The Rig Read online

  ‘Your father was always direct with me. I hope you and I can have the same relationship, Alef. You’re friendly with my son, as I was with your father. Did your father ever tell you how he and I first met?’

  I wanted to repeat what I’d said, that my father had never even mentioned Drame’s existence, so how could he have told me how they’d met, but I didn’t. I said, ‘No.’

  Drame ran his finger through the juice on the table, making my minus sign into a multiplier, and said, ‘We were at school. He was being bullied. I wasn’t good at schoolwork.’

  I wasn’t interested. Anyway, my father was dead, so it would have been better if he hadn’t ever met Drame in the first place. Why would I want to know about a bad thing? I put my hands on the puter and said, ‘Do you want me to open this for you?’

  My mind was starting to clear, now. The need to cloud it with a soothing clatter of fact and calculation was starting to fade, and I was thinking clearly again.

  Drame sat back and looked at me as if there were a trick in the question. ‘Yes.’

  ‘I need something to handle it. Something bigger.’

  He called people in. I told them what I needed, the screenery and putery, and they set it up. They didn’t look at me or seem surprised at a boy giving them orders. They left, but I had a sense of someone remaining, standing directly behind me. I didn’t turn round to look, though.

  I displayed the data on the wall. There were vast quantities of it. It was the first time I’d seen it, so it took me a while to take it in and organise it to my satisfaction. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Drame watching me, and I saw his gaze flick over my shoulder. There was definitely someone else. I was sure it wasn’t Madelene.

  I moved the numbers around the screen, connecting them carefully with transaction-chronology and remembering the tax implications of interplanetary transfer. I saw what my father had done, how he had moved money around and set up contracts to take advantage of differing laws. All the laws and regulations were in my head, and I saw how clever my father had been, and I also saw mistakes he had made, opportunities he had missed.

  ‘This is boring for you, boy,’ Drame said, eventually. He took control of the puter himself, laboriously shifting its information around, peering at it. He understood some of it, I could tell. I read this by the pattern of his movement around the data, just like I read expression and tone from voices and faces. The analytic principle is the same for me. He was quite unable to read me, though. I’m certain he thought my stillness meant I was puzzled or bored.

  I pointed and made a suggestion. He stopped and frowned, and said, ‘Are you sure?’ Again, he glanced over my shoulder, this time for a longer moment.

  ‘Look,’ I said, and I explained it to him. It was little more than a comparative calculation of interest rates, advantages of transfer against certain penalties.

  His frown deepened. ‘Your father never suggested this. Are you sure about it?’

  I didn’t reply.

  ‘Of course you are,’ he muttered. ‘So why didn’t your father see it?’

  ‘Did you ask him?’

  He looked at me sharply. ‘Are you trying to be –?’ He stopped. His voice dropped. ‘No. No, of course you aren’t. It isn’t in you, any more than it was in him.’

  It had been a risky thing for me to provoke him, but I learnt something from it. I realised that while my ability to empathise, limited and hard-learned though it still was, might keep me alive just as effectively as the usefulness of my brain, if I allowed Drame to see this ability within me, it would not be to my advantage.

  There was a definite movement behind me. It took all my willpower not to turn round. I heard the door open and close, and a moment later Drame said, ‘That’s all, boy.’

  * * *

  SigEv 16 Solaman

  I didn’t see Pellonhorc again for some time, or his father. I was given a small room, in which I slept and ate. And I roamed the Song.

  On the second day, a man ambled into my room and stood squinting at me as if he thought I couldn’t see him doing it. He was odd, a short, barrel-gutted man, and his black hair was so oiled that it could have been moulded from clay. After about a minute of being stared at, I said, ‘Hello,’ to him and waited for an answer. There was none.

  ‘Hello,’ I said again, uncomfortably. ‘I’m Alef.’

  ‘Alef, yes, yeees,’ he muttered, still squinting at me. ‘What’s in a name, what’s in that one, an alphabet name, symbol of a name, name of a symbol, but they’re all symbols, names are, signifiers of the named, mine’s Solaman and what’s in that, I wonder, hmm?’

