The Octagonal Raven (21 page)

I didn’t like that, but I asked the too-obvious question. “Is someone trying to take over UniComm? That’s what it sounds like.”

“It looks that way. Are you going to be there?”

“Of course.” Unless someone dropped another wall on me.

“Good. I know you don’t like this sort of thing, but we’ll probably need your votes—unless you’d rather give Father or me a proxy.”

“I’ll be there, and you can explain what you would like.”

“Good. Take care of yourself, Daryn.”

I intended to…if I could figure out how. “You, too.”

I broke the connection. There was no point in talking longer, not to Gerrat. There never was, not really.

An attempted takeover didn’t seem enough…but was that because it wouldn’t have mattered that much to me? Or didn’t it matter because I’d never thought of myself as part of UniComm? Had someone been after me, trying to get to me
before
Elora…or before I knew what was happening?

That was even more disturbing.

The next thing was to try to reach Eldyn. I didn’t like that, but I certainly had to try.

The only thing was that, even though I had a netsys address, nothing happened for a long moment. All I got was a blank screen, before a sim appeared. “I am sorry I’m not available. Please leave a message.”

The sim didn’t quite look like Eldyn, or maybe it did, but that momentary delay bothered me. So I did some research, and came up with the address for his replicator manufacturing concern. Again…I got a sim, a different sim, with the same message.

I tried for a physical address, but all I got was a general locator, that of a town in the Central Sinoplex.

I felt cold. Very cold.

The answer was clear. Someone had infiltrated Nyhal’s systems, very selectively, selectively enough that my codes, and probably only my codes or a very limited number of codes, were being transferred to a sim. That reinforced Elora’s concerns. She had been worried about something, enough that she was willing to try an outside takeover of UniComm—and referred me to Eldyn.

That meant she wanted to do something Father and Gerrat opposed, and it also meant her position with NEN had been about to become impossible.

And the transfers of my calls to Eldyn meant something nasty was going to happen soon, because whoever did it knew that if I kept getting sims, I’d start to get concerned, after a few days anyway.

Again…I didn’t know why, or at least not what part Eldyn played, although the death of his wife was beginning to make very grim sense.

I looked out at the East Mountains once more, trying to gather myself together for what had to be done, whether I liked it or not.

Fledgling: Kuritim, 445 N.E.

What with one trip and another, including several back to Epsilon Borealis to deliver more nanites to crush the Ardee Rebellion, the two years which I’d extended passed quickly enough—especially since operations officers were busier than senior pilots.

I’d sent a few VR blocs to the family, as I always had throughout my years in the FS, but didn’t get much back except news on how well Elora and Gerrat were doing, rising and conquering in their respective netsystem domains. Father did send one suggesting that I give some thought to a post-FS career, as much of a hint that he expected me to work in something productive, preferably UniComm, as anything. I told him that I certainly expected to work once I left Federal Service, but that I’d probably travel around Earth for several months, since I hadn’t seen much of it except Kuritim for more than twenty years.

I was more than ready to start that traveling when the orbiter glided to a halt at the terminal off the Kuritim liftway. Just as I stepped beyond the lock and began to walk toward the terminal, a medtech stepped forward.

“Subcommander, ser?”

“Yes?”

“If you’d come with me?”

I must have looked puzzled, probably more than puzzled.

“You haven’t received an augmentation boost, have you?”

“An augmentation boost? No. Not that I know of.”

“You’ll need one before you can leave Kuritim.”

I shrugged. I’d heard something about an augmentation boost, but I’d figured that would come after I’d checked in at personnel. “Lead on.”

He even had a small cart, and I did ride in style to the medcenter on the north side of the liftway. From what I could tell, Kuritim looked the same. It also smelled the same, with the salt air and the breeze off the Pacific, just tinged with the faint hint of oil and metal. It had looked and smelled the same every time I’d come down for twenty years. I wondered how places like Yunvil were, though.

A thin, almost gaunt-looking FS commander with the medical insignia on his collar was waiting for me inside the foyer of the west wing.

“Subcommander Alwyn?”

“Yes, ser.”

