Part 2 (1/2)
But it was already too late. ”Simalli left before the purges.” You could have cut stone with Huong Giang's voice.
”I see,” Kieu said.
”Show some respect for your elders,” Huong Giang said.
Kieu had no respect, not anymore. At least Huong Giang had been released after the purges-had clawed her way back to Master of Body-s.h.i.+fting as if nothing had ever been wrong. Kieu's mother and grandmother had not been so lucky. She simply shook her head, and asked instead, ”Where is he?”
Huong Giang, for a moment, looked as though she was going to berate Kieu. But she didn't. ”I'll take you to him.”
”I need to look at him without his seeing me.”
”I thought you interviewed people?” Huong Giang's voice was skeptical-calling Kieu's judgment into question so easily, so effortlessly.
Kieu drew herself up to answer, but before she could give voice to her anger, The Sea and Mulberry cut in. ”If it's the same man, he's gone off-world for a long while-possibly undergoing several traumatic events that haven't been recorded by the authentication systems. We'll need to observe him in a non-official environment first, to establish as many unbiased observations as we can.”
”Fine, fine. I'll show you to a compartment where you can watch him,” Huong Giang said.
The compartment she found for Kieu was small, and every piece of furniture in it was jammed together, from the narrow bed to the console. Typical Celestial Spires; typical Tai Menh. Kieu missed her own, much roomier compartment already; but she'd worked in much worse environments than this, and this was just more evidence she and Huong Giang were a long way from getting along.
Not that she cared. Huong Giang held no power or authority over her, not any longer, and if Kieu had her way, would soon be part of the distant past.
Kieu pulled up a battered chair, connected her implants to the Celestial Spires network, and looked at the image overlaid on her vision: the man, sitting on the bed, staring at the ceiling as if it held some great vision or source of enlightenment.
In the short walk to the room, Kieu had downloaded and reviewed all available materials on Simalli Fargeau-glorying in the rush of data as it filled her mind, in the heady feeling of constructing her correlation matrices, that heightened awareness that gave her the impression of knowing every heartbeat of Simalli's life. She'd dissected every movement he made, every reaction he'd had in his interactions with Rong people-all the little gestures and words that combined to build a probabilistic model of him, with enough prior knowledge to compare against the new observations and performing goodness-of-fit tests. The Sea and Mulberry would also be doing the same, though as a minds.h.i.+p he would be using alternate models and paying attention to different factors-doing likelihood-ratio tests using independent algorithms, as required for a strong authentication.
The next step would have been an interview with Simalli Fargeau. But Kieu always delayed interviews-because nothing was as sweet, as pleasurable as the collection of data, the slow buildup of inferences and tests of hypotheses, that exquisite feeling that the information she sought was just at her fingertips, that everything was a hairsbreadth away from making sense.
In those moments, she felt truly alive, truly connected to everyone and everything else-in a way she'd never done since the purges had taken away her remaining family.
”What do you think?” she asked The Sea and Mulberry.
The s.h.i.+p had been uncannily silent so far, only interjecting to control Kieu's outbursts-of course, he abhorred any kind of conflict, and liked to believe he could find a peaceful solution to everything. ”I don't like this.”
”Because of the off-world factor?”
The s.h.i.+p's holo wobbled. ”Not only. Because there's too much tension around, Kieu. We should-”
”Leave? No way.” She wasn't going to let Huong Giang have any kind of last word with her. ”It'd be a severe black mark on our records.”
”By my records, Simalli Fargeau has spent more than eighteen years off-world,” The Sea and Mulberry said. ”That's quite enough time to make authentication ... challenging.”
Eighteen years. That silenced her. She looked at her data again; at the old, outdated observations. ”At least he didn't go through the purges.” That had seriously dented authenticators, necessitating the storage of thousands of hours of optical-stims to make sure everyone was in the system once more.
The Sea and Mulberry said nothing. He didn't need to; even she knew that uniform continuity was the basis of authentication-the premise that over small periods, human behavior didn't change that much, and that any large changes would be recorded by the authentication system. Eighteen years without any kind of records, though ...
”Look,” she said. ”We can try, at least.”
”If we can get enough data on what happened to him off-world, we might possibly refine our model enough to offer a reasonable authentication.”
”Seventy percent?” Kieu asked.
