Undertow (11 page)

He poled toward this one, moving farther from the New Nile’s dredged main channel and closer to the paramangroves that made a thunderhead darkness off to the east when he got a glimpse at them up a channel that headed in that direction.

The sun stood another hand higher and he was picking up ranid chatter on the underwater microphones when he slid the skiff underneath a moldy thermocamouflage netting strung between paramangroves. He moored the skiff against the aerial roots of the nearest tree, drove the pole in deep to wedge it, and tied that off as well. The tender water-brown skin of the roots was polished shiny where he stepped; he frowned when he noticed. Time to move the mooring.

Or maybe he should bring André here, and move afterward. Once a site was contaminated there was no point in rushing to burn another if the first could still be used in the short term. And he was more concerned with satellite imaging than with some bayou boy or mud-puppy skipper tripping over his facility. There were ways to ensure that that would remain unlikely.

The paramangroves grew knotted together, branches interlaced like the fan vaults of a cathedral, roots like the tentacles of angry octopods. Jean Kroc skipped along them all but silently, rubber soles tacky enough that his feet did not skid from the algae-hung bark. Animals zipped about his head. The Greene’s World “birds” were awfully birdy, as such things went, though they tended to beaks fenced in whiskery feathers. The air under the paramangroves was a soup of insects; easier to sweep them up en masse than grab just one or two.

The door in the trunk was hard to see. Jean found the nub that fit just between his thumb and forefinger and pressed his palm through the holographic bark. Not even a fog; just an image. But you had to know where to touch, and in the dim green light beneath the leaves like broad-palmed hands, huddled into the gap between umbrella branches and spreading roots, on one big tree of a million, it was unlikely that it would be stumbled upon. And Jean could make it more unlikely as he chose.

The plate beneath was warm and smooth. It recognized Jean’s palm and depressed slightly, soundlessly into the trunk. The door eased open—popped up and slid aside—and Jean Kroc stepped within, entering the lair of a mad scientist.

The room was somewhat smaller than the diameter of the great tree, carved from deadwood only. One worn swivel chair commanded the scuffed floor, the upholstery patched with tape. Around it, granting just enough room for his knees, was a series of pitted panels topped by an eclectic assortment of display and interface hardware—holographic projectors, screen monitors, an old 3-D hand-interface that looked like the ears of a theremin and operated on more or less the same principles. There were also three keyboards and a holoface; none of them matched.

In addition to the marks of hand-welding evident where sheet steel had been bent and fixed together, the slots through which readouts protruded were more often taped to fit than cut. The chamber was barely big enough for two if one was standing. Or willing to perch on the commode, tucked into a cutout niche, because the chamber did not have corners. The control panels followed the arc of the hollowed-out paramangrove, the tree’s weakened structure reinforced by the plascrete sealant bonding the external wall.

He’d moved his home plenty in the last thirty years: apartments, minifabs, a clamshell hut on stilts in the bayou for a while.
This
was eternal. This was what he couldn’t afford to rebuild, and so he hid it well, changed his routes, came here erratically, and rarely showed the way to anyone. Cricket didn’t know how to find this place, though she had to suspect it existed. The bayou and the mangrove stand themselves were protection, as they shifted and rechanneled and never twice looked the same.

Lucienne knew it, though, and how to find it. Somebody had to, in case something happened to Jean.

Jean gave it a moment to power up, using stored solar from concealed panels and fuel cells buried far enough underwater that they shouldn’t emit to space. A planet was a big place for complete sat-coverage on a colonial corporation’s budget.

It all seemed to be humming. He dusted the moss stains from his hands and closed the door, sealing himself into the blue-lit coolness of the most illegal thing on Greene’s World.

Vengeance wasn’t his metier. But he was here to make some black magic happen.

A little red flannel bag, that weren’t nothing.

6

“
HOW DO YOU GO ABOUT FINDING ONE NAKED AMPHIBIAN
on a whole muddy goddamn world?” André shook his head like a dog shaking off water. “It’s not as if I can go around DNA-typing every frog I meet. And the insurgents use disguises, don’t they? If I were your ranid, Tim, frankly I’d dig in deep in the swamp and go seven kinds of native. You don’t need me; you need a good old boy from back in the delta.”

