropped into the Supreme Director’s thronelike chair and passed a hand over his eyes. “I have not slept for two days, Hladik. I’m tired.”
Hladik approached and sat down next to him. He waved Jamrog’s guide away. Opinski withdrew discreetly. “Now, suppose you tell me what’s really troubling you, Jamrog. I know there is some other reason you sent for me.”
Jamrog stared upward and then closed his eyes. “I’m so tired.”
“Rest then. Rest now so that you can enjoy your triumph tomorrow all the more.”
“How can I rest when Tvrdy plots against me? He is out there even now, scheming with that Cabal of his to steal the bhuj from me and I have not even been installed yet.”
“That is but a tiresome formality—it gives the priests something to do. No one, not even the ridiculous Tvrdy, doubts that you are Supreme Director now. Besides, you have worn Tvrdy down. His power is gone; the Cabal you speak of is smashed. There is nothing left. He has no choice but to accept defeat gracefully if he would save his skin.”
“You do not know Tvrdy at all if you believe I have won so easily. He will resist me to his last breath.”
“Forget him. He’s nothing.”
“What if he is behind this incident in the Archives?”
“Well, what if he is? He will have discovered nothing. His agent was caught before he could make a report. There is nothing to worry about. If you wish, I will have the man brought to the tank and questioned and—” He hesitated.
“Yes? I’m listening. Go on.”
“I was about to suggest having him conditioned after questioning and returned to his master. That way, if he is one of Tvrdy’s men, we will have eyes and ears inside Tvrdy’s network.”
Jamrog’s eyes narrowed with cunning. “Sometimes I underestimate your resourcefulness, Hladik. Yes, have the man conditioned and then allow him to escape.”
Hladik forced a laugh. “Think of it! We will have an agent inside Tvrdy’s network.”
“Not an agent, Hladik,” Jamrog said, his eyes narrowing to slits. “I want a weapon.”
SIX
“It will be all right, Asquith, you’ll see. You wanted to go to the concert and since I cannot go with you, I asked my friend to take you.” Jaire was pulling a reluctant Pizzle along the upper gallery of Liamoge to the receiving hall. “She’ll be here any moment.”
“It won’t be the same,” complained Pizzle in his nasal whine. “I’d rather not go if I can’t be with you.”
“You’d miss a good concert—they’re doing the Naravell tonight. You said you wanted to learn all about our ways, and I promised to introduce you to people who could teach you. My friend is much more knowledgeable about music than I am, and she’d be disappointed if she couldn’t meet you.”
“She would?” Pizzle asked suspiciously, not at all certain he wanted to meet anyone who wanted to meet him. That, in his experience, always betokened disaster at the hands of someone even less socially acceptable than he was.
They came to the wide, curving stairway and descended. “She’s here!” said Jaire, giving Pizzle’s arm a squeeze. They were only halfway down the stairs, and Pizzle didn’t see anyone in the hall. Jaire propelled him down the stairs and out the doors to the curving drive outside. A sleek blue two-passenger evee was just pulling up to the entrance.
Pizzle saw only the single occupant sitting in the center of the passenger seat and purposefully turned his head away so that he didn’t see her clearly. He heard the evee door open and, eyes on the ground now, saw two buff-booted feet come to stand in front of him. Jaire embraced her friend and they exchanged greetings, which Pizzle ignored.
Jaire said, “Asquith, I want you to meet my friend Starla.”
Pizzle sighed and looked up. He’d heard of people claiming they’d been shot by Cupid’s arrow. For him, it was as if he’d been impaled on the pudgy little love cherub’s spear. He stared, transfixed by the vision before him: a young woman clothed all in white with buff-colored accents, her fine, platinum hair swept back by the light evening breeze, looking at him with pleasure and excitement mingled in her large, dark, oak-brown eyes. She was half-a-head shorter than he was and wore a silver bracelet on each wrist; her arms, bare in a sleeveless jacket, were tanned and
smooth, as was her elegant, graceful neck.
An impartial observer might have said that her eyes were too big and perhaps too wide set, her chin too small and her nose a little thin. Certainly, her lower lip protruded when she was not smiling. But in Pizzle’s eyes, she was, if possible, even more beautiful than Jaire—his fantasies made flesh.
“Starla,” he said, repeating her name. And again, “Starla.”
