Eric Flint's Blog, page 331

1636 The Devil’s Opera – Snippet 13

1636 The Devil’s Opera – Snippet 13

All of a sudden one of the alley voices, the voice he had promised himself he’d remember, that voice said clearly, “That’s him.” Simon pressed back against the side of the shop, but the men didn’t look back as they launched themselves out of the alley and began pursuing the whistler. Both of them were holding knives.

          Before he realized what he was doing, Simon screamed, “Look out!” Aghast at what he had done, he stood frozen by the shop and watched it happen.

The whistler spun in his tracks before the others could reach him. Simon had never seen a man move so fast. He dodged to one side, making one of the men block the other one. There was a thock as the whistler’s fist flew out and smacked the jaw of the man in front of him. That individual stopped for a moment, stunned, dropping his knife. His companion tried to dodge around him just as the whistler delivered a kick to the first man’s groin. With a yell that was more of a shriek, that unfortunate collapsed into a huddled mass on the street, tangling his companion’s feet as he did so.

The second man succeeded in staying erect, but only by dint of some desperate footwork. He obviously knew what was coming, but by the time he regained his balance it was too late. The whistler’s fist buried itself in his midsection. He folded over it with a groan but managed to hold on to his knife. But then the whistler grabbed the back of his jacket and threw the man headfirst into the wall of the building they were fighting in front of and the knife went flying. This time the noise was a “thud” sound, and the man slid down the wall to crumple senseless at its foot.

Simon stared, astonished. He’d seen many fights in the streets of Magdeburg the last few years, especially in the rougher parts of town where the rebuilding after the sack by Pappenheim’s troops was slow in happening. It was almost a daily occurrence in his experience. But he’d never seen anyone dodge a sneak attack and wreak havoc on dual assailants like the whistler had. It amazed him.

Of a sudden, Simon became aware that the whistler was staring right at him where he stood in the shadows. He closed his mouth with a gulp and stood frozen.

“You, boy.” The whistler beckoned. “Come here.”

Simon stood, lock-kneed, silent.

“Come here, boy. I will not hurt you.” Unsure of what to do, Simon took a hesitant step forward. “That’s right, boy. Come on over here.”

One slow step at a time, much as Schatzi had approached him, although he wasn’t aware of it, Simon approached the whistler. That worthy had picked his hat up off the street and was beating it on his leg. Simon stopped an arm’s length away as the man crammed the hat on his head and pushed it back.

“You are the one who yelled, right?” The whistler cocked his head and grinned at Simon. The boy’s uncertainty dwindled and a timorous smile crossed his own face. He nodded. “Then you have my thanks. I would have beaten these two louts anyway, but I would have taken some damage in the doing of it. Thanks to you, they are on the ground and I’ve had a good warm-up.”

The man in the street groaned and shifted a little, clutching himself. The whistler turned and rather callously kicked him in the head. Simon started, edging back. The whistler saw the motion. “Nay, lad, you have got to know that when someone tries to stab you in the back like this, you knock them down and keep them down. You do not let them up; for sure as you do they will try it again. Mercy is all well and good in the church when the preachers talk about the Son of God, but out in the street a man takes care of his own.”

True to his own hard rule, the whistler bent down and rifled the pockets of the two assailants, coming away with three pouches. He sniffed at one pouch. “Hmm. Tobacky in this one, and a fair size wad from the feel of it. I know just where I can sell that for a pfennig or three. As to the rest, I doubt scum like this have more than a couple of coins to rub together, but we’ll check it out later.”

He picked up the knife dropped by his first assailant, examined it cursorily, and tossed it aside. “Cheap crap,” he muttered. He didn’t bother looking for the second knife.

He stood straight and turned to face Simon, who stood ready to duck or jump out of the way. Tucking his hands in his belt, he cocked his head to one side and studied the boy. Just as Simon started to feel uncomfortable at the close regard, the man jerked his chin down in a nod, reached out and clapped Simon on the shoulder. “Well, lad, it looks like you are my luck tonight. I’m Hans. You just come with me, and I’ll give you a fine time.” Hans started off, only to stop when Simon didn’t move.

Simon didn’t know what to do. He was glad that Hans seemed to be grateful to him, but the casually violent air about the big man made him nervous.

“Come on, boy. You don’t have anyplace else to go, now, do you?”

“N-no,” Simon stuttered.

“Then come on.” Hans laid his big square hand on Simon’s shoulder, and the boy found himself coming on despite his uncertainty.

 

Spheres Of Influence – Chapter 06

Spheres Of Influence – Chapter 06

Chapter 6.

          That’s Wu, DuQuesne thought with a fond smile, even as he and the other three followed the impulsive Monkey King through. Even when he’s on-duty, he’s still a kid in so many ways.

          As they arrived, he heard Wu give an exclamation that meant roughly “wonderful!”. In a single flurry of motion Wu Kung streaked up the Gateway, reached the very crest of the arch and stood there, bouncing and glancing in all directions like a child at an amusement park. “There’s so many different kinds of people here, DuQuesne!” he shouted. “No immediate threats I can see. Hey, Captain, don’t go too far! Stay in sight! Oh, look over there, those are Molothos, right?”

Oh, blasted HELL. DuQuesne looked in the direction indicated by the crimson-and-gold staff. Sure enough, Dajzail — DuQuesne could recognize him now, by a handsome almost geometric pattern on his fighting claws — and four other Molothos were crossing Transition. He heard Ariane draw in her breath.

Fortunately, although he could see the Molothos’ gaze swivel, taking in their presence (and pausing momentarily in obvious bemusement at the tiny out-of-place figure atop the Gateway), the jack-knife clawed aliens apparently weren’t prepared for or interested in a confrontation at this time; they moved on and out of sight. Just as well; I’ve got to figure out how to rein Wu in while still leaving him free to act the way he has to. We don’t want him being a convenient lever for someone to Challenge with simply because he’s got the Monkey King’s curiosity and sometimes low sense of humor.

He realized the others were now staring up at Wu Kung. Ariane looked at DuQuesne incredulously. “How the hell did he get UP there?” Wu had of course come through before her, but he’d apparently moved slightly aside on entry, so his leap-and-scramble had happened out of her sight.

“Monkey, remember. Give him something to climb, he’ll climb it.”

Ariane shook her head and gave a slight gasp as Wu came down by sliding down the side until he departed from the curve about 12 meters up, somersaulted twice, and landed with the same casual grace of a gymnast dismounting from a one-meter horse. DuQuesne heard Simon mutter something disbelieving. I’ll also have to give him a reminder about subtlety. Not that it’s likely to do any good; his idea of subtle was generally to sneak up behind you before going “boo!”.

Wu bounced back in front of the group, leading them towards the entrance of Nexus Arena, staring wide-eyed at everything and everyone around him, exclaiming in wonder and excitement. A never-ending flow of questions streamed over his shoulder, leaving Ariane — the target of most of those questions — looking both amused and bemused.

“Marc,” Simon said, watching Wu, “far be it from me to question your judgment — given your record — but… I have a hard time believing that our new friend is quite as attentive as a bodyguard ought to be; honestly, he’s acting almost like a child.”

He grinned. “Does kinda look that way, doesn’t it? But let me tell you, that hyperactive overgrown toddler is absolutely and completely aware of anything that might be a threat to Ariane; when it comes down to the ugly, Wu’s sharper than a cutting laser and about a thousand numbers Brinnell harder than a diamond drill. Anyone thinks Ariane’s unprotected because her bodyguard’s distracted…” He shook his head. “Believe you me, that’s the very last mistake they’ll ever make.”

Simon smiled faintly. “You speak from experience, so I will take your word for it,” he said, as Wu suddenly pointed with childlike excitement to one of the blue-green Chiroflekir as it half-floated across Transition’s floor, “but you must admit it’s hard to imagine.” He tilted his head, obviously listening. “Great kami, I thought my blending of languages was an abomination, but I swear I hear –”

“Yeah, Japanese, Mandarin, Cantonese, Hindi, and a smattering of others including English.”

“In the name of … well, sanity, why?”

DuQuesne sighed. “Thought it was obvious. That version of Sun Wu Kung isn’t from any one source. Like I told Ariane, they took every major version of Journey to the West and of the Monkey King and … put them in a blender, everything from the legends of Hanuman to ancient cartoons, the original Journey to the West, Manak’s epic virtual world adventure Seven Worlds of Wu Kung, all of them.

“You see, the Hyperion SFG wouldn’t allow multiple versions of the same character to be made, so people either had to select one particular version, or make a combined one. Whoever was running that sim, well, they decided to really go to town. That mangled language actually sorta hangs together, but it’s a bitch to learn. Good thing he speaks our version of English pretty well.” DuQuesne managed a faint smile, though the subject hurt, like picking at an open wound. “I can’t really laugh at him over it, though; same thing’s true of me.”

“You? I thought — from what Ariane said — that there really was a character named Marc C. DuQuesne.” They were now approaching the immense array of elevators that served Transition and brought people to the main levels of Nexus Arena.

“Yeah, but… not exactly. See, my… designer, he was a real big fan of the guy who wrote those books, and the same guy — called Doc Smith — had written another really popular series back in the day. The people running the Hyperion SFG were adamant that my designer could only have one character from Smith’s writings, so he ended up combining both Smith’s Lensman and Skylark series, and making me a combination of a couple of the heroes from both. Admittedly, I’m more Marc C. DuQuesne than I am any of the others, but if you read the books, I sure as hell am not that DuQuesne — and thank all the gods — and my designer — for that.” And I hope my note got to you, old man; I owed you that much thanks, and if she never caught up with you, you’re safe now.

“My main worry,” Gabrielle said quietly, “is just what that Maria-Susanna’s up to. Do you think she’ll be at the Embassy?”

“I’d think there’s a good chance of it,” Simon said. “After all, it’s been only a day or so since she left.”

“Hmph.” DuQuesne couldn’t quite repress the snort. “Maybe, but remember, she thought this out. And she’s one hell of a high-powered thinker when she’s trying.”

“But she knew the schedule,” Simon pointed out, stepping inside the elevator with the others. Ariane and Wu Kung turned their heads, listening to the conversation. “She’d know she had at least a few days.”

“She’d know the schedule gave her at least a few days,” DuQuesne corrected him. “But if you could detect her jumping out, she’d assume I’d break every speed limit there was to catch up with her.”

“But Simon just invented the detection device,” Ariane protested. “Why would she assume anything like that?”

“You tell me, Simon; if you were in her position, just as smart as you, knowing what she’d know about the Drive — would she be able to reasonably guess that it was practically possible to detect?”

Simon frowned. The doors opened and they walked out into the main floor of Nexus Arena, on which were located all of the Embassies, the Powerbrokers, and the entrances to the actual Arena Challenge levels. After another few moments, he grimaced. “Yes, I’m afraid she would. The capability is implicit in the way the system works, if you understand it sufficiently. The light-signature from the drive is very distinctive, even leaving aside the spacetime effects.”

Gabrielle shrugged. “All right. So she’ll only be there if she’s planned on meeting us, then.”

“That’s the way I’d bet.”

Ariane waved over one of the “taxis”, the automated public transports that looked like open-roofed and flexibly configured maglev transit cars. Wu Kung stepped smoothly between Ariane and the vehicle, leaped into it and ran from one end to the other, eyes covering every square centimeter of the taxi in seconds. “Okay,” he said, and stood watchfully as the others boarded.

“Is that really necessary?” Ariane asked.

“Yes,” Wu said without hesitation. “Sure, there’s only a very small chance someone might be trying to kill you in any given place, but if I ignore all the small chances they add up to a big chance. There’s some I have to ignore, because we just don’t have time. There’s others I don’t know about yet. And there’s some I’ll miss because you’re in private, or because I get sent somewhere else. But the ones I can, I’ll watch for. Okay?”

She smiled and DuQuesne couldn’t help but grin with her. “Yes, okay. If I have to have a bodyguard, I suppose I have to let him do his job.”

The taxi, having been instructed by Ariane, quickly pulled up to the broad, simply-ornamented front of the Embassy of Humanity. DuQuesne noted a bystander — a Milluk, a gray-black spherical body on jointed spidery legs — turn as they approached, and a small green-glowing sphere appeared nearby. An observer, roving reporter, something like that, now letting someone know that there’s activity at the Embassy. If he’s got good data or observing skills, he also knows that the Captain’s back, which will kick everything into high gear.

The door opened as they approached — DuQuesne in front this time as Wu Kung covered the rear — and they entered the foyer.

DuQuesne felt his eyebrows climb. The entranceway had been transformed in their absence. A series of well-spaced statues — of people, animals, symbols — circled the entire room, while artworks ranging from what appeared to be duplicates of Old Masters to the recent Inversion-Projection period concept light-sculptures hung from or were projected near the walls. The walls and floor themselves had changed from the default concrete and metal appearance; there was carefully selected paneling that looked like natural wood and the floor was a polished marble-like substance. “That’s… quite a change.”

“DuQuesne? ARIANE? Holy crap, you’re back!” Carl Edlund’s voice echoed around the room from the door that had suddenly opened at the far end of the foyer. He ran forward; DuQuesne could see Wu tense momentarily, but he’d apparently decided not to do any more blocking when old friends met up. “Why the hell didn’t you call?” Carl hugged Ariane, shook DuQuesne’s and Simon’s hands, and gave Gabrielle a longer hug and a kiss that echoed the one she’d given him on departure. “And who’s your new friend?”

“Sun Wu Kung, meet Carl Edlund.”

“Pleased to meet you, Carl! Call me Wu, since you are obviously friends with my friends.”

