Jik Dain Bedlip
Dain strode up one of several paths leading to Ganj Dareh's Central Anshin Station. The welcoming
gardens bracketed his approach like assorted multi-green and shaggy statues. He peered through
them at the building's entrance, to see if Heejanus were waiting for him there.
Because all Byukan-Hamil protocols, formal and informal, required such courtesy when a Partner
arrived for a can-feel.
But Dain didn't really anticipate her presence. Not after the can-hear she had foisted upon him
four days before, following his continent-wide meeting/will-be-seen.
That interruption had surprised him — surprised and almost buggered him, pumping agitation
into his toxicentric alter egos. JDB and JDainB burst from their dungeons, keen with new energy,
threatening disruption of his schedule, of his plans, even of their carefully engineered
co-existence. Only an unexpected — and still unexplained — reserve had stuffed them safely away
again. Did that explain JDB's unusual reticence today?
Her challenge — no, he had decided, it wasn't the challenge per se because he had deflected that
easily enough. Rather, her means of achieving a forum with him, her brash, inventive, and dogged
pursuit of that goal, that disconcerted him. He had previously overlooked this potential
in her, but now that Heejanus had demonstrated it so vividly, it seemed evident in her past.
Hadn't she quietly thwarted Le Coeur's recruiters? Hadn't she stayed in her job despite his
pressure on Za Leez? Hadn't she managed to harbor such a mulish, even cavalier attitude despite
her prominent role as the anshin tactician of a Prime Direvnya?
Of course, he and all his alters had recognized that this revelation changed his relationship with
Heejanus. No longer chess queen versus pawn, with its foregone conclusion; JDB sulked over the
loss. Now more like a two-body problem in classical mechanics — as observed by the wraith,
steward of all the trivia choked down in the Network of Learning (he then revealed the
astrophysical facts to support this assertion).
Dain, though a significant body in the Byukan-Hamil/Popovich system, with appropriate mass and
gravity, could no longer expect to sweep up Heejanus like an inconsequential meteorite that would
flame into oblivion in his wake. In fact — as he had known, but not realized all along — he
needed her to carry enough weight of intellect and purpose to change his course, to deflect the
compromised orbit he'd achieved as Partner, to make such a fuss over wicked Die Gastarbeiter that
only Le Coeur could rescue Ganj Dareh from chaos. Her behavior the other day showed she could
fulfil this requirement — to his belated satisfaction.
But like a comet versus a gas-giant planet, like Porthos circling far beyond Yeibichai, or Sol's
Jupiter, Heejanus would not survive the interaction. In the end, Dain and his forces would shatter
her useful, but doomed combine, then pull their pieces down, plunging closer and closer until they
disintegrated. A violent process started by yester's violent missions. A process to be steered by
this Day to Measure. A process as inevitable as sunrise and Le Coeur's victory.
Dain smirked appreciation to the wraith once again, then swept in through the station's entrance.
Part of his role in this Day to Measure was measuring Heejanus.
She waited for him after all — inside. Standing tall on the wide terrazzo floor, she comprised a
patient eddy in a room swirling with activity. Anshin and zhee-tely alike moved in varying manners
to and from counters and half-private offices on all sides.
His appearance pulled her into action, a direct line that intercepted his march. She carried
herself with confidence and grace, her back straight, her shoulders braced, her chin high. Her
tight jumpsuit enclosed her in a typical gray, but with an odd blush that both attracted and
repelled him. The square, brown llevar at her waist gave a touch pedestrian compared to Kär.
She stopped three paces away. "Jik Dain, I'm Phoe—"
"Yes, of course," Dain cut in as he kept moving, closing the gap to test her presence of mind.
Only a pinching of auburn eyebrows dented her composure. She tracked him calmly, letting down her
gaze as he approached, her eyes steady on his. He halted within arm's reach, not an unseemly
distance, but closer than Byukan-Hamil etiquette recommended.
He noticed a faint touch of heat. Also, a mix of scents, ever so slight: qahwah, for sure, on her
breath, but from her body ... vanilla, is it? Both odors arrived corrupted by something else ...
sweat. So, Heejanus is nervous about talking with me. Or maybe, he cautioned himself,
she's just rushed here from deep in the building.
