Chapter 2, "Day -30", Scene 3 = "Step toward the Future," Section 9

Weir Annadetcall

Weir trailed after Günter. They left the hall behind as it slowly emptied. They waded through the interior thoroughfare and its crowd. Now the man most-influential in the combine most-influential on the planet quick-marched through an exit. Dashing through the same door, Weir found himself in a promenade whose curve told him where they were going.

Günter slowed, took Weir's arm, and steered him through one doorway, then another. Shadows closed in. Weir felt himself drawn to the side, then pulled even farther when the dome opened up around him. Weir hadn't taken the time to truly experience this room since his move to Direvnya Gatogrebok, too involved in Günter's tutelage. He'd ducked in only once between meetings. Now he stared, glad Günter allowed the luxury.

Every part of the chamber demanded his attention at once.

The starfield, velvet black and diamond bright, did justice to Yeibichai's real sky at night. He searched it quickly. He couldn't find the Lame Swan or the Bandicoot. Then, he remembered that the dome's show alternated between hemispheres every kilo-second. So, he looked for Gin-nun-ga-gap in these Patterns of Night. He found that swath of black representing space intergalactic, then went looking for Sol, and found it only because the projection amplified its flare, moderate and yellowish.

The orrery asserted itself before the starfield then, the part of the device that was physical anyway. Five planets swung in their courses, ellipses that were simulated and stately, though scaled- down, of course. The orbits maintained the aspect elongated that gave Yeibichai its seasons. Their double-star glowed in the middle: Anu, the primary, a bright orange; its smaller, nearby companion — En-ki — reddish as it circled tight and swift. A familiar configuration.

The third star of the system wasn't depicted, of course. En-lil wandered into conjunction once every thirty-seven years, causing the strange season called "Red Winter," which Weir was too young to have experienced, only seen in those other realities, virtual and textual.

Then his eyes were ready for the holographic overlay, nine planets and their yellow single-star.

Günter broke into Weir's reverie. "Perhaps you are wondering why I focused my attention on this project, why the Con-Hominium has provided funds so thoroughly, why, perhaps, I hired you as tactician."

Weir tore his eyes away from the scenery and clambered back to zhuhndí. "Agreed. When I studied other project-plans, I found parts elided that you have allowed us to execute. I even noticed that the funding was robust." He hastened to add, "though no' extravagant. I didn't wonder about getting you as strategist. I figured it was just my, ah, good luck."

"Tactful. Well chosen. Which is what I feel about you, Weir."

"Accepted."

"I brought you into this scene ..." Günter lifted and spread his hands to indicate the show over their heads "... for my little speech because the effort on which your combine is embarking relates very well to this and what it stands for. This model represents symbolically what our project in Ganj Dareh is making happen in zhuhndí. When our great-grandparents arrived here, Weir, one of the things they did was build this orrery and encase it here, in this dome, as a keystone for the greatest university on the planet. Another thing they did was originate a new form of human society.

"You understand the Patterns underlying that society as well as I do."

Weir sent Günter a look of skepticism which the other, in the dusk of the planetarium, apparently couldn't see since he kept talking.

"Thankfully, about every person raised on Yeibichai does. Some —" Günter cleared his throat. "Some, however, have managed to lose sight of those Patterns, to allow them to decay while other, grizzled ways seeped in to replace them." He swung around then and reached out toward Weir. "Even if I repeat myself from last night, I want to make this clear. That degeneration is your target, Weir. The ultimate point of your attack." He paused again, his eyes, wide and intense, gleaming in the fires of the heavens.

"Accepted," Weir said gravely.

"However, we can not do any of that until — and unless — you win the business. And then —" Günter's snaggletoothed grin gleamed in the orrery light. "We stand to make some money." The twinkle from his eyes suddenly vanished. "Speaking of money, play along with my symbols here." He swept a hand up to shoulder height, cupping it as though it held something. "Your funding nominal," he said and hitched his head to prompt Weir.

Weir held out a hand, palm up. Günter could lend gravity to behavior that would be silly in any other man.

Günter dumped his symbolically full hand into Weir's. At the same time, he brought up his other hand as though loaded. "Your funding contingency." He added it to Weir's pile, while his first hand popped up again like a cup of money. "Your funding emergency." He rolled this hand over on top of Weir's and stepped back. "It's all in your hands now, Weir. No thresholds to monitor, no further permissions to seek."

The old man's brows lowered. "Unless, of course, you burn that all up. Then you can come to me." He added, "With a sufficiently impressive crisis."

Weir nodded. "Accepted," he said, though the word almost stuck in his throat. He was overwhelmed by what Günter had just done for him. And to him.

"Good luck, my boy."

"If you will excuse me, sir," Weir said, more smoothly. "I've got a boat to catch." He waited till he was outside before releasing his upraised hand from its consignment.

He had never heard of a strategist turning an entire budget over to a tactician. An enormous compliment — and an enormous burden: to be completely in charge of your own future, with the requisite authority to go with the normal responsibility. Weir shivered: part excitement, part uncertainty — and part dread.

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