The Summer Queen (99 page)

Reede’s image in his sight altered again, and this time he
felt it drive into the depths of his consciousness like a spearthrust. He knew,
this time, what that mutating vision meant, as he watched one face overlay the
other until what remained was neither Vanamoinen nor Reede Kullervo, but
something unrecognizable, blurred beyond recognition. Not one man, or the
other, anymore. The Smith: Part human being, part legend. He watched the image
bleed and dissolve until it was not anyone at all, until all that remained was
naked light, the blinding brilliance of a genius whose knowledge and insight
had been set free to solve some unknown task ....

Gundhalinu remembered tales of the Chained Gods of
Tsieh-pun, elemental spirits who, if freed, could take possession of a human
being, driving their unwilling avatar to feats of impossible courage or
unspeakable evil ....

Gods ... he thought again, and this time the image resonated
through his consciousness to the bottom of his soul. He tried to pull his
reeling thoughts together, suddenly not knowing which way to turn. “Query: Why?”

There was no answer. No test this time of his right to know;
no refusal of it. His mind stayed completely empty. He shook his head in
frustration and disbelief. Had Vanamoinen been brought back simply to help him
solve the riddle of Fire Lake, to give the stardrive back to the Hegemony—or to
its secret substructure? But he rejected that even as he thought it. Vanamoinen’s
soul had slept for millennia. It would require something far more significant
than the expansionist dreams of Kharemough to cause the sibyl mind to recall
him to the realtime plane, and subject him to this tormented existence, sharing
another man’s brain space. But still there was no answer.

“Query,” he murmured, after a long silence. “How was it
done? Smartmatter?” Again nothing happened in his mind.

“Query: Was this occurrence an accident—?” He pressed the
remote against his skin, beginning to wonder whether the link was defective.

No. He saw that clearly, suddenly. Vanamoinen’s return was
not an accident. But his mind told him nothing more: no confirmation or
explanation of why, out of all the possible choices, Reede Kullervo had been
the receptacle for Vanamoinen’s memories.

“Query: Am I restricted from knowing this?”

No answer. He swore in frustration, having no idea now
whether his source would not tell him, or could not. “Query: Is Reede Kullervo
on Tiomat now? What does he want? Tell me that much, for gods’ sakes—” The last
of it was born out of his own exasperation, more than any hope that he would
get an answer.

Affirmation. He was seeing visuals again: Reede here, in the
streets of Carbuncle. Gundhalinu saw him with the two men who had been with him
on Four; saw him arguing with a big Newhavenese ... saw the brand-scar on the
palm of his hand, the open eye staring back at him.

Gundhalinu swore aloud. He knew that brand—it marked the
property of the Source. Property, not an equal, or willing, partner. He had
seen that symbol often enough, when he had served on Tiamat before the
Departure. Thanin Jaakola had been here then, manipulating the ebb and flow of
his Hegemony-wide drug interests from Carbuncle, the closest thing the Eight
Worlds had had to a central stopover point. He had sold Arienrhod the virals
she had tried to use against her own people, in her final desperate attempt to
remain Queen. She had not gotten away with it ... but the Source had.

Now Gundhalinu understood how, and why: Jaakola the drug
boss had been only the exposed tip of an evil whose weight and depth he had
never suspected in his days as a Blue. Jaakola belonged to the Brotherhood at a
level so high it was uncertain how far his influence really reached. His
presence in the Hegemonic underworld was like a gravity well, drawing
everything and everyone who got near him down into his irresistible darkness.
Even his image in Gundhalinu’s mind was only darkness.

And now he had the Smith. Jaakola had won a power struggle
within the ranks of the Brotherhood ... had won Kullervo’s flawed brilliance,
and with it the new stardrive technology. He had wasted no time exploiting the
potential of either one. Reede was here on Tiamat for one reason: to do for the
water of life what he had done for the stardrive plasma.

The water of life ... Gundhalinu let his concentration
slide, wandering into his own speculations, considering the implications of
Kullervo’s presence here, forgetting that he had asked one more question—

Reede Kullervo appeared suddenly inside his thoughts, scattering
images like mice, and in his wild, translucent eyes Gundhalinu read a look that
he understood: a look he had seen once in the mirror .... What does he want?
had been the question. And the answer was Death.

