Lawrence Watt-Evans: Realms of Light

Taking the gun and leaving the rest was apretty fair balance between courtesy and caution on my host’s part,and I could live with it.

Then at last I was shown into the otherroom.

It was a small room, maybe three meterssquare. The walls were covered with shielding-not built-in stuff,but the heaviest portable shielding I’d ever seen in my life. Theyweren’t passing anything I could see-certainly no visible light,and nothing that registered on any of the pocket equipment I hadjacked in. My symbiote wasn’t telling me anything, either. Thefloor and ceiling were shielded, too. I was inside a black box.

Once I was inside the floater extended agrapple and slid shut another panel, closing the box. I wascompletely sealed off from the outside world. Some of mytransponder-based stuff objected; I overrode it.

The only illumination came from the floater,which had stepped itself up from running lights to moderate outputand shifted from monochrome to full spectrum; the effect waseerie.

In the box with me were two chairs, two ofthe strangest chairs I’d ever seen, rigid and angular, and made ofa material I didn’t identify at first-wood. With seats of some kindof woven string.

They looked, and presumably were, positivelyancient. Antiques. Real second-millennium stuff. They looked out ofplace in that box of shielding.

Sitting on one of the chairs, and the onlyother thing in there besides the floater, the chairs, and myself,was an old man. A very old man. He went better with the chairs thanwith the box, but not very well with either one. He wore a simplered robe, and I could see no equipment at all. A dimple under hisear had to be a com jack, but it was camouflaged beautifully. Hishair was white and thinning, his face wrinkled-if he’d everbothered with cosmetic surgery, he was past that point now. Noornamental wiring, no colorants, not so much as an earring.

I’d seen that face before, on the holo and instills, but I’d never met him before, never spoken with himdirectly. This was Yoshio Nakada. Grandfather Nakada, head of theNakada clan, chairman of Nakada Enterprises.

“I am honored, Mis’ Nakada,” I said,bowing.

“Carlisle Hsing,” he said. “Please sitdown.”

I sat on the other chair; it creaked as ittook my weight, and the seat felt rough and unyielding beneath me,not reshaping itself at all, though the woven stuff gave veryslightly. It was like sitting on some random object, rather than achair.

“My floater tells me you are a cautiouswoman,” Nakada said.

I gestured at the shielding. “I see you’re acautious man.”

“I need to be,” he said, “in my position.Mis’ Nakada, last year you became involved with mygreat-granddaughter Sayuri.”

He didn’t say it like a question, but Itreated it as one.

“Yeah,” I said.

“Naturally,” he told me, “I had youthoroughly investigated after that.”

“Naturally,” I agreed. I hadn’t reallythought about it, and I certainly never noticed any investigation,but it made sense, and he had the resources to do the job right,without buzzing me.

“I would like to ask you a question,though.”

I noticed the floater gliding forward, sothat it could get a good look at my eyes when I answered whateverit was I was about to be asked. I didn’t say anything.

“Have you ever had any contact with anymember of my family, other than Sayuri and myself?”

That was not the question I had expected, butit was an easy one.

“Not that I know of,” I said.

“Another question, then. Have you ever hadany contact with Sayuri other than during that unfortunate affairon Epimetheus?”

“No.” I’d have liked to have given a moreinteresting answer, but the single syllable really covered thewhole thing.

“Have you ever before had any contact with me ?”

“Not directly,” I said. “I tried to contactyou about Sayuri last year, but I wound up dealing entirely withflunkies.” I wondered if he were worried about clones, frauds,mindwipes, or what, that he didn’t know himself whether we’d beenin touch before.

I wondered if Ziyang Subbha would haveresented being called a flunky. I suspected he was pretty high upin Nakada’s organization.

“Are you carrying any recording devices ormicrointelligences?” Nakada asked.

“Yes,” I said. I didn’t see any point inlying.

He glanced up at the floater.

“She’s either telling the truth or she wasready for this,” it said.

The old man sighed.

“Life is so complicated,” he said, “and thereis so little we can trust. Everything we do, there is some way tointerfere. Everything we think we know, there is some way it couldbe faked, or some way it could be changed. Mis’ Hsing, you did me aservice last year-for reasons of your own, I know, and I wouldhardly expect otherwise. You did me a service in regard to littleSayuri, and I saw no purpose there beyond the honest andstraightforward.”

“I did it for the money,” I said. I didn’twant the old man to think I was some kind of idealist. I have somestandards, but I’m no philanthropist.

“Is anything more straightforward?” He almostsmiled. “And yet you did not betray our secrets in pursuit of moremoney. You kept your word. You live a simple life, by my standards,and you have shown yourself to be of use. I have decided to trustyou.”

“Thanks,” I said, not without a hint ofsarcasm.

“I need to trust someone,” he went on, “and Icannot trust anyone in my family, nor in all my corporation, noranyone associated with them. I cannot trust anyone who has livedlong on Prometheus, for my family and Nakada Enterprises areeverywhere here. Even picking someone at random, from all those onthis planet, the odds are that she would be tainted. So I haveturned to you, an Epimethean and an outcast who has shown herselfto be a competent investigator.”

“Fine,” I said, “so that’s why you picked me.So what’s this problem that you can’t trust anyone with?”

He hesitated, and then said, “Mis’ Nakada,someone is trying to kill me.”

That was not really very startling, given hisposition, and I was about to say so when he added, “Someone in myown family, I think.”

This theory was obviously supposed to be a surpriseto me, but I didn’t really look at it that way.

After all, when you get right down to it,there aren’t that many possible motives for murder. Sex, money,revenge, and defective programming are the big ones, and all fourof those are likely to get tangled up with family matters,particularly when you’re talking about a very big, very rich, andvery complicated family like the Nakada clan.

If anyone was going to try to killGrandfather Nakada, a member of his own family would have both thebest reasons and the best chances. And any time anyone’s that rich,that powerful, that famous, and that old, he’s likely to be atarget.

But old Yoshio thought he was surprising me,so I just said, “What makes you think so?”

He frowned.

“Before I tell you any more,” he said, “Imust first know whether you will work for me to investigate this,to find the assassin.”

I wished he hadn’t said that, because thiswas all very interesting, even if it wasn’t exactly shocking, andI’d wanted to hear more before I turned him down.

But I wasn’t going to get the chance.

“I’m sorry, Mis’ Nakada,” I said, “but Idon’t think so.”

He stared at me silently for a moment, andthen blinked, just once, and in a low, hard voice demanded, “Whynot?”

Good tone he used there. Gave an impressionof hidden strength, and it wasn’t a voice you’d expect from an oldman. He had to be getting on toward two hundred, but you’d neverhave known it from the voice.