To Hold Infinity (5 page)

A stately pavane of life and death: glycoprotein-analogues drifting laterally through a fluid mosaic of phospholipids and protein-like molecules. Yoshiko pointed at a twisted filament, and it grew large as the display zoomed in.

“Excuse me.”

In a text volume, the relative atomic concentrations scrolled past, while graphs shifted in a third image. The primary display picked out a molecule and decoded it: hydrogen bonds in startling white, dynamic equations mapping field strengths.

“I'm sorry.” A harried-looking woman walked right through the display.

Most interesting of all, the overall-properties map was highlighting a cohenstewart discontinuity—

“Wow!”

A small boy, carrying a toy spaceship and a bag of sweets, walked right through a blue alpha helix.

Stifling a sigh, Yoshiko gestured, and the display shrank to a tiny volume and froze. It had been taking her mind off other things. Perhaps she ought to reply to Tetsuo's h-mail, but what could she say?

“Put the sweets away, Jason.” The woman was seeing to her son's seat harness.

The cabin was lavish, every couch equipped with terminal and drinks dispenser. There was nothing more an adult passenger could want. Holding the attention of a seven-year-old boy, though, was quite another matter.

An attendant appeared beside Yoshiko.

“Mrs. Sunadomari? This was sent aboard by a station crewmember. For you.”

It was a small package, plainly wrapped.

“Thank you.”

Across the aisle, the boy's mother looked exasperated.

“I'll be glad to get to the conference,” she said. “When I'm working, I don't have people throwing tantrums.”

Because
, thought Yoshiko,
we adults are all so rational and well-balanced.

The boy's face crumpled into tears. His mother looked stricken at the import of her words.

Trying not to think of Tetsuo and Akira at that age, Yoshiko killed her minimized display completely, and turned her attention to the package on her lap.

“Accept ident: input owner name.”

A toy capuchin monkey sat up amid the tissue-paper lining of the opened box.

“Accept ident: input owner name.”

The sound of crying had ceased. The boy, Jason, was staring at the monkey.

Smiling, Yoshiko leaned over, holding the monkey out to him.

“Perhaps he could ride on your spaceship.”

Jason looked at the forgotten spaceship clutched in his hand, then up at his mother, with an imploring look in his eyes.

The woman nodded.

“Say your name,” said Yoshiko, as he took the monkey.

“Jason Brown.”

“Ident accepted.” The monkey stood to attention. “Howya doin', Jason?”

Jason giggled as the monkey performed a back-flip.

It was bad form, Yoshiko supposed, to give away a present from someone else. But she didn't expect to see Eric Rasmussen again.

“How can I thank you?” said his mother. “This trip's been hectic.”

“I remember how difficult it can be.”

“But it gets better when they're older, right?”

“Well…”

“That's what I was afraid of.” She turned her seat, leaned across Jason, and held out her hand. “I'm Maggie.”

“Yoshiko.”

They shook, then returned their seats to the forward-facing position as a warning chimed.

“Sleepy time,” said Maggie, taking a delta-band from the arm of Jason's seat.

“Not sleepy.”

Yoshiko said, “It's a long flight. We need you to make sure the monkey's all right.”

“Oh, OK. Better sleep.”

He settled back, cradling the monkey. Maggie placed the band across Jason's forehead. Almost immediately, his eyelids fluttered and he slipped deeply into sleep.

“That's what makes it worth it,” Maggie said softly.

A second chime sounded.

“Sleepy time.” Maggie's grin was, for a second, identical to her son's.

“See you later.”

All around, passengers were putting on their delta-bands.

An overhead display showed the station's coat of arms—its motto,
Per Ardua ad Astra
—which was replaced with an exterior view of the station itself.

The station receded from the ship.

Most of the passengers were already unconscious, but Yoshiko still held her delta-band in her hand.

The display shifted to a sea of golden space, streaked here and there with crimson. Tiny black spongieform stars were riddled with holes, and encrusted with endlessly branching spiky protuberances.

Mu-space.

