These ruminations had distracted him. With a start he realized he should get back.
Leaving the refresher, he angled off the obvious route, which was thronged with functionaries, on through acoustic veils and into the small processional hall, consulting his palace maps. He had used Dors’ carrychip a dozen times already, mostly to follow the quick, cryptic Council discussions. The microlaser-written 3D map on his retina rotated if he rolled his eyes, providing perspective. There were few staff around; most clustered in attendance outside the Lyceum.
Hari reached the end of the hall and glanced up at the statue of Leon. The executioner’s knife was gone.
Why would anyone…?
Hari turned and hurried back the way he had come.
Before he could reach the acoustic veils, a man stepped through their ivory luminescence. There was nothing unusual about the man except the way his eyes flicked around, finally fastening on Hari.
There was about thirty meters between them. Hari turned as though he were admiring the baroquely festooned walls and walked away. He heard the other man’s boots crisply follow.
Maybe he was being paranoid and maybe not. He had only to get back to a crowd and all this would dissolve away, he told himself. The footsteps behind him got sharper, closer.
He turned and ducked down a side passage. Ahead was a ritual room. The footsteps sped up. Hari trotted across the circular room and into an ancient foyer. No one there.
Down a long hallway he could see two men who seemed to be casually talking. He started toward them, but they both broke off and looked at him. One reached into his pocket and produced a comm and began speaking into it.
Hari backed away, found a side passage. He bolted down it.
What about the surveillance cameras? Even the palace had them. But the one at the end of this passage had an unusual cap on it. Running a fake view, he realized.
The ancient portions of the Lyceum perimeter were not only unfashionable, they were unpopulated. He trotted through another extravagant ritual room. Boots were coming fast behind him. He turned to the right and saw a crowd down a long ramp.
“Hey! “ he yelled. Nobody looked his way. He realized they were behind a sound veil. He started toward them.
A man stepped out of an alcove to block the way. This one was tall and lean and started toward Hari with a muscular nonchalance. Like the others he said nothing, drew no attention to himself. Just kept coming.
Hari angled left and broke into a trot. Ahead lay the refresher; he had circled back. Plenty of people there. If he could reach it.
One long passageway led directly toward the refreshers. He took it and halfway down saw that a party of three women were talking in a decorative niche. He slowed and they stopped talking. They wore familiar staff robes. Probably they worked in the refreshers.
They turned toward him, looking a little surprised. He opened his mouth to say something, and the nearest woman stepped smartly forward and grabbed his arm.
He jerked back. She was strong. She grinned at the others and said, “Fell right into our-”
He yanked his arm to the side and broke her grip. She came off balance and he took advantage of that to shove her into the other two. One lashed a kick at him. She twisted her hip to get momentum into it, but she could not get fully around her companion and it stopped short, futile.
Hari turned and ran. The women were obviously well trained and he did not have much hope of getting away. He plunged ahead down the long passageway. When he glanced back, however, all three were standing and watching him go.
This was so odd that he slowed, thinking. They and the men were not attacking him, just boxing him in.
In these public corridors, casual witnesses could easily pass by. They wanted him somewhere private.
Hari called up his palace map. It placed him as a red dot in the nearby floor plan. He could see two side alleys up ahead before the end of the passageway
—where now two men stepped into view, arms folded.
Hari still had two ways out. He went left into a narrow lane lined with antique testaments. Each winked on and began its narration of vast events and great victories, now buried beneath millennia of indifference. The 3Ds flickered with colorful spectacles as he pounded past them. Sonorous voices implored him to attend to their tales. He was puffing heavily now and trying to focus his thoughts.
Intersection coming up. He shot through it and saw men closing in from the right.
He dodged down a slight side exit, under a participatory mausoleum to Emperor Elinor IV, and sprinted toward a set of doorways he recognized. These were the refresher booths, pale doors marked only with numbers. The Minister for Sector Correlation had pointed them out as the very best, suitable for private appointments.
Hari had to cross a small piazza to reach the nearest door. A man came running from the right, saying nothing. Hari tried the first door; it was locked. So was the second. The man was nearly on top of him. The handle on the third door turned and Hari went through.
It was a traditional door on hinges. He threw his weight back into it to slam it shut. The man hit the door heavily and got a hand around the edge. Hari heaved against the door. The man held fast and jammed his right foot between the door and the casing.
Hari shoved hard. The gap between door and casing narrowed, trapping the hand.
The other man was strong. He grunted and shoved back hard and the gap widened.
Hari put his back against the door and thrust with his legs. He had nothing to help him and the ridiculous ceremonial robes didn’t help. Nothing in the refresher was nearby, no tool-
Hari reached into his buckle. The ancient voting stylus slipped into his palm. He took it in his right hand and twisted against the door, shoving with his right shoulder. Then he passed the stylus to his left hand and brought it down with a savage stab into the man’s hand.
The stylus was inscribed and embellished, but it tapered to a slender point. Hari struck between the third and fourth knuckles. Hard.
A small arterial pumper squirted. Short pulsating arcs shot onto the door, vivid red. The man cried “Ah!” and let go of the door.
Hari slammed the door shut and fumbled with the lock. Magnetic grids clicked on. Panting, he turned to survey the refresher.
It was one of the best, ample. Two soothing booths, a lift couch, an ample stock of refreshments. Several vapor wells-where luxuriant dalliances often occurred, as rumor had it. Against the far wall, a percussive nook for the athletic. And a thin slit-window, also traditional, open to a ceramic-and-sand garden. It was kept as a reminder of eras when being trapped in here with unsavory persons was best avoided by a quick exit.
Hari heard a slight snick against the door. Probably a depolarizer fitting into place to unlock the magnetics. He considered the slit-window.
12.
A man came carefully into the refresher chamber. He wore a simple Imperial servant’s tunic, which allowed freedom of movement. Perfect for quick work. He carried the knife from the Leon statue.
He closed the door behind him with one hand and locked it, all the while keeping his eyes on the room and the knife at the ready. Though he was large he moved with an easy grace. Methodically he checked in the booths and vapor wells and even the percussive nook. No one there. He leaned out the slit-window, which was thrown fully open. The narrow window was not large enough to let him pass; he was massive beneath his light blue staff uniform.
He stood back and spoke into his wrist comm. “He got out into the garden. Can’t see him from here. You got that blocked?”
He paused a moment, listening to an internal voice, and said curtly, “Can’t find him? ‘Course you can’t, I told you we shouldn’t cut the snoops in this area.”
Another pause. “Sure I know it’s a secure job, even got its own RD number and all, no recording snoops, but-”