The Summer Queen (126 page)

“What is it, Tammis?” Moon said softly.

He looked up at her. “I just wondered,” he said, almost
inaudibly, “if Da would have gone after me.” He lifted his flute, coming toward
the place where BZ sat now in front of the unresponding terminal. Tammis played
a brief run of notes on the flute; there was no change. He tried another, and
another. At last, after he had tried nearly a dozen, the empty face of the port
suddenly came alive. The program opened its invisible gates, and data began to
pour through.

BZ grinned in triumph, shared his smile for a moment with
the boy standing beside him. He looked back at the screen, taking in its flood
of symbols, using the techniques Survey had taught him to absorb a visual
datafeed almost as rapidly as a direct link. The mersong as strands of fugue ...

Music filled the air around him, as Sparks’s program reproduced
the strands of a musical web and began to interweave them, while the
mathematical equations defining the ever-changing ratios of sounds to one
another filled the visuals, expressing relationships within the system. BZ sat,
rapt, only vaguely aware of Moon and Tammis behind him as they spoke softly
together, and then moved away to go on searching through Sparks’s possessions.

When he had witnessed the entire contents of the file, he requested
it again, haunted by its configurations. Sparks had found a clue, he was sure
of it ... the mathematical structure of the music was a code, one that
resonated in some part of his own brain, in the nonverbal depths of thought
where the root of all music and mathematical perception lay.

He watched and listened to the webs of relationship form
again on the screen, in the air, inside his mind; beginning to feel a kind of
awe take hold of him at the subtle artistry of their creator. And he realized,
suddenly, watching the screen, that the music itself was only a carrier: the
mathematical information it contained was the critical element. And he knew the
significance of those equations, those relationships flashing across the screen
... he had worked every day for months on similar problems with Reede Kullervo,
as they struggled to bring the stardrive plasma under control. The mathematics
within the music had to do with the manipulation of smartmatter.

But there were gaping holes in the logic flow, where critical
elements had been lost, destroyed along with the mersongs that had contained
them. He saw Sparks’s tentative attempts to reconstruct the missing elements—the
valiant efforts of an intelligent, resourceful mind that lacked the formal
mathematical and programming experience to complete the revelation it had
begun. An admiration for the accomplishments of Sparks Dawntreader that was not
at all grudging filled him. He queried the computer, gave it another set of
commands; sending the data into his own computer system with instructions to
begin a series of transformational functions on it, to ask it the right
questions ...

“You’ve found something,” Moon said, behind him, and he became
aware suddenly that she and Tammis had been standing there, watching him watch
the screen for some time. “What is it?”

He looked up at them, letting her see the admiration still
in his eyes. “Sparks found it,” he said. “The key to the mersong. It’s based in
fugue theory—” He gestured at the book lying on the desk next to him. “The
fabric of the music has mathematical equations woven into it. There is a pure
mathematics to music, at the most basic level,” he said, seeing the
uncomprehending looks on their faces. “Every tone lies in a precise, unchanging
relationship to all others. Complex mathematical relationships can be expressed
within the structure of a musical composition like a fugue, as if it were a
sort of code. Sparks has laid out the basic structures—it’s all here. It deals
with smartmatter manipulation. I’ve instructed my own computer system to run a
program on it that should be able to recreate the missing segments, and then
maybe we’ll finally be able to see what problem it exists to solve ....” He
looked back at the screen, as the haunting sounds of the mers’ calling voices, synthesized
but uncannily realistic, filled the air around him.

“You already know the answer,” Moon murmured, her voice
barely audible above the music.

He turned to look up at her, saw her eyes shining with astonished
vision. “What ... ?”

“The mers are coming toward the city,” she said. “There can
be only one reason—” She broke off, her eyes finishing the thought her lips
could not speak. It needs them.

His mouth fell open, as a circuit closed suddenly inside his
brain, filling his mind with the light of revelation. “Smartmatter status
maintenance ...” he whispered. “Yes, by all the gods!” It needs them. He
stumbled up out of his seat and took her in his arms. “It fits together!”

