The Enigma Score

by Tepper, Sheri S

  This was a gemstone broker who worked in the vicinity of the fish market, who wanted to report a young man who had sold a firestone earclip.

  ‘Orange stones, nothing very special, but nice. Gave the kid a hundred twenty for the clip. I’ve got some gems almost like it. Close enough to make up another clip. I’ll get five hundred for the two, easy.’

  ‘Kid?’ queried Geroan patiently. ‘What kid?’

  ‘Tripsinger kid. A what-you-call-’em, acolyte. One of the young ones that doesn’t do trips by himself yet, you know.’ He went on to describe Jamieson in some detail.

  ‘From where?’

  ‘Didn’t say. He did say he wanted the money for passage to Deepsoil Five though. For a woman and a baby. Just chattin,’ you know the way they do, when they’re tryin’ to sell somethin’.’

  ‘What woman? What baby?’

  The broker stuttered, ‘I c-c-could try to find out, honored Geroan. Could try. Don’t know much where to start, though.’

  ‘The acolyte came to you, why?’

  The broker muttered again. ‘I d-d-dunno.’

  ‘Because he saw your place, stone-skull. That means he was nearby, in the area.’

  ‘M-m-maybe just havin’ some lunch. Lots of people come down to the market for the fish. You know.’

  ‘Maybe for fish. But maybe looking for someone. Maybe found someone. Start by asking if there was a Tripsinger around your place looking for a woman and a baby.’

  Another of Geroan’s webs was a cleaning woman in the citadel at Splash One. She came in person, desperately full of bits and pieces, hoping something would satisfy the Spider.

  ‘The Tripsinger from Deepsoil Five had two sets of robes with him, and so did each of the two acolytes, Spider, Sir. Underwear, tunics, socks, boots, and spare boots. Worn, too. Like they’d been living on the country for some time. Skinny mules. Like they get when they set settler’s brush for a long while. The machines of the acolytes had Deepsoil Five labels. His machine did, too, butthat’s a funny thing, he had two of them.’

  ‘Two of what?’

  ‘Two machines. Music machines, like they carry to make the Tripsongs. He had two. One like the ones the kids had – like all the regular Tripsinger boxes, with the citadel label on it and the warning against unauthorized use, you know – and a different one. I looked it over, but it didn’t have any label on it.’

  ‘Describe it,’ asked Geroan, his interest piqued. This fit in nicely with Justin’s suspicions.

  ‘It was greenish instead of gray. It had two handles on the sides instead of one on top. The keys and dials and things opened up on a fold-down panel, three folds. The regular ones just have two and they fold up, not down. And the speakers fold out on top, not on the sides, like the regular ones do.’

  ‘Nothing else? No words, trademarks, maker’s tags?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘And they went where?’

  ‘Northwest City. The acolyte, the boy, he found a truck that was going there. I was cleaning the hall and heard him say so.’

  Geroan nodded his thanks, and the woman left, relieved. She expected no payment and rejoiced merely to be let alone for a time by Spider Geroan.

  After that, Geroan simply sat, hands folded on his belly, thumbs moving in endless circles around one another as he thought and plotted and thought more.

  It was late afternoon when the follow-up call came from the gem broker.

  ‘The Tripsinger was lookin’ for a woman named Vivian Terree. She had a kid, a baby. You want ’em?’

  ‘Find out where they are. Find out if they’re planning to leave Splash One. Let me know.’

  There were other calls, back and forth, as the Spider tugged on other webs and the information flowed in, culminating in a final call to Harward Justin.

  ‘The Explorer synthesizer that Donatella Furz reported missing seems to have ended up in Tasmin Ferrence’s possession.’

  ‘A Tripsinger?’

  ‘He had an Explorer model, green, two handled, with a threefold panel. At least he had it when he turned up in Splash One. I don’t know where it is now.’

  Harward made note of this, along with the fact that the Tripsinger had been looking for a specific woman and child. Then he sat, putting all the information together.

  Donatella Furz had had an Explorer box with a special translator insert. That box was now in the possession of a Tripsinger from Deepsoil Five. Lim Terree had died near Deepsoil Five. Tasmin had come hunting for Terree’s wife and baby. Tasmin had shown up, armed, in time to help Donatella Furz escape a very well laid trap.

