Chapter 36

Roundabout rendezvous

Trivia: The name of Chapter 3, "Incorrect coffee," is literally how the Dutch call café au lait.

Ma-Ti had been following Nina Lindenwald from an imprudent distance. She was easy to keep pace with, Leiden being a highly bike-friendly city; Ma-Ti's spying skills, however, had gotten rusty. Nina was well aware that she was being followed, and he hadn't noticed that she had switched her route away from her office. She crossed a bridge at the other end of which she had spotted two cops walking, thinking that she could point them to her stalker, but when she stopped next to them, Ma-Ti had vanished. She waited a minute, but he didn't show up. She felt confused, and headed for her office.

Ma-Ti had not followed Nina across the bridge because an apparition of Ahimsa in the street had scared him into falling from his bike.

"There's little to be gained from interrogating Eric's friends," the apparition said.

He laboriously stoood and picked up his bike. He replied in thinking, not wanting to be seen talking to the air. "So you have already read her mind."

"And yours. You don't need to waste your time chasing the same clues I am."

Ma-Ti looked around him, and realized he had lost trace of Nina. "Are you physically in the Netherlands?"

"I'm on a connection flight over the ocean. I decline to specify any further."

"You're guarding yourself against me?"

"Considering the position you're in, why not?" She sensed his puzzlement, and went on, "This week, I started suspecting that Zarm was trying to locate me, so I took off the ring. I couldn't stand more than a couple of hours. After seeing what I'd seen, life without the ring felt unbearable."

"And you presume to know what it's been like for me."

"I can imagine it. You spent a lifetime connected to the essential humanity of everyone around you. You were in a unique position to empathize with the cruelest of your enemies. You sensed their fears and their memories and their hopes and their worries and their pain; you saw the flow of life itself. And then, after losing Joseph, you quit. You've never told us everything you saw in his mind just before the end, but something changed in you. I don't know why you thought me fit to continue the work of the Heart Planeteer, but you certainly didn't consider the effects of taking off the ring after so many years of living in deep connection. I've watched your lectures; you're not really convincing. Don't deny you've been affected. You've been playing Kwame and Gaia and my mother and your son and Eric against each other. You even kept the secret of the Earth ring from everyone until just now. Quitting the power of Heart has hurt you, Ma-Ti. It has made you cold, manipulative. But you're not good at it. You're too used to knowing how people feel; now all you can do is make blind attempts at having people follow your game. Instead, you've been clumsy. In the end, the Earth ring went to the person Gaia had intended all along. What exactly was your plan?"

"I thought the boys would have better judgment in selecting their own teammates. You know Gaia sent them too early."

"Agreed. But you already knew I was watching over them."

"You can't read Eric's mind. You said it yourself; Zarm is tracking you."

"There are more methods than the power of Heart to keep an eye on people."

"What do you mean?"

"Before Linka went to Puerto Rico, I briefly crossed paths with her at Leiden University. I borrowed her programming knowledge to reverse-engineer MAL's distributed computing virus. I'm using it to listen to Eric's every move through his cell phone."

"Ahimsa, you're exposing them to MAL's notice!"

"I'm blocking MAL's notice."

"WHAT?"

"MAL knows I'm messing with his virus, but he won't touch me."

"Why?"

"You may have noticed his robots have been alternating between chasing me and avoiding me."

"Yes. Why?"

"There's conflict inside MAL. Impulses that fight for priority. Self-preservation against self-preservation."

"How do you know all that?"

"The virus does interesting things, you know. It forces infected computers to analyze thousands of chemical combinations like the ones MAL's investigating in Papua."

"It's obvious that there's more stuff you're not telling me."

"That's right, Ma-Ti, and that's why you came to talk to Nina, but you don't have to run any more risks like that. I already have obtained Eric's university account password from her. Leave the rest to me."

"Do you know what to look for?"

"Let's say I have a hypothesis. Once I get access to Linka's files, I'll know."

"How are you planning to hack into her account from Eric's?"

"How were you planning to do it?"

"I was planning to just ask her."

"Your credibility is compromised. It has been since the moment you took off the ring. I suggest you stay away from all this; you're only attracting danger to yourself."

"There are more things happening than you realize, Ahimsa."

"Like what?"

"The Duke has escaped prison."

"Why is that important?"

"Are you seriously asking?"

"With that glove still in his hand, it was never really prison to begin with. There was no way to keep him locked if he didn't feel like it."

"And doesn't it worry you that now he's found some reason to get out?"

"We'll have to face him eventually, and I'm confident you'll give me some hint for that moment."

"Why me?"

"Because of what you saw when Joseph Wheeler died. I can tell it's a very traumatic memory, so I haven't intruded too deeply in it, but I know you saw the Duke there. You learned something about the Duke on that day, and it's been worrying you all these years. When you finally sort out what's wrong with you and you get over being the lonely manipulator you've become, you'll come to me and tell me what you know. But until then, you really ought to stay safe."

"You too. When are you going to join the team?"

"I first need to confirm some suspicions I have about MAL. I can't make the necessary tests with that much distraction around me."

"And that's something you're not telling me about either."

"I'm investigating why MAL killed Dr. Blight. It has to do with everything that's happening."

"Ahimsa dear, of all people, you try to lie to me? I know what it feels like when one tries to lie through the power of Heart. I can tell that is not what you are investigating."

"Well, you're safer knowing it's something worth lying for."

"Don't do that. Don't use the power of Heart for dishonesty. Don't become me."

"Ma-Ti, one day I'll be an old woman, unable to continue the fight. When that day comes, I'll give this ring to someone else, and then I'll become you."