Dain waited a few extra breaths to emphasize his scrutiny and muddle the ambience. Then he said,
"Thank you for meeting with me on such short notice,"
She nodded, her eyelids fluttering a little too quickly. Anxiety? Confusion? Something in the
air? He had to determine the interplay of their gravities, so he could predict the mechanics of
their future.
"You're welcome," Heejanus said. "Would you like to go up to the lounge?" She stepped away toward
the central staircase.
"No, no." He held up a palm. Not on her chosen field. "Let's just grab a sitting space. There
—" he waved at the back wall "— one of those alcoves." Then he led the way, without watching to
see if she followed.
Dain chose an alcove shielded by two stiff ferns like feathery guards. He brushed past them and
settled into one corner of the cushioned back. He crossed his legs, captured the upper knee in
clasped fingers, and smiled up warmly as Heejanus perched next to him.
Prod and measure: an understated stimulus causes how much response? So he said, "I just wanted to
stop by and check how things are going, see how much our Rendezvous of Futures was affecting your
direvnya."
From long practice, he knew how to study someone in a can-feel without appearing to stare.
Heejanus' dark-red hair, wrapped about her head, and light complexion, largely untouched, gave her
the basis for beauty, but her rangy build and solid posture undermined every bit of it. Her
expression still seemed composed, but her body language now, sitting at the edge of the bench,
heels reared over tip-toes beneath her, suggested that she was ready for flight, for returning to
her duties. Always so eager? Or is she overwhelmed today by yesterday's aftermath?
"Things are developing smoothly," Heejanus replied from her pose, then suddenly slid back.
Transformed, she turned to him eagerly with bright eyes and glib sentences. "I have assigned an
inter-combine liaison to Pla Cliff; that's growing into a full-time job. I have allocated two more
coordinators to handle our relationship with other Ganj-Dareh combines as they add people and
expand their business. I have redeployed constables, Nurses, and counselors to match the shifting
zhee-tely population." Her ears cocked themselves back and down.
She's unhappy about something in there, probably lack of personnel. Or time. Hiring authority has
not benefited her yet: good. He threw her a soft, but wicked change in approach. The sight of
two of his ollomani captured by constables echoed his intent. "Will you have enough room in the
cells?"
Heejanus scrunched her eyebrows. To set her expression, keep it from revealing too much. She
licked her lips and parried, "Cells, sir?" as though afraid how to answer.
"Aren't there —" he started, then took a less-precise tack. "I just assumed, what with
all these new people in town, the increase in incidents, that there'd be more arrests, more, uh,
occupancy in the cells."
Heejanus blinked, then wrinkled her nose over a wry grin. She's already figured a riposte:
interesting. She plucked her llevar from her belt and scooted over next to him as she aimed the
holoscreen out into the room. "Why don't I just show you how things look?" She held the brown box
in one palm and drummed away in its pink keyspace. Bold lines locked together in the air, setting
axes for a graph that cleared the screenspace except for a nebulous washed-blue background and
their perpendicular strips of black, notched and labeled.
How easily she shifted to presentation mode! And brought up graphs, the only language truly common
to Partners and the people who work for them. Dain settled, willing to let this liturgy run its
course.
"I'm putting 'Count' up the side," Heejanus said. "With 'Time' at the bottom, starting at Har
Norma's announcement and running along to the right. I won't display resident population because
that's steady, more or less." She added a glib aside, "Not counting newborns and expected deaths,"
then continued.
"Arrivals —" A meadow-green line zigzagged from 0,0 up to the right. "See, steady climb. I'll
add Detainments." Mustard yellow zipped along the horizontal y-axis barely lifting off. "Some
increase, I'll admit, but not significant in comparison." She poked again: a crimson line, a
fraction of the Detainments, snuck along the gap, overwhelming the yellow. "And no noticeable
increase in Charges-Filed, as you see here."
A clear summary, the graphs meaningful and proportionate. Dain didn't like the answers, though.
They're absorbing Die Gastarbeiter with hardly a ripple. And the Propaganda Team! He peered more
closely at the scale of the axes. She's using the same scale for influx and anshin events. 13,000
versus 30. No wonder they seem insignificant.
He checked the dates also. She isn't showing yesterday. Aha! Let's see how — or if — she
explains that.
She looked around at him, her eyebrows now raised to herald an admission. "To be sure," she
laughed, somewhat self-consciously. "There have been more dust-ups, shouting matches, that sort of
thing, as you can see from this Incidents curve." A jagged cobalt line split the distance between
arrivals and detainments.
