The Octagonal Raven (47 page)

Helnya

Majora and I sat on the opposite sides of the table in her great room, looking out on a darkened garden. I looked down at my plate, and then at Majora’s. Her plate was as full of uneaten chicken, portobello mushrooms, and pasta as mine still was.

“Worried?” I asked.

“I’m as worried as you are.”

“We have double security tonight, and the glider is right by the door.” I pointed out. “I’m the only real danger.” I tried to leer.

She offered a wan smile. “That’s not why I’m worried, and it’s not why you are.”

“I know.” I took a sip of the lukewarm Grey tea. “I have the feeling that things are getting out of hand.”

“What did you think would happen?” Majora asked. “Really?”

“A handful of demonstrations. Some legal scholars looking into things. The Federal Union council backing off the perceptual testing, and OneCys working to destroy me, bit by slow bit while most of the world yawned. I’d thought that the handful of riots and counteractions would run their course and be forgotten, if there were any demonstrations at all.”

She tilted her head. “Then why did you invest all this effort…put your entire career, and all that you inherited on the line for this program push…if you didn’t think it would change things much?”

“Well…I could be wrong. But I didn’t…. I don’t know…. Eldyn put everything out there, and he put together a plague that killed close to a quarter of a million pre-selects. I was trying to get enough exposure of the problems and the issues all at once. If I tried educating people slowly, it just would have been forgotten. Another alarmist story about how society is deteriorating. Ho…hum…yes, indeed.

“I thought at least a blitz campaign would pull out enough issues that the secretary director would have to look at things and so that the PST types would back off UniComm. I hoped for more, but I didn’t think that much more would happen. As for why…that’s simpler. What happens next if things don’t change? Do we build higher and higher walls? Hire private armies to guard our homes and families? That’s where it’s heading….”

Majora caught my eyes with hers. “Daryn…don’t lecture me…please. I think I knew that before you did.”

“I’m sorry. It’s just…you’re the only one who listens. I even try to tell that to anyone else, and they’d laugh—or try to find some undetectable way to kill me. Well…they tried that even before I understood.” I leaned back in the chair, not quite meeting her eyes, not really wanting to face the honesty there, afraid of the judgment I might find. “It’s like…” I couldn’t find an apt comparison. “Between privacy rules and hard evidentiary rules, between the PST types’ ability to get around the system, and my having the entire system watching me, between their having all the time in the world to set me up, to change the entire way the world is run…” My words trailed off.

Majora waited.

“That’s not it, either,” I finally said. “Everything would
look
the same, and appear to work the same, but it wouldn’t be. More and more of the bright pre-selects would be not only perceptually tested, but the tests would be used to influence and guide them. Then the bright norms would find, when they were offered upper level jobs, that perceptual testing was required, and the same thing would happen to them.”

“Can you be sure of that?”

“The systems and the technology exist, and these people haven’t seemed too bothered about blowing up tube trains with innocents aboard, pushing people off cliffs, or evading the laws on monoclones. They’ve quietly pushed to implement perceptual testing as a requirement—oh, it would be voluntary at first, but when only those who volunteer get the university slots or the jobs or the promotions, it wouldn’t be voluntary at all….”

“You make a convincing case, Daryn.” Majora gave me a smile that was slightly lopsided. “Why are you trying to convince yourself?”

“Because what I’m doing—”

The gatekeepers—Majora’s and the one on my belt—blared with the alarm signal.

“Security, ser! There’s a whole convoy of black gliders—”

There was a harsh crackling sound, and the transmission ended.

I grabbed the portable scanner off the side table, then Majora’s arm, and we ran for the door, then down the steps. I was already remote-unlocking the glider, glad that I’d at least had enough foresight to leave it by the door.

I handed the scanner to Majora. “Once you get inside and strapped in, focus it on the house.”

“Right.”