  I didn’t know if I was expected to answer. He tipped his head, seemingly lost in thought. I noticed a mark on his right cheek, rough-edged and slightly raised, just beneath the eye. Otherwise his face was smooth and creaseless, like a child’s.

  ‘There’s a Solaman in the Babble,’ I said eventually.

  ‘Wise man, wise enough but not enough, hmm?’ He hopped from one foot to the other, like a bird. ‘Not enough, hmm? Any more, I wonder?’

  I guessed he was talking to me, but I was lost.

  ‘Solaman,’ he said. ‘Might he be only a man? Do you see that?’

  I had nothing to say. What was going on? Was he talking to himself, or about himself?

  ‘Doesn’t see it, but might he be taught? See this, perhaps – could Solaman be the only man, could he be a man of light, a man of stars?’ His finger wandered to the mark on his cheek and he rubbed it, then caught himself and pulled his hand back.

  I was still quite lost. I could have given him thousands of names, of Solamans I’d discovered in the pornosphere, but I sensed he didn’t mean that.

  Solaman murmured, ‘Doesn’t see it, not at all,’ then raised his voice again. ‘What about this? Reverse it, almost nameless, hmm?’ He tutted to himself and frowned. ‘Namalos, nameless? Does he see that? Is there enough there, is there anything for Solaman to stretch? Is it just a databank standing there in a boy, and an index and a calculator? That’s not enough, no. Solaman can’t work with this. A dictionary isn’t the bones of a symphony.’

  ‘Solaman is a man as well,’ I said.

  ‘As well?’ He stopped fidgeting and became slyly alert. ‘As well, did you say? You meant what? A man as well as a symbol? How do you mean?’

  ‘I meant as well like also. Also man. Sola makes also.’

  Solaman beamed. ‘Aaah. Yes indeed. Left, right, left, right, off we go, after all,’ he sang to himself, jiggling his head from side to side. ‘Good. Hah. Perhaps we can march in time, then, you and I.’ He tapped my head gently and stood back to examine me again. ‘More than a dictionary here, perhaps more than a juggler. Are we together, hmm?’

  I thought I could see dimly what he meant. ‘Riddles. Logic paths,’ I said. ‘I like logic paths.’

  ‘Logic, yes, but logic’s just a springboard, Alef, like Alef is the springboard of the alphabet.’ His hands were fluttering. ‘We will march, and then we might leap. Solaman will be Alef’s springboard, and what somersaults there shall be!’

  And so my true education began.

  Weeks and months passed. I felt increasingly comfortable with Solaman, and soaked up everything that he told me. I learnt how to think. I learnt how to formulate my thoughts and to test ideas, to examine data and to apply theory. I began to understand the difference between data and knowledge, between theory and fact.

  In many ways, he was like my father. The difference was that Solaman was less able to extrapolate and calculate numbers. But where systems were concerned, where logic and language were involved, he could make connections between seemingly quite unrelated pieces of information. Learning this wordlogic from Solaman was like learning puterlogic from my father. It was as exciting as that. I’d find myself grinning and interrupting him, shouting, ‘Yes! And that means –’

  Solaman would sit back and smile and let me finish, just as my father had. And I’d feel as connected to Solaman as I’d felt at tho
se moments with Saul, my father.

  It was odd. Sometimes when I was sitting with Solaman, my head burning with the heat of all this understanding, I’d sense my father standing at one side of me and my mother at the other, her hand almost touching my shoulder, and I’d know they were both smiling. Solaman would say, ‘Alef?’

  And I’d say, ‘I’m sorry. I was just thinking.’

  And we’d carry on.

  Solaman also taught me law. I learned the logic and the illogic of it, of how it was a hammer and a blade. I learned how it could be turned to say whatever was needed of it. I learned about accountancy, too, and the way that the law was subservient to accountancy, that money controlled law, and that both were necessary to maintain the illusory stability of the System and the actual stability of power.

  He would test me.

  ‘Here’s a situation, Alef. You have a distillery on Peco. You’re a manufacturer of coconut brandy. Fine stuff.’ He stroked his chin. ‘There’s a demand for it on Bleak, a pointless place but a fine market for sweet oblivion. Tell me, Alef, at what time of the year would you export your sweet oblivion from Peco to Bleak?’ He waited for me to reply. The mark on his cheek was smaller than it had been when I’d first met him, and paler than the surrounding skin that seemed to be pinched in. I wondered what it was.

