A Deepness in the Sky

Sammy walked close behind Brother Song. The monk was talking to himself, but the words made sense. He was talking about The Man: "Bidwel Ducanh was not a kindly man. He was not someone you could like, even at the beginning...especially at the beginning. He said he had been rich, but he brought us nothing. The first thirty years, when I was young, he worked harder than any of us. There was no job too dirty, no job too hard. But he had ill to say of everyone. He mocked everyone. He would sit by a patient through the last night of life, and then afterwards sneer." Brother Song was speaking in the past tense, but after a few seconds Sammy realized that he was not trying to convince Sammy of anything. Song was not even talking to himself. It was as if he were speaking a wake for someone he knew would be dead very soon. "And then as the years passed, like all the rest of us, he could help less and less. He talked about his enemies, how they would kill him if they ever found him. He laughed when we promised to hide him. In the end, only his meanness survived—and that without speech."

Brother Song stopped before a large door. The sign above it was brave and floral:TO THE SUNROOM .

"Ducanh will be the one watching the sunset." But the monk did not open the door. He stood with his head bowed, not quite blocking the way.

Sammy started to walk around him, then stopped, and said, "The payment I mentioned: It will be deposited to your order's account." The old man didn't look up at him. He spat on Sammy's jacket and then walked back down the hall, pushing past the constables.

Sammy turned and pulled at the door's mechanical latch.

"Sir?" It was the Commissioner of Urban Security. The cop-bureaucrat stepped close and spoke softly. "Um. We didn't want this escort job, sir. This should have been your own people."

Huh?"I agree, Commissioner. So why didn't you let me bring them?"

"It wasn't my decision. I think they figured that constables would be more discreet." The cop looked away. "Look, Fleet Captain. We know you Qeng Ho carry grudges a long time."

Sammy nodded, although that truth applied more to customer civilizations than to individuals.

The cop finally looked him in the eye. "Okay. We've cooperated. We made sure that nothing about your search could leak back to your...target. But we won't do this guy for you. We'll look the other way; we won't stop you. But I won't do him."

"Ah." Sammy tried to imagine just where in the moral pantheon this fellow would fit. "Well, Commissioner, staying out of my way is all that is required. I can take care of this myself."

The cop gave a jerky nod. He stepped back, and didn't follow when Sammy opened the door "to the sunroom."

The air was chill and stale, an improvement over the rank humidity of the hallway. Sammy walked down a dark stairway. He was still indoors, but not by much. This had been an exterior entrance once, leading down to street level. Plastic sheeting walled it in now, creating some kind of sheltered patio.

What if he's like the wretches in the hallway?They reminded him of people who lived beyond the capabilities of medical support. Or the victims of a mad experimentory. Their minds had died in pieces. That was a finish he had never seriously considered, but now...

Sammy reached the bottom of the stairs. Around the corner was the promise of daylight. He wiped the back of his hand across his mouth and stood quietly for a long moment.

Do it.Sammy walked forward, into a large room. It looked like part of the parking lot, but tented with semiopaque plastic sheets. There was no heating, and drafts thuttered past breaks in the plastic. A few heavily bundled forms were scattered in chairs across the open space. They sat facing in no particular direction; some were looking into the gray stone of the exterior wall.

All that barely registered on Sammy. At the far end of the room, a column of sunlight fell low and slanting through a break or transparency in the roof. A single person had contrived to sit in the middle of that light.

Sammy walked slowly across the room, his eyes never leaving the figure that sat in the red and gold light of sunset. The face had a racial similarity to the high Qeng Ho Families, but it was not the face that Sammy remembered. No matter. The Man would have changed his face long ago. Besides, Sammy had a DNA counter in his jacket, and a copy of The Man's true DNA code.

He was bundled in blankets and wore a heavy knit cap. He didn't move but he seemed to be watching something, watching the sunset.It's him. The conviction came without rational thought, an emotional wave breaking over him.Maybe incomplete, but this is him.