by Levy, Roger
‘So?’
‘I was talking to Navid, asking him about Bale, and all of a sudden he starts talking about corruption.’
‘What’s this to do with Tallen?’
‘Be patient. Navid’s not telling me Bale was wrong. He’s indicating there’s something bigger going on. And he’s telling me to be careful.’
‘Navid’s been fixed?’
‘I’m not sure. It’s like this is so big, they don’t need to fix him. But he’s not stupid.’
Razer shook her head. ‘Anything really big isn’t likely to impact on Bleak. No offence, but there’s layers upon layers of money and power between the top and the bottom, and Bleak is definitely the shit-end of the System.’
‘And yet it’s got core and the sarcs. Everyone knows the rigs are financed by the Whisper. And alongside the AfterLife, the Whisper’s the most powerful organisation in the System.’
‘But AfterLife and the Whisper coexist,’ Razer said. ‘Neither of them needs to dirty their own hands if they want something, and neither of them has any reason to disturb the other.’
‘Nevertheless, Navid hinted that something big has happened here. And to stay out of it.’
They sat in silence for a moment.
Delta said, ‘Decece was looking at the cams along Tallen’s route, days before the event. It seems crazy, but if you look at everything building towards the Fleschik event, everything that would have to have conspired to have this happen, Decece was on it.’
Razer sighed. ‘What’s the end of the story?’
‘I don’t know. I can’t see your strand of it. You’re in it, though. So what is it you’re not saying?’
‘I really don’t know. Everything’s more or less like I told you. I was directed towards Bale in the first place, by my program. Actually, to Tallen too, which is very strange. I have no idea why. Really. And now I’ve been asked to contact Tallen again.’
Delta said, ‘Well, Tallen’s on a rig, so that’s a dead end. Pity.’
‘Yes. Dead end.’ Razer watched the flowers for a moment, then said, ‘Why would anyone have wanted Tallen dead?’
‘No idea. He was a loner. No relatives, just a few drinking friends, couldn’t keep relationships. Dead life.’ She looked at Razer and said, ‘So why would you have been pointed at him? I can understand Bale, but Tallen?’
‘I don’t know. I can see why I’ve been asked to contact him now, after what happened, a story like that, but before it –’ She shrugged.
‘Not that you can contact him now, of course,’ Delta said.
Razer held her gaze. ‘That’s right. You already said that.’
‘No,’ Delta repeated, and waited a long moment before adding, ‘That AI of yours was beginning to seem a little spooky.’
‘Seems it to me too, sometimes,’ Razer said, trying to smile. ‘It pushes me all over the System. Who knows what feeds an AI’s curiosity?’
‘Well, it isn’t perfect, then. Maybe it’s human.’ Delta smiled as badly as Razer, and stood up and went to the kitchen, saying, ‘You drink starmagnac?’
‘Not often. Yes.’
‘Bale got me this.’ She came back with a small, flattened, green glass bottle and put it on the table between herself and Razer, along with two squat glasses, and filled them both until the alcohol trembled at the brims. She went to the curtain and drew it back, lighting up the room with the brilliant tank. ‘We used to watch the fish, and drink, and talk. Some of the best times.’ She picked up her glass, not spilling a drop, and stared at the tank through the starmagnac. ‘Bale was such a bastard.’ She wiped her cheek with a finger, licked her tears from it, then drank the shot down. ‘He could turn the worst time into the best. And he could flip it right back again. Tell me about your job.’
Razer lifted her glass carefully and drank her shot. ‘I talk to people, get to know them. The AI knows me pretty well, the type of people I like. I make stories out of it for one of the ParaSites.’
Delta refilled both glasses, swiftly and perfectly to their brims. ‘That’s all?’ She swallowed her shot.
‘All?’ Razer drank, then took the bottle and poured, her hand unsteady, leaving both glasses fractionally short. ‘It’s all I do. I don’t think I exist, sometimes. I travel, I talk, I write. What I don’t write, I download to Cynth. My AI. I talk more to Cynth than I do to anyone else.’ She threw back her shot, wincing at the burn. ‘I know too much about people. It isn’t a good thing.’