I flicked off all the cutouts as the glider powered up, and secured the full restraint harness, then eased the glider northway, away from the guideway, and the attackers. We were less than a hundred meters from the cottage when lines of fire converged on it, and a wall of flame skyrocketed into the sky.

“I’ve got all that,” Majora said.

The glider shuddered and shuddered, and I had to work to keep it level and just below the tree tops.

“Can you see if you can use your belt unit to send that back to UniComm?”

“You want me to report that the house was torched?”

“Just say that the place where I was having dinner was attacked and torched by unknown parties.”

I finally settled the glider, still holding it just below tree-top level, and began to edge circuitously around and back toward the guideway, if almost a klick eastward of where the flames blazed into the night sky.

“…is Majora Hyriss reporting. UniComm Director Alwyn was attacked again this evening as he ate dinner with a friend. You can see the destruction created by the attack. The identity of the attackers is unknown…more later.”

“Good,” I murmured. Not perfect, but good and timely was best.

“What are you doing?” hissed Majora.

“Going to look and see.”

“After that?”

I was tired of running and scheming, but I didn’t say so, just concentrated on following the scanners and my own senses.

There wasn’t much left near the cottage—the armed gliders had already slipped back away, and they weren’t on the guideway either, but running at close to ten meters above ground over the flatter vineyards to the south of Majora’s, and that meant they were really flitters of some sort.

Using enhanced night vision I studied the line, then smiled. “Lock that harness. The little lever on the boss. Push it once…down.”

Majora clicked the lever, and I fed full power into the magfields. A slight energy nimbus surrounded the glider.

What I had in mind was simple. Tricky to execute but simple in concept.

At the far end of the vineyards was a low berm. I was betting that rather than lift their modified flitter-gliders much higher, and possibly trigger alarm sensors in the skytors, that the four glider-type vehicles would maintain their low altitude, with bare clearance over the berm.

I kicked in long-unused range calculations, personal systems left from piloting years, then maxed my modified glider into a steep climb. At a thousand meters, AGL, we went into a shallow dive—right toward the point where the trailing attack glider would cross the berm.

My flare was perfect, and so was my aim.

The trailing gray glider pancaked into the berm in a shower of sparks, but I was already streaking eastward and behind the low hill from which the berm extended. A single line of flame flashed toward us and sprayed off the rear shield just before we dropped out of the line of sight. I had to hope that they weren’t carrying some sort of seeker missiles, but I had to believe there was some limit on what could be used to evade FU limits.

“I got the laser….” Majora said.

“Good. Don’t send it…yet.” Then I dropped the glider onto the grass.

We waited for almost fifteen minutes before I eased the glider back toward the forced crash site, stopping where I could just barely see the berm.

There were two gliders—the ruined one, and one hovering next to it. Two men were struggling to remove something from the downed glider.

The scanners showed no other gliders nearby—not in direct range.

“Can you get that?” I asked. “With the scanner?”

“I can try…hard through the canopy at this angle.”

I waited a moment. “Do you have it?”

“Much as I could get.”

“Fine. Hang on!” I snapped as I went to full power.

“How—”

Majora’s question was lost in the rush of air as we climbed again.

The idea was simple. Use the ground cushion and flare as a concussive.

A single line of flame flashed toward us, deflecting off the front shield as I flared.

One figure went down like a tree snapped at its base.

I wasn’t quite as precise, but even with enhanced night vision, low-level stuff in the dark is scary. The rear shields bounced slightly on something, but the system indicators remained solid, and I backed off.

The second glider had nosed into the berm, and no one was moving. There were no EDI or energy traces.

I could see three figures sprawled on the ground.

“Are they unconscious?” asked Majora.

“They should be.” They might be dead.

“I’ll get one.”

“You? That’s dangerous.”

“I’m almost as strong as you, and I can’t operate your glider, and we need some proof.”

She was right about that.

