The Elysium Commission (16 page)

By the time I got to my study on Marten morning, all my snoops on Tony had expired or been swept. His mutterings and the verbal sides of his vidlinks hadn't revealed more than what I'd already suspected. They also hadn't led to anything of a firm and provable nature.

I hadn't discovered that much more on Sephaniah Dylan-Zimmer, either. I'd found additional publications, citations of her work by other scholars, and more published research, but the professor led a very private life. That was understandable. It wasn't helpful.

I had a few minutes before I had to leave for Dyorr's presentation to the Devantan Humanitas Foundation. I could only try the direct approach. I used the vidlink.

This time the talking head was wearing dark green. The color was more becoming. It also showed a sophisticated programming.

“You've reached my office at the university. As you may know, I'll be on sabbatical until Triem and will be unavailable until then. Messages will not be forwarded unless they are of an urgent nature, and that requires contact with the university administration.”

After those words, the image froze in place.

Messages not being forwarded strongly suggested that she was out-system somewhere. Doing research on Old Earth? I linked to the administration vid-codes. After a good minute, I got another virtie. This one was synth rather than replica. She was politely clean-looking and blond.

“I'm looking for someone who can authorize an urgent message to Professor Dylan-Zimmer.”

Almost immediately another face appeared. Unlined, but narrow and severe under hair too dark for her pale skin. “I'm Subprovost Harras. You indicated an urgent message for Professor Dylan-Zimmer.”

“Blaine Donne. I've been trying to reach Professor Dylan-Zimmer, but all I've gotten is a message that she's on sabbatical and won't be back for another three months.”

“I'm sorry, Ser Donne. That's all I can really tell you.”

“When did she leave? That's not a secret, I assume.”

The severe-faced woman did not answer.

“How long is the minimum standard sabbatical? That can't be confidential.”

“Six months.” Even those words came out distastefully.

“Thank you. Then the woman who met me last week here in Thurene, claiming to be her, was unlikely to have been.”

“That would have been impossible. Do you have a message?”

“No. I was just trying to verify an identity. You've been most helpful. Thank you.”

“Is that all?”

“It is, thank you.”

“Good day, Ser Donne.”

The projected image vanished. I leaned back in my chair.

Had Odilia known?

After a moment, I tried a vidlink to the princesse.

She actually appeared. She was wearing dark crimson, not maroon, with a wide black belt that emphasized her impossibly narrow waist.

“Blaine…I only have a moment…”

“I just had a question. How well do you know Sephaniah Dylan-Zimmer?”

Odilia frowned. “Not that well at all. I only see her at the opera, and that's only once or twice a year. I understand an occasional appearance at the opera is her one luxury. I like her work, but we're not really even acquaintances. In person, she's very different from professionally. I like the professional side, not the personal side.”

“I just found out that she's been on sabbatical for more than two months. Out-system.”

“That can't be. We saw her…”

“We saw someone…It wasn't her.”

“I'm rather late, Blaine dear. I'll have to think about that.” She blew me a kiss, and the image went blank.

I collapsed my projection.

How much did Odilia know? I thought she'd looked surprised for the faintest instant. Stunned, almost. But had that been at my revelation? Or at the deception of the false Sephaniah? That also assumed that the “opera” Sephaniah had been false. But why would a professor intimate she was off-planet, then flaunt herself at the opera? That verged on false representation and dishonesty. Professors had lost their positions for far less. Even tenured ones.

Yet…

I shook my head. I'd have to let my subconscious ruminate on that. In the meantime, I had to get moving.

I barely made it to the large conference room at Banque du Sud by quarter to eleven.

There were guards, both with low-porosity nanite shields, and stunners. They looked at me.

“Blaine Donne. I'm a consultant, here at the request of Seigniora Tozzi.”

“ID confirmation, ser?”

I flashed the codes, and the small scanner studied me. The skeptical expressions were replaced with ones of boredom.

“You're cleared, ser. Observers in the last row, please.”

