Jara al owed herself a smile. "Glad you could come," she told the channeler, and for once she meant it. If anyone knew how to whip up a dish of false confidence for the drudges, politicians, and pundits awaiting them, it was Robby. The fact that he had taken several days out of his schedule to come to Melbourne spoke volumes about his faith in the cause. The channeler took a seat next to Merri as the train got under way again. Soon he had sucked the fiefcorp apprentices into a low-stakes game of holo poker.

Jara found an empty section of train and tried to prepare a statement for her Prime Committee testimony, but it was hopeless. What did she have to say about MultiReal that hadn't been said a thousand times already? It was a powerful and potential y dangerous program. It could make her fiefcorp a lot of money. Didn't the whole world already know this? Jara stared glumly at the changing landscape, writing nothing, and hoped the Committee wouldn't actual y need her testimony after al .

As for Serr Vigal-what was he thinking? Jara had no doubt the neural programmer's heart was in the right place. She had no doubt his opening statement before the Committee would be cogent and foursquare and thoroughly respectable. But Vigal just did not possess the gift of oratory. His politics were moderate. Having him usher in the libertarian side of the MultiReal debate with one of his dry, meandering speeches was an unmistakably bad idea.

But who else is there? thought the a.n.a.lyst. Who else is going to stand up before ten bil ion people and testify that MultiReal belongs in Natch's hands?

There was Khann Frejohr, of course, except Frejohr had thoroughly rebuffed Serr Vigal's overtures. Jara wondered what Natch had done to antagonize him. She figured it had something to do with that obviously forged Council memo, but she decided she didn't want to know. She had already seen enough low-level forgery to last her a lifetime.

It only took Natch a week to make a powerful al y, use him, and then toss him aside, she thought, shaking her head. That must be a new record.

The track from Cape Town to Melbourne was one long stretch of undifferentiated seascape, punctuated by the occasional pit stop on dry land or artificial crossroads. Waves, sun, sky.

Jara didn't remember fal ing asleep, but suddenly she was being woken by a gentle hand on her shoulder. Horvil. "I thought you might want to see this,"

said the engineer.

The a.n.a.lyst sat up and rubbed her eyes. "Thought I'd want to see wha-"

Then she looked out the window.

The city of Melbourne lay sprawled out below them, a tapestry of neatly arranged buildings and flickering lights. The tube train sat suspended on a ridiculously high track over Port Phil ip Bay, like a rol er coaster of old, watching the city slide graceful y into dusk. Jara remembered reading about this; some arcane procedure involving military security, or underwater transfer conduits, or something. Many believed it was just a ruse by the Melbourne L- PRACGs to impress visitors with the majesty of the centralized government. Jara could buy that. From this angle, the city looked so orderly, so perpendicular with purpose, it might have been careful y laid there by some omnipotent force in an era long before human confusion.

Then the tube abruptly plunged into Melbourne at breakneck speed, and the il usion was shattered. The train came to a stop some five minutes later.

By the time Jara shouldered her bag and made it off the train, the rest of the fiefcorp was already waiting-as was a group of handlers in garish purpleand-red robes, courtesy of Creed Elan. Horvil and Benyamin seemed right at home in their midst. One of the men took Jara's bag with a deep, respectful bow, as if she had entrusted him with crown jewels rather than a few changes of clothing and a.s.sorted toiletries.

"Don't suppose anybody brought a thermos of nitro," grumbled the a.n.a.lyst with a yawn.

"There's plenty at the hostel," replied one of the creed handlers. "Lo-grade, hi-grade, you name it."

Jara nodded. "Then what are we waiting for?"

The purple delegation led the fiefcorpers through a vast maze of bureaucratic buildings, each more stodgy and architectural y unimaginative than the last. They pa.s.sed the headquarters for OrbiCo, TeleCo, and GravCo, the offices of major lobbying firms and political parties, the Meme Cooperative's lone Earthside presence, creed bureaus, and drudge organizations.

There was something strange and out-of-place about the cityscape that Jara could sense but not name. Merri saw her perplexed look. "You notice it too?"

she asked.

"I notice something," said Jara. "I'm just not sure what."

"The buildings-they're not moving."

