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many things to plan, arrangements to be made. We all have to be watchful. Ser
Salap, why did you come to Lamarckia?"
"I believed in Lenk," Salap said.
"Do you believe what you see here -- the vivarium, all our work?"
"Yes."
"A collaboration, communication?"
Salap nodded.
"Ser Randall?"
"It seems real," Randall said.
Brion chuckled. "All of this -- the crater, the stone chambers -- used to be
the home of a seed-mother. Thousands of years ago, the seed-mother moved to
another location, up the canal.
That's where we'll go. I want to show you some of what we've done. My wife and
I. I haven't been up the canal for months. But with such learned gentlemen
here, and Ser Olmy, a very special visitor, I think the negotiations can
wait." He nodded decisively. "It's more important that you all see what we've
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managed to do."
Brion leaned toward me, as if addressing a child. "I can't tell what you're
thinking. You have some character and discipline, Ser Olmy. That makes you
different from most of us. We were brought here by a fool, on a promise that
was broken as soon as we arrived. We've been sinking ever since.
"Come with me up the canal tomorrow and I'll show you how much further we have
to go before we reach bottom."
General Beys regarded me with his small deep-set eyes and crinkled his pink
cheeks in a friendly smile. He nodded as if saying farewell to a fellow
soldier.
This time, the guards put us together into a single room along another tunnel,
presumably closer to the lake. I did not sleep much that night. I lay in my
narrow, hard bunk and wondered what other agents would have done, sent to
Lamarckia. Would they have revealed themselves to so little purpose?
Salap stirred on the bunk above me. He descended the ladder. "It feels like
morning to me,"
he said. "I feel like a damned soil tender, walled up in here." At the bottom,
he straightened his black robe and ran his hand through his hair, then went to
the wash basin and splashed water on his face.
Randall swung his legs over the edge of his bottom bunk and stretched. "What
do you think they're up to?" he asked.
"I don't know," Salap said. "I refuse to be surprised."
Randall turned his gaze to me. "Anything _you_ can do that will surprise us?"
he asked.
"I don't think so," I said.
"How are you any different from Mansur or me?" he asked.
"I've never claimed to be different."
"You were all they could send -- a scout, to check out the territory? And
nobody after you?"
"I assume that's what's happened."
Salap stood with one hand braced against the brick wall.
Randall looked up at the wall, eyes moist. "All these decades we've been
waiting like children for someone to rescue us from our own stupidity. And all
the Hexamon sends is one man."
"A mortal, like us," Salap murmured.
"Both of you were Adventists?" I asked.
Salap nodded. Randall said, "I sympathized, but I knew which side to stick
with."
Salap smiled like a devil that understands human nature only too well. "Do you
think Ser
Shatro was listening, on the raft?"
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"Apparently," I said.
"It might have been better if you had just told the first person you met who
you were,"
Randall said.
"The first person I met was Larisa Strik-Cachemou," I said. "It didn't seem a
good idea at the time."
--------
*22*
The boat waited beside the ministerial dock on the canal, its two-man crew
dressed in immaculate white. The boat was ten meters long, made of
white-painted xyla with a single metal tree amidships, on which flew a gray
flag with a central white spot. Two electric motors waited beneath a bare
metal compartment at the rear. A white canopy ahead of the tree shaded a
square of padded benches, sunken below deck level. Forward of the canopy, a
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small cabin and galley waited to serve Brion and his guests.
Salap and I walked down the dock and boarded the boat, escorted by our guards.
Randall had not been invited.
What made Brion different -- more like Lenk than like any leaders on
Thistledown -- was his apparent role as the figurehead in a cult of
personality. Leaders on Thistledown generally ruled like bureaucratic
administrators -- hence the unglamorous titles of their higher offices. Brion
was a tribal ruler, given unlimited discretion by his people, but with limited
resources and limited numbers of people to rule. Understanding him, knowing
what to say and to anticipate, could save our lives. I hoped Salap was
thinking along similar lines, and I was glad Randall was not accompanying us.
Randall had had enough of Naderville and Lenk and Fassid and the mess of
Lamarckia's human world-lines. He might not care what would trigger Brion's
anger.
Brion arrived several minutes later, with four armed soldiers and a lithe
brown man with spiky, short-cut black hair. Brion seemed anxious. "This is Ser
Frick," Brion said. "He's been with me for many years, since I came to
Godwin."
We introduced ourselves as if we were going on a social cruise, then settled
on the padded seats, and our guards and three of the armed men returned to the
dock.
Brion wore gloves, khaki-colored pants, and a dark brown shirt. In one hand he
carried a piece of string wrapped tightly around his index finger.
Frick wore a thin, loose black coat, faded rose-colored vest, and baggy dark
brown pants.
"The weather's going to be warm up the canal today," Frick said, settling into
the bench seat.
"She's been keeping it warm for weeks."
Brion nodded and stared across the canal at the opposite shore, one eyebrow
raised. He wound and unwound his string.
"How long is this trip?" Salap asked.
"Two days up, two days back," Frick said.
The pilot switched on the electric motors and the boat pushed out into the
stream, which flowed west from the interior of Hsia.
"That woman is awful," Brion said a few minutes later, lifting his chin from
his hand and sitting straight on the seat.
"Which woman?" Salap asked.
"Fassid. We had a bad discussion this morning, very unfair. I explained my
position yesterday very well, I think, telling them I could do little more
even if we negotiated for months. They asked me again to keep General Beys and
his soldiers here, and I told them I was unable to do that."
"Beys kidnapped children and slaughtered villagers," I said.
"I do not defend all of his actions, but he is much too useful for me to just
recall him.
He's a thorn in Lenk's side." Brion would not meet my eye, but his face went
through a spectrum of twitches and half frowns as he gazed across the river. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]