Jik Dain Bedlip
Eyes closed, Dain stood alone in the center of Byukan-Hamil's only can-feel room, his back to its
entrance. Random thoughts, vague, ignored, pattered along the edges of his concentration as he
focused on his physical surroundings.
He hadn't experienced this room since his first interview with Norma, when he'd overlooked it
almost completely. So involved in the opportunity for visibility and power, in working on Norma,
her verbal and non-verbal feedback to his presence and propositions, he hadn't realized how the
room affected people and their transactions within it. Now, he explored its subliminal effects,
starting with the non-visual senses, to gauge its impact on Irwin's subconscious.
The room felt massive. It enveloped him with stone, isolating him from the rest of the
universe. Inside its scope, it provided everything his body and mind needed, but wants — wants
were another matter, totally up to him to acquire inside this room, if they were available at all.
Dain slowly opened his eyes. The room stretched long and narrow before him. Its walls stood as
waves of rough, pastel-pink rock. Here and there, someone had polished the surface to form
patterns, some abstract, some emblematic. Its ceiling arched above him, a series of rising vaults
made from smooth pale-gray rock with random flecks of black and glints of mica. Its floor matched
the weight of the other surfaces with plush carpet covered in a floral motif of fey-banyan-green.
Furnishings, lights, and ceiling heights broke the room into three areas. Here, near the entrance,
under the lowest vault, plump sofas and chairs with lush cushions would gather their occupants into
cozy conversation; matching tables supported lamps that oozed soft light. In the middle with a
higher ceiling, servers with simple, elegant lines offered a full range of foods and drinks; bright
spotlights overhead picked out doors and spigots. And beyond, beneath a lofty flood of apparent
sunlight, an obsidian hulk of a table offered support for momentous discussions and important
signatures.
Dain glanced back at the entrance. A stark frame of wide ebony beams encased a door whose slab
matched the walls. From the other side, though, the doorway leading into the can-feel room blended
modestly with a first-floor corridor of the Partners' building. In another three-hundred seconds
or so, Irwin would walk through that door.
Irwin's coup with Leez and Schuess, reneging on releasing their combines, pinned down Operation
Heart Transplant. Dain could move people, services, and money around the periphery, but he could
make nothing happen in Ganj Dareh, the base of the Rendezvous of Futures — and the Operation. He
couldn't establish new service levels for Kubizek, Ritter, Lueger, Streicher, Feder, Drexler,
Harrer, Stroehm, Eckart, Ilmaur, and their combines, so they could legitimately disserve
Ganj Dareh's Collective. He couldn't shift Geld out of operating budgets so those tacticians could
report them empty with shrugged shoulders and what-can-I-do? expressions. He couldn't authorize
more overtime without pay for Doyle Phoebe's anshin combine, then boost demands on their
performance, their endurance, and their patience.
Those three Partners had left him responsibility, but no authority, no wherewithal to enact either
his legitimate or illegitimate objectives.
Dain couldn't appeal directly to Irwin, couldn't reveal his true plans. So close to absolute
victory over Byukan-Hamil and the patterns that had shredded his self, he wouldn't beg or cajole.
No, here in this room, face to physical face, he intended to take back from Irwin the power
necessary for victory.
He strode down the room, shutting off all the lights, every lamp in the cozy conversation pit,
every spot in the server area, until he reached the boardroom table. He again talked to the room's
automata, replacing its noon with night, broken by one spotlight over the chair next to the wall,
farthest from the entrance. He sat in that chair, leaned back in it, and steepled his fingers
before his chin.
He didn't need to check his apparel. Every point of it, from his permanently depilated head to his
starched wing collar to the sweeping bobbed tail of his coat-vest to the buffed gleam of his shoes,
underlined his message of dominance.
His mind cleared for action, empty of anticipation and rehearsal, Dain waited for Irwin.
"Sir?" Kär whispered from his llevar.
"No."
"Sous Thy requests a meeting/will-be-seen."
"No."
"She insists it's urgent."
Steeled for his encounter with Irwin, Dain found patience easy. "Very well, but terminate
immediately on my word."
Thy appeared in the air in front of Dain's right shoulder, her head and shoulders perched on an
invisible pedestal.
"News of Kangi Yatapi," she announced after a second lost before she noticed the connection.
