Strings (11 page)

The media had great power, and their representatives expected to be royally treated. Perhaps a hundred men and women lounged on the antique furniture, or stood around on priceless rugs between works of art. Live waiters were circulating with trays of champagne, which seemed surprising. Should not the celebration come after? But no. After the announcement, the reporters and other holostars would have to rush off and tell the world what it should be thinking.

Already Alya had begun recognizing faces. For every holostar personality, though, there would be at least two holographers, commonly known as “owls” because of their two-lensed cameras. Once those had been carried on trucks, but now they were no larger than jewelry and could be worn on a headband. Yet holo work was still more art than science; an owl could make or break a clip, and the good ones were rewarded accordingly. A semicircle of men and women stood strategically poised by the door. They turned, displaying the twin cameras sitting on their foreheads like unwanted sunglasses.

A girl could feel flattered when a crowded room fell silent at her entrance.

Jathro stepped to her side. “Her Highness, Princess Alya,” he explained smoothly. “Sister of His Majesty Kassan’assan IV, the Sultan of Banzarak.” As always beyond the shores of Borneo, mention of Banzarak produced only blank stares.

Men rose from chairs and couches. A general drift toward Alya became apparent, each star being tracked by an attendant owl. A beautiful princess was a rarity in the twenty-first century, even if no one had ever heard of her homeland, and a pretty girl was always good copy.

“And you?” someone asked.

Oozing modesty, Jathro introduced himself: Banzarak’s Minister for Refugee Affairs, but present that day only as aide-decamp to Her Highness.

“And what brings Your Highness to Director Hubbard’s press conference?”

Jathro opened his mouth again, but Alya spoke first. “Pure nosiness! We happened to be in the complex on a social visit, guests of Deputy Director Devlin. We heard that there was to be an important announcement and came to hear what it might be.”

She just wanted to be left alone. Alya had no fear of crowds, no sense of stage fright, for eyes had followed her all her life, but at the moment she was beginning to doubt the hunch that had brought her. The sense of urgency had vanished, so she was on the right track, but she truly did not know why she was there. As Jathro had said, her brothers and sisters had never drawn attention to their missions in such a way. Unease tingled her skin like a rash. Had she made a stupendous error? She had a sense of something missing, and she desperately wanted to hide in a corner and just watch, unseen and unnoticed, until she could work out what it was.

Small hope! But at least her rank and youth gained her respect—beautiful girls were not bullied in public—and the six or seven personages who chose to be recorded talking with her were all polite and considerate. One by one they stepped forward to ask much the same questions. She gave the same answers and gradually convinced them that she had no knowledge of what was to be announced and was certainly not personally concerned. Then little Wok Lee of
Singapore Witness
mischievously asked her a question in Malay. She replied in kind and found herself admitting that she spoke five languages fluently and could get by in several others. That stupid indiscretion revived the interest and prolonged her ordeal.

She thought ruefully of Kas and how horrified he would be if he turned on his holo and saw this appalling publicity. He would think she had gone mad. Perhaps she had.

As a born schemer, Jathro had seen that any interference by him would only arouse more suspicion. He had stepped aside, wrapping himself in silence and a thin, sour smile.

She was rescued at last by Quentin Peter of 5CBC, who liked to think of himself as the dean of the world press corps, even if no one else did. Courtly, white-haired, and wistfully lecherous, he gave her his arm and led her into the center of the room. There the most important personages were trading lies on a horseshoe of soft, chintzy couches amid a sparkle of wit, jewelry, and champagne. Prominent people met so seldom in the flesh that this must be a notable experience for them. With no visible direction, a group of owls cut Jathro off when he tried to follow.

Alya knew that every word she spoke was still being recorded, every eyelash scanned. She knew that every man and woman in the group was trying to calculate how this interesting character could be used to further his or her career by some minute amount, but at least she could sit in comfort and pretend she was merely attending a meeting of the Banzarak Ladies’ Refugee Assistance League. But that could never have been so interesting.

