He looked away as if he were suddenly chagrined, or conflicted. He looked back at her again, finally; touched the sibyl tattoo at her throat with a gentle finger. “I was talking about Survey.”
“Survey?” she repeated, with mild incredulity. “You mean that nest of Kharemoughi snobs who meet in what you refer to as a ‘social club,’ to discuss Tiamat’s endless shortcomings?”
He laughed. “So that’s why you wouldn’t come to the initiation, when I made them admit Tiamatans?”
She pushed up onto an elbow, feeling her hair slip down across her shoulder. “I have more pressing things to do with my time than spend it that way,” she said irritably.
“There’s more to Survey than there seems. The Survey you’ve seen is only the surface—there are depths, layers within layers … even I don’t know how many.”
Her sudden urge to laughter died stillborn as she saw his expression, and realized that he was completely serious.
“I shouldn’t be telling you this.” He pressed his hand against his eyes. “But gods, if anyone has the right to know the truth about this, you do. I’m staking my life on it… “He shook his head. “The real Survey is a secret organization that dates back to the end of the Old Empire. It has its roots in the Empire’s colonization guild. I told you that there was a man named Vanamoinen.…”
Moon listened silently as he told her everything, feeling her understanding of the strange conversation that had passed between himself and Reede grow, feeling her vision of the universe transformed by a secret almost as profound as the one that they shared together. “But Survey doesn’t control everything that happens in the Hegemony … does it?” she said, finally.
He shook his head, and laughed once. “Human nature being what it is, no. They try … but as often as not they meet themselves coming the other way, on any given level, in any given situation. Even at the highest level Survey can only influence, never control.”
“And Reede Kullervo belongs to Survey, and the Source does—?”
BZ nodded, resting his head on his arm. “There is a faction of Survey that calls itself the Brotherhood, and their goal is no longer the greater good, but their own good. They follow the same road, but to a different destination. The Brotherhood sees the Hegemony as prey. Their interests are in anything that upsets the stability of the status quo—drugs, political corruption, war—because whenever the balance is off, they profit from the suffering. Reede was one of their minions … and now he’s their tool. Kitaro—” He broke off. “Kitaro had been trying to arrange this meeting between us for months; but he’s so closely watched that I’d begun to think it would never happen.” He fell silent, as if he were contemplating the strange legacy of Reede”s unexpected visit.
“And who do you belong to?” Moon asked, at last. She settled back onto the yielding surface of the mattress, feeling it mold itself to her body. “If Reede belongs to the Brotherhood.”
“The status quo. Or I did.” He looked up, at the ceiling draped with shadows in the half light. “They sometimes call it the Golden Mean; they claim to carry on the work of Survey by maintaining the Hegemony’s balance of order—which, to them, means that Kharemough keeps control of this segment of the Old Empire. For a while I hoped it was really that simple. …” His eyes darkened.
“Was it coming here that made you change your mind?” She put her hand on his shoulder.
“It only finished a process. Nothing is ever that simple … not right, not wrong.” He looked back at her and smiled, with sorry and irony. “Without Order, Chaos would have no reason for existing … and without Chaos, there’s no reason for Order. They need each other, they feed on each other. They’re only whole together. Survey calls it ‘the Great Game,’ in their vanity.”
“What—or who—is really at the center … the top, then?”
“I don’t know.” He shrugged. “However high I get, there are always levels above me.”
“Then how do you know who to trust?”
“I don’t.” His smile turned rueful. “Maybe it doesn’t even matter, to die Great Game. The sibyl network needed Vanamoinen back, and on Tiamat. Every faction tried to control him, manipulate him—and everyone’s failed. And yet he’s here… . That’s why I believe that he’ll help us. That’s why I believe we can’t force it, that we have to let it happen as it will.”
“But you can’t be certain,” she said softly.
“No,” he murmured, glancing away. “I can’t be certain of anything.”
“When I was small, my grandmother taught me that the mers were the Sea’s children, blessed and protected by Her. And that I was, too. …” She felt her throat clog with sudden grief.
He pulled her into his arms, holding her, kissing her forehead, as if she were a child. “And once I believed that my life was over,” he whispered, closing his eyes as he kissed her lips. “Gods, I do love you. …”
She closed her own eyes, felt tears slip out and down her face, onto his skin, burning hot. Astonished at how, in the center of this storm, his arms around her could still create an eye of calm; could make her believe that everything would turn out as it should… . “There isn’t much night left,” she said, taking his face in her hands, kissing his eyelids, feeling her weariness burn away. She kissed his lips, letting her hands slide down his chest, moving with exquisite care past the bandages on his side; moving lower, feeling him come alive at her touch.
“Then let morning wait for us,” he murmured, sighing. “Let it wait.”
Reede Kullervo lay awake in his bed, staring up into the cage of darkness that was his room, his world. He had lain awake half the night, every night, for as long as he could remember; but not like this. Not knowing the name of the other he held prisoner inside his brain—who held him prisoner, in a shellshocked nightmare landscape, taking revenge on him for a crime he had not even been to blame for…. He was Vanamoinen. He knew it was true, everything Gundhalinu had told him, even though he couldn’t remember…. Vanamoinen knew it.
Reede swore, rolling onto his stomach, burying his face in the pillow. What am I doing here? What do want—? “This is your reason for existence,” Gundhalinu had shouted at him. The mers. Tiamat. But not the water of life. If he helped them, he would understand, the Queen had said. And he wanted to help them, needed to understand; the need was like a fire burning in his gut….
But they couldn’t help him. They couldn’t give him the water of death; only the Source could do that. Even if Gundhalinu gave him lab space and all the equipment he asked for, he couldn’t recreate the water of death in time; he had to have his steady supply. He was already feeling the effects of his missed fix, because being waylaid by Gundhalinu tonight had made him too late to meet with TerFauw.
Somehow he would have to get TerFauw to give him another chance, make up some lie in the morning…. If he didn’t get what he needed he wouldn’t be able to work. He had to have it, and the next one, and the next one…. If he didn’t get it he would die, and then he would be no use to anybody. But what use was living anyway, when everything was impossible? Even he was impossible: a man with two brains. Maybe he’d liked it better when he’d only thought he was insane….
“Reede.” A voice like corroded iron spoke his name in the darkness.
Reede stopped breathing.
“Reede—”
He pushed himself up. “Who’s there?” There was nothing in front of him but darkness, subtle layerings of deep gray on black, the vague, familiar presences of the furniture in his room. Was something really there, at the foot of his bed, a shadow-form darker than the night, an impossible glimmer of red—?