Barrington Bayley - The Pillars of Eternity

Ebarak raised his eyebrows. ‘You knew of my acquaintance with Boaz?’

‘You told me, at the time.’

‘Did I?’ said Ebarak vaguely. His eyes glazed in a vain effort at recollection. This time it was Hebron’s turn to smile, partly with exasperation. Scorning memory adplants, Ebarak was prone to these blank spots in his knowledge of past details.

‘How many gems did Boaz give you?’ Hebron asked.

‘Twelve. But I believe he may have more.’

‘Let me see one.’

A trifle reluctantly, Ebarak went to a safe, bent to its audio plate where he quietly hummed a series of tones, and opened the thick metal door. He took out the pouch Boaz had given him, carefully extracted a gem, and handed it to Hebron.

The Director lifted the gem to the light, peering into its depths. He rolled it, chuckling.

‘It’s genuine! And so clear! This is like old times, Aban! This time let’s try to ensure that they stay in our possession.’

He handed back the gem. ‘But we must get properly organized. I hope you didn’t have thoughts of working on your own? You’ll get nowhere that way. What’s needed is teamwork.’ He stroked his jaw thoughtfully. ‘Also your facilities here are too limited – quite apart from what will happen if Orm learns of your past relationship with Boaz.’

Ebarak swivelled his chair so that he was in profile to the Director and gazed into the distance, as though not wanting to hear what Hebron had said. Hebron leaned back against a workbench, supporting himself with his hands, and scrutinized his old friend. ‘I see you are displeased.’

‘It’s just that I’m not convinced people with philosophical commitments can produce good scientific work,’ Ebarak said in a neutral tone.

Hebron was not offended. ‘The pure scientist, as ever! Excellent. It is why we value you.’

‘Also I do not share this aim of yours.’

‘Do you not? Yet you seem willing to work toward its accomplishment… Yes, I know, it is disinterested research where you are concerned. The pure search for knowledge. And yet the great transformation might be achieved. Temporal mutation might become possible. Think what you will have unleashed on the world! Recklessness of that order, simply in the quest for knowledge, borders on a philosophical commitment all of its own.’

‘Except that these gems may not lead to what you want. I have no reason to think they do.’

‘And have you communicated that belief to Boaz? After all, his aim is the same as mine.’

‘He is a man obsessed, in a way that even you are not. He forms his own opinions.’

‘And you exploit that obsession to get what you want. You see, we all use each other. In this case you have no choice but to work with my team. You need me to ward off Orm – if I can. Otherwise I do not think you will live long enough to contemplate, in your intellectual purity, the new knowledge of time you may glean from these gems.’

Ebarak turned his head sharply toward the Director. ‘Do you never contemplate the risks you are taking? You are a member of the Cabal, yet you are committing what amounts to state treason. I do not think you will suffer a simple death, when you are found out. They will make a terrible example of you.’

‘I will enjoy a simple death,’ Hebron said quietly. ‘It is already arranged. I assure you I am not oblivious to the risk. As for why I take it, your friend Joachim Boaz understands it even if you do not. He believes it is possible to lift the dead hand of predestination. Do you never feel it pressing down on your every deed, Aban? Does the impossibility of original action never depress you?’

‘No, because what you are saying is philosophy, in other words, it is imagination.’

‘It is fact. What a stubborn refusal to appreciate reality!’

‘Your lack of caution amazes me, nevertheless,’ Ebarak persisted mildly. ‘Being such a prominent figure, you are skimming very close to the event horizon.’ He was using a contemporary figure of speech that, in an earlier age, might have emerged as ‘skating on thin ice’.

‘Oh, but I am a powerful man, Aban. You must rely on obscurity for your protection, but I can employ econosphere resources to avoid discovery. Besides, it is now a matter of urgency. There is something I might as well tell you. You said to me once that even if a way to alter predestination could be found, the changes that could be made would be trivial. I have put some of the best brains in the econosphere to work on just that point, and what they say is this: a small change in this universe will effect a total change in the next one. Changes wrought in the current manifestation may well be trivial, as you predict – perhaps even imperceptible. But it is during the latent period, not the material one, that the consequences of those changes work themselves through. Here is an analogy: immerse alum crystals in water, heat it and the crystals will dissolve and disappear. Cool the solution again, and the crystals will reappear in the same formation as before . But what if the solution is stirred while hot? Then the case is not the same. The crystals will arrange themselves differently on their next materialization.’

Ebarak listened closely while Hebron went on: ‘So you see, Aban, there is a race on. Whoever succeeds in this thing will have the key to unimaginable power, if it can be controlled. I sense that it will succeed; the process is under way. But by whom will it be accomplished? If your work does not produce results then Joachim Boaz, for instance, will go elsewhere, and perhaps, eventually, he will succeed. So if we die, still not masters of our fates, we cannot be sure what will become of us in our next resurrection, and perhaps as individuals we will cease to exist at all, forever.

‘Tell me,’ he said after a long pause, ‘did Boaz have a woman with him?’

‘He had no one with him.’

‘There is evidence that he had a woman with him when he fled Meirjain. Is he residing in the City?’

‘I believe so.’

‘He has a deficiency, a physical dependence on his spaceship. He is unable to stray far from it… his ship may even be hidden somewhere near the ship ground. I will investigate…’

He dropped his eyes and fell silent. Ebarak said nothing. Hebron, he knew, was thinking that the woman he had mentioned would be a good source of information about Boaz. But he did not want to feel curious about what such a line of inquiry entailed.

Idly he switched on the projector again. A picture formed on the screen, snatched from out of near-time. With relief he saw a cloaked and hooded Hebron, a few minutes in the future, depart from his laboratory.

Exuding an odour of sweat laden with pheromonic musk, Eystrach Orm moved down the line of young men bent over their monitor desks. As he passed, each junior policeman felt a tremor of terror mingled with lust.

Everyone who worked in that department had to come to terms with Orm’s tastes. He liked young men, but he liked them to be heterosexual, and to overpower their natural repugnance for his advances. Dismay, horror and unwilling but irresistible attraction were for him an indispensable sexual recipe. To this end he used not only his rank, not only his impressive physical presence, but also crudely chemical means. The scent he wore contained concentrated organic compounds that overcame almost any male’s resistance.

‘Sir.’

‘Yes?’ Orm strode to a monitor who had raised his arm. He bent to the screen, placing his hands on the youth’s shoulders and squeezing slightly as he brought his head close to his.

‘Look, sir.’ The policeman was twisting slide-dials, trying to sort the signal he had traced from the rest of the city’s traffic and bring it up on the screen.