Gamal Casimir snuffed a cigarillo in a small crystal bowl and tossed it behind the fire grate. “Sit here,” he said.
Across the fire room, Osun Zavijavah settled into a deep chair. With his classic nose, chin, and cheekbones—and that drooping black mustache—he looked elegant, even handsome, as long as he kept his glasses on. “I don’t honestly think it will work.”
“I have doubts, too. But it’s worth trying.” Gamal reached into a cargo crate. From its depths, he drew out a transparent helmet. It didn’t look bulletproof, but his Chief of Engineering Development had assured him that the clear material could deflect large-caliber projectiles. Why, asked the engineer, should Regent Casimir restrict his vision in any direction?
Gamal, who had retained his monocular blindness to stop the Chaethe from choosing him as a carrier, had nodded sagely.
Anchored inside the helmet’s broad padded collar, small, clear tubes ran up the interior every four or five centimeters. They would provide ventilation without introducing weak spots. Pumping units were concealed inside the collar.
Gamal had asked the engineer for two additional features. First, there was a lock-down neck clamp to make it irremovable, except by coding a touch sequence onto the clamp lock. That should keep infested humans from removing non-infested individuals’ protection.
Second, there was a high-band transceiver built into the collar tab. Certainly the Chaethe spoke among themselves. Once Gamal tapped their network, Rider would no longer be able to claim extra levels of intelligence. He hoped that the Chaethe used ultrahigh frequencies to communicate.
As Gamal donned the prototype, Zavijavah removed his dark glasses. He rubbed his eyes and temples, blinked and squinted. It made him look irritated. There’d been a long period after Zavijavah’s infestation when he’d rarely complained about discomfort.
The helmet rested heavily on Gamal’s shoulders. His engineers had placed controls on a tab that extended from the helmet’s collar on his left. He could see and reach them easily. “Ready?” he asked Zavijavah.
Zavijavah straightened in the deep chair. “I’m listening,” he muttered.
Gamal switched on the transmitter. “Hello, hello,” he repeated. “Hello, testing.” Slowly, he turned up the gain. “Hello, testing. Hello, Rider. Hello, Chaethe. Can you hear me?”
Zavijavah squinted and winced. He flung both hands over his ears. “Stop!” he exclaimed.
Gamal ignored him. It was Rider he must contact. “Are you listening?” Gamal asked again. “Rider, I wish to make a mutual defense treaty with your people. I am Gamal Casimir, Vice Regent of Bkellan University. I speak for the Tdega system. I have brought new people to Sunsis, helping to accommodate your folk. If you can hear me, have Zavijavah say so.”
“Stop!” Zavijavah sprang to his feet. “Stop,” he shrieked.
“You wanted proof that our people could fight, that we could protect you from the Devastators—”
Zavijavah screamed.
Disappointed, Gamal turned down the gain. “Was that too loud?” he asked through the transmitter. “Is this better? Do you hear me? Have Zavijavah say so—”
“Please,” Zavijavah said. “Stop. It’s wailing at me.”
Gamal exhaled in disgust, briefly fogging his helmet. He flicked the main switch and pulled off the headgear. “What do you mean, wailing at you?”
Zavijavah slumped against one side of the chair and blinked up at Gamal. His pale brown irises filled the ocular orbits, surrounding enormous pupils. “I’ve told you. It shrieks. Right between my ears—”
“Did it speak to you?”
“No.”
“Nothing?”
Zavijavah glowered. “I said so.”
“Is it hurting you?”
“No worse than normal.” Zavijavah squeezed his huge eyes shut. Water trickled out of one of them.
Gamal replaced the transparent sphere in its crate. “I’ll ask the engineers to install fine frequency tuning and we’ll try it again.”
Zavijavah shot him a baleful look.
Gamal opened a cabinet. “Let me pour you a drink.” Of all Residence employees, he wanted his Security Chief’s support, especially now that he spoke for Rider, the alien ambassador. Gamal also didn’t want Bellik supplanting him by buying off Osun Zavijavah.
“I’ll—hm.” The last bottle of his favorite liquor, red ruin, had only a dribble left. “I’ll send for more.”
Zavijavah slid on his dark glasses and sprang out of the chair. “I’ll go down and get some.”
Was Zavijavah preparing to bolt? Gamal stalked to the room terminal and called up a trace of Residence employees by personal locators. One employee who might logically walk Zavijavah to the kitchens without offending him was right down the hall. “Wait a minute,” he said. “I’ll have Arne Vayilis go with you.”
