bBook Author's Pixie

 

 

Jik Dain Bedlip

     Dain rested a foot on a lava outcropping, then leaned on his upraised knee. He glanced around at a jumbled slope, then sent his gaze down it to the Inn's entrance. The wooden-slab door jutted open as a steady trickle of Le Coeur executives ambled into the morning sunshine. Off to the side, the glow-trim trees seemed asleep.
     Raising his eyes, Dain looked out over the entire caldera, its mottled browns interrupted by obsidian, its jagged wall roughly circular, its middle smoothed over to form the drome.
     There, over a hundred aircraft staged their departures. In a series of octets, they trundled from central parking into take-off positions. Eight short runways defined a compass for flight paths, like radiating streaks of warpaint that released Le Coeur on the world. The planes hesitated on the strips, hunched into maximum-lift configurations, scuttled forward, then rushed into the air. Easily clearing the caldera's wall, they climbed into a deep, clear sky on their ways back home, where life would take on a whole new meaning.
     Untroubled, idling in an aura of triumph, Dain followed each wave of aircraft from cold start on the ground till it dwindled into a merger with the sky's blue. Inside, his mental landscape seemed as peaceful and open as those heavens. All that stirred were his emotions: triumph, satisfaction, optimism. A confluence of intellect and faith flowed from the evening's oratory through the short night of celebration and on out across the continent on the wings of his loyal supporters.
     He could stand here all morning, watching his power spread.
     Then, as the throated murmur of a flight faded from the skies, Dain felt something new on the slope with him. A presence, breathing, watching. He glanced back.
      Thy. Quiet, intent. An arm's length away.
     Dain recoiled, then blocked the reaction. Under the cover of his stiffened face, startle-driven blood beat against his jaw and his temples. Anger jetted from gratings in the cellar of his mind — only to vanish instantly. A thick bolt of determination surged into its place. JDB's work; the tang of hot metal drifted by to denote the duty just met.
     Steadied by the injection of resolve, Dain refocused on Thy.
     Her round, lumpy face composed, yet threatening, her body passive, yet forceful, Thy stared back. She enjoyed these displays of prowess, relished her physical superiority over others.
     Instead of scowling, Dain smiled easily, turned his body to greet Thy, and said lightly, "Good. You got my note. What progress—"
     "Assault on the Mirnaya Direvnya," Thy snapped.
      "Just the Ganj Dareh part."
     Thy jerked her head down and up, a gruff nod, but her eyes didn't rise with her face. Addressing the ground, she said, "I looked for gleest. Gleest who can burrow through the virtual walls, make Ganj Dareh's cyberspace sick. Found two good enough for this job. Been followin' their antics, their gloats.
     "My favorite, Temüjen." She shook her head: left, right. "Caught, Exiled; took the name 'Cocytus' Out There." She lifted her eyes with an open, ambiguous face around them. "The other still goes by 'Kangi Yatapi.'"
      Dain raised an eyebrow. He shouldn't have to dig the rest of the report out of her.
     "Credentials, right?" responded Thy. Abruptly, she shifted her stance, with a step to the side, then back. Her face fell into misery; she seemed puppy-pathetic in a wart-hog sort of way.
     With a sigh, she said, "Mainly, I've been reading the gleest will-hears. Tell you the secrets to getting there, if you want."
     Dain looked down into her eyes. They appeared shallow, their usually crystal depths veiled. He'd give her no answer till he knew more.
     "No?" Thy said. "Didn't think so." She glanced away, then back.
     A woman of action, uncomfortable with intangibles? From anyone else, these fidgets would signal failure. Thy had never displayed them before. Is something else clogging an otherwise straightforward report? Either she has a gleest we can hire to penetrate Ganj Dareh's Collective will-hear — or she doesn't.
     Thy said, "Remember a charge of point-four-seven Geld on your monthly statement from the Global Collective, oh, about 3-Sevener ago? Described as an assessment for new publication of Yeibichai Pattern Language? That was Kangi Yatapi. Word is she collected over fifteen million Geld before the Em-Deh combine got the trade database cleaned up." She watched under droopy lids, lips parted, waiting for a reaction.
      Dain waved the incident off. "More recently," he demanded and returned her scrutiny.
     Thy shut her mouth. The veil inside her eyes dropped out of the way. Oddly, though, she went on in the same vein: "Kangi Yatapi silent since that operation. No capers, no wrinkles in the cyber-continuum, not even a cram-cast of bragging. Nobody knows why." She rushed her words. "There's an Em-Deh sewer where I have already posted a notice. If Kangi Yatapi doesn't respond—"
     Abruptly, she batted away the topic, straightened her back, then her shoulders and neck. Wide eyes staring, she leaned into a snarl. "Tell me, Dain boy, why don't you grab —" she acted out the word "— one or two of BH's gleests for this? Or aren't they any good?"
