Reede stared at him, remembering in abrupt, vivid detail the moment of their parting at Fire Lake. And yet he felt his disbelief become something truer and far more unsettling, as more memories began to rise. His hand rose to his mouth, touching his lips; dropped away again. He leaned back into the comforting embrace of the native-made couch and forced himself to relax. “What do you want, Gundhalinu?”
Gundhalinu came on into the room, moving as though it hurt, and settled heavily into a wooden chair. He glanced at the display on his house system, checking the time, and grimaced, before he looked at Reede again. “It’s about what I’m doing here, Kullervo—and what you’re doing here.”
Reede’s mouth quirked; his grip on his knees eased. “Congratulations. How do you like being Chief Justice of Tiamat?”
Gundhalinu shrugged, shaking his head. “It’s not my occupation of choice. It’s not like research. In politics there aren’t any right answers, so you never win.”
“That’s because you have a conscience.” Reede smiled faintly. “Lose that, and you’ll start winning again.”
Gundhalinu’s mouth turned up in an ironic echo of Reede’s own smile. He pulled his robe closer across his chest, covering the bandages, and fastened the seal. His hand stayed there, unobtrusively holding his wounded side. “If only life was that simple,” he murmured. He looked up again. “How do you like working for the Brotherhood?”
Reede glanced away. “Same as always.”
“Becoming the Source’s brand hasn’t changed anything for you?”
Reede looked back at him abruptly.
“Jaakola has a bad reputation, even for someone in his line of work. And what shows in the real world is barely the surface. He goes deep, doesn’t he?”
Reede frowned. “Did you pick me up to bleed me about the Source? I can’t tell you anything you don’t already know.”
“I know.”
“Am I under arrest?”
“You haven’t done anything illegal here on Tiamat, that I know of.” Gundhalinu reached into a shallow ceramic bowl sitting on the table beside him, picked up a piece of fruit, and put it back again.
Reede laughed incredulously. “Then what the hell do you want from me?”
“You’re on Tiamat to synthesize the water of life for the Source, aren’t you?”
Reede didn’t answer.
“Why did you set up that clue pointing it out to me, at the Survey Hall?”
Reede shrugged, and shook his head, still frowning. “I don’t know…. Just for the hell of it. To see if you were still smart enough to get it.”
“Were you warning me off? Or asking me for help?”
Reede’s hands fisted silently on his thighs. “You’re the one who needs help, from what I see.” He gestured at Gundhalinu’s wound, at the fatigue and discomfort obvious on his face. “What is it with you and the mers? I know you—you don’t want the water of life back, you’re afraid of it. But you’re studying them like you want what I want. And at the same time you say you don’t want anybody killing them, but they’re killing them all the same, and trying to kill you too.”
“Politics,” Gundhalinu murmured.
“Love,” Reede whispered, leaning forward. “The rumors are true… . It’s the Queen, that’s why your policy doesn’t make sense worth a damn. She’s the one you told me about, back on Four. That you’d change the future of the entire fucking galaxy to get back to her.” He laughed once. “And I thought you were making a joke.”
“We both underestimated each other, I think,” Gundhalinu said, a little sourly.
Reede laughed again, with more feeling. “You could say that.” He met Gundhalinu’s half frown, saw it transform into something that looked strangely like regret. Gundhalinu glanced away, his fingers moving restlessly over the geometries of his robe’s sleeve. “I hope she’s worth it,” Reede said.
Gundhalinu smiled, looking back at him, and nodded. Reede felt the image of a face he had forbidden himself to see begin to form inside his own eyes: dark, luminous, veiled in sensual mystery … her face. Stop it—!
“I’m sorry about your wife,” Gundhalinu said, as if he had read Reede’s mind, and not just his expression.
“What do you know about it?” Reede snapped, stung.
“We know what happened when you were transferred from Mundilfoere to Jaakola, Reede; when you lost her.” He hesitated. “We even know what you really are.”
Reede felt his face flush. Mundilfoere’s meat. A brainwipe. A lunatic— He pushed to his feet.
“—Vanamoinen,” Gundhalinu said softly.
Reede’s knees went weak, and he sat down again. “What?” he said.
“Vanamoinen. You are Vanamoinen. We lost you to the Brotherhood. We’ve been searching for you ever since.”
Reede sat frozen, listening, as something inside him paralyzed his tongue, stopping his stream of questions and protest. He put his hands up to his face, touching its contours, so familiar, and yet so strange. He felt himself starting to sweat. “They called me that—’the new Vanamoinen,’” he murmured, remembering. “They knew, they all knew something…. But I don’t know Vanamoinen. Vanamoinen’s two thousand years dead! More! My name … my name is Reede Kullervo—” His fingers dug into his flesh.
“You’re two people, using one body,” Gundhalinu said, sitting forward, forcing Reede to look at him. “Not even separate signals, but scrambled. The Brotherhood got hold of a brainscan of the real Vanamoinen, made thousands of years ago. And they used you to bring him back. But you weren’t braindead when they fed his memories into your circuits: It must have been like a head-on collision when it happened. It caused a lot of damage.”
“Like holograms colliding,” Reede murmured, staring. “Shufflebrain…” He let his hands fall away, focusing on the image, feeling the act of concentration stabilize him. “How was it done?” he asked, hearing his voice come back to something like normal. “I’ve never heard of that being done to anybody.”
Gundhalinu shook his head. “I don’t know how they preserved Vanamoinen’s … your—soul, for so long. If you don’t know, I doubt if anybody does, now.”
“My soul …” Reede looked down at his body, not protesting the intimations. He seemed to be seeing himself from a great height suddenly; his mind spun and fell away. “I don’t remember…” he mumbled, “but it could be possible….” He frowned, and glanced up again. “But why?”
“You tell me,” Gundhalinu urged softly. “Why you’re back, here, now, after thousands of years.”
“The mers,” Reede said automatically. He broke off, abruptly, staring. “By the All—yes, I think that… that I… I’m here for the mers. I know them….” He looked back at Gundhalinu again, in astonishment. “But it’s not about the water of life. The water of life will never work perfectly in a human body, because human bodies are genetically imperfect.” He shook his head, dazed and elated and appalled by the revelation. “That’s a fool’s errand. The mers are…” He reached out, groping in the air; his fingers closed over nothing.
Gundhalmu was staring at him, in that old, slightly incredulous way. Reede looked back at him, realizing that he had missed that expression; that it reminded him … reminded him of … His train of thought derailed. “Shit—” he muttered, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes until he saw explosions of light. “Why? Gods … why me?”
“I don’t know that either, Reede,” Gundhalinu murmured. “There’s some evidence you may have been a mistake.”
Reede laughed, a tight, painful sound. His hand reached inside his shirt, and pulled out the pendant, the ring, chained together. “That’s always a danger, when you’re a stranger far from home.”