Dain waited. He kept his focus on more important matters away from his face.
"He will not work for us."
Dain noticed the loss of patois. Thy must be agitated. "Why not?" he asked.
She flicked her head as though dismissing a flying pest. "Says he's not available for any work
right now. He's taken a long-term contract with unlimited room for advancement."
"'He'? I thought you implied—"
"His word usage, his message presentation, his arrogance, all male," she ground out.
"What are you going to do now?"
"Get on with Operation!" Her words were clearer, but her eyes kept their heat. Her verbal pattern
indicated she was back in her favorite role again. "Logistics. Exercises. Poise for attack."
Dain kept his voice calm, reasonable, imperious. "The gleest project must be done as well."
"Lugar's job." Her old ploy to deflect the project.
Trying to undercut her whine quickly, he said with contempt, "That weakling?" Would Thy rise to the
bait?
Thy's curt nod showed her agreement. Her face quivered as her mind sorted through this new mix of
emotions, her pride and disgust challenging her yearning for the simplicity of command. "Kangi
Yatapi did give me a referral, another gleest who goes by the name of 'Pizi.'"
"And?"
"I will post a message in the appropriate Em-Deh sewer," she replied glumly.
Dain paused. He had another issue with Thy, an action item growing more critical every day, but he
made her come after it and prove her position inferior to him.
Seconds trickled by. Thy finally grunted, "Eh?"
"The dreamstick problem."
She hissed a sigh out through her clenched teeth. "No."
"Why?"
Another sibilant sigh. "Each dreamstick bonded to explicit constable. Won't work without her.
Won't work on her. Also, other dreamsticks won't work on her. Dreamballs same way for
arming, then work at distance.
"Unique connection makes our anshin no-help. Besides, Lugar don't want their pretty-boys
on his Team. Besides, chiefs no let them go.
"Three dreamstick suppliers in world," she huffed. "All use same femtochip, same encrypted link to
brain. Comes from one Gagarin factory, where bypassing fiducia requires zhuhndí break-in, not
bribe or blackmail. Big splash." She shook her head. "No good. We want secret invasion
of system.
"Transport of dreamsticks same-same. Brinks-built monomol shell sealed with explicit chief's
explicit identity." Thy ended with an abrupt shrug and straight-line mouth.
Dain echoed Thy's hiss in sympathy with her apparent frustration. They've explored this thing like
audit-tek with no quota on cyber-resources. No input or outgo or intermediate transaction
unexamined. And they're still locked out. Without a way past dreamsticks, Le Coeur faced grave
losses during the propaganda phase of Operation Heart Transplant. Which brought them more quickly
to the power phase. Suddenly alert, he peered more closely at Thy's image. Is she fighting a
smile right now? Is she ready to descend on Ganj Dareh with her ghost-troops?
In a quick image, the worst ollomani, thought-less, qualm-less, doubt-less, loaded down with
kinetic weapons, streamed through direvnya paths. Dain gritted his teeth against the raging
potential of such violence. There must be a way around this.
A muffled clacking rose in answer as jDub stirred his abacus. What? Dain demanded of his alter,
who replied with the trill of bits racing among automata. No machine can solve this, Dain
objected. The vibrato staggered, then somewhat impatiently, shifted pattern and tone, stopped,
started again in another direction. Oh.
"Another reason for the gleest," Dain said to Thy, who narrowed her eyes to contain her reactive
glare. Dain pressed her. "As a favor to Lugar, to enhance his chances for success in Ganj Dareh,
find this Pizi, set a contract," he ordered. "Understand?"
Thy allowed a meager nod, enough to depend on, enough so Dain could move on.
To Thy, "Keep me informed." To Kär, "End it."
The picture vanished before her next nod was complete. Dain peered at the empty air. It's like
whipping a talon-bear to do its tricks. You have to work harder each round, and in time, it
doesn't work anymore. However, Dain reminded himself, Thy is a matter that I will handle later,
personally. In the back of his mind, JDB howled with delighted anticipation.
Irwin, though, would appear at any moment. Thy's news changed Dain's strategy. He had selected
power as the key to his negotiation with Irwin, tactics to come with the moment. But that approach
relied on having a gleest as backup, someone who could reach into the guts of Byukan-Hamil's
policyware and change the expressed wishes of its masters. Obvious, heavy-handed, but effective
for the urgent timeframe.