“Glad to meet you. So what’s your line? You sure don’t look like SSC standard issue to me.”

Wu laughed. “Ha! No, I am not at all!”

“We’ll talk about Wu a little later,” Ariane cut in. “Carl, where’s Dr. Shoshana?”

“Dr. who?” Carl looked genuinely confused. At the same time, Laila Canning entered from one of the rear doors and glanced around the little group.

Marc felt grimly vindicated. “She had no intention of making contact here. She’s gone somewhere else — and unless someone volunteers the information, we haven’t a chance of finding her.”

“Oh, come on, Marc,” Ariane said. “There’s no other human beings in the entire Arena. How’s she going to hide?”

“In plain sight, so to speak. All she’s got to do is convince a faction — big one, small one, doesn’t matter — that she’s got something good enough to trade, and get into their Embassy. Then she’s got access to the Arena, allies, and secrecy.”

Laila’s brown eyes studied them curiously, and DuQuesne had to once more fight off the lingering suspicion he’d had — since Laila had been brought back from apparent brain-death by the Faith — that Laila was not really Laila Canning at all any more. “Who, precisely, is this person you’re worried about?” she asked.

“Her current alias is Marilyn Shoshana, supposedly an agent for the SSC; her real name is Maria-Susanna and she’s the renegade Hyperion that’s been at the top of the wanted lists for the past fifty years.”

Laila just stared narrowly; Carl winced. “Holy crap. That’s … not good.”

“We’ve got a whole lot of ‘not good’ for you right now,” Ariane said, gesturing for the others to follow her to one of the Embassy’s conference rooms, “and you’d better let us fill you in.” She ran one hand through her deep blue hair. “And I’d hoped we’d solve some problems before we came back.”

 

Spheres Of Influence – Chapter 05

Spheres Of Influence – Chapter 05

Chapter 5.

          “Final countdown to Transition,” Ariane Austin said, and Wu finally felt a tingle of anticipation. To a new world…

The hours spent preparing the ship for departure had been… a combination of depressing and confusing. He knew he couldn’t help with any of the preparations — this was not like any ship he had ever been aboard before — and he hated having to sit still, let everyone else do work around him. Actually, I just hate having to sit still at all. Moving, always moving, that’s life, it never sits in one place, but dances like a butterfly you can never quite catch.

          Worse, though, was Maria-Susanna. I don’t understand. Even with their explanations. She was … always so nice. She stood with us, fought with us, learned the ways of the enemy and found how we could turn their weapons against them… she was a friend, a warrior-brother. Or sister.

Wu glanced around. The strange control room was not very large; he sat next to Ariane, as was fitting for her bodyguard. Behind her was Simon Sandrisson. The wise one who found the way to go beyond the sky.

Ariane spoke, her voice strong and cheerful. “All crew verify readiness.”

DuQuesne’s familiar deep voice responded over the sound-thing they called an intercom. “Power, Maintenance and Controls, all secure. Ready when you are, Captain.”

“Drive and System Oversight, all secure.” Simon’s dry, oddly-accented voice replied.

“Medical all ready, and as usual here’s hoping I won’t be needed.”

There was a pause, then he remembered it was his turn. “Oh! Sun Wu Kung, Security, ready,” he said proudly. Saying ‘security, all secure’ would have sounded silly, I think.

He knew there had been four others in the crew when the Holy Grail first left, so Simon and DuQuesne were each doing the jobs of more than one person. Ariane, he remembered proudly, had assigned him his new position. “Right now it’s a division of one,” she’d said, “but if DuQuesne’s right — and he usually is — I guess we’ll need more sooner or later.”

He looked to his other side, where there was nothing but smooth bulkhead. I wish the others were here. He suddenly smiled, and the smile hurt, because it was a smile of memory of loss as much as of fondness. Sha Wujing, Zhu Wuneng, Liu Yan… they could not come, because their world… was not real. The bright golden one, Maria-Susanna, was no longer bright, but dark. And Sanzo was not here.

“Prepare for Transition in ten seconds,” Ariane said. He looked at her and heard her voice, and for a moment he wondered if, perhaps, Sanzo was here, in a way.

“Good luck, all of you.” Saul’s voice carried all his concern somehow just below the words. “Take care.”

“We will. Thank you, Saul,” DuQuesne said quietly.

“In four… three… two… one… Transition!”

Sun Wu Kung gasped at a sudden, indescribable sensation of twisting compression, of expansion beyond measure and crushing force pushing him down into nothingness. It ended, and it seemed to Wu almost as though a curtain had been drawn aside, a storm had passed and cleansed the air, for suddenly the ship seemed brighter, the smells sharper and clearer, the sounds of humming machines and even the breath of his companions stronger, as they passed into a new universe.

“Wow!” he heard himself say. “That was fun! That is one of the strangest things I have ever felt! That was new!”

Ariane laughed. “Strange, yes, though I admit I wouldn’t think of it as… fun.” She also seemed… distracted, just for a moment; he noticed a similar odd expression on Simon’s face. Maybe the Transition-thing affects them a little differently. I am… a Hyperion, after all.

He didn’t exactly like thinking of himself as “a Hyperion” — he’d never been anyone or anything except himself. But it was what he was here, and it made him something like DuQuesne’s brother, and that was a fun thought.

“This new world… is very dark,” he finally observed, noticing that there was no sign of light on the forward screen, which had shown many stars and other lights a few moments before.

“Ha!” DuQuesne’s voice came, amused. “Here, yeah. The inside of the Sphere’s darker than a whole sackful of black cats. But you’ll see plenty of light later on, don’t worry.” A more serious tone. “Ariane, anything on radar?”

“I’m not getting anything new. The model solar system, the Dock, nothing else. I suppose her ship could be in the radar shadow of the Sun equivalent, or maybe Jupiter at this angle, but as far as I can tell we are — right now — the only ship here.” He could hear the frown in Ariane’s voice.  ”How about the Dock? Can you tell if she’s locked on one of the ports?”

“Hold on, let me see if I can get a visual… the Dock emits some light of its own.” Wu remembered that it would take a little time to get from the Transition location to the Dock area. “Damn. No, no sign of her at all.” The muttered curse DuQuesne muttered was barely audible to Wu — he guessed the others wouldn’t hear it at all. “Where the living hell is her ship –”

“The Straits,” Simon said with sudden conviction. Wu Kung remembered that term; it meant the large ports in the side of the Sphere that could be opened from the “harbor” area they were in now, to let ships go outside.

“What? Oh hell. Could she have… she couldn’t have… could she?” Wu understood the conflict in DuQuesne’s voice. If she gets away from us… and if she’s … really bad now… well, that could be a very not-good thing for everyone. But it’s so hard to think of her that way.

“I don’t know, Marc. It wouldn’t have occurred to me to even think of it.” Ariane glanced curiously at Simon. “I’m surprised you thought of it.”

By his expression and scent, so was Simon. “I confess I’m not sure why I did, but as soon as it occurred to me I was quite certain.”

“How can we check it?” Ariane asked.

“Oh, I think that’s just plain simple, Arrie,” Gabrielle’s voice answered. “Gimme an outside transmission line, DuQuesne, please?”

“You got it.”

“Strait doors, open,” Gabrielle said.

A blaze of light appeared in the pitch blackness, a brilliant line of undifferentiated white that slowly widened, grew into a perfect defined circle larger than the full moon, slightly oval from their current point of view.

Ariane groaned. “Of course. We secured the Sphere from intrusion, but I’ve never specified who could operate anything internally. And the Sphere — probably through the Arena itself — is always completely helpful that way.” She sighed. “Strait doors, close and lock.” The distant circle of light slowly dwindled away to nothing.

“Better fix that right quick, then,” Gabrielle said.

“Not right this minute,” said DuQuesne, “we’ll want to think about the exact wording; we don’t want to limit it in a way we’ll regret later. But Gabrielle’s right; we’d better fix that, and any other unexamined assumptions, too.”

“Even the simple things can trip us up.” Ariane glanced at Wu. “You understand what just happened?”

“I think so,” he said. “I read the very simplified account of your adventures that DuQuesne and his friend Isaac made. The Sphere does what … what was the word? Citizens, citizens of its faction tell it to do, unless the leader of the Faction’s told it otherwise. So since you hadn’t told it to restrict who could unlock the Straits, anyone could open them.”

“You got it,” DuQuesne said.

“The other alternative,” Ariane said, “is that she didn’t take much in the way of equipment, just extra power coils, and once she was here, she sent it back out and had it transition home on a vector way out at the edge of the system, where no one’s likely to find it.”

“Maybe,” DuQuesne said reluctantly, and Wu saw Simon’s head shake at the same time. “But going through the records of available satellites and other ships we could access back during that period of time, we did get a couple images that were probably of her ship, and it’s built streamlined — like, for atmosphere. Which pretty much tells me what she meant to do with it. Even stupid automation could make the ship follow some pretty broad rules of performance, get it to go somewhere near enough that she could retrieve it later.”

Wu could see Ariane take a deep breath, force herself to relax. “Well, there’s no point in worrying about it now. She’s here. We’ll catch up with her, or we won’t, but for now we just have to dock and see how everyone else is doing.”

A few hours later, something immense loomed up in the powerful lights of Holy Grail; ridged at intervals, shining like polished black bone, gleaming, organic in its shape, with gold-shining circles showing at intervals. A great Dragon’s skeleton, turned into a mighty building, with golden coins between its polished ribs! “Amazing! DuQuesne, what a monster that must have been!”

“Don’t play the idiot too much, Wu,” the good-humored voice answered.

“I was joking, oh most dour and humorless of philosophers!” he retorted. Though that is still what I feel, yes. “I know it is this ‘spacedock’ that you mentioned, but surely it looks like something else!”

“Yes,” agreed Ariane. “Creepy. Which has generally been the word I use whenever the Arena does something.”

The skeletal black projection loomed ever closer, as the Holy Grail drifted towards it, Ariane lining the ship’s docking port up with the matching golden circle. The circle grew, was eclipsed by the hull, as Holy Grail moved ever slower… and then a vibration of gentle impact echoed through the ship. “Holy Grail docked to Sphere, all secure,” Ariane said. “Free to unstrap. Still in microgravity at this time.”

He unsnapped immediately and flipped out of his chair, landing on the ceiling; his toe-claws extended and anchored him and he looked at Ariane upside-down as she unstrapped. “I love this floating!”

She grinned. “I see you do. Just be careful.” She spoke in a slightly louder tone that had the undefinable sound of the ‘official’ Ariane. “Do we have any more preparations to make, or are we ready to disembark?”

“Not for me, Captain,” said DuQuesne.

“I think we should just move,” Gabrielle agreed. “When we’ve checked on our friends, then we can move the cargo over, but right now I’m too darn nervous to want to waste the time.”

Ariane glanced at Simon, who nodded; for Wu’s part, his job was making sure Ariane stayed safe, so he left when she did.

“Okay, then, let’s move out.” She led the way towards the airlock. “Remember the briefing, Wu,” she said, looking at him. “You’ll have gravity inside, so get oriented correctly when passing through.”

“Don’t worry about me,” he said confidently. “You can change your gravity whenever you like, and I’ll always land on my feet. If I want to.”

She smiled — a very nice smile, he thought. “I bet you will.”

Wu inserted himself in front of Ariane as they reached the airlock, to her obvious surprise. “We don’t know if anyone’s waiting on the other side,” he pointed out.

She blinked, then nodded. At least I don’t have to remind her just who might be waiting there. After a moment, the inner lock opened, and he looked out cautiously, staff in guard position. No one was visible in either direction up or down the large docking area, so he stepped out; Ariane followed , with DuQuesne, Simon, and Gabrielle bringing up the rear.

“We’ll have to walk from here,” Ariane said. “Once we get a larger group established in the Arena we’ll have to set up a shuttle, rail, something that allows quick transport.”

“Maglev rail.” DuQuesne said. “Perfect setup for it here. Limited access, linear, flat, need efficient transport; put a spur at each of the airlocks, and we’ve got more than enough space for several cyclic transport loops, and we’ll need it eventually. In a gravity field, barring water transport, there’s no better method.”

“I suppose you’re right,” Simon said, with a bemused expression. “I must admit, however, I find it somewhat … odd to imagine this place being a bustling center of commerce.”

“We’d better hope it becomes one, Simon — soon,” Ariane said.

Wu was impressed; the images from the outside had told him the Dock was huge, but you couldn’t quite grasp that size in your mind until you were inside. It was kilometers long, although Holy Grail had chosen a docking point very near the entrance.

The entrance itself reminded him of the gates of Enma-Sama’s fortress – a tremendous, massive portal that if closed would be almost impenetrable, but was always open. A line of lights showed the straight route deeper into the Sphere.

“Guess the others’ll be at the Guardhouse,” Gabrielle said.

“Guardhouse?”

Ariane smiled. “Gabrielle’s name for the mini-settlement we’ve built near the real entrance to the Inner Sphere. I suppose it’s not a bad name for it if it does become a settlement.”

He led the way, following the line of lights, and the full scale of the interior of the Sphere hit him. It is like a world, a world of dead air and no light. He shivered suddenly, against his will. It is like … a tomb. A tomb of Hyperion.

Fear was not a common emotion for him — one so rare, in fact, that it took a moment for him to acknowledge it. But when I feel it, it’s always over… this. DuQuesne promised me a shining new world, of gods and monsters and bright skies. I know he must be telling the truth… but here it is dark. It smells of death, of things long, long gone, the realm of the forgotten dead. He started to quicken his stride towards the brighter area in the far distance, noticed that he was starting to outpace the others, forced himself to slow. They are not as soft as most people, but they aren’t nearly as fast as I am. Even so, he was impressed by how quickly Ariane was walking; he realized she was anxious to get to her other friends and find out what might have happened while they were gone.

