To Polyon's shock and amazement, the cyborg freak and her partner actually managed to convince Governor Lyautey that they were entitled to arrest a de Gras-Waldheim and take him away. "Convince" was probably too strong a word. Polyon recognized with rueful amusement that he'd been caught in his own trap. The governor, like all the civilians left on Shemali, was constantly dosed with Alpha bint Hezra-Fong's Seductron. Since Lyautey was in a nonessential job, Polyon kept his maintenance level of Seductron so high that the governor did little but nod amiably and agree with whoever spoke to him last.
Somebody must have figured that out and thought of this way to use it against him. With his mouth covered by tanglefield, Polyon could do nothing but listen while this Micaya Questar-Benn and her partner rattled off official-sounding words, flourished their forged credentials—they had to be forged—and took him away in the very flyer he himself had sent to pick them up at the spaceport.
They considerately removed the tanglefield from his mouth as soon as the flyer took off. Polyon maintained a dignified silence during the short flyer hop back to the spaceport, but his brain was working furiously. He refused to believe that this "arrest" was real. Real Central agents had their own transport, they didn't hitch a ride on an OG cruiser or get a conniving little whore like Fassa del Parma to front for them. This had to be some trick cooked up by Darnell and Fassa to get control of the hyperchips. He had no intention of giving them or their friends the amusement of seeing him struggle and protest. Later, when he'd figured out their game, he would turn the tables and make them squirm. Darnell would be easy to break, but Fassa . . . he smiled unpleasantly at the thought of exactly how he'd take the pride out of her. He'd never yet threatened Fassa physically. Maybe it was time to start.
Then, as the flyer came gently down on the landing pad, he blinked and saw the ship for a moment silhouetted against the bright sky, only sleek lines and smooth design, without the confusing detail of the OG colors and logo, and he knew where he'd seen a ship like that before.
"Courier Service," he groaned, and for the first time he began to believe that he was really under arrest.
"Got it in one," said the spare, quiet man who'd accompanied General Questar-Benn, offering Polyon his hand to help him to the ground. "Time I introduced myself. Forister Armontillado y Medoc, brawn to the FN-935."
"You a brawn, old man?" Polyon sneered. "I'll believe that when I see it!" He refused the offer of the steadying hand and swung himself out of the flyer, feet together, hands in front of him, still with athletic grace. Even with his hands and feet constrained in tanglefields, he still had his strength and his natural balance.
"You'll not have to wait long," Forister replied mildly. "I'll introduce you to my brainship as soon as we're aboard."
Polyon maintained a grim silence while these two escorted him to the ship's lift, up to the passenger level and down a depressing mauve-painted corridor to the cabin where he was to be confined. Once there, he leaned against the wall and waited. The brawn Forister and the cyborg Micaya withdrew, leaving him still confined in the double tanglefield about wrists and ankles. "Wait!" he cried out. "Aren't you going to—"
The door irised shut behind them with a series of clicks along the concentric rings, and a moment later a sweet female voice spoke from the overhead speaker.
"Welcome aboard the FN-935," she—it—said. "I am Nancia, the brainship of this partnering. Your arrest is legal under Central Code—" and she reeled off paragraphs and statute references that meant nothing to Polyon. "As a prisoner awaiting trial on capital crimes, you may legally be confined by tanglefield for the duration of the voyage, which will be approximately two weeks. General Questar-Benn has transferred the tanglefield control function to my computer; if you will give me your word not to attempt damage to me or to your fellow passengers, I will release the tanglefield now and allow you the freedom of your cabin."
Polyon glanced over the narrow space and laughed sardonically. "You have my word," he said. Words were cheap enough.
As soon as he spoke the electronic field ceased vibrating. His wrists and ankles prickled with returning life; an uncomfortable sensation, but far, far better than being electronically bound hand and foot for the next two weeks.
The brainship blathered on with threats about sleepgas and other restraints that could be applied if he gave it any trouble; Polyon didn't bother to listen. He had too much to think about. Besides, he didn't intend to do anything the brainship could see. He wasn't that stupid.
Unobtrusively, under cover of flexing his wrists to restore full movement, he patted his breast pocket and felt the reassuring lump right where it should be, where he always carried a minihedron with the latest test version of his master program. He was clever, Polyon thought. Too clever by half for this pair to master for long.
