I took the tea and returned to my table. Alicia deSchmidt - for a moment I tried to recall the name, then nodded to myself - the dark-haired and erotically graceful special operative who had driven a metal knife through the table - perhaps the one at which I now sat. Glancing toward the door, I almost expected her to appear. Or Cerrelle.
After more than two months, I still hadn't seen Cerrelle. Part of that time, I'd been too tired even to think about much more than getting through the day. Belatedly, I recalled Fersonne's words. 'Rykashans are stubborn, too ...'
Cerrelle had come across a chunk of the Galaxy to check on me ... and I'd dismissed her. Now I expected she would seek me out? I found myself shaking my head. 'You hoped? Think a bit more, Tyndel - and sooner.'
I swallowed the last of the Arleen. In the end, I was going to have to eat sour eel. I hoped I could manage it.
On the way back to my quarters, I turned toward the logistics building, pausing for a moment to watch the near-silent approach of a magshuttle shining silver in the afternoon light. Clouds were gathering to the west, just above the trees that marked the horizon.
Once the shuttle dropped behind the building, I entered and stepped up to the information console, behind which sat a slender young woman in silver with blue-striped sleeves.
'Yes, ser?'
'Ah ... this is going to sound unintelligent, but I'd like to know how I might get in contact with someone in Lyncol.'
'Not at all.' She laughed generously, and despite her girlish appearance, the laugh was that of a woman, yet not at all malicious. 'They teach you candidates everything but the important matters. You're far from the first to ask something like that.' A smile followed. 'All you need is the person's name and personal code. If you don't have their personal code, you can link to information and describe what they do if you know, or where they live, and see if you can obtain their professional locator code. That's not a personal code, but you can leave a message with their outlink, and they can get back to you. You have to leave your name and code, of course.'
My code? I didn't even know I had one. I frowned, then nodded. I knew, somewhere in the depths of information that had flooded through me over the past years, but I'd never needed to call it up.
'Any console will give you access to the link. When you get farther along, you'll be able to access the system directly.' She gave another smile. 'Does that help?'
'Thank you.' I returned the smile and walked down the side corridor, hoping to find Andra. Her door was open, and her eyes widened as I peered in.
'Andra?'
'You don't have another session until tomorrow.'
'I know. I had another kind of question.' I found myself looking down at the polished natural wood floor of her work space.
'Which is?'
'I was hoping you might have one of the codes I could use to contact Cerrelle, or at least leave a message.'
After two months?' Andra raised her eyebrows.
I forced a laugh, tasting the bitterness of sour eel as I did. 'I never said I was perceptive. Nor did Cerrelle, I think. I need to apologize. It's late, but I need to.'
You're right about that.' Almost without pausing, she added, 'Her personal code is LY-green-forty-four.'
'Thank you.' LY-green-forty-four - I concentrated on holding that.
'Tyndel?' The words were softer than the flinty expression in Andra's eyes. Yes?'
'Cerrelle's my friend, and you have not been that helpful. Nor kind. Nor even close to understanding. She tried very hard for you, perhaps harder than you know.'
'I know.'
'Please try to remember that.'
'I will.' Forgetting it would have been hard. I nodded again. 'Thank you.'
'I'll see you tomorrow.' The door closed.
I walked through the afternoon heat, past an electrocart carrying a group of pale-faced and sweating individuals who had obviously just come off the shuttle that had landed earlier.
Not understanding, not kind, not helpful - and Andra was right. I hoped I could stand the taste of all the eel I was planning to swallow.
For a long time, I sat at the console in my quarters, ignoring the supplementary reading Andra had recommended, just looking blankly at the screen itself, on which images appeared and vanished, images of mountain peaks, then of lakes. I'd selected the images, but I suddenly wondered why I'd chosen lakes and mountains.
As the late-afternoon clouds rolled across the sun, and rain began to patter down outside my room, I turned to the screen and tapped in the codes.
An image flashed onto the screen - that of a thin-faced redhead with piercing eyes.
I opened my mouth, but the image was faster.
'This is Cerrelle. Please let me know you linked.'
After a moment, I finally spoke. 'Cerrelle ... this is Tyndel ... I'd like the chance to apologize. If you don't wish to speak to me, I understand.' I paused. 'You were right... and thank you.' I swallowed and broke the link.
Sour eel didn't taste that good, either literally or figuratively, especially since I'd had to taste it twice so far, with Andra and then Cerrelle's link answerer, without even talking to Cerrelle.
I rose and got a mug full of Arleen from the formulator downstairs.
Then I accessed the first of the supplemental readings.
Andra had insisted that the more I read, the faster the nanite-supplied information would meld into an integrated mental database - or whatever organic equivalent that meant for the brain of a man who had been born a mite and re-created as a Rykashan demon.
I looked at the words as they appeared. Sometimes, material in the manuals or from the nanospray briefings sounded perfectly logical but left me no wiser. This was another case in point.
The limits of nanite-based AI capabilities are determined largely by the specifications of the applicable conglomeration/agglutination blocks ... function as synaptic limits ... work of Foulst and Henrica to remove second-level blocs ... eventually led to development of functional overspace translation insertion systems ...
... first-level blocs encoded within actual leptonic spins ...
That made no sense at all, and I took another sip of Arleen. Andra had told me that some of the material would probably be beyond my current understanding but not to stop at everything I didn't comprehend, since the breadth of what I read was as important as the depth.
About that, I wasn't sure, but the console reference section didn't have anything on first-level agglutination blocs.
I took another sip of tea and went back to the supplemental readings, trying not to wonder if Cerrelle would return the call.
50
When the symbolic images developed by the society no longer work, and the images which do work are not those of the society, the individual has nowhere to turn.
After a particularly long afternoon with Ileck, I made my way to one of the lounges, the one overlooking the section of the marsh that resembled a lake, where the open water glinted blue-gray and seabirds wheeled in off the ocean. Some long-legged plovers or rails or something strutted along the small sandbar I could see through the wide window that flanked my table. A turtle lounged on a wide root in the warm sunlight of fall. Behind the turtle was a spit of land that held mostly bushes, except for a stand of a dozen trees, pseudomangroves whose roots arched down into the water.
One helping of the chilied crayfish wasn't enough. So I took my tray back to the formulator and punched in another order and took another cup of steaming Arleen tea. Then I turned, and she was there, so close to me that I couldn't move, not without bumping into her.