Read Online Context by John Meaney - Free Book Online Page A

containers.
     
    ‘Please,’ said Tom. ‘Allow me.’
     
    He used his cane as a yoke,
slinging it through the carry ropes. Then he laid it across his shoulders and
stood upright.
     
    ‘Ladies?’
     
    ‘I’m Eta,’ said one of the women.
And, ‘I’m Ara,’ said the other.
     
    Sloshing water made the burden
awkward.
     
    ‘My name’s Tom. Er ... Which way?’
     

     
    Terracotta-walled
corridor. He deposited the containers just inside the indicated alcove: a
plain, clean dwelling.
     
    ‘Thank you, Tom.’
     
    ‘Would you stay, Tom, for some
daistral?’
     
    Tom wiped his forehead. His thigh
was beginning to throb.
     
    ‘I must go. But thank you.’
     
    As he left, pulling the curtain
closed behind, he saw the two women clasp hands, and wondered at their
relationship. Tom had lost too much not to recognize love when he saw it, and
he smiled wistfully, just for a second, before walking on.
     

     
    ‘Spare
a sliver, noble giver?’ An urchin, cap in hand. ‘Grant a mil for our thespian
thrill?’
     
    Tom stopped, leaning on his cane.
     
    A troupe of mummers, amid a ring
of spectators up ahead, was giving a performance. One holomasked player, with
two faces staring in opposite directions, represented an Oracle.
     
    ‘Please, noble sir. A small
donation fends off starv—’
     
    The urchin’s voice trailed off.
     
    One of the mummers, blunt ceramic
dagger upraised, had his other arm behind his back, hidden beneath a half-cape,
and Tom shivered in recognition, hoping that no-one would make the connection
between the allegorical performance in front of them and the one-armed man who
stood behind the audience.
     
    ‘I’m neither cold’—the urchin—‘nor
very old. My time’s not yet, pale Dr Death.’
     
    Making a ward sign, he slipped
away, was lost among the onlookers.
     
    Tom turned.
     
    ‘My Lord.’ It was Xyenquil,
smiling with chagrin. ‘I’m the district coroner, among other duties. Hence the
young lad’s—’
     
    ‘I understand.’ Tom spoke
quickly, to distract him from the mummers’ performance. ‘You’re here on
business, Doctor?’
     
    Xyenquil ran a hand through his
curly red hair.
     
    ‘Not, ah ... No. I was hoping to
talk to you.’
     
    But not, Tom realized, on
official premises.
     
    ‘Talk about what?’ Then he
remembered the interrogation he had undergone, and everything they had said
about Elva. ‘The neurosurgery. Elva’s implants. What exactly was done to her?’
     
    Xyenquil’s blue eyes held an
unreadable expression, and he replied with a question of his own which at first
seemed neither interesting nor relevant.
     
    ‘Is it true that Lords study all the logosophical disciplines?’
     
    Quietly: ‘Yes. It’s true.’
     
    ‘Ah. If only ... Well, you’ll
know then, sir, of quantum entanglement. Pairs of particles prepared so that
one will always be in some way the duplicate or the exact inverse of the other:
paired spins, polarity, whatever.’
     
    ‘Ancient observations, Doctor. A
thousand SY old. More.’
     
    ‘But it’s ancient knowledge,’
said Xyenquil, ‘which has never lost its mystery. Not to me, at least.’
     

     
    It
is one of the key indicators that the universe is stranger than it looks: some
outcomes are determined by the nature of the experiment—a particle’s properties
are partially determined by the way a human observer chooses to measure it.
When particles are paired, then separated by vast distances ...whenever one
particle is observed, the partner instantaneously changes, to remain its
partner’s duplicate or inverse.
     
    It was fundamental to the Oracles’
existence: since information cannot travel faster than light, the
entanglement-relationship travels backwards through time.
     
    ‘So why exactly,’ asked Xyenquil,
‘would an extended femtarray, an entangled femtarray, be threaded
throughout Elva Strelsthorm’s nervous system?’
     
    Tom stared at him.
     
    ‘I’m risking a great deal to