“Good. You’re about the last. Please come with me.”

I followed him into an open room, more like a laboratory than an examining room.

“You were lucky you were off-planet,” commented the doctor.

I frowned. “The pre-select plague?”

“That’s not technically correct,” offered the doctor. “Anyway, you’re getting a special set of augmentation nanites, and you’ll be here in the quarantine wing until we’re sure they’re up to strength. Not more than a day or two, but we wouldn’t want you to leave active service and then keel over.”

I didn’t like that thought at all, and what were a few days, anyway, especially against something like that? “What caused this plague?”

“Evolution, I suspect,” the doctor said, as he lifted out a container labeled “AGB-1” and studied it for a moment. “Nanites are biological constructs, artificial constructs, but biological in nature. All the bugs on Earth have been evolving for billions of years, and every time we think we have them beat, nature comes up with another surprise. The pre-Collapse medical types thought they’d destroyed pathogenic bacteria with antibiotics, but in the end, all they did was create nastier pathogens with resistance to antibiotics. Nanites are different, and it took nature longer this time, that’s all.”

I nodded at that, recalling my history lessons on the incredible death rates during and after the Collapse. But still, I had to wonder. “How come this doesn’t hit norms with basic nanite protection? Why only pre-selects and those with full augmentation?”

“It doesn’t. It takes a certain concentration of old-style augnites.

Why? That, I can’t tell you, except I wouldn’t be surprised if there will be another bug that hits anyone with nanite support. Nature eventually works that way. We’ve developed nanitic augmentation, and now there’s a pathogen that feeds off the augnites. The only problem is that augnites aren’t natural biology, and when this pathogen consumes an augnite, it releases excessive heat. The more augnites, the more heat.”

“That’s what causes the high fever?”

“Exactly.” He lifted the nanite spray. “Stand in the circle there.”

I stepped into the circle and felt the cone of positive air pressure rise around me. As the doctor slipped the nozzle into the cone, there was a hiss.

“Just stay there. It will take several minutes for optimal dispersion through your system.” He replaced the container and extracted a second, but set it on the table beside him. “The problem with the fever, and that’s a natural response, is that nanites resist heat better than most cells in our bodies. To deal with nanites, so do the new pathogens.” He shrugged. “So people, those heavily augmented, tend to get cooked from inside.”

I winced.

“You’re right. It’s not very pretty. I’ve seen it.” He picked up the second spray nozzle and slipped it past the air pressure barrier, releasing it with another hiss. “It’ll be another few minutes.”

“So…what happened…who…how?”

“I’ve read the literature. Don’t know all the details, but a medical researcher, brilliant norm by the name of Eldyn Nyhal…”

“Eldyn Nyhal, from Yunvil?”

“You sound like you know him.”

“We went to Blue Oak Academy together.” I laughed. Eldyn had always been brilliant, if eccentric with his bright singlesuits, even if he hadn’t been a pre-select, and I had to appreciate the irony of a brilliant norm saving the pre-selects.

“Anyway, this Nyhal developed a specialized bug—it’s half-pathogen, half-nanite—that takes care of the mutated pathogen.”

“Good for Eldyn.” I didn’t feel any different, although I knew that millions of nanites were already swarming through my body. “What now?”

“In a few minutes, I’ll point you toward the quarantine quarters, and you rest. Some people get a mild fever for a day or so. You come back here at thirteen hundred tomorrow and get checked. If your modified augnite levels aren’t high enough, you stay another day or until they are.”

“And then?”

“You’re free to go wherever you were headed. It’s for your own protection.”

“And this virus doesn’t strike norms?”

“It hasn’t yet.”

“That’s strange.”

“Why? They don’t offer as well-defined a target of opportunity.” The doctor nodded. “You can step out of the circle now, Subcommander. Follow me, and I’ll point you to your quarters. Your gear should be there by now.”

“I suppose it got some decontamination treatment, too.”

“Of course.”

So I followed him toward the foyer through which I’d entered, still wondering about a plague that targeted only augmented pres-elects, but more than happy that Eldyn and whoever had come up with a preventative measure.