I studied the area again—quickly. No sign of anything. While the attackers could be booby-trapped clones, the odds were against it. Even Emyl Astol would have had trouble coming up with that many clones with that kind of training without the Federal Union knowing.

“Be quick…” I began, but the canopy was already back, and Majora was moving, swiftly and far more gracefully than I would have. I was ready to use the glider as a ram if anything moved, but nothing did.

In what seemed seconds, she was staggering back toward me, a figure over her shoulder, and something in her other hand.

The figure went into the rear with a dull thump.

“There were three,” Majora panted. “…other two…dead. Grabbed the cases they had.” Majora hefted three cases into rear seats of the glider next to the trussed figure in a black camouflage suit. “I took their belts and used them to tie this one up.”

She climbed in, and I closed the canopy.

Majora already had the scanner back out, sweeping the crashed gliders, and transmitting.

“…Majora Hyriss here…scanning two of the ruined gliders believed to be part of the group that attacked UniComm Director Alwyn just a few minutes ago…. The gliders apparently crashed in going cross-country to escape possible pursuit on the guideways…more later.”

Now, all we needed to do was get to UniComm.

I decided on straight, high-speed, low-level flight. While I was gambling that no one was going to bother with a lone unlicensed flitter in the midst of chaos, it was a better choice than risking getting attacked on a predictable guideway.

The other problem was that it was night, and without the recharging impact of the solar cells, I was going through power I wasn’t coming close to replacing. The glider wouldn’t have much of a reserve left when we reached UniComm…if we reached UniComm.

Kewood

I didn’t bother with the glider park at UniComm headquarters. I dropped the glider practically on the stone steps leading up into the buried building. I half-wondered if Grandfather had envisioned a siege when he and Father had moved everything to the headquarters a generation earlier. Once the glider settled, Majora grabbed the cases and the scanner, and I hoisted the inert commando type over my shoulder, and we struggled up the steps.

“Director Alwyn.” The gray-clad security type behind the podium actually smiled. “We’re glad to see you and the lady are all right.” Her smile was broader as she looked at Majora. “They’ve been beaming your reports out on all the spurs.” Her eyes settled on the unconscious man in the black camouflage uniform slung across my shoulder.

“Oh…he’s one of those who was in the party doing the attacking. You might want to inform the CAs that he’s here,” I suggested. “We’ll keep him in my office.”

“They like hard evidence,” Majora added wryly.

I paused. “Can you find another security officer to watch over our friend until the CAs arrive?”

“I’ll let them know, if I can get through,” the guard said. She pressed a stud, and two others in the gray of security appeared and hoisted the limp figure of the commando.

“Thank you.”

“Our pleasure, ser.” The first security guard smiled. “I’ll see about the CAs.”

We walked up the ramp toward my office. There I had the two security guards—both women—prop the unconscious commando on the couch.

“Stun him if he looks like he’s going to move anywhere.”

“We’d be most happy to, ser,” replied the taller woman.

The man in black groaned, as if he were about to regain consciousness.

Then Devit Tal hurried through the door. He looked at Majora. “Good reports. Adds a real sense of urgency to all this.” His eyes went to me. “They firebombed your house, too.”

“I can’t say I’m surprised.”

Devit looked at the man in black who was moaning softly. “Where did he come from?”

“He was with the crew that attacked Majora’s place.”

“How did you capture him?”

“I stunned him. Majora captured him and tied him up.”

Devit looked at me, at Majora, at the security types, and then at the commando. “I’ll be right back.” He hurried out.

“Do we have any gloves?” I gestured at the three black cases on the conference table.

“I have a pair in my office,” Majora said. “I’ll get them.”

I watched the captive while Majora hurried out and back, scanning the cases. I couldn’t detect anything in them, and the office security system didn’t either.

Majora was back in less than a handful of minutes, gloves on, looking at the cases.

“They seem clean. No energy. No emissions,” I said.

She flipped open the end case gingerly.

“What’s there?” I asked.