"But nearly all have been settled by the zhee-tely before my guys arrived. And if not, they've
usually been able to work out something on the spot." She offered an open hand like it had a
prescription written on it. "Move Die Gastarbeiterin into the neighborhood to enable her to become
more familiar with the people she hassled." Her llevar-clutching hand pulled his eyes in
another direction. "Ask the resident to extend an invitation for a cook-out, so he can see that
these are just people who need some help. That sort of thing."
Inventive way of supporting the Diversity Pattern. Consistent, direvnya-wide application shows
persistence. Hiding yesterday and skewing the scale shows brashness in the face of a Partner.
Good, all good. I'll see how she handles more pressure.
"You don't show yesterday or today," Dain pointed out and looked away as though giving her a
private chance to recover. He did keep watch, though, with a trick of perspective and
med-tek-enhanced peripheral vision.
"Ah ..." The wounded word pulled her chin down, dragging her head with it. A breath later,
though. she directed her attention to the llevar. "Yesterday ..." Her fingers slipped into its
keyspace. "Was rough." She brightened suddenly, saying, "Today, though, shows we've got
that flare-up under control." She typed rapidly. "I'll display what we've got so far."
The blue line of Incidents morphed, scrunching left, growing a spike that indeed fell off sharply.
The green detainment and yellow charges-filed lines bounced as well, but at higher ratios than
before. A grin flashed through Dain's mind, though no trace of it appeared on his face. He
checked the grid: 395 incidents yesterday, the exact count Lugar had described in his encrypted
messages read on the way over. Now for a true Measure of my opponent's mettle. "What happened?"
he asked with innocence.
Heejanus glanced at him, then away. Her moist eyes gave up the feelings behind a face suddenly
statue-still. Earnest, too. She lives her job, breathes her responsibilities, throws up over her
failures. Better and better. She spoke then: "There was a sudden burst of Incidents,
some worse than any before." She pointed a finger into the holoscreen. "We're still resolving
many of them unofficially, you'll notice."
Not as many percentage-wise as before, but a definite improvement in overall volume, service to
match the demand. Her competence prickled suddenly, too much of a good thing. Were Lugar's people
too obvious? Would Heejanus figure them out? Or were the dreamsticks compensating, giving them
time to sort things out? Prod and Measure again. "How do you explain all this?" he demanded
harshly,
"Well." Heejanus settled back a little. Like my concern eased her burden. Why? "Let me show you
something else." Goaded, her llevar faded the previous graph to pastels as background to new lines
in purer colors. Still with the graphs, still in presentation mode. Good presence under
pressure.
"Pla Cliff ran out of space in the regular gong-she three days ago." A yellow line slumped to zero
in proportion to arrivals. An orange line picked up there. "He started moving Gastarbeiter into
Collective realty. That's jamming up, er, causing some concern among residents, particularly the
ones who used to live in those houses before times went bad."
Relieved by her credible, possibly true, but off-the-real-mark answer, Dain eased back again.
Heejanus' shoulders slumped; her voice softened. "So far, leases have kept pace with influx ..."
"What's that?" Her distraction pleased Dain as a crack in an opponent's masterly façade always
did.
Heejanus racked her shoulders back into place as she turned brightly to him. "Excuse me, sir, I
was just thinking about contingencies. You know, playing what-ifs with the balance between new
people and places to put them." She pushed a palm toward him and smiled. "Nothing to worry
about. I just have to make sure I change our project plan to include the possibility that we'll
run out of room some day, so we can be ready for it, in case it happens, which it won't." She
suddenly flipped the meeting back to him. "Did someone tell you we were having problems?"
Is my opposition too obvious? Dain flinched inwardly, anticipated a ghostly snicker from JDB,
didn't hear one. He assumed imperious eyes and answered with a dismissive gesture. "No, just, oh,
one of our impact studies." He released his knee and set the foot down. With a wink, he added,
"You know, staff work." Now I'm covering up. The mass of her tactical and strategic
skills forced cracks in Le Coeur's plan and his own behavior, small quakes of adjustment, tides of
change that honed their response and focused their energies. Suddenly, the two-body metaphor fit
the situation even more snugly.
