Geosynchron

  "Well, the thing is ... I think the fight might be fixed in our favor. I can't tell. Besides, if someone can get to her, they'll get to anyone we hire to replace her."

  Fixed or not, Suheil and Jayze Surina didn't look too happy with the state of things in the courtroom either, but those might simply have been their natural dispositions.

  Suheil, dour and dim-witted in the best of circumstances, had been advised by his handlers to avoid the courtroom. His temper was legendary throughout the Indian subcontinent, and he appeared to be congenitally unable to talk in a low tone of voice. He followed his handlers' advice most of the time and kept to the hallways, glowering at passersby and kicking things. Jara thought he looked like a troll.

  But Jayze had been given no such counsel. She lorded over the plaintiffs' wing of the courtroom like a petty despot, making imperious gestures to her aides for glasses of water throughout the day. Her retinue seemed only too eager to appease her. She bore an uncanny resemblance to her second cousin Margaret, which made it difficult for Jara to watch her. With her precise mannerisms, her wide blue eyes, and her limp black hair, Jayze Surina might have been Margaret's evil twin.

  Things only deteriorated once the testimony began. Jara found herself stewing for hours in her seat at the unfairness of it all.

  The core of Jayze and Suheil Surina's argument was that Margaret had shown signs of mental instability long before she had signed a deal to hand day-to-day operations of the company over to Natch. Therefore, the bodhisattva had clearly not been of sound mind when she made the agreement.

  The prime piece of evidence? The agreement itself.

  "It's absolutely not legitimate business practice," scoffed a leading economic scholar on the stand to the plaintiffs' attorney. "Just handing over fifty percent of a company with four hundred years of name recognition to a complete stranger? I can't think of a single precedent for that kind of behavior."

  "Not one," parroted the attorney.

  "It doesn't sound like an agreement that anybody would sign if they were in their right mind, does it?"

  "No, it doesn't to me either."

  Jayze and Suheil's attorneys did not stop at impugning Margaret's business sense. A parade of Surina family retainers made their way to the stand to testify about her bizarre behavior for the whole of the last decade. One of the minor bodhisattvas at Creed Surina complained about how Margaret had paused during a major speech to the devotees and simply walked offstage without explanation, midsentence. Aides detailed how she would send them on inexplicable and sometimes contradictory errands at all hours of the night. Professors divulged how she had gone from being a merely odd steward of the Gandhi University to a strangely self-destructive one.

  On and on the testimony went. Jara could sense the scales of justice tilting in Suheil and Jayze's favor with every nugget of irresponsibility and irrationality the witnesses piled on. "Do you think Jayze and Suheil are paying these people to perjure themselves?" she asked Horvil.

  "You mean, have they been bribed?"

  "Yeah."

  The engineer scowled and shook his head. "Why would you need to bribe them? Margaret never explained herself to anybody. She must have made a million enemies."

  Jara recalled her own interactions with the bodhisattva. As far as she could remember, she had only met the woman twice. She had sat in a conference room and watched Margaret trade bon mots with Natch as if they were reciting lines from Oscar Wilde. And a few days later, she had argued with Margaret about Natch's disappearance, causing Margaret to pull out a dartgun and retreat to the top of her skyscraper. Ten, fifteen minutes of interaction at most. Could Jara herself vouch that the last heir of Sheldon, Prengal, and Marcus Surina had been of compos mentis when she signed that deal with Natch?

  As the crazy proceedings went on and the case tilted farther and farther in the Surinas' direction, the unnamed Pharisee sat in the back row, day after day, watching the proceedings with grave interest. He spoke to no one that Jara could see. Whether he even comprehended what was going on was unclear.

  Meanwhile, in the outside world, tensions between Len Borda and Magan Kai Lee were mounting by the day. For the most part, the two factions of Council officers tried to show a unified face to the public during routine security operations. But once a week, it seemed, some turf battle would spontaneously erupt, leaving handfuls of dead or incapacitated Council officers to litter the streets. The Islanders only made things worse by executing random strikes here and there that did not appear to be targeting either side.

  And as the fighting intensified, Margaret Surina's murder remained unsolved and the infoquakes continued, leaving occasional reminders of civilization's fragility in the face of the brutal unknown.