The display was a work of art. Literally so, for no normal human could see that fractal continuum for real, and survive.

If only I were a Pilot
, thought Yoshiko, placing the delta-band on her forehead.
How wonderful that would—

Suddenly, she was looking down at her body from above. Riding with the flow, used to meditation, she was not sleeping but drifting upwards, above the other passengers, and through the darkness of the mu-space vessel's hull.

If you could be here, Ken…

Then she was swimming in an amber ocean, where black stars sang and infinite whorls of energy smiled, and for a moment she was whole.

 

STATUS CHECK.

Tetsuo groaned, opening his eyes.

ITERATIVE DEEPENING CONCLUDED.

The tag end of some nightmare, red characters fading before his eyes. He rubbed them away.

Noonday sun glared on rust-red and green/white stratified rockface.

Dozed off again. With no business meetings or design specs to finish, it was the first time in years he had gone back to sleep in the morning. He laughed, and stopped immediately, startled by the hysteria he heard.

At least the pain was gone from his scalp. There was a tightness in his chest, where the plexcore processor was implanted, but that was all.

What now? He checked his food inventory: four tendays' worth, for an average individual, according to the display. He factored in his stored biodata, and watched the figure drop below three tendays.

Patting his paunch, he realized he had to get offworld, as soon as possible. Or go to the proctors and come clean about the info he had stolen? They, at least, could protect him from attack teams.

He wondered if his unknown enemy had the resources to mount an aerial or orbital search.

There was an overhang up ahead. His flyer shuddered into life, and Tetsuo directed it slowly across the canyon floor, and settled below the overhang.

The flyer's smartskin blended immediately with the darker rock it now nestled on.

He ought to be happy to stay in here, in his cozy cockpit, but for some reason a desire to look outside took hold of him. Awkwardly, he shucked off his burgundy kimono. Tetsuo gestured, palms up, and the cockpit wall puckered and opened to reveal its contents. He pointed to a black jumpsuit, and the cockpit extruded a narrow arm, holding out the garment. Tetsuo took the jumpsuit, and quickly pulled it on.

He found a tub of smartgel and slapped some on his face. Immediately, it oozed across the exposed skin of face and hands, sealing it against the noxious atmosphere outside. He would still need a respmask. There was one next to the med-kit.

Blazing crimson.

Red light flashed across his vision and he dropped the mask, startled. What the hell was that?

The red light was gone.

The console's status displays all read normal. There was nothing outside but the deserted canyon. His flyer's cockpit was just as it had always been.

He picked up the resp-mask.

MASK.

The word disappeared. Hurriedly, he slapped the mask on. If hallucinogens were seeping into the cabin from outside, then this should protect him.

He took quick, shallow breaths. The mask's air had its usual stale taint, but at least it wasn't harmful. He looked around. No hallucinations. No bugs in the holodisplay.

“Command mode. Liquefy.” The mask muffled his voice.

He climbed up onto his seat, and pushed through the cockpit membrane. It slid wetly across his skin as he stepped out onto his flyer's surface.

He walked across the delta wing, stippled red like the rock beneath, then dropped heavily onto the ground.

Wheezing already from the exertion, he moved away from the overhang. Out here, lighter peach-coloured rock swept in slabs across the canyon floor.

AEOLIAN SANDSTONE.

What? Tetsuo staggered, passing his hand before his eyes.

LE MAIN.

In katakana: TE.

“What's happening to me?”

HAND.

He whirled, but there was no one there. Whatever was happening, it was right inside his head.

Mindware.

Idiot. Of course, this was bound to happen. His plexcore was reaching out, through implanted comm-fibres and his own nervous system, trying to interface to his organic brain.

This was no time to be on his own, away from LuxPrime supervision and medical care.

Calmer now, he walked along the canyon floor, hardly seeing his surroundings. Dare he place a call to the proctors? Should he call a LuxPrime office? Rafael?

Sand scrunched under foot.

FOOTPRINT.

The imprint's outline was clear in the sand.

He was a thousand kilometres from the nearest terraformed region, far from human habitation.