Now, Dain must change that strategy. He chose deceit — and bolted from the chair. As he ran
through the can-feel room toward the entrance, he shouted, "Default configuration!"
Lights blazed on, over the table, in the server nooks, around the couches and chairs. He told the
door to get out of the way, then slipped past it into the corridor. He glanced both directions and
didn't see Irwin among the people streaming along the wide and open interior thoroughfare with its
windows, alcoves containing benches or counters, and other entrances. He had time yet and needed
it.
Quickly, wanting a mirror, but not taking even a moment to find one, Dain worked over his attire.
He must not challenge Irwin now, so he took off his coat-vest and folded it over his arm. He must
appear frazzled, so he loosened his linen shirt, making tufts at points along the maroon
bellyplate, then he dragged the toe of one shoe along a baseboard.
He looked around again and spotted Irwin's white helmet of hair bobbing through the crowd. No
chance for more changes in appearance. Time to perform! He set himself to pacing in front of the
can-feel's entrance.
Irwin broke out of the stream, but before he was quite close enough for conversation, Dain waved
and shouted, "Irwin! Can't we do this another time? I really—"
"Inside!" Irwin swept an arm toward the can-feel's doorway. "Inside, then we'll talk."
Glad Irwin brushed his too-busy ploy aside, Dain led the way. The room waited as he'd left it.
Irwin pushed past Dain and cast about as though looking for something. "Where's Norma?" he
demanded finally.
Confused, Dain said, "She's not here. I haven't been able to catch even a can-hear with her."
Irwin planted his fists on his hips. "I've been, unh, demanding can-feels regularly for, unh, four
days. I receive, unh, the same message back every time."
Dain had forgotten the price of meeting physically with Irwin: that nasal bleat he frequently
dropped among his words. In virtual meetings, automata filtered that out. Trying to ignore the
annoying sound, Dain raised his eyebrows and held up a spread hand in commiseration. "I'll show
you my Norma message if you show me yours."
Irwin nodded, a smile curving his full lips.
"Kär," Dain said, "get me a meeting with Norma." He beckoned Irwin to stand beside him. "Display
her response here."
His holoscreen appeared, filled with Norma's head. She peered directly at him as she said, "Dain,
get on with things. You know what I want you to do. You don't need my help, and I'm not available
to give it. I'll check in when I have time."
Dain knew the words, her expression as she said them. He'd studied them and still wasn't sure what
Norma meant. She seemed to perpetuate the imprimaturs and license she'd given him — or she'd
saddled him with sole culpability — or both.
Irwin changed his smile to show sympathy, then patted his breast pocket. "Request
meeting/can-be-felt with Har Norma," he said to his llevar.
His holoscreen was much larger than Dain's, projected more than arm's length away at waist height.
Together, they looked down on a full-length image of Norma, standing in formal business attire, her
hands clasped low in front of her, one foot slightly ahead of the other. She said, "Jac Irwin, I
regret that a sudden personal matter keeps me from meeting with you. This personal matter also
takes precedence over all but the most urgent business. Perhaps I'll be able to get back to you in
a few days."
"Is she really ill?" Dain asked, his surprise echoing through his mind and words. "Personal
business" was often code for a zhuhndí intrusion on consortium matters. How does this message fit
in with the one to me?
Irwin stepped away. "I, unh, sent someone over to her residence. It's closed up tight, nothing
going in or out. She seems determined to be alone in there."
Dain, too, had sent an agent: Kär. With similar results. The virtual Norma had been doing her
job — mandatory reviews, pertinent signatures, operational directives — but nothing her office
couldn't do with or without her hand at its helm.
Is Norma truly sequestered? Doing what? Dain knew he had free rein over the Rendezvous, but how
far beyond that? All the same questions generated by his own frustration with Norma, now supported
by Irwin's. Leading to the same conclusion: he must get his power back from Irwin and maybe tap
into some extra at the same time.
Dain mustered innocence and said, "You saw all I know about her situation."
Irwin reached out to pat Dain's upper arm. "It's just you and me, then."
Exactly. "Can I get you something to drink?"
The other Partner rambled toward the conversation pit. "Bourbon and branchwater."
