Part 17 (1/2)

”I have studied the parkland in the diplomatic quarter,” Demi said. ”I have talked with its gardeners, walked its paths ... I think I understand a small part of what this city once possessed.”

Yani Hakaiopulos breathed deeply, then reached out and briefly caressed the side of her face. He said, ”You truly want to do this thing?”

”I want to learn,” Demi said.

”Well, if you can endure an old man's ramblings, I will do my best to tell something of how it was done.”

They talked a long time. An hour, two. I sat outside the office while they talked, and drank weak, lukewarm green tea, with Corso fretting beside me. He was worried that Dev Veeder would learn about our little escapade.

”Go and see your daughter,” I suggested at last, tired of his complaints.

”She's in school, and her teacher is this fierce old woman who does not like her cla.s.ses disturbed. It's okay for you, boss. Veeder can't touch you. But if he finds that I brought his girlfriend here-”

”She isn't his girlfriend.”

”He thinks she is.”

”Well, that is true. She is cursed by her beauty, I think.”

”She's dangerous. You be careful, boss.”

”What nonsense, Mr. Corso. I'm nearly as old as your friend Yani Hakaiopulos.”

”He's a great man, boss. And she got him telling her his secrets almost straight away. It's spooky.”

”Unlike most of you, I think he wants the city rebuilt.”

”Spooky,” Corso said again. ”And she said she was talking with the gardeners.”

”Oh, that. She has had transducers or the like implanted in her brain.” I touched my temples. The knife- blade of a headache had inserted itself in the socket of my left eye. The air in the warrens was bad, heavy with carbon dioxide and no doubt laced with a vile mixture of pollutants, and the brightly lit reception area was very noisy. I said, ”She told me that she can interface with the computers which control the climate of the parklands and so on. And through them, she can, in a fas.h.i.+on, communicate with the gardeners. There is no magic about it, nothing sinister.”

”If you say so, boss,” Corso said. He fell into a kind of sulk, and barely spoke as he led us back through the warrens to the main part of the city, and the rooftop where he had left the airframe.

Uev Veeder found me the next morning at the cafe, where I was waiting for Lavet Corso to make an appearance. The colonel came alone, sat opposite me and waved off the old man who came out of the half-collapsed guardhouse to ask what he wanted. He seemed amiable enough, and asked me several innocuous questions about the progress of my work.

”I find this Ba.s.si intriguing,” he said. ”A shame he's dead.”

”I hope I might bring his memories to life.”

”Hardly the same thing, Professor-Doctor Graves, if you don't mind my saying so.”

”Not at all. I am quite aware of the limitations of my technique, but alas, there is no better way.”

”It's interesting. He was a fool, an amateur soldier who chose to stand and fight hi a hopeless situation, yet he was able to rally the entire population of the city to his cause. But perhaps he was not really their leader at all. Perhaps he was merely a figurehead raised up by the mob.”

”He was certainly no figurehead,” I said. ”The a.s.sa.s.sination of his fellow members of the government shows that he was capable of swift and ruthless action.

He was tireless in rallying the morale of those who manned the barricades-indeed, when the invasion of Paris began, he was captured at an outlying barricade.”

”The sole survivor amongst a rabble of women and old men. They were fighting against fully armored troopers with hand weapons, industrial lasers and crude bombs.”

”And he escaped, and went back to fight.”

Dev Veeder thought about that, and admitted, ”I suppose I do like him for that.”

”You do?”

Dev Veeder was staring at me thoughtfully. His dark, almost black eyes were hooded and intense. I had the uncomfortable feeling that he was seeing through my skin. He said, ”Marisa Ba.s.si didn't have to escape. He didn't have to fight on.”

”He would have been executed.”

”Not at all, Professor-Doctor. Once captured, he could have sued for peace. If he truly was the leader of the mob, they would have obeyed him. He would have saved many lives; some might have even been grateful. The Three Powers Alliance wouldn't have been able to install him as head of a puppet government, of course, but they could have pensioned him off, returned him to wherever it was on Earth he was born.”

”Sicily.”

”There you are. He could have opened a pizza parlor, become mayor of some small town, made a woman fat and happy with a pack of bambinos.”

”The last is unlikely, Colonel.”

”But he stuck to the cause he had adopted. He went back. He finished the job. He may have been an amateur and a fool, Professor-Doctor Graves, but he had a soldier's backbone.”

”And caused, as you said, many unnecessary deaths, and much unnecessary destruction.”

I gestured at the devastation spread beyond the foot of the plaza's escalators: the rotting parks; the streets still choked with rubble; the shattered buildings.

Dev Veeder did not look at it, but continued to stare at me with a dark, unfathomable intensity.

I made a show of peering at the empty air above the rooftops of the city and said, ”My wretched guide is late.”

”He'll come. He has no choice. This talk interests me, Professor-Doctor. We haven't talked like this for a while.”

”Well, you've been busy.”

”I have?”

”With your new prisoners. And of course, escorting Demi.”

”Dr. Lacombe?”

I felt heat rise in my face. ”Yes, of course. Dr. Lacombe.”

'Tell me, Professor-Doctor Graves, do you think that Marisa Ba.s.si was one of your great men?”

”His people-those who survive-think that he was.”

”His people. Yes. Do you know, many of them cry out his name in the heat of questioning?”