Queen of Angels Page 14

  The explorer rolls right up to a tower, raps it gently with a grasping arm and records the sound made by the rap, waits for some response, receives none, pivots a resonance disruptor into place, and abrades a four gram sample of the material into a cup. It lases the contents of the cup to white heat and analyzes the material.

  AXIS (Band 4)> These structures appear quite dull and so they interest me. Are they memorials or artworks? They seem to do nothing. Roger, I try to decide what you would think they are, and I believe you will be as puzzled as I am.

  My explorers are taking soil and atmosphere samples everywhere they have landed. My balloons spread through the atmosphere, patiently surveying.

  The planet is covered with basic photosynthesizing plant life; chlorophyll B is the pigment of choice for about seventy percent of the plants; a pigment similar to visual purple is used at least in part by the rest. There are no apparent animal forms and no mobile plant forms. Microorganisms are limited to non-nucleated cells and viral agglomerates.

  The circles of towers could not have been constructed by any of these apparent land based life forms.

  Roger, where have the builders gone? Your voice within me is inadequate; I do not know what you will think about this.

  David Shine: “Well, Mr. Atkins, what do you think about this?” Atkins: “Good Lord, I haven’t a pico. I’ll pass that on to the real experts…and to Jill, who no doubt is considering the broad possibilities even as we speak.”

  They ripped the white from the tricolure, and what a wonderful thing that was! Your flag now blue and red, all white removed. I have wished I could rip the white from my own soul, but I cannot. Perhaps it is because I am truly white inside. Perhaps all humans, whatever their color, are white inside, with all that means—the grasping for money, security, comfort, progress, comfort, safe sex, safe love, safe literature, safe politics. I would kill anyone who proved that to me, though. I would kill myself before believing it.

  21

  Mary Choy keyed in her security number at the old armored pd terminal in the deep shade jag neighborhood once called Inglewood, surrounding the easternmost foot of South Comb One. She inquired whether or not citizens or any pd informants had reported seeing Goldsmith; thin soup with her near rejection by Oversight. None had.

  For the moment, Mary Choy was fairly assured that Goldsmith had either fled before the alerts—immediately after the murders—or gone to ground. And where would he go to ground? What private citizen in the shadows even among the untherapied would give him shelter knowing the sure interest of the Selectors, not to mention the pd? Who among the comb dwellers would do something so unsocial as harbor a mass murderer?

  Too many questions and no clear trail. It was becoming obvious that a trip to Hispaniola and a federally encouraged interview with Yardley’s representatives if not Yardley himself was inevitable.

  To that end, she called Ernest Hassida from her lapel phone.

  “Mary, I’m busy sculpting…call you back?”

  “No need. Just make arrangements for me to meet your contacts on Hispaniola.”

  “You’re scanning blank?”

  “No clues.”

  “This is Christmas Eve, my dear. My contacts are very religious people…But I’ll give it a try. I’m doing this reluctantly, I repeat. It will not be safe. Even tonight, you’ll have to be your most discreet, Mary dear.”

  She stood by the black cylindrical terminal half seeing its odd scrapes and dings and other city abrasions and wondered why the prospect of a trip to Hispaniola bothered her so much. If she were truly of the comb she might enjoy a trip to the relatively safe sins of Yardley’s nation. But she was not. She was pd and external to safety. She knew LA and the surrounding territory; she did not know Hispaniola.

  Christmas Eve. She had forgotten. Brief picture: a three meter farm tree in suburban Irvine gaudy with tinsel and blown art glass, a bright hologram star twinkling and beaming at the top, casting light through the high ceilinged family room, brother Lee running his electric car at her while she tried to hit his plastic shoulder harness with a grainy spot of red light from her pistol. Even then pd masculine mentality.

  Lee would appreciate Christmas. Last she heard, he was working a Christian commune refuge in Green Idaho. She blinked and cleared the images. Christmas had passed in more ways than one; she was no more a part of her family now than she was a Christian.

  By tomorrow morning Christmas Day she would probably be on her way to Hispaniola.

