Part 23 (1/2)

26.

Jara surveyed the list of the fiefcorp's high-priority issues. She had inscribed each item on a virtual block and used the blocks to form a giant skeletal structure on Beril a's couch. It looked disconcertingly like a vulture.

The a.n.a.lyst reached out and caressed a block near the vulture's feet. RETURN HOME, it read.

I'm tired of this f.u.c.king room, she thought, casting spiteful glances at the rococo furniture in the study. I'm tired of Beril a. I'm tired of hanging out in the hal ways with al the servants staring at us. She tuned the window to the front gates and the smal pack of drudges stil holding camp there. Just keep Len Borda out of here until Margaret's funeral, she thought. Just two more days. And then we can al go home. She pinched the corner of the block between her index finger and thumb, then dragged it down to the base of the structure, upgrading it to priority one. The remaining blocks silently cascaded into new positions.

Jara arose from the couch and forced herself to make one more trip to the great room.

n.o.body in the fiefcorp was quite ready to abandon s.h.i.+p-not yet-but the failed press conference had certainly sprung new leaks in their confidence.

Merri was going out of her way to avoid everyone; Benyamin's glower could be sensed from rooms away; Horvil seemed more distant and distractible than ever; and Serr Vigal was reduced to drifting about like an empty bottle on a windless sea.

Horvil was the only one in the great room. He was idling on a sofa, reading Primo's reports with programming bar in hand. Jara suddenly realized that she had never thought to ask where everyone else had been camping these past few nights. Horvil and Ben already had rooms in the estate, of course, but what about Merri and Vigal? She supposed they must have claimed a spare nook somewhere.

”So how bad is it?” Jara asked, settling on the chair with the fleurde-lis motif carved into its back. ”Where are we on Primo's?”

Horvil let his eyebrows float slowly northward. ”Last time I checked? Two hundred thirty-something.”

”Two hundred thirty-!” Jara couldn't even finish her exclamation.

”Primo's moves fast,” said the engineer, his face displaying total unconcern. ”We haven't launched anything since ... since ... wel , I don't know when.

Back before we took on MultiReal, I guess. The surprising thing is that we stil rank at al .

We sold al the products that got us to number one. So we should be off the charts altogether.” He twirled his programming bar in the air like a majorette and whistled.

Jara took a minute to study the engineer. Horvil was persevering under exceedingly difficult conditions, and he was doing it with a smile on his face. If anything, he seemed more grounded now than before this whole MultiReal crisis started.

Who else could claim that? Certainly not Natch. Certainly not Jara.

”So what are the other fiefcorps up to?” said Jara after a moment.

”Wel , you know Pierre Loget and Bil y Sterno have gone AWOL, and the Patels aren't paying much attention to the ratings either. Counting Natch, that makes four of the Primo's top ten suddenly gone. People are sensing this is the time to make a move. It's a land grab out there.”

”Loget and Sterno ... where are they?”

Horvil threw his hands up high, almost sending his programming bar into the ceiling.

”Ridglee thinks they're on Patronel . Or Al owel . Can't remember which.”

”Wel , that's Ridglee. He probably thinks we're on Al owel . I wonder what they're up to.”

Benyamin happened to be returning from the kitchen at that moment, sandwich in hand.

”It doesn't real y matter what those guys are up to,” he said.

”The question is, what's Natch up to?”

Jara nodded. It was the big variable in her calculations, the unknown that could torpedo al her plans. They could be performing miracles here in London, but that would al come to naught if Natch was working at cross-purposes--or, perfection postponed, actual y sabotaging them. Robby Robby had promised to alert the fiefcorpers if he heard anything, and Horvil had put some feelers out to his engineering contacts. So far, nothing. The best they could tel , the entrepreneur remained sequestered at his Shenandoah apartment, accessing MultiReal from time to time but not modifying it.

Jara knew this charade could only last so long. Already Robby was growing suspicious, and the drudges were making progressively wilder accusations. Pretending that the fiefcorp was stil working together in harmony undermined Jara's whole effort to remake the company's image. Sooner or later, they would have to admit publicly that Natch had abandoned the fiefcorp, and they would have to concoct some plausible story to explain it.

Ben took an angry bite of his sandwich and ground it to a pulp with his molars. ”Do you think we should ... cut Natch off from the MultiReal databases?”

Horvil gave his cousin a stunned look. ”What would that accomplish?”

”It would keep him from doing something irretrievably stupid, that's what.”

”I'm not sure you appreciate-”

Jara cut him off. ”It's a moot point,” she said. ”I've already tried.”

Horvil simply stared at her.

The a.n.a.lyst sighed and kicked at a scrunched-up section of the Persian rug caused by s.h.i.+fting furniture. ”Don't give me that look, Horv-I just wanted to see if we could lock him out. Turns out we can't. The Data Sea says he shouldn't be able to access the program, but he's getting in there anyway. I even tried moving the MultiReal databases to another location. Remember Horvil's calculation? The chances of him finding those databases are practical y nilbut it's not even slowing him down. There's no explanation for it that I can think of.”

Horvil grimaced. ”I think I know the explanation.”

”What?” said Jara, eyebrows arched.

The engineer explained to them about the rogue MultiReal code lurking in Natch's neural system and Natch's futile attempts to remove it. ”That must be what the code is,” he continued. ”A back door. A way of tying him to the databases and circ.u.mnavigating the standard Data Sea access controls.”

”How's that even possible?” objected Benyamin through bits of lettuce and cheese.

”Wel , who created MultiReal?”

”Margaret Surina.”

”And who invented the Data Sea access controls?”

”Sheldon Surina. Or maybe it was Prengal. One of the Surinas, at any rate.”

Horvil extended an empty hand into the air as if to say, Case closed.

The question of what Natch was doing haunted Jara the rest of the day and into the night.

Had Natch managed to get his meeting with Khann Frejohr?

Was Natch cooking up some ruinous plan that would destroy everything Jara was fighting for? He had already duped her too many times to count.

Despite everything she knew about Natch, she had actual y believed he had made a sacrifice by handing her core access to MultiReal. He must have known already that it would make little difference. What other deceptions did he have in store?

Anch.o.r.ed by doubt, Jara couldn't seem to launch herself in motion. Meanwhile, the fiefcorpers spent hours drifting through the estate, conducting aimless MultiReal experiments that had little bearing on their business. That night, Natch visited Jara's dreams and did a slow striptease for her, only to reveal the smooth, s.e.xless torso of a marionette underneath his clothes.

You can't keep this up, thought Jara. Go ahead and do something, for f.u.c.k's sake.

So Jara yanked herself out of bed the next morning at an indus trious hour when the sun was just a faint red smudge in the east. She fetched a bracing cup of nitro, sat back in her makes.h.i.+ft desk, and spent an hour absorbing the drudge vibes from Sor, Ridglee, and Vertiginous. Something resembling the old electricity began to spark in her fingertips. By the time Vigal came tottering past the door in search of his morning tea, the a.n.a.lyst had already hurled a score of messages onto the Data Sea and made half a dozen appointments.