Dain strode past Irwin and quickly fetched the liquor. For himself, he brought a tumbler of jalo,
ethanol-free, its chartreuse fluid alive with aquamarine effervescence. He settled in a chair next
to the sofa where Irwin sprawled. He met the other man's eyes.
"How's the Rendezvous of Futures coming?" Irwin asked, his drink untouched in his hand.
Dain slipped further into his harassed, ingenuous servant role. "Tough. Quick ramp up. Vague,
possibly impossible mission. Continent-wide exposure. Hopes and dreams of thousands of people,
who are starting to flood into Ganj Dareh. I sure didn't appreciate being hobbled by Leez and
Schuess going back on their word."
Irwin continued his grave inspection. "I sympathize. Norma's given you a very difficult task.
Lots of ways to fail. Few rewards if you, unh, don't."
"You don't believe all this is necessary? That Byukan-Hamil isn't in trouble in Ganj Dareh?"
Irwin took a sip, pouted in approval, then sat back. "Oh, I believe that our consortium is, unh,
very much in trouble, but that Ganj Dareh is only the most apparent breach in our ramparts. I
believe that we, the Team of Partners, fail to appreciate the true extent of the disaster we face.
We tend to blame the outside world and the changes in it, but we fail to perceive our own
responsibilities, to, unh, notice how many demon seeds we planted in our own garden. We should be
reacting much more strongly than we are."
Dain set his own drink on a table and leaned toward the other Partner, as though rapt by Irwin's
rhetoric. "How?"
Irwin again lapsed into scrutiny. His gray eyes studied Dain, though their light dimmed
occasionally as if his thoughts wandered in other directions.
Dain waited. After the cards are laid out, he who speaks first loses.
After several moments, Irwin extended a meaty hand and touched Dain's arm where it lay on his
chair. "I know why Norma brought you to consortium staff, pushed you so quickly into a
Partnership. Do you?"
Dain froze. Of course he knew: Norma intended to neutralize him. A thin wail lifted from the
depths of his mind as Bedlip protested the conclusion again. Dain ignored it. What to tell
Irwin? The truth with its underlying cynicism and insight? Bedlip sniveled loudly. Or a lie
wrapped in virginity?
Dain let Bedlip answer: "Norma wanted me working for the Team, not against it." He grinned. "I'd
already beaten the pants off you once; I could do it again. I was fresh, innovative, dynamic, all
the things the Partners—" Dain broke in, quashed his younger self's na‹ve attack on Irwin and the
others, feigned an embarassed glance, then finished lamely, "— appreciated."
Irwin returned a patronizing smile.
Thank you, Bedlip, Dain thought and waited once more.
"Norma hired you to bury you, and I'm sad to say, she succeeded. You've been her errand boy, your
verve and energy 'trained' with worthless cul-de-sacs. You haven't done Byukan-Hamil or the
Continent or even yourself any good. I'd like to fix that."
A crinkle of frustration awoke within Dain. Did Irwin's personal agenda amount to more than the
prattle pouring out of him now? Did he — Wait, just wait. "How?" he prompted once more.
Irwin drank again, smiled broadly, and waved his free hand at the walls. "Byukan-Hamil is dead.
We just haven't figured out how to lie down yet. And the longer we fight it, the more decay, the
more gangrene we let fester in the collectives we're supposed to, unh, serve.
"I propose we acknowledge our fate, dissolve the consortium, and establish a whole new arena for
competition on this continent."
Specifics, Irwin, specifics! "Just walk away?" Dain encouraged the ponderous man, even as his
frustration kinked more painfully. How long has Irwin been talking this up? Just since he
surprised Norma in that Limited meeting? If before that, could I have leveraged him —
Irwin held up an open hand. "No, no. Too disruptive of everybody concerned, particularly the
combines and collectives. No, we should break up Byukan-Hamil into ten separate consortia, one for
each Partner, on an equal basis to, unh, begin with. Then — " he sat forward, his gray eyes keen
"— we compete with each other."
Dain knew whom Irwin was leaving out, but he still needed details, so he exaggerated his
confusion. "Ten?"
The older Partner hardened, his eyes, his face, even his body stiffening. "Norma, more than any of
us, has, unh, brought the consortium to this sorry state. She should learn to fend for herself."
"Have you talked to her about this?"
"No. I will present this, unh, motion in a Limited meeting only when I am sure of enough votes to
pass it over her objection."