  She glanced around the deep shade, looked up at the gray black and orange of the foot at the tiny sparkles of Meissner efficacy warning lights. Mirrors on north and east combs across the city changed position preparing for night, and this jag neighborhood came into its allotted dusk.

  Mary Choy hooked a ride on a passing pd transport mini-bus and sat sipping coffee and talking with fellow pd while waiting for a traffic knot to ease. She tried to relax and ease her own jam of discouragement, the tightness that came when she was truly scanning blank.

  “You’re on Goldsmith, aren’t you?” asked a walk duty officer she had tutored during his rookie month, Ochoa, big Hispanic with broad face and dark calm eyes. He sat across from her with his partner, a lightweight wiry Anglo female named Evans.

  “Am indeed,” she said.

  Ochoa nodded wisely. “I thought you should know. There’s word down in Silverlake that Goldsmith was contract murdered by a big man, father of one of the victims.”

  She regarded him dubiously.

  “That’s the word,” he said. “I don’t vouch for any of it, I just pass it on.”

  Mary’s turn to nod wisely. Ochoa gave her a small smile. “You don’t believe it?”

  “He’s alive,” she said.

  “Much more satisfying to bring them back alive,” Ochoa agreed. His partner leaned her head to one side.

  “Or bring them down yourself,” Evans said. Ochoa made a face of official disapproval.

  “So therapy me,” Evans said.

  Mary defocused and blindsaw them, thinking, prying up mental rocks to see the bugs of ideas beneath.

  Maybe there was something to the word in Silverlake. Perhaps someone was hiding Goldsmith, a literary connection. A loyal reader even in the combs among the therapied might go that far, exercising a free spirit of doubt about social justice. Her anger grew. She wanted to take this hypothetical loyal reader doubtful of society and justice and push him or her into the frozen apartment to see the sights. Hypothetical dialogue: Yes but can you prove it was Goldsmith.

  Not much doubt.

  Scientific analysis. How reliable is that? Relying on machines to convict a man without a jury.

  No conviction here. Jury comes later. Just need to find him.

  The hypothetical doubter expressed a disbelief in pd tactics, equated them with Raphkind’s political thugs, sneered at the excesses of law and order. Wild healthy USA infuriating doubt. The expression of Ochoa’s Anglo partner: Bring them down yourself. Only way of being sure. Unless a Selector gets to your miscreant first.

  Her lapel phone chimed and she put aside her coffee.

  “Mary, this is Ernest. I have your interview. Tonight late, twenty-two, and it’s in a comb so you should be reasonably safe.”

  “Are your contacts in refuge?”

  “They must be, but I don’t know hows or whys. Powerful connections. You promise not to ask me how I know them.” Not a question, a demand.

  “I promise.”

  He gave her the numbers and she noted them on her pocket slate. The minibus moved up a service tunnel into pd Central and dropped her off. Ochoa regarded her solemnly through the curved window. On impulse she flashed him a girlish grin and waved with her splayed fingers. Ochoa frowned and turned away.

  In her small permanent office hung three framed prints—Parrish, El Greco and Daumier—given to her by a lover years past. On hinges, they covered the usual metro displays which carried status boards that gave city sense to all pd. She opened the pri
nts wide now and spent a few minutes staring at the boards, biting her lower lip.

  Just a tourist sojourn. But the idea of meeting with Colonel Sir John Yardley under compulsion of federal powers mainland…

  She closed the door, propped up an antique round makeup mirror on the narrow desktop and unzipped her belt cinch, pulling down pants and shorts and inspecting the crease of her buttocks. Still blanched. Maybe she would revert all the way. What would Sumpler have to say then? The thought or perhaps the touch of cold on her ass made her shiver. Murmuring irritation, she zipped up and put away the mirror.

  Dinner hour coming. She could call it in from the downstairs kitchens, good nanofood, or she could take her slate out, loaded with a full pd library file on Haiti, and eat and research in a private booth in some expensive comb restaurant on the way.

