The Algebraist Page 4

  But Fassin was already saying, 'The idea that his relentless positivism could ever produce feelings of negativity in others is a concept Sal's still struggling with. Sorry, Len. What?'

  'I was just saying—'

  'Yeah,' Taince muttered, 'get that goddam dirt-pinger on.'

  'All I mean,' Saluus said, waving one hand around and taking the craft still lower, even closer to the sable blur of ground. Taince made a tutting sound and reached over to tap a screen button; there was a pinging noise and the craft rose a few metres and began tracking the ground more smoothly. Sal glared at her but didn't turn the ground-avoidance device off as he continued, 'Is that we're still okay, we haven't been blasted yet, and now we have an opportunity to explore something we wouldn't be allowed to get anywhere near normally. Right place, right time, perfect opportunity. What's not to be positive about there?'

  'You mean,' Fassin drawled, glancing skyward, 'aside from the unfortunate fact that some over-enthusiastic and doubtless deeply misunderstood Beyonders appear to be trying to turn us all into radioactive dust?'

  Nobody seemed to be listening. Fassin made a show of stifling a yawn - nobody noticed that, either - and leaned back against the leather seat, stretching his left arm across the top of the couch in the general direction of Ilen Deste (still with her head against the canopy, staring as though hypnotised at the near-featureless sands speeding by beneath). He tried to look at least unconcerned and preferably bored. In fact, of course, he felt completely terrified, and more than a little helpless.

  Sal and Taince were the dynamic couple in this group: Saluus the pilot, the dashing, handsome, headstrong but undeniably gifted (and, Fassin thought, just plain lucky) heir to a vast commercial empire, the unabashed son of a fabulously rich, buccaneering father. Greedboy, Fassin had christened Sal in their first year at college, a term that their mutual friends had only used behind the youth's back until he got wind of it and adopted it enthusiastically as his personally approved tag. And Taince, co-pilot, navigator and comms supremo, as ever the knowing, abrasive commentator of the group (Fassin saw himself as the knowing, sarcastic commentator). Officer-in-Training Taince Yarabokin as she was supposed to be known now. Taince, the Milgirl - another of Fassin's coinings - had top-percentiled her college classes but had already been halfway to being an officer in the Navarchy Military through Reservist credits gleaned after hours, at weekends and on vaca­tions, even before she'd taken a short degree and gone to Military Academy for her final year; fast-tracked from pre-induction, bumped from years One to Two midway through term and rumoured, even at such an almost unprecedentedly early stage, to be in contention for a chance later to join the Summed Fleet, the directly Culmina-controlled overarching ultra-power of the whole galaxy. In other words as seemingly surely destined for martial eminence as Sal was scheduled for commercial prodigiousness.

  They'd both been out-system, too, making the journey to the Ulubis-system portal at Sepekte's trailing Lagrange point for the transition to Zenerre and the Complex, the network of wormholes threading the galaxy like a throw of dark lace beneath the tiny scattered lights of suns. Saluus's father had taken him on a Grand Tour on his long vacation last year, girdling the middle galaxy, visiting all the great accessible sites, encountering some of the more outré alien species, bringing back souvenirs. Taince had been to fewer but in some cases further places, courtesy of the Navarchy, its exercises and distributed specialist teaching facilities. They were the only two of their year to have travelled so widely, putting them in a little bubble of exoticism all by themselves.

  Fassin had often thought that if his young life was to be tragically cut short before he'd even decided what he wanted to do with it (join the family firm and become a Seer? . . . Or something else?), it would very likely be because of these two, probably when they were each trying to outdo the other in daring or élan or sheer outrageous showing-off in front of their long-suffering friends. Sometimes he succeeded in persuading himself that he didn't particularly care if he did die anyway, that he'd already seen enough of life and love and all the crassness and stupidities of people and reality and would almost prefer to die a sudden, young, savagely beautiful death, with his body and mind as yet unspoiled and fresh and everything - as older relations still insisted on telling him - before him.

  Though it would be a pity if Ilen - achingly beautiful, wanly pale, shamelessly blonde, effortlessly academically accom­plished, bizarrely un-self-assured and insecure Ilen - had to perish in the wreck too, Fassin thought. Especially before they had fulfilled what he kept telling her - and what, frustratingly, he even sincerely believed - was their destiny, and established between the two of them some sort of meaningful but intense physical relationship. At the moment, though - head craned out over the side of the flier, nuzzling the canopy - it looked like the girl was thinking about throwing up.