Oh, he'd make some trouble for this interfering brainship and its doddering brawn, all right, just as soon as he got the chance. But it wasn't trouble that they would be able to see or hear coming, and there wouldn't be a damned thing they could do about it once he'd started. Damn them! He wasn't ready for this; he was still two to three years short of having everything in place. How much would it cost him to make his planned move ahead of schedule?
Impossible to calculate; he'd just have to go ahead and find out later. Whatever the cost, it couldn't be as great as that of going tamely back to Central for trial and imprisonment. It had always been a gamble, Polyon comforted himself. He'd always known that one day somebody might figure out about the hyperchips, and that he'd have to move fast if that occurred.
At least now, even if the move was being forced on him, it was forced by some ignoramuses who didn't even guess how he might retaliate. He would have the advantage of surprise on his side.
If only he'd had time to implement Final Phase! Then he could have started everything right now, with a spoken word of command. As it was, he'd have to get this minihedron into a reader slot before he could make his move.
There weren't any reader slots in this cabin; and he was supposed to be confined here until they reached Central; and if he tried to break out of the cabin, the damned brainship would drop him with sleepgas or a tanglefield before he got to any place with reader slots.
Polyon bared his teeth briefly. He did love a challenge. He still had his voice, and his wits, and his charm, and sensor contact with the brainship and her brawn. He set to work with those tools to dig himself an impalpable tunnel to freedom, placing each word and each request as carefully as a miner shoring up the loose earth in the tunnel roof.
In the long dragging hours until they reached the Singularity point for transition into Central subspace, there wasn't much to do but play games or read. Forister and Micaya began another tri-chess contest; Nancia obligingly created the holocube for them and maintained a record of the moves, but warned them that some of the game data might be lost if she needed to call on that particular set of coprocessors during Singularity.
"That's all right," Forister said absently. "Mic and I have been interrupted by all sorts of things in our time. Aren't you partnering me, then?"
"I don't think I'd better," Nancia replied with real regret. "I think I should monitor our passengers. They've been allowed a great deal of freedom, you know."
Micaya snorted. "Freedom! They're free to move within their cabins, that's all. Granted, I wouldn't cut 'em that much slack, but—
"That," said Forister, "is why you keep having political problems. You never cut the High Families any slack, and they resent it."
"Shouldn't," said Micaya. "I'm one of them."
"That doesn't help," Forister said, almost sadly. "Anyway, Mic, you're not seriously worried about a ship's mutiny?"
"From those spoiled brats?" Micaya snorted. "Ha! Even that de Gras boy, for all the others were so scared of him, trotted aboard like a little lamb. No, there's not a one of them has the brains—saving your Blaize, maybe—or the guts to try anything, now that we've cut off their special deals."
"Blaize wouldn't try anything," Forister said sharply. "He's a good boy."
Micaya patted Forister's arm. "I know, I know. Convinced me. But he did rip off PTA. And what's worse to my mind—he didn't speak up about the others. Have to answer for that, though it's less, all told, than the rest of this precious crew have to stand trial for."
"I understand," Forister said glumly.
Sev Bryley-Sorenson stretched out his long legs. "Think I'll work out for a while," he announced to no one in particular.
"You'd think it was him going back for trial, to look at the long face on the boy," Micaya commented as Sev whisked himself down the corridor to the exercise room.
"Can't be much fun," Forister said gently, "being in love with a girl who's likely to be unavailable for the next fifty Standard Years. And he doesn't have much to take his mind off it. He's not the type for tri-chess."
"Not bright enough, you mean. True," said Micaya with a trace of complacency. "And too bright for that silly game the prisoners are playing. Doesn't leave him much, you're right."
"Do you really have to monitor the prisoners all the time, Nancia?" Forister looked at her column with the smile that always melted her best resolutions. "Surely they'll do no damage while they're all wrapped up in that idiotic game. And if you think it's unfair to Micaya for you to partner me . . . we could play three-handed?"
Nancia had to concentrate a little harder for this display, but after a moment of intense processing the holocube shimmered, twisted, danced around its central core and reformed as a holohex, with three separate triple rows of pieces formed at opposing edges.
And in his cabin, Polyon de Gras-Waldheim stopped listening to the conversation in the central cabin and rejoined the SPACED OUT game that was currently helping his fellow prisoners to forget their troubles. Persuading Nancia to open the comm system so that the five of them could play from their cabins had been his first move. Now, at least, he could talk to the others. But he hadn't dared say anything beyond standard game moves while Nancia was conscientiously monitoring them.
