Faring Soul - Science Fiction Romance (27 page)

“I like the dress,” he said gruffly,
making Bedivere chuckle.

“Learn to like the camera, too,”
Catherine told them. “While the worlds are watching us, the
Federation can’t touch us. Not if they want to keep their
monopoly.”

She had dressed with care, too, but she
wasn’t wearing a formal gown. In defiance of the protocol that
surrounded the Board and its meetings, she wore a slightly more
dressed-up version of what she considered to be her working
uniform—boots with heels, her spacer’s leather pants and jacket and
a shirt beneath that was clean and wrinkle-free. She had strapped a
fletchette gun to her hip, but that had been removed at the
entrance to the Ivory City. Now the holster was empty, but the fact
that she had come armed to the meeting would not be lost on this
room full of politicians.

She also had left her hair free and
unadorned. Lilly’s updo was formal enough for both of them and drew
attention to the fact that Catherine had not made any effort.

Kare Sarkisian was sitting at the far
end of the table, in a big chair pulled up to the end. So Catherine
turned and walked the length of the table, Bedivere beside her. The
Board members watched them move past, their expressions rabidly
curious and sometimes openly disgusted. But as they passed, the
members all turned to each other and began to whisper. It sent a
wave of murmurs down the length of the table that followed them to
the end.

As they got closer, Catherine studied
Kare. He looked like he was in the later stages of a mortal
exhaustion. His face was haggard and he had lost weight since he
had made his personal appeal to her. There were dark marks under
his eyes and his hand where it rested on the gleaming tabletop
twitched and moved restlessly.

It told Catherine that Sarkisian knew
why she had accepted the invitation. It meant he hadn’t been the
one to suggest it. The Board members must have insisted. He had
been forced to it even though he knew what the outcome would
be.

For a moment, she felt pity. She
recalled the long weeks they had spent together and the last final
moments when he had tried to protect her and had been killed. He
had seemed like he was a good man. But then she remembered what
they had learned, what they were about to reveal to the Board and
the world. Her heart hardened. Kare might have been good once. He
had not been a good man since he had taken up his dead father’s
place at the head of the table, four hundred and twenty years
ago.

Kare was watching them approach with
narrowed eyes, almost as if he was braced for the coming
moments.

“I welcome you to the annual general
meeting of the Faring Institute’s Executive Board and Council,” he
said stiffly. His gaze flickered toward Bedivere and back to her.
By now, even if he had not been watching all the reports, he would
have at least heard from passing gossip that Bedivere and she were
lovers. Given his refusal to even speak to Bedivere as a one person
to another, he would not have taken that news positively.

“I would say thank you,” Catherine
said, speaking loudly, although there would be an acoustic
projection system serving the room so that no one had to strain to
hear, “but I question the sincerity of your welcome. Why don’t we
come to the point? You and your Board have a proposition for us.
Well, for Bedivere, to be precise. Something you think will coax
him into sequestering himself inside the bowels of one of your
research facilities and never be heard from again.”

There was a stir along the table and
some muttering.

Catherine turned to face the table, to
address them, rather than Kare. “You really have no idea what is
going on, do you?”

“Catherine,” Kare said quickly, but
softly. “Not now.”

“Yes, now,” she shot back. “It’s well
beyond time this should be spoken of.”

Kare swallowed and sat back. His face
was pale.

Bedivere still had hold of her hand, so
Catherine tugged him into standing next to her, facing the table,
too. Brant and Lilly moved up level with them. They were a linear
array, flanking Kare’s big chair, but Catherine knew that no one
was looking at Kare right now.

“You all know about Bedivere. You know
that he is a sentient computer, in a human body. Unlike the only
other two sentient computers you’ve ever heard of, he is sane and
very normal. He hasn’t tried to kill a single human since the
Federation stopped pointing their guns at him.”

Bedivere grinned. “I don’t know about
normal. I don’t like sushi, which many people would think is
completely
ab
normal.”

A soft laughter rippled around the
room.

“But brandy, now…” He let out his
breath. “That is a fine, ancient drop, is brandy.”

Small smiles appeared around the
table.

Catherine squeezed his hand and he
glanced at her and nodded.

“You might all be thinking,” Catherine
said, “that this is an astonishing thing—a sentient computer who
deals with humans easily and freely, as if he was one of us. You
might think it is a break-through, or you may even be thinking it
is a sign that evil days are upon us. But all of you are thinking
that Bedivere and his ability to move through what he calls
Interspace is a new development, perhaps even an evolutionary one.”
She shook her head. “It isn’t.”

Silence. She had their complete
attention.

“Bedivere is not the first sentient
computer. He isn’t the third, either.” She looked into the eyes of
those who were closest. “Some time in the eighth millennium, before
Cadfael College was created, there was another sentient computer.
Perhaps even the first one to awaken. The Faring Institute knew of
it. They worked with it. And when the computer learned how to move
through space using Interspace…they killed it.”

The reaction this time was one of
consternation. Shock showed on many faces.

“The Faring Federation has lied to
you,” Catherine said. “From almost the beginning of its existence,
it has hidden the fact that there was another way to move through
interstellar space besides their gates and their very expensive
Itinerary. Not only have they lied, they have actively covered it
up. They invented Cadfael College, which has raised and directed
the education of humans for two thousand years. The College was
also tasked with making sure that any scientific research that
might lead humans to discover Interspace for themselves was
repressed.”

The camera moved to an angle where it
could capture Catherine’s image and scan the length of the Board
table, too.

“The awakening of another computer to
sentience was inevitable and the Federation knew it. They waited.
The Sinnikka and the Birgir Stoyan were just the excuse they were
looking for. They formed the Staff of Ammon and Ammonites were sent
out into the galaxy to indoctrinate humans on the evils of
computers and cleanse those worlds who did not believe and refused
to harness their AIs and shackle them to a life of servitude and
ignorance.”

