Delays made Jahn nervous. After five days, Salbari had had time to respond—not only to Tdega’s strike and Jahn’s too-late warning, but also to Jahn’s retransmission after securing his position with Alun. New orders could be waiting at the Antaran embassy, but the embassy was surrounded by electronic interference.
So Jahn drove over on the sixth morning, wearing Residence Security reds snatched from a third-floor storeroom. This morning’s regular side-door embassy guard had fallen ill. It was nothing serious, merely a dose from Jahn’s emergency supplies that would mimic a twenty-four-hour virus. Jahn had then arranged a two-point substitution on Personnel’s files that left two employees each thinking the other had covered the regular man’s sick leave.
Alun had gone down to the kennels. Jahn had given him the morning off, supposedly so Jahn could travel upcountry—because his invented father needed temporary help on the farm. It was thin cover, but it would stand middle-security scrutiny, because Jahn had sent in a summons from off Residence grounds late last night.
He hoped to return in four hours, at first sunset, and erase all evidence of his alibis.
Retracting the maglev’s drive magnets, he parked it in a small lot alongside a stately white three-story building. The Ambassador and his staff remained indoors, imprisoned but provided with amenities, including an honor guard.
He strode to the side door, snapped off a salute to the Tdegan night watchman, and touched his ID to the other man’s reader. A green flash okayed the change of guard. Jahn pivoted into the man’s place. The watchman departed in his own maglev.
Now for the hard part. This guard post was watched. He couldn’t simply walk in. He reached inside the building with his inner sense and listened.
Outside on the street, bright morning light agreed with his time sense. This was the one time daily when it did. Mature deciduous trees lined the avenue. Three birds flitted around a nearby branch, squawking. The odor of someone’s breakfast drifted up the street.
He kept listening.
His vigil lasted twenty minutes. Finally, someone approached inside. Jahn recognized the Ambassador himself, passing the side door on his way down an inner stairway. Shutting his eyes, Jahn pushed himself fully alert. He got a nexus grip on the Ambassador and tried to panic him.
It worked. The white door flew open, and a tall man with a full head of silvery-gray hair appeared in the doorway. Jahn felt the Ambassador recognize him, and the other man kept his wits admirably. “Please come inside for a moment. My aide is choking,” the Ambassador exclaimed.
Jahn pushed through the door. The Ambassador shut it. Jahn stood on a landing in the middle of a flight of wooden stairs.
“Emlin,” the Ambassador whispered. “No, Korsakov. Are you all right?”
How strange to hear that name. “Yes. Are you?”
“For the moment.”
“I found work inside the Residence. Do I have new orders? Is there anything I can do for you?”
“I and my staff are secure for the moment. We received a tightbeam transmission, but we’ve had no way to contact you—”
“I know. Have you mnemed or printed it? I can only stay inside for a minute. Mnemed would be safer.”
The Ambassador trotted away downstairs and returned quickly. “Here,” he said, panting.
Jahn pocketed a portable mneme and hurried out to finish his shift.
Safely back inside Alun’s suite, after filing an online report on the “choking” incident under another employee’s name, he relaxed on his bed and keyed the mneme for playback. His new orders would’ve been programmed by another empath onto Jahn’s inner frequency of deepest relaxation, modulated for Gate-to-Gate transmission, and then transcribed by the embassy’s powerful transceivers back to their original format. As Jahn lay listening, he did not hear words. He simply understood new information.
The Concord requested specs for the ships under construction in orbit, which came as no surprise. He already had some data.
Salbari also requested any information that might turn public opinion—on Antar, Tdega, and the other worlds—against Gamal Casimir’s drive toward dissolving the Concord. Analysts interpreted Gamal’s actions as early steps toward subverting other worlds into his new Tdegan Hegemony.
The Concord also needed background information on any members of the Casimir family who might inherit power if Gamal and Bellik fell.
Was he being set up as an assassin? That had never been part of his assignment, but all the rules had changed when Tdega opened war. Jahn hoped that he never received such an order, but he might save many other lives—possibly including his own family’s—by carrying it out if it came.
More new thoughts drifted into his mind. He should keep working with Alun, nurturing Alun’s regrowth back into old mental patterns. Alun had shown promise, signs of cooperating with the Concord. Salbari suggested a medication that regenerated damaged nerve tissue.
The tenor of new knowledge changed. Unexpectedly, he sensed that Vananda Hadley missed him. He would accomplish nothing unless he maintained precautions for his own safety.
Yes, Mother. Jahn smiled. She must have taken advantage of her Salbari connections and contributed to the transmission.