FOOTPRINT.

 

Greensleeves.

Yoshiko, squinting, forced herself upright.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we are in Fulgor orbit. Transfer station docking in ten minutes.”

To the soft strains of “Greensleeves,” the passengers were coming awake. Yoshiko performed some neck rotations, and shrugged her shoulders to dissipate the tension.

“We're awake.”

Yoshiko looked down at Jason's bright upturned face. He was still holding the monkey.

“Oh, God.” Maggie rubbed her eyes. Her face was pale and drawn.

“Headache?” asked Yoshiko.

“Yeah. I hate this.”

Yoshiko unfastened her harness, rubbed the stiffness from her legs, and crouched down beside Maggie.

“Give me your wrist.”

“I've had acupressure before,” Maggie said. “It doesn't—Ow!”

“Sorry.”

“You didn't have to press so—Hey, the pain's gone. How did you manage that?”

“Just practice.”

Jason looked up at his mother.

“She's a ninja,” he said confidently.

Later, as they sat together in a drop-shuttle with a dozen other passengers, Maggie handed Yoshiko a crystal.

“In case we get separated later,” she said. “I'm Maggie Brown, staying at the Primum Stratum conference centre in Lucis City. Give me a call, if you'd like to get together.”

“I'd love to. My surname's Sunadomari. I'm…not sure where I'll be staying yet.”

“This is Charlie,” said Jason, holding up the toy monkey.

“Hi, Charlie.” Yoshiko solemnly shook paws.

Maggie frowned. “Were you looking at cell membrane dynamics earlier?”

“Why, yes. Native Fulgor biochemistry.”

“I'm a tech journo and writer. Are you any relation to Professor Sunadomari, from Sudarasys LifeTech?”

Yoshiko nodded. “That's me. How could you know my name?”

“One of the guys in my agency, Piotr Alexeievich, rehacked some of your papers as educational ware.”

“My NetEnv agents handle that side of the business. Their algorithms are pretty sophisticated. I don't think I ever talked to your colleague.”

“No loss. Isn't it a small universe, though?”

“It can be.”

Outside, the alien view belied their words.

The shuttle dropped through copper clouds, passed over purple mountains bruising an ochre plain, and headed for the growing amber jewel that was Lucis City.

The woman was pale—even for a Luculenta—with flame-coloured hair and bright flashing eyes. Her elegant hands gestured animatedly as she talked to her shorter companion.

Rafael's pulse quickened, and he queried her identity in Skein.

 

{{Luculenta Rashella Syntharinova, ident 3α29Fδ7
•
{septΦΔ3}}}

 

He longed to learn more, but he could not enquire further without his interest being noted and logged. Sighing, he withdrew from Skein.

Crowds swirled past. The great hemispherical entrance hall was crowded, even though the conference was not yet in full swing.

He could still see her.

Rashella—ah, such a beautiful name—was taking a seat in one of the alcoves which ringed the hall. The other woman, to whom Rashella was talking, looked tawdry and insignificant, possibly an offworlder. But Rashella had that extra spark, the one shared by the intriguing Xanthia, and by Marianan, and by all his dead, fulfilled, sweet loves.

Voretta had been one of his almost-loves, good for slaking his physical desire—and, in this instance, for adding delicious spice to his intimate consummation with Marianan.

“I'm afraid I don't understand,” the offworld woman was saying.

He had drifted closer to their alcove, almost without realizing it. He listened.

“Have you bought anything in Lucis City yet?” Rashella's voice was soft but clear.

“Er…yeah, some stuff.”

“Check your account. Look at the currency translation function coded by each amount.”

“I wondered what that notation meant.”

“On Fulgor, every monetary transaction is context-sensitive, its value a coordinate in n-dimensional phase space, where n typically varies between two and four hundred.”

“Oh, great. I'm trying to understand the economic implications of opening up EveryWare to Skein, and I don't even know what's happening when I buy a bottle of booze.”

Rashella's laugh was a delight.

Unable to resist, Rafael stepped into the alcove, and gave a short bow.

