Chaos Space - Marianne de Pierres [57]
THALES
Thales took a roundabout route to his apartment to be sure that the Brown Robes had not followed him, staying off the boulevards of the Hume quarter, hugging the crowd-laden alleys jammed with bok-kafes and barsomas.
Scolar’s skies were crisp with cold and busy enough with air traffic, the precision lights of Orbit-To-Earth vehicles flashing in regular landing sequences. It made it hard to see the stars from Scolar’s denser locations. But Thales had grown up in the thin strip of farming land on the far northern reaches of the planet and he still remembered the blazing star showers and his father’s enthralling tales of distant planets with moons circling around them.
‘In many places the moon is as heavily populated as the planet it circles,’ his father had told him.
Afterwards Thales had spent many hours wondering how it would feel to have a large object in the night sky and how much it would impede his view of the galaxy. He also wondered what it would be like, knowing millions of moon-based dwellers stared back at your planet, night after night.
He decided, then and there, that Scolar was the most special and beautiful world in Orion because it was free from prying eyes.
Suddenly he longed to feel that way again: exultant and free. Instead, the last week weighed on him as if Scolar had a moon, and a million prying eyes were bearing down on him.
He longed for the comfort of Rene’s soft, thin body and the fall of her long hair across his skin. How could she. . . how could. . .
As Thales turned the corner to his boarding house something jolted him from his thoughts; a difference in the air or the night sounds. The awnings cast deep shadows on the imitation cobblestones, causing the stand of potted plants to seem more like an army of men lying in silent wait.
He braced himself to cross the road, knowing that he’d become fanciful and paranoid. He could not, however, stop himself from climbing the stairs as quickly and silently as he was able.
With relief he shut the door behind him and leaned against it in the dark, catching his breath. He had not been followed. The bar episode was merely a misunderstanding: no one would have given it another thought. He reviewed the evening with logic and a calmer mind.
‘Thales?’
The anxious whisper came from the couch against the window. He glimpsed a shadowy profile against the curtainless window and knew at once who was there.
‘Rene.’ He stayed where he was, not sure whether to throw himself at her feet or throw the door wide open and order her out.
‘Don’t turn the light on. I have been watching the street.’
‘How did you get—’
‘I am the daughter of a Pre-Eminent, Thales. You are as naive as a child sometimes.’ There was no sting in her voice, no criticism, just a sad fondness. It hurt him more than cutting words. Had she always treated him like a child?
‘If we are to speak of naivety Rene, then perhaps I am not alone in that fault.’
‘You are speaking of my father.’
‘Not just your father, dearest. The entire Sophos.’
Rene did not reply to that and Thales had a sudden desire to shake her from her silence. Couldn’t she see?
He rushed on. ‘They had Villon murdered. He never went to join the Extropists. The Sophos incarcerated him until he was forgotten and then they quietly took him away and executed him.’
‘How can you know such a thing?’
‘I told you that. I was imprisoned with him.’
Rene gave a faintly derisive laugh. ‘Why would they do that, Thales?’
‘To frighten me, to show me what would happen to me if I challenged them.’
‘If only you could hear yourself. You sound like a million other young men, brimming with conspiracy theories and paranoia.’
Thales made a noise of frustration. ‘You dismiss me so easily. Doesn’t your conscience prick you just a little? Can’t you see how little our world has become?’
She glanced back to the window. ‘Where are your facts? If you were incarcerated with him as you said, how could you know where he was taken, or that he was not an impostor?’
Thales stepped towards her, closing the gap in two strides. ‘It was him,