Trapped

the dying person's personality on nearby nanites in the air. It's not an accident — the aliens who set this whole thing up wanted to create ghosts, in accordance with human ghost stories. If Rosalind suffered enough emotional turmoil when she died, her nanites were almost certain to create a ghostly manifestation. The ghost isn't the real Rosalind, of course. It's just an artificial reproduction of some part of the girl's psyche: deliberately manufactured for melodramatic effect.'

I chewed on that a moment. What I'd seen in the music room had definitely been melodramatic — choreographed for heavy emotional impact. The soft weeping, the harp playing in an empty room, the blood… in a way, it was almost too faithful to the cliches of ghost stories. A real ghost (if there was such a thing) would probably be more original. Still… 'These nanites are good at playing out scenes,' I said. 'Very smart.'

Myoko shrugged. 'What can I say? There are trillions of the little fuckers everywhere. And they were constructed by aliens who knew a lot more science than the OldTechs ever did. The nanites are smart and very powerful.'

'Is there any limit to their power?'

'They're only present here on Earth, so you can't use them to travel off-planet. Apart from that, they seem to up for anything humans can imagine. Transmutation of lead into gold… teleportation… time travel…'

I gulped. 'Time travel?'

'Think about it,' Myoko said. 'How can the Caryatid get accurate premonitions if the nanites don't play fast and loose with time? Information travels from the future back to us in the present. And Yoquito said the nanites could make physical objects do the same thing. I don't know of cases on record… but then, the records would have changed, wouldn't they?'

Ouch. Time travel always gives respectable physicists the screamie-weamies. Not that we're totally convinced it's impossible… but we know enough about the universe to realize just how much of the natural order time travel would screw up. The cliche of killing your grandfather isn't nearly as serious as killing the second law of thermodynamics. 'I don't suppose,' I said, 'your analytic genius Yoquito ever mentioned how to avoid time paradoxes?'

Myoko shook her head. 'Yoquito didn't live long enough. When the nanites explained all this stuff, he decided he had to tell someone… and the nanites directed him to a school that housed people with powers just like his. My old alma mater: the school for psychics. It took Yoquito years to make his way out of the jungle and reach the school. After that, he told what he knew, and died from his tuberculosis within a month. One of those cases where a man with a terminal illness keeps himself alive by sheer willpower until he accomplishes what he wants to do. Then he just lets go.'

A short silence. After a while I had to ask, 'If your school has known this for forty years, why haven't they told anyone else? Scientists would kill for this kind of information.'

'That's the problem,' Myoko said. 'Some scientists would kill for it. At least we're afraid they might. In case you haven't noticed, we psychics don't trust outsiders. The school where I trained has no incentive to divulge the truth, and every reason to play things close to the vest. If scientists understood how psionics worked, maybe they could use that against us somehow. We didn't want to take that risk. Anyway,' she said, her voice suddenly brisk, 'scientists will find out soon enough. Every psychic who goes through the school is taught what's really happening; when that many people know something, it doesn't stay secret for long. I'm surprised it's lasted forty years.'

'As you say, psychics don't confide in other people.' I looked up and met her eyes. 'Which makes me wonder why you're telling me.'

She dropped her gaze quickly. 'Because Sebastian is missing. Because he might be in trouble and I want to save him. You're a smart man, Phil, and who knows, maybe if you understand the truth you can use it to help.'

'I'll try,' I told her. 'What did you say the boy's powers were?'

'Everything. As far as I can tell, he's got every damned power in the book. Clairvoyance, clairaudience, telekinesis, telepathy… some more powerful than others, but he's got it all.'

'How can that be?' I asked. 'Could he have initiators all through his brain?'

Myoko shook her head. 'Yoquito said that was impossible. If a baby already has an initiator, other initiators stay away.'

'Hmm. Did you ever ask Sebastian to describe what his powers felt like?'

She nodded. 'Like the world was filled with happy puppies, eager to do tricks for him. If he wanted something, he asked the puppies and they fell all over themselves to help him out… whether it was lifting heavy objects, displaying pictures in front of his eyes, or telling him the answers on exams. They'd even act without being asked — like once, he almost got kicked by a horse; but the air between him and the horse's hoof suddenly turned into a solid wall and stopped the kick before it made contact.'

'Okay,' I said. 'So the boy's happy puppies are actually nanites. And they want to do him favors: help him, protect him. Maybe the initiator landed in some part of his brain that deals with social relations. Friendships. Every bit of nano on the planet has become Sebastian's loyal pal.' I pondered the idea a moment, then made a face. 'No: that doesn't sound right. I'll have to think some more.' I gave a sideways smile at Myoko. 'Though it sure would be nice to have thirty percent of the entire world as my doting chum.'

Myoko gave my arm a squeeze. 'Sorry, Phil, you'll have to make do with me.' Quickly she turned away, toward Sebastian's door. 'Let's get this over with, shall we?'