‘And what do you know about your AI?’ Delta drank quickly and poured them both another shot, steadily and perfectly, watching Razer.
‘TruTales is a resource of experience. It’s a ParaSite hung off AfterLife, like MedMatch, GameGatheral, InSex…’ Razer swallowed the starmagnac.
Delta drank hers. ‘And StarHearts.’
‘Yes.’
‘But you didn’t say StarHearts.’ Delta glanced at her wall screenery. A new, crimson light was flickering on the grey.
Razer said, ‘What’s that? You told me you wouldn’t record us.’
‘I’m not. Some of the cams have been playing up.’
Razer said, ‘What’s the red light?’
‘One of two things. A streetcam going out, most likely. Two streets away.’ She poured two drinks again. Her hand was very slightly trembling.
‘Or?’
‘Face recognition.’ Delta drank her starmagnac and put the glass down, and picked up the other and drank that too. ‘Harv sent me an image for Decece. But this is just a cam playing up.’ As she said it, the alert disappeared.
‘You’re not worried if cams go?’
‘I fitted my own backups. They’ll kick in after a few seconds. See?’ She brought up a rolling display of all the local streetcam views, running them across the screen. There were no dead cams. Shadows flared in the light, charcoal ghosted in the dark. Whether the lights were on or off, no one could pass unseen.
‘Bottle’s empty,’ Razer said.
‘And Bale’s gone. Too bad.’ Delta dry-swallowed. ‘Well, Decece didn’t look at any of the other victims, but he looked at Tallen. I thought Tallen must be in some way special. He’s as ordinary as they come, though. That doesn’t fit anything, then.’ She turned the glass over and drummed a finger on the base.
Razer said, ‘Maybe it was all to kill Bale, and Tallen was just a lure?’
‘Tallen was only found alive because they were looking for Bale.’ She closed her eyes. ‘My fault. I let myself be pushed into sending him down there.’
‘I was the one got him drunk. But why was anyone at all sent down?’
Delta slapped her palm on the table and said, ‘It had to be about Tallen all along. But it wasn’t to kill him. That’s where we’re looking at it wrong. Tallen needed to be found alive.’
Razer went to the window. All the lights in the block opposite were out.
Delta said, ‘Nothing’s special about him. He was as invisible as a stone on the shore. What if this whole thing was a way of acquiring someone like that for the medics to experiment on? Someone with no one to miss them.’
‘That’s ridiculous.’
‘Stay with it.’
‘Okay,’ Razer said. ‘How soon was the specialist medic team called in?’
‘They were here already. Arrived on Bleak a month beforehand for a conference.’
Razer shook her head. ‘Even Bale wouldn’t believe this.’
‘It fits, though,’ Delta insisted. ‘The audit team was part of it. Decece anyway. He trawled and selected Tallen. Maybe before they got to Bleak.’
‘Who’s running it, then? Navid hinted at something big. So, AfterLife? The Whisper? Neither of them would set up something as complicated as this. They want someone, they’d just abduct them.’
Delta slumped. ‘Hell, even if we’re right, it failed in the end.’
‘What failed? What?’
‘We’re saying they wanted someone to experiment on,’ Delta said. ‘But Tallen ended up with a suicide impulse. Aft
er all that work, setting him up, doing hell knows what to him, they couldn’t use him. Can’t use him now, that’s for sure, stuck out on a rig. Poor bastard’s lost to everyone. He’ll probably die there. They usually do.’ She glanced at the wall screenery. ‘All quiet outside,’ she said.
‘No blind spots?’
‘No blind spots.’ Delta flicked views. ‘Twenty-two externals and five in the building. Everywhere’s covered, but not everything’s in view at the same time. If something unrecognised moves, that image comes up immediately, rewound ten seconds, so I can’t miss a thing.’
‘I better go.’ Razer stood up.
‘You going to give all this to your AI? Or does it just take it?’
‘These things don’t work as well as everyone thinks. As you know, Delta. And anyway, it isn’t interested in you.’
‘That’s right. It’s just interested in Tallen. Who’s out of reach, right?’
‘It’s late. I’m going.’
