Ward shook his head. “Is it a Cytherean term?”
“It’s old. Means he was exceedingly normal, or some such thing. Never mind, the point is there was nothing going on with us.”
“Okay,” Ward said, accepting that for the moment. His little playful distraction had had the desired effect of putting her more at ease. An appropriate time to introduce the next big question, one which he knew she wouldn’t like. “What were you doing the night of Lee’s disappearance?”
She scoffed quietly and looked away again. Her face, little by little, went from ironic amusement to something much darker. Obviously, the night in question was a sensitive subject for her, as was to be expected.
“I was back at the hotel by eighteen hundred hours, local time. Lee and I were finished for the day. I suggested we have dinner, but he said he had other plans.”
“Did he say what?”
She shook her head. “No. Frankly, that didn’t seem like him at all.”
The next few questions followed in quick succession, Ward throwing out the obvious points and Amaru responding swiftly and coolly. Her responses were consistent with an honest story, not subject to thought or unnecessary details, while her eyes remained fixed on him. Not once did she look to the right, which would indicate she was accessing her creative faculties.
“Did you leave the hotel at any point?”
“No.”
“Can anybody verify your presence at the hotel?”
“The hotel security ought to. It saw me check in.”
“Did you see Lee talking with anyone you didn’t recognize, between your arrival on Titan and the time of his disappearance?”
“No one that wasn’t on our scheduled list of contacts.”
“What about on Callisto?”
“Same there.”
“Did he do anything that would indicate he was up to something illegal? Or maybe unethical?”
“Nothing,” Amaru stated pointedly.
Ward took a deep breath. There were several more questions he could think of, but the most burning at this point was the one most likely to get a dubious reaction. “Did he have any reason for going to the Yellow Light District?”
Amaru scoffed again and cocked her head sideways. She didn’t meet his gaze, shaking her head deliberately as she answered. This too, evidently, was a sensitive point.
“I can’t imagine why he’d want to visit that place. I can only assume he was on that platform by mistake. Or maybe someone had lured him there.”
“Lured?” Ward echoed. “Like how?”
“I don’t know,” she insisted, her voice rising an octave. “All I know is, the man I knew wouldn’t go to some sleazy hole on some distant moon simply to fuck somebody. If he were looking to have an affair, I would have known.”
“Really?” Ward leaned back into his seat, assuming the role of the intrigued inquisitor. “I thought you said there was no romantic tension between the two of you.”
Amaru fixed him with a cold, hard look. “That’s not what I meant!”
“What did you mean?” Ward pressed.
“I meant, if he wanted to cheat on Linda – whom I know, by the way – he might have found several willing women back on Mars. Hell, half the women in Lovelock were impressed enough with him. If he had indicated he wanted some extramarital pursuit, I’m sure any one of them would have obliged him.”
She was jabbing a finger at him now, her words becoming especially pointed during the mention of Lee’s wife – another interesting point Ward was sure to make a note of. But he scarcely failed to notice her anger over the implication Lee was up to something illicit. It seemed clear where that angle was coming from.
It wasn’t that she knew Lee may not have been having an affair. It was the fact she didn’t know, and was faced with evidence contradicting her take on him. She’d known the man for years, and his disappearance, coupled with the circumstances of it, was throwing that impression into complete disarray.
Her world had been turned upside down. Grief, anger and confusion were all fighting for an equal share of her mental state. It was little wonder, then, why she had come off so prickly when they first met.
Ward compiled all this information into a package and labelled it, saving it to his neural augments along with all the information he had stored on Amaru.
Behavioral Profile – Doctor Amaru
“All right, Doctor,” he said finally. “I think we’ve covered enough ground for now. I might have some more questions once we reach Titan, but I’m sure your story will check out.”
She sighed, pushing back in her seat, closing her eyes and letting her head loll back. One leg was crossed over the other, indicating a full-on defensive posture. Ward was no longer recording. If he was, he would have noted her opinion of him had only improved slightly as a result of their little interrogation.
Previously, she had been mistrustful. Now, she was unsure. And her defenses were still very much raised.
“You believe me, don’t you?” she asked without opening her eyes.
“About what? About Lee not being the sort?”
She nodded. Ward concluded now was a good time for honesty again, though there was no playfulness in his voice as he spoke. “Well, truth is, I’m not sure. I admit, there’s something about all this that doesn’t add up. From what I’ve seen of the man, Lee was hardly someone to go off-book, or act suddenly and impulsively. I can’t imagine he was the kind of person to partake in pleasures of the flesh, at least not in a sex district. I do think there’s something else going on here, and I’m intrigued to know what that might be.”
Amaru seemed to accept his answer and smiled uneasily. Then, she went right back to reading from her Folio and didn’t say anything for the remainder of their journey. Ward was left staring at the crown of her head for a moment before he too resumed reading.
Interesting, he thought. Of all ways for her to react, she seemed almost ill at ease that he agreed with her. Perhaps, in her mind, he had validated some deeper fear. Perhaps she was simply tired and didn’t want to talk anymore. Or perhaps she was lying and didn’t trust him when he said he believed her. Were he still making notes about her for a profile, he would have been forced to jot down a question mark.
