Kelric activated the “in-service” light on his pager and went over to the group, ten men and women sitting in a circle, all with holobooks. Equipment surrounded them, lab boxes, consoles, screens, nets, and various sensors.
The woman patted the lawn. “Here.”
He sat next to her on the soft grass. “What can I do for you?”
She showed him her holobook, which had some sort of treatise on bugs. “We’re cataloguing the insect population. We need samples.”
So he spent the next two hours catching bugs. The ecotechs gave him cans primed with syrups and foliage to attract specimens. Each time he brought back a load, he concentrated on the techs, searching for anything useful in their minds. He caught bits and pieces. One man had an appointment later in the hub, but he had no need for a rim-walker.
Kelric went out to nab more bugs. With his palmtop on-service, no one tried to engage him, but curious taskmakers asked what he was doing. It was a good assignment, one that let him wander far afield, absorbing moods and stray thoughts from many people.
Unfortunately, he found nothing useful. No one wanted a rim-walker for the hub. He did catch a thought from an ESComm corporal on a nearby path. The fellow needed a walker for a heat-exchange facility near the hub. Kelric put himself “off-service” and headed toward the corporal, so he would be available at just the right moment. But then the corporal sent a page to the palmtop system, tagging it with a request for a secured walker.
Kelric almost went to the corporal anyway, hoping to bluff his way into the assignment. But he held back. If it didn’t work, he would have played his hand and bought himself a lot of trouble. His freedom was like sand in an hourglass, trickling away second by second. Admiral Kaliga had probably already set about discovering which of his enemies had insulted him. Kelric had to make his move, yet he also had to wait for an opportunity with a reasonable chance of success.
When he returned to the ecotechs, they were packing up their equipment. They took his specimens, then sent him off-service again. So he resumed his walk, following a path shaded by willows.
“You!”
Kelric turned. An Aristo stood by a kiosk a few meters away, in a copse of willows. The man had narrow shoulders and a face of hard planes. He wore civilian clothes, gray trousers and an elegant silver shirt.
Shoring up his mental barriers, Kelric went to him. “Yes, sir?”
“You’re a rim-walker,” the man said.
“Yes, sir.”
“Then why do you have a provider’s slave restraints?”
“My owner didn’t wish my services as a provider.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know, sir.” Kelric tried to ignore his sense of slowly falling into nothing. He wanted to probe the Aristo’s mind, but his attempt might alert this stranger to his high Kyle rating, drawing more unwanted attention.
The Aristo leaned against the kiosk and crossed his arms. “I’ve never had a provider rim-walk for me. It might be interesting.”
Kelric tried to look bland. “Whatever I can do, sir.”
The man focused on him, obviously trying to gauge his empathic responses. “Who is your owner?”
“Admiral Kaliga.”
“Indeed.” Now he looked intrigued. “Kaliga himself.” He straightened up and unhooked a palmtop from his belt. After working on it for a moment, he murmured, “So he is.” He entered a few more commands, then snapped the palmtop closed and gave it to Kelric. “Here.”
Kelric took the unit uneasily. “What would you like me to do?”
“Deliver it to Admiral Kaliga at Spoke Station Two.” A chill smile touched his lips. “Then come back and tell me what happened.”
“Yes, sir.” Kelric bowed to him.
“And, provider.”
He straightened up. “Yes?”
With icy contempt, the Aristo said, “When you come or go, you kneel to me.”
Kelric knew his inability to act subservient could ruin his cover. Grinding his teeth, he went down on one knee, resting his arm across his other knee while he bent his head, as he had seen other slaves do.
“Very well.” The Aristo sounded mollified. “You may go.”
Kelric rose and bowed again, with more honorifics. Then he took his leave. He went to a path by the magrail, which ran along an edge of the park under a line of willows. As he walked toward a nearby station, he hooked the Aristo’s palmtop on his belt, then put himself on-service and paged a magcar. A check on his own palmtop told him Spoke Station Two was partway around the wheel and halfway up Spoke Two.