“Printed maps, a timetable, photos of you and me and of the cottage. Some credit chips, probably large and untraceable…that’s it.”

“Leave it on the table. Put the other two under my desk.”

Majora nodded and did so, barely straightening as Devit Tal hurried back into the office with a large portascanner.

“You want us in it?” I inquired.

Devit shook his head. “Not for this.” He leveled the scanner at the figure in the camouflage suit. “We’re standing in the office of UniComm Director General Alwyn. You may recall that Alwyn has been attacked a number of times over the last few weeks, and tonight there was another attempt by a force of gliders. Those in the gliders were dressed in Federal Services commando-style uniforms….”

Tal panned the scanner across the groggy prisoner. “This man was captured by the director and his assistant after two of the attacking gliders collided and crashed following the attack.”

The eyes of the dark-haired man in the camouflage suit popped open. He’d been pretending to be unconscious. “Bastard crashed us…” he mumbled.

“So you admit you attacked the director?” asked Tal smoothly.

“Damned right…” Abruptly, the captive shook his head as his eyes took in the scanner and he recognized fully what it was. He shut his mouth.

“There you have it, from the mouth of one of the men hired to attack and kill Director Alwyn.” Tal smiled as he cut off the scanner. “You don’t mind if we run that, do you, Director?”

“Be my guest.”

The captive squirmed as if to lunge at one of us, even with arms, hands, and feet bound.

“I wouldn’t try it,” suggested Majora. “The last time someone tried to assault the director, they ended up dead, and there were three of them.”

“…bastards…”

“Rather unimaginative,” I commented.

The gatekeeper clinged. “Security, ser. There are two Civil Authority officers here to speak with you.”

“Tell them they can come on up. Tell them that my door is open.”

“Yes, ser.”

I looked at Majora. She shrugged. We waited.

The two CAs appeared outside the door in less than two minutes. One of them—the taller, hard-faced one—seemed familiar, but I couldn’t recall if he had been one of those brought in when Anna and I had been attacked, or if I were just imagining that I’d seen him before. The shorter red-haired woman I knew I’d never seen.

“Director Alwyn?” asked the hard-faced and brown-haired CA. “Officers Krag and Shannd.”

“That’s me. This is Majora Hyriss, my special assistant.” I gestured toward the bound figure on the couch. “This gentleman is a survivor of the team that attacked Majora’s house. We were having dinner. I think they killed the security guards, and flamed the house, then fled. The security guards gave us enough warning to get out.”

“How did you…find this man?” asked the woman.

“There was some sort of explosion or crash, and it looked like one of their glider-flitters had crashed into another one, and this man was the only one left alive. At least, we thought so. We picked him up and came here.”

The bound man glared at me, but said nothing.

“At the very least, I think you can find a certain amount of hard evidence, officer. The burned ruins of this lady’s dwelling, the evidence of off-guideway travel, a crash site, and possibly even a wrecked vehicle—or the burned remains….”

“Burned remains. Self-destruct charges. We’ve already looped into the skytors,” the taller one said in a strained and clipped tone. “We’re stretched too thin…wouldn’t be here, except…”

“You were detailed by the regional advocate general to deal with me?” I suggested.

“Ah…not quite that clearly, ser. We thought it might be best to ensure that we could verify some hard evidence. If you wouldn’t mind allowing us to take this man…?”

“Be our guest.” I gestured to the case on the table. “He was carrying that. You probably ought to keep it as well. It might have something interesting in it.”

The taller CA slipped out a transparent film bag and slipped it around the case, then tucked it under his arm. “Would you consider waiving privacy on this, Director?”

“I would, but not at this moment. In this case, I’m clearly the victim. My house has been firebombed. So has my assistant’s. Oh, she’s also my fiancee. Our families know, but it isn’t public yet.” I smiled politely. “With all the unrest going on around the world, it would be inopportune to go through another truth nanite test. I have a netsystem to run, but once matters settle down, I’ll be happy to discuss it.”

