<I can do that!> He seemed pleased at the prospect of practicing deception. He was a child after my own heart.
<And Nuruddin,> I told him privately, <we adults have to get on the stick. It’s time to go into overdrive.>
Expressing emotion is not something that Servants do readily, even under extreme circumstances. But I saw a hardening in Nuruddin’s face as the ramifications of the situation sank in.
Nuruddin knelt before his son and took both his hands. <My dear, I love you and your sister more than anything in the universe. Do you understand that?>
Ashur was taken aback. <Yes, Father.>
<If anything were to happen to you, I don’t think I could survive it.>
Ashur swallowed.
<I can’t forgive these people, Sultana and Tetsuko. I am afraid their actions may cause us terrible harm. That is what I want you to think about, going forward. I’ve seen people be executed, Ashur. It is a terrible, pitiless thing. As careful as you’ve been in the past, you must be ten times more so now. Promise me.>
Ashur straightened his spine. <I promise, Father. I—am sorry I caused you to worry so much.>
Nuruddin’s expression gave no ground. He strove for clarity. <You are not to blame for this situation. The ones who are will answer for it.>
<Be careful, Father!>
I found it interesting that Ashur did not jump to the defense of Sultana and Tetsuko. Maybe he didn’t consider them friends.
<I will always be careful,> said Nuruddin.
I confess I had long harbored feelings of friendship for Nuruddin, though my own value as a friend is questionable.
Watching him teach Ashur by example filled my heart with something a lot more complicated. At the time, I thought it was because Nuruddin is so admirable. But my memories of that moment are mostly of Ashur, and now I understand what I saw in the face of my mother’s ghost when she beheld him, swimming toward us in his mermaid program. My clever, wonderful Ashur.
It is a revelation. But I have yet to decipher its full impact.
Nuruddin gave Ashur his nourishment pouch and directed him to his homework. <Don’t speak of this with your friends yet,> he warned. <If any of them seem to have a problem keeping the secret, let us know.>
<We have all kept the secret,> Ashur said proudly. <We’re a good team!>
Privately I thought they may have been selected with those qualities in mind. But it was a scary thought, that someone had carefully assessed and chosen those thirteen children.
Once Ashur was tucked into his cubby, Nuruddin and I had a private parlay. <Two beautiful ladies,> he said.
I didn’t get it at first. Then I remembered what Ashur had been talking about.
<My mother’s ghost,> I said.
Nuruddin raised an eyebrow—a rare demonstration of emotion. <One of the Sleeping Giants?>
Medusa kept no big secrets from her sisters, nor they from their partners. The Sleeping Giants, by definition, were big.
<I’ve never seen them,> said Nuruddin. <Yet my son has.>
<He saw her accidentally. She was with me when he contacted me. You would have seen her under the same circumstances.>
I couldn’t tell if that comforted him. <Should I be concerned?> he said. <There is a lot we don’t know about those entities.>
<They’re shy about whom they talk to.> I remembered the way my mother had withdrawn when she saw Ashur, and the way Lady Sheba’s ghost had reacted to Gennady’s comments at the Charmaynes’ party. <They’re very cautious.>
<Nefertari says the same. But I’ll monitor the situation, in case he sees her again.>
I agreed, because he was a parent worried about his child. But my concerns about my mother’s ghost were different.
It wasn’t that Ashur had seen her. It was that she had seen Ashur.
I left before Nuruddin’s partner and his daughter got home, and I wandered aimlessly in the tunnels for a bit. I had dressed as a repair tech, but I skirted other technicians working in the area. I wanted to avoid questions, not provoke them.
I hadn’t wandered for long when she called me. <Oichi—all implants are accounted for.>
<How is that possible?>
<I have a theory,> she said. <It has to do with the circumstances on Titania before we moved ourselves to Olympia. They were very fluid.>
I’m not sure the word fluid would have necessarily tipped me off to her meaning if she hadn’t also reminded me that she had managed to move all the Medusa units to Olympia under the noses of Executives. <The dissidents didn’t know what they had in inventory,> I said.
<Even I wasn’t sure,> said Medusa, <above and beyond my sister units. I didn’t count the implants until we put them in storage in the research towers, and I didn’t know how many there were on Titania. The implants the children received may have come from one of your father’s original caches.>
<So who brought them to Olympia?>
<Gennady?> she guessed. <Sultana and Tetsuko, when they immigrated as med techs? They managed to smuggle their deepsleep units here, so they could have brought implants, too.>
My memories of Titania were entangled with the fragmented images of its destruction, but also with images from databases that had existed prior to that cataclysm. Previously I had searched it for signs of Medusa and her sisters, and for my father and mother. I had found nothing of the former, and very little beyond the routine of the latter. Now I wondered if I needed to go through the whole shebang with new eyes.
Everything seems to have gone according to plan, Schnebly had reported (right after blowing me out of an air lock). But I have concerns.
Now I had them, too.
All three targets who have been eliminated so far were too resourceful. They didn’t react the way most people do when they get shut into an air lock. They reacted like trained operatives. I wonder who trained them. I wonder if we need to look for an organization, rather than individuals.