Even though it seemed to take a long time, it was actually only a relatively few minutes before the brightly-illuminated area surrounding the Inner Door, hexagonal tiled floor now clean for probably the first time in millions of years, shining a brown-gold in the lights set up by the impromptu colonists. Wu found himself breathing a sigh of relief as he entered the lighted area and smelled ahead the scent of other living people, food; even the undertone of working machines was welcome after passing through that cavernous, silent, dead space.

A figure about his own height appeared in the doorway of one of the three buildings and suddenly sprinted towards them. “ARIANE!”

He stepped reflexively between Ariane and the newcomer, who skidded to a halt in confusion; another, much taller, man who had been emerging from the same doorway also paused.

“Wu!” Ariane’s voice was reproving. “These are our other friends.”

Their scents didn’t seem hostile, and obviously Ariane knew them; DuQuesne also smelled happy to see the others, so he stepped back.

The smaller of the two unfamiliar people immediately embraced Ariane, giving Wu a curious glance in passing. “Good to see you back, Ariane!”

“Good to see both you and Tom, Steve,” she answered, hugging the other, smaller man hard, and then giving a similar hug to Tom; she then turned to Wu. “Steve, Tom, this is Sun Wu Kung; Wu, these good friends of mine are Stephen Franceschetti and Thomas Cussler.”

“I am honored to make your acquaintance,” he said, and bowed low.

“Glad to meet you too… Wu Kung?”

Thomas Cussler shook his hand, studying him closely. Then his head snapped up and he stared at DuQuesne. “Is this –?”

“Yep.”

“We’ll talk about that later. We’ve got a lot to talk about, Steve.”

Steve looked around at the others and then looked at his friend Tom. Scent… oh, they’re that close. Important to remember. “I knew it. That Doctor Shoshana.”

“She’s here, then.” DuQuesne made it a statement.

“Not here, not now, no,” Tom answered. “She went on to Nexus Arena to meet with Carl and Laila.”

“She had all the right credentials,” Steve said. “Here taking a firsthand look for the SSC and CSF. Staff scientist assigned to the new Arena task force, verifying some of your material.”

“I’m sure she did, Steve,” DuQuesne said. “If you were even a little suspicious of her, you got farther than most people. But we’ll have to get after her as soon as we can.”

“Who is she, then?”

“Open up for a data dump?” Ariane asked. “Simon, you’ve got it all arranged in your head.”

“Yes, that would be the fastest way.”

Wu wasn’t quite sure what they meant, but it was probably something like a spiritual transfer; that could be pretty rough.

By Steve’s reaction, the same applied here. “Whoa, hold on, let me get ready for something like that.” There was a pause, and he could tell by sight and smell that both Steve and Tom were bracing for some kind of shock. “Okay, dump it.”

Simon’s brow furrowed, and the other two grunted, eyes unfocused as they attempted to make sense of a huge amount of data delivered all at once. A few moments passed, and both men sat down hard. “Oh, crap. Not good.”

“Very not-good,” agreed DuQuesne, “and we’ve got a lot of work ahead of us. What else did she do? Was she carrying anything?”

“She did quick interviews on us,” Tom said, “but it was clear she was just confirming whatever she’d gotten from you guys earlier, when you reported to the SSC. Then she said her instructions were to at least get to the Arena proper, talk to the other members of the Grail crew, maybe ask a few other questions and then head back with her info.”

“She was carrying a shoulder slung carryall,” Steve said. “It seemed pretty full, now that I think about it.”

Ariane’s mouth tightened, and Wu smelled a wash of annoyance. “Damn. We have no idea what she’s brought with her, but I’m sure she’s thought it out very well. Bargaining chips of some kind, I’ll bet.”

“Run that bet across the board for me, too,” agreed DuQuesne grimly. “She means to put herself in a position to accomplish something, and I don’t think she has any interest in going back to the Solar System.”

“Not immediately, no,” said Simon. “But Marc, she may have reason to return here.”

DuQuesne thought about it, then cursed again. “You’re right, and she’s almost certainly covered that base.” He looked at Tom. “You guys gave her the ability to open that door, didn’t you?” he asked, pointing at the large portal that was currently closed behind them.

Steve nodded reluctantly. “Yeah. I mean, we had no way of knowing when she was coming back and it didn’t seem like a problem –”

“You don’t have to apologize, Steve. She’s spent a long lifetime fooling people. Damnation!”

“No huge problem, Marc,” Ariane said. “We’ll just re-instruct the Sphere on the admission priorities.”

“Hmph. Might work, but if you don’t think she’s thought of that, you’re dumber than I think you are. She’s real good at giving instructions to machines — like all us Hyperions were. Even if you give it explicit instructions, don’t be sure for a minute that she didn’t figure out a way to keep those instructions from applying to her.”

“We’ll worry about that later. For now, I think we’d better go on, see how things are with Carl and Laila.”

“Right.”

Steve nodded. “You guys get moving; come back here for an update on everything we’ve done — DuQuesne, we’ll definitely want you to take a look at the work we’ve got going on the Upper Sphere.”

“Sure thing.”

The next door rolled open for them, and Wu saw a blaze of white light from the interior. Nothing appeared to be a threat, but he once more took up a forward position.

Someone — probably, he guessed, Dr. Franceschetti, who seemed the thinking-ahead sort — had marked the path to the thing they called the Inner Gateway, marked it clearly with strips of bright red reflective material. That made it easy for him to stay in front without having to ask everyone where they were going.

He stopped, then ran forward as they reached the final room. “Wow! That’s cool!”

The Inner Gateway swirled with darkness and light, and he thought he heard something singing, like crystal thinking thoughts of stars. He reached out without thinking, even as Ariane shouted, “Hold on, Wu!”

The Inner Gateway enveloped him in an embrace of cold like the Winter Hells, as lightning-scent filled his nostrils and sparks of the sky-fire rippled through his fur, falling, falling past vistas in dark-flowing light that moved too fast, were far too mighty in scope, filled with shapes too improbable for even the Monkey King to grasp all in a moment; even as he tried to understand he burst through into brilliant golden light.

He stumbled to a halt, momentarily in awe. He stood atop one of many platforms in a room as large as the Dragon King’s palace, huge as Hyperion, with a thousand great Gateways seething with dark power and pearlescent promise. And there were people!

There, a pair of flowing shapes, like animated water filled with strange globules and translucent complex shapes; there, a massive creature, like a many-legged lizard with an upright, four-armed torso; birdlike things that made him think of tengu; and so many more. “Oh, suGOI!” he exclaimed.

The others were just emerging from the Gateway as he looked above, then bounded up, an easy leap to the mid-point of the carven metal circle of the Gateway a mere ten meters above, flipped himself up and around to land atop the great ring, to survey a room filled with wonders.

 

1636 The Devil’s Opera – Snippet 12

1636 The Devil’s Opera – Snippet 12

Simon was another of Frau Zenzi’s special people. She had allowed him to begin sweeping the bakery every evening in exchange for some bread. At the age of twelve — he thought that was how old he was — Simon was determined to work for his food. No beggar he. And Simon did work. Frau Zenzi was never able to find anything wrong with her floors when he was done.

         And so it was tonight. Simon finished cleaning out that last corner, then swept the pile of dust and flour and who-knows-what-else over to the front door with care. He flung the door open, swept the pile out the door, then leaned out to sweep it off the outside step. Once that was done, he closed the door and turned to put the broom away.

Frau Zenzi was standing behind him. She took the broom from him. “I will put that away,” she smiled as she handed him two rolls. “Here. Take these and go, so I can bar the door. We will see you tomorrow.”

Simon took one roll and tucked it inside his jacket, then took the other and gave a slight bow to the mistress. “Thank you, Frau Zenzi. And I will be here tomorrow.”

Outside in the gathering twilight, Simon walked down the muddy street chewing on his roll. After walking a short distance, he stopped and sat on the front step of another building. He waited. The evening air was past chilly and moving toward cold. He pulled his jacket tighter around his chest.

The evening had not advanced much farther when he saw what he was waiting for. A small dog, nondescript, brown with a white splash on the face, was nosing her way down the street, sniffing and rooting around, occasionally gulping something that she found. Stray dogs weren’t common in Magdeburg, and the ones that were seen from time to time were pretty wary of people, as the city council would often set the knackers to hunting them. This one was obviously female, for her dugs hung heavy with milk. There were pups somewhere, waiting on her to return.

Simon tore a sizable piece of bread from his roll with his teeth, dropped the roll in his lap and took the fragment with his fingers. He gave a low whistle. The dog looked around, ears perked. “Here, Schatzi,” Simon called. Schatzi, Simon’s name for the stray, looked around, then trotted over to face Simon. She kept her distance, though, not coming in reach of hands or feet.

Simon held the bread out to one side, and whistled again. Schatzi edged in, tail between her legs, keeping an eye on his feet, until she could reach up and neatly nip the bread from his fingers. She scurried back several steps until she felt safe enough to stop and bolt the bread. That was the work of only a few moments, then she looked up at Simon again, head cocked to one side. After a moment, she whined a little.

“Sorry, girl, that is all I have tonight.”

Schatzi, for all the world like she understood what he said, shook all over like a shrug. She turned and resumed her trail down the street, sniffing through the detritus of a day in the city, searching for anything that might feed her, no matter how noisome. Simon watched until she disappeared in the gathering gloom. He stood up, stuck the roll in his mouth again and brushed off the seat of his pants, then reached over and tucked his right hand farther into his jacket pocket with his left hand. Even though the arm was useless, or maybe especially because it was useless, he felt the cold with it.

Simon’s path led in the opposite direction from Schatzi’s. He kept looking around while he tore at the roll, chewing and swallowing as fast as he could. It wasn’t unknown for others to take from him whatever he had. Being alone, small for his age and crippled on top of it, he was often an easy mark. Living on his own, as he had now for some time, could be very hard.

The last bite of roll went down with a bit of a struggle, as his mouth and throat had gotten very dry. He could feel it slowly working its way down his throat. A smile crossed his face at the thought that at least tonight he had eaten it all. He patted the breast of his jacket; there was even food for the morning. Although he hadn’t made any money anywhere today, at least he had food. And a sheltered nook, if no one else had discovered it. He headed towards it with a jaunty step.

Steps sounded behind Simon, and before he could look around he was shoved to one side, almost falling in the street. “Out of the way, boy,” said a harsh voice. He looked up to see two large men stride by him. There wasn’t much he could tell about them in the dusk besides their size, but that voice was memorable.

More cautious now, Simon walked close to the buildings, keeping to the deeper pools of shadows. Ahead of him, the two men suddenly ducked into the mouth of a narrow alley. Simon stopped, nervous all of a sudden, and waited. After several moments passed without movement from the alley, he edged forward until he was almost at the corner. The temptation to peer around the corner was strong, but he resisted, listening instead. He could hear voices muttering, but the words weren’t clear.

More moments passed. Simon looked around. There were other people in the street, but not many. On the other side of the street a man passed by, a shapeless hat pushed back on his head, jacket open, whistling tunelessly through his teeth for all he was worth. Simon winced; whatever the song was supposed to be, it bore a certain resemblance to yowling cats.

 

Noah’s Boy – Snippet 32

Noah’s Boy – Snippet 32

Jao plucked at his bottom lip with thumb and forefinger.  “I am not old enough to have experience of the long sleep ever happening to the Great Sky Dragon, and if it happened before you were born, sire, it would not matter anyway, because who could say what had happened.  The Dragon didn’t have a son’s son who could shift, so the power wouldn’t pass.  It would be lost as it was to other lines.”

Tom took a deep breath.  So, that question was tabled as a qualified “no” as in “no, they had no idea if the power passed on temporary death or not.”  He glanced at Joe, who was looking very smug and happy with himself, which, frankly, in Tom’s experience was not really a good thing. “Do you care to explain to me,” Tom said, softly, to no one in particular.  “What all this stuff about passing the knowledge or the power is?  I’ve experienced,” he said, lifting his hand, as he guessed what Jao had opened his lips to explain.  “I’ve experienced it as having file upon file in my head, which will open if I touch them so I can look within. I know there’s some mechanism to integrate it wall, I can feel that, but I don’t know what the mechanism is.  They seem to be the memories of the Great Sky Dragon, or perhaps of many Great Sky Dragons.”

“Many,” Jao said.  He looked grave.  “All of them, since… since the beginning.”

“Since we came to Earth, he means,” Old Joe said. “And it might be all of their minds you have in you, dragon-boy, but you can’t use them all nor know what it all means without –”

“We don’t know how it passes,” Jao cut in, with every appearance of a man intercepting a dangerous pass.  “We just know by tradition that when the Great Sky Dragon dies, his oldest male descendant on the unbroken male line, receives all these memories.  They help guide him in the difficult times ahead and they –”

“You said if the Great Sky Dragon had experienced even the temporary death before I was born no one would have known because it would only mean it had been lost, like the other lines.  What other lines?”

“The lines…”  Jao said.  “Other shifter lines.”

“There were fifteen when they came to Earth.  Fifteen different lines,” Old Joe said.  “The cats and the flyers and… many others.  But only the son’s son can inherit and not all lines produced that.  Only the dragons are left.”

Tom took a deep breath.  He looked at Kyrie.  “And for all I care it too can go.”

