Sea of Silver Light

  "!Xabbu, don't," Sam said. "He's a liar. You can't trust him."

  "Then if you won't bargain, what will you do?" Jongleur demanded. "Kill me? I think not. I will simply follow you, deriving some benefit of safety from your presence while you gain none from mine."

  !Xabbu looked to Sam, troubled. "Renie wished us to work with him."

  "But Renie's not here. Doesn't it matter what I want?"

  "Of course."

  Frustrated, she whirled on Jongleur. "Where are we going, anyway? How are you going to help? Like, strangle all the little forest animals until they tell us what we want to know?"

  He scowled. "It was a mistake. I have already said so."

  "If he comes with us, we're going to take turns sleeping." Sam said. "Like we were in enemy territory. Because I don't trust him not to kill us in our sleep."

  "You have not answered her other question," !Xabbu pointed out. "Where are we going?"

  "In. To the heart of this place, I suppose. To find . . . what did they call it, those pathetic creatures? To find the One."

  "You said knowing about the operating system would do us no good."

  "I said I had told you all I wished to tell. And in truth there is nothing much we can do as long as Dread controls it. But if the operating system built this world, then there must be a direct connection back to the operating system somewhere in it." He fell silent, musing, then seemed to realize he had not finished. "If we can find that connection, we can use it to reach Dread as well."

  "And then what?" !Xabbu suddenly seemed very weary. "Then what?"

  "I do not know." Jongleur too had run out of strength. "But otherwise we wander here like ghosts, until our bodies die the real death."

  "I just want to go home," said Sam quietly.

  "A long way." For a moment Jongleur almost sounded human. "A very long way."

  CHAPTER 15

  Confessional

  * * *

  NETFEED/FASHION: A New Direction for Mbinda?

  (visual: models wearing designer's troubled Chutes line)

  VO: After a disastrous year, many designers would rethink their fashion ideas. Hussein Mbinda has done more than that. Yesterday he announced that he is considering an even more radical approach to his profession.

  (visual: Mbinda backstage at Milan show)

  MBINDA: "I had a dream that everyone was naked. I was in a place where clothes didn't matter, because everyone was young and beautiful forever. I realized it must be heaven, and that what I was seeing was people's souls. God sent this vision just to me, seen? And so I wanted to find a way to show everyone that fashion and money and all that-it doesn't matter. . . ."

  VO: Mbinda's spiritual insight has provided his latest direction: latex sprays, but not in the usual fashion shades. Every one of Mbinda's new sprays is a human flesh tone, so that the wearers can be naked even when they're dressed. Despite the religious inspiration, they're apparently going to be quite expensive, too. . . ."

  * * *

  He had stared at his pad long enough. He had performed every other undone task he could remember, and had improvised a few new ones. There was really no acceptable reason for putting off the call any longer. He spoke the code phrase Sellars had given him, the one that the strange man had promised would give him an untraceable connection, then waited.

  In the past several days Catur Ramsey had come to believe in several impossible things—that a worldwide conspiracy existed to sacrifice children for the immortality of a few incredibly rich people, that an entire virtual universe had been created almost without any public notice, and even that the minuscule hope for its defeat rested in the crippled hands of a man who had been living in an abandoned tunnel under an army base. Ramsey had seen a father and his child kidnapped out of a public restaurant by the US military, had been threatened himself by a rogue general and then had seen that officer suddenly die, and now he and several other fugitives were apparently in terrible danger simply for having chanced on the vast and malevolent design. One set of clients had a child in a mysterious coma apparently caused by the conspiracy. Another client was being led by supernatural voices. Catur Ramsey had been through a lot just lately.

  Somehow, though, this felt like the most difficult thing yet.

  On the tenth ring the answering service clicked on. Disgusted by his own relief, he began to leave his message. Then Orlando's mother picked up the call.

  "Ramsey," she said, nodding in an oddly deliberate manner. "Mr. Ramsey. Of course. How are you?"

