Breyguhn had said she thought he was a wizard and had had every grain of dust numbered and filed. She delighted in moving things from drawer to drawer and cupboard to cupboard and room to room, trying to confuse him when the others came running back, breathless with the news that he was wrong.
Sharrow couldn’t honestly claim that she remembered Bencil Dornay himself; he had been sent to college before she was born, and if they had ever met, she had quite forgotten the occasion.
Dornay senior must have been in Gorko’s genetic thrall for over four decades by then. The code that would-according to Breyguhn-tell Sharrow where the Universal Principles was had been added to the message in his cells shortly before Gorko had fallen; just by the very act of fathering him, Dornay senior had passed that message on to his son, where it waited now-if Breyguhn was right-half a century later.
And all it needed-she thought, with a kind of bitterness was a kiss.
Sharrow turned and walked to the far end of the lounge, where a glassed-in terrace looked out onto an ocean of cloud. The others sat watching a bolo-screen.
“Well?” Miz said, attempting to guide her into a chair. She gave an exasperated tut, waving his arm away, and sat in another seat.
“What’s the news?” she nodded at the screen, where a map showed what looked like a schematic of a war.
“The Huhsz are playing things down,” Cenuij said. “They’ve apologised for the accident on the train; said some munitions went off accidentally; denying there was any attack. They say the Passports will be initiated to a few days’ time, after a period of mourning for the Blessed Ones killed on the train.”
“Hey,” Zefla said to Sharrow. “We saw that house you had on the island. It looked really nice.”
“Thanks,” Sharrow said. “Still standing, was it?”
“Dammit, Sharrow; what did the doctor say?” Miz said.
She shrugged, looking at the war-map in the screen. “There is something in there.” She tapped her head. “In here.”
“Oh no,” Zefla breathed.
“What, exactly?” Cenuij said, sitting forward.
“Some crystal virus, probably,” Sharrow said, looking round them. “Just a molecule thick, most places, growing round and into my brainstem. One thread disappears down my spine and ends up in my right foot. The rest branch…”, she shrugged, “into the rest of my skull.”
“Gods, Sharrow,” Zefla breathed.
“A crystal virus,” Cenuij said, eyes wide. “That’s war-tech.” He glanced at the corridor leading to the elevator. “How did that old duffer know-?”
“That old duffer knows what he’s talking about,” Sharrow said. “And he’s got all the best gear. He mediced for the Free Traders’ navy on Trontsephori during the Barge War, and he volunteered to help metaplegics after the Five Per Cent. He didn’t know what he was looking for-I don’t know he even believed me-but he kept looking and it showed up on an NMR scan. The doc wants me to visit a specialist hospital for more tests; I said I’d think about it.”
“Will they be able to take it out?” Miz asked, looking worried. “Operate or… something?”
Sharrow shook her head.
“Not that stuff,” Cenuij said, obviously impressed. “It grows less than a centimetre a month, but once it’s in, it’s in. To take it out you’d need the original virus, and that’ll be locked back up in a Court compound in some military habitat. If there’s another war the Court thinks justifies the escalation you might see it again. Not until.”
“Couldn’t we steal it?” Miz said.
“Are you mad?” Cenuij asked him.
Dloan shook his head. “Tricky,” he said.
Zefla put one hand to her mouth, staring at Sharrow, her eyes bright.
“So that’s what was picking up the long-wave signal from the doll,” Cenuij said, staring straight ahead and nodding. “A crystal virus.” He gave a small laugh and looked at Sharrow. “Shit, yes, that’s all you’d need. If it was put in while you were in hospital on the Ghost it’s had long enough to grow right down the length of your body; the strand into your foot must be the aerial. The lattice could itself sit there forever and you’d never notice; probably pulls less power than an iris; then the right code comes along and zap!”
“Ouch, might be a better description,” Sharrow said.
“And using the long-wave,” Cenuij said. “Perfect; you don’t need much definition, and it’ll penetrate…”
“So these signals come from the comm net,” Zefla said. “Satellites and shit?” Cenuij didn’t reply; he was staring out at the carpet of cloud beyond the sun-bright terrace outside. Sharrow nodded. Zefla spread her hands. “Can’t we find out who’s sending the signals?”
“You’ll be lucky,” Dloan said.
“Out of the question,” Cenuij said, dismissing the idea with a wave of the hand.
“Well, how the hell do we stop it?” Miz said loudly. “We can’t let that happen again!”
“Live in a mineshaft, maybe,” Cenuij suggested. “Or find somewhere off-net. Though even off-net, if somebody knew where you were they could beam a signal at you; that doll they had in the tanker was just a close-range transmitter…”
“How about a pain-disruptor collar?” Zefla asked.
“Forget it,” Cenuij said. He made a tutting noise. “Damn, I’d like to have talked to that old doe.” He pulled his phone from his pocket. “Wonder if I should call him?”
“Ask him tomorrow night,” Sharrow told him. “He’s coming to the party.”
“That still on?” Miz asked.
“Why not?” Sharrow shrugged, looking at where Bencil Dornay had escorted the doctor towards the elevator. “He’s only inviting people he trusts, and he isn’t telling anybody we’re here.” She smiled at Miz. “He really wanted to throw a party in our honour; I couldn’t refuse.”
Miz looked sceptical.
“Will you do it then?” Cenuij asked her with a strange, unsettling smile.
She looked at his thin, inquiring face. “Yes, Cenuij; I’ll do it then.”
Zefla got out of her seat and knelt by Sharrow’s, hugging her. “You poor kid; you’re in the wars, aren’t you?”
Sharrow put a hand through Zefla’s ringleted hair, fingertips touching her scalp. “Actually, a war sounds like just what I need, right now.”
She stood in her room, facing the mirror, her underclothes and dress lying on the bed behind her, the lights on full. She gazed at herself. There was still some slight bruising on her knees from when she’d fallen in the tank in the Log-Jam, though the hint of discoloration on her forehead from the same fall had gone. There was a cut on her shoulder, from the karst, and two broken nails where her hand had gripped the hand-hold in the pool that morning.
She put her arms above her head, watching her breasts rise, then lower as she dropped her arms again. She turned side-on, relaxing, and frowned at the bulge of her belly. She stared at her thighs in the mirror, then looked down at them, wondering if they were getting lumpy yet. She couldn’t see anything. Maybe her eyesight was going.
She had never undergone any type of alteration-apart from orthodontic work when she was a child-and never used any anti-geriatric drug, legal or otherwise. She had sworn she never would. But now, even before there were any obvious signs of age on her body, she thought she knew how older people must feel; that desire not to change, not to deteriorate. Was it simply that she wanted to remain attractive? She gazed into her own eyes.