The Holocaust Piano
by Phaedra7veils
Chapter 7: String Theory
It struck Katze as the height of irony that the streets of a district named Flare now burned. He peered out the car window as the limousine hovered from Hilarion's library back to Eos. Through the choking haze of smoke and amber firelight he could see shopkeepers struggle to rig barricades with which roving gangs smashed windows to steal anything they could grab. People lay dead or dying on the sidewalks, impaled as the towering store-fronts which once sparkled and gleamed with so much affluence and temptation cascaded upon them in a rain of deadly icicles.
Down one alleyway, he caught a glimpse of a gang which had succeeded in boxing in a hover-car. The driver and one of his passengers were prostrate on the asphalt as men took turns to kick them or hit them with makeshift clubs. The other passenger, a Pet dressed in party attire—
"Back up!" Katze ordered Paviter. "Line me up with that laneway."
"My orders were to–"
"Do as I say or I'll make you regret it." The laser-pistol made a satisfying rocket-launcher sound as Katze fired it up.
"What the fuck are you doing?" He felt a little smug as Car's voice jumped from bass-baritone to almost a squeak in panic, but the man backed up the hover-car as he had demanded. He lowered the window and opened the shielding a crack, just enough to nudge the barrel of the gun through it.
The man who held down the Pet over the steel rubbish bin was too distracted to realize what a clear shot his forehead presented. Katze aimed for the kneecap instead, enough to kill anyone's appetite for rapine and, from the casual tracking he had kept on Guy following Dana Bahn, it could almost be a crueler fate than death in Tanagura. After shooting off the man's limb, Katze immediately trained the scope on his next target, a bald muscular guy who was going berserk on the fallen men.
"Why, Kat-boy, I didn't know you cared," Paviter drawled, slamming the vehicle into idle and pulling out his own gun.
"I don't," Katze squeezed the trigger. "They pissed me off."
Too late the attackers realized they were being ambushed and scrambled for cover. He aimed at a wiry little man with a sly face who looked like just the type to incite this sort of attack and who now tried to climb out of range behind a drainpipe. Katze blew out his shoulder and said, "Keep that in mind if you plan to call me any more retarded nicknames."
Paviter's chuckle had a bratty quality that Katze had never noticed before. It hit him like one of Raoul's long-distance electrocutions. The beefy bodyguard was little more than an overgrown kid, still uncomfortable about his presence in the company of adults. The attitude, patter, and big tough-guy pose was all a bluff. So few Mongrels outpaced Katze's height and heft that he tacked on experience, maturity and self-confidence by default; this little revelation caught him off-guard.
Then he realized there were certain kinds of education he wasn't willing to instigate.
"Shoot to maim," he instructed the other man, "not kill."
"What?" Paviter looked confused and Katze knew this broke one of the cardinal rules of bodyguard training but there wasn't enough time to explain.
"You heard me."
The Pet had lost what remained of his wits and started tearing around like the terrified fool he undoubtedly was, blocking their shots. Fortunately, the other Car—the one who had been attacked—reached up and tackled him before his head got blown off. The other man kept his head down; Katze presumed he was the Pet's owner, and caught a whiff of resentment about that lurking around the dark alleys of his own brain. Between the two of them, he and Paviter disabled the remaining four assailants in a matter of seconds and drove off without waiting around to see what became of the men they had rescued.
"Mind telling me what that was really about?" Paviter finally broke the silence.
"This place is about to erupt in a firestorm," Katze remarked, carefully watching as building after building candled behind them, "and the stupid bastards are trying to save their merchandise instead of their sorry asses. It's time to vacate, boys!" He called out to everyone and no one in particular.
"That's not what I meant but, now that you mention it, why is it burning like this? I thought Midas was specially engineered to prevent this sorta thing."
"Same reason that everything else in this stinking city is falling apart: Jupiter put in powerful incentives for us to never take it out of the equation. That an enemy from outside Amoi might try wasn't part of its original game-plan. Our safeguards depend on a link with Jupiter. Now that that's gone, we're screwed."