Delta held the door for her, suddenly sober. ‘Hey, Razer,’ she called clearly down the corridor. ‘When you get to Tallen through StarHearts, tell him to be careful. Because you aren’t as clever as you think.’ And then she closed the door.
Thirty-six
ALEF
SigEv 38 The challenge
The evening ended there. Pellonhorc walked me home from the bar, leaning heavily on my arm, and Pireve took him back to his great house, as he was too drunk to fly himself. When she returned, she told me he had spent the whole trip talking about me. ‘He trusts you like no one else, Alef. He believes in you.’
‘He believes in a god who’s out to kill him. I can’t compete with that.’
She looked at me and said, ‘You have to. We’re going to have a child. I’m pregnant, Alef.’
* * *
For a while, we stopped talking about his illness, even though the rate of his deterioration accelerated. In the past, he would hardly ever sit down, was constantly pacing the office. Now he couldn’t stand for long. He’d sag into the chair at his desk. With only one good hand to lever himself up, he’d struggle to stand again. After another month, he had become so weak that he could barely raise himself at all. He had a long, thin chain of braided carbon steel anchored to the desk so that he could wrap the free end around his good fist and slowly haul himself up by it.
After a few weeks of his fast decline in health, I came into his office to find him with one of his senior and more trusted agents, a man called Calo. Calo was a big man. Even seated as he was, he was at eye level with Pellonhorc, who was stooped beside his chair, leaning heavily on the desk, much of his weight taken on the knuckles of his good hand. I could see Pellonhorc needed to sit, but he wouldn’t show weakness to Calo.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘Shall I come back later?’
‘No,’ Calo said firmly, before Pellonhorc could speak. ‘Stay, Alef.’
I said, ‘Pellonhorc?’
Pellonhorc looked like a sick and wizened child. He said, ‘Calo has a proposition for me.’
‘For both of you,’ Calo said.
‘Calo wants a share in the business. A percentage.’
He might have been a big man, Calo, but I knew he wasn’t armed. No one got into Pellonhorc’s office with any sort of weapon. Though no one ever came into his office and asked Pellonhorc for anything.
Calo turned a little in his chair so that he could keep us both in sight.
‘Come round here, Alef,’ Pellonhorc said. ‘Stand with me. Good. Calo isn’t sure of what he’s doing. Are you, Calo?’
‘I’m sure.’
‘Then why don’t you tell Alef what you’ve told me?’
The big man said nothing.
Pellonhorc’s voice was almost a whisper. ‘Go on, Calo. Say it again.’
‘Everyone knows you aren’t well, Pellonhorc. Look at you.’ Calo held out his hands, palms open, steady and solid. ‘You’re dying. I represent a few people who would be happy to maintain the business for you. We won’t take over until you’re ready, and we’ll guarantee your safety as long as your life lasts.’
I didn’t know where to look. Of course this had been inevitable. I had told Pellonhorc he would be challenged as he grew physically weak, but on this, he never listened to me. I stared down at the desk. There was nothing on it but a small comms unit and the pegged coil of chain. I began wondering how long the chain was, what strain it had to withstand as Pellonhorc laboriously pulled himself up by it, what –
‘What do you think, Alef?’ Pellonhorc murmured.
‘Alef will be safe,’ Calo said, looking only at Pellonhorc. ‘We’ll use him well. We know how important he is.’
‘I was talking to Alef,’ Pellonhorc said.
I couldn’t help remembering Spetkin Ligate asking Ethan Drame for my father, just before he killed him.
Calo still hadn’t looked at me. His attention was fixed entirely on Pellonhorc. The big man must have been preparing this for a long time, waiting for Pellonhorc to be weak enough. A muscle at Calo’s temple was quivering, but otherwise he was still. He was confident. Within the moral universe of the Whisper, he was acting honourably. He was offering to maintain the business, holding out a smooth transition, a dignified end for Pellonhorc, my own life carrying on.
‘I don’t think so, Calo,’ I said.
The muscle at Calo’s temple froze.
Pellonhorc said, ‘Who do you represent?’
‘You can deal with me,’ Calo said.