“What are you talking about?” Tammis asked. BZ looked at
him, as Moon did, with useless apology. “We can’t explain it to you, Tammis,”
Moon said, looking down. “Not yet.”

“But you think it will help Ariele?” he asked.

She looked back at BZ, and now it was her doubt and sudden
desolation that were reflected in his own face. “I don’t know,” he said at
last. “We have to believe it will.”

Moon shook off her mood, letting him go as she faced Tammis
again. “It’s late .... Go home to Merovy, and give her my congratulations, and
my love. “She smiled; the smile stopped. “But don’t tell her what we did here
today, or why. Don’t tell anyone; please, Tammis.”

He nodded, his face intent. He embraced her one last time,
in farewell.

“Thank you for your help,” BZ said, as the boy looked at
him.

Tammis nodded again. “And thank you for yours,” he said, his
voice husky. He turned away, starting toward the door.

Moon watched him go, with a forlorn, wondering expression. “Lady
bless them,” she said, almost absently. She sighed, closing her eyes. “They say
... they say the Mother loves children above all else ....” Her voice faded. “Lady
help them all: my children, and Yours.” She opened her eyes again; but there
was no hope in them. She looked up at him. “Why did Tammis thank you?”

BZ shrugged. “For being an outside observer,” he said, glancing
away. He put his arms around her, because that at least was once again his
right. He smiled down at her suddenly, ruefully. “I’m too young to be a
grandfather,” he said.

She looked back at him, with a smile as sudden and as bittersweet.
“Not on this world,” she said. “You’re on Tiamat now, you know.” She looked
down again. “Stay with me tonight, BZ.” She pressed her face against the cloth
of his jacket.

He nodded, knowing that he should not, but knowing that he
could no more bear to spend this night alone with his hope and his fears than
she could.

She led him through the cold, rococo halls of the palace to
her bedroom, neither of them having any appetite for a late supper. He lay down
beside her in the bed, sighing as the bird-down mattress embraced him like his
lover’s arms. Having no strength left for lovemaking, either, they only held
each other, for a long time, saying little, trying to think of even less. Moon
left a lamp burning on their bedside table, unable to bear the oppressive power
of utter darkness.

She slept, finally, finding peace in his arms. And watching
over her, with the breathing warmth of her body pressed close against his own,
he felt his own eyes grow heavy, and at last he slept.

He did not know whether it was hours or only minutes later when
the doors of the room burst open with an unceremonious crash, jolting him
awake. He sat up in bed, sleep-fogged and befuddled. Moon pushed up onto her elbow
beside him, pulling the covers over her breasts as they confronted half a dozen
men in blue Police uniforms.

“Vhanu—?” BZ said incredulously, shielding his eyes with his
arm as the lights came up in the room. “What the hell are you doing here? What
in the name of a thousand gods is the meaning of this!”

Vhanu stood looking down at them where they lay, side by
side. What Gundhalinu saw then in the eyes of his former friend—the pity, the
unforgiving censure, the desperate resolve—were all the answer he needed. Vhanu
straightened his shoulders as if he were about to salute, but he did not. “Justice
Gundhalinu, I have come to arrest you.”

“On what charges?” BZ asked, still not entirely certain that
he was not having a nightmare.

Vhanu’s mouth pulled down. “It is my ... difficult and
painful duty, Justice, to inform you that you are charged with treason.”

Moon followed the taciturn officer through the blur of
motion that was the interior of Police headquarters, staring straight ahead at
his uniformed back. All around her she sensed the surprise spreading outward,
like the wash from a ship’s prow—the gossip, the speculation, the curious
stares: It’s the Queen. She’s come to see Gundhalinu, come to see her lover.
Caught them bare-assed together, committing treasonable acts ... Gundhalinu the
hero, Gundhalinu the traitor: What does the Mother lovers’ Queen want with him
now that he’s locked up? ...

She had asked the duty sergeant to let her see Chief Justice
Gundhalinu. He had shaken his head and said, “No one is permitted to see the
prisoner.” The prisoner. No indication of what he had been, until yesterday;
what he had meant to his people, all he had done for the Hegemony. She had
demanded to see the Chief Inspector. He had handed her over to one of his
officers, and sent her through this gauntlet of smirking gossip.

