The entrepreneur scowled. "So why did you agree to talk to me then?"
"I said I'm not sure if we should get involved," replied Frejohr, tired. "Which means, I'm not sure." Natch could sense calendar appointments and to-do items flitting behind the speaker's eyelids. He wouldn't be surprised if Frejohr was mentally dictating correspondence as they spoke.
Natch arose from the sofa and stalked over to the window, clutching his fist so it was invisible from the speaker's perspective. Jara had warned him he wasn't ready for the political spectrum, and he had ignored her. He could hear the accusatory barbs from an entirely different conversation on some subvocal register, a conversation not with Jara or Khann Frejohr, but with the universe itself. Arriviste. Upstart. Nobody. Pretender ... How long would it be until someone took him seriously? Would he have to wait until the shadows of Borda's hoverbirds were darkening every doorstep, when it was too late to do anything about it ... ?
Then he felt the speaker's hand on his shoulder. It was a firm yet avuncular grasp, the kind Serr Vigal gave when the mood struck him. Natch realized with a start that Frejohr hadn't used some stealth program to sneak up on him; it was he who had blanked out for an indeterminate length of time. He hoped it had only been a matter of seconds and not minutes.
"Come on," said the speaker, inclining his head toward the balcony door. "A little moonlight will do us both good."
The balcony whipped out from the side of the building in a heartbeat, yet Natch was hesitant to step onto it. Magan Kai Lee might have declared him "irrelevant," but he had made no move to recall the Defense and Wellness Council tails on the street. They didn't even bother to wear disguises anymore; they simply lingered in formation with fingers never more than a hair's breadth away from a dartgun or disruptor trigger. Khann Frejohr, however, seemed to have complete confidence in the bronze-robed men and women keeping watch from the neighboring balconies. So Natch muzzled his trepidation and followed the speaker outside.
The two stood at the railing for several moments and watched the city. Shenandoah was an important metropolis, but it was relatively small in size. Thus one could easily catch the mood of the entire metro area from the top of a building like Natch's. Right now the epicenter of pedestrian traffic was clearly downtown, where the Winter Baseball League was holding a three-game extravaganza. Natch and Frejohr silently watched the stadium gobble up space from neighboring office buildings that were compressing for the night.
"Len Borda killed Margaret, didn't he?" said Natch abruptly.
Frejohr pursed his lips, expressing some emotion that Natch didn't recognize. Reticence? "You're just guessing," said the speaker. "Unless you know something I don't."
"I know Borda's scared of MultiReal. I know he'll go to any lengths to get core access to it. And I think-I think he-" I think he ordered a special ops team to dress in black robes and assault me in an alleyway. "I think he wouldn't hesitate to kill someone of Margaret's stature to get his hands on it."
Frejohr closed his eyes and nodded. His white hair glared vibrantly in the moonlight. "That's obvious."
"Quell-the Islander who used to work for Margaret-he said something strange just before the Council carted him away," continued Natch. "He said that Borda killed Margaret's father."
"That's obvious too," said the speaker.
Natch felt as if a cold and many-legged insect had just wriggled up his spine. Could the high executive be so contemptuous of the Surinas that he would kill both Marcus and Margaret? Was even Len Borda ruthless enough to cut off the line of humanity's greatest benefactors in cold blood?
"How do you know?" the entrepreneur croaked, clenching the railing almost hard enough to crack it. "If the Congress has evidence that Marcus Surina was murdered, why haven't you brought it forward?"
"It's the evidence we don't have," replied Frejohr. "A shuttle explodes in a distant region of Furtoid. Ruptured fuel tank, the whole executive board of TeleCo dies instantly. No surviving witnesses. No Council officers around for kilometers. No distress calls, no explanation for what Marcus Surina was doing out there in the first place. That's pretty convenient, isn't it?" The speaker winced as if probing the vestigial traces of an old pain in his gut. Natch had seen Vigal's hollow stare of loss whenever someone mentioned Marcus's death, and Vigal had never even met the man. Khann Frejohr had been involved in politics long enough to have worked with Marcus personally.
