Pla Cliff Derkinit
Cliff pondered Lugar's office from the safety of a crowded transport interchange. Although
clustered with others like it, the single-story office did not share their family of entrances.
Instead, it offered an elaborate flagstone path through a festive garden of tockawhoughe — showy
and edible — all heralded with a brass sign set in more flagstones. It named the place
"Headquarters of Le Coeur de la Patrie," then added "Join us for a peaceful future." A long shadow
puddled at its base as though leaking the dark truth.
Behind this posh exterior lurked another sample of the only true evil in the universe: men blind
to others, men interested only in themselves, the instinctual pattern for survival turned inward
till it festered. "Le Coeur de la Patrie" translated to "Heart of the Country," but it meant "I've
got mine and I'll take yours too." As far away from the Rendezvous' mission statement as you could
get and remain human. And human it still regrettably was.
Cliff had surveyed three of Lugar's four "seminar rooms" before their overwhelming pattern of
activity — the comings and goings — had slaughtered his reservations and pushed him toward this
office and a confrontation with the former leader of those supposed seminars.
He'd found Tuol Sleng taking up the first floor of an abandoned fábrica, one among many. Deir
ez-Zor had settled in the locker room of an unfinished stadium. And Sand Creek occupied the
auditorium of what had once been a school for design-tek apprentices. The other two locations on
his list — Tiananmen and Broken Glass — probably used a boarded-up storefront or a warehouse
close to the drome. They were all isolated by economic failures from more populated neighborhoods,
though poised near a major intersection of paths. Perfect locations for clandestine raids against
an unsuspecting populace.
Or the perfect means for isolating bumpkins while educating them for places in a larger society, as
Lugar claimed.
Cliff chewed his lip as he reviewed his conclusions one more time. What he'd witnessed did
seem harmless. Continual departures from each of the rooms, but he'd double-checked: none
of these departures led to an arrival at another Rendezvous event; nobody on Lugar's list of
participants was showing up anywhere else he was supposed to. And they always left the area in
threes.
They came back in the same groups — mostly. The ones who didn't were the most telling. Sometimes
straggling, sometimes hustling as if fleeing — or full of facts to share — and sometimes
wounded. Why didn't those seek out an anshin clinic instead of these broken-down hideouts? Yes,
"hideouts!"
In the end, Cliff was convinced by an accumulation of appearances. Maybe he'd gone out already
persuaded by the view of the Rendezvous' database he'd stumbled across. Maybe he merely let that
conclusion solidify in his mind while ignoring contrary facts. But convinced he was. Gangsters
prowled Ganj Dareh, killing and maiming. Kanpa had shown that. Those gangsters had slipped into
the Rendezvous, disguising themselves as victims of recession, leeching Cliff's earnest commitment
to their futures, all the while turning upside-down everything he stood for.
And for what?
The office across the street told it all. Cliff had watched it for four-kay seconds now. It
postured in the midst of activity. Surrounded by bustle — maybe not prosperity, but at least the
pursuit of it — Le Coeur's headquarters plied an image of success and reason. Unlike his other
posts, this one showed only reputable visitors, apparently legitimate delegates of other combines,
pursuing ties with this new entry in the anshin-contract race, testifying to the effectiveness of
Le Coeur's secret campaign of terror.
Conclusion: Lugar sought power, legitimized power as anshin chief, the greatest control over
people's lives allowed in a society that dispersed power to prevent just such abuse. Did Lugar
stand a chance in the upcoming selection? The comings and goings in the last little while alone
suggested that possibility was accumulating probability.
Lugar had violated the Rendezvous. He now intended to violate Ganj Dareh. Could Yeibichai as a
whole be far behind?
But I can stop him, nip his bud. Resolve vibrated within Cliff, feeling right, feeling true.
Common sense did argue, Let Phoebe do it. The Founders did invest that power in the anshin for a
reason. Safer that way.
Lugar's office eased that concern. Its very legitimacy, or the appearance of same, should make it
a safe place for Cliff to confront Lugar and cast his band of serpents out of the Rendezvous — and
Ganj Dareh.
It's my backyard. I'll clean it up!