"You think the whole city is going to go inferno?"
Katze lit up a cigarette. "Nope. The ring-roads will contain it. It won't get past Flare. Anything protected with magnetic shields will probably be safe. The Kalgas will be safe. The police stations will be safe. The casino will be safe."
"Got all the information you were looking for?"
"Fyss' archives are probably the safest place in all of Midas."
"I was thinking of his Furniture."
"Kosai's at the Kalga looking after Hilarion. So, yeah, he'll be okay."
"Good, then answer me this: those apes we just shot at are gonna fry anyway; what was the point of not killing them?"
"Whoa-oh, don't pin that one on me, tiger. I'm not their executioner and if they get their act together, they could still make it out alive. Just as the idiots we rescued might still burn, depending on their brains and priorities. Seeing as they got themselves cornered in a box canyon, I'm not holding out a lot of hope. All we did was level the playing field a little."
"Ever kill anyone, Katze?"
The nicotine had sent cool streaming along his nerves, enough to ignore the question, until the Car shot him a Meaningful Look in the rearview mirror.
"You are one nosy bastard! Anyone ever tell you that?"
"Yeah, so?"
"Don't try and tell me Tibór never opened my files for you to take a snoop."
Paviter nodded. "Yeah but, first of all, Raoul made me run a backgrounder the day he brought the pianoforte home."
"Right, and–?"
"Lots of questionable spaces. Lots of unaccountable activities. Huge slices of time filled in with meaningless appointments that could mean anything."
"What did you expect?"
"Just like right now, that you're really good at deflecting direct questions."
"Then stop asking."
Paviter looked so abashed that Katze vividly remembered he was still a bit of a kid inside.
He stubbed out the butt of his cigarette. "I was the Tanaguran Syndicate's sock-puppet on the black market for the past few years. I was always ready to kill if I had to and I ordered plenty of hits. So, yeah, you could say I've got blood on my hands."
"Why didn't you want me to kill those men? You don't think they deserved it?"
"Oh, they deserved it alright. Lots of people deserve it, including me. Take the idiot who owned that Pet and Car, for instance, Mr. Good Citizen of Midas: have you any idea what it took for me not to pull off a shot at him?"
"Him! Why?"
"For being the idiot responsible for putting his Car and Pet in that mess; for being a Good Citizen of Midas which is tantamount to being a clueless parasite; for all kinds of general injustices and social imbalances which are and aren't his fault. I could've even pretended it was an accident. 'Whoopsie! See how his head just happened to get in the way?' It was so bloody tempting."
The look of shock on Paviter's face at that moment was reward enough for this confession.
"Point is, once you start, where do you stop?"
Which was when Paviter delivered the coup de grâce, "So, is that what you think of Raoul?"
Was it? It should've been, Katze figured, if he truly cared about that justice and social balance crap.
Except, in that moment, all he could think about was how good it felt when Raoul was grinding against him, stretching him across the surface of that strange piano. All he could remember was the curtain of light that was his golden hair falling all around them, how there was almost too much strength, speed and mastery in that body for belief, the way Raoul's beautiful face burned with intensity, passion and lust, and the surprisingly gentle way they parted. It made his pulse race and the blood rush to his groin. He closed his eyes, tilted his head back and bit his lip to stifle that groan of frustration. As fiercely as he wanted to hate Raoul, as poisonously as he wanted to resent him for being so easily cowed and dominated, the longing for a repeat performance was even stronger. To Katze's shame, his body betrayed him, undermining all his determination and opposition. Oh yeah, he had it hard over the Blondie. Hard just thinking about him.
Katze lit up another cigarette. "Hey, since when have I ever pretended to be anything but a hypocrite?"
That shut the Car up. About time, too, his head was starting to ache. Even though he had started the day with a decent sleep, it had been another long one. Did he even get what they were looking for?