"Look, Natch," continued the speaker, "this is how the Defense and Wellness Council does things. It didn't start with Len Borda. This is part of the organizational culture going all the way back to Tul Jabbor. Someone opposes the Council; the Council tolerates it just long enough to avoid suspicion-then that someone ends up in a tragic and fatal `accident.' It happened to Marcus Surina. It happened to Margaret Surina. Some of us even think it happened to Henry Osterman."
Natch said nothing for a moment. He tracked a group of whiterobed officers on the street below as they made a tight circuit around the block. "So what's to stop Len Borda from getting away with it this time too?"
Frejohr retreated into the shadows and slid his hands into the pockets of his bronze robe. "I don't think he'll get away with anything," he said, "because I don't think Borda's responsible."
"So if the Council didn't kill her, then-"
"I said Borda isn't responsible. I didn't say anything about the Council."
Natch let out a long, ragged breath. The image of the slight lieutenant executive with the impenetrable stare knifed through his con sciousness. Fool, he had told Quell. Don't you realize I'm the only one standing between you and Borda? "Magan Kai Lee," whispered the entrepreneur.
"There's a major rift in the Defense and Wellness Council right now," said Frejohr, his voice laced with bitter satisfaction. "Borda's old. The rumor is that he was planning to hand control of the Council over to Magan before this whole MultiReal crisis hit."
"Hand control over? How can he do that? The high executive is appointed by the Prime Committee."
"And the Committee is in Borda's pocket. It's a rubber stamp; they'll appoint whomever he tells them to appoint. But that's all irrelevant. Now that Borda's decided to stay for a while longer, we hear a lot of officers muttering about speeding his retirement." Frejohr let out a hoarse chuckle. "There's a euphemism for you, huh? Speeding his retirement. The top officers in the organization are choosing sides. Rey Gonerev is stirring up the ranks. There's talk of a coup."
"A coup?" Natch stepped back from the railing, away from the eyes of the Council officers. Such a thing belonged in the realm of the neverpossible. A rebellion against the high executive of the Defense and Wellness Council? Just as easy to rebel against time or the rotation of the Earth. "So what makes you think Margaret's death has anything to do with it?"
"Imagine this," continued the speaker. "Magan Kai Lee orders Margaret Surina dead and arranges it to look like Borda's doing. Then he persuades the Prime Committee to throw the high executive out of office and install him in Borda's place. Or maybe he arranges to frame you-which gives him leverage to seize MultiReal. He arms his troops with the program, and then he makes his move against Borda. With Borda gone, the Committee appoints him high executive."
Lieutenant Executive Lee had never seemed like the type to work for his own self-aggrandizement. Natch had pegged him in the slot of the Organizational Creature and had based his assumptions accordingly. But what if he was wrong about Magan? A whole new set of sickening possibilities was coming to light. What if Magan had purposefully not seized control of MultiReal to prevent Borda from getting his hands on it? Was that why he had arranged to give it to Jara?
The frightening thing was that it didn't really matter in the end. Whether Magan Kai Lee or Len Borda ultimately held control of MultiReal was irrelevant. Either outcome spelled certain doom for Natch's aspirations, and probably the world's civil liberties too.
"Now you see why I wanted to meet," said Natch. "The situation's getting out of control. You have to stop this before it's to
o late."
Frejohr shrugged. He was inexplicably vacating the conversation and moving on to the next item on his itinerary. "And how would you suggest I do that?"
"Get the Prime Committee to intervene. Get them to start their own investigation into the murder of Margaret Surina." Natch could feel his legs growing restless and started to pace back and forth across the narrow patch of balcony. Finding that too constrictive, he reached out to the tenement and upped his allotted balcony space, causing an additional length of metal walkway to slide out from the building.
"This isn't just about Margaret," Natch went on. "It's not just about me. It's about government intrusion into private business. It's about the Council bullying and threatening other government agencies. It's about Len Borda and Magan Kai Lee turning MultiReal into a weapon."
