there was nothing I could do. I tell you, tas making me damn uneasy. I was about to report it to the Podmaster when—”
Trud hesitated, seemed to realize that this was a brag with consequences. “Anyway, it looks like she was trying to adjust some of the MRI control circuits. Maybe she knew that her tuning was adrift. I don’t know. She had the safety hood off and was running diagnostics. It looks like there was some kind of situational flaw in the control software; we’re still trying to reproduce that. Anyway, she got a control pulse right in the face. There was a little piece of her scalp in the cabinet behind the controls, where she spasmed. Fortunately, the stimulated drug production was alpha-retrox. She has a concussion and a retrox overdose…. Like I say, it’s all repairable. Another forty days and our old lovable Reynolt will be back.” He laughed weakly.
“Minus some recent memories.”
“Of course. Zipheads aren’t hardware; I don’t have backups.”
There was some uncomfortable mumbling around the table, but it was Rita Liao who put the idea into words: “It’s all too convenient. It’s like someone wanted to shut her down.” She hesitated. Earlier in the day, it had been Rita pushing the rumors about Ritser Brughel. It showed how far these Emergents had come that they would stick their noses into what might be a Podmaster conflict. “Has Podmaster Nau checked into the off-Watch status of the Vice-Podmaster?”
“And his agents?” That from a Qeng Ho behind Ezr.
Trud slapped his fork down on the table. His voice came out angry and squeaky. “What do you think! The Podmaster is looking into the possibilities… very carefully.” He took a deep breath, and seemed to realize that the price of fame was too high. “You can be absolutely sure that the Podmaster is taking this seriously. But look—the retrox flood was simply a massive overdose, unlocalized, just what you’d expect in an accident. The amnesia will be a patchy thing. Any saboteur doing that would be a fool. She could be dead and it would’ve looked just as much like an accident.”
For a moment, everyone was silent. Pham glared back and forth at all of them.
Silipan picked up his fork, set it down again. He stared into his half-finished bucket of shrimp tentacles. “Lord, I am so tired. I go back on duty in twenty—damn it, fifteen—Ksecs.”
Rita reached out to pat his arm. “Well, I’m glad you came over and gave us the straight story.” There was a murmur of agreement from the people all around.
“Bil and I will be running the show for some time now. It all depends on us.” Trud looked from face to face, seeking comfort. His voice boasted and quailed at the same time.
They met later that day, in the buffer space beneath the temp’s outer skin. This was a meeting agreed on long before the Lake Park open house. It was a meeting Ezr had waited for with impatience and fear—the meeting where he would lay it on the line to Pham Nuwen about Focus.I have mylittle speech, my little threats to make. Will they be enough?
Ezr moved quietly past Fong’s sproutling trays. The bright lights and the smell of trebyun greens faded behind him. The dark that was left was too deep for unaided eyes. Eight years ago, on his first meeting with Nuwen, there had been faint sunlight. Now the hull plastic showed only darkness.
But nowadays, Ezr had other ways to see…. He signaled the localizer that sat on his temple. A ghostly vision rose. The colors were just shades of yellow, such as you might see if you pressed your finger firmly against the side of your eye. But the light wasn’t random patterns. Ezr had worked long and hard with Pham’s exercises. Now the yellow light revealed the curving walls of the balloon membranes and the outer hull. Sometimes the view was distorted. Sometimes the perspective was from beneath his feet or behind his head. But with the right commands, and lots of concentration, he could see where no unaided person could.Pham can still see better. There had been hints, over the years. Nuwen used the localizers like a private empire.
Pham Nuwen was up ahead, standing behind a wall brace, invisible but for the fact that there were localizers beyond him, looking back. As Ezr closed the last few meters’ distance between them, his vision wavered as the other swung his tiny servants into a different constellation.
“Okay, make it quick.” Pham had stepped out to face him. The yellow pseudo-light painted his face haggard and drawn. He hadn’t dropped the Trinli persona? No, this looked like the hangover Pham had shown in the parlor, but there was something deeper to it.