  Fassin looked away and attempted to distract himself from thoughts of imminent death and probably all too non-imminent sex by staring at the starry sweep emerging from the false horizon of Nasqueron's shadowy, departing bulk and the quickly darkening sky being revealed beyond. Another burst of aurora activity sent shimmering shawls of light across the heavens, briefly fading out the stars.

  Ilen was looking in the opposite direction. 'What's that smoke?' she cried, pointing beyond the half-collapsed nose of the fallen ship, where a tall, ragged strand of dark grey smoke leaned away from the breeze.

  Taince glanced up and muttered something, then busied herself with the comms unit controls. The rest looked. Sal nodded. 'Probably the guard drone that got zapped earlier,' he said, though sounding uncertain.

  The speakers crackled and a calm female voice said, '—lier two-two-niner . . . —sition? —ave you . . . —seven-five-three . . . —outh of Prohibited Area Ei— —peat you are now or wi-- -- ortly be off-grid . . . —firm your . . .'

  Taince Yarabokin leaned closer to the comms unit. 'This is flier two-two-nine, we have no place safe to put down under cover as advised so we are making maximum speed at minimum altitude towards—'

  Saluus Kehar reached over with one coppery-gold hand and clicked the comms unit off.

  'Fuck you!' Taince said, slapping his hand away even as it went back to the flier's control yoke.

  'Taince, really,' Sal said, shaking his head but keeping his gaze on the rapidly approaching ship ruins, 'you don't have to tell them.'

  'Cretin,' Taince breathed. She switched the comms back on. 'Yes, see previous comment,' Fassin said, shaking his head. 'Will you leave that alone?' Sal said, trying and failing to turn the comms unit off again as Taince searched for a working channel and kept slapping his hand away. (Fassin was about to say something to the effect that she was better practised at this form of behaviour than he'd ever have assumed. Then thought the better of it.) 'Look,' Sal said, 'I'm ordering you, Taince; leave the damn thing off. Who does this flier belong to, anyway?'

  'Your dad?' Fassin suggested. Sal glanced back at him, reproachful. Fassin nodded forwards at the swiftly enlarging wreck of the ship. 'Eyes ahead.'

  Sal turned back. I'm ordering you, thought Fassin, with a sneer. Saluus, really. Had he used that form of words because Taince was in the military and he thought she'd just obey anything anybody called an order, even if it came from a civilian, or because he thought he could start throwing his dynastic weight around already? He was surprised that Taince hadn't laughed in Sal's face.

  Oh well, they weren't innocents any more, Fassin reminded himself, and the more you learned about the world, the galaxy and the Age they were growing up within, the more you realised it was all about hierarchy, about ranking and seniority and pecking order, from well, well below where they were all the way up to gloriously unseeable alien heights. Really they were like lab mice growing up together, rough-and-tumbling in the cage, learning their position in the litter, testing their own and the others' abilities and weaknesses, working on their moves and strategies for later life, discovering how much leeway they might have or be gran
ted as adults, mapping out the space for their dreams.

  Taince snorted. 'Probably not even daddy's car, probably not even a company flier, more likely some complicated sale-and-leaseback deal and it's owned by an off-planet, tax-opaque semi­automatic front company.' She growled and slapped the unresponding comms unit.

  Sal shook his head. 'Such cynicism in the young,' he said, then looked down at the butterfly shape of the control yoke. 'Hey, this is vibrating! What—?'

  Taince nodded at the ship ruins, now towering over them. 'Proximity warning, ace. You might want to slow down, or peel and scrub.'

  'How can you talk about exfoliating at a time like this?' Sal said, grinning. Taince punched his thigh. 'Ow! That's assault,' he said, pretending outrage. ‘I may sue.' She punched him again. He laughed, throttled back and air-braked, pushing them all forward against their restraints, until the little flier was down to about ten metres per second.

  They passed into the shadow of the giant ship.