  I answered his question. ‘In Bleak’s flux, but only every third year.’

  ‘Interesting. Why in the flux?’

  ‘Atmospheric descent’s hard then, and you’ll lose thirty-three per cent of your cargo, but Bleak drops its import tax by eighty per cent during flux to encourage trade.’

  ‘But why every third year? Why not every year?’

  There was a note of surprise in his voice, and I wondered if I’d made a mistake. I said, ‘I’d only send my surplus to Bleak. Coconut brandy sells well throughout the System. Despite the tax incentive, it isn’t worth diverting easily saleable product to Bleak.’

  ‘Nevertheless, there’s still surplus, as you say. If you took it to Bleak every year, you’d avoid warehousing costs here on Peco.’

  ‘Peco is still only twenty-three per cent habitable. Warehousing costs would be negligible if you used the outland.’

  He shook his head in disappointment. ‘The outland’s insecure. It’s toxic and unpatrolled. No regulations apply in the outland. That’s why no one warehouses there.’ He said this as though it ended the matter.

  I said, ‘Maybe, Solaman, but Pecovin’s city limit is constantly creeping outwards. You build your warehouse reasonably close by, and you take the risks. You’ll lose some product to the planet and some to theft, but as Pecovin extends, the land you’re on will be incorporated and be worth much more.’ I checked that I had his attention. The warehousing idea had struck me as soon as he had set the problem, and the detail was coming to me as I spoke. I could still be wrong, though. There were other variables arriving in my head and I had to dispose of them or use them. ‘If you’re using land outside the current environmental limit, you get development tax benefit, and if you’ve built on that outland and been using it for ten years prior to its incorporation into Pecovin, the land’s yours without windfall tax.’

  Solaman nodded slowly. ‘You know this?’

  The figures glittered in my head as I quoted them. ‘The last ten years, Pecovin pushed out at an average of ten point one metres a year. The last five years, it averaged ten point eight metres. Allow for exponential acceleration of this growth, and look ten years ahead for the tax relief, and it tells you that you need to be warehousing one point eight kils from the current limit in order to maximise tax breaks and mitigate the most significant loss factors. It’s an investment.’

  Solaman winked at me with his right eye.

  No. It wasn’t a wink. The tautening of his lips flexed the mark on his cheek and pulled his right eye down a fraction. I hadn’t noticed this before.

  He said, ‘It’s a lot more complex than that, Alef, but your basic thinking is good. You’ve touched on about eight per cent of the variables, and you have no real grasp of the tax implications yet, but you’re trying. Go back to your three-yearly export protocol and explain that to me.’

  I didn’t feel scolded by him. It had been like this with my father; each time I felt I had leapt a few steps up his schedule of learning, he had given me a glimpse of how much further there was to go. The idea of more, the vision of it, always thrilled me. I concentrated now, and said, ‘The market’s stronger on Bleak if they know it only reaches them every three years. That boosts the price. Each year, you build up more surplus in your warehouse, and every three years the accumulated surplus will be sufficient to fill a StarCargo.’

  ‘Why would you want to use a StarCargo?’

  ‘It’s the biggest freighter available. It’s cheaper to use one StarCargo than ten smaller ships. Bigger profit margin.’

  Solaman shook his head. ‘Not to Bleak, and certainly not in flux. You lose that one StarCargo to the wind, that’s your entire shipment gone. And you’re uninsured. No insurer touches anything Bleak-bound during flux. The percentages are better with small ships.’ He was unhappy with me and showed it. ‘Look at the statistical risk, Alef. You’re the numbers man.’

  He was scolding me, but nevertheless, it was the first time he’d ever called me a man. After I’d taken that in, I said, ‘No. Look at it in the long term. Over ten years, losing only one StarCargo, you’re in greater profit. And look at another factor. It’s not only what you’d lose to the wind. Ligate’s pirates pick off one in ten of the smaller freighters.’ I thought of Janquile, remembered the tension in his voice, and I wondered what he might have seen over the years. ‘Ligate leaves the StarCargos alone. They’re too big and well-armed, not worth the risk to him.’