     Dain flinched again — and regretted it again. He turned it into a step away, while he searched for a response. Thy dominated this interaction, a first for her — and him. To what end? He had found no clue. Yet, he must turn her attack back on itself.
     No verbal jujitsu came to him. He manufactured a misstep and stumbled on the rough slope. Under cover of regaining his balance, he sought a ploy of domination to crush her challenge. No answer patterns arrayed themselves in his mind.
      He could just be truthful, he supposed. After all, they were peers, chief executives in Le Coeur.
     "Like you," Dain said, lifting empty hands and shrugging. "I had identified a gleest, named Tidhar. Like you, I lost him. Har Norma took him for her own, though I doubt she even realizes his talents with logiciel. Still, he will be no help to us."
     His directness seemed to soften Thy's challenge. He went on with it. "I know of another, one with the skills and experience for this job. Baru Diganderby. Not a true gleest, he's too idealistic to even approach." He flung the name aside.
     "Our consortium staff at Byukan-Hamil does employ others, of course, many others. Their talents are spotty, useful in operations, and the maintenance, certification, even construction, of logiciel, but none has the genius for this type of burrowing."
     He lifted his other hand, palm up, empty. "In Ganj Dareh, the very combine who operates Em-Deh there, Jul Streicher's people: will-hear are beyond their control. They can either break the whole thing or do nothing." He sighed. "Thy, anybody we can find in BH either has too good manners or not enough skill for us."
     "Then abandon the need." Thy squeezed her face, eyes narrowing, forehead bunching, jaw working, brown skin flushing into purple. Her body shook with determination.
     He'd been wrong. The easing of her expression hadn't shown acceptance of his explanation. And her failure with Kangi Yatapi hadn't fueled her uneasiness. She had a greater challenge in mind, out here on the rocks.
     She swept an arm through the air between them. "Abandon your Business nonsense and its dainty corruption of customer satisfaction." Her other arm slashed down on the same context. "Abandon Lugar's crap about changing People and their minds." She drew her hands back gracefully. "Use my Technology." She shifted into a combat stance. "Conquer Ganj Dareh — now! Conquer the continent — two heartbeats later!"
     Alarm washed away all other thoughts. Is she ready for more than showing off? Dain stepped back. Thy didn't counter his move.
     Dain hedged. "We've talked about this, Thy." Behind the words, he flashed on their relative physical positions and stepped around an outcropping, shifting above her on the slope in the process.
     Thy pivoted to follow as she said, "Words from Dain and Lugar dumped all over me, yes. Real talk, no."
     His body hammered him with its readiness. Dain decided that he would run instead of fight — but that need had not emerged yet. Thy still wanted to talk. He found his grin again and took a bantering tone with her. "Conquer a continent of seventy-five million with your technology, with your troops?"
     Thy gave a curt nod. "Two of my ollomani, in shifts, with weapons, dominate a thousand of these weakling zhee-tely."
      Dain kept grinning. "Exiles might be even fiercer. Perhaps, we should—"
     She swatted the idea away. "My ollomani were born smarter. My ollomani were trained tougher. My ollomani live within society, yet the society never sees them. They are like ghosts, ghosts who can rattle the very bones of that society."
     She still wasn't making any sense. "How many ollomani did Lugar leave you with?" He frowned as though trying to recall.
     Thy matched his scowl. "I took seventy-three thousand, six hundred. Lugar works with my rejects: the misfits, the sullen, the cruel." She huffed with frustration, then shook off Dain's protests and went on.
     "Not every zhee-tel, not every direvnya. Just biggest ones. And the next biggest. Continent's major functions operate there, but only twenty percent of the people. You command the top: the strategists and tacticians in those direvnya. I know, I look. I subjugate the zhee-tely. The bottom. Together, we conquer!"
      Thy's face glowed with her conclusion.
     Suddenly, Dain leaned back. He now understood her blunder, but could he talk her out of it? "It won't work that way, Thy." He reached out to stall her off. "We can't just turn everything upside-down. We haven't got the money for it. Revolution would ruin everything we've worked for." He turned his hands into clutchs. "We have to co-opt the system, so we can suck up its Geld."
     Thy settled back on her heels, then rocked forward again. She worked her shoulders to reassert her ready fists.
     Taking this as a sign of progress, Dain relaxed some. Thy had founded the Tlaxtli League as sanctuary and therapy for outcasts like herself, years before Le Coeur existed. Dain and Lugar had swept up the league — and her as its legacy — in their greater intrigue because they needed it to provide and camouflage shocktroops. No wonder she grew confused at times, but she had never challenged him or their plans directly before. He shook his head in apology and said, "I'm sorry, Thy. Lugar and I should have explained this better to you."
