Part 37 (1/2)

Shhh, said the Brotherhood. said the Brotherhood. Don't use your mouth. Don't use your mouth.

'My mouth?' said Chris.

261.

Don't use your mouth, repeated the Brotherhood. repeated the Brotherhood.

Chris realized he was slumped forward in his chair, as though he'd nodded off. He sat up straight.

Nothing had changed. He was still sitting in the gazebo, on a long Callisto morning, facing what the Brotherhood had done to Iaomnet.

Everything has changed, said the Brotherhood. said the Brotherhood.

Chris looked at himself. He was wearing black. Tight black trousers, black s.h.i.+rt with a high collar, tall black boots with four wraparound buckles. His big jacket was hanging over the back of the chair.

His normal uniform, then. He looked at the rank flash over his left breast. A balance, bright red. He was still the Pontifex Saecularis, then.

Everything has changed, the Brotherhood insisted. the Brotherhood insisted.

Chris listened.

There were two guards behind him. One was bored by all the weirdness, and was admiring the garden, because he'd been stuck on a courier run for over a week and it was nice to be breathing fresh air again. The other was focused, watching Chris's back for the slightest sign of trouble, determined to do his job right for the Emperor. Both of them were Brotherhood operatives, not psis, just hired muscle.

'What have you done to me?' he said cautiously.

The Brotherhood said, in one hundred and seven perfectly clear voices, You are one of us now. Not one of the gestalt. One of the You are one of us now. Not one of the gestalt. One of the Brotherhood. Tell us everything you know about the Nexus. Help Brotherhood. Tell us everything you know about the Nexus. Help us. Join us. You are us. us. Join us. You are us.

'We were right,' said Chris. 'There is another Nexus. Another fake crater. On Tethys. That's why the Brotherhood was there, in the Temple of the G.o.ddess.'

The Brotherhood just watched him. He needed to stall for time, find out what was going on. 'What are you waiting for?' he said.

He stood up, pulling on his jacket, smoothing the shoulders so the red epaulettes sat straight. 'What do you expect me to do?'

What you did on Yemaya, said the Brotherhood patiently. said the Brotherhood patiently.

'You're going to do this to everybody,' he said. 'You know what it is and you know how to use it.' G.o.ddess, it was obvious 262 now, the investigation coming together. 'No. You don't know how to use it. Just a little bit. Just enough to twist those poor people into monsters. Just enough to make little changes. You switched allegiance from Armand to Walid when you saw which one had the best chance of becoming Emperor. Do you know what I did on Yemaya?'

He looked at the Brotherhood. Iaomnet's face stared blankly back.

'Bang,' said Chris.

He reached out and cut off her connection to the gestalt.

She tumbled out of her chair, becoming a tangle of arms and legs on the gazebo floor.

'He shouldn't be able to do that,' said one of the guards.

Chris turned around. He shoved with all the might of his enhanced mind. They both flew backward, one flipping over the railing, the other smas.h.i.+ng right through the plastiwood and landing in a pile of splinters.

'He shouldn't be able to do that, either!' shouted the second guard.

'And who is this?' The Brotherhood said through Martinique's mouth.

'My name is Huitzilin,' said the man with the blue eyes. 'And I think you've just made a very serious mistake.' He reached out for the Brotherhood's speaker with a hungry hand.

But the hand was s.h.i.+fting, suddenly, and the Doctor was back.

He lost his balance, tumbling from the chair.

'We have only another ten minutes of conjunction,' said Martinique, in his dozens of voices. 'I think we should move on to the alternatives in which you died.'

The Doctor tensed on the floor, trying to get up.

The Brotherhood watched as the change washed over him. 'I see,' they said. 'In this alternative, your throat was torn open by a werewolf. Intriguing.' They watched as the change ebbed away.

'Again?' said the Brotherhood.

'Yes,' moaned the Doctor. His fingers dug into the carpet, as though trying to find something to hold on to.

263.

The change flowed over him. 'In this alternative,' said the Brotherhood, 'you died of shock while being interrogated by a military telepath.'

The Brotherhood watched as the Doctor's existence stretched and changed, stretched and changed. 'A long life, and a busy one,' they said. 'And thousands of moments where you might might have died.' have died.'

'I'll die before I help you,' he whispered.

'Yes,' said the Brotherhood. 'Thousands of times.'

'You won't find a reality where I helped you.'

'Again?' said the Brotherhood.

Stop this.

Martinique joined him on the floor, open-eyed marionette, dropped and empty.

'What happened?' breathed the Doctor. He seemed to be himself again. It was just that he didn't seem to be able to get up off the floor.

Genevieve wanted to go to the Emperor and ask him what the h.e.l.l was going on. She wanted to know why the palace was suddenly full of strangers, why half the security guards had been replaced, and what they wanted with Chris Cwej.

Part of her mind was telling her to accept the changes as a natural part of Walid's coronation. Of course he was upgrading the staff, of course there'd be all sorts of strange visitors. She knew she could trust the Duke, the Emperor.

Even if for some strange reason he didn't want to talk to her at the moment. For the last week.

Part of her mind was telling her to get out, fast.

Her mother's wedding presents had included five acres of reclaimed land in Kenya, a gorgeous candelabra, a city block in New Zealand, and a secret chateau on Triton hidden under one of the cryovulcanism research bases, deep in a crater that spat out liquid nitrogen at odd intervals. It had a numbered account and a robot staff and no one in their right mind would go anywhere near it. 'The Duke's a powerful man,' said her mother. 'If he ever does anything that makes you afraid, go right there. And call me.'

264.