  Solaman looked hard at me. ‘This is a theoretical test, Alef. We’re just examining tax and commerce. If we were putting Ligate into the equation, you’d have to take in the fact that he’d see you’re using a StarCargo and trace it back to Peco. His soldiers would simply visit your warehouse here. Your stock wouldn’t reach the ship. He’d take his ten per cent directly, and if you were lucky he’d only break your arms as interest. You missed that, Alef.’

  ‘No, I didn’t. Anyway, Solaman, it isn’t theoretical. It’s impossible to look at tax and commerce in the System without looking at Ligate and Drame. I’m aligned with Ethan Drame. Ligate wouldn’t ever dare hit his home.’

  Solaman chuckled. ‘Ligate’s unpredictable. Don’t ever try to guess what he’d do. And anyway, Alef, the problem didn’t specify you were with Drame.’

  ‘It’s a constant,’ I told him. ‘I never forget it.’

  Thirteen

  RAZER

  DATA UPLOADED, AUGMEM ERASED AND RESET. PROCEDURE COMPLETE. YOU DID NOT INITIATE CHITTLECHATTLE, KESTREL DUST. WOULD YOU LIKE CHITTLECHATTLE?

  Razer said, ‘I’m not in the mood.’

  THE BALE STORY CONTAINS EIGHTY-SEVEN PER CENT POSITIVE FACTORS. IS IT COMPLETE?

  ‘No.’

  TALLEN WOULD BE A GOOD SUBJECT.

  For a moment, she froze. ‘I haven’t finished with Bale. I haven’t even named him.’

  THIS PROGRAM CAN NAME HIM. THIS PROGRAM’S NAME SELECTIONS RAISE APPRECIATION RATES BY THREE PER CENT BY COMPARISON WITH KESTREL DUST’S.

  ‘No.’ She caught herself. ‘Tell me, Cynth, I meet Tallen and Bale, both through you, and then they both nearly get killed. That’s a hell of a coincidence, don’t you think?’

  NO.

  ‘You don’t think it’s odd?’

  NO, THIS PROGRAM DOES NOT THINK. IT CALCULATES OPTIONS AND MAKES SELECTIONS. YOU ARE NOT THINKING LOGICALLY. YOU ARE A WRITER. YOUR COMMISSIONED SUBJECTS ARE SELECTED FOR CRITERIA INCLUDING SUBSTANTIAL RISK OF TRAUMA OR DEATH. BALE’S LIFE INVOLVES EXTREME RISK.

  ‘Tallen’s life doesn’t involve any risk. He has no one. He just fixes things.’ Razer had a sudden vivid picture of him standing with her in the red bar, and she remembered the rare experience of having a conv
ersation with someone that wasn’t simply for a story. How open his smile had been, how curious about her; she’d been momentarily excited at their – she grinned to herself – their chittlechattle. When had she last had a moment like that? The light flickering magenta and lilac above them, the languid music, the screeners nodding and muttering all around them, and a moment of purely emotional connection with someone.

  And then Bale had come in, and she was working. Enjoying her work, yes, but working.

  YOUR COMPREHENSION OF STATISTICS IS NOT ADEQUATE TO FURTHER DISCUSSION. WOULD YOU LIKE CHITTLECHATTLE NOW?

  ‘Hell with you, Cynth.’

  She rescreened to her TruTales locus where Cynth had pulled out a list of reader questions for her to respond to.

  —Hi, Jellezebelle. Yes, I missed her for a while, but it wore off. Such emotional intensity [link here] can’t be maintained. Not by me, at least.

  —That’s a good question, OneTwoMany [link here]. No, I never wonder about the past. I don’t have the time. Once a story is done, I’m thinking of the next.

  —Hi, Roarshack. It’s hard to pick the most scary. I’ve come close to death a few times. But that time in the slimpipe [link here] sometimes pops into my thoughts, even after all these years. That certainly taught me a few tricks.

  —Thank you, Seemless, yes, that one [link here] was a lot of fun. I’m glad you enjoyed it too. Flying anything blind is always a kick, and when it’s something as big as that, it’s special. Writing it was a challenge, too, and the fact that it’s one of my highest raters means a lot to me.