Palimpsest Read Online Free Page B

of its own, contracting and standing up like a malign shadow behind its master as the human-shaped blob of walking water turned and raised one hand toward the roof. A chorus of screams rose behind it as one of the other seminarians, who had unwisely reached for the robe, collapsed convulsing.
    “Stay down!” It was the third agent. “Play dead.”
    “My knee’s—”
    Pierce managed a sidelong look that took in Yarrow’s expression of fear with a shudder of self-recognition. “I’ll decoy,” he sent. Then, a curious clarity of purpose in his mind, he rolled sideways and scrambled toward the interior of the tavern.
    Several things happened in the next three seconds:
    First, a brilliant turquoise circle two meters in diameter flickered open, hovering directly in front of the rear wall of the beer garden. A double handful of enormous purple hornets burst from its surface. Most arrowed toward the students, who had entangled themselves in a panicky crush at the exit: two turned and darted straight up toward the balcony level.
    Next, a spark, bright as lightning, leapt between the watery humanoid’s upraised hand and the ceiling.
    Finally, something punched Pierce in the chest with such breath-taking violence that he found, to his shock and surprise, that his hands and feet didn’t seem to want to work anymore.
    “Agent down,” someone signalled, and it seemed to him that this was something he ought to make sense of, but sense was ebbing fast in a buzz of angry hornets as the pinkness faded to gray. And then everything was quiet for a long time.
    Internal Affairs
    “Do you know anyone who wants you dead, scholar-agent?” The investigator from Internal Affairs leaned over Pierce, his hands clasped together in a manner that reminded Pierce of a hungry mantis. His ears (Pierce couldn’t help but notice) were prominent and pink, little radar dishes adorning the sides of a thin face. It had to be an ironic comment if not an outright insult, his adoption of the likeness of Franz Kafka. Or perhaps the man from Internal Affairs simply didn’t want to be recognized.
    Pierce chuckled weakly. The results were predictable: when the coughing fit subsided, and his vision began to clear again, he shook his head.
    “A pity.” Kafka rocked backward slightly, his shoulders hunched. “It would make things easier.”
    Pierce risked a question. “Does the Library have anything?”
    Kafka sniffed. “Of course not. Whoever set the trap knew enough to scrub the palimpsest clean before they embarked on their killing spree.”
    So it was a palimpsest. Pierce felt vaguely cheated. “They assassinated themselves first? To remove the evidence from the time sequence?”
    “You died three times, scholar-agent, not counting your present state.” He gestured at the dressing covering the cardiac assist leech clamped to the side of Pierce’s chest. It pulsed rhythmically, taking the load while the new heart grew to full size between his ribs. “Agent Yarrow died twice and Agent-Major Alizaid’s report states that he was forced to invoke Control Majeure to contain the palimpsest’s expansion. Someone ”—Kafka leaned toward Pierce again, peering intently at his face with disturbingly dark eyes—“went to great lengths to kill you repeatedly.”
    “Uh.” Pierce stared at the ceiling of his hospital room, where plaster cherubs clutching overflowing cornucopiae cavorted with lecherous satyrs. “I suppose you want to know why?”
    “No. Having read your Branch Library file, there are any number of whys : what I want to know is why now .” Kafka smiled, his mouth widening until his alarmingly unhinged head seemed ready to topple from the plinth of his jaw. “You’re still in training, a green shoot. An interesting time to pick on you, don’t you think?”
    Fear made Pierce tense up. “If you’ve read my Library record, you must know I’m loyal …”
    “Peace.” Kafka made a placating gesture. “I know nothing of the kind; the