His voice caught.

  ‘Corduven was the best,’ said Tom.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How have your family been?’

  ‘They’re all right. My mother...’ Jay produced a wan smile. ‘... is very ... understanding. I’m still the heir.’

  Tom thought how precarious noble lives could be, despite the enormous privilege. They had luxury and the power of life and death over servitors, but they could not rest easy.

  I can survive without wealth.

  ‘You’re going back to your mother’s realm?’

  ‘Yes, after the ... After everything’s done. Mother’s talking about stepping down, relinquishing the reins of power as Shinkenar has done.’

  ‘Renata seems to be coping well.’

  ‘I think so,’ said Jay. ‘And ... don’t worry about Avernon. Cord had him working on something. That’s why he couldn’t come.’

  But Tom’s thoughts were sour.

  Avernon still should have been here.

  Jay was trying to converse as normal but just then a shudder passed through his body. It was obvious to Tom that if Jay did not rest soon he would simply collapse.

  Tom gestured to the Palace control system, assuming there were sensors here - they were at the very edge of the Palace proper - and ordered a levanquin. Immediately, an apparently solid marble wall puckered and opened. A gleaming one-person vehicle slid out.

  ‘Fate, Tom.’

  ‘I think you should get on it.’

  ‘No, I ... All right.’ Jay reached out to where Tom’s left arm would have been, hesitated, then patted Tom’s side instead. ‘Thank you.’

  Tom helped him climb into the seat. Jay leaned back and sighed as it morphed to fit. Silent tears began to run.

  Tom’s command had caused servitors to be notified, and some eight men in V’Delikona livery were rushing from a doorway. They took up positions around the levanquin.

  ‘My Lord A’Khelikov needs to rest a while,’ Tom told them. ‘His apartment would be best, I think. Or if there’s room in his mother’s—’

  ‘We’ll see to it, my Lord.’ The chief servitor bowed.

  ‘Wait.’ Jay held up his hand. ‘Tom ... Back here, on Ahdimday. We’re meeting for ... Be here. Please. Snapdragon Hour. I’ll send a servitor to ... remind you.’

  ‘I’ll be here, of course.’

  ‘Good, I...’

  But Jay’s voice trailed off then, and Tom watched as the levanquin rose. It moved off amid its escort of servitors.

  Sounds of conversation rose up behind Tom - other Lords leaving the Convocation - and he whirled away, snapping his cape, and strode off into a long corridor which stood empty, with none to see Tom Corcorigan’s bitterness or shameful failure.

  Three strata down, Tom found himself outside a blue-shadowed establishment called Taverna na’Lethe, where the air was heavy with sweet ganja scents escaping from the masks. Along the tavern’s shelves stood row upon row of crystal bottles and decanters that glistened and called to Tom.

  The dragon, the one that was always there, coiled and hissed inside his mind.

  Tom walked in.

  Aquafire was well named. When the drink came it was bright orange with tiny flames licking the meniscus of its surface. Tom held the glass up. His hand did not shake.

  Elva, I’m—

  Fire rose inside him. A glow. Joy, singing along his nerves.

  Everything that happened after that was inevitable.

  Shards of perception, fragments of memory. Hand resting in a cold puddle. Shivering as he slept on stone.

  Vomiting, and the later stink of it.

  And the swaying, as ribbons of the world swam round his head, when strong hands picked him up and carried him, and the cosmos darkened and dwindled in all directions without ever quite disappearing.

  Lying on a couch, Tom groaned his way into consciousness, and the sight of a hard-eyed man leaning over him.

  ‘Huh!’

  Tom snaked his hand up, going for the throat - too slow - but the man was already moving back, and then Elva’s voice said: ‘This is Dr Varin, Tom. You’re well enough, don’t worry.’

  ‘Chaos.’

  Tom sank back, and closed his eyes.

  Oh, Fate.

  Then, squinting, Tom levered himself up, swung to a sitting position with feet on the floor. ‘Bath chamber,’ he croaked.

  ‘Come on.’ Dr Varin helped him stand. ‘This way.’

  There was a glint at the doctor’s hip, a graser weapon, and again Tom tried to react but too slowly. Then he realized: medical treatment cost credit and they had none. The weapon was Elva’s, or had been.

  Reduced to bartering.

  The doctor helped Tom to undress, tossing aside the rank, puke-smelling tunic. Then he lowered Tom into an aerogel bath, submerged him.

  ‘Rest.’ The voice sounded odd through the gel.

  Tom closed his eyes.

  Two hours later, Tom climbed from the bath, sober but with every nerve shaking, every cell of his body feeling washed out and sick. At least he smelled clean.

  Fresh clothes awaited him.

  Dressed, Tom went back into the chamber where Elva now sat alone, and asked her: ‘What day is it?’

  Elva pawned a set of diamond-chased stunwhips for sufficient credit to buy a passage back to the Collegium, where the techs should have finished removing Axolon from the wall and encased him in the floating sarcophagus. Where they were going to take the wrecked cyborg, and how they were going to make the final payment for the techs’ work in extracting him, neither Elva nor Tom had any idea.