Unlike most Amoian libraries, the antiquarian's had contained actual books, hundreds of them, most of which Katze assumed had not been computerized. Hilarion's collection encompassed whole cabinets and shelves filled with loose-paper documents in preservation containment fields. He scarcely knew where to start, but that wasn't why he found it so hard to breathe.
His head was reeling, not only from the wild destruction into which Amoi seemed to be crumbling and the mysterious changes which had tumbled his body and life circumstances arse-over-teakettle for the past couple of days, but from Merc's situation. Raoul had authorized the Shock-Trauma surgeons at Kalga 84 to extract and store the contents of Merc's mind. Merc's mind was being wiped. After that, there would be no reason to sustain or save the life in the older man's body. Probably he would be taken out like so much garbage. So Katze was beside himself.
As he disabled the containment on a set of indexes, a clammy sweat clawed its way out of his skin.
Nor was it this knowledge alone that left him pole-axed, but the way he had learned of it. The Onyx orderly who had met Paviter and him at Kalga 19's shock-trauma admissions had taken him on a quick tour of the medical facility.
"The interruption of Jupiter's datastream has led to more accidents, more accidents of a far more serious nature," the orderly had waved a hand toward processing rooms filled with Elite, many of whom looked irate and indignant at the wait, and none of whom were in as dire a condition as the smuggler's. "Usually we are nowhere near so—stretched to capacity. We've had to resort to subterfuge to hide your Mongrel's identity. Had patients learned their care was delayed for his benefit, we would've had a lynch-mob on our hands. If Lord Am, himself, hadn't called ahead with specific instructions, he would've been reprocessed during triage in favour of patients with higher status."
The thunderclouds gathering on Katze's face cut the Elite's spiel short and he changed the direction of his words. "Fortunately, the First Blondie's instructions were very clear. The interruption with the datastream does affect our care. Biotechs were even forced to resort to antiquated Tesslar ion field separators in the effort to extract and preserve the Mongrel's memories, at least until Lord Am has had a proper chance to inspect them."
Which was when Katze's lungs started to labour.
"The patient has been mind-wiped?" His disbelief had been so overwhelming, he had to check and make sure that, in fact, this was what this man was telling him.
"Of course," the Black replied, as though the question was ridiculous.
And here he had thought Raoul was being so wonderful to back him up and let Merc get treated at Kalga 19! Everything Katze saw at the facility from that point onward was muffled, sight filtered through some sort of dark blur, sounds covered with a crackling haze of static, as he was led around the building in a suffocating blanket of—of something. What was it? Betrayal? Rage? Helplessness and shame? He couldn't even distinguish the feelings anymore; they were all stirred together in some sort of toxic mix which choked him and diminished his senses.
Back at the library, Katze had cracked open an index which looked like it had never been used. He started to search through 'P' for 'Pianoforte', but overshot his mark and landed on 'Priestess' instead. There were a few entries for the Priestesses of Tenebrios, including a note about how the name for the planet originated from classical astronomy for the darkness which seemed to swallow all light. It was this same sort of darkness which seemed to swirl around Katze's vision as he hauled the corresponding journal off its shelf. He slid to the floor, where he sat with his back braced against the shelf.
The pet-ring clamped to his ear crackled to life.
"Katze, are you under attack? Your pulse just shot off the charts!" Right, the pet-ring monitored his vital signs.
Why was Raoul always after him over something he couldn't control? It was like the time when he woke up in the car after his own trip to the Kalga, and the Blondie had got on his case for having a nightmare. As though there was choice involved. Katze figured that as long as he deflected the Blondie from the real reason for this bout of heartsickness, he wouldn't get his brains zapped out.
Katze's eyes ran over random columns of print and fell on something which seemed worth mentioning.
"Hey, Raoul, did you know that lilies once had their own scent?"
"What–?"