That was it. Melbourne's governmental quarter was entirely devoid of col apsible buildings. At this hour, most downtowns would be exhibiting a conspicuous ripple as the skyline rearranged itself for the night shift. Melbourne did not budge. If Jara didn't know for a fact that the city had been substantial y rebuilt after the riots of 318, she might have guessed it had been permanently frozen right before the Autonomous Revolt.

"Government buildings that don't move," said Horvil. "There's a metaphor if I've ever seen one."

Robby Robby's grin widened by a few degrees.

Jara felt the mental tug of an incoming ConfidentialWhisper. "Don't look now," said Ben, sounding clipped and nervous, "but I think we're being fol owed."

The a.n.a.lyst counted to ten, then took a casual glance around. The streets were crowded with security officers from a hundred different organizations striding this way and that, guarding every solid structure in sight. Pedestrians added a thousand more organizational insignias to the mix. Everyone in Melbourne, it seemed, had some kind of parliamentary affiliation.

And then she noticed them. Minions of the Defense and Wel ness Council on every corner, fol owing the fiefcorp's progress with great interest.

Whenever the fiefcorpers lost sight of one group, another would inevitably turn up on the next block to track them.

Before Jara could formulate a coherent reaction, they came to a culde-sac and pa.s.sed through an immense set of double doors-the Creed Elan hostel.

The place hardly fit Jara's definition of a hostel at al ; it was enormous, richly furnished, and teeming with important-looking men and women in purple.

Jara felt like she was back at Beril a's estate. The handlers who had met them at the tube station deposited their bags in a parlor fit for a high executive.

Rugs and viewscreens obscured every surface, while flasks of wine sat on countertops for the taking. Benyamin ducked down the hal to pay his respects to the hostel administrator. Jara, meanwhile, found a thermos of piping nitro and began fil ing up a mug.

Merri sunk into a plush suede couch. "So does anyone know where Natch is staying?" she asked. n.o.body answered. "Horvil?"

The engineer shrugged. "You know as much as I do," he said. "Natch hasn't shown his face in public for almost a week, and you al saw how strange he looked at the funeral. I don't know if he's up to testifying before the Prime Committee.

Maybe ... maybe they won't actual y cal him after al ."

"Sure they wil ," said Robby, kicking off his shoes to reveal ten huge prehensile toes.

"Natch is a symbol now. The libertarians are ral ying around him.

This unrest won't stop until he gets his say in front of the Committee."

"What about Vigal?" said Jara. "Where's he staying?"

Horvil: "With Natch, I presume."

"Do you think they're going to cal on any of us to testify?" asked Merri.

Robby shrugged. "Anything's possible," he said, channeler-speak for no. He tucked his shoes under his arms and disappeared down the hal , presumably to freshen up.

"Who knows what they're going to do," said Horvil, taking a seat backward on a desk chair. "When was the last time the Prime Com mittee held a special session like this? n.o.body even remembers the protocol anymore."

Merri craned her neck to face the engineer. "What is the protocol?"

"No idea. I don't know if there even is one. My guess is they'l just use some fancy version of Let's cal people up to testify until we've heard enough.

Ben's the one to ask about this stuff, not me." He stretched and groaned. "I just want this to be over already. I'm sick of the politics. I'm sick of the infoquakes. I'm sick of looking over my shoulder and seeing white robes everywhere. I just want to get back to the b.l.o.o.d.y engineering."

Jara downed her second straight mug of nitro and took a seat in the corner. "If you don't want to see white robes, you're in the wrong place. Ben saw a bunch of them fol owing us on the way here."

Benyamin returned at just that moment, his face pale as milk. "No," he said, his voice cracking. "That's not what I was tel ing you, Jara. Didn't you see?

I wasn't warning you about the people in the white robes. I was warning you about the ones in the black robes."

30.

Horvil and Benyamin voted to stay at the hostel and let Creed Elan security take care of them.

"We're just not getting paid enough for this s.h.i.t," said Ben, his voice rising to a panicked squeak. "There's Council officers every five steps in this city.

They've already taken Quel -has anybody even bothered to look for him? People are rioting and making death threats. Whoever kil ed Margaret Surina is stil out there. And now we have to deal with these lunatics in black robes?" He sat down firmly on an ottoman and hugged his knees. "I don't even know why I came. I'm stil -we're al stil suspended from the fiefcorp. What's the point?"