When I'd entered the room in the dark, I'd thought the place had been cleaned up. Now that I had more light, I saw it was not so much 'clean' as what the maids called 'boy-tidy': clear in the middle of the floor, with clutter shoved against the wall and arranged in balanced stacks. This was still an improvement over the usual state of the room; Sebastian must have spent hours picking things up (or having his nanite friends do the work). That showed the boy hadn't run off on the spur of the moment — he'd put things in order first.

Myoko, standing in the doorway, surveyed the piles of oddments around the edge of the room. 'What do we think we're looking for?'

'Clues to where he went,' I said.

'Like what?'

'Coach schedules perhaps. Or a note from some priestess willing to many two teenagers without parental consent.'

'No one in Simka would perform such a wedding,' Myoko said, 'and if any kid asked, the church would inform the academy. Opal makes hefty donations to all the local chapels to keep them on our side.' Myoko shook her head. 'If I were eloping, I wouldn't make wedding arrangements ahead of time; I'd just hightail it to a big city, then look for someone bribable. Heaven knows, Rosalind has enough cash to smooth the way — I've heard kids talk about how much gold she carries. Almost as much as you do.'

I thought about that. 'It would be nice to know where Rosalind's gold is. Is it still in her room, or has it gone missing?'

'The only way to find out,' Myoko said, 'would be to search Rosalind's room for her money-belt.'

'And entering Rosalind's room,' I said, 'is an unhealthy thing to do.' I turned back to the jumble heaped around Sebastian's dorm. What were we looking for? The boy was too smart to leave obvious hints of where he was going. If we did find a coach schedule with a destination circled, it would likely be a red herring to send us in the wrong direction.

Still, we couldn't give up without looking. Maybe we'd be brilliant enough to deduce where he'd gone from the things he took with him. If, for example, he'd left behind all his warm clothes, we could assume he was heading for the sunnier south.

Either that, or he was a typical teenage boy who didn't think ahead when packing.

Myoko and I began to search: she rummaged through the closets and drawers, while I checked miscellaneous stacks of paper. Five minutes later I was scanning some barely legible history notes when Myoko called, 'Phil, can you give me a hand?'

She was kneeling beside the boy's bed. Tucked underneath was a polished wooden case, half as long as the bed itself and thick enough that it just fit between the floor and the bed frame. The case had bright brass handles, gleaming in the lamplight; I grabbed one handle, Myoko took the other, and together we dragged the case out.

There were no markings on the exterior… and no lock either, just a small hook-and-eye to keep the box shut. Myoko slipped the hook and lifted the lid to reveal an interior lined with plush green silk. A light fencing foil lay in a pre-shaped cradle amidst the silk; beside it were three more cradles, empty but obviously intended to hold other swords. Judging by the size of the cradles and the indentations in the silk, I guessed the missing weapons were a saber, a rapier, and a broadsword.

'Pretty,' Myoko said, looking at the foil. 'Nice workmanship.' She tapped her finger on the button at the end of the blade, the little nubbin that prevented the sword from impaling opponents during a friendly fencing match. 'Odd that Sebastian would have such a good weapon. I thought his family was poor.'

'Only in comparison to the rest of our student body. The Shores run a local metalworks… and they make good money catering to the lordlings of our academy. Custom weapons, repairs, that sort of thing.' I gestured toward the case. 'When Sebastian was accepted at our school, I'll bet his family gave him a set of their best blades. So he wouldn't feel outclassed by the other kids.'

'Hmm.' Myoko looked into the case again. 'Where are the other three swords?'

'Good question.' I ran my fingers over the empty silk cradles. 'He probably took one with him — a reasonable precaution if you're wandering the countryside at night. Maybe he brought one for Rosalind too.'

'Surely she had a sword of her own,' Myoko replied. 'People talk as if her mother armed the girl with every weapon under the sun.'

'That was the real Rosalind. A false Rosalind might not have access to the real one's arsenal.'

Myoko gave a grudging nod. 'All right: one sword for Sebastian, possibly one for Rosalind. What happened to the third blade?'

I shrugged. 'Maybe he hocked it. He often complained about needing cash to keep up with the other kids.'

'He said the same to me,' Myoko agreed. 'That's why I thought he was poor. But he despised himself for feeling that way, and refused to go on spending sprees to impress what he called those rich nobs.'

'But what if he needed money for something special?' I asked. 'Like eloping with Rosalind.'

'Yes,' Myoko said slowly, 'he might pawn the sword then. If he needed money to get away. And he'd want to pay for everything himself, without using Rosalind's gold.'

I nodded. Sebastian might have been a psychic prodigy, but he was still a teenage boy. Romantic, proud, and stubborn — to prove he was a man, he'd want to finance the entire elopement by himself. So why wouldn't he decide to sell a sword or two?

Again I looked at the box's empty cradles: a saber, a broadsword, and a rapier. Sabers and rapiers were practical weapons, but broadswords were too heavy for anything but ceremonial combat. (Of course, the academy trained its charges in ceremonial combat as well as normal fencing — many of our students were destined