"Lilies, it says here they once used to smell nice. And they weren't the only flowers that did either. There was this funny language game that people used to play called poetry, and the natural fragrance of lilies came up in it quite often–"
"I take it there's been no assault and you're proceeding through Hilarion's library at present?"
"–along with roses, gardenias, lilacs, violets...all kinds of flowers and this book says they had this smell so that they could attract insects for pollination. So it was the way they evolved to—in order to mate, I guess. Say, Raoul, when did flowers stop having a smell?"
Raoul had fallen silent.
"By any chance was that when we started growing them out of petri dishes?" Katze couldn't prevent the bitterness from creeping into his own voice. "When we started slicing them apart, dissecting them into their itty-bitty parts and components?"
When Raoul responded, his voice was detached and dry. "There is a point to this, I presume. Why are you asking?"
"Whoever decided that flowers with no perfume, which don't need other things—like other insects or flowers—were a better thing anyway?—especially when there's all this poetry-shit they used to write rhapsodizing over how beautiful the damned things were."
"Excuse me? I'm not grasping the point you're trying to make."
Katze felt like an idiot. This was the stupidest conversation he had ever started. He tried to remember the main theme, what it was that connected all his different points. Perfumes were fashioned in laboratories now anyway. There was no need for natural scents. Just as no one read poetry anymore, except those with an interest in anachronisms. Anachronisms like piano music and the lives of mongrel smugglers.
"If you don't mind my saying so, Katze, it sounds like you are under too much stress."
No shit.
"When I stop being useful, Blondie, are you going to have my mind wiped?"
"—"
"Are you, Raoul?"
"Is this your convoluted way of asking, my pet, if I'm planning to have you put down when you start to smell bad?" The comment was flipped off in Raoul's most droll tone, yet the jokiness sounded forced.
Shut up, Katze! Katze had told himself. Just shut the fuck up! He had seen the crowds gathering in the mercantile district as Paviter drove through; anarchy, looting, riots and bloodshed were on the immediate agenda for Tanagura. Who was he to think the rest of this mattered? He ran his fingers through his scalp and trapped them for a moment in his ridiculous new hairpiece, yanking out some of his natural hair while trying to get them unstuck. "Yeah, I guess you could say it is."
When Raoul finally spoke, it was with the same impersonal detachment that the Elite used like a weapon, cold and cutting to the bone, "We haven't got the time to deal with your neuroses right now. Can you trust that I'm doing everything in my power to keep you safe? Can you focus on the problem at hand?"
Great, so now he was about to get smacked for sounding like a whiner. Katze knew the discussion was over as concerned a middle-aged smuggler. He struggled back to his feet, and finally got on the right page: Tenebrios, Priestesses of....
"Whereas there is little hard data about the planet of Tenebrios, Smythe's Definitive Explorations cites that it has been ruled for over two hundred years by a matriarchal Psychetech Theocracy of priestesses. It is unknown how they have become adept at manipulating the subconscious mind on a mass level, whether through chemical or mechanical stimulation, but anecdotal evidence indicates collective hive mind technology and coalescent telepathy. Excuse me, but, coalescent telepathy?"
"The classical understanding of telepathy was all wrong. To date, psychetechs have not uncovered a single instance of thought transmission and reception which uses verbal-style language or speech patterns," Raoul explained. "Coalescence is one of the variants of telepathy."
There were different kinds of telepathy?
Katze was startled to even receive an answer. He had been wondering if it was even necessary or in the overall plan for him to understand this information, or if he just a human relay circuit, routing it to the Blondie. "Telepathy isn't just straightforward reading of thoughts?"
"Not as you and I are presently conversing, no, although strings of words may appear. Coalescent telepathy tracks and reads the direction of attention and suppression based on things like colour and sound patterns which appear as a byproduct of brain functions."
The Blondies had made a science out of reading minds. Katze shook his head. Was there anything that escaped their scrutiny?