The display screen showed that three of the game characters had managed to lose themselves in the Troll Tunnels. Polyon's own game icon was still at the mouth of the tunnels, awaiting a command from him. "I know how we can get out of the tunnels," he said.
"How? I've tried every exit the system shows. They're all blocked," Alpha complained.
"There's a secret key," Polyon told her. "I have it. But I can't get to the door it unlocks from here."
"I never heard anything about a secret key," Darnell announced. "I think you're bluffing." His game icon bounced angrily back along one of the Troll Tunnels, spitting sparks as it went.
"You wouldn't," Polyon said smoothly. "I'm the game master. This secret key can even override your character, Fassa."
Fassa had taken the Brainship icon for this game.
"I don't see how," Fassa responded. "Show me?"
"I told you. I can't get to where I can use it. If any of you can get me out of this blind alley, though—"
"You're not in a blind alley!" Darnell interrupted. "You're standing right at the entrance to the Troll Tunnels! Why don't you move your icon on into the tunnels?"
"And get lost like the rest of you? No, thanks." Polyon waved his hand over the palmpad and shut off the bickering voices of the gamesters. He brooded in silence for a while. Why had he ever bothered with such an inept bunch of conspirators? They were too stupid to pick up on his veiled hints. They thought he was interested in playing a game!
Blaize, now; Blaize was brighter than the others, and he'd taken no part in the brief exchange. Polyon tapped out a series of commands that would give him a private comm link to Blaize's cabin. At least he could hack into Nancia's system to that extent from the keyboard; though it was nothing to the power that would be his once he'd made his way to a reader slot with his minihedron.
While he thought out his approach to Blaize, he was startled by a crackle of sound. The idiot thought he'd achieved a private channel to the lounge! And what was he planning to do with it? Polyon scowled, then began to listen attentively. It seemed that Blaize was too bright to make a good tool.
But he might still be an excellent pawn, in a game whose moves he'd never see. . . .
"Uncle Forister?" Blaize switched comm channels to the lounge. "I need to talk to you."
"Talk," Forister grunted. He was just putting the final touches to a truly beautiful strategy, designed to pit Micaya's and Nancia's Brainship pieces against one another while he moved unopposed to control all vertices of the holohex.
"Privately."
"Oh, all right." Forister got up and stretched. "Nancia, can you store the holohex until I get back? I wouldn't want to tire you by asking you to maintain the display while we're not actually playing,"
Nancia chuckled. "You mean you don't want to leave the holohex set up where we can study the positions and figure out what nasty trap you're getting ready to spring on us this time."
"Well . . ."
The holohex folded in upon itself and became a sheet, a line, a point of dazzling blue light that then winked out of existence. "All right. We're approaching the Singularity point, anyway; I really shouldn't be playing games now. Need to check my math," Nancia said cheerfully. "Be sure and get back in time to strap yourself in. You softpersons get so disoriented in Singularity."
"And you shellpersons get so uppity about it," Forister retorted. "All right. You'll warn us in plenty of time, I assume?"
"And monitor you while you're in the cabin," Nancia said. "Don't look like that; it's for Blaize's protection as well as yours. If you're left alone with him, the prosecution might try to discredit your testimony, say you'd been bribed or suborned."
"They won't have much respect for his uncle's good word anyway," said Forister gloomily, going on down the passageway to find out what Blaize had in mind. Nancia triggered the release mechanism on the door just long enough for him to slide through.
"I think Polyon's planning something," Blaize said as soon as Forister entered the cabin. He sat at the cabin console, one hand quivering over the palmpad without actually starting a program, all red-headed intensity like a fox at a rabbit hole.
"What?"
"I don't know. He wants to get out of his cabin. He keeps telling us that he can fix everything if only he could get out for a few minutes. Listen!" Blaize ran the heel of his hand over the palmpad and brought up a datacording of the last few transmissions between the SPACED OUT gamesters. From the cabin console he couldn't access enough memory to store images as well as voices; the players' words crackled out through the speaker, disembodied and robbed of half their meaning. Forister listened to the recorded exchange and shook his head.
"Just sounds like a few more moves in that dumb game of yours to me, Blaize."