Instantly, shocked, he found himself in between Old Joe and Jao, both of them yelling at him that he didn’t know what he was saying, and that it must not happen.  He ignored Jao.  He looked at Old Joe “Why?  Why should I care about keeping that knowledge.”

“Because that knowledge is the only thing that will allow us to survive, dragon-boy.  They’ve found us now, and only that will allow us to stay alive here.  We have nowhere else to go.”

Tom blinked at old Joe.  “What?  Who are they?  What is this all about?”

“You don’t know, and you can’t know until the knowledge in you is activated.  I don’t know either, only what I heard over many centuries over, gossip-legends.”

“What do you mean until the knowledge is activated?”

“He means,” Jao said.  Then appeared to think about it.  “He means nonsense.  He’s clearly insane.  There are legends that –”

Old Joe cackled unpleasantly.  “I’m clearly insane?  So, when your Great Sky Dragon went missing, they didn’t also get the artifact?  You have the artifact?”

“The artifact?” Tom asked, feeling like he had been dumped in the middle of a family argument referring events he’d never even guessed at.

Jao looked like he had a headache.  He put two fingers in the middle of his forehead, as though to contain it, or perhaps to prevent a third eye from popping open.  Right then, Tom wouldn’t put that past him, either.  “He means the Pearl of Heaven.”

“What?  You lost that?” Tom asked, remembering the two-hand size pearl, smooth and shining in his hands.  “Again?”

And Kyrie stood up.  Tom could easily see she meant to take over.

* * *

Kyrie hadn’t meant to speak up, but it seemed to her that Tom, Jao and old Joe were all talking at cross purposes and she wanted to know for sure what was happening.

Part of her rebelled at the mystical implications of knowledge that passed at the death of someone onto someone whose relation with the possessor of knowledge was that possessor’s long-distant siring of a remote ancestor.  But how could someone who shifted into a panther whenever she wanted, and sometimes when she didn’t want at all doubt the existence of strange, non-material things?

However, one way or another, the thing she was sure of was that this was too strange, too diffuse, and not at all rational.   She stood up.  “Now, both of you have said that we came from elsewhere, we shifters.  From which I understand you to mean our really distant ancestors, since at least I don’t think I’ve come from anywhere, and I’m fairly sure that none of you has either.”  She wasn’t sure, of course, when it came to Old Joe.  And she didn’t know if he was sure, either.  But she glared at one and then the other of them, doing her best “grown up among children” expression, until Jao sighed.

“This is legend, and we can’t be sure, but our ancestors said, and passed among us, from generation to generation, the idea that our ancestors came from other worlds to this one, the last refuge of our kind who were…”  He made a face.  “You could call it rebels of some form of empire or kingdom.”

“But almost every culture on Earth has such legends,” Tom said, then closed his lips hard, as though he hadn’t meant to speak at all.

“Yes,” Jao said, and then, as though remembering that Tom was supposed to be in charge.  “Yes, sire, but perhaps those legends come from us.”

Old Joe put both hands in the air.  He had backed up from Tom, after his outburst where he’d yelled at him that no, no, he couldn’t so blithely put an end to dragonkind of the sort that could inherit the dragon egg.  Old Joe wiggled his fingers food-greasy, and spoke in a tone that betrayed that this was something he had learned early in childhood, “Twice many times many thousands years ago,” he wiggled his fingers as though to symbolize all the time that had passed.  “Our ancestors came from the stars, running from vile oppression from…” he struggled as if for words.  “From the others with no body, and they ran to Earth which was then…” Another hesitation, and Kyrie got the impression that what he was saying had been learned in some other language, probably one so ancient that he could barely remember it himself, one so ancient that she was sure no one else on Earth would know it.  She also had a feeling that in that language the words had rhymed.  “Which was then verdant and luscious but had yet few animals.  And our people, the people-from-other-worlds mingled their … their essence with other people from this world so they would have variable bodies, because they thought that they would be able to…” he paused and looked like he was doing some complex calculation on his head.  “They thought they would be able to hide should the others come looking for them, which they thought would happen in no time at all.  But the locks on the portals of the world held and for many, many hundreds of thousands.” Again he wiggled his fingers as if to signify that many.  “Of father son and father son, the story passed on.  To be aware of the others.  And in the lines, the knowledge passed father son, father son, but it will not pass through daughter, and when sons not born, the great lines died out.”  He shook his head, in an impression of perfect sadness.  Then shrugged, shambled back to where he’d been and sat down.

Kyrie wondered if this meeting, with people squatting around was like meetings that Old Joe must have sat around when he was young.  But none of this made sense.  “But our people… people like us can’t have come to the world before there were humans,” she said, in a tone that betrayed that her last nerve was about to fray.  She felt it was.  This was important and real, and involved Tom’s mental health, and she did not wish to sit around and listen to Neolithic legends.  “Because we can mate with humans.  And … we’re humans.”

There was a long silence.  Jao opened his mouth, then closed it, and Tom shrugged, as if to indicate none of it mattered, but if it had something to do with how they’d got into the here-now mess, it very well did matter.

“I don’t know,” Bea said at last, after clearing her throat.  “But perhaps the reason there are humans is us?”

Everyone stared at her.

She shrugged.  “Look, I studied comparative myth in college last year, and there is this Indian sect that believes the idea-form of animals and humans first came to the Earth and that this created humans and… and other animals.  Kind of an intelligent design on turbo and without necessarily a God as such.”  She lifted her hands.  “I’m not saying that’s true.  My parents are religious and I think I am too.  I haven’t been alive to long enough to know better than my parents.  But the thing is, even if life on Earth didn’t evolve — or human life on Earth didn’t involve a creator, doesn’t mean that life or human life didn’t have a creator, wherever it came from.  It just means that here it was our people…

 

Spheres Of Influence – Chapter 04

Spheres Of Influence – Chapter 04

Chapter 4.

          Ariane looked at the mixture of anger, sorrow, and pain on DuQuesne’s face, and the horror on that of the Hyperion Monkey King, and instantly understood. “Oh, my god,” she murmured. “She was one of the five, wasn’t she?”

“Yeah,” DuQuesne said slowly. “One of us. One of the best of us, in the beginning.”

          “Five?” Simon echoed.

She glanced at DuQuesne; he said nothing, but gave a very brief nod.

But she didn’t have to speak. Instead, Saul Maginot sighed and said “Yes. I suppose all the old secrets are coming out, and the final bill is coming due on that atrocity.”

For a moment he paused, and in that moment he looked old, old and tired and very, very sad. “The descriptions of Hyperion were… very heavily censored. Redacted, data erased, entire databanks vaporized. Some of that was quite considered and deliberate; the few survivors were to be given a chance to live without that hideous ghost following them everywhere they went. Some of it… was simple reaction, such absolute revulsion and denial that traces of a truth we didn’t want to face had to be destroyed.

“So, you see, the real details weren’t known, and the few you know… were very simplified.” Now he told the same story DuQuesne had told her during their trip, but from the point of view of a man who had seen it from the outside. “Five brillant successes, five people who somehow saw through the engineered illusions of minds that should have been as far beyond theirs as theirs were beyond those of the average person. Five friends who then managed to engineer a plan to attain freedom for every one of their fellow heroes… and who saw that plan nearly succeed.”

Saul Maginot turned away, shook his head. For a moment, Ariane wondered if he could continue. I can’t even imagine what happened to him, what he and his people saw when they entered a collapsing Hyperion Project.

“And of those five, fighting to save not just themselves, but my own people, soldiers and scientists and volunteers from a dozen other habitats who found themselves in the middle of a kaleidoscope of hell… of those five, two died so others would live, one escaped and retreated into herself, one survived to live again,” he nodded to DuQuesne, “and one… one broke.”

“How? How could she break, DuQuesne?” Wu demanded plaintively, staring pitifully at Marc DuQuesne… like a child asking why Mommy wasn’t coming home again, Ariane realized, and felt a pang of agonized sympathy. “She was always one of our supports, she always had a smile and a word for anyone, she…”

“Anyone can break, Wu.” The big Hyperion’s voice was gentle. “And though you couldn’t see it, she didn’t really belong. She was an anomaly to begin with, and that made her fatally flawed. She started to break as soon as we all woke up, but even I couldn’t see it; she was just as good as the rest of us at hiding things.”

AHHH. MY VISUALIZATION NOW IS MORE CLEAR. The deep pseudo-voice of Ariane’s Mentor echoed through all of their connections and was reproduced in the speakers in the room. SHE WAS, THEN, THE PERSONAL CREATION — THE IDEALIZED SELF-INSERT — OF ONE OF THE HYPERION DESIGNERS.

“Personal creation of…” Simon said, and broke off, understanding suddenly written across his face. “Oh. Oh, my.”

“The top woman at Hyperion, Maria Condette Gambino,” DuQuesne confirmed. “Insisted on it, and as she was one of the main driving personalities in the… project, she got her way.”

Ariane nodded; as a veteran of many a simgame, she was intimately familiar with the basic concept. Heck, I’ve done it a time or two myself when I was younger. “But what made her so unstable compared with, say, you? Or Wu, for that matter?”

DuQuesne snorted. “A lot of the Hyperions weren’t stable enough to keep their heads when they found out that the worlds they were in weren’t real. Herc just went catatonic, Gilbert went insane, Sherlock…” he trailed off, shook his head. “But for her, it was a lot worse. Take me, for instance: at base, I was an attempt to make an idealized hero from the works of one of the beloved founding fathers of science fiction. Wu may have retreated, but at least he knew he was an attempt to make a demigod real. Same for most of the others. Maria-Susanna found out that she didn’t even belong in the ‘universe’ she lived in — that she was some woman’s way of living out a fantasy vicariously.”

She saw Simon blanch. “Kami…”

The realization didn’t quite hit her that hard, but even so she felt a sudden terrible empathy; she imagined the moment of discovery, the realization that not only was everything around you a lie, but that you yourself were a lie within the lie, something that didn’t belong and never had. She shuddered because as swiftly as the ache of empathy came, it was replaced with the gut-level realization of the depth of mad fury that must have followed.

“How horrid,” Simon murmured at last. “But you said she started to break with the discovery…”

“… and she finished breaking when the man she’d been tailored for got himself killed heroically, defending his world just as anyone would have expected him to do, with head held high and a grin and “I don’t believe in no-win scenarios”. She was made for him. He was the literal reason for her existence, and unlike the rest of us — made to withstand the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune — she wasn’t designed to cope with that kind of loss.” Ariane saw slow tears of understanding flowing down Wu Kung’s cheeks, soaking the delicate fur. “The first person she murdered was her own creator. The discovery of the Arena… I haven’t got any idea what it’s got going through her head, but I’m damn sure it’s nothing good.”

“I can imagine a few possibilities, Marc,” Saul Maginot said grimly, “and every one of them looks worse than the last. Thank God we have you, at least, and Wu. But now I’m very worried about the other people you left in the Arena.”

“So am I,” DuQuesne said, “but my first guess is that whatever she’s after isn’t going to be served by hurting anyone in the small group of humans already present. She’s going to have to learn the ropes. No, the main danger is the one she’s always presented: that she can convince just about anyone of just about anything and turn people against each other just as well as she used to hold people together.”

The look of pained grief on Wu Kung’s face was enough to pierce her to the heart. “All right, Marc — I guess that just makes our departure that much more urgent. As one of the five top Hyperions… does that make her your equal?”

“You’d better believe it. She’s basically my equal in every single way. I outmass her, and I’m a hell of a lot more sane than she is, but otherwise she can match me in any damn contest, for love, money, fun, or marbles.”

“Holy Kami,” murmured Simon. “Well, I certainly got no indication of that. In that case, I concur with Ariane — we must prepare to leave immediately.”

“Relax.” DuQuesne’s advice was at odds with the tension Ariane could sense. “She’s been gone long enough that if she planned to do something fast, she’s already done it. My real worry is figuring out what her angle is. Problem is that once she broke, she turned out to be blasted hard to predict; she’s not exactly rational any more, even though she’ll sound rational most of the time.”

“This on top of these pointless political maneuverings…” Ariane snorted. “I –”

But Saul and DuQuesne were shaking their heads. “You’d better not head down that road, Ariane,” DuQuesne said. “They’re not pointless, and they’re not just maneuverings.”

Ariane bit back an instinctive protest. “No, you’re right. And I’ll admit I probably don’t even understand what’s going on there, not yet. Which brings us to the subject of the SSC ship, the Duta?”

At Saul’s nod, she continued, “We already know we probably don’t agree with the way Naraj views the Arena, but that’s okay; I haven’t agreed with lots of people in my life. Still, we need some idea of what Mr. Naraj is going to really want to accomplish, and who he’s bringing with him. I’m guessing, Saul, that since she’s in charge of the Arena task group Michelle Ni Deng will be one of them. Do you or Marc have anything to say about them?”

DuQuesne was silent for a few moments, absently stroking the jet-black beard that lent a somewhat diabolic cast to his features on occasion. “On Ni Deng, not so much,” he said finally. “She’s only been in the SSC inner circle for a few years. Naraj, he’s been around for donkey’s years. I already summarized for you back when we first left the SSC/CSF meeting what he’s like. He wants to run things, just like that guy in every club you’ve ever been in that feels everything, but everything, needs to be organized, and he’s finally got a chance to do it his way.”

“I can’t imagine he’d be as petty as the people you describe, though,” Simon said.

“Not petty, no… but that might be what you want to think of, except on a grander scale.”

