Part 10 (2/2)
”That's not the point. The point is-”
Horvil rol ed his eyes and reached out to pinch his cousin's lips shut. ”The point is, Ben, Natch isn't here. Somebody needed to make a decision. Jara made it.” And without waiting for a reaction, the engineer was out the locker room door and heading for the field.
Jara didn't want the haze of multivoid to end. She wanted to grab onto the nothingness and embrace it tightly. Some days she remained on the red tile in her hal way for several minutes, filtering out the sights and sounds of the apartment with a Coc.o.o.n program until she could bear to look at the world again. Today, she merely stood on the tile with eyes shut.
It's been a good day, she thought.
The drudges were wel pleased with the lottery results. Her fel ow fiefcorpers had performed admirably: Merri had looked stoic, Horvil knowledgeable, Vigal calm and unruffled. Benyamin had stayed out of the way. Best of al , Jara had already antic.i.p.ated most of the drudges' questions, and so the fiefcorp was able to stay on script most of the afternoon.
n.o.body paid much attention to what Merri labeled the Equitable Choice Cycle Model, but Jara had not expected them to. The public simply didn't have enough information about MultiReal to comprehend the issues at stake. But Jara knew that it was only a matter of time. The words she scripted would resonate long and loud for decades to come. Al that mattered was that the Patel Brothers would understand. Frederic and Petrucio would get the message that the Surina/Natch MultiReal Fiefcorp was wil ing to be reasonable. (Stil , Jara was careful to emphasize that the Equitable Choice Cycle Model would be in effect only for the exposition. She didn't want the Patel Brothers to get too comfortable.) Six more days to the MultiReal exposition, she thought. Six more days until the public gets a real taste of multiple realities. After that, there's no tel ing.
She opened her eyes and absorbed the mundanity of her East London flat once more.
Open surfaces, bare countertops, white wal s. The first faint sketches of her future were drawn there, but the lines were stil too indistinct for her to make out.
14.
There were no redwoods on the long tube route that snaked halfway around the globe to Andra Pradesh. For most of the journey, there was nothing for Natch to look at but sea and sky-and the Council officers who had been tailing him since Shenandoah.
Watching Quel work the viewscreens on the window proved an interesting diversion.
Natch didn't know if the Islander possessed the neural equipment necessary to give a window direct commands; his understanding was that the Islanders had most standard OCHRE machines implanted at birth but simply kept them turned off. How else could Quel run a program as complex as MultiReal? Whatever the reason, he was navigating the Data Sea with his fingertips via an onscreen maze of b.u.t.tons. Natch fel into a light sleep wondering how many other systems had hidden unconnectible interfaces built into them.
”They're comparing you to Marcus Surina,” said Quel a few hours later.
The QuasiSuspension program had Natch awake and alert before the Islander even finished the first syl able. He glanced out the window just in time to see the sh.o.r.es of Sicily hurtling past. ”Who is?” said the fiefcorp master.
”The drudges at the MultiReal lottery.” Quel gestured at the window, which was showing an opinion piece by some obscure pundit named Vermil ion.
”This guy says that if Marcus couldn't put together a feasible plan for teleportation, you won't do any better with MultiReal. He thinks Marcus turned out to be mostly hype, and you're headed the same way.”
Natch shrugged. ”Doesn't matter. The drudges don't know anything. They're just blowing smoke.” He scanned the first few para graphs of the story, picking out the standard descriptors: reckless, neurotic, maniacal. Natch supposed he should give the article a closer look, make sure the lottery went off without any major gaffes. But right now the only things he could focus on were black code and MultiReal.
The entrepreneur settled back into his seat. ”They could've chosen someone worse.
Marcus Surina was the richest man in the world in his day.”
Quel frowned. ”Yeah, but he came to a bad end.”
”Most good things do,” said Natch as he drifted back into QuasiSuspension.
From the moment the tube train pul ed into Andra Pradesh, they could see that the Surina compound was in disarray-guards rus.h.i.+ng everywhere, trash piling up, a little boy lost screaming for his mother and n.o.body giving him a second glance. The man checking ident.i.ties at the bottom of the hil gave Natch and Quel no more than a cursory scan before admitting them through the gates.
