All My Sins Remembered (14 page)

Inside, the dome had brick-red walls with black tile underfoot and what looked like a tiny woman seated at a miniature desk across from the entrance. In the subdued light it was hard to see the faint cube lines, but it was obviously a holographic projection.

The woman was plain and efficient-looking. “Please give me your name and the name of the department or person with whom you have business.”

“My name is Ramos Mario Guajana. I believe I am to see el Alvarez.”

“Oh… no, sir, that’s quite impossible.” She looked at him expectantly. Ramos just looked back.

“Just a moment, please.” She tapped out something on the keyboard in front of her. “That’s Guajan
a
with an ‘a’?”

“Yes.” She tapped some more and watched a screen to her right.

“Oh—Mayor Guajana, you are supposed to report directly to Commandante Rubirez… does he have a regular office?”

“Uh… I don’t know.” ‘Mayor’ Guajana? Another little detail that Planning had missed; he was a field-grade officer.

“Let me see whether I can trace him.” She played with the keyboard some more and talked quietly into a microphone.

“Commandante Rubirez is in the Library, in the Rare Books Room,” she said with a tone of dismissal.

“Where’s that?”

“Pardon me?” Furrowed brow, cocked head.

“Look, I’m a field operative; I don’t know my way around this town. Where is the library?” With exaggerated simplicity, she told him: south half of the sixth floor of the castle.

Ramos tried, with his newly discovered majorhood, to pull rank on the palace guards when they asked for his sword. The captain of the guard coldly informed him that the palace guard was outside the military’s chain of command and he could surrender his sword or be burned on the spot. He handed it over. A metal detector bleated as he walked through the gate; they got his pistol, too.

Tangy cold inside the palace. Ramos realized it was the first air-conditioned air he had breathed since getting out of the little T–46. The first floor was all expensive woods and plush carpeting; mediocre paintings alternated with floor-to-ceiling mirrors. Too much empty space—it was an arrangement that owed less to aesthetic than to easy defense. Any or each of those mirrors could conceal a squad of armed men. Alone on the acre-sized rug, Ramos felt a hundred eyes on him.

The elevator “boy” wore the palace guard uniform and was armed with short sword and laser pistol. He didn’t say a word to Ramos, and already knew where he was going.

There was only one other person in the main room of the library, a clerk filing tapes behind a desk. He was also armed. Ramos was getting the feeling that everybody in the castle was armed except TBII agents.

“Which way to the Rare Books Room,
amigo?”

The clerk took off old-fashioned spectacles and blinked at Ramos. “You can’t go in there. Occupied.”

“I know.” Ramos drummed his fingers on the desk top. “I have an appointment with the Commandante.”

“Ah. This way.” The clerk led Ramos through a labyrinth of tape files, periodical racks, bookcases. They came to a door marked with a single ‘B.’ “Just a moment.” He rapped on the door and opened it slightly.

“I told you I was not to be disturbed,” came a frosty voice from inside.

“A gentleman says he has an appointment with you, Commandante.”

“I don’t have any appointments with anybody.” The clerk was a surprisingly fast draw; he had the pistol steady on Ramos’s breastbone before the Commandante said “any.”

“I’ll get rid of him, sir.”

“Wait,” Ramos said, almost shouting. “I’m Ramos Guajana.”

“Ramos?” A book snapped shut; sound of papers rustling and heavy footsteps muffled by carpet. A bearlike head thrust itself from behind the door at a surprising height.

“Ramos,” he growled with what might pass for affection. “Put that gun away, fool; Alvarez should have two such good men.” Two long strides and he enveloped Ramos in a crushing embrace. Then he held him by the shoulders and studied him, head wagging back and forth, looking more ursine all the time.

“They have used you poorly, old friend.”

“Not as poorly as they might have, Commandante. I was to be hanged.” He shuddered, sincerely. “Or worse.”

“Commandante?” He took Ramos by the arm; steered him into the Rare Books Room. “When was I other than Julio to you?”