She realized with sudden astonishment that she had started to enjoy herself. The Dom Perignon tickled her nose with the audacity of a celebrated vintage, and even a princess could relish being treated as a celebrity sometimes. She was scenting the ozone of excitement that filled the hall, the tingle of suspense. So large an attendance of world-famous faces spoke wonders for the importance of the occasion. A million hectos’ worth of tailoring glimmered under the chandeliers.

Her gold jump suit was too bright. Pastels and earth tints were the correct thing, subtle and soft. Probably the gold would have been fine when she bought it, but that had been three months earlier. These were the beautiful people, the ever-young gods of transient fame, and they measured the progress of fashion to the minute. Many of them looked as though they could hardly breathe, so tightly was uplift being impressed upon female bosom and washboarding on male abdomen. Some of the costumes were triumphs of concealed engineering—she watched Goodson Jason lift a champagne glass and saw his biceps bulge as though he were hefting an anvil.

The inner circle to which she had been admitted was composed of the biggest names. Lesser organizations hungered outside the horseshoe; nonentities and the massed owls flanked them.

Non-English media like
Pravda
and
Beijing Voice
were present in the persons of their Nauc stringers, but English was Alya’s favorite language for news broadcasts. It just seemed to be the best for the purpose, like Italian for opera or Japanese for poetry. She favored English-speaking channels, and thus she had no trouble recognizing the solid sky-blue pomposity of Frazer Franklin of WSHB. He was older than she had expected, and even a fortune in sartorial cunning could not conceal the breadth of his hips.

Next to him was the deliberate crudity of Crozer Bill, displaying a matted chest above a neckline that plunged halfway back to Australia.

And perched nearby like a resting angel, Eccles Pandora Pendor was the unquestioned belle of the hall in silvery-pale rose. She looked younger and lovelier than ever—and very tense, which seemed odd. WSHB liked to play up the friendly rivalry between her and Frankie. Alya had always been skeptical of that as a mere gimmick, but perhaps it was no less than the truth. They were certainly showing no signs of friendship at present.

And Eccles Pandora, lisping in baby-doll innocence, kept working around Alya like a knife thrower. Had she spoken to Devlin Grant that day? Was he in Nauc, or up at Cainsville? When had Alya arrived? Where had she met him?

Alya dodged the fast-flung queries as well as she could with the minimum amount of lying, while wondering at that curious interest in Devlin Grant—whom she had met for three minutes at a cocktail party in Mecca two years before. She also wondered why Eccles Pandora fidgeted so much; why her voice seemed shriller than it should.

Frazer Frankie, on the other hand, was expansive and jovial.

Then, as Director Hubbard’s tardiness was being remarked on and condemned for the fortieth time, the door opened. The gracious, dignified Quentin Peter said, “
Keerist
!” and lunged off the couch with an agility that Alya would not have expected. The whole room followed.

The old man was easy. No one in the room had trouble identifying the craggy dried-leather face, the hatchet-blade nose, and the bat-wing ears. His hair was gray and thin, his back bowed by age, but he smiled the famous ironic smile and raised a hand in greeting as he shuffled toward the center of the room, the lectern in the middle of the horseshoe. He towered over them all, both literally and figuratively: Hastings Willoughby, Secretary General for a generation, political giant of the century.

The room shimmered as excitement crystallized into a sense of history in the making.

“Sentience!” The whisper came from somewhere behind Alya. “It has to be First Contact!”

“Or a Class One,” someone retorted stubbornly.

The Institute reported to the U.N., and thus in a legal sense Hastings was Hubbard’s boss. His presence at the present gathering was like calling God the Father to witness.

But the young man beside him? He was even taller. Hardly a man—a boy. His hair was a disaster, far too long and standing up in tufts of disarray, and his suit was a sick joke, a ghastly luminous green that screamed at all the pastels and pearly tints. He was as thin as wire rope, and he had a sickly nervous smile on his face as he tried to keep close to Hastings.

Who had let him out? Out of where?

But Alya’s heart was racing. She felt the electrifying touch of a
satori
. That was what had been missing—that gawking adolescent beanpole. That boy. Who was
he
?

What the hell did he have to do with Alya?