She passed through it, scarcely even registering the
unwanted attention, her mind preoccupied with losses and questions of such
magnitude that the mockery of the strangers surrounding her was reduced to the
meaningless noise that it was; until the voices began to fall silent, as if
they realized it too, and she passed beyond them.

“The Queen to see you, ma’am.” Her guide showed her into an
office, saluted, and left, shutting the door behind him.

Jerusha PalaThion looked up at her in surprise, over an armload
of supplies. Jerusha dropped the supplies unceremoniously into an empty crate.

Moon hesitated, half-frowning. “What are you doing?” she
said. There were other boxes piled up beside the desk/terminal, already filled;
the shelves and storage units of the office were virtually empty.

Tm clearing out my desk,” Jerusha answered, her voice heavy
with irony. “The Commander of Police informed me this morning that he had
charged BZ with treason, and declared martial law. And that after today is over
I will no longer be serving as Chief Inspector.”

“Lady’s Tits!” Moon struck the closed door with her fist, as
the memory of last night filled her. She sagged against the ancient, unyielding
surface, suddenly strengthless. “Damn him! May he rot in any hell he chooses.”
She looked up again, to find complete agreement in the other woman’s eyes. “Have
you seen BZ—have you spoken with him? Is he all right?”

Jerusha shook her head. “Vhanu won’t let anyone near him;
particularly not anyone who might be tempted to help him. By the Boatman, I’ve
tried.” She sat down in her desk chair, resting her forehead on her hands.

Moon crossed the room. “You said he’s declared martial law?
What gives him that right?”

“He’s second in the power structure after the Chief Justice.
With BZ stripped of his office, Vhanu’s in charge. He’s calling it a state of
emergency, until he receives orders from the Central Committee, or they send a
new Chief Justice. It basically empowers him to do anything.” Jerusha’s face
turned grim.

“And if I object—?” Moon broke off, turning as the office
door opened suddenly behind her.

“Then I have the power to enforce my decisions,” the Commander
of Police said evenly. He made a small, correct bow. “Lady.” He looked away
from her, toward Jerusha. Jerusha rose from her seat, and saluted stiffly. He returned
the salute, expressionless.

Moon felt her face burn. “Are you threatening to attack my
people?” she said, shaken by anger.

“Not unless you give me cause.” His eyes were as
impenetrable as obsidian.

“And what do you mean by that?” She stood away from the
desk, her arms rigidly at her sides.

“I intend to resume hunting the mers. If you or your people
give me trouble over it, I will retaliate. Needless to say, your people will be
the ones on the losing end of any conflict, not the Hegemony.”

“Is this what ‘autonomy’ means to the Hegemony, then?” Moon
said. “That you don’t interfere in our internal affairs, unless you feel like
it? Unless we don’t put your right to exploit our world before our culture and
beliefs or even the right of the mers—who have more claim to this world than
any of us—simply to live and not die?”

“A state of emergency, and martial law, are justified in a
situation of extreme civil unrest or strife,” Vhanu said tonelessly. “Our
purpose here is to keep the peace.”

“I have Seen told thai your people value honor above everything
else. I see that I was misinformed,” Moon murmured. She felt more than heard
Jerusha draw a sudden breath; saw Vhanu’s eyes flicker, and knew that she had
stung him.

Vhanu’s mouth thinned. “I would walk softly, if I were you,
Lady. Your much-prized autonomy is the only thing that protects you from the
same charges I brought against the Chief Justice.”

She flushed. “You had no right—”

“I had no right—?” His hand jerked, fisted. “You had no
right to seduce him, to use your body to make him give you anything you wanted!
He had no right, to turn his back on his own people! He had no right to be so
weak. Someone had to stop this madness, before he ruined everything we had
here. I was his best friend, damn you—!” A tremor shook him, as if he had to
restrain himself from laying hands on her.

“But only for as long as he gave you everything you wanted,”
she said, softly, coldly. “He loves me, and I love him. But he made the choices
he did not because he is my lover, but because he is an honorable man.”