[Author’s Note: We've returned to Rin's encounter with Karkov, right after the events of episodes 68.]
“Now that I’ve given you all this, will you finally keep up your end? What are your protections?” Rin demanded.
Karkov studied her. “What makes you think I remember them any better than you do? You crafted the spheres, you told us the protections.”
She gave him a sour look. “I knew you would try to wiggle out of it. I never lied about the protections I gave, and I have yet to meet anybody who did not recall their precise ones.”
“No, I suppose not,” he conceded. “Well you gave them to me, so the least I can do is parrot them back a few thousand years later.” Rin couldn’t tell whether he was being facetious or just reasoning aloud.
Karkov smiled. “All right, I’ll put my money on there being no way to encumber me.”
“So you’ve said. Are you sure that’s wise? It’s a rather reckless thing to do. What if there is a way?” Rin knew he wouldn’t change his mind at this point, and there was no risk in goading him a bit.
He shrugged. “If there is, you’ll find it anyway. There aren’t that many ways you could have crafted my sphere, so you’ll eventually try them all. Even if it takes a long time, you’ll find it. Just like you said.”
“But you’ll at least have a reprieve.”
“As we both agree, next to the infinite the finite is meaningless, however large it may seem.”
Rin had tossed Karkov’s sentiment back in his face earlier when eager to win a point but had not weighed her words too carefully. Hearing them again, she felt they reflected an odd view of the world — one which equally well could invalidate all of existence. It wasn’t a view she necessarily disagreed with, or one which troubled her. She could live with odd.
“That easily?” Rin asked with a particularly skeptical look. She readied herself for another bout or twelve of verbal wrestling. To her surprise, Karkov nodded agreement.
Then he told her. It took only a couple of minutes to rattle off his protections, with Rin interrupting now and then to clarify the precise ones involved.
“Of course, you don’t know whether I’m lying,” Karkov observed. It was at best a desultory attempt to appear in control, and Rin laughed.
“Actually, I just wanted to see how you would react. I knew them all along. I told you that you were very important to me. How could I forget? It was uncharacteristically reckless of you, though.” Rin wasn’t sure why she said this. Perhaps she wished to be gracious to a defeated opponent and make him feel he hadn’t been fatally outmaneuvered.
She walked over and kissed Karkov on the lips, enjoying his struggle to avoid any show of fear at her approach.
“Thank you for being honest,” Rin whispered softly in his ear, before returning to her seat. She contemplated him smugly from across the table.
Karkov gave a curt smile, clearly attempting to mask how flustered he was by the kiss. “You’re welcome. And now it’s your turn, of course.”
“My turn?”
“Yes, I think it’s only fair for a quid pro quo. Tell me all your protections.” It wasn’t a demand, though his voice had an unpleasant air of authority. Was he exulting?
“You should have asked before,” Rin chided.
“I did, but you only told me a couple.”
She shook her head. “You should have insisted.”
“I didn’t want to press the point.”
“When have you ever not wanted to press a point?”
“Well, I’m insisting now,” Karkov replied, with more than a little irritation. “We agreed to tell one another everything, and I gave you what is most valuable to me. Are you refusing to reciprocate?”
“Is that meant to sound threatening?” It clearly had not been, but Rin wanted to annoy the man a bit.
Karkov shook his head. “Not a threat, a demand. I know you are a stickler for promises and agreements.”
“Meaning that you’re not? Did you lie about your protections?” She looked away in faux disgust.
“You know I didn’t.”
“Oh, then you honor agreements as well?” Rin needled.
Karkov rolled his eyes. “Of course I do. Why are you making this so difficult?” His voice had none of its former playfulness.
Rin adopted an expression of distaste. “When did you become such a whiner? Oh, that’s right — always. Lighten up. I just wanted to give you a little taste of your own medicine.”
He smirked. “By burying me?”
A flash of anger crossed Rin’s face, and she kicked herself for letting him get to her.
“By annoying you. I’ll do much worse than burying you. But first, the annoying.”
“So you do intend to honor our agreement?” Karkov sounded uncertain, and Rin smiled. He was easily confounded by his own tactics.
“To the letter,” she replied, carefully enunciating each word.
“Okay, then tell me your protections,” he repeated.