"So, what you're saying is one of these Priestesses would follow thoughts by noticing the things that people are looking at, or what they're listening to? By tracking the direction of their eyes and—stuff."
"Not quite. Human beings are more complicated than that and usually they aren't focused on their immediate environments anyway. Jupiter, for example, emits sound and light frequencies which I read much like a geophysicist reads seismic graphs, another form of language. Or, as another example, sometimes my physiology and experience as a biotechnician allows me to recognize smells of chemical components released in hormones associated with hunger, excitement, anger, or arousal. So I know when I'm dealing with elevated or depressed physical or emotional states. Not quite the same as telepathy, but close."
There was a flutter of static across their sound transmission, as though Raoul were brushing off his coat with the hand on which his pet-ring controller was fixed.
"Coalescent telepathy takes this a few steps further. If the Priestesses have developed mastery of it, they must have an ability to receive the sound or colour frequencies or patterns that are byproducts of brain functions. These are signals that coalesce around different thoughts, feelings, and physical reactions. We send these signals off reflexively and, as a rule, without awareness. So they read these and organize them into coherent images and sounds. It tells them what we pay attention to, that which we desire, and what we suppress, that which we fear."
"Right," Katze replied, meaning 'Hunh?'
"Verbal speech is very clumsy and inexact. An enemy that can read your worst fears and desires, before you're even aware of them, is a considerable opponent."
This Katze could understand.
"Add to that instant communication through hive-mind technology, and the ability to materialize these fears and desires through psychetechnological warfare," Raoul continued, "or, at least, to make you believe that they are being materialized, then these Priestesses verge on near invincibility."
"So, all this stuff we've been going through—the dreams, my healing, the destruction of Jupiter—it could all be one big delusion, a huge, hysterical mass-hypnotic episode."
There was no answer.
"Raoul?"
"I don't know. I don't think so. It certainly seems real enough. As your friend so helpfully pointed out, Tanagura—you, me, and everyone else here—perceives it and reacts to it as such, as though it is all very real. If none of it is, what does that matter?"
"Why are they singling us out?"
"We've already been through this. It doesn't matter, suffice that they have."
Katze sensed that Raoul was mistaken. "I can't shake off the—feeling that it matters very much."
"Fine, as long as it doesn't interfere with our defense, I am not attached to being right or wrong about this. In the meantime, do you have any other information I can use?"
"There's a picture here which looks exactly like the computer circuitry or whatever it was we found in your piano, along with pages and pages describing something called 'Fate-webs'."
"Fate-webs, you're sure that's the name?"
"That's what the book calls them."
"How strange."
"Let's see. These are filaments which appear to penetrate, capture and imprison the objective consciousness of victims in desire, suspending them in the experience of satiation—uh, satisfaction."
"Yes, Katze, I know what satiation is. So that's what those threads are for."
"Most of the pages appear to be chemical and mathematical formulae."
"Can you take a holostream recording and send it to me?"
Katze took out the hover-camera, trained it on the pages, and hit record, "As we speak."
"Thank you. Our situation isn't completely hopeless, even if Tenebrian psychetechnology has advanced that much." Raoul continued his lesson. "Coalescent Telepathy has side-effects. It can play havoc with spatial-temporal perception. It mashes the sense of past, present and future into one big indiscernible mess. We could use that to our advantage. Then there's the fact that Tanagurans have received a lot of training at the repression of personal desire–"
Katze bit off his retort. He secretly thought that this repression made the force of desire much stronger. Since, courtesy of Jupiter's special Blondie indoctrination, Raoul seemed to believe otherwise, he didn't think it worth an argument. If Tanagurans were so bloody good at repressing their desires, then why had Iason grown so obsessed with Riki? Why had Raoul pestered him on top of his piano?
There was a moment of silence as the Blondie waited for the holostream to upload onto his terminal. Katze almost dropped the journal whose pages he was turning for the holostream recording track, when Raoul suddenly asked, "Did you like the room I asked the hospital staff to prepare for your friend?"
