THALES

 

Thales surfaced from a semi-sleep state, gasping for breath, his arms thrown wide in a startled manner. He snatched his arms back, embarrassed, and rolled instinctively onto his side towards a wall.

Where was he?

Fariss had brought him here. Saved his life and brought him here. To... whatever the place was called. Shell place. Sam—Samuelle—old face, young body. She wanted his DNA. He must have fainted. And now?

He heard doors open; a concerned voice speaking in Gal. Something about getting on a bed.

Thales began to roll over to see what was happening but his movements were slow. Before he could sit up a figure loomed close to him; a face and the smell of something sour. Paper-thin lips parted and vomit splashed onto his feet. Worse than sour. Acid-smelling and vile. He grabbed his bedcover and threw it off, swallowing back his own desire to be sick.

‘Thales Berniere,’ said an all-too-familiar voice. ‘Heavens to Crux. What are you doing here?’

‘Godhead.’ Thales kicked out at Tekton. ‘Get off me.’

Then the infirmary attendants swooped on them, easing Tekton to a bed of his own and wheeling Thales off to wash.

Though Thales returned clean, it was as though the hot, wet spew was still on him. The ignominy of being vomited on was difficult to shake, though it was tempered by curiosity and surprise.

Tekton was sitting up in his adjacent bed while the attendant pored over deep, ragged cuts on his legs.

‘You appear to be in the wars, sir,’ Thales commented, finally.

‘And you,’ said Tekton, indicating the curative skin pasted around Thales’s neck and across his cheek. ‘Looks like you tried to cut off your own head. And my apologies, good fellow, for earlier. I have been through some trying circumstances.’

Thales accepted Tekton’s regret stiffly. When the two had last met, Tekton hadn’t wished to disclose anything that might help Thales further. Bethany didn’t trust the Godhead. Something had happened on The Last Aesthetic that she wouldn’t talk about.

Thales wasn’t sure if Tekton was friend or antagonist. The man was clearly brilliant but with an inflated sense of his own importance. Don’t be fooled by glamour, Bethany had said.

And here they were, thrown together once more.

Tekton remained silent while the medi-lab attendant finished dressing his wounds.

‘I wish to leave,’ Thales said as she finished up.

‘Sammy says you’re to stay until the sample analysis comes back. We might need to run the test again.’

‘And what if I don’t wish to wait?’ Thales heard his own petulance and didn’t care.

The attendant glanced towards the guard at the door. ‘Sammy said wait. So I would, if I were you.’ She retired to her small, partitioned office, shut the door and turned her back on them, not prepared to get any more involved than that.

Tekton lay comfortably propped up on his pillows, his face relaxed by the pain relief flowing from the capsule stuck to the crook of one elbow. Their beds faced each other across a small array of blinking equipment.

‘Where to start, young fellow? You first,’ said the Godhead.

Thales set his jaw, refusing to be so easily compliant. ‘I recall, you had little to share with me at our last meeting, sir. Perhaps it is you who should begin.’

To his surprise, Tekton made an unhappy sound. ‘You were right to be seeking information from Lasper Farr, Thales, and I was foolish withholding what I knew. Little enough as it is. I had thought to use the situation to my advantage, but Farr is a man without moral bounds.’

The Godhead then told Thales the extraordinary recount of his visit to Farr’s prayer room and his ensuing near-fatal escapade.

‘But why did you go there, Godhead??

‘Lasper Farr has a secret.’ Tekton lowered his voice. ‘I think he’s found a way to predict the future. In fact I’m sure of it. He let me try and find his system.’

Thales frowned. ‘Even if such a thing were possible, why would he do that?’

‘It was a game, a test of intellect. See if I could work it out. Of course, on the off chance that I did, he needed to dispose of me in case I found a way to use the knowledge against him. Fortunately, someone was on hand to prevent murder. Jelly Hob,’ finished Tekton, ‘may be uncouth and eccentric by most standards, but he saved my life—and more so, Thales, the man can fly like a genius.’

A silence fell for a time between them as Tekton rested, eyes closed from the effort of his retelling, while Thales cogitated what he’d heard.