The two CAs exchanged glances. Then the older and taller one nodded. “Given that you’ve waived privacy twice, I think your assurance of future cooperation will suffice.” He looked at the commando type. “We do like witnesses and hard evidence.” He pulled something from the kit on his belt, and slapped it on the back of the prisoner’s neck. Then he looked at the dark-haired man. “That’s an immobilizer. You move one centimeter out of line, and you’ll find yourself falling forward and unable to move a muscle.”

The CA nodded to the redhead, who loosened the belt strap around the man’s ankles, then stepped back. He glanced at me. “Same sort of belt as he’s wearing. Where did you get it?”

“There were two others who were killed,” Majora answered. “I took their belts to tie him up. After what they did to my house, I wasn’t feeling charitable.”

“I wouldn’t have been either.” The older CA nodded to us. “We’ll be in touch.”

The redheaded CA looked at the survivor. “On your feet.”

The chill in the prisoner’s eyes was enough to drop the temperature in the office a good five degrees.

Neither of us said a word until the CAs were out of sight and until the two UniComm security guards had also left my office.

“Do you think they’ll discover anything?” asked Majora.

“Well…they do have a crash site, two burned-out houses, and a commando type in custody.”

“And no evidence to link any of it to the PST group,” she pointed out. “I’ll bet that there’s not one item in the other cases that can be traced.” She moved toward the desk, then bent and retrieved the cases.

One of the other cases was identical to the first. The second contained six prepacked Federal Service meals. That bothered me a lot.

“Even if we do a commentary or a factual update on that,” Majora pointed out, “it doesn’t prove anything.”

No…it was only highly suggestive of the fact that someone, or a number of someones, in the Federal Service had been corrupted. At the very least, someone was using ex-FS commandos, and equipment most similar. That was chilling in its own way. But like everything else…more suggestions, but not hard evidence, and greater pressure on the secretary director or the regional advocate general to shut us down.

I paged Devit Tal through the gatekeeper.

It was several minutes before his image appeared. “I’ve only got a few minutes, Director.”

“I understand, Devit. The way things are going, we may have to seal the structure at any time. Is there anyone or anything that’s vital?”

“No, ser. We’ve got secure landlinks it would take days to get to.”

“Fine. Just thought you should know.” I paused. “Can we send delay links to the smaller nets…the stuff we’ve already run?”

Tal smiled. “We started doing that this afternoon, ser.”

“Good…and thank you.”

He nodded and was gone.

Then came the calls to the security stations. “Security, this is Director Alwyn. Prepare to seal the structure. Report when ready to seal. You will have one minute when notified. Notification could come at any time in the next twenty-four hours.”

Again, I was glad for Father’s prescience. Had he foreseen this? Or just worried about a Federal Union takeover?

The security stations began to report back in.

I made a general announcement. “This is the director general. Because of the unsettled nature of the area, as evidenced by attacks on UniComm personnel and their homes, we have prepared to seal the structure at any time. We will remain on system power for now.”

I flicked on InstaNews…all that was running was a follow-up on the Hylo eruption, and a quick cut on the world korfball championships.

AllNews was better.

“And you didn’t think much would happen?” asked Majora.

“It hasn’t yet,” I pointed out. “We have no evidence. We have no links. All we have is violence and riots that we’ve generated, and I could be looking at a long incarceration and maybe even brain-damping.” I took a long and deep breath. “Why don’t you lie down on the couch? It’s going to be a long night.”

“Why don’t you?”

“Because I’m wound up like an overstressed gyro.” The metaphor wasn’t correct. My mind was spinning like an overstressed gyro, and even my words didn’t follow.

“So am I.”

So we sat behind the conference table, next to each other, and watched the disaster slowly spread—still without any evidence appearing that would link the PST group to the attacks or the subtle coup I knew was being implemented.