Heejanus nodded. "That mountain air can get thin." Caught up by his glib disparagement of his own
institution, she suddenly realized what she'd said aloud. Her eyes popped open, but she threw her
face into studied repose and shut her mouth.
Dain almost laughed. At last a familiar response. Combines disliked consortium staff, that was
well-known; they just weren't supposed to let it slip out when a Partner was around. Perhaps,
she's more rattled than she lets on. Despite how well she and her combine have handled the
situation so far, containing every situation, staunching every rupture before it festered. Until
yesterday ... Ah, a clue to her weakness. Heejanus and her combine have reached the limits of
their capacities: time, mind, bodies, and tools. All I have to do is tax them some more.
But first, the final challenge in this delicate gauntlet. He faced her. After all, he had to
appear to be supporting her. He directed a stare at her eyes.
Calmly, Heejanus shut down her llevar and resettled it at her waist. She returned his gaze.
"Anything I can do for you?" he asked.
"Psych-tek."
Where'd that come from? Why would she need psych-tek? Memories of their previous virtual meeting
sortied into Dain's mind, memories saturated with his distress, with Heejanus' jabbing
unpredictable assault on his Partner bastion. A snigger, patently JDainB's, wafted through the
cerebral squall. Dain ignored the memories and outwaited the alter, a few seconds of patient
domination that soon curled his impertinence.
But no parallel response from JDB; a note of concern about that bleated, then vanished as Dain
turned to his real opponent. He trotted out his planned retort to whatever request she made:
"Now, Phoebe, we talked about that." He manufactured a sigh, then let her see him bite it off.
"Contingency, contingency, contingency. You must understand that I have the whole continent to
worry about. Besides—" he looked away "— your combine is handling things just fine —" then
back "— aren't you?" Will that ploy work again?
She maintained her level stare, unchallenging but constant, yet her reply, when it came after
several seconds, seemed dried out by frustration not completely controlled. "At least let me ask
the other chiefs for what they can spare. Let them decide about contingency."
Dain ignored her sarcasm. Why not? Let her spend the time. How can psych-tek help her now, with
the hammer already striking the anvil? I can just delay transport even if someone agrees to help
her. "I approve that."
Heejanus rocked her head in a meager nod, her expression still grim. She appeared to have
exhausted her agenda for the can-feel.
Enough Measuring. Dain needed to move on to the following steps of the continuous-improvement
process as applied to Le Coeur: Think, Plan, and Do. In time for Lugar to deploy ollomani with
the dawn.
But first, one last wrench to toss into Heejanus' anshin machine. He said, "There's something you
can do for me." There was a beautiful drag to her response, a reluctance to lift her eyes to his.
"I'm hearing bad things about dreamsticks." Heejanus slumped, then caught herself. Anticipating a
Partner's demand. "Our customers don't like wholesale use of dreamsticks on them. Makes
them feel vulnerable. I'm even hearing about aftereffects."
"Where'd you hear that?" Her husky voice didn't carry the sarcasm all that well, but Dain
was glad to hear she'd given up hiding it.
He shrugged. "More staff work." The name Dyr Kanpachiro Nitsta popped into his mind. Former
staffer, now Heejanus' proposal manager. Play on that connection, throw some dissension into that
relationship. "I like independent, on-site marketing evaluations. Gives me an
objective insight to a Collective's mindset. Helps me to help you.
"We're at-risk in this competition, Phoebe. We cannot afford to alienate our customers anymore
than we have to. They're voting on our proposal in just twenty days, you know."
"Those customers don't like riots and injuries either. Dreamsticks prevent those."
Dain used soft admonishment. "Surely you have other patterns that apply there."
"They take more time, more people, things we don't have."
Still soft. "I authorized you to hire, didn't I?"
"Yes, but—"
"Then use it!" Crack! "Put away the dreamsticks, then solve the resulting problems, Chief. Solve
them fast or —" He bit off the threat, knowing implicit spoke louder than explicit in this case.
"Yessir." Frozen by conflicting imperatives — fight for herself and her combine versus yielding
to a Partner's power over the whole consortium and her job — Heejanus sat, body and face straight
and open.
Finished. Move on. Dain opened his mouth to fire out the Partner's rhetorical benediction, "If I,
or any of my organization, can be of assistance, please let me know."
