Aristoi, page 8
MATAGLAP: KILL HIM NOW!
WELCOME RAIN: Shut up and let me think! That’s not what’s happening here.
Gabriel paused while Mataglap’s dire warning echoed through his skull. He didn’t think Rubens was an assassin, but there were always weapons too subtle for a non-intrusive scan, the human body itself was of course a weapon, and the situation was unusual enough that precautions seemed justified.
“Do you have the data on this ceramic?” Gabriel said.
“Yes, Gabriel Aristos.”
“Send it to me. Perhaps I’d be interested in licensing it for use at the Workshop.” Mataglap’s homicidal thunderings sent a river of tension up Gabriel’s spine.
Rubens smiled. “I’d be delighted, Aristos.” His expression turned briefly abstract as he made some internal communication. “I’ve transmitted the data from my ship to your Hyperlogos address. You may absorb it at leisure, Aristos.”
“You’ll be on Illyricum for a few days, yes? I’ll try to communicate with you by the end of your stay.”
“Thank you, Aristos.”
AUGENBLICK: Relief! Relaxation of tension! Capillary dilation! Low threat potential!
WELCOME RAIN: Hah. He just wanted you to make his fortune by buying his ceramic. I thought I smelled self-interest.
GABRIEL: You always smell self-interest.
WELCOME RAIN: There always is self-interest. Let me negotiate the contract. He’ll end up with vacuum where his trust fund should be. The least we can do after he scared us like this.
MATAGLAP:
AUGENBLICK: Increasing relaxation. Lowered and deeper respiration. Pupil dilation. Nictating membranes withdrawn.
WELCOME RAIN: His guard is down— and he’s vulnerable now. Ask him why he’s here. He or Cressida could have told you about the ceramic by tachline, so he’s here for some other reason.
Gabriel slowly exhaled, sending the tension from his body. The Welcome Rain’s inevitable cynicism was like a chill, refreshing downpour after a humid summer day. The daimon was a sociopathic manipulator, utterly without conscience, who usually worked in tandem with the intuitive Augenblick— the two were cognates, mirror-images of the same personality, the same way that Horus was cognate with Cyrus, who was (in a somewhat more complex fashion) also cognate with Spring Plum.
Mataglap, the paranoid, homicidal berserker, was cognate with no one. Gabriel had never needed him, and was happy to keep it that way.
“Still,” Gabriel said. “You’re here on a mission from Ariste Cressida, aren’t you?”
Gabriel could feel the tension return to Rubens’ body. “Yes,” he said. “I was to deliver this, in person, to your hand alone.”
AUGENBLICK: Nictating membranes pulsing. Narrowed pupils. Overall increase in tension.
WELCOME RAIN: Got him.
Rubens’ pace slowed as his free hand reached into one of his uniform pockets.
MATAGLAP: Careful! He’ll kill you!
Gabriel mentally shook off Mataglap’s warning bellow.
WELCOME RAIN: Oh shut up.
Rubens produced a data wafer. Gabriel stopped, took it with his free hand, and examined it. The wafer was in a transparent polymer coat to keep it from harm, and had Cressida’s seal stamped on both sides. Gabriel gave Rubens a sidelong glance.
“Do you know what’s on it?”
AUGENBLICK: Stance uncertain. High focus of attention. Low threat potential, but he’s thinking about something.
WELCOME RAIN: Keep him talking.
“No, Aristos. I was told it was under her seal and will not open to anyone but you.” Rubens’ face plainly showed a nervous uncertainty. “Cressida’s instructions came entirely without warning— she gave me only two days’ notice. I’m unaware of Cressida’s giving a similar assignment to anyone during the time I’ve been with her. Usually she’s quite thoughtful concerning the people to whom she assigns special duty.”
Gabriel put the wafer in an interior pocket. “So whatever this is about, you have good cause to think it important.”
“More important than anything since I’ve been in her service.”
“Were you cautioned on what to say to me?”
“Not at all. Her orders were brief and direct— well, they always are.” Rubens’ brows furrowed.