  Jara didn't expect anyone to show up early to the fiefcorp meeting on the day before the plaintiffs were supposed to rest their case. Since the company had purchased a slate of second-rate programs from Lucas Sentinel and gone on autopilot to deal with the Surina family's lawsuit, nobody seemed particularly enthusiastic about attending these meetings. Benyamin and Merri had retreated into their respective creed activities; Serr Vigal had retreated to his ailing neural programming company; and Robby Robby was presumably focusing on sales partners with more lucrative products.

  But when Jara made her way through the Surina Enterprise Facility at Andra Pradesh and entered the company's designated conference room, she found Horvil and Robby there five minutes early and deep in discussion. The engineer had arrived first in the conference room and selected what looked like the inside of an internal combustion engine for SeeNaRee. Jara hoped this meeting ran short; the clanking of gears and pumping of pistons would surely give her a headache if she spent more than twenty minutes here.

  "I was telling Horvil about the new MindSpace extensions coming out next year," beamed Robby Robby. With his blue vinyl trench coat, thick mustache, and shaved head, the channeler was so up-to-theminute that he risked overtaking the present and slipping into the future at any moment. "Did you realize you'll be able to work on three levels of data at once with the new H-bar? Assembly-line shops are gonna be a thing of the past, Queen Jara!"

  "Fascinating," said Horvil, meaning it. Only a sharp look from Jara prevented him from drifting off into a haze of engineering-speak.

  Serr Vigal multied into the room a few minutes after the designated meeting start time, looking haggard and depressed. "Towards Perfection," said the neural programmer to nobody in particular, taking the seat at the far end of the table in the shadow of an enormous metal lever. Jara felt sorry for him. Vigal's speech before the Prime Committee two months ago had energized and enlivened him; but then Natch had disappeared, leaving him with the realization that he had much less influence on his former charge than he had thought. Jara felt like offering Vigal a consoling word or two, but she could think of nothing consoling to say.

  Merri and Benyamin arrived together less than a minute later. "Sorry we're late!" said Ben, taking a seat next to his cousin Horvil. "Creed business. Merri can vouch for me. Elan and Objectivv are actually planning a group convocation later this month."

  "Fascinating," said Horvil, not meaning it.

  Jara didn't really care why they were late, now that the two of them were here to take her mind off Horvil's engineering patter and Vigal's glumness. "We ready to get started?" she said, forming a prim, businesslike pyramid on the table with her fingertips.

  "Ready when you are!" chirped Robby.

  The fiefcorp master stifled a grimace at the channeler's oppressive buoyancy. "Should we begin with a look at the latest sales figures? Merri?"

  The blond channel manager pointed to the center of the tabletop and summoned a pentagram of virtual sales charts. It was a sobering sight. In contrast to their old sales charts, which usually showed lines in hot competition to climb to the peak of the y-axis, these charts were as flat as Midwestern prairie. It didn't help that the programs bore such mind-warpingly dull titles as Eyelash Kurler 23 and Cuticle Manager 46c.
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  "I wish I could offer an explanation for all this, but I can't," said Merri with a weariness that went beyond moribund sales figures. Jara suspected some fresh health crisis with Merri's companion Bonneth, but she had no desire to press for details.

  "Aw, it's not that bad," said Robby Robby, without any evidence to back him up.

  "I've got a perfect explanation," said Horvil. "This code sucks. I don't know how Sentinel made a single Vault credit off these programs. I mean, look at this one." He pointed to a red line labeled Y NOT DITCH THE ITCH 18, which was actually sloping into negative territory. "That piece of shit doesn't even `ditch the itch.' It just makes you scratch somewhere else."

  Jara gave the engineer a sympathetic sigh. "It's a start, Horv. Something to build on."

  Horvil made a droll farting noise and turned his attention to the steaming SeeNaRee valves hanging from the ceiling a few meters up. "Whatever."

  "Come on, you'll get these programs fixed up in no time," said Jara. "You've cleaned up far worse."

  "I've seen it," said Robby.