Raven: Helnya, 459 N.E.

It was almost twilight when I took out the glider to head north once more, and I left the canopy full closed and the remote repeater off. Still…if someone had been willing to destroy an entire car of an induction tube train to kill Elora, I doubted that they’d have much trouble with a glider—except I was probably the only one who knew—outside of the plotters—that she was the target, and they might not want to make matters too obvious too soon. I could hope.

Then, no one but the unknown conspirators—and me—seemed to know anything, and what I knew wasn’t all that much. Nor did there seem to be much that I could do. What could I do? There was little I could add to what I’d already brought to the CAs. They hadn’t exactly been all that much help. They still hadn’t come up with anything on the laseflash incident, and that had been three months earlier. They hadn’t had much success in following the explosion in Helnya. At least I hadn’t gotten any notice from the gatekeeper about anything on the news about it, and no CA had called me back. From all I knew, they still thought the incident with the wall was an accident.

Father and Gerrat hadn’t come up with anything—at least nothing they cared to share with me, and Elora had something, but she hadn’t spelled it out, perhaps because, like me, she hadn’t known enough…and now she was dead. But she had been convinced that something was about to happen, or she wouldn’t have requested the UniComm stakeholder meeting, or set up the transfer of everything to me.

I tried to come up with other approaches to finding out what was happening and who was behind it all as I guided the glider through the growing twilight to Majora’s, where I’d arrive again unannounced, hoping she was home. Not surprisingly, my thinking and speculating still hadn’t produced any new and brilliant insights.

Majora was home, and she didn’t look particularly surprised at my appearance on her doorstep. She wore a pale blue singlesuit and a darker blue vest, and she looked wonderful. A scent of roses lingered around her.

“Hello…again.” I offered a rueful smile.

“You look like the ancient version of Hades….

“Can I come in?”

She stepped back and held the door wider.

“I’m sorry I didn’t announce myself. I have to trust someone…and I don’t know anyone better than you.”

She smiled, an expression both warm and sad simultaneously, then closed the door.

“That sounds awful. I don’t mean it that way. I told you before…I mean that you’re the most trustworthy person I’ve ever met.”

“Daryn…you don’t have to explain.” She followed me down the pair of steps into the room overlooking the garden. “Would you like some tea…and something to eat?”

But I did need to explain. “My sister was killed. I just found out.”

“I know. It was all over the news. I wondered if that was why you were here.”

“That…and her solicitor contacted me.” I shook my head. “I don’t know how she did it or why, but she had almost as much UniComm stock as Father. It’s all mine, and she’d left a code-keyed message that said if I got it that I was probably in danger as well.”

“Maybe people were afraid she would use her stock and her position with NEN to merge NEN and UniComm. From what you’ve said, she was capable enough.” Majora’s frown gave her a foreboding expression, and I instantly decided I never wanted to be on her bad side. “Was that why she was killed?”

“It could be, but that sort of thing’s usually handled in a bloodless way.” I shook my head. “There’s something else going on.” Except I still didn’t know what.

“There usually is. Let me put on some tea.” She stepped back up to the up-to-date, yet functionally old-fashioned kitchen, with its modified gas-jet burners and the overlarge oven beneath.

I stood behind her as she put on an old-fashioned kettle for the tea.

“I hope you don’t mind. I use the replicator just for emergencies, or when I don’t plan well and run out of time.”

“Sometimes, I brew my tea. It always tastes exactly the same from the replicator, even with different scans.”

“Failsafe units…idiot units…you have to program it to disable the failsafe.”

I could feel myself flushing. I hadn’t even considered that. But then, cooking, even with the help of a replicator, wasn’t my greatest talent.

“It will be a minute.” She guided me toward the lower level, where we looked out on the garden. She linked with the lights, and the room went dark. “Just wait a moment.”

I did, and my eyes adjusted, and the spring moonlight poured over the garden. I hadn’t thought of moonlight in a long time.

“You can sit down, you know, Daryn.”

“You aren’t.”

“I will be, as soon as I get your tea, and I will have to use the replicator for something for you to eat.”