‘It seems,’ said Thales finally, ‘that we are both beholden to strangers for our lives. Commander Farr also sought to rid himself of me. Why? I’m not exactly sure. I expect he wished to prevent me speaking of the details of the DNA retrieval. If that is the case then the Baronessa and the mercenaries should also be marked. For they all knew about my task.’

‘But they do not know about the outcome,’ commented Tekton.

‘I suppose that is true. It could be that he saved my life to divert blame for my later disappearance.’ His head ached with the effort of second-guessing Lasper Farr. ‘Whatever the reason, I was saved by a... woman...’ He stumbled on that concept. Fariss was a woman but that alone seemed an insufficient way to describe her. ‘... and brought here.’

‘And now?’

But Thales was still not prepared to give away information without reciprocation. ‘Yes, sir?’

Tekton gave a small and humourless smile. ‘You are wise not to be as trusting these days, Thales. A lesson hard-learned. Poor fellow, I am pleased to see your face less raw.’

Thales inclined his head and waited.

‘In truth I’m not sure what now. Hob tells me this place stands independent of Farr and that I shall be safe here. I assume the same would stand for you. My instinct is to leave quickly and return to Belle-Monde, but that may not be so simple. OLOSS have gathered a force at all the res-stations that access Araldis. The Extropists have control of the planet. I think trouble is imminent. Travel may be difficult.’

Tekton shifted his injured legs with care and rearranged the bedcovers.

Beautiful linen, Thales noticed. The kind you would expect in the best of hotels. In fact, little signs of Ampere’s wealth were everywhere. The infirmary, though small, was ergonomically elegant and fitted with the most sophisticated equipment. The guards he’d seen wore a ceremonial livery, not nano-suits. He snapped his attention back. Tekton was speaking again.

‘Would you mind, Thales, telling me why they are taking samples of your DNA? I could offer you advice on the situation.’

Thales vacillated. The Godhead seemed different somehow, less arrogant (other than the vomiting—which given his physical state was forgivable) and more genuine. Experience could be a swift educator, Thales knew. ‘They wish to prove that Lasper Farr infected me with bacteria. I expect they are accumulating evidence. And staying cognisant with the tricks he is using.’

‘Ah,’ said Tekton. ‘But perhaps I could save them some time.’

Thales’s eyes widened. ‘You would tell them what you know about the creator of the DNA I collected?’

‘For the right outcomes, yes.’

‘And they would be?’

‘Lasper Farr is a man who conducts himself beyond what is appropriate. He is also a man who is extraordinarily well informed. Did Bethany, by chance, ever mention how he accrues his knowledge?’

‘No,’ said Thales truthfully. ‘But she was never comfortable with his ambitions and she was fearful of his uncanny prescience. Why do you ask?’

‘Prescience, you say. Hmmmm... I saw something in his prayer room that would indicate that his prescience is the benefit of some advanced technology.’

‘Weapons?’

‘It could be thought of that way.’ Tekton sat up straighter and sipped fluid from the straw-pouch dangling in front of him. ‘Have you met this Samuelle?’

Thales nodded and rolled his eyes.

‘What would you consider her position on affairs?’

‘She is involved with Consilience, and not altogether enamoured with Commander Farr’s self-serving ways.’

‘She would oppose him?’ asked Tekton, softly.

‘I believe so. But I should not give too much weight to my opinion after one brief meeting with the woman.’

Tekton considered that for a moment. ‘I have a feeling that things around us may change quickly, Thales. I would like to consider you an ally when this happens. I will do my best to help you find answers, if I can count on you in return.’

Thales stared across at Tekton. Even across the distance of two beds, he thought the tyro seemed vulnerable, even a little desperate. Thales’s reserve thawed. Tekton valued him—more than that, needed him.

‘I think it would be most sensible of us to help each other out of this, sir.’

‘Splendid.’ Tekton’s pasty grey skin infused with a little colour, lending it a mottled appearance. ‘Now listen carefully. The woman behind the creation of the DNA is a tyro on Belle-Monde called Dieter Miranda Seeward. Brilliant and totally untrustworthy. A woman of appetites.’

