Dead Space: Catalyst by Brian Evenson Page A

hall. An ambassador from EarthGov named Jedrow Berry landing at the spaceport. There were other things mentioned but they seemed less likely: the revamping of a new low-income housing project, the demolition of a now-deserted microdome, etc. If it was anything, it was probably one of those four events.
    But which one? Henry would help him, but that still meant they could only cover two. School-ribbon cutting, press conference, political rally, ambassador … Any of them might be what he was looking for: a place for Istvan to be visible, to be seen on vid while he did whatever it was he planned to do. Was he likely to be violent? Crazy? Yes, Jensi had to admit, either of those things were possible, even likely. Would he try to hurt someone? Kill someone? Would he try to kill himself? All possible. But it was equally possible that his purpose, whatever he meant by that, might be something else entirely, something relatively benign. Maybe he would throw a pie at the ambassador. Or maybe he would take his pants down at the press conference and moon the crowd. He tried to tell himself that Istvan was doubtless capable of those sorts of things, too.
    Though Jensi knew he was fooling himself, that violence was most likely.
    And what, suddenly worried Jensi, still exhausted, his eyes throbbing in his sockets, a migraine just beginning to create an aura in front of one eye that he knew would travel across his vision until it filled both eyes and then dissolved into pain, what if Istvan, in saying he was on the vids, was not referring to some event or occurrence that he was going to hijack, but to the fact that whatever he did, wherever he did it, it would be featured on the news after the fact, that he would be made famous by having fulfilled his ‘purpose’? What if it wasn’t that he was going to borrow the celebrity of an event, but that he was going to make his own fame, by doing something rash?
    If that was his plan, he could do that anywhere.
    If that was the case, there was no way to find him until it was done, until it was too late.
    *   *   *
    The next six hours were the worst Jensi had ever lived, the most anxious, the most exhausting. Until close to the time of the events themselves, there was nothing he could do. He just had to wait, all the while trying to guess which might be the most likely place to find his brother, trying to ignore the fact that his brother might not be at any of the events he’d keyed on. He kept imagining Istvan strapping himself into a jacket with sticks of explosives sewn on the inside of it. Or his brother suddenly appearing out of the crowd, running toward the steps or the platform or the security guards, brandishing a knife. He was worried both that his brother would kill someone and that, trying to do something foolhardy, his brother would be killed. He didn’t know for certain which was more likely.
    In the middle of the morning Henry showed up and together they talked things through.
    “Does he care about politics?” asked Henry.
    “He didn’t use to,” said Jensi. “Now, who can say? I haven’t seen him in years.”
    “His ‘purpose,’ he said? Was there a way he said it? A particular way he phrased it? Did it sound political to you? Religious?”
    Jensi shook his head. “It didn’t sound like anything. It just confused me.”
    “Let’s try to think,” said Henry. “There are only two of us. We can only cover two things. We have to narrow it down.”
    Jensi nodded.
    “Or we could call the police,” said Henry. “Tell them there’s been a threat on the two that we can’t cover.”
    “That might make things worse.”
    “For who? For Istvan? Certainly it won’t make things worse for whoever he might hurt.”
    Jensi shook his head. “No,” he said. “He’d see it as a betrayal. I can’t do it.”
    “You may have to do it,” said Henry. “You don’t want anybody’s death on your conscience.”
    “It could lead to his death. To Istvan’s. I don’t