Pathspace: The Space of Paths (19 page)

Xander began to pace back and forth. “Right
under our noses? But how could he be Texan? The Honcho in a sort of
partnership with the TCC, the Texan Catholic Church, and they're
dead set against wizards or anything to do with the Tourists.”

“
I'm just telling you what
I heard. Are you just going to pace around and eat that apple? We
have to get word to the Governor!”

“
Quiet, please. I need to
think. We need to anticipate his actions, not just react to them.
How is he planning to get them out? I could sneak in and out of
here any time I wanted to. But take a whole group of prisoners out
with me? Probably more than I could manage without being seen.
Either he's better than me, or he's thought of something I
haven't.”

“
Are there wizards better
than you?”

Xander exhaled. “Anything is possible. I'm
good, son, but when you become a wizard, never make the mistake of
assuming there couldn't be someone better than you. For all I know,
there's tricks I haven't even thought of. If this guy knows
invisibility, then we have only one chance to stop them. Once he
gets 'em outside, we might never see them again.”

“
Before you stop to make a
plan, we need to keep them bottled up in that cell. One of us needs
to guard them, and that's you, wizard. You need to get down there,
now, before this guy locates the key to that cell.”

Xander was moving toward the door as Lester
was speaking, but at this, he halted in his tracks. “He said he was
looking for the key? Then maybe he's not as good as I thought.”

Lester stared at him. “Why not?”

“
Because a real wizard
wouldn't need a key,” Xander told him. “All ordinary locks are just
collections of moving parts. And anything that can move can be
controlled with pathspace.”

“
How?”

“
Because it's already in
motion.” He picked up another apple and held it in front of Lester.
“The Earth like a ball, spinning and also moving in a circle around
the Sun. That means the Earth and everything on it, every rock and
blade of grass, is
already
moving.
Already on a path. Once you can control pathspace, you can change
that path, influence it. And that means you can make things move.”
He released the apple and let it float back to the bowl on the
table.

Lester's mouth was open. He closed it.

“
Come on, let's move,”
said Xander. “You're right, there's no time for a lesson
now.”

It didn't take him long to find the key. He
already knew where the keys to all the cells were kept, so he
simply walked into the guard room and pocketed all eight of them.
It was just barely past noon now. The watch had just changed, which
accounted for the absence of the room's usual occupant. That meant
he had maybe a few minutes before they noticed the keys were
missing from their drawer.

Strolling to the nearest staircase, he ran
up the stairs two at a time to the roof. He paused to catch his
breath. This was going to take some finesse.

Hollings was on duty on the roof. He turned
in surprise as he heard the footsteps behind him. “Hello, Mr.
Ludlow. What brings you all the way up here?”

Ludlow grinned. “A vice,” he said, pulling a
cigarette from a pocket. “One the Governor doesn't approve of.”
Then he pretended embarrassment. “Oh, dear, how rude of me. Would
you care for one? I always keep a couple rolled just in case.”

“
Sure.”

He handed it over, then patted his pockets
theatrically. “Oh damn, I forgot my everflame. Could you be us both
a favor and go see if they have one on the next floor down?”

Hollings hesitated. “I'm not supposed to
leave my post.”

Ludlow raised his eyebrows. “Oh come now,
it'll only take you a minute. I'll take your place and keep watch
for you until you get back. The watch just changed, after all. It's
not as if your replacement will come up here and find you missing.
Unless it takes you eight hours to fetch an everflame or a
candle.”

The guard shrugged. “You're right. I'll be
right back.”

Ludlow smiled, watching until Hollings was
safely inside the stairwell. These people were so trusting, it was
hardly a challenge at all to out-maneuver them.

Once the guard was gone, he picked up the
signaler and aimed it carefully, angling it so that it would
reflect the sun's light from the south to the east. Quickly, from a
skill born of secret practice, he flashed out a message.

After a moment, he saw the answering
flashes.

He replaced the instrument where he had
found it. After a minute Hollings reemerged from the stairwell, the
cigarette in his lips, its tip already glowing red as he
inhaled.

He took it out as he approached and held it
out. “Sorry about that. Howard wouldn't let me take the everflame
with him, so I started without you.”

“No worries, corporal,” said Ludlow,
touching the tip of his own cigarette to the glowing tip of the
other and inhaling to light his. “I would have done the same.”

Miss Gerloch clucked her tongue. “If you
insist on being late for your lessons, it would be better if the
reason was that you lost track of time studying.” She moved to a
different part of the map on the wall. “What do you know of this
region?”

“Europe,” said Aria. “The western part of
the Continent of Eurasia the early flounders of this continent came
from there, from old countries known as Spain, France, and
England.”

“All of them?” Miss Gerloch regarded her,
watching for the first hint of hesitation.

Aria sighed. “No, not all of them. When the
first settlers came across the ocean there were people here
already, the Amerinds. The were mistakenly called Indians because
Columbus had intended to discover a shorter route to the spices of
India.”

“And how did they get here?”

“Some may have floated across ocean currents
from the pacific, but most came across a land bridge that existed
during the last Ice Age. They came over from north eastern Asia, to
Alaska, then down the western coast of America.”

“You will no doubt be prepared to tell me
that most of them were killed by the expansion of the colonists
from the East, from Europe,” said Miss Gerloch. “Why?”

“Because the colonists wanted the land,” she
answered. “The farmers cut down the forests for farmland, and the
as the expansion continued westward, the ranchers displaced the
Amerinds and took their land for fields to graze their cattle, and
because of the valuable minerals like gold, copper, and oil under
the land.”

No,” said Miss Gerloch. “That's not what I
meant by 'why'. Why were the colonists from Europe able to do this?
How is it they were able to wrest the land away from the indigenous
peoples who knew it better, who had occupied it for at least a
thousand years?”