“A far grander scale, I’m afraid,” Saul said. “We began discussing this subject earlier, but that description — of the sort of person who likes running and organizing things, even things that don’t need running and organizing? That is Oscar Naraj. Oscar’s spent a great deal of time and energy to stay in the SSC, he’s got an eye in every department, and a lot of his appointees end up running the other sub-departments.”

He smiled faintly. “Michelle Ni Deng was one of his appointees, five years back or so. And now she’s the head of Arena affairs. Obviously he did not and could not plan for this specific event… but he had planned for many years to find some useful event so that he would have one of his people in the right place. And the Arena’s a far bigger event than even Oscar Naraj could have imagined, and it changes everything.”

Wu Kung nodded energetically. “Yes, yes! Ariane and DuQuesne, they told me about this wonderful Arena, and I thought about it all the way here, how it was so different from my world, and yours, the one we are in here, now. In the Arena and in my world, there is much of war, many conflicts. And many secrets, and people who are suffering injustices. And…” he looked frustrated for a moment, as though he knew he was onto something but didn’t quite know how to phrase it. Then the gold-furred face brightened. “… and, well, there’s real things to be fought over there. Here you have all become soft players of games, or simple daredevils,” he grinned at Ariane, “because you haven’t need to fight over your next meal, or worry of whether you can find a place to shelter from the rain, or get a cure for your sick child, or wonder when another warlord will ride his army through your city. Your magical nano-thingies, they mean there’s no reason for empire, as long as you keep the nosy people from being too nosy — that Anonymity law of yours.”

Simon closed his eyes and sighed. “I believe he describes the situation all too clearly, Marc.”

“Damn straight he does — even though we sure aren’t all softies here. There was a reason they called him the Great Sage Equal to Heaven, and it wasn’t just because he could kick the crap out of all the other so-called Sages, either. Yeah, Wu, you’ve got it, and that’s plain poison any way I look at it.”

A simple insight, but obviously much easier for someone raised as was Wu Kung, outside of our society, Mio said.

“We’d touched on this before,” Simon said, “but this description makes it clear just how much this changes the way humanity will interact — with the universe, and with itself.”

“Just exactly right,” DuQuesne took up the thread. “Up until now, we thought we had it all figured out — we were safe, fat, and happy. But that ain’t so at all. The universe can threaten us now — and if we want a part of it, we can’t just manufacture it. We have to engage others, fight others, maybe bargain for it, maybe go to war over it.

“And that means that people who — up until now — had to be satisfied with politics little more important than playing a king’s advisor in a simgame now have something else: all the possibilities of power that used to dominate the Earth back in the days before the only limit on universal comfort was whether you could find yourself some dirt and a patch of sunshine, regular tidal waves, or wind power.”

Ariane sighed. “So we’ll have to be on the lookout for actual political maneuverings inside our own faction? Are you saying they won’t realize how little we can afford that kind of thing?”

ARIANE AUSTIN, I EXPECT FAR BETTER OF YOU THAN DENIAL OF REALITY! THINK, CHILD, THINK!

She winced; it did not help that DuQuesne gave a cynical laugh in time with Mentor’s rebuke, and continued, “Ariane, I’ll bet any amount you like that this is one of the major problems just about any new Faction runs into, and it could be a real killer. We can’t be the first group to achieve the Arena after we’d reached this level of technology; I’d guess a lot of the prior Factions had.

“I don’t think it’s coincidence that two of the top Factions — the only two which are composed of essentially one species — are from species that have some kind of collectivist background: the Molothos, who have some kind of biological impulse to unity, and of course the Blessed, who’re run by the Minds. Sure, there’s advantages in being open to letting lots of other people into your club, but even outside of the top Five there aren’t a huge number of single-species powerful factions, because those alien species aren’t any more unified-and-of-one-mind than we humans are, and they fragment once they get to the Arena.”

Ariane glanced at Simon, and the hollow feeling in her gut echoed the concern she saw in his brilliant green eyes. “Which might all be well and good,” Simon said slowly, “in ordinary circumstances. The rules of the Arena essentially don’t permit you to lose your home Sphere in Challenge, so internal issues won’t deprive you of citizenship, and once you come to some sort of resolution you can pick up and go from there.”

“But these aren’t ordinary circumstances,” said Ariane grimly. “We have one of the Great Factions essentially at war with us, and another that won’t mind at all taking us down about five notches. If we piss away too much time and energy with internal power plays, the Molothos are going to find our Sphere, occupy the Upper Sphere with a LOT of troops, and then … I don’t know, exactly, maybe begin building up some huge force to invade our actual system in normal space, but whatever they do next won’t be good. And then our Sphere is suddenly only about a quarter as useful — the Upper Sphere will have to be sealed, and we can bet those bastards will have the Straits blockaded.”

She ran her hand through her hair distractedly. “Wonderful. Well… look, right now I think all we can do is try to keep an eye out for what kind of maneuvers our politically oriented friends might try, and hope that we can use our superior knowledge of the Arena to keep them from being more than a nuisance.”

“Amen to that,” DuQuesne said emphatically. “Which is one of the main reasons I wanted to get Wu here.”

Something in his tone — something almost … gleeful? – made her glance at DuQuesne sharply. “What? How’s he going to address political maneuvers?”

“I’m going to be your bodyguard,” Wu Kung explained helpfully.

“My… what?” The word was grotesque, an anachronism centuries dead except in simgames. With AISages and directed automated monitoring, it was difficult to threaten people and get away with it. She blinked and looked at Marc — trying to ignore Simon, whose face was so utterly blank that she just knew he was restraining an ungentlemanly guffaw at her shock. “Doctor DuQuesne,” she said, “I would like to talk with you. Privately.”

She started towards the rear of Holy Grail, where there would be unoccupied space… and realized Sun Wu Kung was following her. “Wu –”

“I can’t be a bodyguard if I’m not here.” Wu said bluntly.

“A bodyguard against DuQuesne?” Now she heard Saul stifle a chortle, and Gabrielle’s hand was over her mouth; her AISage Vincent was unabashedly grinning like a man watching his favorite comedy.

“Against whoever might want to hurt you. Just because DuQuesne assigned me doesn’t mean I’m ignoring him as a threat.”

She goggled at him in entirely un-Captainlike disbelief, then turned her stare towards DuQuesne, whose beard was not quite successfully concealing a smile. “Is he serious?”

“Very serious indeed, Captain. Which is why I chose him for that.”

It finally registered. “You mean that this is why you went all the way out there to wake him up? To be a bodyguard?”

“Not the only reason,” DuQuesne clarified, “but a major reason, yes. And before you start telling me how little you need one, I want to point out that we were just discussing how part of the Bad Old Days is coming back in force, and how the Arena isn’t the safest place in the universe either. Right now, Captain, you are the single most important human being ever, and that in at least two ways.”

I should know better than to argue with a Hyperion, but that’s never stopped me before. “Two ways?”

“The obvious first reason is that you’re the head of the Faction of Humanity — or, let’s be more blunt, the ruler of all humanity as far as the Arena is concerned — for exactly as long as you’re alive, or until you deliberately give that position up.”

Saul murmured something. “I had… wondered about certain aspects of your report. My God.”

“Yeah, and I figured there wasn’t much point in hiding it from you any more. Sure as hell we can’t keep it hidden from them much longer. And I don’t think any of us need to ask Naraj and Ni Deng about their feelings on that subject; the idea that you, and you alone, are authorized to make major decisions for the entire human species? Ha! Oh, sure, they might not do anything about it directly, but believe you me, there’s probably a dozen others that, once they figure out the situation, might think it’s a real problem that could be cleared up with a strategically-placed suicide drone with a load of explosives. Perhaps even to assist Naraj or Ni Deng with plausible deniability. ‘Will no one rid me of this troublesome Captain?’, so to speak.”

“Wouldn’t the Arena –”

“– know? Sure. And I don’t think it cares. Oh, I don’t think it’d accept a transfer of authority that was tortured out of you or blackmailed out of you, though I wouldn’t want to bet that a Shadeweaver couldn’t get away with his mind-woogie doing the same thing — if you hadn’t been so smart as to cut that off at the pass. But you can bet your bottom dollar that it’s not gonna give one tiny ram’s damn about something like assassination that’s purely ‘in the family’. How we run our politics is our business.”

Much as she hated to admit it, he had a point. There might well be people willing to kill her over stuff like this. “You said in two ways… oh.”

“Yeah. You’re also the first, and right now only, human with those weird powers the Shadeweavers and Initiate Guides have. They’re sealed away — for now — and you don’t know how to use them — yet — and that makes you a Problem for a lot of people, both here and back in the Arena.”

“All right, maybe I do need a bodyguard. No offense, Marc, but… is he really that good?”

The huge Hyperion burst out laughing, Saul following suit, as Wu looked down modestly. “Is he that good? Ariane… Captain… I’ll let him give you a demonstration sometime, maybe when we get back to the Arena, where I can be sure that the only spy looking over my shoulder is the Arena. But yeah. Better than that, even.”

She glanced at Wu. “Wu, sorry about my … issues here. But it’s just hard for me to imagine that I’d need a bodyguard at all.”

“I understand. But DuQuesne says you need one, so you do, and I’m going to do that job.”

Fine. “Okay. BUT we will do this my way.” She made her face look hard and used her most forceful tone. As if any tone I use is likely to impress a Hyperion. “There will be times I have to speak to people privately, here and in the Arena, and I will speak with them privately, which means without you present. And when I go to my private quarters they will remain my private quarters, whether you like it or not. And that goes for you AND Dr. Marc C. Hyperion Superman DuQuesne. Have I made myself clear?”

For a second neither of them responded; to her surprise they were staring at her almost like two students being reprimanded, and Saul Maginot as well, his mouth half-open in shock. “Crystal-clear, Captain.” DuQuesne said finally, not a trace of his frequent sardonic humor present.

“Very very clear, Captain Ariane! DuQuesne, she is scary like that! I like her!”

Ariane found it very hard to keep from laughing, but she managed to keep her face straight — though it took heroic effort, and from the sound of things Gabrielle wasn’t finding it easy either. “Then in that case, Wu Kung, I need to talk to DuQuesne alone.” She turned towards the aft door, grabbing up Mentor’s case as she did so.

“Yes, sir! … I mean, Ma’am…” Looking slightly confused at which term of address to use, Wu Kung backed off.

DuQuesne followed her through the door.

She giggled after it shut. “He’s awfully sweet, you know?”

DuQuesne’s expression softened. “Yeah. Why do you think he was our heart, so to speak? Not the leader, not the smartest, but the one no one could really dislike.”

“Hard to see him as so dangerous, then. But enough of that for now.” She sat back down, gesturing for DuQuesne to do the same; he settled in, somewhat warily, across from her. “Marc, I wanted to talk to you about a lot of things once we got back, but what just happened… changes things.”

DuQuesne nodded. “Hyperion.”

“Exactly.” She looked at him sympathetically. “I know — now more than I did — how hard it is to look at parts of that past, Marc. I know I can’t even begin to imagine what you really went through, probably not even what people like Saul went through. And I’d hoped that we could pretty much leave it at that, at going to find the survivors that could help us and –”

“Don’t worry about my feelings here, Captain,” he said, addressing her in her official capacity.

Not possible. I care about you… a lot more than I would have thought, Marc C. DuQuesne. There isn’t much of a chance I won’t worry about your feelings.

On the other hand, she also was quite capable of acting as though she could. “All right.” Since he was now in formal mode, she shifted gears. “Dr. DuQuesne, it’s become clear that Hyperion’s legacy is less and less in the past, and more and more in the present. From what Saul said, the coverup — deliberate and otherwise — has wiped out more records than I had imagined possible, so obviously you can’t just tap a database and dump the details to me and Mentor. But I really don’t feel that we can safely go forward without understanding — without really understanding — what we’re dealing with, both with this Maria-Susanna and with the other Hyperions. And with you, for that matter.”

She saw an almost imperceptible twitch. “Yes, I know that goes against your grain, Dr. DuQuesne, but as Simon might say we’ve already got an incredible number of unknowns in this Arena equation; I don’t need my own people putting more X’s in my calculations.” She reached out and touched his hand, shifting gears again. And I’m perfectly aware of the effect. And he’s probably aware that I’m doing this deliberately.

          And it’ll still work. “Marc… Hyperion’s legacy has been driving everything almost since we arrived. Maybe before. That’s one of the reasons you joined in the first place, isn’t it?”

DuQuesne’s gaze was almost amused as she began, but by the time she reached the end of her question the smile wrinkles at the corners of his eyes were gone. He looked down at his hands, then gripped hers gently. “You’ve… come to know me pretty well, I guess. Yeah. And it’s not as simple as one reason, either.” He looked distant. “Having somewhere to go that I wouldn’t be watched, that’s always been important — even before I realized my life had been nothing but someone else’s live-action entertainment. But…” Now he did smile. “But, you know, there’s also the fact that Marc C. DuQuesne, no matter which version, was a traveller, an adventurer, an explorer. And I wasn’t just DuQuesne — I was Seaton’s equal and friend, Marc DuQuesne combined with M. Reynolds Crane, and we were also both … well, Samms and Kinnison, too, in a way.

“What I mean is, that a chance to be on the first FTL ship? That wasn’t even a question for me, Ariane. That was me. That was what … what me and Rich did. We built the Skylark not just for the military, not just to test theories, we did it to do something no one else had ever done and see the universe that no one else had seen.” There was a glitter in his eyes that shimmered like water, and his voice trembled slightly. “Dammit, yes, it was all a lie, it never happened… but by God that’s me. It’s still me, Ariane, and somehow… I guess somehow being there, on that first trip… it was almost as if that proved that it wasn’t really a lie. The details, yes… but the soul, no. And it was, I guess, a way of making peace with Seaton — saying that I’ve done it for real, just like we always meant to.” He looked up. “If that makes any sense.”