Maybe it would be better to concentrate on trying to develop a vaccine to keep the creatures from infesting the wrong people.
Jahn sat at a vacant desk in Personnel, researching the Lahoma shipbuilding plant for Alun Casimir—and for Filip Salbari. He had sent his sixth pod, carrying a week’s worth of military intelligence. Now, he must gather data for his next report. Upstairs, Alun was engrossed in a projected three-dimensional puzzle. As Jahn sorted information, he practiced maintaining the listening stance that had earned his worst evaluations from Grandfather Pallaton. It was difficult to maintain vigilance with his mind occupied. He must practice more.
To his surprise, he caught the odd, vacillating frequency again. The one that was not typically human. He suspended his hands over the control board.
Voices approached his open door. His former supervisor, big Arne Vayilis, strode past. Security Chief Zavijavah walked with him, easily recognizable in his dark-red uniform coat, drooping mustache, and wraparounds.
Jahn slid off his view-glasses. “Hello Arne,” he called. It would be better to announce his presence than surprise that pair.
Arne looked through Jahn’s door. “What is the upstairs tutor doing down here with common employees?” He laughed. “Don’t you like it up there?”
Jahn grinned back at the big man. “It’s a good position, but the hours leave something to be desired.”
Arne’s belly shook when he chuckled.
Zavijavah peered around Arne, eyes invisible, expression unreadable.
“Good afternoon, Gen Zavijavah.” Abruptly Jahn realized that he had slipped off his listening stance. Frustrated, he reopened it.
The eerie sensation rose and fell, pulsing behind Zavijavah’s inner frequency.
Instantly, Zavijavah raised a hand to rub his temple. The gesture looked as if the custom-fitted glasses bothered him—but could he have felt Jahn’s synch? When empaths listened, people didn’t notice.
Jahn squelched his synch. Vayilis turned to leave. Zavijavah followed, still rubbing.
This confirmed Jahn’s earlier observation. But what was it he’d heard?
He’d had no trouble finding Zavijavah around the Residence, but every prior opportunity to listen had fizzled. He’d stationed himself outside Zavijavah’s office and been interrupted by Security staff. He’d strolled past Zavijavah’s rooms at midnight, but heard nothing—and on both occasions, the hallway guards had been too alert to catch with needler charges.
Obviously, though, Zavijavah was the key to something.
Jahn slipped his glasses back on. The Lahoma plant was heavily committed to components that could be destined for warships. Alun would be interested in many of these figures. As Alun slowly recovered, numbers and parts and ways of assembling them had begun to fascinate him. Jahn enjoyed watching Alun regain his senses. Alun had no warmongering intentions. Jahn had cautiously but consciously slanted lesson data, increasingly aware of the enormous power educators held over their students.
This data proved that Casimir’s commitment to military action went back much farther than last month. Lahoma had gone into full production almost as soon as it opened. The line robots necessary for producing these ship components must have been designed and built over a year ago.
By the time he pulled off his glasses with the file fully sorted, the regular shift had long since passed, and then all his free hours between quitting time and nightfall. Fog slunk down into Bkellan from the mountains, shrouding the grounds in weird stillness. It was time for bed. Almost midnight, according to his body.
But he needed to hunt Osun Zavijavah. He would explore the east wing’s third floor first, then walk past Zavijavah’s room. Maybe by then, Zavijavah would have retired but would not be asleep. In case one of the ubiquitous hall guards appeared, Jahn also needed to be ready to fake a delivery. Such as a vital new printout.
He copied the data he’d condensed for Alun, mounted it in a display folder, and tucked it into his document case. That data could be bound for Casimir himself, if anyone challenged him. He closed up the terminal and left.
Standing in the silent hallway, he breathed a prayer for success and protection. That made him wonder how all this skulking was molding his soul. The Hadleys had a tradition of serving society, but surveillance work was teaching him to be devious.
The responsibility of spying out the enemy also gave him odd freedoms, such as carrying a weapon. The doctrine of freedom-responsibility spheres had proven uncannily applicable to his people. Accepting responsibility to the Creator’s own sphere had given the empaths—as a new creation—a much-needed sense of place.
Clanking noises and heavy food smells drifted from the kitchen far down the left hall. Many kitchen staff came on duty at second sunset and worked all night. He turned toward the elevator nearest the kitchens. Sweeping his authorization badge in front of the reader, he asked for the third floor.
