Dark Foundations (52 page)

Merral, wondering what to say, found Delastro at his desk in his plainly furnished room.

The prebendant gestured for him to sit in a high-backed chair in front of the desk.

“I gather, Prebendant,” Merral said, “that you have made up your mind.”

“Yes. I think this contact team is a waste of time—an utter waste. You, in particular, would be far better employed in organizing us for war.”

“I think that we should be neutral until such time as we know they are enemies.”

“Neutrality? At such a time?” A flash of anger lit Delastro's green eyes. “They are evil. It's a trick, Commander.”

“We don't know that.”

“I do and I suspect you do.”

He's right.
Merral tried to hide his feelings under the prebendant's scrutiny. “I don't. I may have my suspicions and my fears, but I don't know for sure.”

“And your connections with the angelic realm? This being you contact? Hasn't he warned you of this ship?”

“No. He warned me—us—of approaching war. We can't yet assume that these people are the enemy.”

“I believe it would be safest to treat them as the enemy.”

“I disagree, Prebendant. And there is a delicate matter here. You are chaplain-in-chief. How do you propose to handle this matter with the soldiers?”

“I intend to do my duty and preach that this is a trap.”

“But that would jeopardize any negotiations. It might precipitate a war.”

“Then so be it. Let the war come. Let the purging of the worlds occur.”

Merral took a breath, feeling uncomfortably aware of the gap in age between them. “Prebendant, Representative Corradon and I agree that this is not to be allowed. You must be scrupulously neutral.”

“And if I am not?”

“I will have to find a replacement for you.”

A succession of expressions crossed Delastro's thin face: a flash of anger, a look around the room, ending slowly in a conciliatory smile. “As you wish then. I will be neutral.”

Pleased at his victory, but faintly disappointed that Delastro had not resigned, Merral returned to Corradon's office. The representative, who was peering intently at a plant on a shelf, looked up.

After Merral explained what happened, he said, “As I expected. Well, we will put old Jenat on the contact team.”

“Is he . . . well . . . appropriate?” Merral asked, thinking of the frail man who had been overwhelmed by the events at the memorial service.

“Hmm. He is the president of the congregations. He has the rank.” Corradon bent down to the plant. “Now, this
Achimenes
is not very happy. I was wondering if it needed some more potassium. Do you have any suggestions?”

Merral made the briefest of answers and, deeply troubled at the representative's inability to focus on the crisis, returned to his office.

Merral found himself almost frantically busy for the rest of the day, but at five he closed his office door, and summoned Lloyd to drive to Brenito's house.

As they drove up the drive, Merral scanned the garden, hoping that he might see Jorgio's curved figure at work, but there was no sign of him. The guard at the gate said Jorgio was inside and that yes, he had been very disturbed, but that he was now better.

Leaving Lloyd at the door, Merral went inside. He soon found Jorgio seated in Brenito's old rocking chair on the veranda overlooking the sea.

“How are you?” Merral asked, pulling over a bench. Pushing a pad of paper to one side, he sat down.

“I've had a bad few days, Mr. Merral. You remember those footsteps as I've been having in my dreams? Well, they were just getting louder and louder. Why yesterday now, I could hear them as if they were right in my head.
Patter, patter, patter
. Not just in dreams either. While I was working in the garden—sowing some delphiniums on some of the bare bits, I was—I could hear them—an army of them. And during my eating. Even during my praying:
that
was the worst bit.”

“I'm sorry. But do you still hear them?”

Jorgio's expression changed to one of perplexity. “No. But I feel I ought to. It's just vanished
.
But I don't think they
have
gone away. They're like bulbs under the ground, ready to pop up.”

“You mean the sounds have been masked?”

“Masked?”

“Uh, hidden? Covered over?”

“Yes.” Jorgio smacked his thick lips. “Very likely, that's it. They can do that, I'm sure. Tea?”

Merral smiled.
Have I smiled at any other time today?
“Sorry, my old friend. But I have never been so busy.” He paused, surveying Jorgio's rough face. “We have visitors. You'll hear about it tonight. A ship from edgeward of here—from the Dominion.”

A coarse eyebrow rose. “Indeed now. And are they nice or nasty?”

“What do you think?”

“Me?” Jorgio shrugged. “I reckon as you expect me to say
nasty
. There'd be a sense in that.” He creased his face. “But to be honest, I don't know.”

“What do you feel?”

“Nothing, nothing at all. Nothing good and nothing bad. And that's odd.”

“Isn't it?”

How strange
.
This most perceptive of men lacks any sense that what approaches is evil.
“I'm glad the noises have stopped. Let me know if you feel anything about our visitors. Pray for me.”