  •

  'Fassin Taak,' Major-Domo Verpych said, 'what trouble have you landed us in now?' They were hurrying down a wide, windowless passageway under the centre of the house. Before Fassin could reply, Verpych nodded at a side corridor and strode towards it. 'This way.'

  Fassin lengthened his stride to keep up. 'I am as ignorant as you are, major-domo.'

  'Clearly your gift for understatement has not deserted you.'

  Fassin absorbed this and thought the better of replying. He assumed what he hoped looked like a tolerant smile, though when he glanced at Verpych the major-domo wasn't looking. Verpych was a small, thin but powerful-looking man with pale creamy skin, ubiquitously stubbled, giving his head the look of having been chiselled out of sandstone. He had a square, ever-clenched jaw and a perpetual frown. His head was shaved save for a single long ponytail that extended to his waist. He gripped the long obsidian staff which was his principal badge of office as though it was a dark snake he was trying to throttle one-handed. His uniform was the black of soot, like folded night.

  As Chief Seer-in-waiting Fassin was, supposedly, in a posi­tion of complete authority over Verpych. However, somehow the Sept's most senior servant still managed to make him feel like a child who'd only just escaped being discovered doing something extremely improper. Fassin could envisage the changeover when he finally assumed the post of Chief Seer being awkward for both of them.

  Verpych turned on his heel and walked straight at a large abstract mural hanging on one wall. He waved his staff at the painting as though pointing out some detail of the brushwork, and the whole painting disappeared into a slot in the floor. Verpych stepped up into a dimly lit corridor beyond. He didn't bother to look back as Fassin followed him, just said, 'Short cut.'

  Fassin glanced back as the painting rose out of the slot in the floor, cutting off most of the light in the corridor, which looked bare and unfinished after the passageway that they'd just left. He couldn't remember the last time he'd been in a utility corridor; probably when he'd been a child, exploring with his friends.

  They stopped at a lift, its door open, a chime sounding. A boy servant stood in the elevator car, holding a tray full of dirty glasses with one hand and using the other to jab at the car controls, a puzzled, frustrated expression on his face.

  'Get out, you idiot,' Verpych told the boy as he strode to the lift. 'It's being held for me.'

  The servant's eyes widened. He made spluttering noises and almost dropped the tray, hurrying to quit the elevator. Verpych tapped a button on the lift controls with the end of the staff, the doors closed and the lift - a plain metal box with a scuffed floor - descended.

  'Have you recovered from your unscheduled awakening, major-domo?' Fassin asked.

  'Entirely,' Verpych said crisply. 'Now then, Seer Taak. Assuming my comedy troupe of technicians haven't electro­cuted themselves or stared into any light cables to check that they're working and blinded themselves, we should be ready for you to hold your conversation with whatever it is they are beaming towards us about an hour before midnight. Is nine­teen o'clock convenient for you?'

  Fassin thought. 'Actually, the lady Jaal Tonderon and I might

  'The answer you are searching for is "Yes," Seer Taak,' Verpych said.

  Fassin frowned down at the older man. 'Then in that case why did you—?'

  'I was being polite.'

  'Ah. Of course. That cannot come easily.'

  'Quite the contrary. It is deference that one sometimes strug­gles with.'

  'Your efforts are appreciated, I'm sure.'

  'Why, I live for nothing else, young master.' Verpych smiled thinly.

  Fassin held the major-domo's gaze. 'Verpych, could I be in some sort of trouble?'

  The servant looked away. 'I have no idea, sir.' The lift began to slow. 'This emissarial projection is unprecedented in the history of Sept Bantrabal. I have talked to some other major-domos and nobody can recall such a thing. We had all thought such phenomena restricted to the Hierchon and his chums in the sys-cap. I've sent a message to a contact I have in the palace asking for any guidance or tips they might have. There has been no reply so far.'

  The lift doors opened and they stepped out; another corridor, quite warm, cut from naked rock, curving. The major-domo looked at Fassin with what might have been concern, even sympathy. 'An unprecedented event might be of a benign nature, Seer Taak.'

  Fassin hoped that he looked as sceptical as he felt. 'So what do I have to do?'

  'Present yourself to the Audience Chamber, top floor, at nine­teen. Preferably a little before.' They came to a Y-junction and a wider corridor, where red-uniformed technicians were trundling a pallet loaded with complicated-looking equipment towards a set of open double doors ahead.