AUGENBLICK: Nictating membranes partially deployed, possibly indicative of deception, but deception is contraindicated by open stance, eye focus, eyelid steadiness, status of capillary dilation. See that? — A slight hunch there, a shrug aborted by training. Indication of genuine puzzlement.
GABRIEL: Could his reactions be feigned?
AUGENBLICK: He is highly trained. It is possible.
“I was simply to take the Lorenz to Illyricum,” Rubens said, “or wherever you were, after which I would inspect the Illyricum Workshop in order to get an idea of what I would need in my own ceramics workshop.”
“Which of course you could have done through the oneirochronon.”
“Naturally. And had every intention of doing. Cressida’s message was via skiagénos, by the way— I checked.”
“Very thorough of you.” Which meant he wouldn’t gain anything by persuading Rubens to let him look at his original message.
WELCOME RAIN: Keep him talking. But we’ll never know for certain unless we use the Mudra of Compulsion or go to extremes.
AUGENBLICK: You could seduce him. Try to woo him from his former allegiance.
GABRIEL: Is it plausible?
AUGENBLICK: His metalinguistics suggest the possibility. His weight is very slightly adjusted in your direction, opening himself to your influence, and his near leg is just slightly turned out toward you, displaying his genitals. The indications are so slight that they are probably unconscious, but they could of course be feigned, or indicative merely of his willingness to be of assistance to you. I’d get a better idea if you look directly into his eyes for a few seconds.
WELCOME RAIN: Take the fellow. He’s well trained. A protarchon spy would be diverting after this recent dull mingling of sexuality and sincerity.
GABRIEL: I’ll view the message first, then think about it.
Gabriel paused and glanced about him. They had left the Red Lacquer Gallery and the Autumn Pavilion far behind, and the border of the formal gardens was just ahead. On a flat sward nearby, the sons and daughters of Residence workers who attended the Residence School were going through a Postures class, everyone from five-year-olds to early adolescents wiring their body and mind with the metalinguistic culture of the Logarchy, the common ground on which all humanity communicated. Behind them were forests, canals, and carefully-calculated prospects.
“Would you like to see the deer park or zoo?” Gabriel asked. “The warrens? Little Venice or the Palazzo?”
Rubens glanced back at Manfred. “I imagine your terrier would be happier in the warrens,” he said.
Gabriel found himself warming to a man deferred to a dog, even if in the end it turned out he was some kind of spy. “The warrens, then,” he said, and set off again.
*
Later, back in his office, Gabriel sat at his Louis Quinze desk and tapped the scrolled Illyrian Workshop mother-of-pearl inlay on its surface. A square of mahogany rose from the polished desktop. Gabriel took Cressida’s data wafer from his pocket, pressed his thumb to the seal on the plastic envelope, broke the seal, and slipped the wafer into the waiting slit on the desk. The mahogany block seamlessly resumed its place.
The desk informed him that the data was under the Seal of the Aristoi and that Gabriel’s positive identification would be needed to release it. Gabriel tapped mother-of-pearl, pressed his fingers to the desktop, and leaned over it so that embedded microwatts could scan his retinas. The mahogany surface deepened, grew bright. Cressida’s skiagénos gazed from its depths with bright brown eyes.
“Enclosed are plans for setting up a direct tachline transmitter between your current location and Painter. I presume you will be able to oblige me by preparing this as soon as possible.
“I hope,” eyes boring in, “that you will assist me in this matter. I cannot compel you, but I can say that my reasons are of the utmost urgency, and although our present sealed tachline communications through the Hyperlogos may not be compromised, this alternative is the safest. My apologies if this places you at any inconvenience.”
She’s mad, suggested Welcome Rain. One of her daimones is in charge.
Cressida? Gabriel wondered. She’s been among the Aristoi for centuries— if anyone were firmly in command of her daimones, it should be she.
She got soft. Couldn’t take it anymore. Science, science, science; discipline, discipline, discipline. Had to be in control even over interior stellar processes.
I don’t think that’s what Chaos Form theory is about.
You want proof? She used an skiagénos to communicate with you. She didn’t dare use a live vidcam— you’d be able to tell it was a daimon speaking.
