Killing Time (6 page)

"Do you enjoy the
decor?" Tarbell asked pleasantly as we walked down the carved wooden
staircase to the ship's lower deck. His accent was hard to pinpoint, and his
manner was equally ambiguous: though clearly friendly, he seemed to enjoy my
lingering uneasiness. He pulled out a pack of the new, smokeless, and
supposedly "safe" cigarettes that the American tobacco industry,
after a generation of pressure and lawsuits by a combination of East Asian nations,
had recently started to market and offered me one. I declined, and as he lit
his he said, "It is not to my taste, this particular area. I prefer the
modern. Minimalist, athletic—sexual."

"Some might simply say
'ugly,' " I offered quickly, before bothering to consider whether Tarbell
might take offense.

But he only laughed. "True!
It can be very ugly. But ugly"—his fiery eyes grew even more
agitated—"with sexuality!"

I would soon learn that the
entire world, to Tarbell, was divided between people and things that were not
"sexual" and those that had "sexuality!" Though a simple
formula, it seemed as valid as any and a good deal more amusing than most,
given the way he made his pronouncements with near-comic vigor; so I laughed along
with him, relaxing a bit as we arrived at the door to what were to be my
quarters.

Inside was a small stateroom that
recalled images I'd seen of early-twentieth-century transatlantic ocean liners.
The temperature was well above the forty-five degrees of the corridor, creating
a welcoming atmosphere that was complemented by more wood paneling, a small,
porthole-shaped transparent section in the hull that could be chemically tinted
at the touch of a nearby button, finely crafted glass light shades, and
marble-and-ceramic sanitary facilities that appeared to be genuine antiques. It
was even more unlike the very high tech nose area of the ship than were the
corridors, a fact that caused my confusion to spike once more.

"Past and future, side by
side," Tarbell said with a nod. "You could say that time does not
exist aboard this vessel. Such is Malcolm!"

I turned my thoughts to my host.
"Is he all right?"

Tarbell nodded confidently.
"They pass, these attacks."

"But what's wrong with
him?"

"I am not entirely
comfortable speaking about such things. Perhaps he will tell you. Or perhaps
Larissa." Tarbell gave me his demonic grin. "She has fastened her
eye on you—lucky man. A woman of rare brilliance, beauty—and sexuality!"
As he barked the last word, he clapped a hand on my shoulder. "Yes, you
will join our little company, I think!" Turning to go he added, "You
will find everything you need—even fresh clothes. We dine forward, in one-half
hour. Malcolm tells me that you enjoy vodka—come soon, and I will share my
private stock!"

It was evident that these people
already knew almost everything about me, from the size and preferred style of
my clothing (there was nothing in the closet of my quarters that I could not or
would not have worn) to my taste in liquor. I didn't wonder how they had attained
such knowledge, any more than I wondered about the cost of building the ship on
which we were traveling. Malcolm and Larissa Tressalian's father, Stephen,
whose satellite system had made the modern Internet possible, had been one of
the wealthiest men in the world. He'd also been a leader of the group of
information technocrats who, during the '07 crisis, had put up their
collective private and corporate assets to guarantee the solvency of the
American government, just as the financier J. P. Morgan and his associates had
done a century earlier. Tressalian and his allies had then used this timely
support as a club with which to beat Washington into dropping any and all
attempts to regulate information commerce, thus dealing the deathblow to, among
other things, the already wounded concept of personal privacy.

There would have been few things
beyond the reach of such a man's heirs, yet that fact alone did not explain the
most urgent questions at hand, which I grappled with yet again as I washed and
changed for dinner: What exactly were these people up to, and why had they
decided, in Larissa's phrase, that they needed me?

In twenty minutes I was headed
back toward the nose of the ship, determined this time to get answers that were
more than cryptic.