“We can make sure you find the ranid,” Closs answered. He wasn’t pacing. Instead, he stood before his wide windows, hands folded, watching the light glint off the water. The bay lay pellucid beyond the polarized display glass, water limpid enough that André could make out shells and stones on the pale sand bottom. The water might run down the New Nile muddy and rich, but most of its sediment dropped out in the broad wandering delta, and what flowed into the sea was almost polished.

Beyond the zone of riverine admixture, where the brackish water clouded, in good weather the bay was clear as quartz. The sleek pewter outline of a long-necked animal glided past, sunning itself just below the surface. André caught a glimpse of its creamy belly and snaggle teeth as it banked down and away, curving in sudden pursuit. A nessie. They usually haunted deeper water and avoided industry, as shy as they were toothy, but this one looked young. And there were bigger predators in the deeps.

“If you can find the ranid, then I don’t see why you’d be willing to pay my fee.”

“You misapprehend me.” Closs turned around, beckoned André with two curving fingers. André stood, leaving behind his untouched glass. When he was an arm’s length away, Closs continued. “We can make sure you find it, though. The capabilities of Rim—”

“You’re talking about running a manip.”

Closs didn’t answer.

“A manip. On me.” A probability manipulation might bring him right down on the missing coolie’s doorstep. And it also meant staff, and Rim personnel, and processor time, and
paperwork
.

Met with continuing silence, André tried again. “I don’t want that kind of a data trail—”

Closs shook his head. “There won’t be one.”

Still. André had a bad feeling about this. Too far outside of his usual line of work. Too many ways to get killed, chasing ghosts through the bayou. “I can’t take it.”

Closs stepped forward and caught his forearm. André paused. The grip was not restraining or sharp; a request rather than a grab. “Do me one favor.”

André did not answer. But he also did not pull away.

Closs let him go, first giving his forearm a quick friendly squeeze. “Wait until tomorrow to refuse. Sleep on it.”

“I don’t need the money, Tim.”

Closs smiled, showing whitened teeth. “I know you don’t. But the thing is, I need the help.”

A hell of an offer. Jefferson Greene’s first mate—and, everybody knew, the brains of the Greene’s World Rim operation—acknowledging a personal debt. That was the sort of thing careers rose and fell on. And nobody was more aware than André that he wasn’t going to stay young forever.

On the other hand, very few people were more aware than André that once he let Rim plant its hooks, he would not be working for himself anymore. Operating under the occasional contract was one thing. Assisting them in conjuring his future—allowing himself to be entangled—well.

André wasn’t a superstitious man. But if he wanted to learn from Jean Gris, it would be an unwise thing to let Rim rule his fate. And the whole prospect reminded him uncomfortably of his mother’s tactics. Not that Zoë Deschênes could have backed up any threat of ruining his luck.

But Charter Trade could.

“I’ll think about it,” André said. He stuffed his hands in his jacket pockets. “Don’t worry. I can show myself out.”

Out in the sun again, he gasped sharply. He dropped his elbows on the railing and put his head down, let the light bake his scalp and neck muscles. The sun picked darker scars out in heat until he shielded his skull with his palms. His blinked-up sunshield helped ameliorate the glare off the water. One more breath, then he shuddered and drew himself up, shoulders square.

He’d wanted to learn. He’d placed a loaded pistol on his tongue and pulled the trigger. That was a commitment.

But instant death was easy. Killing people—painlessly, efficiently—was what he did.
Who
should not matter.

He couldn’t take this contract. Because he needed Jean Gris’s goodwill, and he wasn’t going to get that by assassinating ranid revolutionaries and allowing Rim to run a manip on him. Not when he was already mixed up in learning how to conjure.

It didn’t take much imagination to guess that coincidence might proliferate, should one cultivate a conjure man. He who touches pitch besmirches himself.

All he could do was hope Rim would be understanding about finding someone else to take the contract. And that they wouldn’t botch it, or, if they did, that the trail of testimony never led back to one André Deschênes.