  She chose the latter loaded her slate through the office terminal left a message with Dr. Sumpler’s office that would undoubtedly not get processed until after the holidays and departed, noting on the outside message board that she would not be back for at least a week.

  Darkness is the home that when you go there you wont admit you know it.

  22

  West Comb Two had a reputation. It was common among citizens of the shade to hold a stereotyped view of comb dwellers: staid respectable always calm and dull. But West Comb Two north of Santa Monica overlooking Pacific Palisades, one of the most expensive and exclusive combs in LA, was the locus of LitVid industry workers as well as the comb of choice for all propmedia creators. It also happened to be the neighborhood of employment agency executives and actors, those who sold their images and personalities for LitVid Hand—a queer translingual pun derived first from manipulation through Spanish mano to the English. When you were Handed, you were given royalties for whatever your ghost did—a computer generated image usually indistinguishable from the real thing. Some of the Handed retained choice of use, face or body rights; others sold all.

  Few LitVids chanced real actor performances or even appearances now much less real settings; the LitVid entertainment sector and even much of the documentary sector was in the control of the multitalented unseen gods of the machine image. Consequently the Handed were by and large rich enough and with sufficient leisure time to do whatever they chose whether it was ramp up into eloi status and play endless law yabber with pd and courts or engage in experimental politics.

  West Comb Two was home to some of the strangest therapied and naturals in LA. Every city had to have such, even a city whose elite shunned destructive eccentricity. Employment agency executives loved to shed their longsuit broker images by associating with the Handed and other therapied and natural extremes.

  Mary Choy had dealt with a good many citizens of this comb, especially in her early years in the pd. Rookies were often assigned to comb patrol here because the work was rough the demands huge and the physical dangers minimal. What was more, these comb citizens had considerable power in government; dealing with them required delicacy and diplomacy.

  Had she not already known, Mary would have guessed Ernest was leading her to West Comb Two; she did not yet dispel the possibility that Goldsmith himself was kept in hiding here.

  Ernest met her on the comb’s first foot in a ten-hectare esplanade beside the comb’s lower reservoir. He sat at a waterside table watching spotlighted fountains take on abstract and fantasy shapes: tonight they were duplicating the stolid dark tower images seen on AXIS transmissions.

  Three longsuited men surrounded Ernest, all comb citizens all mild transforms. To her eye they appeared to be high level agency execs. They appeared reasonably normal but instinct and empathy told her their interiors were a maze of customization. Prime candidates for legal triple century extension; possibly eloi. Very likely they were augmented mentally as well as physically. Oddly she felt uncomfortable around this variety of transform. She would never in her entire life earn as much money as they might amass in a month.

  “No names,” Ernest said by way of introduction. “That’s agreed.”

  “Agreed.”

  One of the men brought up a palmsized security slate and read out the pd equipment on her person. “Deactivate and hand it all over, please.” She removed her lapel phone and camera. The man took it and studied her face from the distance of a few feet, his eyes ice blue and startling in his smooth brown skin. “Lovely work. You’re not augmented. If you ran with us and didn’t waste your time with pd you could change whatever you wanted. Anything.”

  Mary agreed that was possible. Employment agency executives were given much less leeway in many respects than other classes of executive, however; their financial records were swept weekly. The attrition for top executives within any given three year stretch was more than a third. Their lives were not easy. So how could these keep up appearances and run radical games sheltering Hispaniola illegals? Kilter here.

  The blue eyed man detached himself from his two companions and waved his index finger around one shoulder. Ernest and Mary should follow. Mary glanced back at the remaining two and saw that one was now a woman. Anger mixed with increased concern. Very expensive deceptions had been played. Expensive and illegal; she should have expected nothing less.

  They were probably not west coasters or comb inhabitants at all. Suddenly she smelled the dirty east, Raphkind refugees, crumbs from the spoiled feast. She focused on the blue eyed man, paying Ernest no attention at all. He didn’t mind. He had warned her and he was right; she would have to be very discreet.