“I’m pleased to meet you—” She hesitated.
“Pizzy,” he said, and embarrassed himself when he realized he’d just given her the least favorite of his many objectionable diminutives. “Just call me … Pizzy. Everyone does.”
Starla laughed lightly. Pizzle reconciled himself to the name in that instant; it was worth all the years of misery and embarrassment if that name could evoke such a sound from one so lovely. “I’m pleased to meet you, Pizzy. Jaire told me you liked music …” She paused again because Pizzle was staring at her. Glancing at Jaire, who nodded toward the vehicle, she said, “Mmm, shall we go?”
Jaire took Pizzle by the arm and pushed him forward, saying, “Yes, you’d better hurry or you’ll miss the best seats. I’m sure you’ll both have a wonderful time.” She took Starla’s hand, placed it in Pizzle’s, and bundled them both into the evee. Starla leaned forward and pressed their destination into the console; the car rolled silently away. Pizzle did not look back to see Jaire smiling in smug satisfaction.
Stepping into the forest was like stepping into a cathedral. Enormous trees with smooth trunks stood like huge pillars, holding up a dense, blue-green layer of leaves, a vaulted roof a hundred meters above the forest floor. In fact, there were, Crocker noticed at once, two forests: the older, taller forest formed a towering leaf roof over a younger forest of slender trees and squat, fleshy shrubs all sewn together with innumerable vines and creepers. Around the massive smooth columns of the supporting trees, braided pathways wound and converged and split, only to join and rejoin again.
The light filtering down from the leaf ceiling was bronze-green and soft, melting into the humid, water-drenched air. Vaporous wisps snaked along the forest byways, curling upward like tendrils of a growing plant to evaporate on unseen currents. And everywhere beneath the forest roof there was the rich, heady smell of damp, fecund soil and vegetation run riot—odors as palpable as the chitterings, clicks, and chirrups of the host of insects hidden in the foliage.
Higher in the leaf canopy, the shrill, chattering calls of birds and jarring whoops of mammalian tree dwellers—along with all sorts of murmurings, cooings, blarings, gruntings, yawpings, toatings, and gugglings—let Crocker know that the forest brimmed with unseen life, even as the heavy air reverberated with its raucous music.
The Blue Forest was a world unto itself, and Crocker felt secure here. As he walked further into its majestic fastness, the oppression of the open spaces fell away. He took the thick closeness of the forest and wrapped it around himself like a robe. He would be safe here among the creatures of the forest; he would become like them, and like them he would survive.
He struck along a path wide enough for the robot to follow and began moving deeper into the interior, the last glimpses of blue sky and green hills disappearing as the forest closed behind him. He walked along silently, moving with caution and stealth, adapting himself to the ways of the forest.
Like an animal, Crocker wandered the soft pathways, pausing now and again to sift the air for scent and sound of water. It had been exhausting work burrowing through the brushline to the forest, and he was thirsty. Eventually he came to a place where a small brook lapped around the gigantic roots of one of the forest pillars. He knelt down, cupped his hands, and drank.
The water was warm and had a distinctly earthy taste. He sipped and swallowed and spat the rest out. To get clean water he’d have to find a deeper source. Without thinking about it he moved off along the little brook, following it as it made its way over and around the roots of the giant trees and through stands of rushes with large lacy fan-shaped leaves. The brook took him deeper into the forest, deeper into the living green solitude.
At one point he pushed through a bristle-bladed hedge and found himself in a walled clearing. He looked up and saw the walls of the hedge rising above him for many meters. The clearing was carpeted with thick, bluish moss made up of tiny coiled filaments like wire springs. The sunlight striking through a thin place in the leaf canopy fell to the forest floor like heavy gold. In the center of the clearing lay a pool of deep blue-black water, filled from a spring which welled up from the center of the pool, splashing and sending ripples to the pool’s outer rim.
The forest’s discordant music, muted by the hedge walls, sounded far away. In the clearing, only the gentle plipping of the spring as it ruffled the water could be heard. Crocker stared at the water for a long moment and then began mechanically stripping off his clothes.
He lowered himself into the pool, feeling its chill refresh and revive him. He sank down into the ooze of the cool mud bottom and let the water close over his head, then kicked off and swam the length of the pool underwater, coming up for air when his head touched the far bank. It felt good to swim, to feel tight muscles relax as the knots loosened.
