142.  Garden

Jayhawk tried to reach the jungle where Martha had lived at the
waterwheel station, and found her way blocked by walls of intricate
code.  She set herself to finding a way through them, in the time she
could spare from tending the Overnet.

It took her eleven months.

During that time she'd created a full security system for Anubis, and
had it tested twice; bargained with the Turing Police; hunted down the
records of Angela Whitechapel in every database she could find, and
deleted them all; taught Forked Lightning a decent amount of decking,
though not the Overnet knowledge he craved; and formed the basis for a
monograph by Gregor McDougal, to be privately published.  She'd also
teased out of her memories the address at which *he* had vanished into the
Matrix.  It was a maternity hospital in Victoria, BC.  Deliberately, she
followed that line no further.

The barrier code was among the most beautiful she'd ever seen.  Its
elegance was finally her key to passing through it; she looked for a
solution of equal beauty, crafted passcodes like diamonds until she
found one which worked.  With a tiny internal wrench, she found herself
circling above the waterwheel station.

The jetpad had been turned into a garden, with flowers and vegetables in
neatly trimmed rows.  The door to the cottage was open; she knocked anyway, 
then sat down on the porch to wait.

Something came diving around the corner of the house in a blur of speed,
came up in a tense crouch.  It was Martha, crimson-tipped gun cradled in
her arms.  Jayhawk sat very still.

"Oh," said Martha.  "I should have realized it'd be you.  I guess the
defenses didn't work."  She was a little thinner than Jayhawk
remembered, and deeply tanned; her hair was tied back in a bandanna, and
there were spots of dirt on the knees of her pants.

"They were superb," said Jayhawk.  "I've been working on them for nearly
a year.  But if I'm intruding, I can certainly leave.  I thought you
might want some company."

This was not the woman she loved.  The distinction seemed strange to
her, but understandable; it would have made sense for someone to love
Caroline and only tolerate Jay, or vice versa.  But she did care what
this Martha thought of her.

Martha frowned at her briefly, then said, "No, now that you're here you
might as well do something useful.  Come help me weed."  She disappeared
into the house, returned with a small shovel which she pushed into
Jayhawk's hands.  Then she turned resolutely and walked back toward the 
garden.

Jayhawk couldn't restrain herself.  "You do it by *hand*?  Here?"

"It's good for you.  I bet you haven't been exercising."

Jayhawk snorted.  "I've been looking after the entire Overnet.  If that
isn't exercise, I don't know what is."

The sunlight was hotter than it was in her own gardens, and the weeds
were stubborn.  For a while she had no breath for talk.  Martha worked a
parallel row, quiet as if engrossed in her own thoughts.  At last she
came to the end, leaned on her shovel to survey their work.  Jayhawk
struggled with a final weed, finally pulled it out with an effort that
sent her tumbling backwards.  The earth was warm too, and felt very
different from her feather-clothed steel.

"How have you been?" Jayhawk said, glad of the opportunity to catch her
breath.  This place was so exasperatingly physical!

"Not too badly.  I've had lots of time to think...and things are coming
up here."  Jay didn't recognize most of the plants, but their pattern
was so neat that the weeds were easily identifiable.  "Yourself?"

"It's going well.  I think the Turing Police may see reason, sooner or
later.  I want the Overnet as neutral territory, like Antarctica.  They
don't like negotiating with a spook, but they're coming to see the
necessity."  Gingerly, feeling her way:  "Can I ask...why you decided to
stay here?"

Martha's eyes were shadowed against the sun.  "I felt I needed some time
to think, some time to rest.  A little privacy."

"I'm sorry if I'm intruding."

She shook her head.  "I thought you might come here, sooner or later.  I
didn't really think I could keep you out."  She began weeding the next
row, working in an easy rhythm which Jayhawk tried and failed to copy.

"It was really hard.  That's beautiful code."

"Thank you."  She went on with her work in silence until she came to the
end of the row.  At last, very softly, "Have you seen *her*?"

"No.  I think she may need some time too."

"I wish I understood...why she chose as she did."

"Maybe you should ask her."

"Maybe I will someday."  She straightened abruptly, surveyed her garden.
"What do you think?"

"It's growing very well," said Jayhawk carefully.  "What are they?"

The names meant nothing to her, but the conversation seemed to please
Martha.  They finished the weeding, went to draw water from the stream.
The waterwheel was no longer turning.

"Is Caroline doing all right too?" Martha said, tipping water into a
furrow between rows of lacy-topped greenery.

"I *am* Caroline.--And Jay."

"Kraken said something like that to me once."

Jayhawk winced.  She had gone back to Westking Enterprises, looking for
the great squid.  It was gone, but there were hints to its nature in the
code that had supported it.  Its author had scattered his soul into his
creations.  "Well, there's a right way and a wrong way to do it."
Martha snorted.  "That sounded really egotistical, didn't it?  I don't
really know how to explain.  Martha, did you know about Angela?"

"Angela?"

"A woman in Seattle who looked a lot like me...."

"Ah.  Yes."  She looked down as if abashed.  "Whitechapel."

"What was going on there?  Why did--was it Lefty?--why did they try to
make me believe I was her?"

"It was Lefty, on the behalf of various factions who thought that you 
were progressing too fast.  A distraction.  I'm glad it didn't work."

"I think they did me a favor without meaning to.  There's some of Angela
in me now, along with Jay and Caroline and Piebald."

"Piebald?"

Jayhawk took on Piebald's shape with a jingle of bells, shook out
his/her three-cornered hat and grinned at Martha.  Martha's eyes
widened.  "That?  Why did you copy *that*?"

"Who am I?"  S/he looked at Martha sidelong, amused and curious and a
very little bit afraid.

"It looks very much like a piece of encrypt/decrypt code I wrote a long
time ago."  She frowned.  "The only copy I know of was at the High
Temple."

Jayhawk blurred back to her own form, realizing that she was upsetting
Martha.  "He was a person, of sorts, when I met him.  At the High
Temple, yes.  So that's where he came from!  I never knew."

"*His* dreams took odd forms at times."

"Yes.  And I was a prisoner, I was looking for someone, anyone who could
help me...it's not too surprising."  She laughed suddenly.  "Encrypt/
decrypt code!  It's no wonder he's such a mystery."  She'd been afraid
to find out that Piebald was...she didn't know what.  But it really
didn't matter.  Whatever her scattered aspects had been, she was one
now, and whole.

They finished with the garden, and went inside to drink tea.  The
interior of the cottage was as she recalled it, except that there were
flowers in vases beside the bed, and fresh vegetables hanging in bundles
in the kitchen.  "What are you going to do now?" said Martha.

"Lots of things.  Hash out this business with Interpol, for one.  Keep
an eye on the Overnet.  Learn some programming--I've gotten behind,
there's all sorts of new stuff cooking out there.  Watch out for
anything Paradisio might have left behind."  She added tentatively, "I
could come visit you sometimes, if you like.  Or would you rather not be
disturbed?"

"I wouldn't mind," said Martha wistfully.  "I wouldn't mind that at
all."

--

Copyright 1992 Mary K. Kuhner