"When will that be?"
"Are you with me?"
Could Irwin really be this vague in his own mind? Or was he sly in his own way, scattering
enticing hints of a power-grab? So pretend it's working. "What metrics will you use to divide up
Byukan-Hamil?"
Irwin relaxed, sipped bourbon. "Good question. Good question. We could use geography,
unh, drawing lines to ensure an equitable division according to gross and net income. Or we could
follow lines of business. Each of us spanning the continent, running business groups with very
similar revenue streams."
Dain reached for his drink and paused over it as though mulling the choices. He recognized
immediately that, segregated, the former Partners would slip under Le Coeur's control more easily.
He sipped to forestall a smile, then said, "I favor a geographic division. How close to a
super-majority are you?"
"Close, very close."
Liar. Or is he? Dain could now infer the essence of Irwin's scheme: pressure or persuade enough
Partners to defeat Norma and win the authority to convert Byukan-Hamil's policyware to new
patterns. Beyond that, he was sure, Irwin would be vague, relying on the time-honored method of
settling issues: bickering during endless meetings.
Time to make my bargain. Besides, if I don't cut him off here, Irwin will start his sales pitch,
lumbering through the features and benefits of the new structure.
Dain diverted his eyes coyly. "In the meantime, Irwin, there's the Rendezvous. Norma has pushed a
lot of unemployed people off the cliff of hope. I'm responsible to see that they land safely."
"I understand."
"I have to control budgets if I'm to control anything."
"I'll release every combine but the anshin," Irwin offered.
"Release from the Regional Partners and you, as well, as Partner-for-Business?"
"Yes."
"Anshin, too."
"No."
Dain rolled his eyes over to the man and pressed his point with a safe lie: Irwin never dabbled in
details. "They've got violence in Ganj Dareh already. Are you aware of that? Chief Heejanus is
asking for help."
Irwin squirmed. "Only if I, unh—"
That bleat again! Dain clamped patience over his expression.
"— approve all requests," Irwin continued finally, "that exceed five-thousand Geld."
Dain trapped his sigh of exasperation before it could escape. He held his breath and wanted to
send Kär scampering through the data, but precise numbers really didn't matter: his automaton
could section any requisition of funds into pieces that would slip under whatever threshold Irwin
set.
Time to close the deal. He needed to get about his — and Le Coeur's — business. Dain said,
"Done."
"You'll vote with us to divest Byukan-Hamil and bring competition back to Popovich under our own
terms?"
Dain set his glass aside. "I will," he vowed and shifted his feet to take his weight. "But you
have got to get Norma into that meeting."
"I intend a can-feel in this room. I just have to entice her out of her residence. I will, unh,
let you know when I'm successful."
"Do that." Dain bounced to his feet, but despite Le Coeur's urgent tug, he waited there instead of
walking off. Irwin watched genially for a moment, then raised his eyebrows in query. Dain tapped
his own breast pocket, referring Irwin to his llevar.
"Now?" Irwin asked.
"Please."
Playing some exasperation, some amusement, even some approval across his ample features, Irwin
shifted on the sofa to lay his holoscreen over the other seats. He talked with both Leez and
Schuess and watched as they repealed their cancellations. Finally, after a glance at Dain, he
worked through the separate processes of approving the re-organization himself, not forgetting the
five-kay-Geld cap per anshin expenditure.
After Irwin shut down his llevar, Dain brought Bedlip's enthusiasm and innocence into his smile and
reached out to the older Partner. "Now I have to get back to running the Rendezvous."
Irwin folded his big hand around Dain's and shook it warmly. "Good luck."
"Thanks." Dain whirled and raced from the room. In the corridor, out of Irwin's sight, he slowed,
slipped on his coat-vest, and fastened its single button. As he marched steadily back to his
quarters, he ordered Kär, "Get every one of my anshin chiefs into a meeting/will-be-seen
immediately."
And to his other agent, jDub: "Update summary!"
The splinter ego imposed his abacus over the busy hallway, a double image of a nattering present
and a tantalizing future. Six lines of status, their beaded weight shifting inexorably in his
direction: two, two, and two. His budget-authority firm on the left again with combine-control
hovering nearby — about to be cinched into place, starting with the upcoming will-see.
Dain bared his teeth, already feeling the weight of a continent as he tore into it.