Frejohr was too smooth to allow Natch's badgering to upset his equanimity. "I wasn't sure the Congress should get involved when I arrived here," he said coolly. "And now I'm even less sure. Have you ever heard the saying Nothing's less persuasive than a government committee? If you work on this alone, you've got a chance, Natch. The public's on your side-or at least they will be once they stop blaming you for Margaret's death. If the Congress of L-PRACGs gets involved, the whole thing's going to turn into a partisan battle. Governmentalists versus libertarians. The minute that happens, you're going to lose half the public's support, and the Council will clamp down on you even more."
Natch's nostrils flared. His left hand was twitching too violently to keep it a secret from the speaker much longer. "What's your strategy then?"
"We wait. We let the Defense and Wellness Council weaken itself with internal politics." Frejohr rubbed his eyes, clearly exhausted. With all the infoquakes and the chaos going on, his week must have been even more stressful than Natch's. "And while the Council tears itself apart, there's a groundswell of support from the grass roots that's only going to get stronger. We're starting to see serious movement in the poll numbers. We've got a shot at turning the Prime Committee libertarian in next year's elections-and if that happens, the whole equation will change."
Natch grimaced. This was not the man the libertarian public relations machine claimed he was. Khann Frejohr might once have been a revolutionary, but now he had succumbed to the Melbourne mind-set, where all things revolve around the next set of elections. There simply was no time for dithering. Natch thought of the Council officers on the street below, the Patel Brothers in the Council's pocket, Jara dancing to the Council's strings with core access to MultiReal. He needed to take command of this conversation, and he needed to do it quickly, or Frejohr would be back in his office drafting obscure legislation within the hour.
"You want to sit around and wait for all of Len Borda's enemies to get their act together?" he said. "You want to wait for elections? Fine, go ahead. Go on inside and show me these great poll numbers on the viewscreen. If you can."
Frejohr blanched. "What do you mean, if I can?"
"Go ahead and try it."
The entrepreneur reached out with his mind to the Possibilities interface. It lay there in the fiefcorp data stores like an extension of his own anatomy. Natch switched on the program and felt its hum in his bones as he tried to recall the specific instructions Horvil had given him.
Flash.
Flash.
Flash.
Natch's mind skated along Feynman pathways, collating alternate realities at ludicrous speeds, selecting the one possibility out of a million that suited him, over and over again. Khann Frejohr's eyebrow writhed up and down in concentration. The speaker's expression took a slow journey from doubt to discomfort, and then dipped momentarily into fear.
Flash.
Flash.
Flash.
After several long seconds had passed, a single droplet of sweat trickled down the speaker's forehead and came to a rest on the tip of his nose. Frejohr had not budged from the railing.
"I-I can't move," he said.
Natch nodded with grim satisfaction as he shut off the program. He had never tried this particular MultiReal trick before, and he hadn't known if it would work or not. Manipulating a street vendor into giving a two-credit discount on lunch was one thing; thwarting the will of the speaker of the Congress of L-PRACGs was another. It was tremendously empowering. And yet, as Horvil had warned him, it wasn't without cost. Expending all that mental energy left him quivering like a junkie, just a few heartbeats away from total collapse. He switched on an adrenaline program to keep himself upright.
"Do you know why you can't move?" said Natch in a menacing whisper.
Khann Frejohr shook his head.
"Because when we run the simulation over and over in our minds, your brain tells me there's a possibility that you'll decide not to move. It might be remote. It might be insignificant. It might take me a million iterations to get to. But with MultiReal, I can find that possibility.
"And if I can find it-what could Len Borda find if he digs deep enough? The desire to obey authority? The desire to confess all your secrets, all the Congress's secrets?" Natch walked up to the speaker and leaned in close. "Maybe even the desire to stand still in the crosshairs of a Council multi disruptor?"
