For protection.
“I’m afraid I have terrible news,” the Unum continued. “An hour ago, Lucien’s body was found in his chamber at the Assembly. He committed ritual suicide.”
Cordelia’s piercing cry reverberated off the chamber’s glass walls, reinforcing until its pitch bordered on inaudible. She collapsed onto the edge of the bed and rocked back and forth. Her body shrank with each ragged wheeze of despair.
Daoren bared his teeth and lunged at the Unum. “His blood is on your hands!”
The Unum retreated from the attack. He stumbled over the crate of models and nearly went to the floor. He would have gone to the floor had Pyros not intercepted Daoren.
“Calm yourself, boy!” Pyros said, struggling to hold him back. “Don’t make this worse than it is! Attend to your mother!”
The command penetrated Daoren’s fury. He pulled away and joined Cordelia on the bed. She buried her face against his chest, bawling.
The Unum gave them a wide berth and rejoined Pyros near the door. “You’re upset, Daoren. I’ll forgive that outburst . . . this time.” He straightened his bestudded zhaoshan and puffed his chest, no doubt eager to reclaim a portion of dignity. “You have my deepest sorrow for your loss, Cordelia. Lucien was a credit to Daqin Guojin. I promise he’ll have a funeral worthy of his status.”
He swept into the hallway with Pyros. Their footfalls faded away.
Heqet folded her arms across her chest. Under her shell of skin, a numb cavity resonated like a memorial tube in the Hollows. She squeezed, needing the counter-pressure of her body to prove she was still here, still whole, still breathing.
Memories of her parents’ death resurfaced, crisp and unbidden. She pictured her grandfather sitting her down in the parlor of their old abode, his wringing, wrinkled hands so coarse it might have taken place this morning. She felt his grief-mangled words bludgeoning her heart. She heard her sobs blustering in wretched squalls that raged for hours . . . for days.
Heqet blinked back tears. After five years, the memories retained their clarity, as detailed as the models set in the crate before her. They would never be packed away in an unlit space. For some, no amount of time could erase the pain of losing their kin.
She glanced at Daoren, expecting to see the same pain inscribed on his face, ready to go to him to help erase it.
It wasn’t there. He sat beside Cordelia on the bed, eyes as dry as the Great Saharan Desert, body as inert as a sculptglass statue.
“I’m so sorry, Daoren,” Heqet said. “What can I do?”
He didn’t move. He didn’t make a sound. He stared across Mako’s sleeping chamber, within arm’s reach of his last living family member.
Heqet inched closer, half-expecting him to go off like the sonic charges in the glass market. “What do you need?”
He looked up at her. He looked through her. “There’s only one thing I need.”
He didn’t voice the need. His eyes communicated it without ambiguity. Their cold finality sent a shiver down her spine. “You can’t,” she said. “He’s too powerful, too—”
“You can’t stop me.” Daoren’s frozen gaze lowered to the crate of models. “No one can stop me.”
* * *
SEVEN DAYS LATER, Daoren stood next to Cordelia in the center of the funeral aerostat’s passenger gondola. Banks of convex blister-windows provided a panoramic view of the wind-tossed waves one hundred feet below. They’d cleared the coastline ten minutes ago.
Beyond the forward windows, the aerostat’s gray nose pointed toward a dense field of wind turbines sixty miles distant. White columns erupted from the Sea of Storms, spanning the horizon. They supported the whirling, one thousand-foot blades of the Southern Turbine Complex. At this range, the blades glinted like tiny daggers.
Daoren fingered his mourning shroud—the second he’d worn in a month—picking at a loose burrglass thread. Around him, hundreds of mourners from all castes filled the gondola. Members of the Cognos Populi. Notable Libraria. Silica engineers his father had worked with in his youth. Ordinary denizens. A sprinkling of prospects. The morose field of gray was gathered to honor Lucien’s passing.
His father’s shrouded body lay ten feet before him on a low pedestal. In his head, Daoren knew he was seeing the outline of Lucien’s face, torso, and limbs beneath the purple fabric. In his heart, they were anonymous contours on an unknowable landscape.