“No.”
Karkov’s face lit in fury, but Rin just shrugged.
“I think you’ll recall agreeing that we would speak no more of my sphere or protections.” She announced this with an unseemly level of glee. But even in this moment of triumph, she still felt uncertainty.
Had Karkov really forgotten what they had agreed to just a short while ago, or did he hope she had forgotten? Was this his way of annoying her. It would be a relief when all his layers of manipulation finally were bound in one encumbered body.
Karkov seemed like he was about to object but did not. Instead, he slumped back in his chair with a sigh.
Unable to restrain herself, Rin laughed. “See, you gave something for nothing. Not quite as smart as you imagine yourself, my love?”
Karkov sluggishly leaned forward and looked at Rin before replying. When he did, it was with marked coldness.
“I did nothing of the sort. Do you really imagine me stupid enough to give you the missing ingredient for my eternal torment? Of course you knew them already. In fact, I’ll bet they were one of the things you repeated to yourself over and over for nearly two hundred years.”
“One hundred eighty-seven years and forty-three days,” she replied through clenched teeth. Any sympathy for the man was gone. “I felt every second of it, and I remember every second of it. You knew I had no protection against pain.”
In truth she hadn’t given his protections much thought at all during the ordeal, but there was no need for him to know that. As was his talent, her husband had managed to elicit a desire to be less than gracious.
Karkov appeared to consider his reply. “It’s your own fault, you know.”
Seeing the flash of fury in her eyes, he hastened to explain. “The evasions, not the interment. Well that too, but we said we would not discuss our reasons. Now, please calm yourself and I will tell you what I mean.”
This did little to quell Rin’s anger, but she made no move.
“You said that if the protections potentially could conflict, the sphere would not form. I do not believe that. How would the universe know without anticipating every possible situation? Of course, it is easy to see why you thought I would accept your word on the subject. After all, who but the Crafter is privy to such details? But this is something which I have contemplated at great length, and it is closely related to my reason for doing what I did.”
“You think you know a lot,” Rin groused.
Karkov looked at her. “There’s something else which may interest you. I know you aren’t who you say you are.”
“My name’s not Rin? How insightful. I should be flattered you recall the real name of the woman you were married to.”
“Am married to,” he corrected. “And you know what I mean.”
“And who do I say I am?” As aggravating as the man was, she had to admit that Karkov had a gift for drama. He may be many things, but boring certainly wasn’t one of them.
“It’s not so much who you say you are as who you don’t say you are.”
Rin rolled her eyes. No, not drama. Farce. “Well, that’s enigmatic,” she noted dryly. “I’ll take it as another feeble attempt at manipulation. You really are sliding, my dear.”
“Take it as you will.”
“How else could I?” she replied with a malicious smirk. “I don’t know what you think you know, but it’s best not to think you know too much.”
“I know that a defective sphere can be formed.”
Rin gave him an irritated look. “Yes, because I just told you. That’s how I plan to send you to hell.”
“Not a malignant sphere, a defective one,” Karkov clarified. “One which seems like it will work but does not. I can see why you didn’t tell me, though.”
“In the end, it makes no difference,” Rin replied. “As we discussed, time allows all possibilities. If a way to encumber you exists, I will find it. And a way does exist.”
Karkov shrugged. “Perhaps. But it makes a vast difference in convenience. If a defective sphere simply cannot form, you have immediate feedback. You can try and try until you succeed, without my being any the wiser. Then you can approach me with certainty. Your weapon will work. You need not rely on me to test it.”
He paused, but Rin said nothing and he continued.
“You never specified at what stage in the sphere’s formation it would fail if it did — but even if you had to birth a new one each time, that still would be less challenging than tracking me down over and over.”
“Not really. I could create a bunch and try them all at once.”
“What makes you think I’d let you? I wouldn’t simply hold still while you applied them all. At best you would get one or two shots before I escaped. I’m not completely helpless. After all, I am a Sixteen. And even if you could, trying many at once would make iterative testing difficult. It’s a terrible approach to engineering.”
Karkov gave her a knowing smile. “But you are an exceptionally brilliant engineer. Whatever your weaknesses, creating things is not one of them. You are well aware of all this.”