  "I suppose," replied the engineer with a frown. "It's just ... difficult, that's all. Two months ago, we were going to change the world. Now we're managing cuticles."

  Nobody could argue with that. There was a full minute of silence as Jara tried in vain to think of some way to lift the company's spirits.

  "So ... any encouraging news from the trial?" asked Vigal in a halfhearted attempt to change the subject.

  Jara attempted to put a positive spin on the morning's news: Martika Korella had finally persuaded the court to jettison the PevertzLaubumi Disambiguation Procedure. This would not change the parameters of the case, but at the very least, it wasn't bad news, and therefore worthy of mention in Jara's eyes.

  Ben's face curdled with every additional syllable she uttered on the subject. "I can't believe we're still arguing about this crap," he moaned. "It's like a whole separate meta-lawsuit about the lawsuit. I don't understand why we can't all just pick some ground rules and get on with it already."

  "It's a matter of posturing," explained Merri. "That's what Martika says, anyway. Here in Andra Pradesh, you need to demonstrate to the judges that you've got confidence in your case, or they'll think you're capitulating."

  Benyamin threw his hands up in the air. "Who cares? This isn't a popularity contest. This is about the law. Why can't we concentrate on the substance of the issue instead of all these stupid perceptions?"

  Horvil reached over and patted Benyamin on the head. "Welcome to life," he said.

  Jara could tell that the young apprentice was about to launch into another sullen tirade, which would likely spark another round of bitterness and recrimination. Jara pinched the skin over the bridge of her nose tightly in frustration. The fiefcorp was already being hampered by a lousy product base and an all-consuming lawsuit; this low-level bickering only made things worse.

  But Jara was spared the chore of dealing with angry fiefcorp members by an unexpected request to enter the conference room. She waved her hand, and seconds later the door opened to reveal Martika Korella.

  Even in these days of cheap chromosomal manipulation, Martika was a genetic oddity: a red-headed woman of Asian descent who stood over two meters tall. She would be an imposing presence in any courtroom, and had been quite intimidating here in Andra Pradesh until her sudden and unexplained attitude shift. But this morning Korella seemed to have experienced another abrupt turnaround in the other direction, for she was back to her old self. Composed, unflappable, in the know.

  "Good news," said the attorney, pulling up a seat at the opposite end of the table from Jara and crossing her legs. "We've got a settlement offer."

  "That is good news," said Benyamin, ready to reconsider his opinion of Korella's legal acumen on the spot.

  Merri nodded. "It would be nice to get this whole lawsuit behind us." She gestured towards the sales charts still insulting them in full holographic color from the center of the table. "It's already been too much of a disruption." Horvil, Vigal, and Robby were all projecting various expressions of agreement.

  But Jara could feel her hackles rising. There it was, that inexplicable smell of oddness that surrounded this entire case. "This is kind of ... unexpected, isn't it?"

  "Very unexpected," agreed Martika, twirling her fingers idly in her hair. "The Surinas are all set to rest their case. As far as I can tell, they've got two of the three judges completely convinced, and the third one's leaning their way too."

  "So why would they offer us a settlement now?" said Jara.

  Martika shook her head. "You've heard the expression Nothing's perpendicular in Andra Pradesh?" she said. "Strange things happen in this city. Sometimes it's best not to ask too many questions, and just take the hand you're given."

  All of the fiefcorpers could sense Jara's discontent by now. They chose to give her a wide berth and wait to hear what she had to say.

  "I suppose it all depends what the settlement's like," said Jara. "So what are they offering? A pittance?"

  "No, actually." Martika waved her hand over the table, causing the sales charts to shrink into a far corner and a new set of spreadsheets to come to the fore. She pointed to the bold-faced numbers at the bottom, causing them to turn red and pop forward. "That's a very good number. Considering the legal fees you've spent already, this isn't actually much less than you'd wind up with if we won the case outright."

  Jara frowned and tapped her fingers on the tabletop. "What about the intellectual property?"

  "The Surinas would get control of that."

  "You mean MultiReal?" said Ben.