He hadn’t talked to his father much over the past ten years. What few words they’d shared were charged with scorn and tainted with hostility. There were so many questions Daoren hadn’t asked him. One question burned to be answered now.
Whose hand was holding the knife?
He may not have known his father well, but he knew one aspect of his character with sandstone certainty. Lucien would never have committed ritual suicide. Not while Cordelia still drew breath. Not while she still mourned Mako’s harvesting. Not while he promised to talk later.
Across the gondola, the Unum, Julinian, and Narses huddled, clad in creaseless mourning shrouds that flirted with opulence. Julinian’s eyes drooped like she was on the verge of falling asleep. Daoren hadn’t seen Narses in over a year or spoken to him in three, but his shroud did little to sharpen his dull expression. The misaligned forehead studs and mouth-breathing didn’t help; they gave the impression of someone in mid-yawn.
The Unum lumbered forward and kneeled beside Lucien’s body. He played the part of a mourner well. His pyramidal studs complemented his ashen pallor. He shook his head in apparent disbelief and placed a hand on Lucien’s shrouded chest.
Daoren shuddered. It was like witnessing an indignity to the body.
“Today we grieve the loss of Lucien al Braccus,” the Unum said, venting a soliloquy more somnolent than solemn, “a man whose love for family equalled his love for Daqin Guojin. From the day he was conferred denizenship, he lived to serve the people, holding key positions in silica sourcing and grooll distribution.”
He rose, grunting from the effort, and scrutinized the mourners. His pseudo-somber gaze landed on Daoren and Cordelia. “He leaves behind a beautiful wife and two promising sons.”
Whispers of shock coursed through the gondola.
The Unum’s face flushed. “Forgive me—one promising son.”
Cordelia released a lacerated moan. She staggered over to the body and fell to the deck beside it, wailing.
Women in the crowd added their own laments, compounding the grief. Men wept, shoulders heaving in time with the disturbed waters below.
Daoren willed himself not to react. He needed to stay focused on the bloated ruler of Daqin Guojin. He needed to remain receptive to the signals on his brittle Slavvic face. His attention was rewarded when the Unum flicked a glance at Julinian and Narses. It surrendered one fleeting clue.
Smugness.
Daoren curled his hands into fists. Acidic words boiled up from his gut and etched through his teeth. “Your funeral aerostat will soon take flight, Unum,” he whispered.
“Brave words, but far too foolish for such a clever boy.”
Daoren wheeled to the hushed voice.
Laoshi grasped his shoulders. He leaned in to touch foreheads.
Daoren stayed rigid and upright, leaving him hanging. He cared as much for the gesture of greeting and farewell as he did for crowds, especially when it came to the Libraria.
“Still rejecting custom and authority at every opportunity, hmm?” Laoshi said, straightening. “Even as a child you were your own man.”
“I’m not a child anymore.”
“Yet you’re seen as one in the eyes of the edicts. Until you pass the S.A.T., you hold no rights, no privileges.” He swept a wrinkled hand to the forward windows. “What do you see out there?”
“The Southern Turbine Complex.”
“And what does it represent to you?”
“Sixty percent of Daqin Guojin’s power,” Daoren said, unable to filter the sullenness from his voice.
“Don’t give me
snide answers, boy.”
“Seventy percent?”
Laoshi tightened his grip and shook him. “That’s the southern border of Daqin Guojin, the southern limit of your world.” He pinched Daoren’s earlobe. “The nanocharges so thoughtfully implanted in your skull by the Cognos Populi aren’t deactivated until you sit the S.A.T. They—”
“They prevent prospects from venturing beyond the border,” Daoren said, pulling his head back from the grasping Librarian. “I know, Laoshi. Just because I’ve studied on my own doesn’t mean I’m—”
Cordelia’s wails tore into a wracking climax. Daoren tried to turn to her, but Laoshi prevented him. He was strong for an old man.
“Tarry a moment longer.”
“I must attend to my mother.”
“You must attend to your final test preparation under my tutelage.”
Daoren snorted. “I don’t need your tutelage to survive the S.A.T.”
Laoshi yanked him into an embrace. “I know, boy,” he whispered in Daoren’s ear. “You need it to survive the forces aligned against you.” He relaxed his grip. “Look now to your mother. But later, look to me.”