Perhaps there’s some genuine danger.
From whom? Or what? No . . . she’s just lost her grip. She’s trying to involve you in her delusions.
Perhaps. But in that case, why me?
The Welcome Rain didn’t have an answer for that. Gabriel called on his other daimones, none of whom contributed any useful analysis. Through his reno he accessed the Hyperlogos via tachline; he went through public and non-public biographical data both of Cressida and Rubens. Cressida’s data told him nothing he didn’t already know. Rubens’ showed a steady ascent under Sebastian and Cressida— two Aristoi notoriously difficult to please—- and he had failed his exams eight years ago by only a narrow margin. He might well become an Aristos during the next exam cycle.
So much for biography.
Through his reno he called Therápon Tritarchon Fleta, who looked after his communications net, and ordered her to set up the tachline rig.
“This is confidential, Therápon,” he said. “I don’t want anyone to know about this except the people doing the work.”
“I will arrange for emplacement by robot, Aristos,” Fleta purred. “The programming and telemetry, both of the robots and the tachline, I will do myself.” She had altered her appearance to that of a fey elflike creature, all smooth curves, wide dark eyes, skin tinted a shiny, rather acrylic blue. She lowered her lashes suggestively. “No one will know but the two of us, Aristos,” she said.
“I thank you,” Gabriel said. “Fini.”
Something, he was reminded, had always suggested to him that he save Fleta for later. The body shape, with its wide-eyed innocence mixed with catlike sensuality, was just a little too manipulative, and sent little warning twinges climbing his spine.
Gabriel’s reno reminded him of appointments waiting, postponed, waiting still. A message from Marcus winked at him.
He ran the recording of Cressida again. No answers.
BELIEVE HER! The voice rolled through his mind. His nerves crackled. Daimones chattered in bewilderment.
He told them to be silent and probed gently for the source of the unknown voice. No luck.
The tachline would be set up within a few hours.
Soon he’d know.
Chapter Four
PABST: The human will, a plastic thing . . .
Doubt afflicts the mighty king.
The new Aristoi, moments short of investiture, stood in flickering torchlight beneath pillars of gold and ivory. Astrion loomed over them, propped with ease on flukelike feet. All of this compromised? Gabriel wondered. By whom?
“You have demonstrated,” Asterion said, “your ability to take your place among the few who can be trusted with the most powerful technology the universe has to offer. You have earned the trust of humanity.”
It was Asterion’s turn to address the new graduates. His opening was the most conventional possible, but the words had a certain additional impact, coming as they were from the glabrous-skinned modified human.
Akwasibo, Tunku Iskander, and the seven others were all in Postures of Esteem. Standing ranked in torchlight in the center of the Apadana of Darius, the great audience hall, and surrounded by other, older Aristoi, they were no doubt conscious that they were the center of all eyes. Not just of this group, but of the Logarchic millions, perhaps billions, watching via tachline and waiting for a hint as to the direction the future might take.
This, and this alone, was public. Everything else going on in the oneirochronic Persepolis was under the Seal of the Aristoi.
And much of the Aristoi’s communication with one another was also under privacy seal.
All of it compromised? That was supposed to have been made impossible when the system was set up hundreds of years before.
Within an hour or so Gabriel would have his tachline set up. The new communications net wouldn’t go through the Hyperlogos, and he and Cressida would talk.
Perhaps, he thought hopefully, she was mad.
For the ceremony Gabriel had dressed Cyrus-style in Phrygian cap and a brilliantly-woven Median robe that flashed and flickered in the torchlight. He held by a diamond-studded leash an skiagénos of Manfred, which watched the performance with rapt, solemn attention.
Asterion spoke on, his style conventional, his words uninspired. Gabriel set his skiagénos in the same attentive, respectful attitude as his dog and allowed his thoughts to wander.
An idea came to him.
He sent a message,
Somewhat to his surprise, she accepted.
Gabriel left Horus to look after the graduation ceremonies and materialized a second skiagénos inside his suite. The animal servants began to deploy automatically. There was a knock on the door, and the otter moved to answer while Gabriel triggered a Kurusu piece from the orchestra.