“Than maybe you should have asked 'how',”
said Aria. “The answer is technology. The locals had low tech based
on bone, skins, leather and wood. They used weapons like bows and
arrows and spears tipped with chipped points of stone. The invading
settlers came from a technology that was already using iron and
other metals, with steel knives, plows, and explosive-driven
projectile weapons. The outcome was inevitable. Those Amerinds that
were not absorbed by intermarriage were massacred by superior
weapons.”

“Can you guess why I am asking you these
things?” said Miss Gerloch.

“I have no idea,” said Aria. “This is all
ancient history. You might as well be asking me about the Trojan
War. I see no relevance at all.”

“When the Tourists came, they also had
superior technology,” said Miss Gerloch. “So tell me, why didn't
history repeat itself? Why didn't they take our planet? Why are we
still here?”

Aria shrugged. “The situation were not the
same,” she said.

Miss Gerloch locked eyes with her. “Why not?
This time, we were the primitives.”

“Because they didn't want our planet. All
they wanted was information, the total genetic catalog of our
planet. They didn't need metals or land, because they were a
space-inhabiting species. They could get all the metals and
volatiles like water and oxygen from asteroids and ice moons. The
one unique resource our planet has is its genetic database. And
they could probably have gotten most of it without our help, but it
was more efficient for them to trade with us for the genetic
sequences.”

“Tell me something,” her tutor asked
suddenly.
“How do we know they ever left?”

Aria gaped at her. “I...I don't know,” she
admitted. “It seems logical, since they stopped contacting us and
left orbit.”

“Oh, come now,” Miss Gerloch countered. “You
just told me they could get everything they needed in the Asteroid
belt. So why wouldn't they just stay there instead of leaving our
solar system?”

“They could have left some colonies behind.
But the prevailing view is that they would have left to seek other
planets full of genetic sequences to add to their collection.”

“Correct,” said Miss Gerloch. “That is the
view that prevailed. But do we have any actual evidence that any of
them really left the solar system? We do not. Have you ever
considered that they could be lurking out there in our own asteroid
belt, developing viruses and other bioweapons specifically
engineered to exploit weaknesses in our own genomes?”

“That sounds pretty paranoid, given that
they don't want our planet.”

“As far as we know. But maybe they just
didn't want to fight us for it. Maybe they were willing to wait
until they developed more efficient ways of removing us that would
avoid risking their own population.”

Aria pondered that, and was about to answer
when the door to the Map Room opened and her mother entered. “Take
a break, Miss Gerloch. I need to speak with my daughter.”

“Of course.” The tutor picked up her copy of
The Tourists
and glided out into the corridor.

She faced her mother. “Well this is a
surprise. What's up?”

“I'm told you went to the wizard's quarters
this morning,” said the Governor. “Apparently my guards were under
the impression that I sent you. We both know that isn't the case,
so why did you really go?”

Eek! If she admitted it had to do with the
prisoners, her mother would want to know how she even knew about
them. “I heard we captured some Texans,” she said. “The building is
buzzing with it. They say the Texans massacred some farmer and his
family.”

Her mother frowned. “That's true, but the
men were under orders
not
to gossip about it. The last thing
we need right now is a lynch mob howling for summary executions
instead of an orderly trial. Who did you hear this from?”

“It's not important,” Aria said quickly.
“The reason I went to see Xander was to ask is he had a magic for
telling truth from lies. I worried that with the threat of war
looming, your staff might try to talk you into using torture to get
at the truth quickly, and I wanted to offer you another
option.”

“I'm the first person you should have come
to,” the Governor said. “If you had, I could have assured you that
we don't use torture in Rado. It doesn't ensure the truth of
anything, often quite the opposite. A man in pain is liable to
agree with whatever you suggest, or to make up something if you
avoid leading questions. No one's getting tortured while I'm in
charge.” She closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them. “What
did he tell you?”

“Nothing. He wasn't there. But his
apprentice Lester was, and he's learned to make himself invisible.
So I snuck him into the outer room of the holding cell before my
lesson with Miss Gerloch. We managed to get him in before your men
brought the prisoners, so he might hear something useful when they
talk among themselves.”

“I see,” said the Governor. “I also see that
you and I are going to have a talk about proper procedures after
this is over. Did he learn anything useful?”

“I don't know. He's probably still there,
unable to open the door to leave without letting them know they're
being spied on.” Aria took a breath. “It's been a while. Would you
like me to go get him? I could pretend I walked in by mistake, and
leave the door ajar so he can follow me out.”

Her mother considered it. “You shouldn't
have done this without consulting me, but now that you have, yes,
go and fetch him, and bring him here without talking to anyone
else. No stopping to gossip. Is that clear?”

“Of course. I'll be back in a few minutes,”
she said, and fled, counting herself lucky that had gone better
than she had expected.

The Honcho stood on the balcony, gazing
toward the northeast. The day was calm, but he was not.
Brutus
should have reported in by now.
The man could be troublesome,
but his loyalty was solid. Why hadn't he rendezvoused with the
signalmen who were out there waiting to relay his reports back?

He wished he were out there, out in the
field, like the old days, when his father was Honcho. He envied the
Runt his time of relative independence before the responsibility of
rule was his to bear. But why hadn't they reported in?

He decided to do something about it.
Whirling, he strode off the balcony and our the door to the
staircase. As he began to descend into the depth of the building,
he cursed the Ancients and their stupid shortsighted greed.
You
contemptible fools!
You had it all, an advanced technology,
instantaneous communications that circled the planet, machinery to
harvest crops, even machines to make the machines. And you threw it
away! Threw it away because of your obsession with alien trash. You
wanted all your fine machines to be replaced with magic tricks and
shortcuts, and what did it buy you? What?