He wondered about the bizarre errand. If the Aristo wanted to give Kaliga a message, the web was more reliable. Delivering it by hand might make sense for secured material, but in that case he would have paged someone with clearance. As far as Kelric could see, the Aristo simply wanted to irritate Kaliga, maybe to probe this matter of his putting a provider on the rim crew.
Kelric had no intention of stopping at Station Two. This was his best chance to reach the hub. It would get him past security at the terminal. If anyone checked, they might find he only had permission for a spoke station. However, unless the Aristo had a valid reason for bothering Kaliga, which Kelric doubted, he was unlikely to put specifics of this errand in the web. That might give Kelric some leeway.
A magcar was coming down the rail toward him, a small model suitable for a low-rank slave. An “on-service” light glowed on its front, the same type of light as on Kelric’s palmtop, an unsubtle reminder that both he and the car were considered equipment designed to serve.
The car stopped next to him and slid up its door. Climbing inside, he said, “Terminal Two.”
Spoke Two terminated in an industrial area that produced parts for the maintenance of SSRB habitats. The spoke rose up from the ground in a great shining column, huge and round, until it pierced the “roof” of the rim. Beyond the rim, it stretched several kilometers through space to the hub. Concentric rings circled the hub at bigger and bigger intervals, like gossamer threads on a gigantic spiderweb. Spoke Station Two was located where a ring intersected the spoke, halfway to the hub.
Kelric rode a stairwalk up to the platform that circled the spoke. Unlike on Tarquine’s civilian ship, these elevators required an access code. He didn’t have one, but the Aristo should have put one in the palmtop.
No one paid any attention as he crossed the platform. He was just one person in a big crowd. Commuters were changing shifts, either coming off work or just starting.
After hiking all morning, his muscles ached, a good ache, the kind that came from satisfying exercise. His limp had returned, though. Someday biomech surgeons would develop hydraulics that could replace the human skeleton or muscles. But his were for augmentation only. They couldn’t provide continual 100 percent function.
At the elevators, he went to a console and clicked the Aristo’s palmtop into a slit.
“Stand in front of the screen,” an EI voice said.
He moved until he saw his reflection on the screen. A light flashed, making him blink.
“Retinal pattern verified,” it said. “Assignment confirmed.”
Good. He had made it this far without challenge. Of course, he hadn’t yet done anything out of place.
An elevator shimmered open in the spoke and commuters poured out. Kelric joined a number of people boarding the car.
“Please halt,” the EI said. “You aren’t cleared.”
He froze. Damn. Not already.
“My clearance is coming,” a woman said impatiently. She wore the collar and cuffs of a high-rank taskmaker and her gold jumpsuit bore the black puma of the Qox dynastic line.
“Please accept my apologies,” the EI said. “But I cannot let you on until I receive confirmation.” Its tone of respect suggested it had made the same judgment as Kelric, that she carried authority. Kelric went into the car, trying to be invisible.
“Your clearance has arrived,” the EI said. “Please proceed.”
Th
e woman boarded and the elevator closed. A few people input their destination into a panel, but many did nothing, including Kelric. Most commuters probably had their destination filed in their palmtops, which would have already given it to the elevator EI.
Kelric had no idea if the Aristo had put a destination into the palmtop. If so, the EI would remind him when he didn’t get off at the right time. Either that, or arrest him. However, given that the Aristo had probably sent him to the spoke for no reason other than to harass a powerful admiral, he might have played it safe by keeping the destination private, known only to himself and Kelric. That went against the “well-oiled machine” image of the Aristos, but Kelric had already learned that when it came to plaguing one another, Aristos were at their most creative and least rigid.
The car stopped several times along the spoke and then reached Station Two. Kelric stood quietly while people exited. Then the car resumed its journey. He kept his face bland and hoped the elevator wasn’t sophisticated enough to register the rise in his heartbeat.