“I beg your pardon, ladies.” It was standard protocol to use mainly speech when non-Luculenti were present. “I haven't registered for the conference yet. Do you know where the trade fair stands are?”

“Level seven, hall beta,” said the offworlder, while Rashella succinctly directions in a topographical knot.

“Thank you.” He smiled at Rashella. “I am Rafael Garcia de la Vega.”

“Rashella Syntharinova. And this is Maggie Brown, from Earth.”

“You've come a long way, Ms. Brown.”

“I'm a tech journo. Are you involved with the conference?”

“Ah, no. I just dabble.” Rafael turned the full power of his gaze on Rashella. “I hope we'll meet again.”

“Perhaps.” Rashella inclined her head, the colour in her cheeks perhaps a little heightened.

“Ms. Brown.” As Rafael bowed, he saw her catch her breath. From her pupil dilation, it appeared he had made a satisfactory impact upon her, as well.

He backed away gracefully, inordinately pleased with his performance.
Ah, Rashella.
To subsume a living mind like hers. She couldn't dream of such fulfilment.

He headed for the trade fair, dark plans crystallizing in his mind.

 

Tetsuo wasn't there to meet her.

The terminal complex was a jumble of amber halls, flowing corridors, without discrete levels. It was a three-dimensional maze, where a restaurant or store might bear any conceivable geometric relationship towards its neighbours.

Holo-ads splashed bright colours over a maelstrom of people. Yoshiko watched them, feeling lost.

Maggie had left immediately with Jason, heading for some conference centre, and the Maximilians must have taken a different drop shuttle.

And no Tetsuo.

Trailed by a smartcart carrying her luggage, she sat down at the edge of a waiting-area, and ordered orange juice from a dispenser. When she paid, one of her tu-rings flashed blue and green, indicating limited functionality. The other rings were dull orange. Quite inactive.

Even her NetEnv agents were inaccessible, unable to function in Fulgor's Skein.

“Excuse me, ma'am. Do you need help?” It was a big man, in a loose yellow outfit.

“Well—”

“I'm from the Happy Helix Eatery.” He jerked a thumb behind him. “You looked a bit lost.”

Yoshiko let out a breath. “I am. I guess I need a hotel. Are you a security guard?”

“Store monitor,” the man said. “Now, see that silver device? On the pillar?”

Yoshiko nodded.

“Public access terminal.”

The man showed her how to log on to Skein's public level. Yoshiko requested a realtime comm, and gave Tetsuo's full name and address.

The requested party was unavailable.

Yoshiko stared blankly at the low-res holo for a moment.

“Did you say you needed a hotel?”

Yoshiko jumped. She had forgotten about the “store monitor.”

He showed her the options menu, and helped her book into a low-cost establishment right here in the terminal complex. The software was childishly simple to use, but Yoshiko said nothing as the man showed her how to download directions to the smartcart, so that it could lead the way to the hotel.

“Thank you,” she said.

The man looked at her expectantly.

“What—?” she began, then saw the credit sensor at his belt, and extended her one functioning tu-ring. “Of course.”

From the breadth of his smile, she gathered she had overtipped.

She followed the smartcart through a twisting maze of corridors to the hotel. The room was sparse but decent enough, and the smartcart parked itself in a small alcove.

After a while, she took mag-bands and a field generator from one of her bags, and performed a strength workout for twenty minutes. Then she stretched, showered, and ordered food. It arrived through a delivery membrane.

Then she lay on the bed, and stared wide-eyed at the ceiling, waiting for sleep to come.

She was on a new world. She had seen a spaceport terminal. A hotel room. And no sign of Tetsuo.

 

 

The auditorium was a dark cathedral. Rashella floated high above the floor, her face ghostly pale in the spotlight, her suspensor platform hidden in the darkness.

She moved like a hovering angel around vast holo graphics, pointing out white attractors tugging ellipsoids across coral surfaces of light.