  'I'd like Olmey to be there,' Fassin said. Tchayan Olmey had been Fassin's mentor and tutor in his youth, and - had she not become a pure academic in the household library, researching and teaching to the exclusion of undertaking any delves of her own - might have been the next familias and Chief Seer.

  'That will not be possible,' Verpych said, ushering Fassin through the double doors into the room beyond, which was hot, crowded with more red-uniformed technicians and dished, like a small theatre. Dozens of opened cabinets displayed intri­cate machinery, cables hung from the tall ceiling, snaked across the floor and disappeared into ducts in the walls. The place smelled of oil, singed plastic and sweat. Verpych stood at the top and rear of the room, watching the activity, shaking his head as two techs collided, spilling cable.

  'Why not?' Fassin asked. 'Olmey's here. And I rather wanted Uncle Slovius to be able to look in as well.'

  'That won't be possible either,' Verpych told Fassin. 'You and you alone have to talk to this thing.' 'I have no choice in this?' Fassin asked. 'Correct,' the major-domo said. 'None.' He returned his attention to the milling techs. One of the senior ones had approached to within a couple of metres, waiting for an oppor­tunity to speak.

  'But why not?' Fassin repeated, aware as soon as he said it that he was sounding like a small child.

  Verpych shook his head. 'I don't know. To the best of my knowledge there is no technical reason. Perhaps whatever is to be discussed is too sensitive for other ears.' He looked at the red-uniformed man waiting nearby. 'Master Technician Imming,' he said brightly. 'Working on the principle that what­ever can go wrong will, I have been weighing up the possi­bilities that our house automatics have rusted into a single unusable mass, crumbled to a fine powder or unexpectedly declared themselves sentient, necessitating the destruction by fusion warheads of our entire house, Sept and possibly planet. Which is it to be?'

  'Sir, we have encountered several problems,' the technician said slowly, his gaze flicking from Fassin to Verpych.

  'I do so hope the next word is "But" or "However",' Verpych said. He glanced at Fassin. 'A "Happily" would be too much to ask for, of course.'

  The technician continued. 'Thanks to our considerable efforts, sir, we believe we have the situation in h
and. I would hope that we ought to be ready by the appointed hour.'

  'We have the capacity to absorb all that is being transmitted?'

  'Just, sir.' Master Technician Imming gestured to the equip­ment on the pallet being manoeuvred through the double doors. 'We are using some spare capacity from the utility systems.'

  'Is there any indication of the nature of the subject contained within the signal?'

  'No, sir. It will remain in code until activated.'

  'Could we find out?'

  Imming looked pained. 'Not really, sir.'

  'Could we not try?'

  'That would be nearly impossible, in the time frame, major-domo. And illegal. Possibly dangerous.'

  'Seer Taak here is wondering what he is to be faced with. You can give him no clues?'

  Master Technician Imming made a small bow to Fassin. 'I'm afraid not, sir. Wish it were otherwise.'

  Verpych turned to Fassin. 'We seem unable to help you, Seer Taak. I am so sorry.'

  *

  'Whose was this, anyway?' Ilen asked, keeping her voice down. She looked up into the shadows high above. 'Who did it belong to?'

  They had swung in through the single great jagged fissure in the ship's left flank, flying up between two massively curved rib-struts, the sky above framed by the twisted, buckled ribs, the sections of the hull they had supported turned to dissoci­ated molecules and atoms seven millennia earlier. Sal had let the flier slip four hundred metres or so into the shadows under the intact forward portion of the hull - climbing gently all the time, following the mangled, buckled floors and collapsed bulkheads forming the terrain beneath them - until they could see only the slimmest sliver of violet, star-spattered sky outside and felt they ought to be safe from whatever spaceborne craft - presum­ably a Beyonder - had been attacking anything that moved or had recently been moving on the surface.

  Sal had set the little craft down. The flier came to rest in a slight hollow on a relatively level patch of blackened, minutely rippled material, behind what might have been the remains of a crumpled bulkhead. The way ahead into the rest of the ship's forward section was blocked fifty metres further in by the hanging, frozen-looking tatters of some twisted, iridescent mat­erial. Saluus had thought aloud about trying to nudge the flier through this suspended debris, but had been dissuaded.