“Anything will be fine.” I eased into the same chair where she had fed me breakfast—I hadn’t eaten since then, and it felt far longer than ten hours.

Before I knew it, she was easing a mug of Grey tea and a plate in front of me—a moderate omelet with cheese and the hint of chives and mushrooms of a type I didn’t recognize. She had the same thing, except for a tall crystal glass of water.

“Just eat,” she suggested.

I did, and I was mostly through the omelet, which tasted as good as it smelled, before I spoke. “Thank you. This is good. It must be something you scanned into the replicator.”

“It is. Whenever I finish something good, I scan it. Some don’t scan, and I just erase them, but after a while you do build up a personalized bank of things.” She took a long drink of water. “I’ve seen more of you today than in the last three years.”

I was glad the lights were dim, because I could feel the embarrassment. Finally, I just offered a helpless shrug. “What can I say? I need help.”

She laughed, gently.

“First, I need you to make a call to an old friend with your codes. Elora left a request for me to do so. My codes are blocked.”

“Blocked?”

“All I get is a phony sim. If I were a net engineer, I could engineer another set of codes to get through. I’m not, but it means that someone doesn’t want me to reach him.”

“At least this old friend is a man.” Majora’s tone was warmly humorous.

“We went to Blue Oak Academy together. It’s Eldyn Nyhal.”

“The scientist? The one whose wife died under mysterious circumstances? Maybe he doesn’t want any calls.”

“He was more than a little strange then, but…well…if he doesn’t take your calls in the same way he doesn’t take mine…” I let the words drop away.

“What do you want me to say?”

“Just ask him to give you a call. Say you’re calling on behalf of an old friend of his from Blue Oak Academy, and that the friend would have called, but that circumstances surrounding his sister’s death apparently make it impossible. Don’t give my name.”

She raised her thick eyebrows. “Rather mysterious, aren’t you?”

“No. If his system is altered the way I think it is, any reference to my name will block the message or shunt it somewhere. There’s no one else who meets that description but me; it won’t be mysterious to him.”

Nodding, Majora keyed in the codes, and I stepped back so that I wouldn’t fall into the scanning focus.

A sim appeared immediately on the holo screen before us, that of a stocky man, the thinning but wavy light brown hair just one sign of a norm. The sim wore a green singlesuit, and a dark gray vest trimmed in black, and it wasn’t either of the same sim images I’d seen before, not exactly. “As you can see, I’m not available. If you would leave a message, I would appreciate it.”

“This is Majora Hyriss. I’m calling on behalf of an old friend…. When she was done, she waited until the connection was broken before she turned to me. “Was that what you wanted?”

“Absolutely.”

We both knew that it could be minutes or days before he returned the call.

Finally, after a long silence, I turned to her. “You do a lot of PR work these days, don’t you? Think up publicity approaches and the like?”

“It’s called conceptual analysis.” She smiled. “And it doesn’t pay nearly so well as methodizing or high-royalty edartistry, but better than the gruntwork systemic analysis I used to have to rely on. I still do some of that, but as little as I can to make ends meet.”

“I could use some conceptual analysis. My own is clearly insufficient.” I took another sip of the tea. “And there’s no telling if or when Eldyn will get back to you. I don’t think I can wait for that.”

“I’ll need to know more than what you’ve already told me,” Majora pointed out.

“I
think
I’ve told you all about the attempts on me…what else is new? One block of stock Elora controlled through a trust—the EDA Trust. That I found out from the solicitor. I got in touch with Gerrat, and he told me that the EDA Trust and something called the PST Trust had already requested a special meeting of UniComm stakeholders.”

“But you’re the EDA Trust, now, aren’t you? Couldn’t you stop the meeting?”

“Elora requested it, and I have to believe she had a good reason. I haven’t told anyone except you that I’m the EDA trustee. If I stop it…”

“That exposes you.”

I nodded. “I also did what checking I could on the PST Trust, and they seem to be wealthy individuals from a range of places.”

“All pre-selects?”

“I don’t know.”

“Most of the wealthiest people are. How did your brother take all this?”