After a few minutes of swimming, Crocker felt wholly restored. He climbed out on the spongy bank and lay down in a patch of sunlight to dry off. The sun filtering down from the upper boughs warmed his skin, and he closed his eyes and went to sleep, his mind blank, unthinking, undreaming. He was part of the forest now—as much as any of her natural creatures. And, in his own way, just as wild.
SEVEN
Yarden watched as the dancers whirled and spun on the grassy field before her, their shimmering clothing reflecting the sun’s last rays. Three men and three women, each tracing a complex interaction of movements with each of the others, danced for an audience of a hundred or more rapt spectators. Several musicians sitting around the ring of observers accompanied the dance on their instruments: long, hollow tubes, curved into polished semicircles. The flutelike instruments emitted low, rich, mellow tones, and though the musicians were scattered throughout the crowd, their music formed a single, seamless stage upon which the dancers performed.
Never had Yarden seen such exquisite movement, so lithe and free and—there was no other word for it—holy. The music and the dance were one and the same expression, so beautifully did they complement one another: sound giving impulse to movement, dance giving visual emphasis to the music, and each doing what the other could not do, thereby creating a total experience greater than the sum of the parts.
Yarden stood entranced. She’d seen dancers perform before, of course—some of the best in the world—but never with such abandon—almost as if they were creating their intricate movements spontaneously, yet in complete harmony with the others, for each dancer moved as an individual and as a member of a larger body at the same time. She knew they must have performed together for years to be able to create such intricate and harmonious movement.
This appreciation made the dance all the more wondrous to Yarden. She knew the cost of such perfection and loved the dancers for their extravagance. She watched with total concentration, savoring every fleeting, endless moment as the dancers spun and leapt and turned, coming together, forming patterns, breaking apart to create new patterns, until all the field and music and spectators coalesced into a single, creative awareness, joined by the movements of the dance.
When the dance finally ended—the dancers breathless and exhausted, the music trailing off in whispers—the audience all exhaled as one, and Yarden realized that she, like all the others, had been holding her breath. She sighed, closed her eyes, and savored the moment, knowing that she had experienced true beauty and had been touched by it in a most intimate way.
She felt a nudge and opened her eyes. Ianni smiled at her and indicated the crowd, typical of Fieri gatherings, moving away silently. Yarden saw that the dancers, having gathered themselves together, were smiling at each other and talkin
g together in low tones, their faces flushed with satisfaction and exhilaration. It seemed somehow wrong to Yarden that this performance should go unrewarded by the audience; there should be some recognition paid the dancers—applause, at least.
“I’ll be right with you,” she told Ianni. Turning to the dancers, she approached hesitantly. One of the women in the ensemble glanced up as Yarden came near. She smiled and held out her hands in the Fieri greeting, but Yarden stepped close and put her arms around the woman. They embraced and Yarden said, “Thank you for sharing your dance with me.”
The woman pressed Yarden’s hands and said, “It is our joy to dance. If you find pleasure in it, praise the Giver. He gives the dance.”
“Your dance is praise itself,” replied Yarden. “I will never forget what I’ve seen here today. Thank you.” She then rejoined Ianni, who was waiting for her a little way off.
“Why did no one acknowledge the dancers?” asked Yarden as they walked back across the meadow toward the Arts Center, a palatial edifice made of rust-colored sunstone, with numerous wings and pavilions radiating from a common hub. “Or praise them for their artistry?”
“Praise belongs only to the Infinite,” Ianni explained gently, as she had explained so often to Yarden since becoming her mentor. “Would you have us praise the vessel for its contents?”
“I don’t know. It just seems that one ought to show some appreciation for the dancers, for their art, for the joy they bring in the dance.”
“The joy of the dance was theirs.”
“They shared it with us, then.”
“And we paid them the highest tribute—we honored the beauty of the moment, and respected the serenity of the performance.”
Yarden thought about this. “By leaving like that? Without a word, without a sound—just leaving? That was your tribute?”
Ianni, a tall, dark-haired woman, slender with long graceful limbs, folder her hands in front of her and stopped walking, turned to Yarden, and said, “We shared the moment together, and we took it to ourselves. We have hidden it in our hearts to treasure it always. What more can one do who has not created? It was not our place to judge, only to accept.”
Empyrion II: The Siege of Dome Page 4