Anarchaos

XXX

I was alone with Triss, who said to me, “You might as well sit down at the desk.”

I went over and sat, where the General had just been. I said, “Should I get out the paper and pencils?”

Triss seemed surprised. He said, “Well, I suppose so, yes. You know where they are?”

“Yes.” I opened the drawer, and showed him.

Triss seemed younger than the other two, Phail and Elman, and looked at me always as though he were trying to understand me or connect himself with me, as though he wanted to feel things as I felt them in order to comprehend me. I could remember having seen the same thing in his eyes that time at the mine, when he had looked at me and found my brother in my face and called me Malone.

Now, as Triss went to the safe and opened it, I found a vague and impersonal curiosity fretting in the corners of my mind. Under what circumstances had Triss and the others known Gar? Why had Malik and Rose tried to kill me the first time, if now I was being kept alive by their employers in order somehow to be of help? But the effort needed to obtain such knowledge was more than I could produce. I sat quietly at the desk, waiting to see what would be desired of me, and Triss came over to me carrying in his hands the package that Phail had been about to show me just before everyone else had arrived.

Triss said, “Before we get down to it, I want to say something. Will you listen to me?”

I was surprised at the question; it implied choice. But Triss seemed to require an answer, so I nodded and said, “Yes.”

“I hope you’ll change your mind about the antizone,” he said. “It’s a terrible thing to do to yourself. I know you’ve been through a great deal, but the future can be very much better for you, particularly if you solve this.” He held up the brown paper package. Then he lowered it again and said, earnestly, “I’m sure the General would let you reconsider, change the agreement. Will you at least think about it?”

I could have explained it to him. I could have said, While I live I have a responsibility and a purpose, and they require of me strengths I no longer possess. It is not permitted me to stop with the job undone, but I cannot go on. Antizone rescues me from this dilemma. I embrace antizone with the the last of my will.

But the explanation itself was too much for me. I merely nodded and said, “Yes. I will.”

“Good,” he said. He then placed the package on the desk and carefully unwrapped it.

Inside there was a notebook with a yellow cover. There were no words on the cover. Triss pushed the brown paper to one side, placed the notebook directly in front of me, and said, “This was your brother’s. He kept personal notations of various kinds in here, some just written out and others in code. It was his own private code.”

I said, touching the yellow cover with my fingertips, “This belonged to Gar?”

“Yes.”

I wanted to ask how this notebook had come to be here, but I was afraid; to ask anything, to think about anything, was only to open it all again, drive me once more into the struggle. Beneath my fingertips the yellow cover seemed warm, as though Gar himself had just put it down and gone away. I took my hand back and put it in my lap.

Triss said, “Toward the back there is a passage in code, headed by the word ‘strike.’ We know that on his last trip beyond the rim your brother made an important mineral find. The details of that strike, and the location of the site, are given in that code section. So far, no one has been able to break the code; it apparently had some specific personal equivalents for your brother that no cryptographer could possibly know or guess at. But you are his brother; it is just possible you will be able to give us the equivalents. I know something about cryptography, and will be able to help you to an extent. When we get to Cannemuss tomorrow our crypto experts will be down from Ni, and they’ll be able to help even more.”

I said, “I don’t know anything about codes.”

“But you knew your brother, that’s the important thing.” He flipped the notebook open. It lay on the desk in front of me, and he stood leaning forward and flipping the pages. “It’s toward the back,” he said.

I sat and watched the pages as they turned. It was Gar’s writing; I recognized that neat and economical hand. Some pages had lists, others had long notes, still others merely had sequences of numbers.

I put my hand out and placed it flat on the notebook and stopped the flipping of the pages. “Wait,” I said. I had seen my own name on one sheet as it had gone by.

Triss said, “It’s toward the back.”

“Wait,” I said. I turned the pages toward the front again, two pages, three pages, and there it was, a long paragraph with my name at the top of the page.

It read:

Triss said, “We don’t have time for all that now. You can keep the notebook when we’re done, and read it cover to cover if you want.”

Life will not leave us alone. Weariness draped itself on me like a blanket. Despite everything. I still must act.

I looked up at Triss. If I could have felt anger toward him, or his superiors, or anyone connected with him, it would have been so much easier. But I couldn’t, there was no fury in me at all. There was only the responsibility.

I reached out and closed my hand around his throat. I said, “You will tell me about the notebook.”