He truly wished he had a behavioral package to fall back on. At times like this, measured responses, and not behaviorally-based observations, might be counted on to provide answers. He only hoped back in Valhalla, Houte and Constance were having better luck, and maybe finding something on Amaru he could use.
Twenty
It was late evening in Valhalla. The skyline was simulating a starless night. Whereas it had been a dark blue a day before, punctuated by tiny points of light, the entire heavens were now blanketed in a dark, ashen haze. Ward felt a strange sense of déjà vu, having seen the same simulated skylines over Pavanopolis on many occasions.
Then there was his limited experience looking upon overcast skies on Earth. Seeing with his own eyes what rain-pregnant clouds looked like up close was quite the experience. Witnessing the real thing made him appreciate the lengths his people went to in order to create a believable facsimile.
It was also interesting to learn why. Given the programmers who wrote these simulation matrices could have programmed them to treat locals to sunsets and clear skies every day of the year, it was hard to understand why anyone would choose to look at cloudy skies. He remembered what he was told during his visit Earthside. All the data humanity had accrued, from their many generations of space exploration and colonization, proved conclusively that humans tended to respond better to simulated realities that were realistic.
A little bad weather from time to time was much more comforting than a constant flow of comfort and beauty. Much the same was true of people living on Mercury, Luna, Venus and Mars benefitting from periodic exposure to Earth normal gravity. Movement, work, recreation and living were so much easier when gravity was a fraction of a g. And yet, the body suffered if it didn’t get its f
ix from time to time.
In many ways, the human mind and body were still stuck in the Paleolithic Age. On occasion, both needed some adversity, if for no other reason than because they were conditioned to believe such things were natural.
After leaving Amaru at the spaceport, Ward made a quick detour back to Niflheim. The streets were again glowing, and the process of getting to Houte’s seemed to go much faster. He was less aware of people staring in his direction this time around. Retracing the steps he had taken earlier made things easier.
When Ward reached Houte’s little shop, he was fortunate to find the owner still there, looking over the pieces of someone’s wearable. Over one eye, Houte had an ocular enhancer, one which was clearly turned up to the highest magnification, given the way he was scrutinizing the piece of gear. Nanofab gloves covered his hands and arms up to the elbows, and a multitool cycling through various heads was clutched between his fingers. When he looked up to see Ward standing there, his face turned dour.
“Back so soon?”
“Just about to leave” Ward replied. “Wanted to see if Constance had any luck yet.”
Houte raised the ocular eyepiece and stared hard at Ward. The look in his eyes conveyed enough sentiment to fill an entire conversation.
“I’m sorry,” Ward said to placate him. “But as soon as I’m out of Jovian space, anything you send to me might be monitored. I know they’re tracking my movements, but I have no idea if they’re following my communications.”
“No way they can track her path. When she contacts you, they won’t know a thing.” Houte sounded like a proud brother as he said this. Ward was less confident in his assessment.
“Whatever. I figured this way would be easier and safer for us both.”
Houte placed the microtool down, removed one of the gloves, and stepped into the back for a second. He had to shout to be heard as he rummaged around.
“Lucky for you, Mr. Ward, my sister works fast. She uncovered some things about your Mr. Lee, and his little friend Amaru. She got a few things on those people, the Chandrasekhars, too.”
When he returned, he cast the curtain aside with his free arm. With the other, he thrust a small, clear cube he was holding between his thumb and forefinger in Ward’s direction. Ward recognized it as an old external drive, the kind people in the Outer World still used for data storage. Taking it in his fingers, he stared at it, frowning.
“You put it on here?”
“For safekeeping,” Houte answered. “Didn’t want to be keeping it at our house, in case the ones following you came looking.”
“How much is on here?”
“Not much more than a petabyte. Nothing too big. I hope you got lots of time on that ship they’re sending you on. Makes for a long read.”
Ward’s heart began to sink at the thought, when he was suddenly hit by the realization Houte was pulling his leg. The look on Houte’s face confirmed these suspicions before long, his pearly white teeth exposed as his lips moved apart to form a broad smile. Relief and anger flowed over Ward all at once. His own face cracked into a small smile. “You bastard.”
“Sorry, couldn’t resist. Everybody knows you types hate learning the old-fashioned way.”
Houte reached beneath the counter and produced a similarly old-fashioned upload/interface device. Ward grabbed it and placed the small cube in the top slot, waiting for the device to scan for his neurological device, before ordering it to connect with him.
“We deal in the archaic,” he heard Houte say as the machine prepped for the upload. “Don’t mean I can’t merge the old with the new.”
“Yes, that’s very interesting,” Ward mumbled, ignoring him. The connection was secure, and the sum of years’ worth of information uploaded into his brain. Ward’s eyes closed as the experience became somewhat euphoric, his system responding to the input by predictably releasing oxytocin and endorphins.
When the upload was complete, he had the sensation a great deal of time had passed. It was typical, given the process. However, a brief check of the chrono in his visual field confirmed only a few seconds had gone by.
“You leaving tonight?” asked Houte.
