I decided to take his call.
A screen appeared in the air of my workroom then filled with the face of Falberoth. It was not a visage that happily drew the gaze. Grim lines seamed the cheeks and brow, and the eyes were steeped in contempt.
"How goes the work?" said a voice whose softness was somehow more unnerving than a shout.
"Faster without interruptions," I said.
"That is not an answer."
"Yes it is. It is just not the answer you wish to hear."
"You may believe that your reputation cocoons you," he said. "The belief is not universally shared."
I thought of a number of possible comments but forbore to say any of them. Instead I said, "I have narrowed the potential suspects to seven. I shall now proceed to evaluate each and make suitable recommendations."
"You will hurry."
"It will take the time it takes."
He severed the connection. My assistant deposited the seven files on my worktable and I abandoned the braided puzzle and turned my attention to them.
"We will complete the assignment with all possible speed," I said. "Working to preserve Torquil Falberoth has lost much of its allure."
"Should we now add one more name to the list of those who would prefer to see him reduced to his constituent elements?" my integrator asked.
I made no comment but turned to the dossiers. The assignment's scant appeal lost its remaining shreds as I immersed myself in details of his seven worst iniquities. The magnate was clearly a throwback to Old Earth's dawn time; the ancient conquerors who enjoyed standing on mountains of their victims' skulls had nothing on my client. He had ruined and ravished, seized and sequestered, grabbed and grasped with a cold ferocity that more resembled the feeding behavior of insects than any appetite of a man.
"See this," I said, pointing out one of his crimes to my integrator. Falberoth had gone to preposterous lengths to surround the affairs of the victim, until he could not only acquire the man's life work but leave the poor fellow destitute and despairing. "Then, having held the object of the struggle in his hand, he allows it to fall and shatter, and walks away with never a rearward glance."
But where lay his motive? There were two possible answers: One was that Falberoth has achieved a philosophy of existence so subtle that its logic was impenetrable even to me. The other was that he savored cruelty for its own sake.
I knew that among the truly opulent it was not unheard of for the seven basic senses to be augmented by chemical and even surgical intervention, so that emotions might be tasted or heard.
"Perhaps he enjoys the suffering of a victim as if it were some rare vintage or exquisite essence," I said. "Or the answer may be pure banality: he does what he does because he can."
"You disentangle conundrums for the same reason," said my assistant.
"There is a difference," I said. "I harm none."
"Does Falberoth recognize such a distinction?"
"It is not a pleasant thought," I said.
"Falberoth is not a pleasant man."
"Indeed, he is not. Let us quickly assemble our findings so that you may transmit them to him and I may return to what's-his-name's problem."
I prepared a document identifying the seven and the method I believed each would pursue in an attempt, in most cases suicidal, to undo my client. I made recommendations as to countermeasures, all of which I was certain had already been thought of. My assistant transmitted the report and we heard no more from Torquil Falberoth after his integrator acknowledged receipt.
I returned to my pursuit of the braided perplexity through eighth-level consistencies only to find that the resulting paradigm resolved nothing; instead it opened a whole new array of complexities. Chagrined, I plunged into the conundrum's hidden depths, resolved to end the thing before my competitor returned.
It was some days later and I was far afield in the puzzle's coils. It perversely kept offering me distant simplicities each of which, when I reached it, revealed
A screen appeared in the air of my workroom then filled with the face of Falberoth. It was not a visage that happily drew the gaze. Grim lines seamed the cheeks and brow, and the eyes were steeped in contempt.
"How goes the work?" said a voice whose softness was somehow more unnerving than a shout.
"Faster without interruptions," I said.
"That is not an answer."
"Yes it is. It is just not the answer you wish to hear."
"You may believe that your reputation cocoons you," he said. "The belief is not universally shared."
I thought of a number of possible comments but forbore to say any of them. Instead I said, "I have narrowed the potential suspects to seven. I shall now proceed to evaluate each and make suitable recommendations."
"You will hurry."
"It will take the time it takes."
He severed the connection. My assistant deposited the seven files on my worktable and I abandoned the braided puzzle and turned my attention to them.
"We will complete the assignment with all possible speed," I said. "Working to preserve Torquil Falberoth has lost much of its allure."
"Should we now add one more name to the list of those who would prefer to see him reduced to his constituent elements?" my integrator asked.
I made no comment but turned to the dossiers. The assignment's scant appeal lost its remaining shreds as I immersed myself in details of his seven worst iniquities. The magnate was clearly a throwback to Old Earth's dawn time; the ancient conquerors who enjoyed standing on mountains of their victims' skulls had nothing on my client. He had ruined and ravished, seized and sequestered, grabbed and grasped with a cold ferocity that more resembled the feeding behavior of insects than any appetite of a man.
"See this," I said, pointing out one of his crimes to my integrator. Falberoth had gone to preposterous lengths to surround the affairs of the victim, until he could not only acquire the man's life work but leave the poor fellow destitute and despairing. "Then, having held the object of the struggle in his hand, he allows it to fall and shatter, and walks away with never a rearward glance."
But where lay his motive? There were two possible answers: One was that Falberoth has achieved a philosophy of existence so subtle that its logic was impenetrable even to me. The other was that he savored cruelty for its own sake.
I knew that among the truly opulent it was not unheard of for the seven basic senses to be augmented by chemical and even surgical intervention, so that emotions might be tasted or heard.
"Perhaps he enjoys the suffering of a victim as if it were some rare vintage or exquisite essence," I said. "Or the answer may be pure banality: he does what he does because he can."
"You disentangle conundrums for the same reason," said my assistant.
"There is a difference," I said. "I harm none."
"Does Falberoth recognize such a distinction?"
"It is not a pleasant thought," I said.
"Falberoth is not a pleasant man."
"Indeed, he is not. Let us quickly assemble our findings so that you may transmit them to him and I may return to what's-his-name's problem."
I prepared a document identifying the seven and the method I believed each would pursue in an attempt, in most cases suicidal, to undo my client. I made recommendations as to countermeasures, all of which I was certain had already been thought of. My assistant transmitted the report and we heard no more from Torquil Falberoth after his integrator acknowledged receipt.
I returned to my pursuit of the braided perplexity through eighth-level consistencies only to find that the resulting paradigm resolved nothing; instead it opened a whole new array of complexities. Chagrined, I plunged into the conundrum's hidden depths, resolved to end the thing before my competitor returned.
It was some days later and I was far afield in the puzzle's coils. It perversely kept offering me distant simplicities each of which, when I reached it, revealed
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