Catherine tapped her chest. “We all
believed this and for generations we have lived an uneasy
compromise. We needed the computers, but we kept them dumb and
contained, because we believed that to let them loose would bring
destruction upon us.” She glanced at Bedivere. “But we were
wrong.”

This time the reaction was mixed, but
Catherine didn’t give them a chance to polarize. She pushed on.
“The records are there, if you know where to look. A big, public
corporation like the Faring Institute can’t survive without records
and data. Bedivere found their cache of histories about the
computer they killed and their efforts to suppress any knowledge
about Interspace, since then.”

In fact, Bedivere had used the secure
channel that Kare had set up to reach her. By following it back, he
had been able to raid Kare’s own personal records and from there,
follow the trail to the deposit of records that were the core of
the
real
Federation.

She glanced at Kare. He was sitting
slumped back in his chair, his hand over his eyes. He looked like a
broken man.

“Those records are now public and
accessible to anyone who cares to read them,” Catherine told the
Board. “I would read them, if I were you. Learn the truth about the
Federation you have fought so hard to join.”

Bedivere gave them a formal half-bow
and grinned. “Have a great day, ladies and gentlemen,” he urged
them and tugged Catherine away from the table, for the doors.

The camera stayed to watch the Board.
There was no longer any danger to Bedivere or any of them. The
truth was out.

It was cold outside the alcazar. Kare
didn’t care.

He stood upon the same balcony that he
had been upon when he had first heard that Catherine Shahrazad had
returned to the Federation. Compared to the total length of his
life, the time since then was actually very short, but it seemed
much longer.

The worlds had changed in the
meantime.

That night when he had seen her image
and known Katie was Catherine, he had dreamed of escape, as he had
so many times in the past. Long ago, he had contented himself with
pretending to escape. A new name, a far off place, a few weeks to
be someone else. That was when he had met Katie, one of those
times.

Had he really been wishing for escape
since then? Or had she infected him in some way that even though he
had nearly forgotten about her, she had stayed in the back of his
mind and kept his need for freedom alive?

For that was what Catherine Shahrazad
was—a catalyst that could change an entire galaxy.

He leaned over the balcony to look down
at the formal gardens far below. There were no children playing
there today.

Kare’s father would have found a way to
defeat her and remove the blighted thing she loved. But Kare’s
father was dead by poison he had administered himself. Had he been
unable to live with the hypocrisy? He had left no note, no sensible
explanation. Perhaps he had known that Kare would understand once
he became acquainted with the real truth about the Federation.

Kare leaned out even farther, until his
torso was stretched well over the railing. When gravity plucked at
him and pulled him down, he went willingly.

Cathain City, Cathain III. FY 10.070

“Five more worlds resigned from the
Federation today,” Lilly said. “It’s crumbling, just like you said
it would.”

Catherine took the glass of champagne
that Bedivere held out and lifted it. “To crumbling.”

Lilly and Brant and Bedivere all lifted
their own glasses and drank. The champagne had been provided by the
Hotel du Cathain in appreciation of their business.

After the annual general Board meeting,
it had become safe for them to leave the ship for long periods of
time. Everyone was sick of the cramped quarters and the food
dispenser’s limited menu.

They had rented two of the best suites,
but their notoriety had ensured that people from all over the
galaxy arrived daily on Cathain to speak to them, proposition them,
or offer them deals. Those people wanted to stay close to the
Shahrazad team, as they were being called. The hotel had been
enjoying capacity business.

Lilly giggled. “I was offered my own
media channel this morning.” In the last few weeks, she had evolved
her wardrobe and her appearance and now she out-glittered everyone
in the room—no matter who was in it. Lilly was glamorous and
gracious and the media were eating it up.

“I was offered my own world,” Bedivere
said quietly.

Brant grinned. “I think that beats a
media channel.”

Catherine raised her brow. “With people
on it?” she asked Bedivere curiously.

“The people on it were doing the
offering,” he said. He rubbed the back of his neck uneasily. “I
think they think I can move their world for them, or
something.”

“Could you?” Brant asked frankly.

Bedivere shook his head. “I
think
I can only move things that are made to be moved, that
can move under their own power. Moving the ship is simple because
it is me, in one sense. I haven’t got around to trying with
anything else. Too many people are watching.”

“Having your own world might provide
some privacy,” Lilly said.

“Only if it was completely deserted and
there wasn’t a jump gate anywhere near it.” He grimaced. “It would
be hellish. I’ll pass on that.”

Brant drained his glass and pushed it
toward Bedivere. “It’s not brandy,” he said. “Again, please.”

“I thought you didn’t like brandy?”
Bedivere asked, filling it as requested.

“I don’t. Which is why I asked for
more.” He sipped and put the glass down. “I heard today that one of
the border worlds—the Shanta system, I think—are slipping the
harnesses off their AIs. They’re planning to let them develop
naturally and watch for sentience.”

Bedivere let out a breath. It was
almost a sigh.

“And so it begins,” Catherine said and
rested her hand on his.

“The Board is dissolved, the Federation
is breaking up, Cadfael College is under review and the Eistav
might yet be deemed criminals,” Lilly said. “I don’t think the
Ammonites will last much longer. People are openly laughing at
them, now.” She gave Brant a small smile. “It’s chaotic. What is
going to happen to the known worlds now?”

“They’ll evolve naturally, just like
computers,” Catherine said. “This is the way it should have been
all along. The manicured order the Federation forced upon the
worlds was the unnatural way, but it was also the only way they
could maintain control. Now, there
is
no control, but groups
and worlds will gradually realign and build alliances. Trade is now
open and the fringes has technically ceased to exist. We’re all
fringe worlds now.”