The conference table in the
lowest level of the nose had been draped with a rich cloth and laid with china,
silver, and candles, and the color of the panorama outside the ship had turned
a rich blue-black, indicating that we had taken an eastern turn into the deeper
waters of the Atlantic, away from the waste that had marked the coast. The
ship's exterior lights cut lovely shafts through these storied depths, yet even
as I admired the beauty there seemed something odd about the sight, something
lonely that I couldn't initially explain. I tried to shake the feeling off,
attributing it to my own general sense of being on my own in a strange
place—and then I realized that it actually stemmed from the surprising but very
apparent lack of any signs of life in the water.

Tarbell was already standing by
the table, along with the Kupermans; and although I couldn't see who was
responsible for the cooking or where it was being done, the aromas filling the
area were singularly appetizing. Tarbell handed me a glass of his personal
vodka—a Russian brand I did not know—and then Eli Kuperman asked:

"You like lamb, don't you,
Dr. Wolfe? Medium rare, I think it was. It'll be ready in just a few
minutes."

"None of us has time to eat
much during the day," Jonah Kuperman added, heading through a small door
that evidently led to some sort of galley, where I could see Julien Fouché
laboring in a sweat over a stainless-steel stove. "So we try to make
dinners as civilized as we can."

I picked up a few pieces of the
china and silver: very elegant and very old. "I guess you do" was all
I could say, taking a sip of Tarbell’s vodka and trying yet again to orient
myself: after all, moments earlier I'd been standing in this same area watching
a battle take place outside. "I don't suppose," I went on,
"that anybody would like to tell me what it is that keeps you all so busy
during the day? I mean, when you're not busting people out of jail."

Fouché raised his voice to call
from the galley, "
That
should never have happened! A pet project of
les frères Kuperman
that grew completely out of hand!"

"Oh, come on, Julien!"
Eli shot back. "It had just as much validity as anything else we've done.
You've seen the statistics: gambling's become an epidemic since the crash, and
there's no way I'm going to let a lot of anthropologically nonsensical folklore
rationalize it. If we'd been able to plant that evidence—"

" 'Plant?' " I
interrupted, surprised. "You mean you weren't stealing anything?"

Jonah Kuperman threw me a
friendly glance. "There's really nothing in that particular burial site
worth stealing, Dr. Wolfe."

"Gideon," I said.

"All right—Gideon. Well, as
you probably know, it's been apparent for years that the various peoples who
call themselves 'Native Americans' were not, in fact, the first inhabitants of
this continent. But many of the tribes have attempted to suppress or destroy
evidence that might support this conclusion. They're afraid, and with reason,
that if they're suddenly revealed as simple conquerors of their predecessors,
they'll lose emotional and historical justification for a lot of questionable
activities—including the creation of a generation of gambling addicts in their
casinos."

"That burial ground in
Florida," Eli said, "is currently being explored by a team from
Harvard, and Jonah and I were trying to slip several artifacts
in
to
demonstrate—"

Eli cut his words short at the
sound of Malcolm Tressalian's wheelchair moving about on the control level
above us. From the looks on the faces of the men on the lower level with me, I
could see that they were all concerned as to what shape their leader was in.
They relaxed again, however, when we all heard Tressalian call out:

"It simply would not be
dinner without one of our rousing professional differences of opinion! Though
you'll find, Dr. Wolfe, that these discussions can become quite personal as the
evening wears on."

Slow, heavy steps on the metal
staircase indicated that Tressalian was making his way down with the aid of his
crutches, and soon he appeared, his light blue eyes bearing no trace of the
agony that had filled them earlier. Behind him I could see Colonel Slayton,
ever on the alert for any sign of trouble, as well as Larissa, who looked only
more beautiful for having brought us through a hard-fought engagement with law
enforcement.

"Well, gentlemen, whom are
we beating up on tonight?" Tressalian went on. It occurred to me that
once they saw that he had recovered from his bout of illness, none of the
others thought to ask the man how he felt, even though the attack that had
seized first his head and then his entire body had been savage. I took my cue
from their example, remembering Tarbell's statement that these episodes were
something of a regular occurrence and assuming, as I had when I'd first seen
him struggle out of his wheelchair, that help and sympathy were not things
Tressalian desired.