      Thy stood her ground, her eyes twitching with her mind's agitation.
     Dain could only try to talk her through this. He — and Le Coeur — still needed her and the option of brute power. Only she was prepared to lead her ollomani into battle. "One major concept and two small ones:
     "First, Pattern Languages are built into the policyware of the Mirnaya Direvnya. Their rules are its rules.
     "As a part of that, all money flows through the Em-Deh. So, if we don't follow its rules, at least where the automata can see us, we don't get money, and if we don't get money, we don't win."
     People may make the fundamental decisions, but the automata make them happen, a society truly based on law. But Dain didn't bother Thy with this point of philosophy.
     "Understand?" he added instead.
      She bobbed her head in weak assent.
     "Next, in the Pattern Language of Continent Popovich, the people in a combine don't win contracts. The combines, as lawful and separate entities, do; and if the combine belongs to a consortium — as they all do on Popovich, belong to Byukan-Hamil, that is — the consortium wins the contract and gets paid for delivering it.
     "That means that the combines we already control cannot just jump from BH to Le Coeur and bring their revenue streams with them. But they can be sold! To another consortium with compensation a private matter between parties. As Partner-in-Charge for Byukan-Hamil, I set the prices and approve the sales.
     "Which brings me to the final step in our program. Popovich's Collective — probably under Byukan and Hamil's influence — adopted a pattern that says we cannot start a consortium without first being an independent combine that has been selected for a contract by a Collective. It's related to the pattern that says you can't move to a direvnya unless you work there.
     "Thy, please understand. Le Coeur must be selected in Ganj Dareh before we can be recognized as a consortium, before I can sell our combines for nothing and move their Geld from BH to Le Coeur. I will then resign and go to work for our new consortium." He grinned. "Apparently, Byukan used such tactics before, since the global pattern against such corruption was rescinded by Popovich. And Norma never corrected that."
     Dain cherished the nest of two-edged ironies, Byukan's corruption of the patterns, Norma's dual role of neglect and action, and his own triumphant swoop through the loopholes.
     He continued, "Once all that happens, the most important direvnya will lie within our grasp — as you said, Thy — and we can change their Collective minds, one at a time, one way —" he winked "— or another. We'll shape their pattern languages, pruning here, building there. Until we truly control the Continental Collective and we can set the really important patterns, the way Byukan and Hamil did. Then the automata will enforce our ways."
      Thy looked at her raised hands, stared them down till they hung at her sides.
     Once, Dain and Lugar had discussed having Thy killed, to remove her and the pain of dealing with her old ways of doing things, but the only thugs-for-hire on the continent played in the League — and none of the ollomani would attack her. Glad now they hadn't taken that step, Dain waited.
     When Thy raised her face again, he stepped in closer and said, "It comes down to votes, each person in a Collective grabbing an agent-for-selection. Even with your troops in place, physically forcing people to vote our way, you couldn't cover the Ganj-Dareh Collective in the eight-thousand seconds allotted by global pattern.
     "We have to convince most people in other ways — drastic ways since we're too late to file a legitimate challenge to Byukan-Hamil, the way Gatogrebok did. Their bid shocked Norma enough to give us this chance, but we still have to drive Ganj Dareh to totally disrupt their normal selection process.
     "That's Lugar's job: to turn Ganj Dareh upside-down and get the Collective to recognize that neither Byukan-Hamil nor Gatogrebok can solve their problems; only a new, tough force can restore civil order.
     "We have to go through existing channels to take control of them. That's where you make the final difference. Understand?"
     Conviction crept back into Thy's eyes. Dain hoped it reflected his argument, but he wasn't sure. He watched it slowly draw her back together again. She appeared almost normal. Yet, he wondered, how had she really incorporated the change?
     "Understood," she said after a moment. "But you understand this: my ghost-troops the best on Yeibichai." She held up a hand, fingers spread. "Seven years, I work them." She folded the hand slowly back into a fist. "I judge them. I filter them. I define their mission. I focus them on it. I train them." She studied her fist, then let it drop. "Done nothing else."
     Dain drew a long breath that lifted his shoulders and spirits. He heard her plea for recognition. He acknowledged it. "Thy, you're an essential part of Operation Heart Transplant, but you're just going have to wait before you can act." Even then, if I can help it, you will act without violence. You and your kind will not cleanse your psyches, like rusty swords, in the corpse of Ganj Dareh.
      She bunched up again, her face, her body, her voice. Did she read my mind? Dain braced himself.
     "Then get your own gleest," Thy said with a trace of smile. "It's Business business."
