Gundhalinu remembered tales of the Chained Gods of Tsieh-pun, elemental spirits who, if freed, could take possession of a human being, driving their unwilling avatar to feats of impossible courage or unspeakable evil….
Gods… he thought again, and this time the image resonated through his consciousness to the bottom of his soul. He tried to pull his reeling thoughts together, suddenly not knowing which way to turn. “Query: Why?”
There was no answer. No test this time of his right to know; no refusal of it. His mind stayed completely empty. He shook his head in frustration and disbelief. Had Vanamoinen been brought back simply to help him solve the riddle of Fire Lake, to give the stardrive back to the Hegemony—or to its secret substructure? But he rejected that even as he thought it. Vanamoinen’s soul had slept for millennia. It would require something far more significant than the expansionist dreams of Kharemough to cause the sibyl mind to recall him to the realtime plane, and subject him to this tormented existence, sharing another man’s brain space. But still there was no answer.
“Query,” he murmured, after a long silence. “How was it done? Smartmatter?” Again nothing happened in his mind.
“Query: Was this occurrence an accident—?” He pressed the remote against his skin, beginning to wonder whether the link was defective.
No. He saw that clearly, suddenly. Vanamoinen’s return was not an accident. But his mind told him nothing more: no confirmation or explanation of why, out of all the possible choices, Reede Kullervo had been the receptacle for Vanamoinen’s memories.
“Query: Am I restricted from knowing this?”
No answer. He swore in frustration, having no idea now whether his source would not tell him, or could not. “Query: Is Reede Kullervo on Tiomat now? What does he want? Tell me that much, for gods’ sakes—” The last of it was born out of his own exasperation, more than any hope that he would get an answer.
Affirmation. He was seeing visuals again: Reede here, in the streets of Carbuncle. Gundhalinu saw him with the two men who had been with him on Four; saw him arguing with a big Newhavenese… saw the brand-scar on the palm of his hand, the open eye staring back at him.
Gundhalinu swore aloud. He knew that brand—it marked the property of the Source. Property, not an equal, or willing, partner. He had seen that symbol often enough, when he had served on Tiamat before the Departure. Thanin Jaakola had been here then, manipulating the ebb and flow of his Hegemony-wide drug interests from Carbuncle, the closest thing the Eight Worlds had had to a central stopover point. He had sold Arienrhod the virals she had tried to use against her own people, in her final desperate attempt to remain Queen. She had not gotten away with it… but the Source had.
Now Gundhalinu understood how, and why: Jaakola the drug boss had been only the exposed tip of an evil whose weight and depth he had never suspected in his days as a Blue. Jaakola belonged to the Brotherhood at a level so high it was uncertain how far his influence really reached. His presence in the Hegemonic underworld was like a gravity well, drawing everything and everyone who got near him down into his irresistible darkness. Even his image in Gundhalinu’s mind was only darkness.
And now he had the Smith. Jaakola had won a power struggle within the ranks of the Brotherhood … had won Kullervo’s flawed brilliance, and with it the new stardrive technology. He had wasted no time exploiting the potential of either one. Reede was here on Tiamat for one reason: to do for the water of life what he had done for the stardrive plasma.
The water of life… Gundhalinu let his concentration slide, wandering into his own speculations, considering the implications of Kullervo’s presence here, forgetting that he had asked one more question—
Reede Kullervo appeared suddenly inside his thoughts, scattering images like mice, and in his wild, translucent eyes Gundhalinu read a look that he understood: a look he had seen once in the mirror…. What does he want? had been the question. And the answer was Death.
Gundhalinu ripped the contact from his skin—put it back, as suddenly. But there was no response at all. He remembered, too late, that Kitaro had warned him he would have only one chance. The data was gone.
He got up, only to stand motionless in the center of the room for a span of heartbeats. There seemed to be only one concrete thought in his brain now, and it was entirely his own: Find him.
He would put Vhanu on it— But, no. Vhanu would want, justifiably, to know everything; and Gundhalinu knew by now that he was not the kind of man who could simply take a matter on faith. Vhanu would demand to know why Kullervo could not be picked up openly, questioned and sentenced under the laws of the Hegemony, like the criminal he was. But that was a solution that served nothing, helped no one. Kullervo couldn’t simply be negated—he was too valuable. If he could be converted… Vanamoinen would choose to serve Order, rather than Chaos: he would ally himself with the Golden Mean, given a choice. If the Golden Mean was wise enough to give Kullervo a choice, as well…. But Gundhalinu was not entirely certain that they were.
He frowned, still thinking as he moved toward the door. Kitaro had come through on this information for him; he could ask her to search for Kullervo, have Reede brought to him in secret, avoiding conventional Police channels. He didn’t like doing it; didn’t like to create any kind of rift between himself and Vhanu. But in this he had no choice.
He returned to the main hall, to find Vhanu still lost in the headset’s sensory pleasures. He half smiled, knowing from experience how hypnotically addictive they could be, although they were only emotionally interactive, not like the neural taps in some of the gaming clubs. The lure of familiar scenes from home was hard to resist … and sometimes, the lure of the strange was even harder to shake off. He remembered experiencing Tiamat in his boyhood, carrying the exotic flavor of its scents in his head for days, hearing echoes of its people’s musical speech; being haunted by a shimmering vision of Carbuncle, the City in the North, viewed from the sea… .
Kitaro was leaning back in her seat, with one boot up on the low table, engaged in what appeared to be a policy argument on trade restrictions with an offworlder merchant. Gundhalinu was mildly surprised to find her still in the same spot, until she looked up at him. She broke off her conversation, sent the merchant scuttling with a word, and Gundhalinu realized that she had been waiting for him. “Were all your questions answered for you?” she asked.
He smiled faintly. “The day all my questions have been answered will be the day I die … I hope. But it gave me enough to let me understand how little I know about what’s really happening here.” He shrugged, and explained to her what he needed done, glancing uncomfortably at Vhanu’s oblivious presence.
Kitaro listened, her gaze steady and her face noncommittal. “I’ll get on it right away, Justice,” she said. “Arranging the kind of meeting you require will take time. Kullervo’s too deep in the Brotherhood’s quicksand to be easy to reach.”