  "I mean MultiReal. But you've said it yourself, Jara-in all likelihood, the intellectual property's worthless. The MultiReal databases have vanished, and anyone who gets hold of them is obligated to cede them over to the Prime Committee anyway." The attorney clenched one fist, causing the settlement spreadsheets to shrink back into nothingness and the dismal sales charts to take their place. "I have to be honest here, Jara. We could still end up swaying all three of the judges to our side. They could award us damages and legal fees. But. . . " Martika shifted in her seat uncomfortably. "I don't think that's likely to happen."

  Horvil looked sheepishly in Jara's direction. "You've heard the expression Take the money and run ...

  But that was precisely the problem. Jara knew she had little to lose in accepting this settlement offer. Jayze and Suheil would recover a large piece of a fund that would likely be spent on legal fees anyway, and they would get the rights to a program that Jara didn't even possess. The company could finally sever the chains binding them to the past and chart a new course into the future. Heck, she could see herself paying the sum at the bottom of that spreadsheet just to avoid looking at Jayze and Suheil's smarmy faces again.

  It was, in fact, such a plum offer that Jara knew she had to refuse it.

  Why would Jayze and Suheil suddenly decide to hedge their bets, a scant few days before the Andra Pradeshian judges were likely to rule in their favor? It ran contrary to every personality trait Jara knew about them. She would have expected the two to pursue their lawsuit until they had drained every last Vault credit in the Surina/Natch MultiReal Fiefcorp's account, if only just to spite their dead cousin.

  Had John Ridglee and Sen Sivv Sor been correct? Were the Surinas scared? Did they suspect that Natch was about to show up and testify against them?

  Jara scanned the table at the faces of the fiefcorpers. Horvil looked ready to abide by any decision Jara made; Vigal seemed to care little about this case one way or another; Merri was ready to put this entire distasteful MultiReal business behind her; Benyamin had the hardnosed expression of a man who knew a good deal when he saw one; and Robby Robby's veneer of optimism showed no signs of cracking.

  The fiefcorp master remembered her grandfather's words: You just have to figure out what's important to you. Do that, and you're golden. Win, lose, it's all the same. Sage advice indeed. The outcome of this trial was incons
equential. What mattered was finding out who was behind this desperate shift in strategy, what was causing the entire stink of peculiarity emanating from this case. Until Jara knew that, she would feel no satisfaction, and the fiefcorp would not be able to move on.

  It was time to stir things up. It was time to find out who was pulling the strings.

  "I'm sorry, Martika," said Jara. "You tell Suheil and Jayze that we're not interested. No, better yet-you tell them these exact words: Fuck no."

  I I

  Jara expected to dream of chess that night. She dropped off to sleep with the foolish hope that such a dream might give her some kind of subconscious insight into the identities of the players who had put this game in motion. But instead of chess, she found herself fleeing across a spare, storm-thrashed plain while forces unknown conducted a battle of forked lightning above the clouds. Jara was only one of hundreds running for shelter. Every time she turned to ask someone what was going on, she would find that person engulfed in lethal electricity and then charred to ash.

  The fiefcorp master awoke before dawn and broke her fast in the nitro bar across the street from the hotel where she and Horvil were staying. After perusing the news (more Council clashes, TubeCo labor disputes, a baffling dip in the criminal black code traffic on 49th Heaven), Jara woke the engineer up and they prepped themselves for another day in court. She put on her nicest pantsuit, while Horvil splurged on an expensive bio/logic musk for no apparent reason.

  "Something's different today," said Jara as they left the hotel.

  "Like what?" said Horvil, sniffing absently at his wrist.

  "I don't-I don't know."

  She remembered Natch making bizarre pronouncements like this when he was in charge of the fiefcorp, and she remembered equally well her disdainful reactions to them. How could you feel what the markets were going to do? Why pay heed to a sudden intuition with no logical underpinnings?

  And now Jara was experiencing this oracular sixth sense herself. It defied explanation. There were too many officers in the white robe and yellow star on the streets of Andra Pradesh, and they were distributed in a little too random a fashion. Pedestrians seemed to scoot out of the paths of the tube trains at just the right instant, as if performing an intricate choreographed dance. The sun peeked out from behind the morning clouds and bathed the courthouse in its yellow rays right as Jara rounded the corner....