  All abstract thoughts about danger and loss left him in a moment, blasted away by the reality of Vivien Fennis Gardiner. As jet fuel had changed Sellars' exterior so completely that it was almost surreal, grief seemed to have performed some similar dark alchemy inside Orlando's mother; behind the hollow stare and clumsy makeup—he couldn't remember her wearing makeup in their previous meetings—something terrifying hid.

  He struggled to find words. "Oh, Ms. Fennis, I am so sorry. So sorry."

  "We got your message. Thank you for your prayers and kind thoughts." Her voice might have been a sleepwalker's.

  "I . . . I called to say how bad I felt about missing Orlando's memorial service. . . ."

  "We understand, Mr. Ramsey. You're a very busy man."

  "No!" Even this inappropriate outburst did not startle any deeper reaction out of her. "No, I mean, that's not why I missed it. Really." He felt himself suddenly in deep water, floundering. What could he tell her, even over a safe line? That he had been afraid agents of a secret conspiracy might follow him back to Sellars and the others? He had already withheld crucial information from her once, fearing to deepen her grief. What could he tell her now, after the worst had happened, that would make any sense at all?

  At least some of the truth, damn it. You owe her that.

  She was waiting silently, like a doll left upright, slack until someone came again to give it life. "I've been . . . I've been following up the investigation I told you about. And . . . and there's definitely something going on. Something big. And that's . . . that's why. . . ." He felt a weight of sudden fear on the back of his neck. Surely if these Grail people were willing to steal Major Sorensen out of a public place, they wouldn't balk at tapping Orlando's family's home line. What could he tell her? Even if everything Sellars said was true, the Grail conspiracy didn't necessarily know how much Ramsey himself had discovered—how deep into it all he now was. "Orlando . . . all that stuff he was doing online. . . ."

  "Oh," said Vivien abruptly, animation flickering across the Kabuki mask of her face for the first time. "Was it you who sent those men?"

  "What?"

  "Those men. The men who came and asked to go through his files. I thought they said they were government researchers—something about Tandagore's Syndrome. That's what they say Orlando had, you know. At the end." She nodded slowly, slowly. "But it was the day after Orlando . . . and Conrad was back at the hospital . . . and I wasn't really paying attention. . . ." Her face sagged again. "We never did find that bug of Orlando's, that . . . agent. Maybe they took that thing, too. I hope they did. I hated that creepy little thing."

  "Wait a minute, Vivien. Hold on." The weight on Ramsey's neck suddenly felt like a ton. "Somebody came to your house? And went through Orlando's files?"

  "One of them gave me his card, I think. . . ." She blinked, looked around. "It's around here somewhere . . . hold on."

  As she wandered out of range of the screen, Ramsey tried to hold down the sudden rush of panic. Don't, he warned himself. Don't do it—you'll turn into one of those professional paranoids. It could have been actual researchers, maybe from the hospital, maybe from some government task force. Tandagore's been getting press lately, some real officials may be feeling the heat. But he didn't believe it. Even if they're with the Grail, so what, man, so what? Just slow flow, man. You never even talked to Orlando Gardiner about any of this stuff—never even met the kid, except as a warm body in a coma bed. But the bug. Beezle Bug. If they ever find
that gear, the Beezle program, what has it got in its memory?

  He had managed to calm himself into near-fibrillation by the time she returned.

  "I can't find it," she said. "It was just a name and a number, I think. If I find it, do you want me to send you the information?"

  "Yes, please."

  She was silent a moment. "It was a nice service. We played some songs he really liked, and some of the people from that game he played showed up. Some others from that Middle Country sent a kind of tribute that they played on the chapel wallscreen. Full of monsters and castles and things like that." She laughed, a sad little laugh, but it seemed to crack the mask: her jaw trembled, her voice hitched. "They . . . they were just kids! Like Orlando. I had been hating them, you know. Blaming them, I guess."

  "Look, Vivien, I'm not your attorney, not in any official way, but if anyone else comes around wanting to look at Orlando's files, I strongly advise you not to let them. Not unless they're the police and you're damn sure that they are who they say. Understand me?"