<One thing,> I said. <If Sultana and Tetsuko just got out of those deepsleep units, they couldn’t be the people Schnebly thought he executed six years ago.>
<Unless they hid in the units after he tried to kill them,> said Medusa. <Then woke again because they thought it would be safe by now, or because of some schedule they’re on that we don’t know about. If they have been in those units throughout most of our voyage, they may be people from the First Generation.>
People from the First Generation, watching our children and secretly giving them implants from Titania—implants that contained my father’s music database and the interface he had designed.
But if they weren’t from the cache Medusa had rescued, there was something they wouldn’t have, something we had added recently.
<I never thought to ask Ashur if he has Nuruddin’s movie database,> I said. <I assumed he did, but now that I think about it, he probably would have mentioned that to his father and me when we questioned him.>
<I’ll ask Nuruddin to talk to him,> said Medusa. <That would bolster our suspicions about the origin of Ashur’s implant.>
<I’m heading back to Lucifer Tower. I think we’d better—>
<Oichi!> Medusa’s tone was alarmed. <Miriam Khan has entered a 100-series air lock.> She highlighted the location for me on our Security overlay.
<Don’t let her open the outer door!> I said, and made a mad dash for the movers.
24
What a Difference a Cycle Makes
Miriam had chosen a lock in the loneliest place she could find. But when I opened the inner door and rushed in thirty-seven minutes later, she had not yet attempted to open the outer door.
“Miriam, don’t do it!” I said.
She spun to face me, her fists clenched. In the emergency lights, she looked unnaturally pale. But her expression wasn’t angry, or even frightened. She looked puzzled.
I moved under the light, so she could see my face.
Recognition dawned. “Sezen?” She rushed toward me, then froze and reached a tentative hand to my cheek. “It’s you! You’re alive!”
“Well,” I said, “sort of.”
Her eyes sparkled with unshed tears. “When I tried to reach you—I got a STOP SERVICE message, and then no answer at all. I’ve seen that happen to other associates. It always means…”
“That they’re dead?” I said. “They officially executed me. But I survived.”
I expected her to ask how. But she surprised me. “Why did you impersonate Sezen?”
So she had figured out that much at least. And I wanted to answer her question. But the explanation was so long and complicated, I found myself at a loss for words. Unfortunately, I said something anyway. “I’m just that kind of seditious jerk.”
That could have gone over badly. Miriam stared at me blankly for a moment, but then she laughed. “I suppose I am, too.”
“I hoped you might feel that way. When I contacted you as Sezen, I was trying to build a network of friends who could make beneficial changes. You and Halka were the first two I approached. But the authorities nabbed me before I could take it any further.”
She frowned. “If you impersonated Sezen, then—”
“She killed herself. The same way you were about to. Maybe for the same reasons? I never had a chance to ask.”
She could have shed those tears she was holding, and wailed to me about how awful her life was. Instead, she studied my clothing and my face. “You’re a chameleon. Is that how you’re hiding so successfully?”
“Partly,” I said.
“And now I know your secret. So either you must kill me—or I must disappear, too?”
I smiled at her. It wasn’t a scary smile (or at least I hope it wasn’t); it’s just that I liked her so much for putting it together like that. She was an Executive woman: she could have been complaining about my lack of respect for her class, or at least floundering around while she tried to adjust to my egalitarian attitudes. She could have been frowning, or crying, or yelling, or even pleading for her life.
Instead, she said, “I want to disappear, too. As you have.”
“I’m glad to hear it.” Though I would not have killed Miriam, mostly because I could have locked her in one of the research towers and kept her comfortable until it was safe to let her out again. It was a tactic I had pondered quite a lot when I considered how best to advance my plans. I would have to live on Olympia once the revolution was over, and I would hate to end up being tried for murder by an army of angry relatives of the deceased. “There are a couple of ways I can do that for you. But the best way is a big commitment. So you need to know something first. I’m going to introduce you to someone. She’s waiting outside this air lock.”
Miriam looked at the outer door, then back at me. “Outside?”
“Come on, let’s get out and let the lock operate.” I walked into the hallway, and she followed me without hesitation. I had wanted to see if she would do that, if she trusted me.
“Is this the reason you survived their attempt to murder you?” she said.
Ah, murder, I was glad to hear her put it that way. “Yes. And that will make sense once you’ve met her.
Miriam grinned. “Her. I like that. I’m so bloody sick of men running my world, and women enabling them.”
We waited outside the closed inner door, looking through the view window. When the pressure had equalized, the outer door opened, and we saw something enter, something with tentacles.
“What is that?” Miriam didn’t sound frightened, only mystified.
“A friend,” I assured her. And when the pressure had reached 1 atm inside the lock, I opened the inner door and ushered Miriam inside.
Medusa moved into the light and lowered her face to the same level as Miriam’s. “I’m pleased to meet you,” she said. “I loved your dissertation.”
“Miriam,” I said, “this is Medusa. And we have a proposal for you. I know you want to disappear. But there’s something else you could do that would help a lot more.”