That seemed to be all. He opened his eyes. His reply would include the odd sensation he’d felt in Osun Zavijavah’s presence. Nothing like it had been mentioned in training, and empaths were always ordered to report new phenomena. Athis Pallaton had issued that directive.
But he must prioritize. First: who stood to inherit authority here?
Later that afternoon, he put Alun to work on a printout and donned his view-glasses. He found the Casimir home records without difficulty and scrolled through the roster. Old Donson, whom he had met rambling the halls, had been Head Regent for forty-eight years. Donson no longer remembered current events—Jahn had synched deeply with the old man and come up with a wealth of outdated information. Here, he found a list of early accomplishments. Donson had materially supported the drive to colonize the other Concord worlds, but at the same time, he had maintained a predominantly independent Tdegan economy. In several of Donson’s inventive economic institutions, such as Central Credit of Tdega, Jahn spotted details that now fed the discord between Tdega and other Concord worlds. Central Credit offered incentives for independent production and local investment. Apparently Donson hadn’t known his reforms would punish those who wished to purchase out-system.
Or had he?
Donson had passed authority—although not his title—to his only son Aeternum when Aeternum turned forty-five. Evidently Aeternum had considered secession for years. Jahn spotted hints in the way Aeternum had molded Bkellan University’s historical records into an oddly skewed account that implied Tdega had always dominated the Concord.
It made a fascinating story, written in vague language that required information-flow training to interpret, but Jahn had that training.
This shed light on the Tdegan mind-set. Keeping an eye on Alun, who sat engrossed in his work at another table, Jahn reached toward the floor. He had slipped off his shoes in his bedroom, dropped his smallest mneme unit into a shoe, and carried it out. Now he loaded it with this data.
He tucked the mneme back into his shoe and kept reading for potential heirs.
Aeternum had three offspring. Eldest son: Hutton Casimir, destined for despotism. Beginning his first year at Bkellan University, Hutton had taken the presidency of every organization he joined. Jahn shook his head. He’d known people who excelled at intimidation and manipulation. Hutton fathered two sons, Bellik and Alun. Hutton had been assassinated at forty-two. Gamal’s doing? Maybe in self-defense. Perhaps trying to survive Hutton’s paranoid suspicions made Gamal ruthless.
Jahn skipped Gamal’s long entry for the moment, intending to return and read all its hypertext. He scrolled down to see what the record showed about Aeternum’s third child.
He’d had a daughter, Evadne Casimir Tambor. She’d produced four children and left Bkellan. Her husband owned rich backcountry holdings. Jahn guessed she had left to raise her children somewhere safe. She seemed wiser than either of her brothers.
The Tdegan attitude toward women perplexed him. Maybe his vision was skewed, since he’d been raised by one of the most talented women on Antar, but he had no trouble respecting talented women or men. Vananda Hadley—Mother—had taught him to respect his heritage and its responsibilities. She had admitted only once how deeply it hurt when Jerone Emlin abandoned her because she was “too heavy a load to handle.”
Vananda Hadley … a load to be handled? That label insulted not only Vananda but her Creator.
Evadne Casimir Tambor’s three male children were potential heirs if Bellik and Gamal vanished, according to the Concord’s inheritance system. Their names would go onto the mneme.
He scrolled back to Gamal’s entry. Gamal’s Bkellan University record showed a long struggle for barely moderate evaluations. He had joined few organizations and worked single-mindedly. Married young to an heiress, who gave him five children. Danza and Gonsalve, the eldest pair, had been convicted of poisoning their uncle, Hutton Casimir, and they were executed.
The children had done it?
Maybe. Jahn scratched his chin. Hutton’s death had boosted Gamal into position to inherit power, Bellik and Alun being too young at the time. Jahn couldn’t help wondering whether Gamal encouraged the assassination. Hutton probably had made life miserable for Gamal. For all of them.
But that was only speculation. He read on.
Gamal Casimir’s middle son Siah, recently gone into exile, had studied political science, pleased his instructors, and appeared devoted to religious activities. Another potential heir, and one who appeared somewhat normal.
Gamal’s last two children, both daughters, had no University record. Evidently, both died young. The youngest, Ora, had even died on the same date as their mother Joyan. It actually looked like a childbirth fatality.
Jahn whistled between his teeth. Was that possible in this century? He pointed at the screen and requested hypertext.
It was genuine death in childbirth. Gamal had taken his family to a country resort, where Joyan’s time had come unexpectedly—and quickly.
Shaking his head, Jahn scrolled backward again. Gamal’s second-youngest daughter had been named Luene. This child’s early school evaluations had been recorded for posterity, because they were superlative. The child had achieved fluency in three languages by the age of eleven. There, her record ended.
That was too tantalizing to ignore. He ran media and in-flo checks and found nothing for seven years back.