They peered over the railing at the group of Council officers below. One of them was actually checking the scope on his shoulder-mounted disruptor cannon; he could have aimed and fired at Frejohr in the blink of an eye. Nobody knew for sure whether the Council had the ability to pass black code through a disruptor beam, but judging by Frejohr's wide eyes and sweat-mottled forehead, the speaker didn't relish taking that chance.
"I don't think you understand the urgency," said the entrepreneur. "Once the Council gets ahold of MultiReal, that will be the end of libertarianism. That's it. Who could possibly fight against an army of Council officers armed with that program? Nobody. It would be the end of the Congress, the end of freedom as we know it for hundreds or thousands of years. It all comes down to this: if Len Borda or Magan Kai Lee seizes MultiReal, your speakership will vanish, and you'll be forgotten. Wiped out of history without a trace. Is that how you want to end your career?"
Natch could see the fear behind Frejohr's eyes ignite a spark of anger. For a brief moment, the man standing before him looked like the man in the history files. It was the sign Natch had been waiting for, an indication that the speaker could indeed prove useful.
Yet still there was hesitation. "I don't think you understand the politics involved here, Natch," said Frejohr. "I've only been speaker for a month. I'm barely holding on to a slim libertarian majority in the Congress as it is. You can't just expect the libertarian members to start pushing on the Prime Committee so soon."
Natch snorted. "I don't really care what they do. I didn't call this meeting to talk to the Khann Frejohr who's the speaker of the Congress of L-PRACGs. I wanted to talk to the Khann Frejohr who has contacts in the libertarian movement, the labor unions, the creeds. I wanted to talk to the Khann Frejohr who stages insurrections."
25
The politicos filed in from the foyer, nine in all, each more smug and self-satisfied than the last. Natch disliked them immediately.
It was a motley group. A labor boss who had led a violent strike against OrbiCo, simultaneously causing a handful of deaths and a plunge in the company's stock price. A pair of tycoons who had bought large swaths of real estate on Luna and turned them into indulgent playgrounds for the wealthy. A few L-PRACG politicians who dangled from the shadier fringes of the libertarian movement. The bodhisattva of Creed Libertas, looking quite regal with her long black hair and her robe marked with the insignia of the rising sun. A tiny bronze-skinned woman whose connectible collar tagged her as an Islander. And finally, of course, Khann Frejohr.
The interesting thing about the libertarian movement, Natch reflected as he watched the group jockey for seats in his living room, was that neither rich nor poor could claim ownership of it. The instinct to keep the centralized government out of one's business didn't just cross
boundaries, it obliterated them.
Natch wished he could be somewhere else entirely. The MultiReal stunt he had performed on Khann Frejohr yesterday had taken more out of him than he thought possible; a palpable sense of uncleanliness seeped through his pores, as if his OCHREs were limping along near burnout. And that on top of the corrosive black code in his veins, the MultiReal programming in his skull, and the throbbing of his arm. If only he could jettison all these people from the apartment and just ... sleep. How long had it been?
Frejohr waited until the labor boss had parked himself on Natch's favorite work stool and everyone had taken the prudent step of priving themselves to outside communication. Then the speaker brought the meeting to order.
"My friends," began Frejohr. "Comrades. We live in dangerous times. We're standing on the precipice of a very steep cliff. We're looking over the edge, and we can see that it's a long, long way down."
Natch had found a place near the front door where he could observe the proceedings without intruding. Listening to Frejohr now, he understood why this man had risen so far in the ranks of the libertarian movement, why he had become the symbol of opposition to Len Borda. The voice that had sounded like a tired mumble yesterday had metamorphosed into a hypnotic purr in the presence of his peers. The politicos were transfixed. Natch's exhaustion was quickly forgotten.
"Len Borda has single-handedly ruled the Defense and Wellness Council for almost sixty years," continued the speaker, beginning a slow stroll around the perimeter of the garden. "And what's the high executive given us in that sixty years? An unprecedented military buildup. A state of constant warfare with the Islanders and the Pharisees. The erosion of the people's power base and civil liberties. Just last month, the Prime Committee gave him the legal authority to shut down any program on the Data Sea, at any time.
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