* * *
As with Terry, I didn’t tell Miriam that Medusa was helping me monitor her heartbeat while her implant was being done. Because like Terry, Miriam was about to become a mole among the Executives. She would be doing what I would have recruited Sezen to do, though her position would not be so exalted.
Or so dangerous. Yet there was quite a lot of light that Miriam could shed.
<I want to meet the others.> Miriam’s heartbeat had remained within normal parameters, considering she was receiving a brain implant. Her head was confined while Medusa performed the operation, but her eyes continually sought the Medusa unit waiting nearby to bond with her.
<We sometimes meet in pairs,> I said, <but the only time we all get together is for our movie discussion group.>
<The implant is active,> Medusa announced before Miriam could ask me what movies were. Miriam’s eyes became unfocused as she accessed her new, inner world. <Movies. Amazing. This is Nuruddin’s project?>
<Yes.>
<If things were the way they’re supposed to be, he could write a dissertation about the subject.>
<I hope someday he will. I guarantee it would be fascinating.>
I admit that was a bit manipulative. Miriam loved art and music, but she also loved talking about them. I wanted to cement my team in as many ways as possible, and the movie discussion group seemed an excellent way to welcome Miriam into the fold.
So perhaps Nuruddin was right to think the movies were radical. After all, someone had shredded them so carefully (but not carefully enough).
Miriam’s heartbeat remained steady. Her expression was unfocused, which was normal, considering the operation she had just undergone—and considering the databases to which she now had access.
I felt I had made the right decision with her. But looking at her face, which was so much like mine, I worried, too. I wished I could consult with Lady Sheba’s ghost. But she and my mother’s ghost were keeping their distance. I felt their regard, but it was remote, like the light of the star Charon, which Olympia would pass closely in two years. That star would grow steadily larger in our view. But would the entities in the Graveyard ever speak to me again?
<Miriam—why are you being so cooperative?>
Her heart didn’t skip a beat, but she smiled. <I’m a midlevel Executive woman. Cooperation is what we do to survive. We do it well, don’t you think?>
<Exceedingly so.>
Her smile turned rueful. <Yes, we go along to get along. Mostly. Until we make the mistake that gets us into trouble. None of us survives to a ripe old age.>
Death records on Olympia backed up her claim. But— <Miriam, if you have worked hard to survive, then why did you decide to commit suicide?>
I thought she might talk about depression, and about the frustration of wanting to pursue her life’s work and being stymied by family obligations. But it wasn’t any of those things.
<Baylor Charmayne,> she said dreamily. <He wants me to have his child. He’s going to arrange a sham marriage for me with someone who will be afraid to challenge his—privileges.>
Her heart rate remained steady. But mine jumped. I remembered something from the transcript of Gennady Mironenko’s conversation with Baylor and Ryan: That didn’t work too well for your dear Bunny, as I recall.
Your dear Bunny …
And the way Baylor had been so courtly with Sezen at his dinner party. You set a compelling example, Lady Sezen.
When I recalled that exchange, what Lady Sheba’s ghost had said about Lady Matilda Charmayne made more sense. There she is: the queen of protocol—and wasted opportunities.
I’ve always thought sh
e was the consummate Executive Lady, I had said.
Executive wife, she had corrected. There is a difference.
Because an Executive Lady the caliber of Sheba wouldn’t tolerate a husband having children outside their partnership. Baylor’s father could not have gotten away with that behavior. He was dead before my time, but I doubt it was because of infidelity. Sheba would have eaten him for lunch (and then recorded her bowel movement in her journal).
So was it really Ryan Charmayne who was pursuing Sezen? Or was that simply a way to make Sezen more accessible to Baylor?
There are drugs we can use. I guarantee she won’t say no to Ryan’s marriage proposal. Once we’ve harvested her eggs, we can hold them hostage. Eventually she’ll have a child to protect.
In my mind’s eye, I saw Terry Charmayne’s face. His lineage was apparent to anyone. And Terry Charmayne was as handsome as Ryan Charmayne imagined himself to be, as handsome as a certain patriarch to whom Bunny had sent dozens of impassioned pleas for clemency before Sheba Charmayne marched her to an air lock.
<I’ve shocked you.>
I came to my senses.
Miriam’s eyes had focused again—on me. <I’m sorry,> she said. <I should not have spoken so casually. I didn’t actually mean it casually; the situation is terrifying. I’ve done everything in my power to discourage him. But do you understand, Oichi? I have no power. My free will has been an illusion. That’s why I went into that air lock.>
<Yet you didn’t open the outer door,> I said.
<No. Because that’s not free will either.> She looked at her Medusa unit. <But she—I think she is free will.>
I couldn’t disagree with her definition. <Call her,> I said. <Name her.>
Her eyes filled with tears again. <May I call her Sezen?>
Amazing how many people wanted to name their units after personas I had invented. It was a great compliment. It almost made me wish I were really like the people I had pretended to be. <I think that would be lovely.>
<Sezen … > called Miriam, and her unit stirred and saw her, knew her.
Just for the record, apparently the linkup is always emotional.