‘Alef, who do you think Calo represents?’
I gave Pellonhorc the names of Calo’s team and a few others with whom they dealt and whose patterns of business had lately been less consistent than usual. Calo went a little pale, then he shrugged and looked at me for just a moment before returning his attention to Pellonhorc and saying, ‘Very clever. As I said, Alef, we’ll use you. You have no reason to worry.’
Pellonhorc was still on his feet, but it was plain that he was tiring. He put his good hand on the back of his chair and took as much weight as possible on it. The chair creaked. He said, ‘You imagine you can replace me, do you?’
‘We couldn’t do what you’ve done, Pellonhorc, but we can keep it going. You can’t. Why don’t you sit down and we can discuss it.’
Pellonhorc hesitated and then nodded to me, and I took his poor arm and supported him to his chair. He all but slumped into it.
Calo smiled. It was over, he was clearly thinking. ‘There,’ he said and leant back, the chair groaning at his weight. He glanced at me as if he and I were pals, and by the time the slip of his attention was over, Pellonhorc had pushed himself forward and the stubby blade of his small red-handled knife was almost at Calo’s throat.
The big man jerked back faster than I could believe, and the edge of his hand cracked the knife away. The blade scythed across the room and dropped to the floor.
Pellonhorc sat back again and shrugged.
Calo spat on the desk. The gob of his spittle lay shining on the dark surface. He licked his lips and said, furiously, ‘You see? Your speed is gone. Your strength is gone. You’re dying. Everyone knows it. I will not continue to be patient, Pellonhorc. Alef, you need to talk to him.’ He put both hands on the table and made to stand.
‘No. Wait,’ Pellonhorc said, flexing his good hand and wincing. ‘I know when a decision has to be made and action taken. I don’t need Alef for that.’ He grunted and tried to stand, but fell back into the chair. I started to help him and he said, ‘No. I don’t need help, either.’
Calo began to smile again, though keeping his attention entirely on Pellonhorc, who started awkwardly to wind the chain around his fist, preparing to haul himself to his feet. He was distracted and without energy, his grip uncertain, and the chain kept slipping through his fingers.
I felt sad for him. All his attention was on the small task of getting a hold on the chain. He was trembling. He said, ‘You’re right, Calo. I know it. It’s time.’ He had to stop for breath. ‘I should have seen the inev
itability of this.’ At last he had a true grip on the chain and took a gasp of air, ready to heave himself to his feet.
Except that he hadn’t taken up the rope’s slack. The big man started to laugh, seeing, as I did, that Pellonhorc would lose balance and fall backwards to the floor.
I started to say, ‘Pellonhorc, you –’
He didn’t fall back, though. Instead, he leaned forward again and with a small movement flicked the chain up in a wide loop that dropped neatly over Calo’s head. Now Pellonhorc threw himself back, yanking on the instantly tightening noose. It hissed at Calo’s neck and sank in.
The big man put up his hands and tried to work his thick fingers between the metal and his skin, but the loop was already burying itself. Pellonhorc put his good foot to the table’s edge and levered himself back with sudden energy, his fist quivering with the effort of garotting the big man. Calo tried to slacken the chain by lunging towards Pellonhorc, but he had forgotten that the cord’s other end was anchored, and his head simply slammed down onto the desk. Pellonhorc grunted and dropped to the floor, using his weight and pulling on the chain with all his strength. His chair flew back.
Calo’s head was on its side, his cheek pressed flat against the table. His eyes were immensely wide, his mouth too. At last he seemed to be staring at me with all his attention, though of course he had no choice. His skull might have been nailed there for all he could move it.
Nevertheless, he was far from still and far from dead. He squealed and grunted, his arms flailing. He had kicked the chair away and his feet were running in the air.
I was transfixed. I couldn’t look away from Calo’s face any more than he could look away from mine. His eyes were bulging, his face a blotchy red and swollen. His tongue was squeezing out. Somehow he managed to snag the chain between himself and Pellonhorc with a hand and he got a grip on it, and after a moment succeeded in getting his other hand to it as well. The absolute stillness of his head and the wild and furious life in the rest of him were an extraordinary contrast.