“Sir… Julio… that’s another thing. They beat me regularly, severely—”

“That’s evident.”

“—and I seem to have lost my memory. All memories of the past ten years or so.” He lowered himself into any easy chair. “This seemed to be the logical place to go after I escaped, from the nature of their questioning.” He took a chance. “I do vaguely remember… you.”

A shadow, perhaps doubt, passed over the Commandante’s bearded face, then was gone. “And well you should.” He chuckled, turned around abruptly, and scanned the leather-bound volumes lining the wall. He selected a thick book titled
Philosophical Discourses
, held it to his ear, and shook it. It gurgled pleasantly. “‘Philosophy is the highest music,’” he quoted in Spanish; then he removed the bottle and two glasses from the hollow book and decanted a healthy portion of brandy into each glass. He handed to one to Ramos.

“Grünweltische Branntwein. This is—” he checked the label—“Eisenmacher ’36. It might be well to start developing a taste for it.”

Ramos held up his glass. “We will fill swimming pools with it.” They laughed and drank.

“Then you remember something of the Plan?”

Ramos shrugged. “No more than is common knowledge. My captors—is that the right word?—in Tueme implied that my killing that boy had something to do with it. I also got the impression that they were not too much in favor of the Plan.”

“Not yet,” he said. “But we can bring them around. Or do without them. We’ve gotten the support of Diaz now, much more important. Heavy industry.” He stood up abruptly.

“But we can talk about this later. You must be tired.”
More curious than tired
, Ramos thought, but best not to press too much.

He nodded. “It was an arduous journey.”

“See Teniente Salazar down at the officers’ billets. I’ll call and make sure you get a good place.”

“I’d be grateful.”

“And…ah! Would you crave… feminine companionship?”

“In a relaxed sort of way, yes. My most urgent desires I satisfied at various inns between Tueme and here.”

Julio clapped Ramos on the back—gently—and laughed. “Some things they could not change.”

5.

Ramos found that his rank—which was new, Teniente Salazar told him—entitled him to his choice of private quarters. There were only two billets available, though. Ramos took the second, even though it seemed more subtly bugged, because it was cleaner and he was expecting company. A girl named Ami Rivera; Julio had said they’d been close, before. He would warn her about his indisposition.

A clerk brought over a duffle bag of personal effects belonging to the real Guajana. Ramos found out disappointingly little about himself from the items in the bag. There were swords: blunted epee, saber, and foil for practice; functional saber and epee. Three sets of clothes, civilian. No uniforms. An opened package of pistol targets. Three books from the castle library; one of short stories and two on fencing theory (these were bound technical journals; Ramos looked for his own name but didn’t find it). The only thing that didn’t have some practical use was a beat-up harmonica with no upper octave. There was also a little bag of things evidently dumped from a desk drawer—anonymous stationery, pencil stub, eraser, two dried-out pens, postage stamps stuck together, a half-smoked box of dope-sticks but no matches.

Maybe the TBII’s Sherlock section could comb through this collection and tell you everything from Guajana’s ring size to his preference in women. To Ramos, to Otto McGavin, after an hour of close inspection, it was still just five swords, three sets of clothes, and a bunch of kibble. Anything he could infer from that he already knew.

Ami came by about sundown and fixed Ramos
trimorlinos secos
, a regional seafood specialty. She was a laughing, worldly, handsome woman about Ramos’s age. He enjoyed talking with her and making love with her, and never could decide whether she’d been sent to spy on him.

The next night was a slim young thing named Cecelia who had rather more exotic tastes than Ami but didn’t talk much. The third night it was one Private Martinez, rather dumpy and male besides, who had been sent to bring Ramos to the Commandante’s billet.

Ramos had anticipated just a larger version of his own austere quarters, but Julio’s “billet” was a rambling stucco mansion in the shape of a squared U, built around a carefully tended garden.