Gundhalinu ripped the contact from his skin—put it back, as
suddenly. But there was no response at all. He remembered, too late, that
Kitaro had warned him he would have only one chance. The data was gone.

He got up, only to stand motionless in the center of the
room for a span of heartbeats. There seemed to be only one concrete thought in
his brain now, and it was entirely his own: Find him.

He would put Vhanu on it—But, no. Vhanu would want, justifiably,
to know everything; and Gundhalinu knew by now that he was not the kind of man
who could simply take a matter on faith. Vhanu would demand to know why
Kullervo could not be picked up openly, questioned and sentenced under the laws
of the Hegemony, like the criminal he was. But that was a solution that served
nothing, helped no one. Kullervo couldn’t simply be negated—he was too
valuable. If he could be converted ... Vanamoinen would choose to serve Order,
rather than Chaos: he would ally himself with the Golden Mean, given a choice.
If the Golden Mean was wise enough to give Kullervo a choice, as well .... But
Gundhalinu was not entirely certain that they were.

He frowned, still thinking as he moved toward the door.
Kitaro had come through on this information for him; he could ask her to search
for Kullervo, have Reede brought to him in secret, avoiding conventional Police
channels. He didn’t like doing it; didn’t like to create any kind of rift
between himself and Vhanu. But in this he had no choice.

He returned to the main hall, to find Vhanu still lost in
the headset’s sensory pleasures. He half smiled, knowing from experience how
hypnotically addictive they could be, although they were only emotionally
interactive, not like the neural taps in some of the gaming clubs. The lure of
familiar scenes from home was hard to resist ... and sometimes, the lure of the
strange was even harder to shake off. He remembered experiencing Tiamat in his
boyhood, carrying the exotic flavor of its scents in his head for days, hearing
echoes of its people’s musical speech; being haunted by a shimmering vision of
Carbuncle, the City in the North, viewed from the sea ....

Kitaro was leaning back in her seat, with one boot up on the
low table, engaged in what appeared to be a policy argument on trade restrictions
with an offworlder merchant. Gundhalinu was mildly surprised to find her still
in the same spot, until she looked up at him. She broke off her conversation,
sent the merchant scuttling with a word, and Gundhalinu realized that she had
been waiting for him. “Were all your questions answered for you?” she asked.

He smiled faintly. “The day all my questions have been answered
will be the day I die ... I hope. But it gave me enough to let me understand
how little I know about what’s really happening here.” He shrugged, and
explained to her what he needed done, glancing uncomfortably at Vhanu’s
oblivious presence.

Kitaro listened, her gaze steady and her face noncommittal. “I’ll
get on it right away, Justice,” she said. “Arranging the kind of meeting you require
will take time. Kullervo’s too deep in the Brotherhood’s quicksand to be easy
to reach.”

He nodded. “I understand. If you need assistance, I’ll tell
PalaThion to see that you get it. You can trust her.”

She glanced away as Tilhonne, the Minister of Communications,
approached them, trailed by Akroyalin and Sandrine. Tilhonne’s boyish face
shone with the eagerness of someone bearing news. He put his hands on Vhanu’s
headset, shutting off the feed as he came up behind Vhanu’s chair.

Vhanu jerked spasmodically and swore; he pulled off the headset,
glaring over his shoulder.

“This is something you’ll want to hear too,” Tilhonne said,
before he could begin to complain. Tilhonne looked at Gundhalinu again, with a
smile Gundhalinu read as unintentionally smug. “I’ve just received word from my
uncle that the Assembly will be paying its first official call on the new
Tiamat—”

Gundhalinu started. “When?” he said.

“The Assembly has only just returned to Kharemough. Their
ships will have to be fitted with the new stardrive units. The Central
Coordinating Committee estimates as little as half a year. They’re departing
from the usual itinerary—an acknowledg ment both of our status here, and the
importance of the new freedom and power the stardrive has given us.”

“And their eagerness to get hold of the water of life. By
the Boatman!” Gundhalinu muttered—a phrase, he realized absently, that he had
picked up from Jerusha PalaThion.