  Connections. Nine times out of ten, it was safest to assume complicity whenever there were connections.

  The time was growing close, very close. He could conceive of only one source of threat to his plans. Not the Explorers. They were under control. The Tripsingers, however, could be trouble. So far, there was only this one man – Tasmin Ferrence. Just one. If there were more….

  Anything Justin did would have to be done at once. He had trusted to underlings too many times already. And so had Spider Geroan.

  Besides, there was all that money on Serendipity.

  He summoned a trusted secretary. ‘Get hold of Chantiforth Bins and make an appointment for him to see me early tomorrow morning. Then call Spider Geroan and ask him to be here at the same time.’

  His last call of the night was to the satellite surveillance teams. By morning, he would know almost precisely where Don Furz and her new friends were to be found.

  12

  In Deepsoil Five, Thalia Ferrence had adapted reasonably well to the presence of her sister, Betuny, who had arrived from Harmony with scant possessions. Since her arrival, however, Thalia had acquired the habit of strolling off several times during the day and almost always at dusk to the low wall that separated the shrubby garden of her house from a narrow roadway and the brou fields beyond. When she had been much alone, she had ached for company. Now that her sister had come to keep her company, she ached to be alone. Betuny was all right. She cooked well enough, old recipes from their childhood that Thalia relished as much for the nostalgia they evoked as for their slightly disappointing flavor. Betuny maintained the house well, too, being scrupulous about keeping each thing in an accustomed location so that Thalia would not stumble or fall over unexpected barriers.

  But Betuny chattered, commenting endlessly on everything, and Thalia found herself wearying of her sister’s voice, wanting nothing, neither food nor a neat house nor company, so much as silence. Betuny had a theory about Lim’s death. Betuny thought she understood Celcy’s character. Betuny considered it wicked of Tasmin to have gone off like that. Betuny philosophized about the Presences. Betuny knew a way to raise the money to have Thalia’s eyes fixed – every day a new commentary or a new plan, each more fly-brained than the last, each day the same voice, going on and on and on.

  So, Thalia had announced her need of a few moments’ meditation from time to time, flavoring the announcement with a spice of religious fervor, and Betuny had manners enough to accept that, albeit reluctantly, though she could not really respect it. She had, however, gone so far as to drag out an old chair and put it in the corner of the wall where Thalia could find it easily. Thalia could sit there for an hour at a time, musing, her head on her folded arms atop the low barricade, listening to the soft sounds of doors opening and closing, women calling children in to supper or to bed, the shushing pass of quiet-cars, and more often than not a chorus of viggies sounding much closer than she remembered hearing them when she could see.

  There were few loud or aggressive sounds, and the voice that accosted her from across the wall one evening came as a shock even though she had heard the slow gravelly crunch of feet approaching down the road.

  ‘Are you Thalia Ferrence?’

  She nodded, uncertain. It was a cold hard voice, not one she recognized, and she was very good at recognizing voices.

  ‘Tasmin Ferrence’s mother?’

  Sh
e nodded again, paralyzed with fear. Had something happened to Tasmin? She started to ask, but the voice went on relentlessly.

  ‘Are you blind?’

  She bridled. ‘That’s not a nice thing….’

  ‘Never mind. I see you are, lucky for you. You have a daughter-in-law? A grandchild?’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘My daughter-in-law is dead. And the baby she was carrying.’

  ‘Not Tasmin’s wife. The other one. The one who changed his name. Lim’s wife.’

  She could hardly speak in her eagerness, her joy, her disbelief. ‘Lim had a wife? A child?’

  ‘You didn’t know?’

  ‘No. I didn’t know. Where are they?’

  There was a snort, more of annoyance than amusement. ‘That’s what I was going to ask you.’ Then the crunch of retreating feet.

  ‘Wait,’ she cried. ‘Wait! Who are you? How do you know?’

  No answer. Nothing but the usual soft sounds, the far-off chorusing of viggies. She rose to feel her way along the path and into the house. She was, after all, the widow of a Tripsinger and the mother of another. There were certain courtesies that the citadel ought to be able to provide. After considering carefully what she would ask – no, demand! – she coded the com and asked to speak to the Master General of the Citadel.

