Then something odd happened to Burdock. The first hint of it was his flawless navigation of the Mood Maze.
It was customary to sprinkle harmless entertainments and diversions through the nights of the Reunion. On the afternoon of the eight hundred and seventieth night, I opened the maze on one of the high balconies, with a modest prize for the line member who found their way through it the fastest. The maze would remain in existence until the nine hundredth night; time enough for everyone to have a try at it.
But the Mood Maze was no ordinary labyrinth. Based on a game I had discovered during my travels, a Mood Maze was sensitive to emotional states, which the maze detected using a variety of subtle cues and mildly invasive sensors. As long as one remained perfectly calm, a Mood Maze held a fixed geometry. But as soon as the walls detected the slightest suggestion of frustration, the geometry of the maze underwent a sly modification: walls and gaps moving to block one route and open up another. The more frustrated one became, the more tortuous the labyrinth made itself. Extremes of anger could even cause the maze to form a closed-loop around the hapless player, so that they had no choice to wander in circles until they calmed down. Needless to say, it was considered very bad form to enter a Mood Maze with anything other than baseline human intelligence. Extreme faculties of memory or spatial positioning had to be turned off before participation.
The Mood Maze was a pleasant enough diversion, and popular with most of those who took a chance on it. But I’d had more than that in mind when I set it up. I’d hoped that the maze would tell me something about Burdock’s state of mind, if only he would participate. Since it was voluntary, I couldn’t be accused of violating his mental privacy.
But when I ran the maze, Burdock sailed through it, with the walls registering hardly any change to his emotional state. Cheating could not be ruled out, though it was unlikely: a Mood Maze was designed to detect most forms of subterfuge and punish them accordingly. And if he had that much to hide, it would not have been hard to avoid the maze entirely.
What surprised me was the degree of frustration I saw in some of the other participants. When a group of Advocates wagered among themselves as to who would beat the maze the quickest, it was Fescue who ended up with the humiliation of being trapped in a closed-loop. His rage built to a crescendo until I tactfully intervened and allowed him an exit.
I greeted him as he left the maze. “Challenging little devil,” I said lightly, trying to calm things down.
“A childish little prank,” he said, spitting fury. “But then I shouldn’t have expected any better from you.”
“It’s just a game. You didn’t have to take part.”
“That’s all anything is to you, isn’t it? Just a game with no consequences.” He glanced at the other Advocates, who were looking on with amused expressions. “You have no idea what’s at stake here. Even if you did, you’d shrivel from any hint of responsibility.”
“All right,” I said, holding up my hands in defeat. “I’ll forbid you from taking part in any of my games. Will that make you happy?”
“What would make me happy…” Fescue began, before scowling and making to turn away.
“It’s Purslane, isn’t it,” I said.
He lowered his voice to a hiss. “I’ve given you fair warning. But to what purpose? You continue to associate with her to the exclusion of others. Your sexual relations verge on the monogamous. You spit on the traditions of the line.”
I kept my voice level, refusing to rise to his bait. “All this because of a maze, Fescue? I never had you down as quite that bad a loser.”
“You have no idea what is at stake,” he repeated. “Change is coming, Campion—violent, sudden change. The only thing that will hold the line together is self-sacrifice.”
“Is this about the Great Work?” I asked.
“It’s about duty,” he said. “Something you seem incapable of grasping.” He looked back at my maze, as it willing it to crumble to dust. “Keep playing with your toys, Campion. Fritter away your days in idleness and dissipation. Leave the important things to the rest of us.”
Fescue stalked off. I stood blinking, regretting the fact that I had mentioned the Great Work. Now my interest in it was known to at least one Advocate.
A hand touched my shoulder. “I see the old fart’s giving you a hard time again.”
It was Samphire, pushing into my personal space. Normally I would have edged away, but for once I relaxed in his presence, glad to unburden myself.
“I don’t think he was thrilled about the Mood Maze,” I said.
“Don’t take it personally. He’s been acting odd for weeks, giving everyone hard stares. What’s his problem?”
“Fescue doesn’t like me spending time with Purslane.”
“Only because the craggy bastard couldn’t get a shag out of her.”
“I think there’s a bit more to it than that. Fescue’s mixed up in something. You know what I mean, don’t you.”
Samphire kept his voice low. “No idea at all. Other than that it’s a work and it’s great. Are you any more clued up about it than me?”
“I doubt it,” I said. “But whatever it is, Fescue think it’s a lot more important than the kind of lazy, self-indulgent things Purslane and I tend to get up to.”
“Has he tried to rope you in?”
“Not sure. I can’t work out whether he totally disapproves of me on every level, or whether he’s just bitterly disappointed that I waste so much potential talent.”
“Well, I wouldn’t lose any sleep over it. Fescue’s just a wasted old bore. His strand didn’t exactly set the island ringing, did it?”
“Nor did mine.”
“Difference is Fescue obviously expected more. Between you and me…” Samphire hesitated and looked around. “I think he was just a tiny bit economical with the facts.”
I frowned. “You’re saying he fiddled his strand?”
“A few details here and there. We came close to meeting around the Hesperus Veiclass="underline" near enough to exchange recognition protocols.”
I nodded. There’d been a supernova near the Hesperus Veil, and a number of us had planned close approaches to it. “That’s not enough to prove that he lied, though.”
“No,” Samphire said. “But according to his strand he skipped the Veil altogether. Why lie about that? Because either before or after that he was somewhere else he didn’t want us to know about. Probably somewhere a lot less exciting than the places that showed up in his strand.”
I felt a tingling sensation, wondering if Fescue might also be implicated in the Burdock business. Could the two of them be accomplices?
“That’s a pretty heavy accusation,” I said, my mind reeling.
“Oh, I’m not going to make anything of it. I’ve already edited down my own strand so as not to embarrass him. Let him trip himself up. He’s bound to do it one of these days.”
“I suppose you’re right,” I said, not quite able to suppress my disappointment. The idea of seeing Fescue publicly humiliated—revealed as fabricating chunks of his strand—tasted shamefully delicious.
“Don’t let him get to you too much,” Samphire said. “He’s just a sad old man with too much time on his hands.”
“The funny thing,” I said, “is that he’s no older than the rest of us.”
“He acts old. That’s all that matters.”
Samphire’s revelation improved my mood, and I took great delight in telling Purslane what I had learned. Robbed of their sting, Fescue’s warnings only emboldened the two of us. Time and again, as covertly as we dared, we met aboard her ship and discussed what we had learned.
It was there that I mentioned Burdock’s swift passage through the maze.