The aide standing beside the guards handed me a booklet and a dataflat. “Here are the briefing materials, Seignior Donne.”

“Thank you.”

The conference room was of moderate size, perhaps twelve meters wide and ten deep. In the front was a low dais with a podium set on the left. Below the dais were rows of chairs.

I had the last row almost to myself. I sat on the far right end. That way I had some chance of at least catching profiles of those in the rows closer to the front. There were two others in back with me. One was a muscular woman verging on stockiness and the other a youngish-looking media linker. Neither looked in my direction.

Dr. Dyorr stood on one side of the dais, beside the podium, talking quietly to a woman I'd never seen. Dr. Marie Tozzi sat in the first row of chairs on the far left-hand side. Her eyes were not on Dyorr, but on a striking brunette. The brunette was obviously an assistant to an older man in a dark suit because he would turn and tell her something before resuming his conversation with another woman.

I didn't try to read everything in the booklet, but I did skim through it very quickly before turning my attention to the various individuals. Not counting Dr. Tozzi, there were nine people in the center of the first row of seats, with four or five empty chairs on each side. About half of those in the first row had assistants in the second row. No one was in the third row. The fourth row was where I was.

The distinguished man with the striking assistant stood. “For those of you who don't know me, I'm Pietr vonGarodyn, the chairman of the Humanitas Board. The only business at this meeting is to hear a presentation by the distinguished Dr. Richard Guillaume Dyorr, the director of consciousness programs at the Medical College of L'Institut Multitechnique. I won't belabor his credentials…”

Unfortunately, vonGarodyn then proceeded to state all the professional background on Dyorr. It was all in the handouts, but that didn't seem to matter.

While he talked, I watched. Just as Dr. Tozzi watched the brunette, a petite blond woman studied Marie Annette, if not so obviously. She was also an observer, at the far end of the row. I hadn't noticed her initially, but she was more than passingly pretty.

Eventually, Dyorr took the podium. He paused, not rushing. Then he spoke. His voice was a pleasant but not striking baritone. “I would like to thank the Board members, and indeed everyone here, for being kind and gracious enough to afford the Medical College the opportunity to present this proposal.” He smiled. “Consciousness has been termed the last great area of medical uncertainty. It most definitely is. It is, or it represents, a combination of physiological and mental processes so involved and intricate that it has yet to be understood or replicated outside the construct of a human brain. Yet, after all these centuries and all the planets we have occupied and transformed, we cannot define or replicate the very process that has made our history as a species possible. To gain a greater understanding of this physiological miracle is the goal of the research proposed…”

The presentation lasted exactly twenty-one minutes, almost to the second.

During the entire time, not a single Board member looked away from Dyorr. Tozzi looked mostly at them rather than Dyorr.

There were no questions.

Then Pietr vonGarodyn stood again. “At this time, we would like to request that all those who are not sitting members of the Board leave.”

Marie Annette joined the personal assistants and those of us classed as observers in leaving the room. Dyorr remained behind.

I eased toward Marie Annette. “Dr. Tozzi?”

She turned. I hadn't realized that she was almost as tall as I was. Her gray eyes were wide-set and penetrating, her skin flawless. She wore a dark gray medical singlesuit, with a pale blue jacket over it. “Yes?”

“I'm Blaine Donne, and I've been tasked with covering the presentation.” I shrugged. “Some of what Dr. Dyorr said was…shall we say…daunting, and I have a technical background.”

“The proposal outlines a first step in a graduated effort.” She was close enough that I could sense her pheromones. They were damped to levels that proclaimed her female—and uninterested. I suspected that was probably the norm for a surgeon. “Dr. Dyorr is a careful and patient scientist.”

“He seems quite dedicated. How did you become involved in the project?”

“I'm a surgical resident. I intend to specialize in neural net surgery.” Her smile was icy. “Why did my great-grandmother request that you evaluate the proposal?”