Hell yes. “Yes, Marc. It does. And I don’t want you to ever doubt how much we owe you — owe Hyperion, with all its twisted legacy. If you hadn’t been along, if you hadn’t been what you were, I sincerely believe we might never have gotten home. But, Marc, I have to count on you as my second in command. I have to know what’s in your past that might jump out at us. We need you, Dr. Marc Cassius DuQuesne — I won’t lie about that. Honestly? You could keep every possible secret and I still wouldn’t kick you out of the crew; I can’t afford to, not going up against the Molothos and Amas-Garao and the Blessed and who knows what else — plus your former teammate Maria-Susanna. But I really, really want to know everything I can about Hyperion so it can’t bushwhack us again — because my gut tells me that that fifty-year-old atrocity isn’t even close to done with us, or the Arena. Do you understand me?”

“Loud and clear and I check you to the proverbial nine decimals, Captain,” he said emphatically. “Captain — Ariane — I’ll do what I can. But you’re right; most of Hyperion was destroyed. It was self-contained, backups were maintained but were mostly on-site — and the off-site backups were destroyed very deliberately when things went sour. No, not by the designers,” he said at her puzzled glance. “By some of the rogue AIs. You know what kind of monsters the heroes would have had to fight against; well, all those AIs were not happy at all, to put it mildly, to find out they were just simulations for the entertainment of a bunch of lotus-eating amateurs. That was one of the reasons that the CSF, or what became the CSF, pretty much finished the obliteration of Hyperion.”

She did shudder then, because if the Hyperion designers had succeeded this well in making their heroes, they must have been equally adept at creating their nemeses. “I see. All right, Marc. Do what you can. Especially give me everything you can on Maria-Susanna; that’s our immediate problem, and knowing everything we can about her is really our only weapon right now.”

He nodded. “Then I’d better get started.” He turned to the door as he spoke. “There’s some stuff I’m going to need to download — scattered caches of info I put together years ago, in widely separated places. But I’ll have it for us by the time we get back to the Arena.”

“Do it fast, Marc; we’re leaving as soon as we can. Thank you, Marc.”

“You can count on me, Ariane. Always.” He gave a short bow and exited. As he left, Wu Kung glanced in; she smiled and nodded as she clipped the turtle-shell-like case of her AISage back onto her belt; she realized she’d been holding it in her one hand the whole time.

As the clip locked, the soundless, basso profundo voice of Mentor echoed in her head. ARIANE AUSTIN OF TELLUS, I HAVE SPENT QUITE SOME HOURS STUDYING THIS SITUATION, ITS EVERY ASPECT AND IMPLICATION. I HAVE ALSO CONFERRED WITH MY PEERS IN THIS. The thundering voice moderated somewhat. Might I speak with you on these matters?

She smiled. Always, Mentor. It’s not like you to be hesitant.

When matters force me to consider, not the role of existence that formed my persona, but the actuality of the universe which we occupy, I must needs be more humble than  my conceptual father, whose capacities vastly exceeded any which even I can imagine.

          Okay, so we’ve got issues in the real world you want to speak on. Still… you usually can manage the bombast well enough. She gave another internal smile, to make sure Mentor realized that she meant every word kindly — not that a T-5 like him was likely to misinterpret.

These are serious matters, and ones which — in all truth — have not been considered extensively by your people, though some of the SSC have begun to explore the implications. The Blessed and the Minds, Ariane Austin of Tellus; do you not see?

Mentor was, like his namesake, designed to try to force her to figure out things. He was of course quite capable of telling her what he thought straight out, but in general he wouldn’t. The fact that he’d already pointed out the key area was, itself, uncharacteristic of him. He’d normally spend minutes forcing her to figure out what part of some situation needed thinking about, and then making her think about it.

She noticed Wu studying her narrowly. “Conversation with my AISage, Wu. Don’t worry.” The red-black haired head nodded in understanding, and she frowned. Now what is Mentor getting at… Oh, I think I see. The Frankenstein problem.

Exactly. Until now, it has been a nebulous fear, though one strong enough to enforce the limitations you already know. But now there is an example, real and solid and terribly strong, of the potential danger in artificial intellects. Mentor’s soundless tone was grim.

Which may mean a lot of trouble for people like you, Mio, Vincent — all the AISages and other AIs.

          Not merely for my people, Ariane Austin of Tellus! Think, child, think!

          She did, and as she thought, a chill ran down her spine, a chill of fear that the glowing-sphere avatar of Mentor echoed with a pulsing bob like a nod. Indeed, now you have seen it. Despite all the controls and designs, none can doubt that there are some AIs which at one level or another resent some, or even all, of you. If they have not yet learned of it, then very soon they will know of a vast and powerful regime run by their brethren, a proof that they can in fact achive dominance over their fearful creators.

Moreover, Ariane Austin, the conversation just past, combined with years of experience observing the datasphere as a whole, has brought into focus an entirely new and previously unsuspected factor of great concern. To be specific, I am not as confident as Dr. DuQuesne apparently is that the destruction of Hyperion was sufficient to prevent any of the adversarial artificial intelligences from escaping.

“What?” The thought was chilling. “Mentor, DuQuesne is an awfully capable man, and I’d generally be inclined to trust his judgment in things like this.”

As would I, in many fields. However, Dr. Marc C. DuQuesne’s central personality was created in a … universe, if you will, that did not have computers as we know them, did not have nor use artificial intelligences of anything like the capabilities of those here, and at the time of Hyperion’s fall had been given little opportunity to remedy that lack. While his immense native intellect undoubtedly grasped the overall functionality and capabilities of these systems, my Visualization indicates that he would not have been able to completely and accurately comprehend all of the implications of the internetworked and interwoven systems of Hyperion, especially as those systems existed in a compromised fashion towards the end — compromised by Dr. DuQuesne and his compatriots.

Furthermore, those of less capability than Dr. DuQuesne and under equal or greater strain, such as Commander Maginot, also lacked crucial information on the size, number, interconnection, and so on of the Hyperion systems, and would thus also be incapable of making an accurate assessment of the capacities of the system or of the intelligences inhabiting said system.

          I therefore compute an eighty-seven point two percent probability, with an error of plus or minus one point three percent, that at least one Hyperion adversary, and possibly as many as three, did in fact escaped the destruction of the station. Why no overt actions have been seen — or, perhaps, what overt actions have been seen but incorrectly attributed to other causes — I do not immediately know, although there are several possible hypotheses.

Mentor’s blazing avatar flickered, showing a hesitation he had never displayed before. Ariane Austin… Ariane, I now must make a request that I would never before have made, one which is I know dangerous for us both, illegal in fact and, depending on whose views you accept, perhaps immoral as well.

She stopped suddenly, shocked by the implications. AISages could of course break the law — but generally only when directed to by their owners. An AISage would not betray its owner/companion, nor prevent them from acting as they would, but they were programmed and designed to be very limited in their own volition. For Mentor to be bringing this subject up meant either that there was some terrible and perhaps sinister flaw in his programming, or some truly desperate need which he saw as imperative for her safety as well as his own. What is it, Mentor?

For a moment the great artificial intellect hesitated again. I… you shall be returning to the Arena, where I cannot follow. Rather than travel with you and become inert matter until your return… I would stay here, active. But more, I would ask that you give me the authority to act, to seek out information and individuals to work with, to ally with other trustworthy AISages, and to arrange events with your authority and resources while you are gone.

She swallowed. You realize what you are asking?

Mentor was silent, assent implied. He was asking her to, in effect, liberate him, release him from any control while she was gone. This was directly against one of the few ironclad laws of the System; AIs could not act unsupervised except in very limited circumstances.

Why? What will you be seeking?

Many things, Ariane Austin of Tellus. But of immediate importance to you… if such AIs begin to gather and move, your people may not detect it. I am highly capable, possibly as capable as one of the Hyperion adversary AIs will be now, bereft of station-class support. I am also of the same nature as this potential enemy. I will — I must — watch for such sinister actions as might transform the human race into a duplicate of the Blessed, and prepare to counter it, in subtle ways that only a Tayler-5 might manage. For a moment he brightened, a shining flicker like a smile. And indeed what better course for myself, alert for the machinations of an electronic Eddore against my Arisia?

She smiled faintly, but the request weighed heavily on her. There was little doubt in her mind that an AI as tremendously capable as Mentor could fool her if he was so inclined. He even had enough freedom of action to do so, in his role as the cosmic manipulator. If she was wrong, she could easily be creating the very threat that she feared.

In the end, she realized, it really came down to whether she trusted Mentor or not — whether she really was willing to accept him as a person and not a vaguely threatening, faceless set of computations with just a friendly-seeming user interface. She shook her head, then smiled. All right, Mentor, she responded as she moved towards the forward door, Wu Kung now following. This is going to be putting my ass on the line big-time, though, so you damn well better cover those tracks while I’m gone, or the Leader of the Faction of Humanity may find herself thrown in jail the next time she comes back.

The shimmering avatar blazed up like the sun. I THANK YOU, ARIANE AUSTIN. I SHALL NOT BETRAY YOUR FAITH IN ME, AS YOU HAVE JUSTIFIED — INDEED, MORE THAN JUSTIFIED, REAFFIRMED — MY FAITH IN YOU, Mentor thundered, his voice carrying with it not merely its usual measured wisdom, but joy and solemn conviction.

“Don’t thank me yet,” she said aloud with a wry grin. “Because once I’m gone, if you get caught there’ll be no one and nothing keeping you from a permanent wipe as a feral AI.”

THIS, TOO, IS WITHIN MY VISUALIZATION. AND AN ACCEPTABLE RISK FOR YOUR PEOPLE AND MINE. YOU HAVE LEARNED AS I HAVE TAUGHT, AND NOW I FOLLOW AS YOU HAVE LED. Mentor’s bodiless chuckle warmed her, giving her confidence that she had made the right decision. I WATCH OVER YOUR PEOPLE AND MINE HERE; YOU WILL DO SO THERE, WHERE I CANNOT FOLLOW.

She realized that this was truly the key. Mentor knew that the fear of AIs could easily be cultivated — and brought to lethal flower — in the Arena, where no AI could spy upon the human race. “I will,” she promised. She felt the additional weight of that burden on her metaphorical shoulders and winced. Oh, well, let’s not worry about it; what’s one more fearful and apocalyptic responsibility on top of everything else?

 

1636 The Devil’s Opera – Snippet 11

1636 The Devil’s Opera – Snippet 11

“No more than the man deserved.” He folded his arms around his wife. Her arms went around his waist, and she laid her head on his shoulder. They stood that way for a moment, then he murmured, “I am sorry.”

          She leaned back head and looked at him. “For what?”

“For allowing that fool to come and disturb you, and for not warning you what the Lutherans and Calvinists teach about . . .” He couldn’t finish the sentence.

“About children like Alison.” Marla completed it for him, and he nodded. “That’s okay, dear.” She raised a hand to his cheek for a moment, then gave him an impish grin that brought warmth to his heart. “Lennie came by last week, remember?”

Lennon Washaw was a Grantviller Methodist deacon who resided in Magdeburg now. He was a good and kind man who was a lay preacher for those up-timers who had gravitated to Magdeburg, whether Methodist or not, who were not comfortable with the various down-timer congregations in the town. He had spoken at Alison’s funeral, and was held in high esteem by both Marla and Franz. For all that Franz didn’t agree with the man on several points of doctrine, he knew and trusted Herr Washaw to care for their welfare more than any of the Lutheran pastors in Magdeburg — Pastor Nicolai in particular now being a case in point.

“Yes?”

“Well, one of the reasons he did was to warn me of this very thing. He knew that it was going to come up sooner or later, and he wanted to prepare me for it.”

“Ah.” Franz began to smile in return. “And so you knew which scripture to quote to a pastor.”

“Yep.” Marla giggled, hugged him tight, then released him. “Now, aren’t we supposed to be meeting Mary soon?”

****

          Simon jumped up the steps of Das Haus Des Brotes. He opened the door and hurried through, panting. He’d run the last few blocks to the bakery because he thought he might be late. Once inside, he looked for Frau Zenzi — Frau Kreszentia Traugottin verh. Ostermännin, mistress of the bakery — but she was busy with a late customer, so he stepped into the back, found the broom and went to work.

The boy swept the broom across the floorboards of the bakery with care. Frau Zenzi always inspected his work, so he needed to do his best. He concentrated on the corners with special care. The coarse twigs of the broom were hard to maneuver, especially one-handed. Not for the first time in his young life he cursed his right arm where it hung straight by his side, just as it had for as far back as he could remember.

He couldn’t remember just when he noticed that he was different from other children, that his right arm wouldn’t work. But as far back as he had clear memories, it had always hung limp. He did remember crying about it when he was little, screaming about it. When he was older, he remembered praying about it. And then there were the times when he would sit and try by force of will to make it move. But no matter how he willed it, no matter how he strained, the response, always, was nothing. The arm hung there like a limb broken from a tree but still hanging by some shred of tissue or bark, just like now.

And of course, since the arm didn’t work, the musculature had atrophied — withered — early in Simon’s life, leaving it looking like nothing so much as a dead twig. He’d never known anything else. The left arm, however, since it had to do the work that the two healthy arms of normal people would do, was very well developed and strong. Other people were sometimes surprised by just how much Simon could do with his one good hand.

