Part 25 (1/2)

Polyon waved his hand over the palmpad and shut off the bickering voices of the gamesters. He brooded in silence for a while. Why had he ever bothered with such an inept bunch of conspirators? They were too stupid to pick up on his veiled hints. They thought he was interested in playing a game Blaize, now; Blaize was brighter than the others, and he'd taken no pan in the brief exchange. Polyon tapped out a series of commands that would give him a private comm link to Blaize's cabin. At least he could 274.

fcf hack into Nancia's system to that extent from the key.

board; though it was nothing to the power that would be his once he'd made his way to a reader slot with his minihedron.

While he thought out his approach to Blaize, he was startled by a crackle of sound. The idiot thought he'd achieved a private channel to the lounge! And what was he planning to do with it? Polyon scowled, then began to listen attentively. It seemed that Blaize was too bright to make a good tool.

But he might still be an excellent p.a.w.n, in a game whose moves he'd never see....

”Uncle Forister?” Blaize switched comm channels to the lounge. ”I need to talk to you.”

”Talk,” Forister grunted. He was just putting the final touches to a truly beautiful strategy, designed to pit Micaya's and Nancia's Brains.h.i.+p pieces against one another while he moved unopposed to control all ver- tices of the holohex.

”Privately.”

”Oh, all right.” Forister got up and stretched. ”Nan- cia, can you store the holohex until I get back? I wouldn't want to tire you by asking you to maintain the display while we're not actually playing.”

Nancia chuckled. ”You mean you don't want to leave the holohex set up where we can study the posi- tions and figure out what nasty trap you're getting ready to spring on us this time.”

”Well...”

The holohex folded in upon itself and became a sheet, a line, a point of dazzling blue light that then winked out of existence. ”All right. We're approaching the Sin- gularity point, anyway; I really shouldn't be playing games now. Need to check my math,” Nancia said cheer- fully. ”Be sure and get back in time to strap yourself in.

You softpersons get so disoriented in Singularity.”275.

”And you sh.e.l.lpersons get so uppity about it,”

Forister retorted. ”All right. You'll warn us in plenty of time, I a.s.sume?”

”And monitor you while you're in die cabin,” Nancia said. ”Don't look like that; it's for Blaize's protection as well as yours. If you're left alone with him, the prosecution might try to discredit your testimony, say you'd been bribed or suborned.”

”They won't have much respect for his uncle's good word anyway,” said Forister gloomily, going on down the pa.s.sageway to find out what Blaize had in mind.

Nancia triggered the release mechanism on the door just long enough for him to slide dirough.

”I think Polyon's planning something,” Blaize said as soon as Forister entered the cabin. He sat at the cabin console, one hand quivering over the palmpad without actually starting a program., all red-headed intensity like a fox at a rabbit hole.

”What?*1 ”I don't know. He wants to get out of his cabin. He keeps telling us that he can fix everything if only he could get out for a few minutes. Listen!” Blaize ran the heel of his hand over the palmpad and brought up a datacord- ing of the last few transmissions between the s.p.a.cED OUT gamesters. From the cabin console he couldn't ac- cess enough memory to store images as well as voices; the players' words crackled out through the speaker, disem- bodied and robbed of half their meaning. Forister listened to the recorded exchange and shook his head.

^Just sounds like a few more moves in that dumb game of yours to me, Blaize.”

”It's a move in a game, all right,” Blaize said grimly, ”but he's not playing the same game as the rest of us.

d.a.m.n! I wish I'd been able to capture the images and the icon moves too. Then you'd see,”

”See what?”

”That what Polyon was saying made absolutely no 276.

fef Margaret, Ball sense in the context of the actual game moves.” Blaize dropped his hands in his lap and looked up at Forister.

”Can Nancia keep Polyon under sleepgas until we reach Central?”

”She can,” Forister replied, ”but I've yet to see any reason why she should. This case is going to have all the High Families buzzing like uprooted stingherbs as it is; it'll only be worse if we give them some excuse to allege mistreatment of prisoners.”

”But you heard him!”

”Didn't make any sense to me,” Forister allowed, ”but nothing about that silly game makes sense, in my humble opinion. Come on, Blaize. Can you seriously see me explaining to some High Court judge that I kept a prisoner stunned and unconscious for two solid weeks because something he said in the course of a children's game made me nervous?”

”I suppose not,” Blaize agreed. ”But - you'll be careful?”

”I am always careful,” Forister told him.

”And - I don't think you should talk to him. The man's dangerous.”

”1 know you four are scared of him,” Forister agreed, ”but I think that's because you've been away from Central too long. He's nothing but an arrogant brat who was given more power than was good for hun. Like some other people I could name. Now if you'll excuse me, it's nearly time to strap down for Singularity.”

He nodded at the wall sensors and Nancia silently slid the door open for him.

Once he was in the pa.s.sageway again, she spoke in a low voice.

”Polyon de Gras-Waldheim requests the favor of a private interview.”

”He does, does he! And I suppose you think I ought to take Blaize's warning seriously, and insist on having Micaya as a bodyguard before I talk to him?”277.

”I think you're reasonably able to look after your- self” Nancia said, ”especially with me listening in. It's not as if you were piloting a dumbs.h.i.+p. But there's not much time; I'll be entering the first decomposition se- quence in a few minutes.'1 ”All the better,” said Forister. ”I won't have to spend too long with him. I'll talk with him until you sound the Singularity warning bell, if that's all right. Can't do much less. Visited Blaize - have to visit any of the others who request it.”

When Forister entered, Polyon was lying on his bunk, arms folded behind his head. He turned at the soft sound of the sliding door, jumped to his feet and brought his heels together with a military precision that Forister found almost annoying.

”Sir!”

”I'm not,” Forister said mildly, ”your superior of- ficer. You needn't click your heels and salute. You wanted to tell me something?”

”I - yes - no - I think not,” Polyon said. His blue eyes looked haunted; he pushed a wayward strand of golden hair back from his forehead. ”I thought - but he was my friend; I can't do it. Even to shorten my own sentence - no, it's impossible. I'm sorry to have dis- turbed you for nothing, sir.”

”I think,” Forister said gendy, ”you'd better tell me all about it, my boy.” It was hard to reconcile the haunted creature before him with the monster who'd made Shemali prison into a living h.e.l.l. Perhaps Polyon had some explanation he wished to proffer, some story about others who'd conceived the vicious factory system?

It took him a good five minutes of gentling Polyon's overactive sense of honor, all the time listening anxiously for the Singularity warning bell, before he coaxed the boy into letting out a name.

”It's Blaize,” Polyon said miserably at last. ”Your nephew. I'm so sorry, sir. But - well, while we were 278.

AmneMcCaffrey & Margate Ball279.

playing s.p.a.cED OUT he was boasting to me of how he'd pulled the wool over your eyes, convinced you he was innocent of any wrongdoing - ”

”Not quite,” said Forister. He spoke very evenly to con- trol the twist of pain that squeezed his chest ”He did sdl PTA s.h.i.+pments on the black market That's wrongdoing, in my book, and h.e.l.l be tried for it on Central”