Zhenling, in the electronic moment between the graduation ceremonies and her appearance here, had changed from a formal suit to summery silk trousers and an embroidered jacket. She thanked the Tetrapus for his offer of refreshment, but declined.
Incense began to burn at a wave of Gabriel’s thought, spilling from the eyes and mouth of bronze censers formed in the shape of monkey heads. Gabriel offered Zhenling a seat on the sofa.
All this compromised? he wondered. Was anyone listening?
He doubted it.
But he had never heard of Cressida engaged in any intrigue before. None whatever.
(Peace and stability stretching over centuries. The frontiers of humanity, and human knowledge, steadily expanded. Asterion’s speech, transmitted by Horus, floated in the back of Gabriel’s head.)
“Thank you for transmitting the data on your chemistry,” Zhenling said.
“You’re welcome. Am I normal?”
“Not really, no.”
“I’m pleased to hear it. Your conclusions?”
She smiled. “Too early for that. A context will develop only when other Aristoi contribute their data.”
“And will they?”
“No one’s turned me down yet.”
“That’s encouraging.” He drew (Augenblick’s urging) one foot up under him to encourage informality. “D’you really think you’ll find a common thread?” he asked.
“Honestly?” Eyebrows arching. “No.”
(Mobile, unrestricted populations. Information— all of it— preserved in its entirety for future generations. Information— all save the most dangerous— available to all, and instantaneously. )
“It seems to me,” Gabriel went on, “that you won’t discover a great deal about what makes an Aristos. We’re primates, admittedly, and no doubt we have primate brain chemistry— but we become Aristoi before all the people around us became so deferent. So you’re charting a process that’s aberrant right from the start.”
“I anticipate a long-range process by which similar data are gathered for a wide cross-section of therápontes and the Demos, some of whom may of course become Aristoi— and then we’ll know the difference, if there is one.” Zhenling pulled her legs into a crosslegged stance and rested her cheek on a fist. “But for the moment, I’m only gathering data. All data is useful, as Asterion just reminded us. It’s too early for conclusions, but it’s also too early for the questions. I’m studying Aristoi. Why not? One can’t claim it isn’t a worthy subject for study.”
“No. One can’t.”
“And all our genes are mapped, so that’s another solid mass of data . . . ”
“They’ve also been looked at before. No common thread there.”
“I’d like to think I have several new approaches.”
Gabriel leaned closer. Hundreds of light-years away, in the Pyrrho, his palate tingled to her scent. The Welcome Rain purred in his ear. “My own focus tends to be a bit narrower,” he said. “I’d like to study but a single Ariste.”
“Study all you like. But I prefer not to think of myself as all that narrow.”
(Hostile environments made habitable. Nature itself become an artifact of the human will.)
Zhenling cocked her head. “Are you monitoring Asterion’s speech? Doesn’t it strike you as something of an apologia?”
“He does seem to be reviewing a good deal.”
“Perhaps this is the beginning of the reaction.”
“The reaction?” Gabriel raised his eyebrows. “Is there therefore a revolution? And if so, are you it?”
She smiled. “You’ll pardon me. I should pay closer attention.”
“I’ll see you at the receptions.”
This time she allowed his kiss on the back of her hand. Her skiagénos politely walked from the room instead of merely vanishing, but, he suspected, her consciousness had largely departed.
He returned his focus to the Apadana. Torchlight flickered off the intent faces of the new Aristoi. Asterion stood in a calm, imperial posture and spoke with the authority of absolute conviction.
“It was Marcus Aurelius who said, What is not good for the swarm is not good for the bee. Nor, I should add, for the Queen. Aristoi are granted immense power, verging on the absolute, but the power is not without condition, nor without responsibility.
“Our duty is not to ourselves but to the Demos. Our power is granted for their protection, for their advancement. The tragedy that engulfed Earth1 was caused by people ignorant of the consequences of their own work. It is our task never to be ignorant of consequence. Never to be caught off-guard. Always to stand between the Demos and that which threatens their peace and development.”