“I can't speak to motives, Doctor. I only know that I was hired to do the evaluation and to submit a report.”

“What will you report?”

“My evaluation of the proposal.” I smiled. “What should I report?”

“That it's one of the few true pure research projects being attempted and well worth the funding.”

“It does seem strange that so little progress has been made in the area.”

“That's because people don't want to know about consciousness, just like they didn't want to know about evolution and pan-gaiean life seeds before the Diaspora. When dearly held and illogical beliefs conflict with science, science usually loses.” Her smile was polite. “Good day, Seignior.”

She turned and left, and the only ones outside the conference room were the two guards and the aide who had given me the handouts.

I turned to the aide. “There was a blond woman, one of the observers. I was supposed to meet her afterward, but I got tied up with Dr. Tozzi…” I tried to look embarrassed.

“Oh…that must have been Daryla Rettek. She's the scientific media linkster.”

“Thank you.”

On the way back to the villa, I thought about Dyorr and Tozzi. He was certainly committed to his research. He hadn't even so much as glanced at his fiancée during the presentation. She had occasionally looked at him, and she certainly believed in his research. But I wasn't getting the impression that he was turning the heavens to get to her eventual inheritance. That could mean he was a far better dissembler than I was a discoverer. I didn't think so.

When I finally returned to the villa, I drafted a report on the presentation. I had to conclude that it was well organized and that Dyorr had made a convincing case for his research.

I also ran checks on vonGarodyn, not because I cared about him but because I wanted to know about his aide. In the end, I discovered that she was Cecilia vonKuhrs, the staff director of the foundation, married three times, with two grown children.

There was very little on Daryla Rettek. In fact, there was nothing except her identification as the science media linkster for L'Institut Multitechnique.

I decided to link Myndanori, but she was out. I left a message requesting she backlink.

Then I went back to other varied searches.

Two stans later, all I'd found was more dead ends. By then, I wasn't sure I could find any more of even those. I'd had five commissions. One of the clients was most likely dead, and he'd never even paid a retainer. Worse, my use of his detector had probably led to his death, either directly or sooner than otherwise would have been the case.

Even after Dyorr's proposal, almost everything I'd discovered in the other three cases was based on hints, indirect implications, in fact barely more than nothing mixed with supposition. Scarcely more than a certain slant of light after dawn, or before twilight, even more uncertain than the shadows of Thurene.

What could I do?

Given what Angelique deGritz had told me, I did run checks on the status of Stella Strong/Maureen Gonne, Vola Paulsky, and Relian Cru, but none showed up as deceased or in the status of the incarcerated or the civilly limited. I also tried on Astrid Forte, although I had no real link that indicated she might be the same individual as Stella Strong, but there was nothing on her except a blanked identity in Vannes.

I began another round of vidlinks, starting with the Artists' Centrality. I'd only gotten talking heads the last time, and not a one had gotten back to me. Three talking heads later, I was linked to a real person, a Carthon Wills. He had a boyish and bespectacled look, even without the spectacles affected by the retrowriters.

“Seignior Donne, I don't believe I know you. What have you created?”

Chaos mostly, or so it was seeming. “I'm not a creator. I'm trying to track down a creator for a project.”

“What sort of creator? I'd have to know the scope of what you have in mind, and a budget estimate would help…” His smile was singularly unhelpful.

“I'm trying to track down a Terrie McGerrie. I think she also uses the name Carey Douglass.”

“She does not take inquiries or unsolicited commissions, Seignior…uh…”

“Donne. Blaine Donne. I'm not inquiring about productions. I'm inquiring about her. I'm trying to get in touch with her.”

He or his image drew itself up in a poor imitation of an offended cat. “The Artists' Centrality is not an acquaintance linknet.”

“I'm not looking for her for that reason.”

“I have heard that too often, Seignior…”

“Donne.”

“If you have a commission, or if you would like to leave your contact information, it is up to each artist to make a decision as to whether to return a link.” A sniff followed the announcement.