Instead, his hand reached out and dropped on Heejanus' arm. His shoulders hunched forward and his
head tilted, so his eyes peered up at this extraordinarily competent woman. His mouth said,
"Phoebe, I should just stop pretending to be your strategist and start acting like it. I know
you're looking at a hectic schedule today, but as your boss, I'm telling you to take a dinner break
— with me. I'll buy you a nice meal and we'll brainstorm about how Byukan-Hamil — in particular,
my part of the consortium — can make the future easier on you and your people."
"What?" Heejanus stared back, her mouth ajar.
Dain flailed inside his own mind. Hauling on the web of connection made no difference. Though he
retained the center of perception, he had lost control of his body's neural paths ... at least to
the arms and speaking parts. He tried to stand — and found himself rising. He snapped upright.
Sensation seeped back. His upper body returned. Skin prickled slightly in the airy entrance-room
outside the alcove. Torso and limbs reported their positions. Sandalwood lingered like a pleasant
memory.
Heejanus rose uncertainly to match him. He had to recover from that blazing non-sequitur. Dain
stammered, "And — and bring updated graphs with you." Yes! Nothing takes time away from your job
like a — "Make that a full Partner's Briefing. Complete with trend analysis. I want to see the
pertinent details behind those lines you showed me."
"Yessir." Despair tugged at her expression and posture.
"In fact." Why didn't I think of this before? "I'll want that briefing updated every day from now
on. Delivered at noon by will-see." Right in the middle of your day, which means you'll spend
your late-morning preparing and your early-afternoon following up, while telling me everything I
need to destroy you.
"Yessir."
"Why don't we just make this evening's briefing a will-see also?"
"Yessir."
Dain brought his hands together and bowed slightly over them. "Please return to your duties," he
said with a commanding undertone.
"I have a can-feel ..." She gestured toward the doors across the terrazzo floor. "Out there."
Dain returned an uncaring stare.
With a curt nod, Heejanus spun on her heel and marched toward the doors.
Dain Measured her departure. Her head held erect. Her back straight. Her stride, though,
dragged, a slower, uneven cadence that pulled and relaxed lines at the hips of her jumpsuit. He'd
come back strong. A surge of victory tickled him.
A whistle, clear and sweet, soared through his mind. Bedlip said, =Still, she's a fresh breeze on
a hot day.= Appreciation sighed through his words.
A dry pain slid down through Dain, like a scratch on his esophagus that seeped with envy and
regret. He swallowed hard to soothe it.
Another voice worked its way out of the alters' dungeon. =A passionate whisper breathed over hot
thighs,= JDainB crooned and something stirred in Dain's loin wrap, his penis, swelling, pulling at
its snare of pubic hair.
Dain flared, snatched at the web of connection, found the somatic tendrils leaking from JDainB's
cell, snipped them, and snarled, "Keep that to yourself!" Discreetly, he resettled his deflating
organ.
=Oh, to have survived the Network of Learning so well,= pined a third voice. The wraith.
=Weaklings!= Dain shouted at all the alters — including the new, budding, unnamed ego. =No wonder
you're in there and I'm out here. Heejanus shall fail, and her fall will pull me to victory.=
He'd dealt with buds before. Stress occasionally produced a new outlet, an unformed attempt to
displace. Now was not the time to re-apportion his mind. He'd smother this one too — and show
his power to all the other minds, inside his body and out.
He launched himself toward the entrance.
Enough Thinking! Enough Planning! Time to Do!
Unlike a planet or star, he could turn up his power. He would return to his aircraft at the drome
and contact Lugar immediately. They would work through the rest of the day, getting ready for
tomorrow. And he'd relieve Thy from the gleest search; he would find and contract with this Pizi
to a four-fold subversion of Byukan-Hamil and Ganj Dareh, including those dreamsticks — Heejanus
would not follow his orders for more than three days, not when the Propaganda Team turned up the
heat — and he would do it today.
Then, if tricks of word and action by their rabblerousers didn't generate enough shockwaves, he'd
call in Thy's Power Combine to exert the weight of full-scale terror upon Ganj Dareh. He'd
generate gravity so strong that the whole direvnya would disappear within his event horizon.
Heejanus and his other Opponents would shatter. The Collective would collapse. He would take the
direvnya, absorb the region, and subjugate the continent.
A singularity in his own mind, Dain blazed out of the station.