Merri leaned over and put a placating hand on the young apprentice's shoulder. "We won't be suspended for long, Benyamin. Don't forget that Jara's arranged for the Patels to testify on our behalf-"

"The Patels. I forgot about the Patels." Ben tucked his chin down and huddled into the fetal position. "I'd rather chew my own leg off than trust them."

Jara knelt down on her haunches in front of the apprentice and fixed him with a no-nonsense stare. "Are you sure those people you saw were the same ones who hit Natch with black code?" she asked.

"There are a lot of groups that wear black," mused Merri as she walked back and forth across the parlor in slow-mo imitation of Natch's frenetic pace.

"Creed Bushido's honor guard. The TeleCo board. I think there's a Pharisee group that wears black too...."

Ben ignored her. "Of course I'm not sure they were the same people," he said. "f.u.c.k, I wasn't sure if I real y believed Natch's story until an hour ago.

But these guys matched the description. Black robes, head to toe. Some kind of red Asian lettering running down the front."

"Didn't that look a little suspicious?" said Horvil skeptical y. The engineer found a shadowy section of couch and slouched into it as far as possible, a poor man's attempt at subterfuge. "I mean, who walks around covered with a robe head to toe?"

"I don't-I don't know. I only caught a few quick glimpses of them. One guy was standing in a window as we walked by. n.o.body else saw anything?"

The rest of the fiefcorpers remained silent. Jara was glad that Robby Robby wasn't here to see this. The less abject panic he saw, the less chance he would desert them and move on to some other, more stable business venture.

"I'm not making this up," sulked Benyamin.

"n.o.body's accusing you of making it up," said Jara, placing her hands at her hips. "But even if those were the same people who attacked Natch, how is staying here going to help?"

"It'l keep us alive, for starters," muttered Horvil.

"You heard Robby," continued the young apprentice. "The Prime Committee's probably not going to cal on any of us to testify. Why can't you just go and let us stay at the hostel?"

The a.n.a.lyst shook her head and gazed at the Pulgarti sketches on the viewscreen. The abstract geometric shapes and angry black lines reflected her mood. Her thoughts staggered back to a conversation last month when the MultiReal demo in Andra Pradesh was hours away and the fiefcorpers were being similarly irrational. Don't we ever learn anything in this company? she thought. We just keep moving in circles. Around and around and nothing gained.

"Listen," said Jara final y. "Al of you, listen. You can't-we can't keep doing this."

Merri's attention had wavered to the mesmerizing Pulgarti on the viewscreen as wel .

"Doing what?" she asked.

"Hiding. Being ... pa.s.sive. Acting out of fear." The a.n.a.lyst waved a hand and blanked the viewscreen, snapping Merri back to the room at large.

"Those people in the black robes-whoever they are-what's their objective? What are they trying to do? They're trying to scare us. Isn't that why they hit Natch with black code? They wanted to frighten him into cal ing off the MultiReal demo-or maybe to push him into the Council's arms, I don't know.

"The same thing goes with Len Borda and Magan Kai Lee. And the Patels, for that matter. The common thread here is that they're al employing scare tactics. They're trying to keep us off balance.

"And you know what? They succeeded-but they did too good a job. We're so scared that we realize there aren't any safe places left. Come on, Ben, Horvil-do you real y think Creed Elan can protect us? Do you think Beril a's servants can protect us?" She gestured toward the bulky security guard down the hal , who seemed accustomed to ignoring guest conversations. "No and no. If we've learned anything these past few months, it's that n.o.body can protect us. The Defense and Wel ness Council can march wherever they please. a.s.sa.s.sins can get to Margaret Surina right in the middle of a heavily guarded compound. Magan Kai Lee can yank our business right out from under us with no warning. So what good is hiding going to do? No good at al ."

Jara paused a moment to catch her breath. Merri and Ben were staring at the floor with solemn looks on their faces. Robby Robby had stepped back into the parlor just in time to give a vigorous nod of agreement. Horvil's expression had metamorphosed from a prunish frown into a goofy grin sometime in the past few minutes.