As they continued, his weight decreased. After a few more stops, they reached the ring that circled the hub. He floated out of the car with three other passengers and propelled himself along a concourse that curved around the hub. The concourse rotated, moving past the stationary hub on his left. Periodically he passed hatchways that opened into the hub. Inside, a regiment of soldiers was practicing exercises to develop their expertise in free fall.
Relaxing his mind, he probed the other people on the concourse. Twice he hit Aristo minds. Each time he withdrew. Fast. Even without empathic ability, Aristos recognized psions simply because they felt better near providers. Although they probably knew he was in the hub, he sensed neither surprise nor interest. Just as the controlled Aristos would never drop their work for an unscheduled meal or nap, so they ignored the unscheduled presence of a provider.
In the past, he had always assumed they were dissembling when they claimed to love their providers. It sounded like a crock to him, a specious attempt to justify their atrocities. He still found it appalling. What stunned him even more was realizing they did feel a form of love. Providers gratified them at a level beyond normal human passion. Few Aristos had the emotional capacity to fully comprehend how their own transcendence was hell for their slaves. With no challenges to their authority and no balances on their power other than their own intrigues, they had no referent to understand why Skolians viewed them with such horror.
We’re dealing with them wrong, he thought. Skolians and Traders. We put our hatred up front and they put their atrocities up front. They despise us because they can’t fathom why we loathe them. If they really understood what they do to us, would they back off? Even a few tendays ago he would have answered with a resounding no. After Tarquine, he wasn’t sure. Were there more like her? As Imperator, he could possibly negotiate with such Aristos. He might not like what they represented, but he could deal with them.
An even stranger thought came to him. What would happen if he and Tarquine ever met as equals? An odd idea. His mind glanced over thoughts of the future, many years down the line—and a chill ran down his spine.
Kelric blinked. What did that mean? He almost never experienced precognition. It required a relatively large uncertainty in time to let the human mind sample different possible futures, and rarely happened even to strong psions. Nothing more came to him, but he had a sense he and Tarquine would encounter each other again.
As he floated along the concourse, he probed nearby taskmakers. None were psions, and he caught only vague impressions. All he figured out was that shuttles arrived and departed on a regular schedule during this shift.
“You.” A man was watching him from a decon chamber. “Are you looking for someone?”
Kelric stopped. The taskmaker wore a jumpsuit with a Silicate insignia. The Silicate Aristos were the third Aristos caste, after Hightons and Diamonds. They ran the vast Aristo entertainment industries, which included the production and sale of providers.
Kelric went into terse mode. “Rim-walk.”
The man frowned. “Rim-walk what? Why are you up here?”
He tapped the extra palmtop on his belt. “I’ve a delivery.”
The taskmaker extended his hand. “Let me see.”
Kelric gritted his teeth. This fellow knew damn well he had no place interfering with a rim-walk, particularly since he belonged to a Silicate Line, far lower in the Aristo hierarchy than the Kaliga Line on Kelric’s jumpsuit. But Kelric had a much lower slave rank than this official. A true provider would be incapable of defying authority.
“Well?” the taskmaker said. “What’s wrong with you?”
Kelric put a frozen look on his face.
“Give me the palmtop,” the man repeated.
“Can’t.”
“I’m giving you an order.”
“Aristo gave me an order.”
“You’re rim-walking for an Aristo?”
“Yes.”
The man’s anger sparked. “Then hurry up. Get moving. Get your job done and get out of here.”
“Yes, sir.” Kelric pushed off again. He felt the taskmaker’s outrage at his defiance. The fellow was opening his palmtop, almost certainly to run a check. Kelric knew he had to leave the hub fast, before they caught him.
He went to the next decon chamber and extended his mind. People were inside. He continued along the concourse. Several soldiers were floating out of the next chamber, their bodies at an angle to his.
I am not here, Kelric thought, moving across the concourse.
At the third chamber, he detected only a quiescent EI brain. A data panel by the hatch indicated a shuttle was docked in this berth. This was it. His chance. Probably his only chance.
He activated the chamber’s admit cycle. Or he tried. He had forgotten the commands even for a Skolian chamber, and Eubians used a different standard.
