Reede froze, not even breathing; staring into the blackness with every nerve ending of his body. “You … ?” he whispered. Trying to make out a form against the dull red emberglow ahead of him, trying to make himself recognize a human shape in the silhouette he could now barely detect against the light. But he didn’t need to, knew already that it would be impossible. He felt his guts turn to jelly. The Source. That was what Thanm Jaakola called himself, that was whose citadel he had come to be held prisoner in. Jaakola’s cartel was one of the strongest, their drug production and distribution network had outlets on every world in the Hegemony. But Jaakola was more than simply a bigtime narco. He was one of the Brotherhood, and even Reede had no idea how far, how deep, his real power extended.
Reede peered into the darkness again, blinking compulsively. Rumor claimed Jaakola needed the darkness because there was something wrong with him, that light hurt his eyes, that he had some hideous, disfiguring disease. Reede had never believed it, had always figured it was a lie, a disguise, so that the Source could be anybody he wanted to be, and nobody would know. But now, lost here in the darkness, with only that misshapen mound of blackness ahead of him … now suddenly, he wasn’t so sure. What was that smell—was it whatever was lying on the floor, was it his imagination, or was it … was it—Stop it! Don’t even think about it.
“Come closer, Reede. There is a seat here by me. No need for you to stand.” It was a challenge: Jaakola sensing his fear, daring him to get closer.
Anger and old resentment goaded him forward. He moved with painful caution this time, testing the space ahead of him with each step; afraid of finding another trap, a corpse, a gaping pit. He found an unexpected step up, navigated it without falling on his face, and abruptly encountered the padded outline of what seemed to be a chair. He groped his way around it and sat down, after first exploring the seat and back thoroughly with his hands.
“You must be exhausted after your long, arduous journey,” Jaakola’s disintegrating voice said. “Congratulations.” For a moment Reede actually wondered whether Jaakola meant his journey back from Four, or the journey here to his seat. “You have been completely successful on behalf of the Brotherhood, I see.”
“You see?” Reede repeated, picking his words as carefully as he had picked a path across the room.
“We have the container of stardrive plasma that was hidden in your craft. A brilliant coup, how you stole it right out of the Kharemoughis’ hands—and you even brought us a stardrive unit! The name of the Smith will soon be legendary among the agents of Chaos. Perhaps you really do deserve to be called the new Vanamomen… . Taking the plasma home to your beloved Mundilfoere, were you?”
Reede felt the hatred inside the words close around his throat and squeeze. “Any reason 1 shouldn’t?” Focusing his own white-hot rage, he managed, somehow, to ask the question without his voice betraying him again. “You know I’m a member in good standing—I wasn’t trying to hide anything from anybody but the Blues. I sent Mundilfoere word, I said call a Meeting first thing. Why the fuck am I here with just you? And why shouldn’t I want to go home?”
“Perhaps the fact that you no longer have a home to go to … ?” The shadow against the darkness moved insinuatingly.
Reede’s fingers dug into the chair arms as the fireball went off again inside his memory, incinerating the citadel before his eyes. He let go, abruptly, as something about the consistency of the chair itself made his flesh crawl. “Goddamn you—” He broke off. “If Mundilfoere was—”
“She was not present when we took out the citadel,” the ruined voice murmured gently. “Rest assured.”
Reede sank back into the chair’s suffocating softness, as his rigid muscles let go. “Then, why—?”
“To prove a point, shall we say? To dispose of the middleman. To demonstrate my eagerness to have you as a member of my personal operation. To let you and every little operator out there in the thorn scrub see what real power is … and to give the outer world a reason for my claiming you, a tragically patronless biochemist, to do service with me.”
“That’s crazy,” Reede muttered. Nothing he had heard so far made any sense—it only got progressively more maddening. He wondered suddenly if Jaakola was actually insane, or was simply playing with him. “You know Humbaba’s was my safehouse, the place where I ran my labs. We had an agreement—I kept him well-supplied and he didn’t ask me any questions about my real work. He wasn’t even Survey—”
“He was Mundilfoere’s pet horror.” Jaakola sniggered with sardonic amusement. “We both know who made him as successful as he was … who was the real Man at Humbaba citadel. But now that the Brotherhood has the stardrive plasma, our precocious Smith needs facilities appropriate to the task of developing the new technology. What better place than here? The Source and the Smith, in perfect symbiosis. You don’t have to play any loyalty games with me. … I exist on both planes, just as you do. I have the contacts, the tech base, the resources—everything you’ll need… . You can call me ‘Master.’ Everyone does.”
“Kiss my ass,” Reede said. “You don’t tell me what to do. I don’t see any Survey meeting here, I don’t see any voting quorum. It’s just you and me, Jaakola, equal votes.”
“There is no need to call a Meeting. This matter was settled among the Brotherhood well before you returned.”
“What are you talking about?” Reede snapped. “Mundilfoere would never—”
“You were gone a long time, Reede. Things change—alliances, fortunes, balances of power. And you do not have an equal say in Brotherhood matters. You never did. You weren’t Humbaba’s possession … you were Mundilfoere’s.”
Reede shook his head, feeling as if he had been expelled into sudden vacuum “That’s a lie.”
“Do you actually believe you ever really functioned at the same levels I did? Or even Mundilfoere? Did she actually let you think that? Yes, you were elevated to the inner circles; you were even raised to the tenth level, at Mundilfoere’s urging. But you have no idea how many levels there are still above you—or even the slightest idea of what goes on there, far, far over your head. Humbaba was Mundilfoere’s tool, she used him well … just as she used you.”
“Fuck you.” Reede tried to push up out of his seat—and could not. He tried again, throwing all his strength against whatever invisible bonds held him there; felt his muscles wrench with the effort, getting nowhere. He fell back again. The pressure eased as he stopped resisting.
“You were always her favorite tool, Reede,” Jaakola went on, as if he had noticed nothing. “Her other pet: the clever one, the pretty one … She made you herself, Reede—out of stolen pieces. There is no Reede Kullervo. Once there was. But he’s gone now. You’re not a man, you’re a brainwipe: nothing but the biological receptacle for the embers of a great flame. And even that heat is unbearable, it’s burning away what’s left of your mind. …”
“You bastard, damn you—” Reede jerked forward again, into a wall of self-inflicted pain; unable to reach Jaakola, unable even to cover his own ears. Every time he struggled, the invisible bonds tightened.
“You don’t believe me—?” the voice said, wounded. “Tell me about yourself… . What did you enjoy doing, as a child? What was your family like? Where were you educated? After all, when you came to Humbaba you had knowledge a brilliant master biochemist couldn’t have discovered in a lifetime … but you were barely seventeen years old. How? How did you do it? Don’t you ever even wonder about that?”