Frustrated, he shut down the terminal and slid off Alun’s view-glasses. Outside the suite’s window, the sky lightened. Soon it would be second dawn, time for the evening meal.
“How is that coming, Alun?”
“Oh, it’s coming. I’m just slow.”
Jahn sat down on the arm of an oversized chair. “Do you want to take a break?”
“No. I want to finish.”
He had to admire Alun’s dogged persistence. “Alun, do you remember somebody named Luene?”
Alun screwed up his face “Luene? I think I used to have a cousin named Luene.”
“What do you remember about her? What happened to her?”
Alun bowed his head, squeezed his eyes shut, and struggled visibly. “I think she died.”
Yes. Too many Casimirs had died. But why? Who could have perceived such a young girl as a threat? Hutton? “What happened?”
“I don’t remember.”
Naturally. Jahn shrugged. “It may not be important. I’m going out for a minute, though.” He glanced aside. “Stay away from that window.”
Alun laughed. “Don’t worry about that!”
Jahn hid the mneme and put his shoes on. He strolled out into the hallway. Rich carpet lay underfoot, and the wall coverings’ color changes still fascinated him. Around the corner stood a bored-looking Security guard.
Several minutes of small talk later, when he sensed he had the guard’s confidence—and the guard’s inner frequency—he slipped into synchrony and said, “Seems like it’s been forever since we heard anything on young Luene.”
The guard glanced at him sharply, slightly alerted. “We don’t need to hear anything on Luene now. Anyway, that excuse died years ago.”
Baffled, Jahn quickly probed through the guard’s schema of Luene.
He came up wealthy. A group of Antaran educators—fresh from Nuris University—had arrived at Bkellan, claiming to offer advanced schooling to a small number of exceptionally gifted children. Making a grand gesture of cooperation, Gamal Casimir enrolled the brilliant Luene. Eight months later, the researchers disappeared with all ten children. This guard recalled scathing excoriations that Casimir sent to the Concord, but the Concord was unable to find any of the children.
Jahn was stumped. “Strange, how Antar never even acknowledged the matter,” he said. Antarans had never heard of it.
“I think we received one message here at the Residence. A quiet formal apology from Nuris University.”
Jahn reached deeper, knowing now that he was in danger of detection. The guard hadn’t quite believed that the apology originated on Antar. Jahn didn’t either. He doubted that Nuris University had even heard of this incident. It had surely never sanctioned kidnapping. More questions came to mind, but he couldn’t ask them. The Tdegan guard had to think he’d been here all his life. He should know this.
But he also discovered that for several years the Casimirs had used Luene’s name in local news releases, subtly reminding the Tdegan people that Concord politicians were untrustworthy.
In light of that memory, the guard’s comment made sense. Casimir didn’t need the “excuse” of Luene anymore. Antar’s attempt to nationalize Tdegan resources had finally sparked the Tdegans’ desire to secede from the Concord, and it ignited the Casimir clan’s interplanetary ambitions.
If Jahn searched enough files, he’d probably find some record of a command erasing all references to Luene’s alleged abduction. Now that Casimir no longer needed to scandalize the Tdegan public, he probably preferred to forget her.
So what really happened to her? Had Gamal considered her a threat at eleven years old? Or had Hutton? When had Hutton died?
Jahn carefully terminated the conversation, got a cup of tea from the guard station dispenser, and strolled back into the suite. “Almost ready for supper, Alun?”
“Almost.”
“Take your time.”
This time he used the i-net leech he’d been issued for accessing data streams undetected. It had come from the Antaran embassy, and it resembled a Tdegan personal reader.
Careful not to issue any commands that would leave a record of leech use, he found the erasure command buried in a series of household requests. Someone wanted the alleged abduction forgotten, all right.
He pulled off Alun’s view-glasses and retrieved the mneme he’d loaded. He must send his fifth transmission pod tonight.
Working quickly, he transferred data off the mneme into his transceiver. Then he VTT-recorded the new data on Luene Casimir. Gamal Casimir’s plot to reorient the Concord might lose public support if Antar could prove that Luene Casimir was living somewhere, unharmed and happy to have escaped her family’s machinations. She would be eighteen now, and brilliant.
If she survived.
And the Concord would need to be able to conclusively prove her identity. Jahn searched the net until he found Luene’s personal locator frequency. He recorded that in his transceiver program, too. As he did, he reminded himself that PLs could be removed or altered.
A gene scan would have been the best ID he could send, but this family record did not include genetic data.
He rubbed his face. A visit to the private Residence clinic was in order.
