The Key to Her Kingdom
The gallery was silent, the bodies were gone. She didn't know where, nor how many, not did she care.
Sitting on a trestle in the centre was a plexiglass box. Her men had found it, exactly where she'd told them to look, exactly where he'd told her it would be...
Told her in exchange for his life, whatever that was worth now; he'd given her Orac, and she'd let him go.
She stopped and gazed at it, savouring the moment for just a moment longer. No sparkling lights, no hum of tarriel thoughts or plans. It was dark and lifeless, but then she had expected that. It didn't matter. He'd given her the keys - to Orac, and to her Empire.
"Give me a ship, and three hour's head start," he'd spoken calmly, but in a voice dulled and thinned by shock and pain. "I'll give you the position once I'm out of your range."
She had arched an eyebrow, as if playing their old game. "Really, Avon, you must think me a fool -"
"No, I don't think of you at all, now." A painful, twisted shrug. "But you know me as a man of my word. Orac is of no further use to me, and a ship is."
"No further -?"
He'd pointed to the crystal rectangle in her hand. "Without that, Orac is of no use. You have the keypad." A pause. "You have the instruction sheets. You will have Orac."
"And you -"
"I have - promises to keep."
"Promises?" With silky mockery in her voice. "To whom? There is no one left, is there?"
"No one alive, no."
She'd chosen to ignore that last. He was beaten, a spent force - but yes, a man of his word. And with Orac, she could find and dispose of him later.
The keypad was heavy with promise in her hand - or perhaps just heavy. She looked down at it, the hint of a frown on her face. She'd had the idea that Orac's keypad - key? vaguely, the word key kept surfacing in her mind, her intelligence had had that wrong, had always talked of a key - was smaller.
"I haven't booby-trapped it," he'd said, as if reading the suspicion in her mind. "After all, I intended B-Blake and his people to have the use of it as well."
"And did you own crew know that?"
"Of course not." Mildly, as if surprised. "What business was it of theirs?"
Shaking her head, clearing her thoughts, she moved forward to clip the keypad into place. It slid in smoothly, the clear plastic making a hard, sharp clicking noise as it connected, the buttons blinking into light. Twenty-four buttons... a pity that Ensor, like all technicians, needed to make things so complicated. Without the Presidential army of scientists at her call, she would have to do this herself.
He'd acknowledged that - "it needs to be programmed."
"My reports on Ensor's work said a simple button key."
"Your reports were - inadequate," with another empty smile. "Do you really believe a computer like Orac would work so simply? I can give you the instructions on the programming of - this," flicking a finger at the keypad. "I memorised the instructions some time ago."
"For Blake." She'd rolled the name on her tongue, like poisoned honey, and watched him flinch.
"For B-blake, perhaps. He might not have needed them. But you will."
"Interesting."
"Very." Black, bleak laughter somewhere deep in the eyes and touching the mouth.
"That you'd betray his memory in order to live."
He had shrugged again. "I choose to survive... and what I do to or in his memory is none of your business."
"I don't trust you."
"Then kill me. Your choice." A raw smile, with something cold and distant in his eyes. "But choose quickly, Commissioner. I may decide that survival is overrated after all."
And he'd meant it. She'd agreed - perhaps a little, a little too fast - and stood over him while he printed out the instructions. She led him to a ship - a small, poor but working one - and taken the sheets from his almost-shaking hand and let him go.
Orac would be worth it.
The buttons of the keypad glittered in their clear casing, but Orac had not come to life. It was time to forget him, time to take her future in hand.
She took out the thin plastic sheets on which he'd printed the instructions. "Let us see... insert keypad." Done. "Press buttons 2, 6 and 7 until the data module lights and shows TARRIEL PLAYBACK." Done, with no result. Done, a second time. "If data module does not show TARRIEL PLAYBACK, press button marked "RJ-ETHERNET OVERRIDE ", hold for five seconds until data module shows "ETHERNET FREE". Then repeat step one." Done. "Convert RJ-ETHERNET OVERRIDE to TARRIEL PLAYBACK... see page six. Page six?" She shuffled papers. "Ah. Conversion of RJ-ETHERNET OVERRIDE to TARRIEL PLAYBACK requires prior reconfiguration of FRCD circuits from non-TARRIEL-compatible to compatible."
She paused, making a mental note to fire the staff who had said that Orac was simple. "To reconfigure the FRCD circuits, press button marked RJ-ETHERNET CANCELLATION, then change predictive overrides to primary cells, or secondary if primary do not respond..." Shuffle of paper again. "Predictive overrides: first configure the secondary cells and compatible channels. Push buttons 4 and 5 while holding down the primary function key."
She paused again, suspicion flaring in her mind. But he'd given his word. "Once it is programmed," he'd said, "Orac will work perfectly for you. I give you my word."
And he was a man of his word.
Sitting down, she began to read.
~oOo~
In a small ship, in the bleakness of space, he looked down at a small plexiglass square in his hand - a square with a single button.
The changes had been prepared before the flight from Xenon, the new keypad designed and in his pocket with the old, a simple precaution in case something when wrong. He had meant to put them in place on reaching Gauda Prime, had not expected to have to reconfigure the computer in a forest at night, pulling memories from a hundred long, painful viscast-recorder installations to ensure that, if the instructions were followed to the letter, it would work. And that the letters to follow would always be just that little bit out of reach.
A rough job, true, but the best that Avon had ever done.
-the end-