Daoren wandered to the pedestal. Laoshi’s words gnawed at his mind, but his mother’s grief demanded his immediate attention. “Momma, come.”
He helped her to her feet. She clutched his arm, swaying and trembling. The rest of the mourners gathered around them.
The pedestal canted sideways, revealing a breach in the gondola’s lower hull. Lucien’s shrouded body slid along the pedestal’s smooth crystalline surface and dropped into the open air.
It tumbled one hundred feet into the Sea of Storms.
10
Inter Librarium
JID 736390-112489-ZC
PRIMAE JIREN’S EYES ONLY
SUBJECT: LAOSHI AL EUCLIDIUS
1. Sixty-six scrolls authored by the subject have been forwarded to my office by Gustar al Vlodisar, a senior Librarian assigned to datakeeping within the Spires. (See accompanying Jireni Investigative Decree 736390-112253-ZC for more details.)
2. Based on the seditious nature of the writings, sufficient cause exists to open an investigation into the subject’s activities and associations over the last five years.
3. Immediate detention and questioning in the Rig is problematic given the subject’s prominent position and widespread support among the Libraria and denizens at large.
4. If evidence of dissension is found, my office will be forced to apply the harshest punitive penalty. Preparations will have to be made to quell the social unrest this action would prompt.
5. Supplementary reports will follow for your eyes only.
Survival Through Sapience.
Cang alum Aridian
District Commander, Zhongguo Cheng
* * *
A HUVVATRAIN LADEN with ceramic pillars inched past Daoren.
One hundred feet in length and ten feet in diameter, the pillars were bound for the new administrative structures being raised in Zhongguo Cheng’s western boroughs—their glossy mauve veneer was a dead giveaway. The construction project had razed seven habitation complexes and displaced four thousand families to make room, but those costs carried no weight. The Cognos Populi needed more meeting space in which to conduct their murky affairs.
Thirty-eight linked carriers had crawled by so far, with two left to go. That made the huvvatrain nearly a mile long and Sha-knows-how-many tons. Whatever its mass, its bulk blocked the pediwalk and his progress, holding him captive within striking distance of the Librarium’s entrance.
He muttered under his breath. The only act more annoying than returning to the Librarium was tarrying under the mid-day sun for the privilege to do so. Scorching rays drilled into the top of his head; they’d soon tap the vast pain reservoir behind his eyes. The loads of pillars had delayed him twenty minutes and set him on the path toward a splitting headache.
The last carrier cleared the pediwalk, revealing the Librarium’s southern perimeter. Ninety feet away, a twelve-foot wall topped with crystal spikes encircled the grounds. A crystalline archway served as the sole access point. Its prismatic sunglow blocks bore an ancient inscription, letters darkened by shadow.
Survival Through Sapience.
Daoren tramped across the transway, comparing the sights to a storechamber of mental images from ten years ago. The wall and archway seemed smaller and less imposing now, the inscription’s letters duller and less accurate. Otherwise, time hadn’t changed their appearance. The same couldn’t be said of him—or anyone else in his life.
Since his father’s funeral, Cordelia had spent her days and nights in the abode’s parlor, sifting through cache after cache of quantum images. She no longer wept when she viewed the images of Lucien and Mako—not even when she converted them to plasmonic projections whose haptic feedback made them substantive enough to touch—but she no longer ate either. No amount of his pleading could persuade her to take grooll. His mother was intent on shriveling out of existence.
Heqet had vanished altogether. She didn’t attend Lucien’s funeral. Daoren had searched for her on the passage back to the southern aerodrome, combing through the aerostat’s gondola, straining for a glimpse of her twin braids and sparkling micro-studs. Onlookers would have assumed he was thanking the mourners; out of character, but understandable given the circumstances.
In reality, he’d ached to see her. That was also out of character. Heqet’s presence had affected him for good and ill over the past thirteen years, but he couldn’t recall a time when her absence had caused physical pain. It felt as though he’d lost a vital organ—without the benefit of anesthetic. Why it felt that way he couldn’t say, but her disappearance irked him. That much he could put a finger on.