He stashed his leech and transceiver, then packed his smallest mneme in a shoulder bag. From his emergency supplies, he dug out a palm-sized needler. He loaded three tiny darts into its firing chamber. Each would deliver a five-minute stun charge for a seventy-kilo person, longer if he or she were smaller. He ordered downstairs for dinner and spent the long daylit evening with Alun. By second sunset, he was running on caffeine and tomorrow’s energy.
He rode an elevator down to the office floor, where he peered up the hall for several seconds before hurrying toward the small clinic.
The door was open. A woman well under seventy kilos sat at a multinet terminal. She seemed absorbed in the murmuring hand-dance of data switching. Before she could look up, Jahn flicked the needler.
Her hands relaxed down to the surface, but she remained sitting erect, staring at space over the projector. This stun charge maintained muscle tension, and she would regain consciousness sitting in more or less the same position, with her eyes still open. Needler loads were time-limited to prevent ocular damage.
Cautiously he slipped her view-glasses off her nose and slid them onto his own. He reached around her shoulders, blanked her terminal, and traced data flow upstream to genetic records.
Luene Casimir’s had not been deleted. Jahn switched on the mneme. As chromosomal sequences paraded up the screen, he concentrated briefly on each one. Taking the complete scan required four and a half minutes while the woman sat blank-eyed. Hastily Jahn slid the woman’s view-glasses back over her ears and shut down the terminal. He’d experienced occasional power outages when he worked in the west wing. A power-down would be easy for the woman to dismiss, easier than it would be for him to try to retrace her path back to her previous screen.
He also raided a drug cabinet for the medicine Filip Salbari had recommended he give Alun. He slipped back out the door with seconds to spare.
Now he had information worth spending another pod on.
He returned from his countryside transmission trip to find Alun sitting up at the table in his bedroom. “What are you doing there?” Jahn exclaimed, casually dropping his shoulder bag in his own bedroom’s doorway. His bed looked wonderfully inviting.
“Just thinking. Where have you been?”
“Out in the country.”
“But it’s midnight,” Alun exclaimed. His stubby new queue stuck out at the nape of his neck. He tapped absently on the side of his multinet. “There’s nothing to see.”
“There are stars. And cool air.”
“I remember—” Alun said. He stopped.
“What?” Jahn stepped closer.
“Going outside,” Alun said in an awestruck tone. “Being very young, and going out one afternoon to play. It had just rained. The stars were very bright. It’s so vivid, Jahn.”
Jahn folded his hands and smiled encouragement. “Good, Alun. Let those memories come whenever you can. They’ll help you remember other things. What else comes back from that afternoon?”
Alun sat down on the nearest chair, a deep leathery one. He shut his eyes and drew several deep breaths. “Nothing, I guess. I wish there were more.”
“That’s all right. How about bed now?”
Alun rolled his eyes. “I’m not sleepy. Don’t you want to play a game or something?”
“Not tonight. Please, Alun. Go to bed.”
“I don’t want to go to bed. Not until you go to sleep too.”
Suddenly Jahn understood exactly why Alun had waited up. There was mischief afoot. He faked a yawn. “I am very tired.” He turned down his bed. Nothing slithered out at him. “Just a minute, Alun.”
Jahn undressed in the personal and hurried to bed. “Good night,” he called loudly. Then he swung his legs up onto the bed and climbed in.
His feet caught, trapped in folded fabric.
Evidently some pranks were universal. “Alun!” he shouted in mock anger.
Giggles erupted behind his bedroom door. “Oh, no,” Alun exclaimed. “The maid must have done that!” His head appeared around the door’s edge.
Jahn flung a pillow. Alun retreated, laughing loudly.
By the time Jahn remade his bed, Alun had bedded down. Jahn hesitated before climbing back in. While Alun lay drifting off—but before he fell asleep—would be an ideal time to try pushing a synch deep enough to detect the remains of Alun’s previous personality. If he could find more childhood memories, hitch a subliminal nexus to them, and draw them up into Alun’s consciousness, he might encourage regrowth. Medical psiologists sometimes used that technique.
And—he rubbed his rough chin—if empaths had possessed the full circle of telepathy, with the ability to project as well as listen, then helping Alun could have been simple. But they were not full telepaths. And he doubted he could draw up Alun’s buried memories. That would’ve taken his grandfather’s skill.
The thrill of this afternoon’s discoveries had worn off. He had probably squandered a pod. Why would the public care if Gamal Casimir’s daughter lived in the Concord? Tdegan women did not inherit.
In the morning, he would empty the capsules he’d stolen from the clinic into a vial, refill them with … with sugar, probably … and return them to that bottle. Any inventory that turned up this medication missing could implicate him and Alun.
One dose would go into Alun’s coffee tomorrow.
His eyes burned, he was so tired. He buried his head under the covers.