As he rose to leave, he suddenly noticed that the pad of paper he had moved was covered with a crude scrawl that looked like mathematics. “May I?”

He lifted the pad. It
was
mathematics. But it made no sense. For a start it was all in fragments. In one corner a line of symbols began suddenly and then broke off abruptly and in another a ragged island of equations seemed to have been torn out of the middle of some dense mass of algebra. Merral recognized some of the symbols—numbers, an integral sign, pi, a square root—but others were strange. Although only adequate in mathematics, Merral had the strongest sense that what he was staring at was not a random mélange of symbols, but instead genuine fragments from some real-world equations.

“What is this?”

Jorgio puckered his thick mouth. “The other dreams I've had. Them ones of numbers I told you about. That lot are bits that stuck in my mind. So I wrote 'em out. And to save your question, I don't know what they mean.”

“Or even what they are about?”

“That neither. But they
are
important. The Lord told me that.”

“Keep them safe,” Merral said. “I'd like to show them to someone. But not just now. I have enough problems.” He patted the old man on the back, and then left.

Merral had asked to be contacted when any new transmission came in from the
Dove of Dawn
and was not surprised when, at five on the following morning, he was awakened by a diary call from Corradon relaying a message.

Rubbing sleep from his eyes, Merral stared at the screen as the message began. This time there was only the male ambassador.

“Thank you for your welcome,” Ambassador Hazderzal said, with the same good humor. “We are delighted that you managed to destroy the stolen ship. We will do what we can to make good what was damaged. When we arrive in six days, we wish to land and meet with you. Can you designate a landing zone for our shuttle craft—somewhere we can set up a small center where we can talk?” With good wishes, the transmission ended.

“Merral,” Corradon said, sounding nervous, “what do we do?”

“Give me time to think. I'll call you at nine. In the meantime, just acknowledge the message.”

Merral delayed calling Vero until after his morning run. Vero replied immediately, but with a voice-only transmission. The screen stayed blank.

“We heard from the ship.”

“Yes, I know.” From the way Vero's voice reverberated Merral felt certain that his friend was in some enclosed space.

“How do you know?”

“I have my sources. I am, after all, chief of intelligence.”

“What sources?”

“Secret.”

“Very well. A landing zone: Isterrane, presumably?”

“No, it's too close. It could be a Trojan horse. You know the story?”

“Yes.”

“You might want to reread it. Let me come and see you. Put the coffee on.”

Ten minutes later, Vero, unshaven and looking tired, sat at the kitchen table sipping from a large mug of coffee.

“Not Isterrane then?” Merral asked.

“No. Not anywhere near. If we have to use a vortex blaster, we could lose part of the city. We suggest the spare strip on Langerstrand Peninsula.”

“Langerstrand?” It took Merral a moment to remember the place—an open peninsula a hundred kilometers west of Isterrane.

“Why there?”

“We feel better about it. It was my idea—it's remote and uninhabited.”

Who is
we
?

“Explain to the ambassadors that due to possible health risks we want a space between us. And that they can spread out there. Remember: good fences make good neighbors.”

“They do? Very well. But, Vero, this doesn't match what Azeras said.”

“No. It doesn't.”

“Why?”

“I don't know.” Vero sighed. “I really don't.”

“The ship looks civilian, Vero. It's no full-suppression complex.”

Vero chewed on his bottom lip. “I agree.”

“It's got a low mass too. What does Azeras say?”

“He says that it must be a new strategy. And that sometimes seduction works better than rape.”

“A tasteless metaphor. I can't imagine Perena warmed to that one. And you believe him?”

Vero sighed and scowled at his coffee. “Yes. Look, we shouldn't even mention Azeras, but this is my take on him: I think . . . he is to be trusted.”

“On everything? I detected some hesitancy there.”

“He isn't telling us everything. Not about the Freeborn, not about the Dominion, and least of all about himself. I have a feeling that there is something really ugly and horrible in that man's life.”

“He lost his family.”

Vero stared into the distance. “In the burning of Tellzanur.” His tone was subdued.

“That sounds pretty ugly and horrible to me.”

“Yes. You may be right. But I think there's more. I just don't feel he lies . . . well, not very much. Not like Betafor, who doesn't know a truth from a lie.”

“That's something, I suppose. But look, I'm alarmed about being on the contact team, because of this baziliarch. Shouldn't I resign?”

“No. We need you there. And your absence or withdrawal now would be suspicious.”

“But I know about Azeras and Betafor.”

“That's too late to change. Anyway the sarudar says he doesn't think they will dare use the baziliarch while they're trying to be nice. People know when their minds are searched. The risk will be when diplomacy ends. You'll be safe till then.”