Things did not improve when they climbed the hil and found their way to the compound's central courtyard. Figures in blue-and-green livery scurried around the square with little semblance of order, as if struggling to obey confusing or even contradictory orders. The entrances to the Center for Historic Appreciation and the Enterprise Facility were spa.r.s.ely guarded, and a smal platoon of Council officers could easily have snuck into the absurd castle that contained the Surina family residences. The security force was concentrated around the half-kilometerhigh thorn known as the Revelation Spire. Margaret had exiled herself to the tip of that spire several weeks ago, when the Defense and Wel ness Council marched in before Natch's last demo. And now, it seemed, she had decided to make it a permanent arrangement.
Quel pointed disdainful y at a pair of guards who were attempting to haul a disruptor cannon across the courtyard by the barrel. ”I knew things were bad,” growled the Islander, ”but I didn't know they were this bad.”
Natch shuddered. He had seen how effortlessly Len Borda's troops took control of the compound last month, when Surina security was stil in relatively good shape. If Magan Kai Lee sent a few legions of his officers here today, what kind of resistance could the Surinas possibly offer?
The Islander s.n.a.t.c.hed the arm of a pa.s.sing officer. The woman yelped and reached for the dartgun in her holster. Then she saw who had seized her and let the free arm drop to her side. Apparently Quel 's reputation stil carried a lot of weight in this place. ”You,” he barked. ”What's going on? Where's the security chief?”
”He-he left,” stuttered the officer.
Quel yanked the woman's arm almost hard enough to dislocate her shoulder. ”What do you mean, he left?”
”Suheil dismissed him,” whimpered the guard. ”Sent him home. The bodhisattva just ...
let it happen.”
”So who's in charge here?”
The woman gave him such a pitiful look in response that Quel let her go. She tore across the travertine and disappeared into the Surina Enterprise Facility without a backward glance.
”Suheil,” muttered the Islander, half to himself.
”Isn't that Margaret's cousin?” said Natch.
”Second cousin. Or third, I can never remember which. I should've known.... Suheil and Jayze probably started taking advantage of her the instant I left.”
”Taking advantage? Taking advantage how?”
Quel pursed his lips, and Natch got the impression he had said more than he intended. ”I shouldn't have brought you here. This is insane. I don't think you're going to get what you came for.”
Natch folded his arms across his chest. ”I just wasted half a day on a tube train to get here,” he said. ”You're not going to scare me away. I came to get some answers from Margaret, and I'm not leaving until I get them.”
The Islander tilted his head back and let his gaze wander up the slim shaft of the Revelation Spire to the summit, hidden high in the clouds. ”You won't like what you see.”
Natch made a noncommittal noise, squared his shoulders, and headed for the entrance to the Revelation Spire. After a moment, Quel sighed and fol owed.
The guards who had barred Natch's entrance to the Spire before were stil in evidence today, but this time they let him pa.s.s. Quel 's influence, no doubt. The Islander thrust open the large set of double doors at the tower's base and strode through them.
The inside of the Revelation Spire did not resemble the picture that had lodged in Natch's head al these years. He expected to see a utilitarian s.p.a.ce fil ed with offices and Surina functionaries. Instead he saw a structure that served no useful purpose at al ; an ornamentation, a gilded trophy.
The world's tal est building was almost completely hol ow. A central column of air extended up through a jungle of structural supports to the limit of Natch's eyesight. Even using Bol iwar Tuban's Telescopics 89d, he could see no sign of the top. One long stairway made a dizzying spiral up the wal , interrupted at periodic intervals by wide platforms cantilevered off the side. Sculptures, statues, and paintings were strewn about everywhere with some avant-garde principle of decoration that eluded Natch. In the middle of it al stood a very lifelike marble representation of Marcus Surina, pointing confidently up into the aether.
So it's a museum then, thought Natch. But if it was a museum, why weren't there any civilians within eyeshot? Why were there only Surina security guards by the dozen, with dartguns drawn and ready? This was a different breed of guard altogether than the ones fumbling around the courtyard; these troops would fire first and ask questions later, if at al .
Quel had obviously been here a mil ion times before and didn't give the pomp and pageantry a second glance. Natch fol owed him to the foot of the stairway. Half a dozen guards in blue and green blocked their path, and for a second Natch expected some of those dartguns to swivel in his direction.
But the guards took a single look at the Islander and dutiful y stepped aside. Natch al owed himself a slight sigh of relief.
<script>