In the days after the funeral, his hunch that the Unum played a part in Mako and Lucien’s deaths had only strengthened. Mako’s S.A.T. score couldn’t have been swapped with Julinian’s score without the authorization of the ruler of Daqin Guojin. No sane member of the Cognos Populi or the Libraria would risk exposing the Unum to charges of S.A.T. manipulation without his foreknowledge. And no sane man would accuse the Unum of tampering with S.A.T. scores without some measure of proof.
The prep-test results Lucien had received in his chamber at the Assembly—had they implicated the Unum? Had his father paid for receiving them with his life? The more Daoren pondered the question, the more the answer pointed to yes.
Like every inhabitant of Daqin Guojin, Lucien suffered from blind-spots. Guileless to a fault, he had no appetite for cunning or intrigue. Whereas another man might have used evidence of manipulation as leverage to advance his own interests, Lucien would have spared no effort to bring it to light. As straightforward as his father was, however, Daoren couldn’t see him confronting the Unum—at least not directly. He must have shared his suspicion—and the prep-test results—with the wrong person in the Assembly.
Who that person might be remained a mystery, but Daoren was convinced the answers lay within the Librarium. Not in the fictions and propaganda embedded in its glass scrolls, but in its Primae Librarian. The forces aligned against you, Laoshi had said at the funeral. It was time to discover what those forces looked like.
He reached the far side of the transway and angled for the archway. Ten feet from its overhanging inscription, a shrill hiss washed over him. A guttural voice cut through the din. “Hold fast, prospect!”
A levideck whisked to a halt before him, blocking the entrance. Transparent armor panels curled around the craft’s leading edges, forming the shape of a raised shield. Cylindrical airpacks nestled in banded stacks behind the panels. Screens glowed in a wraparound dash above a pair of handgrips.
Its Jireni rider twisted a handgrip. Varinozzles mounted below the horizontal deck powered off. The hiss of compressed air faded and the craft settled onto the ground. “What’s your business in the Librarium, slag?”
“S.A.T. prep.”
“Who’s your tutor?”
; “I’ve been studying on my own.”
“One of those prospects, hmm?” The Jiren plucked a thin glass probe from the craft’s dash and waved him closer. “Come then, lend me your ear.”
Daoren eyed the archway. A few more paces and he’d have been on the Librarium’s grounds, beyond the brute’s authority. He cursed the huvvatrain for delaying him and stepped forward, raking his hair back.
The probe’s cold tip entered his ear canal. Colder chirps announced its air-query.
The levideck’s dash screens flickered. Daoren’s fingerprint scans, genetic sequence, patterns of movement, and other information replicated on them. They broadcasted a lifetime’s worth of biometric data, captured and stored in the spintronic diodes injected behind his eardrums nineteen years earlier.
“What kind of name is Daoren?”
“The kind my parents gave me.”
The Jiren harrumphed. He studied a screen. “Just thirty days till your S.A.T., I see. Decided to sit it earlier rather than later, hmm?”
“Good to know you can read,” Daoren said. “I’ve heard tales of Jireni who had difficulty with basic comprehension.”
The Jiren sneered. “Clever, slag. Very clever.” He extracted the probe and stowed it. A twist of a handgrip activated the varinozzles. “But I’m guessing I’ll be the one munching on your marrow in a month’s time.”
The levideck rose atop an expanding cloud. It leveled off a few inches above the ground. The Jiren leaned forward, cacklebracking, and whisked away.
Daoren shook his head as the brute receded. “What a glasshole.”
* * *
THIRTY MINUTES LATER, Daoren followed a wide tiled pathway through the central part of the Librarium, each step a labor thanks to the throbbing behind his eyes.
The impersonal grounds touched him in a strangely intimate way. Every few hundred feet, narrower pediwalks branched off from the pathway. They led to hexagonal habitation complexes, geodesic messing facilities capable of feeding thousands per sitting, domed infirmaries, and a myriad functional buildings he’d called home as a child. The Librarium was a city within the city-state, as self-sufficient as it was self-contained. A prospect could spend years on its grounds and never want for anything—except an education.
Survival Aptitude Test: Sound (The Extinction Odyssey Book 1) Page 11