“He didn’t know who or what the trust was, and he’s worried. He asked me for my proxy, and I told him I’d be at the meeting and to tell me what he and Father wanted.”

Majora nodded.

“And the other key person who was killed in the induction tube accident was Elora’s boss—he’d backed her all the way, according to Gerrat. Gerrat thought they both might be targets.” I paused, holding the mug but not sipping, but inhaling, enjoying the warmth rising from the tea. “Oh…from the description of the accident, it sounds like the same method as they tried against me the last time—probably with more than one monoclone.”

“Well…” Majora observed. “What would happen if the same people controlled all three nets? How much of the world comm systems and nets could they influence?”

I frowned. “They’re all mass nets. Maybe fifty-five, sixty percent, but less than ten percent of the pre-selects.”

She waited.

“You’re suggesting some sort of coup against the Federal Union, and having the nets support it?”

“Nothing that obvious. Say…and I have no idea what it would be…a regulation, or a change in Federal Union policy…wouldn’t it be likely to be adopted if popular and media opinion were behind it?”

That thought sent shivers down my spine. “But there are hundreds of other nets. They’d complain and bring out all the objections.”

“There are hundreds…but there are the big three, then the next dozen have about twenty percent of the coverage, and the next two hundred squabble over the last fifteen percent.” She rose and took my empty mug, moving back toward the antique teapot, from which she refilled the mug.

I could see where she was headed. “The only problem we have is that we don’t know what these unknown backers want,” I pointed out.

“I’m glad you said we.” She handed me the mug refilled with the Grey tea, steaming, then added, “Not in specifics,” she agreed, “but what about in general? Don’t you have some idea? What do you know about those involved?”

I took a sip of the tea before answering. I let the steam wreathe my face once more for a moment. “We know they have credits, and that they don’t want to be too obvious. We also know that, for whatever reason, they feel that they want greater control of the nets and their content. They want to generate support for something, and whatever they want to generate support for is something that UniComm would be opposed to…at least it seems that way.”

“Who would these people be? Who fits that definition?”

“In general terms, as you pointed out, most of the wealthiest pre-selects.” I was the one to frown. “You don’t think they’re aiming at some indirect way to restructure the Union?”

Majora shrugged, almost impishly, and, again, the gesture seemed so incongruous from a woman that tall. “You don’t watch the news that much, do you?”

“No…except for project-related things.”

“You should. There have been more than a few protests about the growing use of the PIAT as a screening tool.”

“That’s a stupid issue,” I pointed out.

“Is it? Or is it a symbolic one?” Majora studied me, her eyes definitely less welcoming.

I took another sip of the Grey tea. It didn’t warm me that much. “Let’s say that’s it,” I said slowly, “that they want to move things toward more PIAT-based testing. I still can’t see why they’d target Elora, or Gerrat, and especially Father. He’s always been against governing based on popular opinion.”

“But would he or Gerrat join a conspiracy?”

“No. They’re far too proud, especially Father.”

“So…none of you would be suitable, right? And you, as a group, control UniComm?”

“It sounds silly…imagining conspiracies….” I mused.

“It sounds very silly,” Majora agreed. “Almost as silly as your being in the medcenter twice in five months, being attacked by a targeted laser, and by a monoclone with a filament knife and engineered to explode.”

My lips twisted into a crooked smile. “It doesn’t sound silly that way.”

“So you need to track down this mysterious woman—quickly—and see if she can give you any information that will offer a better idea. While you’re gone, I’ll see what I can find out in my own way—especially about the mysterious PST Trust.”

“You don’t have to…. You’ve helped a lot already.”

“Daryn…the last thing I want is mandatory PIAT testing. Or any group requiring it, or anything like it. Despite all the literature, it’s exactly the kind of test that’s prone to great abuse in the wrong hands. Great abuse.”

I nodded. I wasn’t so sure about that. What I was sure about was that I didn’t want an effective monopoly of comm systems and nets in the hands of a few people. From my own edartistry, I knew where that abuse could go—I knew that all too well.

“I can tell from your words and face that you’re worried more about the nets, but they’re both dangerous.”