Ward nodded. “Yeah, our ride is waiting at the starport now. As soon as I get there, we’re shipping off to Titan. No looking back.”
Houte waited for a second, an expectant look on his face.
Ward finally asked. “Am I forgetting something?”
Houte spread his hands wide. “There’s the small matter of payment for services rendered.”
Ward smiled and called up an overlay. A quick authorization, and the payments were scheduled. “All done,” Ward said. “The full amount will be transferred in two installments, over the next two months, as promised.”
Houte checked his handheld and once again looked pleased. Putting it down, he looked at Ward with a measure of concern. “Never said this before, Ward, but, be careful. You go poking too much underneath those rocks, you might not like what you find. And some things may be living down there, things that bite you if you’re not careful.”
Ward nodded again. As advice went, it was the best he had been given in a while.
Twenty-One
Emile rotated the ring about his finger for what felt like the millionth time. The inset jewel had been glowing for some time, beckoning him as it always did whenever Pinter wanted an audience, whenever he demanded the attention of family or fellow Faction members. And who might deny him? He was, after all, the patron saint of Lovelock, or as close a thing as possible among their kind.
Departing the lift, Emile released a heavy sigh. The day’s burdens had been considerable, reviewing the updates on their holdings across the System. And in between all that, there were the regular reports coming from Adler concerning the movements of Ward and Amaru. Now they had rendezvoused with each other, Adler was being rather verbose about their every movement.
As he reached the doors of Pinter’s Heilig room, Emile’s presence was acknowledged by the room’s protocols and the doors slid open. Emile was met by a warm breeze, the smell of a summery night and the sound of crickets.
Steeling himself, he stepped inside.
His feet touched down against stone streets. The settlement he found himself in was small, consisting of a series of round stone huts with thatched roofs. At its outer edge, he found Pinter, standing by a wall ringing the settlement, overlooking the grassy hills in the distance. Emile didn’t recognize the setting, but such was to be expected. All of Pinter’s fantasies were alien to him; only those which had been explained to him were the slightest bit familiar.
“Hello, Dādā,” Emile said, using Pinter’s familiar, informal name. “You summoned me?”
Pinter acknowledged his grandson’s arrival with a pleasant-sounding hum. His eyes remained fixed on whatever it was that preoccupied him on the horizon. Emile noticed the smile on his face when he came to stand beside him, though. He anticipated his ancestor had been woolgathering, and was about to share the substance of his musings.
“Were you busy?” Pinter asked.
“Always, Dādā. But never so busy I can’t come and speak with you.”
Pinter acknowledged this wordlessly as well. His head turned this way and that, but remained fixed on the horizon the whole time. “Do you know why I come here?”
Emile tried to keep his growing frustration in check, wishing the old man would get to the point. “I do not, Dādā.”
“I was only ever here once. Back in the thirties, while I was studying abroad. All the English kids vacationed in either Spain or Mezzogiorno, so I chose to visit the former. I wanted to do something a little more rustic than spending weeks in Barcelona. So, I took to the Camino de Santiago, an old pilgrimage route running through northern Spain. It led me here, towards the end. A hilltop community overlooking the hills of Galicia.”
Emile resisted the urge to call up an overlay, initiate a search for the names he didn’t recognize. He knew it would be a waste of time, as it wo
uld help him little. What’s more, he knew these places were mere props in his grandfather’s story, which was leading to something else entirely.
“Only once in life did I stop in this town. I barely remembered its name for the longest time. But somehow, it’s significant in a way I can’t describe. Maybe because so much about it relates to what we are doing here today.”
“How do you mean, Dādā?” Emile asked, sensing the point was at hand.
Pinter pointed into the distance. “Do you see those patches of yellow over there?”
Emile called upon visual enhancements to do so, but he spotted what Pinter appeared to be indicating. Across the hillsides, there were what resembled yellow flowers against a backdrop of verdant green.
“Those are from a species of shrub known as cytisus scoparius, otherwise known as “broom”. It’s an indigenous species in this part of the world. I recognized it because of the way it always grew in the Pacific Northwest. I became fascinated by the sight of it, I remember. It made me think of how Europeans once colonized the Americas, and how their plant species had done the same.”
Emile nodded, uttering affirmatives to let on he was following.
“Then I remember looking at the town I was standing in. An ancient settlement named O Cebreiro. According to our guide app, the town dated back to the first millennium BCE, back when the Celts still inhabited the region before the Roman conquest. I was amazed by how they managed to preserve the huts, the stone walls, everything, making the site a fitting example of the ancient culture.
“My travel companion and I, a young woman I met along the way, spent the night here as we worked our way west. There wasn’t room at the albergue, so we camped out under the stars. We made love in a tent, surrounded by tall grass and broom, nothing but the sound of the wind to be heard over the sounds of our passionate embrace.”
Emile felt himself cringe inwardly. The timelines were a bit fuzzy for him, but he knew for certain the woman in this story was not his grandmother. Despite his youthful appearance in the Heilig, Pinter was irrevocably a great ancestor to him. Hearing about his sexual dalliances only produced discomfort.
The Cronian Incident (The Formist Book 1) Page 19