The elevator disgorged him there. He heard voices from the left, so he turned right and slipped through a door, listening hard for other mental presences.
A light switched on overhead. He’d stepped into a storage area piled with art objects and elegant furniture. There could be interesting material here. Pressing his hip pocket to make sure the slender needler was there, he walked past a stack of old portraits. Ornate frames of various sizes leaned against each other at all angles.
“Who’s there?” a voice asked behind him.
Jahn spun around. He’d slipped off synch! A Security guard stood in the doorway, one hand on his sidearm. Jahn kept his hand away from the needler. It was too late for that. “Korsakov,” Jahn answered. “Personal staff, Alun Casimir’s tutor. I’m looking for something to put on Alun’s wall.” He didn’t bother to synch now. The guard was obviously suspicious, and Jahn needed to concentrate on his alibi. “According to the household net, this room has several good pieces.”
“Did you get authorization?” the bulky guard asked.
“At this hour?” Perhaps the guard had a sense of humor.
The guard beckoned. “If Regent Casimir’s still awake, I think he might want to ask you some questions.”
“Sure.” Jahn strode back toward the main door, clutching his document case one-handed. He was as ready for this as he ever would be.
The guard took him down a level to the second-floor hallway. “Wait.” The man recited a code to the guard station. When a light came on, the guard grunted. “This way.”
Jahn followed up the hall and past several doors. His escort opened one. Jahn took a deep breath and walked inside.
At the far end of the room, a line of flame devoured several massive wooden logs. The fire threw so much heat that Jahn felt it four meters away. Gamal Casimir sat beside it, wearing a thick black nightrobe. The deep V on its front showed a carpet of black hair on his chest. He set a drinking glass on a wooden table.
Osun Zavijavah also cradled a drinking glass. Even in this dim room, he wore the glasses. Jahn glanced at him and then quickly away. For the first time in weeks, he felt sticky. If Osun Zavijavah ordered him frisked, he had three shots in the needler. He could take Casimir, Zavijavah, and the guard.
If he was fast enough. And the guard must fall first.
The guard saluted Casimir and then Zavijavah. “Gen Korsakov was upstairs, sir. Family storeroom.”
“Oh?” Casimir beckoned.
As Jahn stepped closer, he caught a whiff of liquor. Casimir’s eyes looked red. Obviously, he was deep into his cups. A drinking man could become far too friendly and voluble, or he could fly into a rage. This would be a wire-walk.
Keeping an eye on the guard, Jahn made the customary bow. “Good evening, Regent Casimir. The Residence net said there might be paintings suitable for Alun’s suite upstairs. I apologize for neglecting to secure clearance. I should have realized it would cause a problem. May I go back tomorrow?”
“I don’t think ’snecessary.” Casimir folded his hands on his robed lap. “Alun doesn’t know good art from bad.”
“No, sir.” Jahn glanced aside. The guard had returned to attention beside the door. “But I hope to surround him with quality. His taste will improve if I whet it.” He shifted his document case to his right hand. “I had also hoped to give you these figures from the Lahoma plant. This will be Alun’s lesson tomorrow.” He passed the document to Casimir.
“How’s th’boy doing?”
Jahn didn’t want these two to know how much Alun had improved. “He is learning. Slowly.” Jahn loosely clasped his hands and tried to look relaxed. He imagined he could feel Osun Zavijavah study him through hidden eyes. “At the moment he is fascinated by numbers. He loves the way they can be manipulated.” He pointed at the printout. “This will give him a chance to compare many kinds of figures and refresh his memory of a vital operation.”
“Sounds good.” Casimir glanced aside at Zavijavah. “D’you want him detained?”
Zavijavah barely shook his head.
Relieved, Jahn spotted the half-empty crystal carafe on Casimir’s side of the hearth. “I am sorry to have disturbed you.”
Something in the fire exploded. Jahn almost jumped out of his skin, but neither Zavijavah nor Casimir reacted. They must be accustomed to the noises wood made when it burned. To Jahn Emlin, destroying wood seemed criminal. To Jahn Korsakov, it must seem a normal privilege of the wealthy.
“’Sreally not a good time to go nosing around upstairs.”
“Very good, sir. Once again, I apologize for disturbing you.”
Casimir waved a hand in front of his face.
Jahn risked listening deeply for a moment. There was nothing inhuman about Zavijavah’s surface sense this time. Surprised, he groped across for Casimir’s inner frequency. The man was more alert than he acted.