Resolved once again, Cliff unholstered his llevar and slipped on its fiducia ring. It responded by
displaying everything he'd set up to make his threat to Lugar real and unavoidable. He'd started a
database transaction that would expunge every one of Lugar's seminar students from the Rendezvous
— and hence, the Em-Deh. It waited patiently for his use of the "Commit" glyph. The "Rollback"
glyph also offered him the chance to forget all about this change to the Rendezvous' identity
database. Cliff could not remove this choice always offered by the logiciel, but he could hedge
against it. He'd set this particular session to commit the change if he ended it abnormally for
any reason. And now he could bring up pulse-tek and tie it to the "Commit" glyph. If he lost
contact with his llevar, this little pixie would make sure the database changed and sent Lugar and
his evil minions into virtual exile.
Cliff reviewed his work and found it good, then he let his gaze drift off-center for an unfocused
moment to let his unconscious mind reconsider it all. Let the core of his pattern-recognition
abilities make its comments. After a few seconds, he became aware of his fiducia ring. If he
walked in there with that on, much less connected, a gleest of any repute could defuse his bomb
without even slowing down. And Le Coeur did employ gleests; his buggered database proved that.
"Old fool," he whispered through a grin as he slipped off the ring, carefully disconnected it, then
flung it into the nearest recycle-tek.
But he would need some kind of fiducia to protect his threat, so he turned to his own, unique
cerebral reality. Maybe a scientist somewhere had completely simulated the human brain, recently
discovered to be capable of multi-processing at terahertz speeds, running up to seven different
streams of conscious and unconscious thought simultaneously, but no gleest — outlaw that he was —
could match his brain — if he put his mind to it. He'd bet his life on that.
A clever password, then. Not "Trina," of course. Not anything in a database anywhere that could
be linked to him or his life. He chased after tidbits, with time piling on him, urging him to
action. "Moons," he muttered in reaction. So he typed into his llevar, "By the myriad moons of
Yeibichai" — backwards!
And relaxed once more, one last nod to his unconscious. This time, no words surfaced, no images of
any ilk, positive or negative. Just a stirring in his belly, churned by the danger he was about to
face.
Before that stirring could spread its doubt, Cliff pressed the llevar against that same belly.
"Nothing for it, but to do it. Trina, forgive me," he whispered and set off across the
green street.
Inside, the office asserted good taste and intelligence, plush with woods and fabrics,
predominantly shades of yellow, but with red and black counterpoints. All that ambience moderated
the jarring abandonment of accepted patterns.
No half-private offices spread out from the entrance. A single, closed door led from the lobby.
And the receptionist sat high behind a sweeping counter. She appeared young, tanned, and muscular,
though clad in a prim, gray-flannel skirt-suit, and she rode the barrier like a diva. Even her
broad smile seemed remote. "Can I help you?" she asked pleasantly enough.
"I am Pla Cliff Derkinit. I want to see Ges Lugar Sailie now."
"Do you have an appointment?"
"I am Director of the Rendezvous of Futures and I want Lugar out here now."
Only then did this brassy beauty glance into her keyspace and finger a hidden glyph.
Lugar did not emerge. A squat, wide young man, also bound in gray-flannel, slipped out of the
closed door, permitting no more than a glimpse of the hallway beyond. "Can I help you?" he
boomed.
Cliff had seen such forms before: Adonis and Aphrodite, the fight at his booth at the drome, when
he met with Jik Dain by accident. He retreated a step. Even in the earliest days of the
Rendezvous, Lugar's gangsters had been there! He'd been ready and responded even faster than Cliff
himself. Was Lugar not a professor?
This Adonis tilted his head and watched Cliff intently. Aphrodite observed carefully from her
perch.
Cliff stepped back again, then pivoted deliberately and walked toward the entrance. Phoebe could
handle this after all.
"Cliff! Did you want to see me?" Lugar's voice rang through the posh lobby.
Setting his hand on the outer door, Cliff glanced back. The inner door stood open. Lugar swept
from it flanked by two more of his gangsters. These wore no gray-flannel, no suits even. Clad
only in loose tunics, they dashed forward more quickly than anyone Cliff had ever seen. He spun
toward the door, those racing figures bright in his mind. A tall, older man, very fast. And a
dark boy, even faster, sinewy, eyes dazzling with zeal, an odd hand, warped and frozen, poised to
strike yet another time.
"Shock and Control, no more!" he heard Lugar command.
His brain tried, but his body just wasn't built for the situation. His mind, though, suddenly
coasted ... relieved, to some degree, to be parting from this clumsy shell ... prepared, to a great
degree, to be moving on ... sorrowful, at least a little, to be leaving many joys behind ...
regretful over not seeing Trina one last time. Odd, there was no sound —