  She found it strange that although he did not know about Lim’s wife or child, he had many questions to ask about the man who had told her of them.

  The troupe of Bondri Gesel had come far from the slopes of the North Watcher – Silver-seam and all relevant honorifics – when the senior giligee approached Bondri while keening the preliminary phrases of a dirge. Words were hardly necessary under the circumstances. The old Prime Priest was barely able to stagger along, and even when they carried him, they had to jiggle him to keep his breath from catching in his throat.

  ‘Bondri, Troupe-leader, Messenger of the Gods, one among us has a brain-bird crying for release.’ So sang the giligee.

  Bondri sagged. ‘Prime Priest Favel,’ he hummed, subvocalizing. The giligee wagged her ears in assent. Well, there was nothing for it but to halt for a time. The Prime Priest deserved that, at least. Every viggy needed a quiet time to set the mind at rest and prepare the brain-bird. ‘We make our rest here,’ Bondri sang, leader to troupe admitting of no contradiction. The giligee was already circulating among the others, letting those know who had not the wits to see it for themselves.

  ‘I am glad of a rest,’ the Prime Priest warbled, breathily. ‘Glad, Bondri Gesel.’

  ‘So are we all,’ Bondri replied gently. ‘See, the young ones have made you a comfortable couch.’ He helped the old viggy toward the low bench of fronds, which the young ones had spread on a shelf of soil overlooking the valley beyond. From this vantage point one could look back on the Tineea Singers, the Ones Who Welcome Without Meaning It, arrayed against the sky, almost equidistant from one another and too close for easy passage among them. The Singers had gained their name in immemorial times; no viggy worth his grated brush bark would try to sing a way among them, though young ones sometimes dared each other to try. The song that worked for one did not work for the next, and they were too close to separate the sounds. The Loudsingers had a way to get through, but the only safe viggy way was around.

  ‘The Ones Who,’ mused Prime Priest Favel. ‘I have not been this way in a generation. I had forgotten how beautiful they are.’

  Bondri looked at them, startled into perception of them as newly seen. Indeed, when not considered as a barrier, they were very beautiful. Pillars of diamond lit with rainbow light, their varying heights and masses grouped in such a way that the heart caught in the throat when one saw them at dawn or at dusk. ‘They are beautiful,’ Bondri agreed. ‘But perverse. They do not respond honestly to us.’

  ‘Like a young female,’ Favel sighed. ‘Singing tease.’

  Bondri was surprised at this. ‘Tease?’

  ‘Yes. She is too young for mating yet, she has nothing to give, really, but she sings tease. The Loudsingers have a word for it. Flirt. She sings flirt.’

  ‘Tineea,’ Bondri sang softly. ‘The songs of maidenhood.’

  ‘The Ones Who are like that. They flirt, tease, sing tineea to entice us. But they have nothing yet to give us. Perhaps one day, they will.’

  ‘That is true,’ whispered Bondri. Newly awakened to loveliness, he stood beside the old priest for a long time more, wondering if The Ones Who could perceive their own beauty.

  ‘Enjoy the aspect, old one,’ he said as he returned to the others of the troupe.

  ‘Is he at peace?’ inquired the giligee as she busily grated brush bark, using a crystal-mouse jawbone as a grater, onto several criss-crossed and immature tree fronds. When heaped with grated bark, the fronds would be folded, then twisted to press out the refreshing bark juice, a drink for all in the troupe to share. Both the mouse jaw and the tree fronds were in keeping with viggy law concerning tools. Tools were expected to be natural, invisible, undetectable, as were the etaromimi themselves.

  ‘Prime Priest Favel admires The Ones Who,’ Bondri warbled, watching as the first juices trickled into an ancestor bowl.

  ‘Take him drink,’ the giligee said. ‘It is your giligee’s bowl, Bondri. A good omen.’

  Bondri picked up the bowl and looked at it. It was a good bowl, clean and gracefully shaped. It was a good omen, bringing to his mind many memories of his giligee. He shared a few of these with the nearby troupe members before mounting the hill once more.

