Stations of the Tide - Michael Swanwick [46]
“Why should I believe you?”
“Suicide is a stupid game, isn’t it?” Orphelin said. “I thought I was good at it, but Gregorian was better.”
He left.
Mother Le Marie watched him go. Behind her, the bureaucrat could see the autopsy machine, silent now that it had done analyzing Undine’s arm. The sun had shifted and left it in shadow.
“Tell me,” Mother Le Marie said. “Did my … did the doctor give you good service?”
He caught the hesitation, and thought of Orphelin’s estrangement from his parents, of his change of name, of the fact that he was the son of hoteliers. And he knew he should tell her yes, that her son had been of enormous help to him. But he could not.
After a while the old woman left.
One of the nationals put a white chit in his hand. “The autopsy results,” she said. “One woman, a bit past her prime, in good health, tattooed. Drowned almost exactly one day ago. Is this acceptable to you?”
The bureaucrat nodded heavily.
“Good.” She slipped on a signet ring, and they shook hands. He returned the chit, and she turned away. The other national began wheeling the machine away, and the bureaucrat realized that he would never see Undine again.
When he closed his eyes, he could smell her mouth and feel the light electric shock when her lips first touched his. That instant would never leave him. Gregorian had set his hooks, and now the magician stood far away and played him on hair-thin lines. Tugging him first one way, then another. Orphelin had spoken of the star chamber. It must have been at Gregorian’s behest he had done so.
The bureaucrat knew the star chamber well. He was one of three people who had keys to it.
He looked down at the pamphlet, still clutched in his hands, and in a fit of revulsion tore it in two and flung the pieces on the floor.
* * *
There was a bustling noise outside, shouts of fear and astonishment. Old Man Le Marie materialized on the stairs. “What’s that?” he said querulously. “Ain’t he gone yet?” One or two boarders peered from their rooms without coming out. Nobody emerged from the television room. Curious, the bureaucrat glanced in and saw Mintouchian asleep on the couch. Save for him, the room was empty, a blaring void at the center of the house.
Mother Le Marie opened the front door and gasped. Fresh air and sunlight gushed in. Wrapping the blanket more tightly about himself, the bureaucrat peered dizzily over the old woman’s shoulder.
An insectlike metal creature walked daintily down the street on three spindly legs.
It was his briefcase.
Tilted up on one corner, the briefcase looked like nothing so much as an enormous spider. Away from the machine-saturated environs of deep space, it seemed a monstrosity, an alien visitor from some demon universe. People skittered back from it. Unmolested, it walked to the hotel. It climbed the steps, and then, retracting its legs, laid itself down at the bureaucrat’s feet.
“Well, boss,” it said, “I had one hell of a time getting back to you.”
The bureaucrat leaned to pick it up. There was a scurry of motion to one side, and he turned to face three men shouldering broadcast machines.
“Sir!” one said. “A word with you.”
8
Conversations in the Puzzle Palace
The form-giver placed the bureaucrat at the bottom of the Spanish Steps, and set his briefcase down beside him.
The briefcase was incarnated as a short, monkish man, half human stature. He had shaggy black eyebrows and a slightly harassed expression. His gray velvet jacket was rumpled, his shoulders hunched and distracted.
“Ready to do battle?” the bureaucrat asked sourly.
The briefcase looked up with a quick, lopsided smile and alert eyes. “Will we be starting at your desk, boss?”
“No, I think we’d best start at the wardrobe. Considering all we’ve got to get done.”
The briefcase nodded and led him upward. The marble stairs split and resplit, winding graceful as snakes through the preliminary decision branchings. Swiftly they ascended the hierarchies. In the upper reaches, the stairs twisted and turned sideways to each other as they multiplied,