  There were two days left until the meeting with Jay which Tom had promised to attend. And it had been three days - three entire days - since Jay had told him of the meeting: seventy-five hours of alcohol-induced fragmentation which would never be clear in Tom’s mind; nor would he want them to be.

  All of his cred-spindles were gone.

  Elva sold her second-best graser pistol and Tom’s holodrama crystals in a small shop on the Seventh Stratum where no-one asked questions. For the time being, they would be able to eat.

  Life reduces to basics very quickly.

  On Ahdimday morning, Tom and Elva packed their few belongings, and made ready to leave the guest apartment. Elva had booked the arachnargos for the evening, and there was nothing left for them here save the meeting with Jay A’Khelikov, fulfilling Tom’s small obligation to the man who had mattered so much to Corduven.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Tom said to the empty chamber.

  Then they left.

  It was the same amphitheatre that the Convocation authorities had used as a congress hall. Today, the tiers of seats were mostly unoccupied: the few nobles attending the meeting sat down at the front, in scattered twos and threes, totalling twenty-four people. Approximately three thousand remaining seats were empty.

  Among the attendees were people Tom and Elva knew: Sylvana and her cousin Brekana; Lady V’Delikona with Jay on one side of her, a red-bearded Duke on the other side; Renata; Falvonn and Kirindahl. The rest, all noble-born, were strangers.

  A black-robed Lord entered from the nearest passageway, climbed onto a quartz dais and cleared his throat. ‘My Ladies, my Lords.’ A hololattice grew slowly brighter beside him. ‘We are here to read the last will and testament of Brigadier-General Lord Corduven d’Ov—’

  Blood-rush sounded in Tom’s ears. He lowered his head, blinking quickly.

  I shouldn‘t be here.

  Elva’s grasp tightened on Tom’s forearm, as she read his intention to leave.

  ‘—collection, including my favourite epee, to Lady Elva Corcorigan, in the hope you will make fine use of it...’

  With a sniff, Elva nodded.

  The disposal of Corduven’s possessions was fast, as befitted a soldier. His artworks went to Sylvana and Brekana, save for some shadily specified holoprints which went to several of his old comrades - three of whom were here - along with those items of his weapons collection which he had not left to Elva.

  Since Corduven had been military, not a Liege Lord, he had no demesne to dispose of, and that simplified what might otherwise have been a long and involved legal process. Jay sat stiff and pale throughout the proceedings, making an immense effort not to break down when some small favourite sculpture was left to him. Obviously, Corduven had already given Jay whatever major belongings he had wanted to pass on.

  Then there were crystals, bequeathed to Falvonn, to Kirindahl—

  Tom shook his head, withdrawing inside himself.

  Dragon, uncoiling—

  He wanted to drink.

  —and so seductive.

  Then Elva’s fingers were digging painfully into Tom’s skin.

  ‘—freeborn but then a servitor, from Salis Core to Palace Darinia, and then by dint of endless self-discipline and inborn talent, becoming the first commoner for a century in Gelmethri Syektor to be upraised to—’

  Tidal wash of blood-rush in Tom’s ears once more.

  No.

  But the presiding Lord’s words continued.

  ‘—and since my parents’ death during the war—’

  Tom was wrong. Corduven had become a Liege Lord, without Tom’s knowing it: inheriting his parents’ realm.

  ‘—to the man whose efforts were decisive in our victory against the Blight, I hereby bequeath my remaining possessions, including my realm, Demesne d’Ovraison, and the terraformer sphere known as Guillaume Globe, in which my late brother Gérard lived—’

  Corduven. Don’t do this.

  ‘—to Lord Thomas Corcorigan, my friend and ally. Rule well, Tom, and be happy.’

  Tom lowered his head.

  No.

  He closed his eyes.

  My friend, no ...

  And wept for Corduven at last.

  ~ * ~

  18

  TERRA AD 2163

  <>

  [5]

  Spring brought a glistening sheen to Oxford’s spires, their mono-molecular protective films shining with promise. Young birds flew over the quiet streets or perched amid bright-green swelling leaves, warbling songs of challenge and invitation. Smartpaths flowed like turgid streams along the old roads - St Giles, Broad Street, past Keble College and the meadow beyond - while the narrower, cobbled streets remained as they had always been, recognizable to a visitor from a millennium before.

  The proud dome of the Bodleian Library’s Radcliffe Camera; the quadrangles of St Hilda’s et al.; the Ashmolean’s forbidding columns: all retained their stately grandeur. The hidden tunnels beneath the streets still used cables and pulleys to draw books and crystals from college to college, in the hidden arteries of intellectual cooperation.

  ‘What a sodding dump,’ said Kian.

  Leaning against his bicycle’s handlebars, he surveyed the twelfth-century architecture and shook his head. Gowns billowing, a group of scholars hurried towards some ceremony - perhaps the Latin swearing-in required of anyone joining the Bodleian Library - and Kian shook his head.