“You—You promised me two thousand seconds.”
“Yeah, but things have changed. Or haven’t you noticed?”
“I’ve noticed a lot of things. I think it’s time we finally really talked about them. Nau, he truly admires you… you know that, don’t you?”
“Nau is full of lies.”
“True. But the stories he showed me, some large part of them is true. Pham, you and I have worked together through several Watches now. I’ve thought about things my aunt and my grand-uncles used to say about you. I’m past the hero worship. Finally, I realize how much you must… love… Focus. You’ve made me many promises, but they’ve always been so carefully framed. You want to beat Nau and take back what we lost—but more than anything, you want Focus, don’t you?
The silence stretched out for five seconds.To the direct question, whathe will he say? When he finally spoke, his voice was grating: “Focus is the key to making a civilization that lasts—across all of Human Space.”
“Focus is slavery, Pham.” Ezr spoke the words softly. “Of course, you know that; and in your heart I think you hate it. Zamle Eng—you made him your inner cover story; I think that was your heart crying out to you.”
Pham was silent for a second, glaring at him. His mouth twisted. “You’re a fool, Ezr Vinh. You read Nau’s stories and you still don’t understand. I was betrayed once before by a Vinh. It won’t happen again. Do you think I’ll let you live if you cross me?”
Pham glided closer. Ezr’s vision was abruptly snuffed out; he was cut off from all localizer input. Ezr raised his hands, palms up. “I don’t know. But I am a Vinh, Sura’s direct descendant, and also yours. We are a Family of secrets within secrets; someday I would have been told the truth about Brisgo Gap. But even as a child, I heard little things, hints. The Family has not forgotten you. There’s even a motto that we never say on the outside: ‘We owe all to Pham Nuwen; be thou kind unto him.’ So even if you kill me, I have to talk to you.” Ezr stared into the silent dark; he didn’t even know where the other was standing now. “And after yesterday… I think you will listen. I think I have nothing to fear.”
“Afteryesterday ?” Pham’s voice was angry and near. “My little Vinh snake, what can you possibly know about yesterday?”
Ezr stared out in the direction of the voice. There was something about Pham’s voice, a hatred that went beyond reason.What did happen withReynolt? Things were going terribly wrong, but all he had were the words already planned: “You didn’t kill her. I believe what Trud said. Killing her would have been easy, and could have looked just as much like an accident. And so I think I know about where Nau’s stories are true and where they are lies.” Ezr reached out with both arms, and his hands fell on Pham’s shoulders. He stared intently into the dark, willing vision. “Pham! All your life you have been driven. That, and your genius, made us what we are. But you wanted more. Quite what, is never clear in the Qeng Ho histories, but I could see it in Nau’s records. You had a wonderful dream, Pham. Focus might give it to you… but the price is too high.”
There was a moment of silence, then a sound, almost like an animal in pain. Abruptly, Ezr’s arms were struck aside. Two hands grabbed him at the throat, viselike and squeezing shut. All that was left was shocked surprise, dimming toward final blackout….
And then the hands relaxed their pressure. All around him glowbugs flashed stark white light, dozens of tiny popping sounds. He gasped, dazed, trying to understand. Pham was blowing the capacitors in all the nearby localizers! The pinpoint flashes showed Pham Nuwen in bright and black stop action. There was a glittering madness in his eyes that Ezr had never seen.
The lights were farther away now, the destruction spreading outward from them. Ezr’s voice came out a terrified croak: “Pham. Our cover. Without the localizers—”
The last of the tiny flashes showed a twisted smile on the other’s face. “Without the localizers, we die! Die, little Vinh. I no longer care.”
Ezr heard him turn and push off. What was left was darkness and silence—and death that must be no more than Ksecs away. For no matter how hard Ezr tried, he found no sign of localizer support.