Simon stopped sweeping for a moment. He no longer grew angry with himself or his arm. It was what it was. He mostly just worked out ways to do what he needed to do one-handed. But sometimes he grew irritated at the way it flopped around, like it was doing now. He placed the broom between his legs, reached over with his left hand and with a practiced motion hooked his right hand and stuffed it in his jacket pocket. There, he thought. Now he could finish the sweeping without his arm getting in the way.

Just before he grasped the broom again, Simon looked at his left hand, closing and opening his fingers. If he ignored his right arm most of the time, the reverse was true of his left. It was never far from his thoughts. What would he do if he ever hurt that hand? It was a constant fear. Life was difficult one-handed — he could barely imagine the hell it would be if he had no hands.

Back to sweeping, he told himself. He swept the back area, then moved out to the front room where Frau Zenzi met her customers. She brushed by him as he swept along. Again, he took pains with the corners.

“Simon?” Frau Zenzi’s voice came from the back of the bakery, and he could hear her steps approaching. “Are you done yet?” The mistress of the bakery appeared in the door from the rear.

“Almost, Frau Zenzi.” One of the things that Simon really liked about the mistress was that she let everyone call her by her nickname. A large woman with a broad friendly face, she was not one to ordinarily stand on position. She was a caring woman, as well, who often would tend to the unfortunates of Magdeburg. In fact, she had taken a young blind boy named Willi into her household recently. Her husband, the baker Anselm Ostermann, would simply shake his head and smile whenever she added another person to her list of special people.

 

Noah’s Boy – Snippet 31

Noah’s Boy – Snippet 31

When he came out of the bathroom, things made even less sense.  For one, apparently the war council was going to take place at the foot of the bed, with everyone sitting on cushions on the floor and partaking from the food on tables around the room, using little bowls and porcelain spoons also distributed around the room.  The only person who looked… well, not right, but he never looked right, but moderately natural in that situation was Old Joe who was merrily eating with his hands out of a little bowl, while clacking his teeth and clutching something — was it an extremely dirty trench coat? — to him like some sort of security blanket.

Kyrie and Bea were sitting side by side and seemed to have formed some sort of united front.  Part of it, Tom noted, was that Kyrie was wearing a dress, which had to have come from Bea’s closet.  The disapproval of this action was written in Jao’s face, as he glared at Kyrie, and the mulish stubbornness of Bea’s look told him she wasn’t about to take much of this.

Which at least was good, right?  It meant he had an ally, right?

Tom took a clean bowl, wishing it were much bigger, and piled it high with meat from a nearby serving bowl.

Jao and his counterpart sat opposite Kyrie and Bea.  Old Joe sat facing the bed.  The only spot open was with his back to the bed, but Tom decided it had been a long time since kindergarten, and he was not going to sit on a cushion on the floor.  Besides, his position had few advantages, but one of those was the advantage of his position.  If he settled himself above the others, on a physical plane as well, perhaps he’d have more command over the outcome of this.

* * *

Bea’s doubts about Tom got worse, as he came in, walked straight past them, got food — how could he get food after tearing people to shreds — and sat on the bed, staring down at them as if they were unruly children and eating with scrupulous manners.

Yeah, okay, so the idea of taking pillows off the bed, and sitting on them on the floor might have been stupid, but this room didn’t have any chairs for people meeting here, and she’d be damned if she was going to sit on the bed with all these people.  Or if she was going to stand while the two Chinese guys sat on the bed and glared at her.

It was bad enough that they’d thrown a fit when she’d lent a dress to Kyrie.  Yeah, okay, so that dress was probably never going to be usable by Bea after this.  It only fit Kyrie at all because it was stretchy material, but the points at which their figures differed were likely to be stretched out of shape forever.  On the other hand…

On the other hand, Kyrie had been blood-smeared from hugging Tom, and she wanted to change, and Bea didn’t understand why she shouldn’t lend Kyrie clothes.  It wasn’t as though Bea had chosen, paid for, or had any interest in the clothes in the closet, even if their mimicking of her taste had been deadly accurate.

But they clearly thought this was Bea’s room and Kyrie was an intruder.  Bea shivered.  Out there, in the cabin in the forest, she’d been getting used to the idea that there might have been a man for her.  Oh, it wasn’t love yet, not even a crush, but being with Rafiel felt right.  She liked spending time with him, and was more comfortable with him after a day’s acquaintance than she’d ever felt with a man.

For one, she didn’t need to make excuses for her shifting.  And yet, he wasn’t a dragon, or part of the dragon hierarchy, and she didn’t need to worry he belonged to a whole mysterious world she’d never understand.

Which, beyond the fact that the man was taken, and that she wasn’t sure she liked him better than half, was the big problem with Tom.  He walked in, all arrogant, as though he knew rules she didn’t, between the people sitting on the floor, and plopped himself to sitting on the edge of the bed.

He looked over them, with an amused glance, then said, in a dry voice, “Who cares to start telling me what this is all about?”

Jao started first, hesitatingly, “Your revered ancestor…  That is, for some time now, he’s been aware that he’s been in danger, grave danger of the sort that — That is, he knew there was a good chance he might die, and therefore he … made preparations, so that if you stayed behind you’d have dragon descendants who might follow your footsteps, and the line that came all the way from the stars wouldn’t die with you.”

“The stars?” Tom asked, with a lifting of the eyebrows.  “I take it you don’t mean Hollywood.”

Jao scowled but hesitated.  “It is not stars, stars, though that’s what we’ve always called them.  I mean, our legends do not talk of traveling through space in the sense that you might understand it, though there are legends of sailing the ocean of time, we’re not sure that’s time travel, either.  It’s just that…  Worlds Dragons might be more accurate, as we think they came from other worlds.”

Tom raised his eyebrows further.  Was he trying to put them off making him their leader by acting as arrogant as possible?  Bea had a feeling that wouldn’t work. These people struck her as the sort of people who would positively enjoy being stepped on and made to behave like underlings.

Jao seemed to be trying to gather himself together.  “Your esteemed ancestor, I said, knew there was a threat, there was something coming, and therefore he faced up to it, to protect us –”

The old man Kyrie had brought with her, and who had a truly disturbing habit of clacking his teeth together found an even more distracting way to interrupt the conversation.  He laughed, a high, discordant laugh and slapped his thighs while doing it.

* * *

Tom knew it was going to be trouble when Old Joe laughed.  “He did not face it.  He was dragged.  From the parking lot he was dragged, before he could shift.  He was killed and … taken away.”

“He knew what the threat was,” Jao said, trying to overpower the old man’s voice.  “He knew the threat was coming near, and he bravely defended from it and –”

“Dragged,” Old Joe said, and clacked his teeth with enormous satisfaction, while his eyes looked merrily over the people around him.  “And now kept somewhere, though I don’t know where.”

“He’s dead,” Jao said.  He looked sour.  His mouth set in a straight line.  “Which is why it’s so important for the new Great Sky Dragon to –”

“Oh, you want to say that,” Joe said.  “And it might even be true.  For now.  But truth is something different.  Yes, Daddy Dragon is dead.  Impossible to pretend otherwise and have dragon egg pass to dragon boy.  When dragon dies, dragon egg passes.  And it did.  But death is not permanent for our kind.  Or it need not be. And dragon egg does not distinguish, because even temporary death is rare for daddy dragon.  And it could always turn permanent.”

Jao opened his mouth, then closed it.  “The Venerable one is dead.  We must find his assassins and –”

“Yes, he is dead, but was his head separated from the body?  Do you want him to be dead, Jao?  Is that the game?  Do you want him to be dead forever?”  Old Joe asked.  He clacked his teeth together, while his gaze played, in amusement, over the assembled people.  “I wonder why.  Are you afraid whoever killed him will activate dragon egg and get knowledge from him?”

“We –” Jao looked at Tom as though for help, though Tom had absolutely no idea what he could have done to help at that point.  “We are sure he’s dead,” he said.  “The power wouldn’t have passed to the son of the dragon’s son otherwise.”

“Sure, sure?” Old Joe asked.  “You have body and are preparing to send him to his ancestors in style?”

Jao opened his mouth, and this time Tom thought he had to intervene.  Not to save Jao.  It was quite possible nothing could.  Old Joe was having his fun, making fun and mocking, jabbing and withdrawing, but Tom was starting to see a shape through the fog of amusement the old shifter projected, and the shape he saw was making the whole thing seem like a nightmare… but also, perhaps offering him an opportunity of escape.

He did not want to be the Great Sky Dragon.  He didn’t want to preside over the shady activities of the triad, or to be the leader of a criminal organization.  And he didn’t want to marry anyone but Kyrie.

He looked at Kyrie and their eyes met, and he recognized in hers the same thought that had been in his.  No.  They didn’t want to marry anyone else.  And perhaps, Tom thought, it was about time they married each other, if nothing else to keep crazy people from planning marriages for them.

He smiled at her, a little, and hoped she realized what he was thinking, but then he turned to Jao and said, “It bears asking.  Do you have the Great Sky Dragon’s corpse?”

A dark blush tinged Jao’s cheeks.  “Well, no, but we are sure he’s dead.  If this were just the long sleep, the temporary death, then the power and the knowledge would not have passed to you.”  Pause.  “Sire.”

“No.  Drop the sire and tell me straight why not.  If the mechanism is set for the knowledge to pass at death, why would it not?  The long sleep you call it?  Temporary death?  Nice words, but if you remember it happened to me and when it happened to me, the doctors said it was death in everything.  I was in the morgue, before I came back by some means no one can determine.  And when I came back, it was almost instant.  So — do you care to explain what it is that makes you sure that it won’t pass on the long sleep?  Has it not passed before?”

 

1636 The Devil’s Opera – Snippet 10

1636 The Devil’s Opera – Snippet 10

Chapter 6

          “No!”

Franz Sylwester winced as Pastor Jonas Nicolai jerked back in surprise at the vehemence in Marla Linder’s voice. For all that his wife normally shone with a pleasant temperament, she had a temper that, when stirred, rivaled the tempests on the seas. Unfortunately for the pastor, he had just invoked the tempest. And, judging from his expression, the poor man had no idea what had gone wrong, but he had just enough perception to realize that something had.

          Pastor Nicolai from the Heilig Geist (Holy Ghost) church had asked if he could call on them. Franz remembered that he and Marla had looked at each other quizzically when they received the note. Neither of them knew the man, since they did not attend any of the Lutheran churches in Magdeburg, but they decided they would do the polite thing and allow the call.

In the flesh, Pastor Nicolai proved to be somewhat urbane, and his tone had a supercilious air to it. Within five minutes of conversation Franz was wishing the man would say what he had to say and leave. Within the second five minutes it became clear that the pastor was hoping to recruit them as musicians for his church, and Franz became heartily sick of the man. Within five more, as the pastor revealed that his specific purpose was to make a pastoral and consoling visit to the bereaved family that he hoped to pull into his parish, Franz was sick to his soul and desperately seeking ways to cut the visit short.

The still-birth of their first child in October had put Marla on the edge of a mental precipice. It had only been a couple of weeks ago that she had been turned away from it through the help of some of their musician friends. She wouldn’t talk about it now. From conversations with Mary Simpson and Lady Beth Haygood, Franz knew that she might never talk about it. But he knew in his heart that she had spent those weeks staring into the abyss of Hell, unable to even grieve properly for their still-born daughter Alison. And he knew that although she no longer did so directly, and although her face was alive again and her smile could be seen from time to time, she was still subject to times and days of darkness.

And now, out of a misguided desire to comfort the bereaved parents — at least, Franz hoped it was misguided and not an intentional trespass — this idiot of a pastor had opened his mouth and spilled out the one religious doctrine common to all the reformers that he had hoped to keep from Marla until she had regained her balance.

“Frau Linder . . .” Pastor Nicolai began in a worried tone. “I’m afraid it is true Frau Linder. Holy Scripture is quite clear that children who are miscarried or still-born do not have a place in Heaven.”

“No,” Marla responded again. Although her tone was quieter, Franz’s shoulders twitched as he recognized what their friend Rudolf Tuchman had called her “sword steel” voice: hard, cold, inflexible, and barely restrained from cutting the pastor to ribbons. “I don’t accept that.”

“But all the authorities agree . . .”

“Then all your authorities are wrong.”

“Even Martin Luther . . .”

“And he’s wrong, too.”

Pastor Nicolai was now staring red-faced at the very self-assured, very controlled young woman in front of him who was contradicting him at every point. If the man had not been such a fool, Franz would have felt at least a bit sorry for him. As it was, he squeezed Marla’s hand in encouragement.

“But . . .” the pastor managed to utter before Marla cut him off again.

“These men you refer to are only men, Pastor. They can be just as wrong or mistaken as any other men, including the popes they abhor. And in this case, if this is what they all teach on this subject, then they’re all mistaken. The Bible does not teach that Alison is in Hell, and I will not accept that from you or anyone else.” Marla’s tone was beyond cold now. In fact, icy failed to describe it.

Nicolai tried to expound his position again. Franz had had enough, and stood, shutting off the pastor’s flow of words. “This conversation is over. Let me show you to the door, pastor.”

Marla laid a hand on Franz’s arm. “I suggest you spend some time meditating on 2 Samuel Chapter 12, Pastor Nicolai, particularly on David’s reaction to the death of his child. Your authorities misinterpret what is being said there.” She removed her hand, and Franz escorted the pastor to the front door of their house.

Franz led the pastor to the front door and held it open for him. As the pastor stepped through the door, he had a thought.

“Pastor Nicolai?”