”Maybe a little more,” The Sea and Mulberry said. ”It would help, of course, if we had people who knew him.” He projected a stim from eighteen years ago: Simalli Fargeau on the arm of a woman in a tight-fitting red ao dai who looked vaguely familiar to Kieu, like a distant image that refused to coalesce into meaning.
”His mistress?”
”His wife. Pham Thi Dao. She went off-world with him when he left.”
”And?”
”I don't know. But she isn't with him, and she's not back in the authentication system either.”
”Dao.” Kieu tasted the name on her tongue, like the peach the woman had been named after. She looked at the woman-who was turned slightly away from the camera, diffidently smiling at her husband-and then back at the man who sat on the bed, one leg crossed over the other in a typically Galactic fas.h.i.+on. His face was that of a smooth, unmarked twenty-year-old, and she wondered, then, how much of what he'd gone through had been erased by multiple body-changes.
The Sea and Mulberry was right: it wasn't going to be an easy task to authenticate him.
Huong Giang steeled herself before entering the guest room. Kieu had disapproved of her seeing Simalli-had said it would be better if she waited until the results of the authentication were complete, but she'd also said it would take several weeks of repeated observations before they could build a satisfactory model and test for goodness of fit-amidst a flood of technical terms Huong Giang had barely understood. She couldn't wait, and neither could the Poetry Circle-not if he still had his key-fragment.
Simalli turned when Huong Giang entered-in a composed, thought-out gesture that reminded Huong Giang so much of bygone times it made her feel angry and betrayed all over again. ”Huong Giang.” He'd always been good at languages, and he spoke her name properly, with all the stresses-he might have sounded like a native if not for the fact that he didn't behave right-every gesture of his tinged with foreign, alien intensity. ”I'm sorry for disturbing you.”
About time he apologized-but she couldn't say that, not the angry way it'd come out. She didn't want to antagonize him, not now. ”It's been a long time.”
”I know,” Simalli said. ”You look well.”
She didn't, and they both knew it. ”You're the one who looks well,” she said, more sharply than she'd intended. How could he stand here, so healthy, so serene-how could he still go on with his memories cut off? But of course she knew the answer: he'd never cared overmuch about the Poetry Circle; had never treated it as more than a source of amus.e.m.e.nt. Not remembering everything would be but a minor inconvenience for him.
”I ... I'm glad to see you still here.”
He didn't mention the purges. He didn't need to; it lay in the air between them, a blade that nothing would ever shatter. ”You always were so bad with words,” she said. ”Why are you here, Simalli?”
Simalli blushed. He wore a simple, almost pre-Exodus body, with freckles on his star-tanned face, and hair the deep red shade of wedding dresses. ”And you always were such a blunt person.” He kept his gaze on the holos on the walls-it was disconcerting to see him adopt Rong ways of respect. The man she'd known had stared people in the face and had stated his opinions bluntly, proud of being frank and open, as if honesty would get him anywhere. ”If you must know ... I came back here to apologize.”
Huong Giang kept her voice cold, though it cost her. ”You're aware no apology will change what you have done.”
”I know. I know, G.o.d help me. I know.” His hands came up, as if he wanted to bury his face in them, but then he lowered them with an effort, and said nothing more.
”You came alone,” Huong Giang said. ”What about Dao?”
He looked at her, then, the red of his hair splayed on his corneas. ”She's dead.” It seemed as though he would say, ”I'm sorry” (and she'd have lost her calm then, screamed at him about everything apologies couldn't do), but then he thought better of it. ”Huong Giang. Elder aunt...”
Dao. In her mind's eye, Huong Giang was seeing her niece-telling her she worried too much and that the Heavens would always provide. Dao. For years and years Huong Giang had sustained herself with the knowledge that Dao had survived, that she'd lived a long and happy life-not like Huong Giang, who woke up at night remembering what had happened in the jails, the ten thousand pains and aches that ran through her bodies, wearing them out one after the other. Years and years of hope, casually destroyed.
She'd been wrong. Whoever he really was-whether he was Simalli or someone else with enough knowledge to pa.s.s off as him, cruel enough to raise hopes they couldn't fulfill-she couldn't do this. ”I have to leave,” she said, but what he said stopped her.
”I still have it, you know.”
”The key-fragment.” That was all she could say without betraying herself.