  ‘It’s not that bad.’ Dirk eyed the flapping gowns. ‘Though I hadn’t envisaged the fancy dress, I must admit.’

  ‘Trapped in amber. Probably think this is the centre of the universe, when it’s really a tiny provincial town.’

  ‘Which makes it different from Caltech’ - Dirk leaned back on his saddle - ‘exactly how?’

  Kian shrugged.

  ‘Beats me, bro. Where to now?’

  Kian had already won his place at Caltech’s Feynman Institute. Neither of them doubted that Dirk would pass the post-exam interview to gain admittance to St Hilda’s.

  It had not escaped their attention that, nearly a hundred and fifty years before, Gus Calzonni had attended St Hilda’s before going on to teach and perform research at Caltech, where she discovered the existence of mu-space.

  Earlier, a young woman showing Dirk around the college had pointed out rust-coloured stains on a crenellated wall, and related the story of the thirteen female students who had publicly and messily committed suicide when St Hilda’s had been opened to males in the previous century.

  Dirk had grinned, believing the story but not the discoloration’s provenance. Then the woman laughed, as if he had just passed another test.

  ‘Little Trendy Street,’ Dirk said now, pointing, ‘is just down there. There’s a good place to hang out.’

  ‘What? Little where?’

  ‘Only townies and bloody outsiders use the names that are on the map. Little Clarendon Street. There’s ice cream, in about thirty flavours.’

  ‘Well, Jesus Christ, bro. What are we waiting for?’

  Four months later, Dirk and Kian were plunged into studies far tougher than they had expected. Life became a maelstrom of social activity and hard work, as they adjusted to their respective surroundings without neglecting to send each other daily h-mails when the time difference made realtime comms awkward.

  At Halloween, both of them heard contemporary ghost stories of strange sightings nearby. Neither Kian nor Dirk remembered to mention the tales, which had been relayed to them as jokes by rational-minded fellow students aware that eerie phenomena normally owe more to known hysteria than unknown physics.

  Neither Mother nor any other working Pilot (of the old school, their eye sockets plugged into their ships’ systems via ultra-high-bandwidth coherent-resonance i/o buses) had glimpsed a Zajinet since that strange sighting in a Zurich courtyard. Perhaps it had been a holo, after all.

  In December, one night close to the end of term, Dirk was climbing the narrow staircase which led up to his cold room when he heard - not for the first time - stentorian breathing from the other bedroom on his floor. It belonged to Rajesh Mistry, whose main complaint about Oxford was that it was so much colder than Bangalore but who otherwise loved the place, and often delivered blistering insights during maths tutorials that left Dirk wondering just what kind of mind the fellow had.

  ‘More of those strange sexual practices, huh?’ muttered Dirk, as he unlocked his own door.

  Rajesh’s door swung open. Dressed in singlet and shorts, he was drenched with sweat and breathing heavily. Behind him, the room looked unoccupied.

  ‘Dirk ... I thought I heard you ... old chap.’

  ‘You’re out of breath.’

  ‘Baithaks and dands. Great exercise. Listen ... I have a favour to ask you.’

  ‘Um, sure.’

  ‘Kaufmannian transitions. Know anything about them?’

  ‘Of course. We studied ‘em at school. Didn’t you?’

  ‘Not part of our curriculum.’ Rajesh stood with hands on hips, his breathing coming under control. ‘Can we meet up in the Common Room, go through the basics?’

  ‘Yeah, if you’ll tell me one thing. What the hell are baithaks and dands? Did I say that right?’

  ‘Perfectly ... They’re what wrestlers in my country have been doing for centuries, and called combat conditioning in the west. Squats and cat-lick push-ups, with some other stuff, is all.’

  Dirk looked at Rajesh’s muscles - Rajesh was bulky, radiating functional strength without any of the polished and injury-prone tightness of a bodybuilder - and Dirk made an instant decision. Anyone who knew the history of fighting arts was aware that Indian wrestlers had ungodly stamina, and could grapple forever without tiring.

  ‘Teach me the exercises,’ Dirk said, ‘and I’ll teach you everything I know on bio-emergenics. Deal?’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  They shook hands on it.

  That first night of studying together was intellectually uneventful, though Dirk learned a form of exercise which he would practise daily for the rest of his life. It would be springtime before Dirk heard Rajesh being called ‘a dirty wog’ in a snug pub (the ‘Bird and Baby’ in the students’ private nomenclature) located on St Giles and once frequented by Tolkien and C. S. Lewis. (The racial epithet was unfamiliar; Dirk looked it up later.) The verbal insult was swiftly followed by a vicious right hook directed at Rajesh’s temple from behind.

  The attacker was a drunken rugby player accompanied by three of his mates, and before Dirk could get close enough to help, Rajesh had already demonstrated that he knew more about fighting than just conditioning methods. When Dirk and Rajesh left, four bodies lay sprawled around the small dark pub where a gentle scholar once dreamed of hobbits and dragons.