  ‘Whose bowl is this?’ Favel asked courteously, allowing Bondri to identify the bowl and sing several more little stories concerning his giligee. The time she climbed the tall frond tree and couldn’t get down – that had been before Bondri was even depouched the first time. The way she used to cock one ear, making everyone laugh. Bondri was smiling when he left the old priest, and Favel, left behind to sip his bark sap, was contented as well. It was good to share memories of the troupe.

  Memory was such a strange thing. A viggy would experience a thing and remember it. Another viggy would experience the same happening and remember it as well. And yet the two memories would not be the same. On a night of shadow and wind, one viggy might sing that he had seen the spirit of his own giligee, beckoning from beside a Jubal tree. Another viggy might sing he had seen only the wind, moving a veil of dried fronds. What had they seen, a ghost or the fronds? Where was the truth in memory? Somewhere between the spirit and the wind, Favel thought.

  When the troupe traveled down a tortuous slope, one would remember pain, another joy. After a mating, one would remember giving, another would remember loss. No one view would tell the truth of what occurred, for truth always lay at the center of many possibilities.

  ‘Many views yield the truth,’ Favel chanted to himself, very softly. This was the first commandment of the Prime Song. Only when a happening had been sung by the troupe, sung in all its various forms and perceptions, could the truth be arrived at. Then dichotomy could be harmonized, opposition softened, varying views brought into alignment with one another so that all aspects of truth were sung. Not Favel’s view alone, but the view of dozens, the view of all members of the troupe, if one had a troupe.

  Oh, one must. One must have a troupe. Favel blessed the hour he had been adopted into Bondri’s troupe. As a male, he should have lived out his life in the troupe to which he was depouched, but the continuity of his life had been broken when the second commandment of the Prime Song was broken.

  The second commandment was almost a corollary of the first. ‘Many views yield truth,’ said the first part of the Prime Song. Therefore, be not alone,’ said the second.

  Favel had been alone. He had been alone for a very long time, which meant there were gaping, untruthful holes in his memory of his life. When he sang these parts of his life, there were no other views to correct and balance his own – no joyous counterpoints to relieve his pain, no voices of hope or curiosity to relieve his own terrified horror. Favel had been a broke
n one – broken and abandoned.

  It had happened long ago – how long ago? Fifteen years? Twenty? A lifetime. Favel had been a young male then, almost a mateable age, had long since given up trailing his giligee in favor of being with the adventurers, as the young ones thought of themselves. It had been in Bondri’s pouch troupe, the troupe of Nonfri Fermil, Nonfri the Gap-toothed with the beautiful voice, and it was Nonfri’s trade daughter Trissa that Favel had set his song upon.

  She had not been in the troupe long, only long enough to get over her first pain of separation, only long enough to learn a few of the troupe’s memories so that she did not sit utterly silent during evening song. To Favel, she was Trissa of the frilled ears, for the edges of her wide ears were ruffled like new leaf fronds, the soft amber color of dawn, only slightly lighter than her song-sack. Her eyes were wide and lustrous, but so were those of all the people. Her voice, though – ah, that Favel could remember, but he had to sing it to himself all alone, for none in Bondri’s troupe had ever known her. ‘Softly resonant,’ he sang quietly to himself, ‘plangent in the quiet hours, rising like that of the song mouse to trill upon the sky.’ Ah, Trissa. She had sung tineea and turned his soul.

  A small group of youngsters had gone one evening to gather brush. Some of the elders of the troupe had a taste for bark sip, and the young ones were searching for a juicy growth. Favel was older than the gatherers and too shy of his awakened senses to invite his own group to go with him, so he broke the second commandment of the Prime Song and went alone. Alone to lie in the brush and watch Trissa, hear Trissa. Alone to imagine himself and Trissa mated.

  Her group started back, laden with juicy brush. Favel, hidden at the foot of a ’ling, waited for them to pass. One of them, a silly young male, threw a bit of crystal at the ’ling, the very ’ling that Favel lay beneath, hidden in the grasses. The ’ling had been excitable. It had broken.

  When he woke, there was blood on his head and his legs were broken beneath the shattered ’ling. When he pulled himself to the place the troupe had been, the troupe had departed. Days passed, and nights, and he found himself beside a Loudsinger trail. Days passed again, and nights, and a Loudsinger caravan came by.