Thales blinked away the notion that the Godhead had licked his lips.

Tekton continued. ‘From what my moud has been able to divine, Miranda has created something that will affect the competitive instinct in humanesques—thus the reason for targeting the orbitofrontal cortex. Scolar is obviously her blind trial—is that the term they use? Now this is where you come in, Thales. Why would she choose Scolar?’

It was a question Thales had spent hours puzzling over, even without knowing what the DNA was intended to achieve. But Tekton’s precis was an illumination. Suddenly, he had an idea. ‘How do you regard Scolar, Godhead? Its function, I mean.’

Tekton gave a small frown. ‘Publicly, it is regarded as a source of progressive ideas and beliefs.’

‘Would you agree that it has influenced OLOSS decisions over the years?’

‘Indeed,’ Tekton allowed. ‘Think of the Beluga charter, and Villon’s philosophies. Even at Tandao Ando, we were required to understand the importance of Scolar’s role in the evolution of our social and political systems.’

Thales took a deep, deep breath. ‘I think that Dieter Seeward’s virus is meant to nullify the genius of Scolar.’

‘What?’ Tekton looked momentarily confused.

Thales told him about his time with Villon and the great philosopher’s fears. He followed that with a recount of his conversation with the Pragmatists in the Kafe Klatsch and the Sophos’s intention to raze Villon’s statue. ‘There is a malaise and enervation sweeping the city—and it is real, Godhead. I had not thought that it could be caused by something as sinister as a virus deliberately spread.’

‘What you’ve told me is preposterous, Thales. Unbelievable. And yet to think that you have spent time with the great Villon. You are a surprise package.’

‘Villon was a gentleman in every possible sense of the word,’ said Thales sadly. ‘And I was too ineffectual to protect him.’ To his chagrin, he felt tears welling.

But Tekton did not appear to notice. His eyes closed in contemplation but then opened again, abruptly. ‘Miranda must be doing this for the Entity,’ he muttered aloud.

‘Doing what for the Entity, tyro?’ said a commanding voice from the doorway.

Samuelle entered the room flanked by Fariss and a male humanesque dressed in battered leather pants and a filthy yellow skivvy. The man’s face was old, like Samuelle’s. They could have been siblings, if the man’s body had been through the same processes and encased in a suit. As it was, his brawny shoulders slumped above a large and continuous belly that ballooned from below his rib cage and hung well below his hips.

‘Mr Hob,’ said Tekton as the old man came close to him.

Thales was astonished to hear the warmth in Tekton’s voice.

‘Tekton, meet Sammy. Or Sam-u-elle if you like,’ said Jelly Hob. ‘And the beeoootiful Fariss.’

Fariss gave a wide, encompassing smile that sent Thales’s heart thumping madly, but Samuelle’s face was a study in scrutiny. ‘Don’t meet many archiTects. ‘Specially those that work for God.’

‘Mr Hob speaks highly of you,’ said Tekton politely enough, though Thales heard his tone cool somewhat.

‘Looks like we’ve all got something in common,’ said Samuelle. ‘And we don’t have much time to learn about it. Lasper’s gone and called the decommed captains to Edo for a meeting. Seems as though we’re goin’ somewhere soon.’

‘But he told me he wished to avoid involvement at this stage,’ said Tekton. ‘“Balance” is what he said.’

‘Balance doesn’t mean peace, tyro. Balance means Lasper Farr getting what he wants.’

‘Are you implying that the hero of the Stain Wars is an opportunist? I’m astonished,’ said Tekton, with thick sarcasm.

Samuelle laughed. ‘I might get to like you, Tekton. But right now, I need you. Farr’s got some type of device he’s using as a soothsayer. I want to know about it.’

‘Why would I be able to help you?’

‘Because the technology came from another tyro. A strange fellow with insect eyes. I met him once, a while back.’

Tekton’s face turned so pale that Thales thought he might faint.

‘Cousin Ra,’ the Godhead gasped. ‘What have you been up to?’