Rafael had little interest in the content of her talk on macroeconomic emergent phenomena, and her predictions of a boom in Fulgor's isolationist but rich economy once the Skein-EveryWare interface was truly opened. It was simple stuff, and most of the audience seated below the huge pulsing graphics were offworlders.

But her style of delivery was beguiling, and he watched until the lights came up and she invited questions from the audience. Then he slipped out into the entrance hall.

He stood behind a holo banner directing people to the trade fair. Tomorrow, he would have to return and look around it more closely, in the hope of picking up useful offworld tech. That was, after all, the way he had met Tetsuo Sunadomari—

There she was.

Rashella. Dark hair sprinkled with stars, as sunbeams from the skylights above sparked reflections from her headgear. Moving gracefully through the crowd, nodding to acquaintances.

She trailed hangers-on from the talk like a comet trailing dust. As she passed by a restaurant, then souvenir stores, she gradually lost her company.

Rafael hung back, not wanting to be seen near her.

He had never plundered a mind in Skein, in case LuxPrime AIs indirectly discovered his traces buried among the immense strata of audit logs. Instead, all his infiltration code revolved around the unaudited line-of-sight fast-comms used for {public visions} and .

Farther back, but he could still see her lovely raven hair.

He closed his eyes—

 

{{{QryTrace(SND: ident = 3α29δ7, units = SI, v = 3.247* 10
¹⁴
; RCV: r, θ, Φ)

<<>>

<<>>}}}

{{{KinaesthesiaLink(QryTrace dynamic)}}}

 

—and shuddered slightly as the link was formed. Did Rashella, too, tremble at the unfelt touch of his mind?

He felt her, now, as part of himself.

Her motion tugged at him, and he followed.

The wild yet intricate death-sculptures from the Salmaegedon system occupied some thirty huge display cases, and Rafael followed Rashella's wandering motion through the exhibit. Shiny, delicately patterned carapaces of pink and grey, or white and silver dappled with black, were shaped into patterns of perspective which threatened to drag the mind out of its own perceptions, as though into another, starker, reality.

Rafael could have talked to Rashella about the exhibit. He knew of its mystery, of the constantly warring intelligent species with little apparent technology, who were to be found scattered among a dozen worlds orbiting Salmaegedon. Of their suicide pacts and self-mutilations, in what seemed to be a quest for beauty or enlightenment.

This was a fascination which he and Rashella held in common.

He dared not talk to her again. Not here, where he might be seen and remembered.

Leaving now.

As he hurried to keep up with her, he caught the faintest edge of anxiety—his own, or her subliminal detection of the trace which linked them?

No matter. From the entrance hall, he took a different exit ramp, not looking in her direction, though her presence was like a clenched fist around his heart.

From the outside, the Primum Stratum conference centre was elegant, in an old-fashioned way. It comprised seventeen great round buildings, tiled in maroon and grey. They were flat-roofed, a collection of stacked cylinders of varying heights. Above them floated the wing-shaped hovering roof, a later addition, which today sparkled sapphire blue.

Rafael brushed past gawping tourists, and crossed a plaza. He hurried through a small arboretum.

There she was.

Past a motley crowd of non-Luculenti protestors bearing holo banners—KEEP OFFWORLDERS OFFWORLD!—Rashella hurried to the parking platforms. As she drew near her flyer—a sporty little Gestrax Prime—it hummed into life, ready to lift.

He could do it here.

Become one with her. Right now.

“Excuse me, sir.” A young-looking dark-uniformed proctor was standing in front of him. “It might be better if you went that way.” The proctor indicated a path which curved past a fountain.

Behind him, four more proctors were heading back the way Rafael had come: steering the offworld tourists clear of the demonstration, no doubt.

Damn it.

Rafael, pretending to look at the protestors, searched for Rashella. She was already inside her flyer.

“Thank you, officer. I'll take your advice.”

As he walked, he plotted a mental map, predicting her destination, while Rashella's flyer turned away and headed for Lucis City.

He hurried into his own flyer, a Flengmar SkyYacht which could hold fifty people in its lounge. Before he had sat down, he was already in direct command interface—