"Room!" Was Raoul messing with his head now? "Isn't he dead by now? Why bother with a room?"
There was a beat or two before Raoul answered, "Where did you think he was going to recover? On the streets?"
Katze rubbed his now-aching temples. "Well, someone's confused because the orderly told me you were having Merc's mind wiped. So, I'm either hearing things or someone at the hospital thinks you ordered that."
"Yes, of course. It's standard practice at Kalga 19 for surgeons to remove the memory and higher mind functions. Wasn't this why you specifically requested he be treated there?"
"Once his mind's shot, what's the point to keeping his body?"
"—"
"It's not like he has the youth, beauty or stamina to be turned into a sex-slave."
"Let me get this straight, you thought we were just going to plunder his brain and toss his carcass into cellular-recycling?"
"Wait! You weren't?" It was the first time Katze considered this. "Why remove his mind at all?"
"To protect them during the more invasive surgical procedures, naturally. Once we manage to save his body and lower brain functions, the biotechnicians restore these other aspects of his consciousness. You didn't know this?"
"Mind-wipes have been known to happen for some pretty superficial reasons, Raoul."
"When?"
"Iason's old minion, Kirie?"
"Who? Ah, yes. Superficial, now really! Manon Sol and Kirie took it upon themselves to wander into the Underworld without clearance, without a guard. Sol was catatonic when we found him; Kirie, a gibbering wreck; their parietal lobes were disintegrating. They were bloody lucky that's all that happened. If we hadn't found them–" Raoul left the sentence unfinished, but Katze refrained from leaping on it. He knew he hadn't been initiated that far into the Syndicate's secrets. He had always suspected there was something sinister beneath the first lower Guardian labyrinth.
The redhead's throat constricted. He remembered the lust in Kirie's odd-coloured eyes everytime the punk had looked at Iason, how he had oozed with greed and envy, how desperately he had wanted to take Riki's place. There was more behind those mind-wipes than fixing catatonic shock.
"If we didn't do this to you when you broke into the Syndicate's datastream," Raoul added, "why would we do it to an agent who has proven his value and usefulness?"
Shit! Shit! Shit! Perhaps he had seriously misjudged his—what was Raoul anyway? An employer? His master? A closet nice guy? Right, and that's why he was standing there with a long-distance electrocution pet-ring crimped over his ear. Sure enough, it always came down to the servitude angle, how useful he was to Raoul but, still, this was a far cry from sinister mind-killer.
"I'm assuming this was the reason behind your sudden morbidity."
Katze's voice was very small when he replied, "It isn't as though you haven't threatened me with a mind wipe before."
Raoul sighed and changed the subject. "I suppose you were too distraught to pay attention to the facility tour then. Pity, I was hoping you could fill me in on Hilarion's progress."
"Yeah, I was a little distracted." Still was. It was hard to shift gears from seeing someone as an omnipotent threat to almost a benefactor so suddenly. "I don't recall seeing your friend at all."
"They will be sharing a recovery module, since the Kalga is somewhat overwhelmed at present. It occurred to me that Hilarion was very kind to you, so he would not object to your friend's presence as the others would. Perhaps they can assist each other in their recovery."
In the ruin of his old apartment, Katze had been so sure that the Kalga 19 Elite Medical Facility would be so much more luxurious than Kalga 84 Medical Facility for Pets and Furniture. And, to a certain extent, it was. The main difference was that Elite physiology was inherently superior; they needed less sleep, less nourishment, less medicine, and their rooms were kept at a slightly lower temperature in accordance with their higher metabolisms. Equipment used for life support and recovery reflected this disparity. Even colour schemes were different, since the colours which tranquilized or stimulated the Elite tended to drop-kick ordinary humans whose physical energy was low into depression, or skittered them into anxiety and irrational rages. Had he stopped to think about it, Katze would've realized that Kalga 84 was not by design the inferior facility for Merc's requirements that he had presumed.
