Resolution (8 page)

‘I wonder how legal the targeting system is.’

‘Not very, if they’re sensible.’

For centuries, the anti-Turing provisions of the Comitia Freni Fem’telorum had kept weapons relatively dumb. Handheld grasers were the energy weapons of choice; and blades were used for formal duelling among the nobility ... but none of this was state of the art, for it was over a millennium since smartmists and other killing femtotech had been developed. The problem was that, when you utilized such weaponry, all tactical choices (and ultimately strategic and even political decisions) were made by the weapons themselves: they acted and reacted too fast for human intervention.

Yet the recent War Against The Blight was making people reconsider. Perhaps humankind needed the deadliest armaments it could muster, not having the luxury to consider the drawbacks of entrusting their Fate to devices of their creation.

The flowing carpet was decelerating.

‘I guess we’re here.’

Before a peaked archway, a holo bird formed of orange flames manifested itself.

‘This way,’
it sang.

The soldiers bowed and remained on the spot as the bird floated slowly along the corridor and Tom and Elva followed, with their mesodrone moving alongside.

What happens next?
Tom wondered.

Steam rose gently from three red-brown bowls of indigoberry daistral, which stood on the purple glass conference table. The aroma made Tom smile. While the Collegiate Magister was dismissing the servitor who had brought the drinks, Tom reached over for the nearest bowl, then sat back in his chair, holding the daistral but not yet drinking: that would be rude.

‘Don’t wait for me,’ said Magister Strostiv. ‘After that long journey, you must be dying for a decent daistral.’

‘Pretty much,’ said Tom, and took a sip. ‘Ah, thank you. That’s excellent.’

Elva waited until Strostiv was sitting down before she picked up her own bowl and drank. ‘Mm. Not bad.’

Strostiv ignored his drink, and sat with his elbows on the tabletop, fingers steepled together. His white hair, unkempt as always, stuck out at odd angles. He was an Altus Magister of the Collegium Perpetuum Delphinorum, and no-one would dream of telling him to smarten up his appearance.

‘Congratulations on your wedding, both of you.’

‘Thank you, Strostiv.’

When Tom had last talked to him, Strostiv had been acting as a tactical adviser to Corduven’s military Academy, and had revealed as much as was understood about the Blight’s true nature to Tom and the other executive officers. He and Tom had not exactly been friends; Tom wondered if they were enemies now.

‘Your message said that you wanted to reclaim a damaged Jack-class cyborg, designated Axolon.’

‘Is that his name?’ said Tom. ‘I didn’t know.’

Strostiv frowned at the word
his,
rather than
its.
Perhaps a man who helped create Oracles had difficulty in assigning personal qualities to those who were no longer truly human.

‘At any rate, the Collegium is happy to renounce all title to the Jack. As far as we’re concerned, it -
he,
if you like - is a written-off asset. We have checked with the Klivinax Toldrinov, and they have no particular wish for you to return Axolon to them. They consider it irreparably damaged.’

Tom looked at Elva. If the Klivinax Toldrinov, the Guild which created cyborgs, had written off the Jack, then what hope was there?

But we have to try.

Elva nodded, as though she had read his thoughts.

‘We’re going ahead,’ she said. ‘No matter what it costs.’

Tom tried not to wince at the thought of their dwindling wealth.

‘That,’ said Magister Strostiv, ‘is very noble of you.’

Elva placed her daistral bowl down on the tabletop, very quietly. Strostiv might do well not to provoke her, Tom reckoned.

‘The thing is,’ Strostiv continued, oblivious to the threat, ‘we’re all very grateful to you. Corduven’s forces have received all the credit, but those of us in the know are aware that you, sir, provided the crystal and the strategy which brought us victory.’

The replacement crystal suddenly seemed large and hard, tucked inside Tom’s waistband.

‘Avernon,’ Tom said, ‘was the one who implemented the strategy. A team of world-class logosophers
might
have produced the same results, given several tendays. No-one else could have pulled it together in a few hours, singlehandedly.’