"It's a move in a game, all right," Blaize said grimly, "but he's not playing the same game as the rest of us. Damn! I wish I'd been able to capture the images and the icon moves too. Then you'd see."
"See what?"
"That what Polyon was saying made absolutely no sense in the context of the actual game moves." Blaize dropped his hands in his lap and looked up at Forister. "Can Nancia keep Polyon under sleepgas until we reach Central?"
"She can," Forister replied, "but I've yet to see any reason why she should. This case is going to have all the High Families buzzing like uprooted stingherbs as it is; it'll only be worse if we give them some excuse to allege mistreatment of prisoners."
"But you heard him!"
"Didn't make any sense to me," Forister allowed, "but nothing about that silly game makes sense, in my humble opinion. Come on, Blaize. Can you seriously see me explaining to some High Court judge that I kept a prisoner stunned and unconscious for two solid weeks because something he said in the course of a children's game made me nervous?"
"I suppose not," Blaize agreed. "But—you'll be careful?"
"I am always careful," Forister told him.
"And—I don't think you should talk to him. The man's dangerous."
"I know you four are scared of him," Forister agreed, "but I think that's because you've been away from Central too long. He's nothing but an arrogant brat who was given more power than was good for him. Like some other people I could name. Now if you'll excuse me, it's nearly time to strap down for Singularity."
He nodded at the wall sensors and Nancia silently slid the door open for him.
Once he was in the passageway again, she spoke in a low voice.
"Polyon de Gras-Waldheim requests the favor of a private interview."
"He does, does he! And I suppose you think I ought to take Blaize's warning seriously, and insist on having Micaya as a bodyguard before I talk to him?"
"I think you're reasonably able to look after yourself," Nancia said, "especially with me listening in. It's not as if you were piloting a dumbship. But there's not much time; I'll be entering the first decomposition sequence in a few minutes."
"All the better," said Forister. "I won't have to spend too long with him. I'll talk with him until you sound the Singularity warning bell, if that's all right. Can't do much less. Visited Blaize—have to visit any of the others who request it."
When Forister entered, Polyon was lying on his bunk, arms folded behind his head. He turned at the soft sound of the sliding door, jumped to his feet and brought his heels together with a military precision that Forister found almost annoying.
"Sir!"
"I'm not," Forister said mildly, "your superior officer. You needn't click your heels and salute. You wanted to tell me something?"
"I—yes—no—I think not," Polyon said. His blue eyes looked haunted; he pushed a wayward strand of golden hair back from his forehead. "I thought—-but he was my friend; I can't do it. Even to shorten my own sentence—no, it's impossible. I'm sorry to have disturbed you for nothing, sir."
"I think," Forister said gently, "you'd better tell me all about it, my boy." It was hard to reconcile the haunted creature before him with the monster who'd made Shemali prison into a living hell. Perhaps Polyon had some explanation he wished to proffer, some story about others who'd conceived the vicious factory system?
It took him a good five minutes of gentling Polyon's overactive sense of honor, all the time listening anxiously for the Singularity warning bell, before he coaxed the boy into letting out a name.
"It's Blaize," Polyon said miserably at last. "Your nephew. I'm so sorry, sir. But—well, while we were playing SPACED OUT he was boasting to me of how he'd pulled the wool over your eyes, convinced you he was innocent of any wrongdoing—"
"Not quite," said Forister. He spoke very evenly to control the twist of pain that squeezed his chest. "He did sell PTA shipments on the black market. That's wrongdoing, in my book, and he'll be tried for it on Central."
Polyon nodded. His look of suffering had not abated. "Yes, he said that was the story he'd given you. Then I thought—if you didn't know—perhaps I could trade the information for a reduction in my own sentence."
"What information?" Forister asked sharply.
Polyon shook his head. "Never mind. It doesn't matter. I've enough on my conscience already," he said, raising his head and staring at the wall with a look of noble resignation that Forister found intensely irritating. "I won't compound my crimes by informing on a friend. It's all on this minihedron—well, never mind."
"What," asked Forister with the last vestiges of his patience, "what exactly is supposed to be on the minihedron?" He stared at the faceted black shape Polyon held in his hand, dark and baleful like the eye of an alien god.
