Stations of the Tide - Michael Swanwick [80]
“No,” the bureaucrat said. “I don’t want to know at all. But I’m afraid I have to ask.”
She held out her wrist, adamantine census bracelet high, and made a twisting gesture.
The bracelet fell free.
Deftly, Undine caught it in midair, brought it to her wrist again, snapped it shut. “He has a plasma torch. One of his evil old clients brought it to him in payment for his services. They’re supposed to be strictly controlled, but it’s amazing what a man can do when he thinks he’s got a shot to live forever.”
“That’s all you got out of this? A way to evade the census?”
“You forget that all I did for him was to give you a message. He wanted me to warn you away from him. That wasn’t much.” She smiled. “And I warned you in the nicest possible way.”
“He sent me an arm,” the bureaucrat said harshly. “A woman’s arm. He told me you had drowned.”
“I know,” Undine said. “Or rather, so I just learned.” She looked at him with those disconcertingly direct eyes. “Well, perhaps it is a time for apologies. I came to apologize for two reasons, in fact, for what Gregorian convinced you had happened to me, and for the trouble I have learned was caused you by Mintouchian.”
“Mintouchian?” The bureaucrat felt disoriented, all at sea. “What did you have to do with Mintouchian?”
“It is a long story. Let me see how brief I can make it. Madame Campaspe, who taught both Gregorian and me, had many ways of earning money. Some of them you would not approve of, for she was a woman who set her own standards and decided right and wrong for herself. Long ago she obtained a briefcase just like yours there by the bed, and set herself up in the business of manufacturing haunt artifacts.”
“Those people in Clay Bank!”
“Yes. She had a little organization going—someone to look after the briefcase, agents in several Inner Circle boutiques, and Mintouchian to move the goods out of the Tidewater. The problem with such organizations, of course, is that being dependent on you, they feel you owe them something. So when Madame Campaspe left, and, not coincidentally, the briefcase burned out, they came to see me. To ask what they were going to do now.
“Why ask me? They did not want to hear that—they wanted someone to tell them what to do and think, when to breathe out and when in. They did not understand that I had no desire to be their mommy. I felt that it was time I disappeared. And like Madame Campaspe before me, I decided to arrange a drowning.
“Gregorian and I were discussing the provenance and disposal of several items Madame Campaspe had left me. When I mentioned that I planned to drown my old self, he offered to arrange the details for a very reasonable price—yet just enough that I did not suspect him. He had an arm airfreighted in from the North Aerie cloning facilities, and treated and tattooed it himself. I am afraid that I left more than I should have in his hands.
“Witches are always busy—it’s an occupational hazard. I was away for some time, and it was only when I came back that I learned what difficulties I had inadvertently caused you.” She looked directly at him with those disconcertingly calm and steady eyes. “All this I have told you is the truth. Will you forgive me?”
He held her tight for a long time, and then they stepped back within.
Later, they stood on the balcony again, clothed this time, for the air had cooled. “You know of the black constellations,” Undine said, “and the bright. But can you put them all together into the One?”
“The One?”
“All the stars form a single constellation. I can show it to you. Start anywhere, there, with the Ram, for example. Let your finger follow it and then jump to the next constellation, they are part of the same larger structure. You follow that next one and you come to—”
“The Kosmonaut! Yes, I see.”
“Now while you’re holding all that in your head, consider the black constellations as well, how they flow one into the other and form a second continuous pattern. Have you got that? Follow my finger, loop up, down and over there. You see? Ignore the rings