"Oh, Malcolm, it's
absurd!" bellowed Fouché, who appeared from the galley. "Eli and
Jonah continue to maintain that their Florida escapade was worth the trouble it
brought!"

As a general though still
good-natured uproar ensued, Larissa moved up close to me. "I'm sorry I
wasn't there to settle you in," she said quietly, her dark eyes gleaming
in the soft light even more than her silver hair. "Was everything all
right?"

"Yes, perfectly," I
answered, again feeling very self-conscious in her presence. "Dr. Tarbell
did his best to help me get my bearings, though it was a tall order. But your
brother—is he—?"

"Fine, now," she said,
even more quietly. "But we can talk about that later."

The argument around the table
continued, eventually prompting Tressalian to hold up his hands: "Decorum,
gentlemen, please. Jonah, Eli—I think that for the foreseeable future we'll
have to ask you to confine your activities concerning the gambling issue to
informational
pursuits. No one faults your zeal—we all know the extent of the problem
and the false assumptions that underlie it. But there are far larger matters at
hand just now. Not to mention that we are being unspeakably rude to our guest,
who, unless I'm mistaken, understands only a fraction of what we're talking
about."

I shook my head once with a
smile. "You are certainly
not
mistaken."

"Then let's be seated while
Julien serves." Tressalian moved to the head of the table, directing me to
sit beside him. "We shall try to clarify the situation, Doctor, after
which you can see our ideas at work in Afghanistan." He leaned toward me,
the blue eyes alight. "And then you can decide if a life of brewing global
chaos holds any appeal..."

Fouché soon emerged from the
galley bearing great platters of simply but delicately prepared food: the kind
of diet, I immediately realized as I glanced at Tressalian, that would appeal
to a man with a severe neurological condition. This impression was confirmed
when I observed that he drank no alcohol.

"Excuse me," I said as
I studied the man, "but did you say 'global chaos'?"

"Oh, all in a good
cause," he rushed to reply. "Well—generally, at any rate. But to
understand that cause I'm afraid you'll first have to wrap your mind around the
philosophy we've all chosen to share."

"I'm listening."

Tressalian nodded. "Well,
then, where to start? Perhaps simple observation would be best. Did you enjoy
the sights along the coast?"

I looked up suddenly: Was
that
why the ship had spent so long in those filthy waters? To make an
impression on
me,
just as Larissa had done when she'd so expertly manned
the ship's big rail gun during the battle with our pursuers? "It was
fairly depressing," I said carefully.

"And the sea around us
now," Tressalian went on. "Does anything appear to be missing?"

"Just the fish," I joked;
but the tableful of straight faces that looked back at me indicated how
terribly serious my words had actually been. "Jesus," I fumbled.
"Have things really gotten that bad?"

"The sights speak for
themselves, Doctor," Colonel Slayton said gravely, running a finger along
the scar on the side of his face. "The Atlantic seaboard is almost
literally a hog sty, and the last of the important fish species, thanks to
government lies about enforcing fishing regulations around the world, have
been chased into the furthest recesses of the ocean, where they'll be found
and, soon enough, slaughtered." He kept gently rubbing that scar,
reminding me of how much "government lies" had contributed to his own
disastrous experiences during the Taiwan campaign.

"Yes," Tressalian
agreed gloomily. "I only wish I could say that such developments were
outside the norm of modern human behavior. And yet, according to a generation
of rhetoric, our own age should have separated itself from that norm, shouldn't
it, Doctor?"

"How do you mean?"

"Well, after all, the dawn
of this century
did
present humanity with an enormous opportunity to
improve both its own lot and the condition of the planet. The necessary tools
were all at hand." His voice became distinctly ironic. "The
age of
information
had been born."

I was puzzled by his tone.
"Yes—thanks in large part to
your
father."

Tressalian's irony quickly took
on a hard edge. "True. Thanks in large part to
my father
..."