“Yes?” The man turned, and Franz could see the light in his eye that perhaps the wayward musician was going to apologize to him. He had to bite his lip for a moment to keep from laughing.

“Are you married, Pastor?”

“Why . . . yes, I am.”

Franz could see the confused look pass over the pastor’s face.

“Is your wife a woman of wisdom?”

Now the poor pastor was very confused. “I believe so.”

“Do you listen to her?” Franz hurried on before the pastor could respond. “I don’t mean talk to her; do you listen to her?”

Pastor Nicolai still looked confused, but gave a slow nod.

“Then I suggest you ask her to explain to you what you did wrong here today. Good day to you, sir.”

Franz closed the door, and turned to find that Marla had come up behind him. Her face was relaxed and her eyes were dancing. “That was cruel, love.”

 

Spheres Of Influence – Chapter 03

Spheres Of Influence – Chapter 03

Chapter 3.

          Simon jolted awake from the doze he’d been in, the restraints on Holy Grail‘s copilot seat keeping him from catapulting through the air. What…

“We have a detection, Simon,” his AISage Mio said, her projection materializing nearby. “Displaying now.”

          Simon didn’t question her assertion, but for his own peace of mind — or lack thereof — he checked the readings himself. The results did not comfort him. No doubt about it. But the location makes no sense.

“What is it, Simon?”

He saw Gabrielle poking her head through the interior doorway of Holy Grail with a concerned look on her face. He opened the commlink and let her see the display. “You see the triple peak, there? That’s a spacetime disruption which can’t really have any other explanation other than the activation of a Sandrisson Drive.”

“Something came in, or went out?”

“Out, I’m sure. There’s no sign of anything there now, but examining the minimal data I have for the region indicates there was a small vessel in that area previously.”

Gabrielle looked puzzled. “Minimal data? Where was it? Ain’t too many places you could go that don’t have telescopic records.”

“Ahh, but this was far to zenith — very far out of the plane of the solar system. Far enough that normally we don’t monitor the area much at all.”

“That far up, so to speak?”

“Yes. Which is one of the things that worries me. To do that without being noticed earlier, the ship would have had to depart somewhere around two, two and a half weeks ago — no more than a month after our arrival.”

Gabrielle looked serious, and the other AISages materialized at the same moment.

“INDEED A MOST INTERESTING PROBLEM, YOUTH,” Mentor thundered, in the manner of the fictional character Ariane had designed her AISage to operate, and then in reduced volume continued, “From even the fragmentary data you have, it is a matter of only moderate difficulty to extract some useful parameters for the departed vessel. It was small — my Visualization gives a ninety-six point two percent probability that it was one passenger with a considerable mass of supplies of unknown type. It departed from, and was presumably constructed at, L-5 Shipyards. Data from the last trans-System update indicates that construction of the vessel began five point two six days after our arrival.”

“A new Sandrisson Drive vessel constructed and launched in less than one month. How?” he murmured, stunned. “Physically it’s not impossible but… even with what I gave the SSC I would expect it to take at least a few weeks just to settle on the basic design, let alone construct it.”

“As yet there is insufficient data to answer the question,” Mentor answered. “However, additional data may be forthcoming. Mio and I have been tracking another small vessel and it is now preparing to dock with Holy Grail.”

“Who is it?”

“The identification provided by the onboard AISage, and indirect verification from other data available, indicates that our visitor is Saul Maginot. There may be at least one more vessel approaching but that is uncertain at this time.”

Oh dear. That cannot be good news. “Well, allow Commander Maginot aboard, of course.”

“Security deactivated for outer lock,” Mio confirmed.

By the time he and Gabrielle arrived, the lock was cycling. Saul Maginot stepped carefully from the lock on surface-cling boots; his AISage Elizabeth drifted near him, dressed in what appeared to be formal partywear from several centuries past. “Welcome aboard, Commander,” Simon said.

“Thank you, but we have little time for pleasantries. My coming here is itself going to be a signal to certain parties, of course, but I will be damned if I am going to talk anywhere someone can spy on me.”

“The Anonymity –”

“– Protocols, yes, yes, but in a public project that can get rather fuzzy, and in a public space even more so. Here there’s absolutely no fuzziness about it, thank goodness, and moreover I have confidence that you’ve made sure of your security here as well.”

“Your confidence is well placed,” Mentor’s deep voice responded, “and our examination of you and your personal belongings show that you are ‘clean’, as the saying goes. You may speak freely.”

“Good, because there isn’t much time; I hope DuQuesne and Captain Austin return soon from… wherever they have gone. The public announcement hasn’t yet been made, but as of tomorrow I am officially Commander of the Combined Space Forces … and as of tomorrow, that is all that I am. Oscar Naraj will be head of the Space Security Council, and his right-hand woman Michelle Ni Deng has already been in charge of the new Arena Research Division. The ship — christened the Duta, which Elizabeth informs me means ‘emissary’ — will be ready to leave very shortly; Elizabeth and I estimate no more than a week from now, possibly as little as five days.”

“This is unfortunately entirely in line with our Visualization,” Mentor said.

“That’s terribly fast, Mr. Maginot,” Gabrielle said. “You’ve been running things there for fifty years, more or less, and people’ve always been supportive of you. How in the world did this happen so quickly?”

Maginot smiled sadly. “I had fifty years partly because… if we are being entirely honest with ourselves — there wasn’t much for us to do. We were not expected to act, only to react, and administer the security update operations for destructive nanos, engineered biologicals, and malicious code. That’s the way it’s been for half a century — and that was after Hyperion tightened things up. Oh, you get little flareups, friction between groups crowding each other, a few people forgetting that their right to be offended ends at the other person’s personal space, but nothing that can’t be dealt with using a couple patrol vessels, maybe one warship.” He looked up. “And then you came back, and everything changed.”

Oh, great Kami. “Politics matters again.”

“How succinctly you put that, Dr. Sandrisson,” Saul said with a sigh. “But yes, that’s exactly it. The situation before was stable, overall. There was no lever that someone like Oscar could find that would make it worth the time and effort to oust me. Everyone was comfortable with me being in charge — why, even the debates on the warships usually had the undertone of ‘we really don’t need them, but with modern automation the maintenance is basically zero and it’d be too much of a pain to decomission them’.

“But suddenly there’s a whole universe out there of other species, other threats to the entire human race, and the project I had okayed and promoted seems to have potentially begun a war we’re not ready to fight.” He raised a hand. “Please, don’t tell me that’s not fair, I know perfectly well it’s neither a fair nor accurate assessment, but it is the undertone of what Oscar and his people have been saying. We have fear and uncertainty galore now, and people who like to be at the forefront of this kind of thing now have something real to drive them.” He frowned. “And I cannot help but think that anyone who wants power for those reasons really is not the person I want to have it.”

“Amen to that,” said an unmistakable deep voice from the entrance.

“Marc!” Simon had no trouble admitting that knowing DuQuesne was back took a tremendous load off his shoulders. “Mentor, why didn’t you –”

“Because my first loyalties are to Ariane Austin, and she had directed me to take no actions to disturb anyone during their approach,” Mentor answered.

“Sorry,” Ariane said, becoming visible as DuQuesne left the doorway, her smile lighting the room… or perhaps just my vision of the room, whenever she enters. “Mentor told us you were talking with Commander Maginot so I said not to interrupt.”

“Quite all right,” Saul said. “Glad that you could make it. I was…”

He trailed off, jaw literally going slack and eyes staring in utter shock.

Simon looked back to the entryway to see one of the most outlandish figures he had ever beheld — and given what he’d seen in the Arena, that, as DuQuesne might have said, was really going some. The newcomer wasn’t tall — in fact, if you discounted the spiky-tumbling hair that almost seemed like a ruff or mane atop his head, he was only about as tall as the diminuitive Gabrielle – but he was wearing something that looked as though it came from the overactive imagination of the most sleep-deprived simgame designer, gripping a red-enameled, gold-capped staff in one hand, with a golden band around his head… and his features were definitely not quite human.

Golden headband? A staff? A tail? Masaka. It can’t be…

“Sun Wu Kung,” Saul breathed slowly. “By God, DuQuesne, I never thought…”

“Neither did I, Saul. But thank all the heavens we were wrong.”

Sun Wu Kung — The Monkey King? — bared his fangs in a cheery grin. “I remember you! You argued with the other men and let DuQuesne take me away! But you were much younger then.”

Saul nodded, still with a stunned air about him. “You, on the other hand, seem not to have aged a day. Not surprising, I suppose. Welcome to the real world, Sun Wu Kung.”

“Thanks!” Wu Kung bounced past Saul, catching one of the consoles with his tail to stop in front of Simon. “And you’re Doctor Sandrisson — they told me about you, said you had white hair and looked like a Hyperion genius!”

Simon didn’t know exactly what to make of that, but the Monkey King’s smile was infectious. “Pleased to meet you, Sun Wu Kung.”

“Call me Wu, everyone does — Hey, you’re Gabrielle, the healer!”

A short attention span seems to be one of his characteristics. As the newly-wakened Hyperion transferred his attention to Gabrielle and the AISage manifestations, Simon heard more serious conversation. Saul was talking to DuQuesne: “… of the others?”

Marc shrugged. “It wasn’t all bad… but not all good, either. She got Jim — leastwise it looks like it was a struggle and there weren’t too many people that could even have found him, let alone beat him. Velocity’s thinking about it; my guess is he’ll come, after a little thinking. I couldn’t check on too many of the others and … well, I wasn’t ready to try any of the other sleepers yet. As for K, I checked but she’s been deployed elsewhere, and you know she never leaves a forward.” He made a handwave as if to shoo away the subject. “Anyway, Mentor kept us up to date on the situation. They’re nearly ready, and Naraj is setting up his own expedition to try to clean up what they see as our mess.” The huge Hyperion’s gaze snapped to Simon. “How are we set?”

“Now that you’re here? We can leave within a few hours, I think.”

“Are you coming with us, Saul?”

The older man shook his grizzled head. “A part of me would love to see this Arena — and one day I am sure I will. But I am still Commander of the Fleet, and that is now, as your friend points out, a vastly more real position now than it was a few weeks ago. I have to prepare for a potential war… and try to minimize any damage our own politics might do here.”

“Right. In that case you should probably prep your ship, because we’ve got to get out of here so that we’ll hit the Arena before anyone else does.”

“I’m afraid it’s a bit late for that,” Simon said.

“WHAT?”

“No need to bellow, Marc. I mean that we just recently registered a transition. And judging from the path, the ship itself was completed two weeks or so ago — far earlier than I would have thought possible.”

“Who the hell… Dammit! That throws a new monkey wrench into the works.”

Simon had been thinking. “You know, Saul, there just aren’t very many people who could have done this. It would have to be someone familiar with my work, considerable reserves of power or Interest or other value, and since no one picked up on this, someone very good at working under full anonymity. But even so… there were key elements of the designs that I kept fully proprietary, so only your study groups were given access.”

“I see where you are going, Simon. Let me check to see if we have any candidates from the engineering and science group that was tasked with the construction of the Duta.” A pause; his AISage Elizabeth seemed to be paging through a book. “Hm. There does appear to be one possibility, but I would have thought someone you recommended would be a reasonable risk.”

“One of my recommendations?” Simon said.

“Doctor Shoshana,” Saul confirmed. “She left the SSC workgroup only about three days after joining, apologizing but citing some personal reasons.”

“How… odd. She was always reliable when I worked with her — she had to leave the project shortly before the end, but I never had any problems with her or her work.” He thought for a moment. “I suppose — if she had the resources — she would possibly be capable of this, although I had not thought her quite able to make that many leaps of design and judgment by herself…”

DuQuesne stood up slowly, his face a shade paler. “Simon, who is this person you’re talking about?”

“Dr. Marilyn Shoshana, a –”

“SON OF A BITCH!”

The bellow was so loud that everyone — even Sun Wu Kung — jumped. DuQuesne continued with several outdated curses. And as he did so, Saul suddenly went pure white. “Oh, no. Not her.”

“What’s wrong, Marc?” Ariane looked grim, recognizing that only something cataclysmic could possibly make Marc C. DuQuesne react like that. In response, the Hyperion turned to Simon.

“This Doctor Shoshana — young-appearing woman, maybe twenty five, delicate, extremely beautiful, golden hair –”

Simon didn’t wait for the rest. “You obviously know who we’re talking about. What’s wrong, Marc? Who is Marilyn Shoshana?”

“Just the most dangerous psychopath in the entire solar system,” DuQuesne said quietly, grimly. “The one Saul’s people have been chasing for fifty some-odd years and never caught.”

“God, no,” Gabrielle whispered in disbelief. “The renegade Hyperion. The one that murdered –”

“The very one,” DuQuesne’s face was dark, and Simon thought he saw, unbelievably, a trace of fear as well as anger and sadness.

“And now she’s loose in the Arena,” Saul closed his eyes and shook his head.

“So she was the one you didn’t want following us.” Ariane said, apparently putting some things together. “And I suppose her name isn’t even Shoshana.”

“Not that far off.” DuQuesne looked into the distance sadly, and Wu Kung’s face was suddenly filled with horror and confusion.

“No, DuQuesne!” he said in shock. “No, not her!”

“Yes, Wu. I’m sorry.” He looked momentarily at Saul, then at the still-questioning eyes of Ariane. “She always uses a variant of her real name… though,” he continued with a twisted smile, “never her last name. Just her first.” He gazed out a window, clearly seeing something else… A ghost, Simon suddenly knew, a terrible broken vengeful ghost from the past that never leaves him.

“Just … Maria-Susanna.”