Rin’s temper had vanished, and she wore an expression of boredom. “An interesting theory. You must be very confident in this. Confident enough to risk your being.”
“My being already is forfeit — if a binding sphere is possible for me. If not, then nothing I say or you do will harm me. Either way, there is no risk in telling you.”
“Your theory has a fundamental flaw,” Rin began, but Karkov waved dismissively.
“I thought we were going to be honest with one another,” he complained.
Rin exploded in laughter, and it was some time before she recovered herself. “What fool believes a liar who promises not to lie?”
In response to Karkov’s frown, she sighed. “Very well, for my part I have been honest. Except I did omit this one small thing.” Rin smiled innocently. “I’m sure you can forgive one teensy weensy omission.”
Before he could reply, she elaborated. “Good, because I don’t give a flying fuck whether or not you do.”
Rin’s smile persisted in the face of Karkov’s obvious disapproval.
“But since you deem yourself so smart, let me ask you this,” she continued. “If when the sphere is formed the universe can’t ‘anticipate’ every possibility — whatever that means — why would it miraculously be able to at the point of binding? What grand knowledge has it acquired in the interim? According to your reasoning, we shouldn’t know whether a conflict can arise until it does.”
Karkov shook his head. “That’s what I originally thought as well. But if it worked that way, conflicts would have arisen by now. I think we both know what likely would have resulted.”
Rin shrugged. “You assume a lot.”
“More to the point, the universe can anticipate what will happen, but only in a loose way. The laws of physics only allow the world to evolve in ways which don’t violate certain constraints. Each sphere must add to those laws, somehow. But if this occurred at the point of formation, you would be certain. I would be bound, and we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”
“Again, you assume a lot.”
A note of uncertainty now found its way into Karkov’s voice. “The point of decision must be at binding. It makes sense. The sphere itself is just a placeholder, a template in a sense. How can new laws be created unless they know what they pertain to? Only when bound to a specific person, a set of atoms and all the structure of his being, can those laws take concrete form. That is why binding must be special.”
Rin nodded. “Well, I have to admit you’re not as big a fool as you let on.”
Karkov smiled, until she added, “And it only took you three thousand years to figure that out. I took a whole decade.”
“I didn’t have the gods tutoring me,” he grumbled. “Some of us actually have to work at things.”
“Don’t worry. I’m going to cure you of that problem.”
“So you’ve said …,” Karkov glanced at his watch, “two hundred and forty-three times.”
“Your watch keeps track? Impressive technology.”
“You admit it then? There is uncertainty. You do not know whether your sphere will work.”
With a sigh, Rin nodded. “Yes, yes, pat yourself on the back, have a good wank. You got it.”
“Has it happened?” Karkov appeared genuinely curious. It wasn’t the question she had expected, and she thought for a moment before nodding.
“Once, with an Eight. It never is a problem with the lower numbers because there are too few constraints, and I already know which combinations work. Besides, most of those I take care of manually.”
“Manually?”
“Without a sphere.” Rin gestured as if covering somebody’s mouth.
“Ah, I see.”
There was a brief silence before Karkov asked, “Did you get that Eight eventually?”
“On the second try.” It wasn’t quite a lie, but certainly wasn’t the truth. There was no need for him to know that it had happened back when she was creating Proteges, not destroying them. The binding failed, and the recipient had died testing his imagined invulnerability. She put it about that he had decided to leave his old life behind and travel. If people knew there was such a risk, it wouldn’t have stopped them from seeking immortality but could have lowered the price.
Karkov looked pensive, and Rin grinned at him. “Buck up. A Sixteen is certain to be much more challenging.”
He replied with a tight-lipped smile, and she leaned back, pleased with herself. “I meant what I said, though. Thank you for being honest.”
“Do I get another kiss?”
Rin’s eyes laughed, but she said nothing.
Karkov looked down and distractedly adjusted his hat on the table.
“Since I am being honest, I have one other thing to tell you.”
She listened in surprise. It hardly was like Karkov to volunteer information.
“You’re pregnant?” she beamed. “Congratulations. That won’t stop me, by the way.”
“I lied. Darrouil is dead.”
He paused for a moment before looking at her. Rin’s eyes weren’t laughing.