He pursed his lips as if to whistle. Perhaps that could be his first real experiment in conjuring.

Another blow to the image of the hedge-wise conjuror: Jean Kroc had never been a patient man. Actually, he was rather bad all around at conforming to stereotypes. So by evening, when his new apprentice arrived, he was worrying the hard semiflexible skin from a pulpy fruit the size of his finger joint, a pile of others white and waxy on a rectangular green-glazed plate by his left hand. The fruit’s skin was rough, reddish-brown, marked in dimpled hexagons. He picked it off with gnawed thumbnails, trying to keep the pieces as large as possible. A matter of pride, or meticulousness, or just a cheap distraction.

He knew the newcomer was André by the purr of his wet/dry scoot. Jean’d left the front door propped; when André called through it, he didn’t bother to get up, just yelled back. “Take off your shoes.”

The thumping told him André obeyed. A moment later, bare feet padded from the entry. “Cricket said you wanted me.”

Jean smiled, not showing what it cost him. He held up a peeled wax fruit so André could identify it, pinched between finger and thumb. A sticky trickle of nectar crawled across the pad of his hand. He flicked the berry into a long tumbling arc.

André snatched it from the air on its descent, leaning away from spattered juice. He inspected it quickly and popped it into his mouth, then spat the pit into his palm. “When you told me you wanted information, how did you know?”

“Know?” Jean slit another fruit with his nail. The pulp was too tender to squeeze out without pureeing, so he worried at the skin until it flaked. He sucked the juice off his thumb and the pulp off the seed, and laid the shiny dark brown nut on the table beside the bits of skin. “Am I assigned psychic powers?”

André came forward and dropped into the chair across the table. His pit joined Jean’s with a subdued click. “Did you know that Rim was going to offer me a contract on a ranid?”

Jean, licking his fingers, smiled. “You said you wouldn’t tell me about contracts.”

“I’m not taking this one,” André answered. “The thing is, Rim wants to run a probability manip to give me a fighting chance to find the coolie. It’s affiliated with some froggie terrorist group—”

“Gourami.”

“Excuse me?”

Jean pursed his lips, forced to admit that perhaps not
all
the stereotypes failed him. He was enjoying André’s slack expression slightly more than was healthy or smart. Although he had to admire the man’s gall—well,
admire
was the wrong word. And
respect
wasn’t exactly right either. “The ranid’s name is Gourami.”

“You
know
it?”

“I talked to it last night.” Jean ate another wax fruit, letting the pulp burst into fluid as he pressed it to the roof of his mouth with his tongue. The seed felt as slick as it appeared, and he squeezed it out between his lips. For a moment, he turned it on his fingertips, watching the light gloss it. He pretended he didn’t notice the way André’s shoulders jerked.

“Whoa. Well, I’m glad I said no.”

“I’m not. Go back tomorrow. Tell him you’ll take it on.”

“You realize what you’re asking me?”

“Yes,” Jean answered, flicking him another fruit. “I’m asking you to lie to Timothy Closs. And buy me some time to operate.”

“He’ll want me to take the entanglement.”

Jean wondered if André knew he was shaking his head like that, a slow oscillation.

“I can lock that off,” Jean said. “We’ll set up a countervalent field; the entanglement can spend itself on that.”

André’s attention snapped to him like a shivering compass needle to a magnet. “And I’m better off letting you entangle me?”

“Just a safeguard. Not an entanglement. But take the contract. For me.”

André swallowed. “What exactly are you planning, Jean Gris?”

Jean rolled his shoulders up and back. “I’ll handle the rest. Just keep Closs thinking the situation is under control.”

Jefferson wasn’t often the first one into the office, but he was usually among the last ones home. He got a lot of work done in the evening, when things were still and quiet—dark in winter and golden in the summertime. He’d trickle the news, talk to his kids in chat, drink a few cups of coffee or kesha or a martini or two, and plow through business decisions with a ruthless efficiency that got him home in time for supper, just.