In that case, it was time to leave. Jahn backed toward the door and into the hallway, then turned on his heel and headed for Alun’s suite, thoroughly puzzled.
As the door closed behind Jahn Korsakov, Osun Zavijavah sat up straighter in his chair. He took a quick sip from his glass. Drunk straight, red ruin tasted like poison.
But to his surprise, it seemed to be keeping Rider quiet.
Casimir shook his head. He’d lost his sleepy-eyed languor the moment Korsakov hurried out.
“That was interesting,” Zavijavah said. He’d seen Casimir fake drunkenness before. “Why did you and Bellik hire Alun a tutor, anyway?”
“When Rider takes Alun, if he seems to recover suddenly, that will explain it,” Casimir drawled. “But where was I?”
Truly, human intelligence was extraneous for Rider’s needs. “Hunting catamount on the Huuterii Pass.”
Casimir studied his drink, appeared to decide it was full enough for the moment, and continued a long, tedious narrative that freed Zavijavah to ponder a question that had been occupying him for an hour.
He hadn’t heard Rider since the second drink vanished. The parasite drove him to take fanatical care of his body, but tonight—after the shrieking caused by Casimir’s experiment—it had let him relax and tipple.
The second-spore migraine had faded away with that second glass, too. Painkillers no longer relieved it. This last hour had been blissful. He studied the hand that held his glass. He thought he spotted a freckle appearing on the back of it. He would have Medic Jackson remove it tomorrow. He was not vain, but freckles ruined the contrast between his fair skin and his black queue, mustache, and glasses.
Casimir finished his tale with a dramatic imitation of firing his antique slugthrower. Zavijavah made appreciative noises on cue. Casimir smiled and drank deeply. They both stared into the fire’s living heart.
Finally Casimir spoke. “How are you feeling these days?”
“Terrible, of course.” Zavijavah took another long, careful drink, more of a dose than a pleasure. His last sips were making him agreeably sleepy. “I have decided I will be glad to pass on these spores. Even if another human or two gets a headache …” He grinned at his own joke. “It’s time to get rid of mine.” As before, Rider would stay with him, but he now was willing to help it reproduce.
“That’s a switch. Are you finished being altruistic?”
That kind of thought had always made him feel like a traitor to humanity, but not at the moment. He must, he must regain this blissful, pain-free state for the sake of his sanity. “Right,” he said. “If it wants Alun, can we do it now—tonight—before I lose my nerve?” For the moment, that hideous memory didn’t distress him. “Choose someone else for the second spore. Anyone. Korsakov would be fine. Or Vayilis.”
Casimir shook his head in a languid arc. “You have to wait eight … yes, eight more weeks until the second spore matures. Then you’ve got a window of, oh, about two weeks to transmit them before a third starts to form. But …” He tipped his glass toward Zavijavah. “We shall toast the occasion aforehand, and I’ll let you drink liberally before, before, before the big event. Just to make things go easier. What do you say? What does it say?”
Rider said nothing.
Maybe Rider was susceptible to alcohol and didn’t know it. That might give Zavijavah a bit of power over the creature!
On the other hand, it was adept at reading his intentions. If he reached for a drink, consciously hoping to silence it, it would wail at him. He might not be able to drink fast enough to thwart that.
Then what was the harm of staying slightly tipsy?
He might be reprimanded for drinking on the job, if they smelled it on his breath. But there were ways of hiding that.
Casimir was staring at him, smiling, looking as if he were waiting for him to speak. “It’s much easier to cooperate,” Zavijavah said, hoping that would answer whatever Casimir had said last.
Casimir poured another half glassful for himself and offered Zavijavah the carafe. Although his glass was still nearly full, Zavijavah took the carafe to keep Casimir from spilling it. He poured a token splash into his glass. “Nine years,” he mused.
“What?” Casimir asked. “Oh. That you’ve lived with our friend Rider. It liberated two spores, too.” He rested his chin on one hand and fingered his lower lip. “Spores can stay dormant for ten years, but they usually don’t. They still have one sense when they’re loose.”
“What’s that?” And how did Casimir know so much?
“They seek heat. Somewhere out there,” Casimir said, gesturing with his glass, “there is at least one other Tdegan whose Chaethe is about to reproduce. They are loose on our world already. So I must communicate with Rider. We will try the helmet again. And we’ll try whatever else it takes.”
“Perfectly sensible,” Zavijavah said through gritted teeth. He recognized the threat in Casimir’s voice. “When you learn to communicate with it, tell it that it’s welcome to leave at any time.”