     "People business, actually."
     Thy spat. "Whatever! Do it yourself." She turned away.
     "No."
     Thy froze, then looked back. Dain recognized that she was grasping for some pride out of this encounter. It was too late. He had defeated her challenge, dissipated it into the logic that should dominate their proceedings. Now, he had to be sure she would never revolt again.
     Dain straightened his spine a final centimeter. He folded his arms, then stared down at Thy as he said, "Lugar and I are too visible. I must work as Partner within Byukan-Hamil Consortium. He must work in Ganj Dareh with clean hands to secretly coordinate the rabblerousing. We cannot delegate this special operation because we've warned the rest of Le Coeur away from the Em-Deh, and because we need direct control over its effects. Only you can conduct it."
      "No."
     Suddenly impatient, Dain struck at the core of her operation. "I won't pay for your transports. You'll need them soon, won't you?"
     Thy took a moment, then said, "If I say 'yes,' you'll pay for them now?"
     "All charges?"
      "Only the deposits, partial payment to secure contract, now."
     "Adequate."
      "I will find your gleest." Thy waved a hand at his right shoulder. "Transfer funds now."
     Had this been her true fall-back position after all? From the beginning? Or created just now in the midst of defeat? Dain had to acknowledge her skills. Even within strategic submission, she had notched out a tactical victory.
     He activated his llevar, "Kär, no screen. Commence funds transfer. Source: major account is Hubei Region, minor account is Ganj Dareh, combine is Anshin, allotment is Contingency Budget." Take from their victims. "Target: major account is Byukan-Hamil headquarters, minor account is Norma Reservoir, combine is Electricity-Generation, allotment is Research-and-Development. Activate." As always, he relished how he channeled Geld to Le Coeur: right under Norma's own nose.
     "Transfer invalid." The automaton's words seemed pinched, even more than the llevar's puny speaker normally did.
     Dain jerked his head toward his shoulder and found no screen, as he had ordered. Anger launched itself, then aborted somewhere in the alter dungeon. Instead, confusion spread across the back of his mind and worry rose out of his guts. Thy's scrutiny added intimidation.
      "Explain," he croaked.
     In a more normal voice, Kär said, "Za Leez revoked her assignment of budget authority over Ganj Dareh anshin combine."
      What? Why? Dain wanted to explore the boundaries of this deceit. "Try—"
     Kär interrupted. "She also revoked a budget-related subset of all other reassignments from Hubei Region. As has Ler Schuess."
     Irwin! First, he'd used his authority as Partner-in-Charge of vertical lines of business — that co-signing he'd talked about — to keep Dain from assuming full, permanent charge of those combines. Now, he'd used Dain's absence to bend Leez and Schuess back to his side. Only the requirement for Dain, as Accepting Strategist, to agree to the revocation — which he hadn't — kept the reversal from being concluded. Dain still challenged Irwin in the murky realm of automated permissions.
     And he remained in charge of the combines transferred by the other Partners; otherwise, Kär would have listed their names too.
      "Dain," Thy said. "My funding."
     The framework of Dain's mind creaked as he wrenched it around to handle Thy appropriately. His mental sinews cried for an expression of the alarm that weighted them down. JDB thrashed invisibly to absorb a parallel explosion of rage. The other alters, so quiet since last night, stirred in their respective dungeons. Yet, Dain could not sacrifice the readiness of Le Coeur nor his dominion over it. He must keep Thy aligned and proceeding. He needed that gleest more than ever now — to burrow into Byukan-Hamil's virtual structure and rip out a few walls.
     "Kär," Dain said, his throat straining to produce a confident voice. "Get the money from the infraware upgrade budget." Byukan-Hamil could do without faster, bigger systems anyway. "Use my authority as Director of Infrastructure Technology."
      "Transfer confirmed."
     Dain managed a smile as he patted Thy on the shoulder. "Nothing to be concerned about. Get your ghost-troops ready. Surround Ganj Dareh. Hide in the fey-banyan." He even took on a stern note as he added, "But don't let anyone or anything see you, as we planned."
     Done with this gleest business finally, Dain remembered the dreamstick problem, decided he had stretched Thy's — and his — patience far enough.
     "Go," he said in dismissal. "Do well."
     Thy grunted and retreated across the slope, her smoldering eyes level on Dain, as though leaving him an image to haunt his own mission for Le Coeur. Thy, independent, motivated, alert, with her own ways of solving crises and assuring victory.
     Dain waved, even though his mind roiled with the birth of urgent schemes. Then, he turned down the slope, hurrying across the rocky clutter, ordering Kär to demand an emergency clearance from the drome, while whispering notes about his ideas. He would start an organized response to Irwin as soon as he was airborne.