Relax, he told himself. Entering decon had to be kept simple, given its importance. The SSRB stations probably shared similar microorganisms, but ships were always coming and going, making decon vital. It wouldn’t take long to figure out the procedure, but even a small delay could end in his discovery. This time the people around him weren’t distracted by any strange broadcasts.
He tried again, acutely aware of his public location. People would soon notice his abortive attempts. The hub officer was no longer visible around the curve of the concourse, but he had probably warned security to monitor Kelric. If the web tagged him for special attention, that would narrow the range of behaviors it considered acceptable.
On his next try, he made it through most of the sequence. Then a red light glowed on the panel. Taking a breath, he tried again, basing his guesses on what had worked so far.
The hatch hissed and retracted.
Kelric almost sagged with relief. Controlling his reaction, he floated inside and closed the hatch. The decon meds began their work, looking for organisms that might bedevil other ecosystems. He schooled his face into the boredom of someone carrying out a dull errand.
This was the point of no return. The record would show his anomalous behavior, and he had drawn enough attention that someone was bound to check. He had no permission to take a shuttle and wouldn’t get much farther without tripping an alarm. For that, however, he had a plan. In decon, with nothing else to do, he could work on a palmtop without raising suspicion.
He unhooked the Aristo’s palmtop and flipped it open. Small holicons formed above its screen, holographic icons for various functions. An ancient skeleton key gleamed in one corner, indicating the Aristo had locked his palmtop. Only someone who knew the correct security code could access its files.
Kelric had once been a whiz at unraveling codes. They were games to him. But that was for systems almost two decades out of date. Now, when so much depended on his hacking the palmtop, he drew a blank. Where to start? He had to solve the problem fast.
Quis. Of course. He couldn’t take out his dice, which still hung in the
pouch at his belt, but he could do mental Quis much the way prodigies with perfect pitch could hear and create music in their minds.
He imagined the holicons as dice. Then he played with them much as a mathematician played with equations. Gradually he added more dice, guessing at other functions in the palmtop. He based his guesses on his knowledge of computers, and also on what the evolving Quis patterns suggested about the Aristo’s style of organization. The patterns soon fragmented, just as a derivation could go haywire from poor assumptions or a math mistake.
Painfully aware of time passing, he started over with new assumptions. In only moments the patterns disintegrated into a mess.
He started again.
“Decon complete,” a voice said.
His concentration shattered.
Kelric took a breath. Then he started over. His tension made it hard to hold the patterns in his thoughts. Clear your mind, he thought. Concentrate on a point of white light. Quiet. Calm.
His mind relaxed, soothed by the exercise. As he prepared to try again, an EI said, “Do you need assistance?”
His hard-earned composure almost cracked. Yet when he said, “No, thank you,” he sounded calm.
“Why are you waiting in the chamber?”
“I was told to wait here, to deliver a message.”
“Who asked you to deliver the message?”
Kelric glanced at the palmtop. “Jaibriol Raziquon.” Many Aristos named their children after the Highton emperors. With a Jaibriol I and more recently a Jaibriol II, Eube would probably soon be drowning in Jaibriols, if it wasn’t already.
Silence.
Then: “Rim-walk assignment verified. Proceed.”
Kelric hid his relief. The EI must have contacted Raziquon. Apparently whatever it said hadn’t warned Raziquon that Kelric was in the wrong place. The spoke station also had decon chambers, so he could have been in one there, waiting for Kaliga.
He brought up the Quis patterns in his mind, honing his choices from the last few tries. This time he reached a viable end to his “derivation”—a possible access code for Raziquon’s computer.
He entered the code, tracing glyphs on the screen with his finger. The palmtop would know it wasn’t Raziquon’s writing. Raziquon gave him permission to carry the unit, though, so that didn’t matter. At least he hoped it didn’t. This unit had far more functions than Kelric’s limited model. If the Aristo thought Kelric might fool with it, he would have protected the palmtop. He doubted a Highton would worry, though. Providers couldn’t read and write. Their intellects were suppressed from conception.