Casimir frowned. “Don’t think you want that.”
“I want it,” Zavijavah whispered, “more than anything.”
“It would probably kill you if it left.”
Zavijavah almost dropped his drink. “You never said.”
“You never asked.” Casimir smiled magnanimously and waved his glass. “I am, after all, the Concord’s foremost expert on the Chaethe life cycle.”
“From watching Rider.” Zavijavah gritted his teeth. He’d discovered that Casimir did own a medical scanner, the only one in the Residence. “Would you care to share what you’ve learned?”
“Moment of penetration,” Casimir said. “Spore sheath breaks. Several hundred cells escape inside your skull. The sheath doesn’t dissolve—I think that must be how Rider leaves, if it decides to. That’s what I think would kill you.”
“Why?” Zavijavah demanded. “How do you know?”
“It left its previous host to take you. It wanted seer eyes. So it got them.”
So the man Zavijavah barely remembered had died. He shuddered. “Go ahead.”
As Casimir rambled, Zavijavah picked out new bits of data. Once Rider had made a body for itself, it had lain down a copy of its chromosomes. Creating a sheath for that spore took years. When that phase ended, its reproductive system went temporarily dormant. Fissures opened along the spore’s inner end, and its moisture content rose. If the parent Chaethe signaled, the spore literally rocketed toward the skull opening its parent had used to penetrate.
“So you saw that happen?” Zavijavah asked.
Casimir waved a hand. “Yes. Apparently if it doesn’t decide to liberate the first spore, the process starts over. It can’t send one off and hold one back, so the ripe one has to stay put if a second starts forming.”
Zavijavah grunted. “So I’ve got three aliens alive in my head? I only hear one.”
“No, just one. They come to life—they’re born, in a sense—when they get their first gray matter.”
Fascinated against his will, Zavijavah leaned forward. “Why Sunsis? Why not just do it here?” He would love to avoid making that trip.
“More private.” Casimir raised his glass. “How did we get so deep into that subject?”
How like Casimir to change the subject. “You were telling me,” Zavijavah said, “not to encourage Rider to leave.”
“Ah.” Casimir gulped his drink. “Don’t. I need you, anyway. We have to perfect the helmet transmitter.”
“Not the helmet itself?”
“It’s been rifle-tested. The little tigers penetrate like bullets. No offense, but I’d rather keep my friends outside my skull. I’ll deal with them from a distance.”
Be thankful you have a choice, Casimir. “Why not just send me alone? Or send somebody else to help me, if you’re worried about—”
Casimir waved both hands in front of his belly, belched, and smiled again. “I can’t send an agent to Sunsis to represent me,” he said with a grandiose sweep of both arms, “because I am the only uninfested Tdegan who knows what’s afoot.”
A door chime brought Casimir’s head up. “What was that?”
“Someone at the door.” Zavijavah stood.
“Tell them t’go away.”
No. Anyone calling on Casimir this late must represent an emergency. Zavijavah stalked to the door and thumbed the entry switch twice. His cheeks burned. He almost wished Casimir hadn’t told him anything.
The door opened. One of his staff guards stood outside. “Is the Regent here?”
“He’s busy,” Zavijavah said.
The guard wrinkled his nose, probably at Zavijavah’s fruity breath. Zavijavah didn’t care. He was off duty.
“Head Regent Donson just had a massive stroke,” the guard said. “He might not live through the night. If you can get Regent Gamal upright, he’d better come down the hall if he wants to see his grandfather alive.”
“I’ll tell him.” Zavijavah pushed away from the door. The staff guard didn’t close it but stood outside at attention. “Your grandfather’s had a stroke.” Zavijavah cleared his throat. “This might be it.”
Gamal rubbed his face with both hands and swore as he tottered upright. “Get me a cup of coffee. Double strong. Then call Jackson. This is an emergency.”
As soon as Casimir staggered up the hall, fortified though not sobered, Zavijavah emptied the liquor carafe into his glass. Carrying it cautiously, he returned to his room by way of the kitchens, where he claimed two more large bottles “for entertainment purposes.” Back at his apartment, he set them inside a pair of high boots. He drained his glass before falling into bed.
When he woke the next morning, old Donson was feeble but responding, expected to recover most of his faculties—and Rider remained silent. Zavijavah toasted Donson’s recovery at breakfast, morning coffee break, and at lunchtime. He felt human again.