‘You might be right. Do you know where Lord Avernon is now?’

‘No ...’ Tom thought that Strostiv’s tone had become falsely casual, and he wondered why Strostiv would need to contact Avernon. ‘The wedding celebrations were still in full flow when Elva and I left. Avernon was there, but we didn’t really get to make proper farewells.’

It had been a whirl of happy impressions, accompanying their sudden departure in a tiny yellow arachnasprite built for one person (inside which they had both squeezed, laughing) while a similar hired ‘sprite followed with their small amount of luggage - and Eemur - stowed aboard.

‘And ... Lord d’Ovraison? What of him, my Lord?’

‘There was talk of rebuilding the Academy,’ said Tom. ‘And of promoting Corduven again, though to what rank, I’m not sure.’

Corduven was already Brigadier-General Lord Corduven d’Ovraison; there was not much else for him to achieve within a strictly military hierarchy. Any higher appointment would be overtly political.

‘I’m ... not sure, either.’ Strostiv’s gaze shifted, betraying some concealment. ‘He is your friend, isn’t he?’

When Tom had been a servitor, Corduven had been the first Lord to treat him as a human being.

And how did I repay him? By murdering his brother.

Tom had killed the Oracle who had foreseen - and in doing so, caused - the death of Tom’s father, and who had stolen away Tom’s mother. The Oracle had foreseen his own eventual death of old age, but Tom had given him the first surprise of his life ... and death: a violent, bloody death; a paradox unexpectedly resolved.

Redmetal poignard, sinking in to the hilt...

The Oracle was Gérard d’Ovraison, brother to Corduven whom Tom had called friend, and still did.

‘What are you getting at, Strostiv?’

For a moment, Strostiv stared at him. ‘The Jack called Axolon was part of the manhunt, after Oracle d’Ovraison was killed in the terraformer sphere. You can’t appreciate the scope and depth of that search. We knew that truecasts had foreseen the Oracle’s long, uneventful life ... It shook the foundations of
everything.’’

It was supposed to,
thought Tom.

Beside him, Elva grew very still.

‘You were the first commoner in Gelmethri Syektor,’ added Strostiv, ‘to be upraised to Lordship during the past hundred Standard Years. Your logosophical potential might not have been at Avernon’s level - his kind appears once every three or four centuries - but you were still outstanding. And yet you failed to contribute anything to official research ... until you came on the scene with astounding techniques of war
and access to mu-space.’

‘Not many people are aware of the details.’

‘But some of us are in a position to put the picture together. You weren’t a prime suspect at the time of the Oracle’s death, but in retrospect your guilt is obvious. Even though the killer directed the terraformer’s drones to clean up the interior, there must be
some
forensic evidence we can retrieve, even after all these years.’

Tom kept his composure.

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘Well, my Lord, I think you do. But the point is, it doesn’t matter’ -Strostiv formed a control gesture, and a holo image winked into being above the purple glass tabletop - ‘because of this. You’re specifically exonerated, by the one man I should have thought would want to see you dead.’

The image held a legal declaration, Tom saw, witnessed by officials at a Convocation, and at the heart of it was one simple statement:

I do hereby forgo all vengeance-claim upon Lord Thomas Corcorigan, in my absolute faith in his innocence.

Below it, a simple signature-knot tricon hung:

Brigadier-General Lord Corduven d’Ovraison

Tom closed his eyes.

‘In the light of this’ - Strostiv’s words sounded from far away - ‘no-one could bring you to task. No-one, my Lord.’

Corduven.

Tom could not understand why Corduven would support him. With such a document, even if a tribunal were to find Tom guilty, they would have to absolve him from punishment.

You did this for me?

Tom opened his eyes and looked at Strostiv.

‘What do you want?’ he said.

‘To help.’ Strostiv spread his hands. ‘Only to help, my Lord.’

~ * ~

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NULAPEIRON AD 3423