Today should have been no different. The to-do list was actually a little shorter than usual; everyone was distracted by the bombings, and as he’d delegated that to Closs it was off his desk until Closs finished the investigation and handed it back. The first item, it looked like, was to return a call to the station. Not the Slide; no problem with that. Lighters came and went, raw materials flowing freely outbound and manufactured goods coming in. The call was from one of his gurus, the Greene’s World station chief of the Exigency Corps, Amanda Delarossa. Head god-botherer.

She must have set his code to autoanswer, which was gratifying. She had a chipmunk-cheek of sandwich and a bag of pop lifted to her mouth when her image shifted, and she swallowed hastily and cleared her hands. “Chairman,” she said, as soon as she could. “I didn’t think you’d call back until tomorrow, sir.”

“I like to be responsive,” he said. “You seem to think your issue requires immediate attention.”

“Immediate awareness,” she said. She drank again, quickly, as if her mouth were dry from swallowing before she was quite ready. “I’m not sure what we could actually do about it at this point. Realistically speaking.”

“Intriguing,” Jefferson said, because it’s what he had trained himself to say when he really meant
get to the fucking point
. “Tell me more.”

“Well…” she paused, set her drink aside, and twisted her fingers together, “we’ve got a massive spike in side effects, and we’re not quite sure what to make of it. But some of our best theorists are on it.”

“By side effects, you mean…”

“Probability pollution. Weird coincidences. Synchronicities. We track them, you know, and attempt to mitigate. But the problem is, you get a chaotic butterfly effect with even the smallest manipulation. So you patch it up, attempt to introduce a little more randomosity into the system, and it breaks out somewhere else. Rains of toads. God knows what.”

“And we’re getting more of this?” He rubbed the edge of his desk and thought about Patience, which had been a lovely Earthlike world before the Corps got done with it.

“Some of it, yeah. You have any old coins lying around?”

“Doesn’t everybody?” Collector’s pieces, talismans, bits of old Earth. Metal from the bones of the homeworld. They had no value as legal tender anymore, but people liked them.

“Next time you think of it, flip one a couple of times,” she said. “Anyway, Dr. Gupta thinks it’s linked to omelite mining, either due to waste tanglestone escaping into the atmosphere, or a reduction in the worldwide omelite load causing some sort of shift in Greene’s World’s…equilibrium, for lack of a better word. We’re working on it.”

“And if you can’t get it under control quickly?”

She shrugged, dipping her ear toward one shoulder, and bit her knuckle instead of her supper. “Well, it’s not like we can stop exporting tanglestone.”

Of course André argued. It didn’t matter; Kroc was always going to win. He had the superior bargaining position.

He also had the mojo. And something else that André would need to learn, before Jean would teach him too much. Jean Kroc had the moral unassailability of a god, as was necessary for the power he held.

It was always the way. In premodern societies, those who wielded power beyond oversight were bound by oaths and forms and divine wrath and sacrosanct relationships. In the modern day, there were oaths, and forms…and codes of ethics, to which professionals might more or less loosely adhere.

And divine wrath, of course. There
was
always that.

Jean Kroc’s God most certainly did play dice. And Jean was not the only one loading the toss.

Still, he was rather well satisfied with the way the game was going. If André
could
learn, there might even be a chance of—well, not winning. It wasn’t the sort of thing one
won
—but making some things a bit better in the short run. As a conjure man, his professional opinion was that that was often the best one could hope for.

At some point in human history, somebody had figured out that you could change the future by staring at it hard enough. The problem with the power of prayer was that it was never exactly quantifiable, though research was suggestive. And then there were the odder aspects of certain studies, where an average taken of ten thousand amateur best guesses turned out to be closer to the truth than any single expert’s considered and researched opinion.

In a really profound cosmic irony, it was the failure of A-life consciousness research that finally provided the key. They couldn’t make a self-aware computer, but they did find out what the
I
was good for.

The
I
was the evolutionary consequence of the observer effect, the power of luck, the denial of everything ten thousand generations of mothers passed down to ten thousand generations of daughters. Wishing hard enough
did
make a difference. Not a big difference. Not a profound difference. And not a difference every time.