"The true records of how Blaize made his fortune," Polyon said. "It's all there—he thought he'd concealed his tracks, but there were enough Net links for me to find the records. I'm very good with computers, you know," he said with a boy's naive pride. "But when I begged him to tell you the truth, he laughed at me. Said he had you convinced of his innocence and he saw no reason to change the situation. That was when I thought—but no," Polyon said, averting his face as he thrust out the minihedron towards Forister, "I don't want any favors."
Forister felt as queasy as though they had already entered Singularity. Was this why Blaize had tried so hard to keep him from talking to Polyon? He'd wanted to keep Polyon drugged and unconscious until they reached Central; he'd had that silly story about Polyon using the SPACED OUT game as a cover for some kind of plot. But what good would it do to keep Polyon from talking for two weeks, when his evidence—whatever it might be—would come out anyway at the trial?
"Just—you take this. Read it once. Then keep it safe—or wipe it if you want to," Polyon said, "I don't care. I just wanted to hand it over to—to somebody honorable." His voice broke slightly on the last word, and Forister thought there was a gleam of moisture in the corners of his eyes. "God knows, I can scarcely claim that for myself. You take it. You'll know what to do with the information."
"What is it?"
Polyon shook his head again. "I don't—I can't tell you. Go and read it in privacy. Just drop it into any of the ship's reader slots and have a look at the information. Then I'll leave it up to you to decide what should be done. And I don't," he said, almost savagely, "I don't want to profit from it, do you understand? Say you got it from somebody else. Or don't say where you got it. Or destroy it. Do what you want—it's off my conscience now, at any rate!"
He dropped back onto the bunk and buried his head in his arms. Overhead, the silvery chime of the first warning bell sounded. "Five minutes to Singularity," Nancia announced. "All passengers, please lie down or seat yourselves and secure free-fall straps. Tablets for Singularity sickness are available in all cabins; if you think you may be adversely affected by the transition, please medicate yourself now. Five minutes to Singularity."
Polyon fumbled without looking up, caught his free-fall strap and buckled it around himself. "Singularity," he said bitterly, "doesn't make me sick. But what's on that minihedron does."
Forister left the cabin with a sparkling black minihedron clutched in his hand, the facets cutting into his palms, his head awhirl with doubts.
"What a magnificent acting job!" Nancia commented with a low laugh.
"You think Polyon was lying?"
"I'm certain of it," she told him. "You know Polyon. You know Blaize. Is it credible for an instant that Blaize could have committed crimes that would turn Polyon's stomach?"
"I—don't know," Forister groaned. He dropped into the pilot's chair and stared unseeing at the console before him. Micaya Questar-Benn tactfully pretended to polish the gleaming buckle on her uniform belt. "Up to now, I'd have said—but I'm biased, you know."
"Well, I'm not," Nancia said decisively. "I don't know what Polyon's going on about, but whatever it is, I don't believe a word of it."
Forister laughed weakly. "You're biased too, dear Nancia." He stared at the sparkling surface of the minihedron, the polished opaque facets that gave nothing away, and sighed deeply. "I suppose I had better find out what this is."
"Can't it wait until after Singularity?" Nancia said, but too late. Forister had already dropped the datahedron into the reader slot. Automatically, her mind already on the vortex of mathematical transformations ahead, Nancia absorbed the contents of the minihedron into memory. Something strange there, not like ordinary words, more like a tickle at the back of her head or an improperly positioned synaptic connector—
She rode the whirlwind down into Singularity, balancing and coasting along constantly changing equations that defined the collapsing walls of the vortex.
Something was wrong; she sensed it even before she lost her grasp on the mathematical transformations. She had never experienced a transition like this one. What was happening? Sounds as slimy as decaying weed whispered and snickered in her ears; colors beyond the edges of human perception rasped at her like fingernails being drawn over a blackboard. The balance of salts and fluids surrounding her shrunken human body swirled crazily, and a dozen alarm systems went off at once: Overload! Overload! Overload!
She couldn't optimize the path; spaces decomposed around her and shot off in an infinity of different recompositions, expanding in every path to lights and chaos that could tear her apart. The hyperchip-enhanced mathematics coprocessors returned gibberish. Her brain waves were strung out on the grid of a multi-dimensional matrix. Something was trying to invert the matrix. No computations matched previous results, and all directions held danger.
Nancia shut down all processing at once. The grating colors and stinking noises receded. She hung in blackness, refusing her own sensory inputs, balanced on the point of Singularity where decomposing subspaces intersected, with no way forward and no way back.