The Octagonal Raven Read Online Free PDF Page A

any space combat or had run across anything but the comparative handful of artifacts found beyond Pavo 31.
    I smiled, briefly, recalling my own first encounter with a forerunner Gate. We still weren’t sure if it had been a Gate, no matter what I or any scientist claimed, but the similarities were there, and the location argued for it being a Gate—and there had been some odd occurrences.
    Reminiscing wasn’t going to pay the tariffs, and I began to go over the work I’d already done on the comp analysis, beginning with the VR high music dramas. I liked them, but I had to wonder about their appeal. Still, UniComm was scooping in creds, especially on some of the revivals, camp stuff like Socrates in Corinth . The orchestration was lush. I could tell that the UniComm contractor, probably Vebyr, had used a real orchestra—maybe even the Warsha. Competing with that would be expensive for OneCys, but not competing would cost even more, especially if UniComm managed to reclaim market share it had been losing before revitalizing the VR high music stuff. Of course, the ancient philosopher hadn’t ever gone to Corinth, not so far as I knew, anyway, but that didn’t seem to matter in getting netshare, especially in entertainment.
    My providing analysis to OneCys—the netsystem trying to take back market share from UniComm, the family firm run by Father and Gerrat—was more than a little ironic, but while Father occasionally gave hints of appreciating my abilities, Gerrat never had, and Gerrat was the one half-running the operation and being groomed to succeed Father.
    When I finished running through the analyses and comp recs I’d already completed, I put through the screen to Myrto. I just toggled the two-way holo, rather than using the headset for a complete VR interaction.
    Immediately, an image appeared in the middle of the study, that of a man of average height for the pre-selected, not quite two meters tall, with short black hair, deep blue eyes, and a winning smile. “As you can see, I’m really not here, but I’d like to hear your message, and I’ll get back to you when I can.”
    Myrto was honest with his sims. He didn’t program them to lead you on or pretend that they were him with various routines. According to Gerrat, some of the UniComm execs had sims so elaborate that outsiders couldn’t tell for certain whether they were dealing with a hurried and harried real person or an elaborate VR. Gerrat did, too, but he’d been careful to instruct his gatekeeper not to use it with me.
    “Myrto…Daryn here. I’d like a few minutes. When you can.”
    I leaned back in the chair, gingerly, looking blankly toward the red stone bluffs across the valley to the east.
    Elysa—the face that probably didn’t even exist any more—drifted into my vision, and the way that she’d blushed, so charmingly…and effectively. I snorted. Had there been the equivalent of a nanite aphrodisiac in that spray that had triggered every histaminic reaction in my system? Kharl’s explanation notwithstanding, I still thought it was that fragrance, and the odds were that it had been deliberate, and that the fragrance had held more than mere altered scent. Did my wondering about Elysa mean that I was a sucker for a woman—or construct—who had nearly killed me?
    I didn’t think so. Elysa was a risk, and I was definitely risk-averse. That might be why I was still unattached. Besides, I was in no shape to go looking for her. A quick read of my nanite monitors confirmed that.
    That thought didn’t help. I still found myself slipping on the headset. Scanners had implants. So did at least half the methodizers I knew, and so did Gerrat, but I’d avoided another set—having a pilot’s set was enough, and those weren’t keyed to any of the popnets. I could have had them re-keyed, but I’d never done that, probably on some unacknowledged principle, or just to be contrary.
    I hated dropping into the net. Most former pilots did. After the