  She raised an eyebrow. "What's going on, Mr. Ramsey?"

  "I . . . I can't really talk. I promise I'll tell you more when I can." He tried to think—were they in any danger, Vivien and Conrad? He couldn't imagine how. The last thing these Grail folks would want to do would be to make an even bigger news story out of another Tandagore tragedy. "Just . . . just. . . ." He sighed. "I don't know. Just take care of each other. I know it doesn't mean anything right now, but there's a chance your suffering won't be completely pointless. That doesn't make anything better, and I can only guess at how terrible this is for you, but. . . ." There was really nothing else he could think of to say.

  "I'm not quite sure what you mean, Mr. Ramsey." She had retreated a little, either out of reflexive distrust of anything that might force her to engage the horror more deeply, or simply because the effort of having a human conversation had finally worn her out. "Never mind, Ms. Fennis. Vivien. We'll talk again." He let her end the conversation and disconnect. Just now, that was the only thing he could give her.

  Sellars sensed his mood and was kind enough to let Ramsey slump silently on the couch for a while, pretending to watch the wallscreen. It was a model at least twenty years off the showroom floor, a plasmacolor that stuck out from the wall a full two inches, the top of the frame speckled with dust, its screen only slightly larger than the ghastly painting of a sailboat that hung over the couch.

  "I'm suddenly remembering how much I hate motels," Ramsey said. The ice in his drink had melted, but he couldn't even sit up straight, much less walk out to the ice machine in the hall. "The bad paintings, the weird-colored furniture, the grit you find in all the corners if you look too closely. . . ."

  Sellars bobbed his head and smiled. "Ah, but you see, Mr. Ramsey, it's all a matter of perspective. I spent decades in a small house that was my prison cell. More recently, I lived for several weeks in a damp concrete tunnel under Major Sorensen's base. I find a certain pleasure in having seen several motel rooms in the last few days, even if the decor is something less than engaging."

  Ramsey swore under his breath. "Sorry. That was self-centered. . . ."

  "Please." Sellars raised a thin finger. "No apologies. I had no hope of allies, and now I find I have several. You are a volunteer for a dangerous mission—you're entitled to complain about the accommodations."

  Catur Ramsey snorted. "Yeah, and even I have to admit I've seen lots worse. Just . . . just in a kind of twisted mood. The call to Orlando's parents. . . ."

  "Bad?"

  "Very." He looked up suddenly. "Someone's been to their house—been through Orlando's files." He gave Sellars the details. While Ramsey spoke the runneled face seemed reposed and thoughtful, but the eyes were almost empty, as though already the old man were making inquiries, investigations, reaching out along his invisible web of connections.

  "I'll have to look into it further," was all he said when Ramsey finished, then he sighed. "I am very tired."

  "Do you want to get some sleep? I'd be happy to go out and stretch my legs. . . ."

  "That's not what I mean, but thank you. Have you heard back from Olga Pirofsky?"

  "Not yet." Ramsey was still angry with himself. "I should never have sent that first message—you were right. She must have thought that I was going to shout at her, tell her to turn around and come back at once." He looked at Sellars. "Although I have to say I'm still not sure why I shouldn't be telling her that."

  Sellars stared back at him, the yellow-eyed stare inscrutable, then shook his head, "Damnation," he said softly. "I forget that I no longer have my wheelchair." With great effort he rearranged himself so that he could face Ramsey more directly. "As I said, Mr. Ramsey, I am very tired. I do not have much time left, and all my plans and necessities won't mean anything when that time is up. As Ms. Dickinson once put it, "Because I did not stop for Death, He kindly stopped for me. . . ." His head swayed on his thin neck.

  "You're . . . sick?"

  Sellars laughed, a dry sound like wind across the top of a pipe. "Oh, Lord, Mr. Ramsey. Look at me—I haven't been well in fifty years. But I have been better than I am at the moment, that's certain. Yes, I'm sick. I'm dying. There is the irony of all this—I'm doing the same thing the Grail Brotherhood is doing, trying to outrace a failing physical shell. But they want to preserve what burns inside them. I will accept extinguishment gratefully, if only my work is done."