Julio was in the garden, sitting under a large tree at a table covered with papers. A bright lantern hanging from a branch above him hissed softly and threw a circle of soft yellow light around him; the smell of its burning mixed pleasantly with the perfumes of the garden. Julio was scribbling rapidly and didn’t hear Ramos and the private approach. The private cleared his throat, signalling.

“Ah! Mayor Guajana. Sit, sit.” He waved at a chair across the table from him and went back to his writing. “I’ll only be a moment. Private, find the cook and bring us some wine and cheese.”

After a minute he laid the pen down with a slap and gathered the papers together. “Ramos,” he said, stacking the pages, “if they ever offer you a colonelcy, turn it down. It’s a first step to a lingering death by writer’s cramp.” He shoved the papers into a portfolio and laid it on the ground. “I have your next… ah.” He was silent while the soldier laid out four kinds of cheese and poured wine.

“That will be all, Private.” He sniffed the wine exuberantly and tasted it. “I suppose rank does have its privileges.” Ramos compared this opulence to Colonel McGavin’s Earthside quarters. He mumbled something in agreement, but privately noted that rank’s privileges varied from army to army.

“I have your next assignment, Ramos. Are you familiar with Clan Cervantes?”

“Only as an area on the map.”

The Commandante waggled his head in amazement. “And we visited it together, a two-week hunting trip, not five years ago.”

“Can’t remember a thing about it.”

“Mn. At any rate, we’re having a problem with el Cervantes. He appeared to be with the Plan from the beginning, but lately… well, the details aren’t important.”

“He’s having doubts?”

“Perhaps worse than that. El Alvarez suspects treachery.”

“Does el Cervantes have a conveniently aged son?”

“Unfortunately not. He’s an old man; his son is almost fifty.

“But it’s a good situation. His only grandson is twelve years old, and there is nobody in the family who can take over in the
Senado
should something happen to the son.” He smiled pleasantly. “They have been cursed with daughters.”

“Then I am to challenge this fifty-year-old man and kill him.”

“Yes. It would be that simple, except for one thing.” He leaned back against the tree. “There’s a price on your life now, Ramos. In every clan except Alvarez. El Tueme offers ten thousand for your head.

“So first… we have to change your head.”

“Plastic surgery?”
Once the scalpel touches plastiflesh…

“Of course. We’ve discussed the possibility.”

“Seems extreme. Could they change me back afterwards?”

“I don’t know. I imagine not.”

“I don’t like it.”

Julio shrugged. “It’s your head, Ramos. I’d hate to see you lose it out of vanity.”

“Let me think… do you have a copy of the picture they’ll be using to identify me?”

“Yes.” He rose. “Come with me.” The Commandante led him past two sets of armed guards into the opulent house. He thumbed open the door to a large study.

He opened a heavy wooden filing cabinet—also thumb-locked. “Here.”

Ramos studied the picture, a good likeness but evidently taken toward the end of his imprisonment. “No problem. Look.” He held the picture next to his face. “I don’t have the prison pallor anymore, and in this picture my face was puffy with bruises. If I shave off my mustache and crop my hair close, nobody would recognize me.”

Julio looked back and forth between the picture and Ramos. “Probably. I’d be happier if you went ahead with the surgery, though.”

“It bothers me, Julio. I mean… I have so few solid links with the past as it is. I have the feeling that if I lose my face…”

“All right. Fine.” Julio took the picture back and refiled it. “Tell you what, I’ll have Ami bring you some of that lotion, what do they call it, that woman use to darken their complexion.” He locked the drawer and took Ramos by the arm. “No more work tonight. Let’s finish that bottle of wine.”

Ami was waiting for Ramos when he returned home. She massaged
Sol Instante
into every square inch of his skin, and it did a very convincing job. Ramos considered the maxim that a soldier had best abstain from sex on the eve of a battle, and rejected it.

6.

With papers and currency appropriate for a citizen of Clan Amarillo, Ramos had no trouble getting into Cervantes. He didn’t want to go directly to Castile Cervantes; instead, he monorailed to a small town a safe distance from the border, then took a coach to an even smaller town, one primitive enough not to have video service on its phones.