He burned. Like that one word on Jathro’s paper, he glowed for her. She could imagine a fiery aura around him. He had not even seen her and could not know that she existed, but she was certain.
He
was why she had come to the meeting. Centuries of agonized death had led her there, to that awkward, overgrown juvenile.

The Secretary General had reached the lectern, although he merely came to a halt at one side of it and rested a hand on it for a moment. Alya had been almost pushed back down on her couch by the throng as stars and owls crowded in. She squeezed out of the way and moved to where she could see.

Hastings glanced around and was granted instant silence.

“So you are all real!”

Laughter.

“I’ve always suspected that most of you were computer constructs.”

He was old, but he was still good. The room was as quiet as a closed grave. Alya wondered what he had been like in his prime.

“Now, I did not come here to steal Director Hubbard’s thunder. She’ll be here very shortly, and she’ll make her announcement then.” A long finger wagged to forestall argument. “And I’m not going to answer any questions on politics, either. I might say something that would upstage her. This is her day.”

The calculated pause…“I will say this: To accuse women of being unpunctual is rank prejudice and sexism—but I’ve always found that if you do it promptly, they’re never around to hear you!”

Laughter, babble…and again the hand. “No questions! But I will accept a glass of champagne—and if you all want to go off the record…”

“Who’s your friend, sir?”

Alya thought he had been waiting for that—she certainly had. “Who?” Hastings turned and peered up at his companion, whose rich flush was visible to everyone in the room. “Him?” The awshucks manner grew more obvious. “Well, now, ladies and gentlemen of the press, I’ll be proud to introduce you all. This is my grandson, Hubbard Cedric Dickson.”

There was a beat of silence, and then a roar, as every throat in the room seemed to speak at once. Apparently Alya was not alone in finding him interesting.

Hastings raised a hand, and the peace returned—his control was astonishing. “Seems like they got some questions for you, lad. You want to answer some questions?”

Horrified, the youth shook his head so vigorously that his ochre comb flapped. Hastings led the laughter.

Alya elbowed her way between two groups, squirmed around to another couch, and almost threw herself over the back. She was sitting demurely upright, with her hair back in place, when the crowd opened to allow the Secretary General to find a seat, and he arrived at that same couch. Of course—it was easy.

Alya made to rise, but he signed to her to remain seated, and his shrewd old eyes twinkled at her with no sign of surprise.

He knew!

“Princess Alya!” He bowed over her hand. “At last! You have turned out even lovelier than I predicted. How’s that bush-bearded brother of yours?” He was showing off to impress the press—but he knew. He had known of her arrival, and he knew why she had come. But of course he would. Hubbard Agnes could hardly have masterminded history’s greatest conspiracy for so long without Hastings Willoughby knowing about it.

The Secretary General settled at Alya’s side. If she had placed herself to meet his grandson, though, then she had failed. Young Cedric, unable to see a vacant seat nearby, unabashedly settled on the floor at his grandfather’s feet like an oversize child. Completely unaware of Alya behind his shoulder, he crossed his grasshopper legs and seemed to go into a trance, staring boggle-eyed at Eccles Pandora.

Alya hardly minded. The mere fact that he was close seemed to have eased her headache and satisfied her sense of something missing. She would not have known what to say to him anyway—but why him?

“I didn’t know you had a grandson, sir,” Quentin remarked.

Hastings glanced at him over the lip of his glass and then around the company. “We’re off the record?”

With sour expressions the media of the world agreed that they were off the record. The owls pointedly turned aside or removed their headbands.

“Well…” Hastings paused dramatically and took a deep breath. “Why should you have known?”

Everyone except Quentin enjoyed that. He raised a shaggy white eyebrow and regarded the youth. “How old are you, Cedric?”

The boy dragged his eyes away from Pandora. “Nineteen, sir.”

Alya was surprised—her own age. She had thought him younger than that, in spite of his height.

“You’re the son of Hubbard John Hastings?”

“Yes, sir.”

Of course, he must be Agnes’s grandson, also! That explained why the reporters had found him so interesting, even if it did not explain why he rang Alya’s alarms. Whatever she was seeing in him was certainly not physical—he was immature and awkward and apparently not very bright. Certainly not her type. Why that invisible aura?