  Ramsey still did not feel close to understanding this strange man. "How long do you have?"

  Sellars let his hands fall into his lap, where they lay like crossed twigs. "Oh, perhaps a few months if I don't exert myself—but what are the odds of that?" He showed his teeth in a lipless grin. "I am extended so far that I could work twenty-four hours every day without moving out of a chair, and now I have the added pleasure of traveling in the wheel-well of Major Sorensen's van." He held up his hand. "No, please, pity is not what I'm asking for. But there is something else you can do, Mr. Ramsey."

  "What's that?"

  Sellars sat quietly for what seemed to Catur Ramsey half a minute. "Perhaps," he said at last, "it would help if I explained some things first. I have not told you or the Sorensens everything there is to know about me. Are you surprised?"

  "No."

  "I didn't think you would be. Let me tell you one of the less interesting, but perhaps not entirely irrelevant things I haven't mentioned. Actually, Major Sorensen is likely to know this, since he has my personal history in quite excruciating detail. I'm not an American. Not by birth. I was born in Ireland—well, Northern Ireland, as that part of it was known in those days. My first language is Gaelic."

  "You don't sound Irish. . . ."

  "I came here to live with an aunt and uncle when I was very young. My father and mother belonged to a rather odd Catholic sect in Ulster. They both died early—that is a story in itself—and I was sent to America. But while they were alive, I was raised to be a soldier of the faith, and probably would have been one if they'd survived."

  "You mean, like . . . the Irish Republican Army?"

  Oh, much smaller and much less responsible. A splinter group that formed during the days when the peace process had begun in earnest, and which was never reconciled. But this is all beside the point."

  "Sorry."

  "No, no." Sellars nodded gently. "In this mad hash of stories we're all living, it's hard to know what is relevant, what is not. But the fact is, I was raised in a very Catholic household. And now that the end of my labors is upon me, Mr. Ramsey, I find that I want the chance to confess."

  It took a few seconds for him to make sense of it. "You want to confess . . . to me?"

  "After a fashion." Sellars laughed his hooting laugh again. "We have no priest in our company. As a lawyer, aren't you next in line?"

  "I really don't understand."

  "It's not a religious thing, Mr. Ramsey. I'm just very tired and lonely. I need someone to help me, and the first way to help will be to listen. I have been
fighting this war by myself for too long. We are in desperate straits, and I no longer trust myself to make all the decisions. But you must understand the whole story."

  Ramsey begged a moment, then went to get a drink of water out of the bathroom sink and splash some on his face. "You make it sound like there are some major undisclosed details here," he said when he came back. "What exactly are you getting me involved with?"

  "My, you are a lawyer, aren't you? Just listen, please, then you can judge for yourself."

  "Why not the major? Or Kaylene Sorensen—she's a smart woman, even if she's a bit old-fashioned."

  "Because I have already put their child in danger several times, and they have Christabel with them now. They cannot be objective."

  Ramsey drummed his fingers on the arm of the couch. "Okay. Talk to me."

  "Good." Sellars slowly lowered his body back against the chair cushions, a process so deliberate it might have been performed by museum curators moving a fragile masterpiece.

  Which I suppose he is, thought Ramsey, If everything he's said is true.

  "First off," Sellars announced, "I did not stumble onto the Brotherhood's project—the Grail network—completely by accident." He frowned. "I will save that bit of the story for later, I think. For now, it's enough to know that as I began to realize what I had found, I watched their progress with growing alarm. And not just for altruistic reasons, Mr. Ramsey. I watched the threat of the Brotherhood with growing despair in large part because I knew it was going to delay the most important of my own projects."

  "Which was. . . ?" Ramsey said after long seconds.

  "Which was to die. Not that such a thing is difficult for me, Mr. Ramsey. On the contrary—with the nanomachinery I have acquired, and my original circuitry, I now have enough control over my own body that I could turn off the blood to my brain with a thought."