"Blish, James - A Hero's Life" - читать интересную книгу автора (Blish James)

'But how do I reach you thereafter?'

'That information,' Simon said blandly, 'will cost you those other two riyals, and cheap at the price.'

III

The Rood-Prince's brain-dictation laboratory was very far from being up to Guild standards, let alone High Earth's, but Simon was satisfied that the documents he generated there would pass muster. They were utterly authentic, and every experienced traitor had a feeling for that quality, regardless of such technical deficiencies as blurry image registration and irrelevant emotional overtones.

That done, Simon began to consider how he would meet Da-Ud when the game had that much furthered itself. The arrangement he had made with the play woman's half-brother was of course a blind, indeed a double blind, but it had to have the virtues of its imperfections or nothing would be accomplished. Yet Simon was now beginning to find it hard to think; the transduction serum was increasingly taking hold, and there were treasons taking place inside his skull which had nothing to do with Boadicea, the Green Exarch or High Earth. Worse: they seemed to have nothing to do with Simon de Kuyl, either, but instead muttered away about silly little provincial intrigues nothing could have brought him to care about - yet which made him feel irritated, angry, even ill, like a man in the throes of jealousy toward some predecessor and unable to reason them away. Knowing their source, he fought them studiously, but he knew they would get steadily worse, however resolute he was; they were coming out of his genes and his bloodstream, not his once finely honed, now dimming conciousness.

Under the circumstances, he was not going to be able to trust himself to see through very many highly elaborate schemes, so that it would be best to eliminate all but the most necessary. Hence it seemed better, after all, to meet Da-Ud in the Principate as arranged, and save the double dealing for more urgent occasions.

On the other hand, it would be foolish to hang around the Principate, waiting and risking some miscarriage - such as betrayal through a possible interrogation of Da-Ud - when there were things he might be accomplishing elsewhere. Besides, the unvarying foggy warmth and the fragmented garish religiousness of the Principate both annoyed him and exercised pulls of conflicting enthusiasms and loyalties on several of his mask personalities, who had apparently been as unstable even when whole as their bits and pieces had now made him. He was particularly out of sympathy with the motto graven on the lintel of the Rood-Prince's vaguely bird-shaped palace: JUSTICE IS LOVE. The sentiment, obviously descended from some colonial Islamic sect, was excellent doctrine for a culture given to treason, for it allowed the prosecution of almost any kind of betrayal on the grounds that Justice was being pursued; but Simon found it entirely too pat. Besides, he was suspicious of all abstractions which took the form 'A is B', in his opinion, neither justice nor mercy were very closely related to love, let alone being identical with it.

These bagatelles aside it seemed likely to Simon that something might be gained by returning for a while to Druidsfall and haunting the vicinity of the Guild Hall. At the worst, his address would then be unknown to Da-Ud, and his anonymity more complete in a larger city, the Guild less likely to identify him even were it to suspect him - as of course it would - of such boldness. At best, he might pick up some bit of useful information, particularly if Da-Ud's embassy were to create any unusual stir.

For a while he saw nothing unusual which was in itself fractionally reassuring: either the Guild was not alarmed by Da-Ud, or was not letting it show. On several days in succession, Simon saw the Boadicean Traitor-in-Chief enter and leave, sometimes with an entourage, more often with only a single slave: Valkol The Polite', a portly, jowly man in a black abah decorated only by the Clasp, with a kindly and humorous expression into which were set eyes like two bites of an iceberg. This was normal, although it gave Simon a small, ambiguous frisson which was all the more disturbing because he was unsure which of his personae he should assign it to: certainly not to his fundamental self, for although Valkol was here the predestined enemy, he was no more formidable that others Simon had defeated (while, it was true, being in his whole and right mind).

Then Simon recognized the 'slave', and ran.

There was no possibility of his identifying who the creature was; he was fortunate - in no way he could explain - to be able to penetrate just to what it was. The 'slave' was a vombis, or what in one of the oldest languages was called a Proteus, a creature which could imitate perfectly almost any life-form within its size range. Or nearly perfectly; for Simon, like one in perhaps five thousand of his colleagues, was sensitive to them, without ever being able to specify in what particular their imitations of humanity were deficient; other people, even those of the sex opposite to the one the vombis assumed, could find no flaw in them. In part because they do not revert when killed, no human had ever seen their 'real' form - if they had one - though of course there were legends aplenty. The talent might have made them ideal double agents, were it possible to trust them - but that was only an academic speculation since the vombis were wholly creatures of the Green Exarch.

Simon's first impulse, like that of any other human being, had been to kill this one instantly upon recognition, but that course had many obvious drawbacks. Besides, the presence of an agent of the Exarchy so close to the heart of this imbroglio was suggestive and might be put to some use. Of course the vombis might be in Druidsfall on some other business entirely, but Simon would be in no hurry to make so dangerous an assumption. No, it was altogether more likely that the Exarch, who could hardly have heard yet of Simon's arrival and disgrace, was simply aware in general of how crucial Boadicea would be to any scheme of High Earth's - he was above all an efficient tyrant - and had placed his creature here to keep an eye on things.

Yes, that situation might be used, if Simon could just keep his disquietingly percolating brains under control. Among his present advantages was the fact that his disguise was better than that of the vombis, a fact the creature was probably constitutionally incapable of suspecting. With a grim chuckle which he hoped he would not later regret, Simon flew back to the Gulf of the Rood.



Da-Ud met Simon in the Singing Gardens, a huge formal maze not much frequented of late even by lovers, because the Rood-Prince in the throes of some new religious crotchet had let it run wild, so that one had constantly to be fending off the ardour of the flowers. At best it made even simple conversation difficult, and it was rumoured that deep in the heart of the maze, the floral attentions were of a more sinister sort.

Da-Ud was exultant, indeed almost manic in his enthusiasm, which did not advance comprehension either; but Simon listened patiently.

"They bought it like lambs,' Da-Ud said, naming a sacrificial animal of High Earth so casually as to make one of Simon's personae shudder inside him. 'I had a little difficulty with the underlings, but not as much as I'd expected, and I got it all the way up to Valkol himself.'

'No sign of any outside interest?'

'No, nothing. I didn't let out any more than I had to until I reached His Politeness, and after that he put the blue seal on everything - wouldn't discuss anything but the weather while anyone else was around. Listen, Simon, I don't want to seem to be telling you your business, but I think I may know the Guild better than you do, and it seems to me that you're underplaying your hand. This thing is worth money.'

'I said it was.'

'Yes, but I don't think you've any conception how much. Old Valkol took my asking price without a murmer, in fact so fast that I'd wished I'd asked for twice as much. Just to show you I'm convinced of all this, I'm going to give it all to you.'

'Don't want it,' Simon said. 'Money is of no use to me unless I can complete the mission. All I need now is operating expenses, and I've got enough for that.'

This clearly had been what Da-Ud had hoped he would say, but Simon suspected that had matters gone otherwise, the younger man might indeed have given over as much as half the money. His enthusiasm mounted.

'All right, but that doesn't change the fact that we could be letting a fortune slip here.'

'How much?'