Until the medical response team, however, alerted to their arrival by Raoul's intervention, whisked Merc away to the surgical theatre, none of this became obvious to him. These observations had all been lost in the shock of learning about Merc's mind-wipe.
He suddenly recalled a glimpse of deep blue hair fanned out on a snowy white pillow and a particularly fine silk brocade robe hanging from a hook beside a bed.
"And since they've been involved in this present dilemma from the beginning, I hoped they might stimulate each other to find more answers," Raoul's voice sounded tired. "That does seem like too much to hope for, however."
"Hey, Raoul," Katze said suddenly, "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have jumped to conclusions. I'm really sorry."
"Hmm."
"I'm confused. Because up until two days ago, we had nothing to do with each other. Suddenly, I'm a fixture," if not in your life, at least in your plans, Katze continued silently. "So what's this all about?"
"Set it aside for now. I've got some other tasks lined up for you, jobs which require your—mmm, unique and special—talents. Right now I need you in that library. Get me everything you can lay your hands on, especially about this new Moebius Operational Ruction System, as quickly as you can. Alright, Katze?"
"Yeah, I'm on it." Katze took a deep breath and walked over the next bookcase. Once again, he had a Blondie guarding his back. Not just any Blondie, but the most powerful one of them all, the leader of the Tanaguran Syndicate. And such a beautiful man, the most celestial in all Tanagura. He remembered the heady days when he first started manipulating the Black Market under Iason's direction. It had felt just like this, a little bit thrilling, a little out of control, way out of his depth, and a lot like being alive.
So Katze still felt insecure about his situation. Raoul scowled, turning back to his terminal where the holostream of fate-web formulae scrolled across his screen. That was inconvenient. Subordinates who could not trust tended to be untrustworthy. He, himself, was not inclined to trust easily but, in his case, the concern was entirely warranted by his position. Katze had no real position. Any status he enjoyed depended solely on Raoul's grace. It was not his place to worry. Under other circumstances, it would be automatic to arrange a test of loyalty. It was interesting how necessity prevailed upon him to act in such new and unorthodox fashions, to follow his instincts rather than his training and methodology. Still, this could cause problems. Raoul pondered the best course of action.
Even the thought of Katze as a subordinate had started to gall him. Subordinate though he was most certainly in view of their society, what did that really matter between men as individuals? There were a few other superficial differences. Ultimately, it boiled down to lack of confidence, easy enough to amend. Although...
Did he really want Katze to feel balanced? Enough to act independently?
Raoul considered Katze's first appearance disguised as an Elite, the room's heightened electricity and desire. He was so beautiful, like a mythical creature, a phoenix in flames all golden red. Raoul wasn't the only Blondie who had wanted him.
Then there was the tail-end of that little interaction he had caught between Za-Zen Lau, and Katze. Raoul doubted the Steward of the Underworld held himself under the same constraints as the rest of the Elite; the horrors of his realm would reinforce that aspect of life which was so ephemeral, more so than in any other position in Tanagura. He wouldn't care that Katze was a Mongrel. Lau would seize both the day and Katze.
Ah, but given the choice, would Katze let him? At first appearance, Katze had seemed panicky and fearful, but what if Raoul had not been there? Was his desire reciprocated? Did Katze feel any sense of loyalty or gratitude? He had been delightfully responsive during the medical examination of his body, and he seemed to appreciate their one small sexual encounter, but what made Raoul think the attraction was personal?
A wave of heat pulsed across his face, constricting his throat. He pushed himself up from his chair and started to pace.
Perhaps some sort of test was in order after all.
He summoned Paviter over the comm-link.
"It isn't necessary for Katze to conduct that particular end of our research. Assemble a different group of discreet individuals to take over his project in Hilarion's library," he watched the Car's taciturn expression shift into one of smugness, yet another person who wasn't aware how transparent his thoughts and emotions were to Raoul. "His services are required here now."