"Here's what I propose," continued Jara. "I propose we al get some rest, wake up early tomorrow, and have a nice big breakfast. Then I say we march over to that hearing in broad daylight, with our heads held high. We sit in the audience together, like a real company. I don't know what the Prime Committee's going to do about MultiReal. I don't know if we're going to get gunned down by a bunch of people in black robes tomorrow, or a bunch of people in white robes. But I'm not going to just sit here.

"Listen, I-I'm fighting for this fiefcorp. I real y am. I know that some of you don't trust me, but there's nothing I can do about it right now. Al I'm asking you to do right now is just hold on, stay with me. We'l get through this."

Jara half expected a greeting the next morning from Khann Frejohr. Sure, Frejohr had his issues with Natch, but they were al on the same side, weren't they? She figured at least one of the speaker's innumerable functionaries would take advantage of the lul in libertarian protests to bring the Congress's regards.

But when nine o'clock arrived with no word from anyone, Jara decided there was no reason to wait. She told the fiefcorp to gather in the atrium in thirty minutes.

Robby Robby was the first to arrive. He instantly sensed her frustration.

"Don't be too upset, Queen Jara," said the channeler, inexplicably filing his nails into sharp points suitable for a street fight. "I've been tel ing you al along not to trust the libertarians. Just because they hate Len Borda doesn't make them the good guys. They don't real y care about Natch. They don't real y care about you. Sure, they'l support you, but only when it suits their purposes, and only until they don't need you anymore."

"Yeah, I suppose you're right," said Jara with a sour face. "But I wasn't looking for flowers and a bottle of wine. I just wanted a few words of encouragement. And maybe some news about the big, dul speech that Serr Vigal's preparing."

"You don't give Vigal enough credit," replied Robby. "He's a smart guy. He knows what he's doing."

The a.n.a.lyst sulked against a pil ar without answering. She was slowly coming to realize that the channeler was not the empty shel she had always a.s.sumed him to be. But a wise and sensible Robby Robby was more than Jara's worldview could bear at this point. She left him in the atrium and wandered back to the parlor for one last cup of nitro. By the time she made it back, Horvil, Benyamin, and Merri were standing there waiting.

The Surina/Natch MultiReal Fiefcorp looked like a pretty impressive company, Jara admitted to herself. The engineer was surprisingly dashing in his new Persian suit; the black-and-white swirls on Merri's dress subtly evoked the Objectivv logo without being too obvious about it; Benyamin, in his purpleand-red robes, might have pa.s.sed for a junior bodhisattva of Creed Elan; and there had to be some const.i.tuency in the vast reaches of human s.p.a.ce that would find Robby's Afro the epitome of style. Jara herself had chosen a vibrant green pantsuit that looked optimistical y toward spring.

When the entire company was a.s.sembled, Jara opened the front door of the hostel and was greeted by a raucous noise.

Horvil grimaced. "What's that?"

Jara peeked nervously around the doorjamb and widened her eyes. "I guess it's the libertarian welcoming committee," she said.

The fiefcorpers emerged blinking into the Melbourne morning to the cheers of several hundred zealous demonstrators. People lined the entire cul-desac outside the Elan hostel, shouting, waving, beaming bold messages of solidarity in the air over their heads.

LEN BORDA, Don'tTake Our FREEDOMS INFORMATION WANTS INDEPENDENCE!.

THE REAL ISSUE IS THE RIGHT To Do BUSINESS LIBERTARIAN RESISTANCE.

There were a number of Libertas devotees bearing the insignia of the rising sun, and a smattering of Islanders to boot. An even larger pack of drudges hovered at the next intersection, watching and taking careful notes.

Robby Robby gave Jara a wry look and shrugged. She was amused to see that he was using his newly sharpened claws as a pick to fluff his already overfluffed Afro.

The libertarians were rambunctious, but they kept their distance as the fiefcorpers started down the street. So did the drudges. The crowd diminished as they made their way toward the city center, but did not disappear entirely. Downtown Melbourne was a constant carnival of protests and demonstrations, and it was difficult to tel where one sideshow ended and the next began.

A core group escorted them the whole way, shouting righteous slogans for the drudges' benefit. Jara kept an eye out for menacing figures in black robes.