His face hardened. "A composition which, after it's been run through the proper chemo-mathematical transforms, shows a remarkable resemblance to the neural network pattern we took from you today."
I didn't know what half those words meant. But they sounded ominous. "What does that mean?" I asked.
"It means that the 'gift' your friend Tawnikakalina gave you isn't a gift," he said bluntly. "It's a weapon."
I gazed out the window at the black sky over the city, my empty stomach feeling suddenly sick. A weapon. From Tawni? "No," I said, looking back at the Convocant. "No, I can't believe that, sir. Tawni wouldn't do something like that to me. She couldn't."
He snorted contemptuously. "This from your long and exhaustive experience with different cultures, no doubt?"
"No, but—"
"You'll be trying to tell me next that it's the Kailth who are behind it all," he went on. "And that the verloren artists themselves have no idea whatsoever what it is they've created with these calices of theirs."
I grimaced. I had indeed been wondering exactly along those lines. Hearing it put that way, it did sound vaguely ridiculous.
"No, it's a grand plot, all right," Devaro went on darkly. "And if the Kailth are taking ten percent of the verlorens' calices every year, they must be using them pretty extensively. Maybe as a prelude to all their conquests." He shook his head wonderingly. "Artwork used as a weapon. What an insidious concept."
I shook my head. "I'm sorry, but I still don't understand. What is the calix doing?"
Devaro sighed, swiveling his display back around toward him. "We don't know for sure. If we had a brainscan record for you prior to your trip to Quibsh—but we don't. All we have to go on is this." He waved a hand at the display. "And what this says is that, through your contact with the wood fibers, the calix is changing you into something that matches its own pre-set matrix. Turning you into God alone knows what."
The room seemed suddenly very cold. "But I don't feel any different," I protested. "I mean... I should feel something. Shouldn't I?"
He leaned back in his seat and steepled his fingertips together. "You ever try to cook a frog?" he asked. "Probably not. Doubt anyone has, really, but it makes a good story. They say that if you drop a live frog into a pot of boiling water, it'll hop right out again. But if you put it in cold water and slowly heat the pot to boiling, the frog just sits there until it cooks. It can't detect the slow temperature change. You see?"
I saw, all right. "Is that what the calix is doing? Slow-cooking me?"
He shrugged. "It's trying. Whether it's going to succeed... that we don't yet know."
The room fell silent again. I stared out the window, mentally taking inventory of my mind, the way you would poke around your skin checking for bruises. I still couldn't find anything that felt strange.
But then, maybe the calix hadn't heated the water up enough. Yet. "Why me?" I asked.
"A mistake, obviously," Devaro said. "The Kailth probably assumed you'd give the calix to Convocant Sutherlan instead of keeping it for yourself. Or else they thought you were more important than you really are, though how they could make that kind of blunder I don't know."
"So what do we do?" I asked. "Do we—" I hesitated "—destroy the calix?"
He eyed me closely. "Is that what you want?"
"I—" I broke off, the quick answer sticking unexpectedly in my throat. Of course we should destroy it—the thing was clearly dangerous. And yet, I felt oddly reluctant to make such a decision. It was such a magnificent piece of art.
And it had been a gift from Tawni.
"Actually, it's a moot point," Devaro said into my indecision. "I'm not sure destroying it would do any good. The places where you hold the calix have clearly had the greatest effect on you; but you said yourself you've touched other spots on it, so you've probably already picked up at least some of the programming embedded there."
Programming. The word sent a shiver up my back. "What are we going to do?"
"Three things," Devaro said. "First of all, we don't panic. You've been affected, but we're on to them now, so we can keep an eye on you. Second, we need to get more information on these calices in general." He cocked an eyebrow.
"Which means you're going to have to go back to Quibsh and get us some more of them."
I felt my mouth drop open. "Back to Quibsh?"
"You have to," Devaro said, his voice quiet but compelling. "You've met the people there—you're the only one who can pretend it's just a social visit.
Moreover, they gave you a calix, so it's reasonable you'd be back to buy more as gifts."
This was coming a little too fast. "Gifts?"
"Certainly." Devaro smiled slyly. "What better way to guarantee their cooperation than to tell them you want calices to give to prominent members of the Convocation?"
There was a tone at the door, and a rollcart came in with two covered dishes on it. "Ah—dinner has arrived," Devaro announced, standing up and pointing the rollcart toward one side of the room where a bench table was now unfolding itself from the wall. "Let's eat before it gets cold."
"Yes, sir," I said, sliding off the rolltable and heading over. The delectable aromas rising from the plates made my stomach hurt even more. "You said there were three things we were going to do."
"Yes, I did," he said, setting the plates onto opposite ends of the table.
"The third thing is for us to learn exactly what the calix's programming does.
Unfortunately, core samples and structural analyses can get us only so far.
Which leaves only one practical approach."
I nodded. I'd already guessed this one. "You want me to keep the calix," I said.
"And let it keep doing whatever it's doing to me."
"We'll start that phase as soon as you get back from Quibsh," Devaro said. "But don't worry, we'll be with you every step of the way. We'll take a complete brainscan once a week—more often if it seems justified—as well as monitoring your general health."
It made sense, I supposed. It was also about as unpleasant a prospect as I'd ever faced in my whole life. "What about my work?"
"This is your work from now on," Devaro said. "You're on my staff now—I made the arrangements with Sutherlan earlier today."
"I see," I said, walking over to the table. The aromas didn't smell quite so good anymore.
"You have to do this, Markand," Devaro said quietly. It was, as near as I could remember, the first time he'd ever called me by my name. "It's the only way we're going to get a handle on this Kailth plot. The only way to protect the UnEthHu."
I sighed. "Patriotism. You found my weak spot, all right."
"It's a weak spot many of us have," Devaro said. He gestured to the table.
"Come; let's eat. We still have a great many things to discuss." Four days later, I was back on Quibsh.
I'd spent the whole trip worrying about how I was going to hide from Tawni the sudden change in the way I now perceived her and her people. No longer as friends, but as enemies.
Fortunately, the issue never came up. I'd barely stepped out of the half-wing into the late afternoon sunlight when Tawni was there in front of me, all but knocking me over as she threw herself into an enthusiastic full-body hug, chattering away in my ear in an exuberant jumble of Anglish and her own language. When she finally broke free and took my hand a half dozen of her people had joined us, and amid a general flurry of greetings we all tromped together down to the village. By the time we got there, I found myself slipping back into the old friendly, easygoing mode.
But only on the surface. Beneath the smiles and pleasantries I was on nervous and cautious guard, seeing everything here with new eyes. Behind every verloren face I now searched for evidence of hidden cunning; beneath every word strained to hear a tell-tale echo of deceit.
And yet, even as I tried to keep Devaro's stern face in front of me as inspiration, I could feel doubts draining my resolve away. Either their deceit was so ingrained, so expertly hidden that I couldn't detect even a breath of it, or else Devaro's assessment about them was wrong. Perhaps they were indeed just as they appeared, open and honest and innocent. Perhaps they really didn't know what the calices did, or else the programming aspect was something the Kailth had covertly introduced into the original design.