Tilhonne laughed. “Ye gods, BZ, you’d think I’d brought you
bad news. Come on, old man, accept it as a compliment!” He clapped Gundhalinu
on the shoulder.

“I’m flattered, truly,” Gundhalinu murmured, glancing at the
measured speculation on Vhanu’s face, and away again. “I was just considering
the implications.” The complications. His hands twitched restlessly at his
sides. “This is a majot event.”

“I hear the Tiamatans used to throw one hell of a party in
honor of the Prime Minister,” Sandrine said. “That sounds to me like a
tradition we should reinstate. We could use a little entertainment.”

“Within limits,” Gundhalinu said dryly.

“You mean the practice of sacrificing the Queen?” Vhanu
asked.

“Yes.” Gundhalinu looked away uncomfortably.

“Well, by my sainted ancestors,” Vhanu said, “it seems to me
that’s one very efficient way of effecting change. And wasn’t that the point of
it? Don’t they call it the Change?”

“If they’d thrown the Summer Queen into the sea when we came
back this time, we wouldn’t have had so damn much trouble over this mer-hunting
question,” Tilhonne drawled. “The Winters are already beginning to push for a
return to power. They want her out—”

“Who does?” Gundhalinu said, frowning. “Who’s been saying
that?”

Tilhonne shrugged. “Gods, I don’t remember names—they all
sound alike. But I’ve heard it from more than one Winter’s mouth.”

“Was one of them Kirard Set Wayaways?”

Tilhonne nodded. “Wayaways. Yes, he’s on the City Council,
isn’t he? Smart man, for a provincial. Ambitious. Knows which way the smoke is
blowing. He’s been in to see me several times, with this delegation or that, about
various local matters.”

“Yes, I know him,” Akroyalin said.

“He’s the one we met on the street a while back, isn’t he?”
Vhanu asked.

Gundhalinu nodded, tightlipped.

“Intelligent, yes, and well-informed. Maybe too
well-informed ...” Vhanu looked at Kitaro, and back at Gundhalinu. “Someone to
take seriously, in any case.” His eyes turned thoughtful.

“There is only one thing about this conversation that I want
taken seriously,” Gundhalinu said abruptly. “The subject of human sacrifice is
not to go any farther than these walls. Understood?”

They nodded, and shrugged, looking at him with varying degrees
of resignation and incomprehension.

“I wish you all a good-night, then.” Gundhalinu turned on
his heel and went out of the room. But the awareness followed him like a
shadow, that he had not heard the last of this, any more than he had heard the
last of Reede Kullervo.

Sparks Dawntreader made his way through the gaming hell
called Persipone’s, following Kirard Set Wayaways with his usual sense of
walking backward through time. There had been a Persipone”s Hell in Carbuncle
before the Departure, run by the Source; and he had had business with the
Source then, as he did now. Sometimes it seemed to him as if he had begun to
live his life in reverse, as if tomorrow had become yesterday, and his memories
had turned back into reality, while reality faded further and further into a
dream.

But no—He couldn’t let himself start seeing it that way. He
reached up, feeling the faint outline of the pendant he wore beneath his shirt;
wore always, as he had once worn the medallion that had belonged to his
offworlder father. It had a shape strikingly similar to the symbol above the
entrance of the Survey Hall that BZ Gundhalinu frequented, farther up the
Street—except that this one had a solii at its heart, one of the most valuable
gemstones in existence.

The resemblance was not a coincidence. He had learned that
fact, along with many other things, since he had become a member of the
Brotherhood—and of Survey. Gundhalinu had caused the local Survey Hall to
induct Tiamatan members; he had been one of the first of its new members, along
with Kirard Set. Those things had changed his life forever.

Once he had understood the existence of the Great Game, and
had become one of its players, he had felt his perception of the universe and
his place in it expand a thousandfold. He sensed the entropy going on at all
levels, the endless struggle between Order and Chaos—and how easily Chaos could
overcome Order with a single touch, no matter how the stars in their courses
and human beings in the course of their lives struggled to maintain their bearing.
Chaos had constantly driven a random finger into the motion of his own life,
destabilizing him at every turn. Now, at last, he had stopped struggling
against entropy’s flow, and had chosen to embrace it. At last he saw clearly,
even in the darkness.