The comm-link chimed just as he punched the disconnect button and Serge Renaud's face appeared onscreen, replacing Paviter's. "As you predicted, the androids are now disabled. We now control the Spaceport and all entries and departures."
"Excellent. Have you removed the quarantine shields as we discussed earlier?"
"Yes."
"And have you issued a notice that equipment failure and malfunction, not illness, was solely responsible for this event?"
"Yes, we've already done that as well. Your instructions were quite clear."
"There is something else?"
"A special request for permission to land from a foreign delegate. One which was so unusual, I thought it warranted your immediate attention."
"Oh?" Raoul noticed how Serge nervously moistened his lips. This must be an exceptional stranger indeed to so fluster this Elite, "Who?"
"A Priestess of Tenebrios."
"We have no embassy with Tenebrios." Raoul did not even blink. This appeared to unsettle the Platina even further.
"No," he agreed. "This delegation has been sent to establish one. They claim official status a humanitarian mission in response to the quarantine."
"Permission denied. As the quarantine is over, applications for humanitarian missions no longer apply. Even so, the delegate will not be authorized to land on Amoi or any of its colonies, not even as a private citizen or refugee. No one from Tenebrios or its colonies is to be admitted in any capacity. If Tenebrios desires an embassy, they must make a formal application through Florien Von's Ministry and arrange for treaties to occur in neutral space. Failure to comply will be construed as an act of hostility."
"Understood."
"Launch a trio of fighters to escort her to the boundaries of our space at the edge of the asteroid belt. If she attempts to land or tries evasive maneuvers, they are to destroy her ship. I want her out of our airspace and I want that message to be unmistakable."
The other man hesitated.
"Do you have a problem with this?"
"It's just that I'm in charge of customs, not defense."
"I have already extended my seal to the Port Authority. You are clear to act. Oh!—and Serge?"
"Yes?"
"Connect my terminal to the holostream when you extend these orders so that I can observe and record her reaction."
Serge was clearly surprised. Raoul could see the gears turning, connecting Tenebrios and its cult to the problems with Jupiter. It wouldn't do to get too complacent.
"At this time, we must restrict access to Offworlders." It was bad enough that so many of the smaller cities of Amoi had aligned themselves with the Federation. Until Raoul figured out what their role had been in Jupiter's collapse, he was determined to keep them at the greatest possible distance. "Our life support is tenuous. You understand our dilemma."
The Silver Elite straightened his shoulders and set his jaw. It was curious how much this almost subliminal response comforted Raoul. "Customs has legal measures for every contingency. I can snarl every entry application in so much red tape, they will have to wait off-world for weeks. Is this along the lines of what you have in mind?"
"Within discretion, Renaud. I think if you flat-out refuse all entry to pleasure tourists, snarl our trading partners in red-tape, and steer official delegates and ambassadors to Florien Von's Ministry on the Mistral Satellite Colony, our concerns will be met. After all, it is for their safety as well as our own security."
Serge snorted, "Xavier Rex has been having nose-bleeds over us all day. This is going to give him a brain hemorrhage."
"Now that is the best news I've heard all day," Tibór had silently entered the periphery of Raoul's vision, just enough to let him know where he was. "I must sign off. Remember my instructions regarding the Priestess and all Tenebrians, and to connect my terminal to the comm-link."
He signed off and turned to the Furniture.
"What is it, Tibór?"
"You asked me to remind you when it was time to prepare for your dinner with Sir Florien and Hazall."
Raoul cast a look of longing at the screen where the enigma of fate-webs awaited his attention. Was this the secret behind all those strings shooting out beneath the pianoforte? Did this have anything to do with the filaments that had corrupted the datastream transmission? He would rather work out this interesting puzzle like this, than meet with Hazall any day. Nor was this the last time he sorely missed Iason.
The Holocaust Piano – chapter 6 << >> The Holocaust Piano – chapter 8