  The blue eyed longsuit ordered a transport for them and a blocky white cab arrived on a slaveline. These cabs could fit into most of the combs’ expressways, traveling in three dimensions along the propulsive tracks. Automatic, comb monopoly, unregulated by recently passed metro law; no records. Where comb citizens went was their own concern.

  Having inserted his card the blue eyed longsuit could tell the cab what to do and he ordered its windows opaque and its map display turned off. “We’ll be there shortly,” he said. “Ernest was right, M Choy. You’re really quite entertaining.”

  She had no trouble meeting his eyes. He turned away after sufficient time to prove the contest was juvenile. The cab stopped and they disembarked into a rear apartment service way. The addresses had been sprayed over with Day-Glo orange paint. A view through a distant open airway told her they were about a kilometer up the side of the comb. They were on the west face overlooking blue Pacific. Since the comb segments swung about day and night she could not use angle for clues. Besides she had agreed and would keep her agreement; the challenge was more than she could ignore, however.

  “This way, please.” The longsuit stepped up to the rear door and it opened. Inside were three blacks: two men, one immensely fat, the other shorter bull necked and more muscular, face like a little boy’s; and an amazonish woman. They lounged before a broad picture window overlooking the northwest, the minute blocky galaxies of lights below West Comb Two and the Canoga Tower clear through the cool still late evening air.

  The tall athletically handsome woman stood, hair cut close to her skull broad shoulders draped in a handmade flame red and yellow cotton print dress that hung loose and graceful to her feet. The blue eyed longsuit kissed her on one cheek. Again no introductions were made.

  “You have questions,” the woman said with sharp disdain. “We are bored. Brighten our evening for us. We are told Ernest is a wonderful artist and that for our meeting with you, he will donate a piece to our cause.”

  Mary looked around the room and slowly smiled. Ernest’s ingenuity impressed her more each month. “All right,” she said. “You are from Hispaniola?”

  “She wants to know about Colonel Sir,” the large woman said to her companions. “Tell her what you know.”

  “Because of Colonel Sir, there is no home in Hispaniola,” said the immensely fat black man. He wore a gray and brown print cotton longsuit urbane and tropical at once. “You tell that to your missy.” He gestured for Ernest to pass the word along to Ma
ry as if she might need plain English translated. “The faith is weak, the shrines ignored; like all the others, Yardley he plays at being Baron Samedi, but he is not. We thought he was a noir blanc, black white man, black in his guts, but he is a blanc de blanc, white clear through, and now Hispaniola is blanc.” The fat man again made his lip curl appraisal. “This woman is not black,” he said matter of factly to Ernest and the large woman. “Why does she want to look black? She fools nobody.”

  Ernest grinned at Mary. He was enjoying this. “She likes the color.”

  “You say there’s no faith on Hispaniola,” Mary said. “Tell me why.”

  “When Yardley came in, there had been five years of oppression from blancs in Cuba. Five years they had torn the island between them and killed the houngans, burned the honfours and banished the loas. They knew where the power lies, who the peoples follow. Like trying to kill an anthill. Then, heavens to glory!—as always happens, rose a general from within, Haitian, General De Franchines, man of vision, man of honor, and he made pacts with the kings and queens and bishops, turned mobs into armies and burned out the Cubans.

  “But the USA blancs they support the Cubans and the Dominicans, so General De Franchines hired Zimbabwe soldiers and brought in an English gunman, once knighted by King Charles, and this gunman, he sees the sweet land, the opportunity, he has a plan. He turns on De Franchines, he turns the people against our general, he becomes general but never calls himself that, and he fights in the field like a soldier. He is a good soldier and the Cubans they flee and the Dominican egalistes, they take refuge in Puerto Rico and Cuba, and the USA they recognize this Colonel Sir who puts his rank before his knighthood. Maybe before his manhood too.” The fat man smiled at Mary, an ingratiating fey smile unexpected in the bulk. He wore six thick plain gold bands on his right hand. “Colonel Sir John Yardley, hero to the people. Maybe to us, too, back then. We were children, what did we know. He brought money and doctors and food. He taught us to live in this century, and to please our visitors who brought more money.