Castle Dreams

Nine Mine

The door hissed shut behind them.

When he saw it begin to close, Gene began a desperate lunge to catch it, then stopped short. Before he took two strides the darkness had closed in.

“Great,” he said. “Right out of a B movie.”

“A what?”

Before he could get his penlight out of its pouch in his utility belt, a pale halo of luminescence relieved the gloom. The source, he was interested to learn, turned out to be two luminous strips on the front of his companion’s blue-and-silver pressure suit. They emitted a strange greenish glow, cold and faint, but provided enough light to illuminate the surroundings: a large wedge-shaped chamber with lots of empty racks and shelves. A second door was set into the inside wall.

“Handy gadgets, those,” he commented.

“Standard,” she said. “Are you going to keep claiming that it was magic that got us in here?”

“Not if it annoys you.”

“Not at all. It’s just not a very convincing cover story for the obviously advanced circuit-scanning implant you have. It is a bionic chip, isn’t it?”

“If you insist. Now where can we find that security system?”

“Use your implant to trace it to the master computer.”

“Yeah.”

She looked around. “No alarms are going off, and I find that rather strange.”

“Well, the facilitation spell is still working. Actually, I supplied the lock with the correct security code, so the system probably thinks that we have a right to be here.”

“Then we’d better stop talking about it. The system is intelligent enough to learn from our conversation that it was fooled.”

“As I said, the spell’s still working, and will continue to do so for a bit longer. It’ll smooth our way, make things happen in our favor. But it’ll wear off eventually. So, let’s get busy.”

“When it wears off, can’t you simply cast another spell?”

“Yeah, but it won’t be as effective. Magic loses potency with overuse, you know.”

“Well, no, I didn’t know that. Interesting.”

He chuckled. “You’re more than a little skeptical.”

“Not as much as you think. Is “magic’ your word for psychic ability?”

“Hmm. Well, there is some mental discipline involved, but “psychic’ is the wrong word for me. It’s a supermarket tabloid buzzword.… Uh, never mind. Call it whatever you want. What it is, is magic, pure and simple. The real stuff. Let’s see what’s behind this other door.”

The inner door was not locked but had a complicated levered latch. Gene worked the mechanism and pulled the door open. It led into an oblong room with rack after empty rack that might once have held electronic instruments. He walked between the rows and came out, then stood looking at the bare counters that ran along the walls.

He said, “Scavengers?”

“Possibly, but it looks too clean. The stuff was probably stripped when the installation was closed.”

“Was this communications, do you think?”

“No,” she said. “Maybe a laboratory for mineral analysis. There is an outside chance they left the communications gear. The place hasn’t been left open to the elements. There might be plans to restart operations or convert the place into something else.”

“They were pretty thorough in stripping the place.”

“A multiphone is a huge piece of equipment. Sometimes it’s more trouble than it’s worth to tear one out. Let’s look for the communications shack.”

There were other rooms on the first floor, all offering little but empty packing crates and other debris. They found an elevator but passed it up in favor of spiral stairs, which they mounted warily, Gene leading the way with his flashlight. The second floor was apportioned between more laboratory space and a number of cubicles: offices or sleeping quarters; it was hard to tell which until they arrived on the third floor, where, in rooms even more cozy, some metal cots sans mattresses remained. There were more rooms off to the right, and they walked on into the darkness. It was a big building.

“Here it is,” she said, stepping through a doorway.

Most of this room was like the rest — denuded racks and shelves — the only difference being a large array of cylinders and spheres running along the left wall.

“That’s a multiphone?” Gene asked.

“The resonating chamber and radiation sources, at least,” she said. “And the control circuits” — she knelt before a metal cabinet and ran a finger along a vertical opening that once might have housed an electronics module —”are gone.”

She sighed and settled cross-legged into a sitting position. She hung her head and closed her eyes.

Gene played the flashlight’s beam around the room. A few stray nuts and bolts, one or two funny-looking vacuum tubes, if that’s what they were (he doubted it), an empty plastic box, a length of plastic tape, dust, grit …

He looked at her. She sat unmoving.

He listened. Nothing. No enemies approaching. This seemed a safe place. He wondered about the security system. The spell hadn’t worn off yet. He wondered what would happen when it did.

“What do you want to do?” he asked her.

She was silent, motionless.

“I don’t even know your name,” he said.

She had no comment.

“Uh, then again, maybe you don’t want me to know your name.”

She opened her eyes and looked up at him. “Who and what are you?”

“I’m Gene Ferraro. What am I? Just a … wanderer. A drifter. And you?”

“Sativa.”

“Nice name. That the only name?”

She looked down again. Her voice sounded tired as she said, “Scions of aristocratic houses don’t have surnames, properly speaking, but I’m of the House of Hemlin. It’s a big, important family, with many members prominent in Dominion politics.” Her tone seemed to imply that this wasn’t very remarkable or at all important.

“Is it all right if I think of you as Sativa Hemlin?”

“Feel free.”

“Almost sounds like an Earth name.”

“Earth?”

“Where I’m from.”

“Oh. Never heard of it. Sorry.”

“No reason you should have. Mind telling me why you’re so important to the Irregulars? — Oh, God, wait a minute.”

She looked up again. “What?”

“Uh, you’re not going to tell me you have the secret plans to the Death Star, are you?”

“The what?”

He shook his head vigorously, dismissing the whole notion. “Nothing, nothing.”

“I don’t have any secrets of any sort.”

“For a second there, I was a little worried. Thought I’d walked into some weird aspect.”

“You’re making no sense whatsoever.”

“Forget it. Private joke, just kidding.”

Gene paced once in a circle, idly sweeping the beam around the room.

“You’re a very strange person,” Sativa said, “but I suppose I owe you my life. For what that’s worth.”

“Don’t sweat it. You still haven’t told me why they’re after you.”

“I’d make a perfect hostage. I hold a hereditary seat in the Upper Chamber of the Dominion legislature. I also hold the permanent rank of Wing Leader in the Dominion Near-Space Guards. Last but not least, I’m the daughter of the Outworld Proconsul. My mother is the highest Dominion official governing the hundreds of worlds not directly connected to the Thread.”

“So you’re one choice VIP. Very Important Package. What’s the Thread?”

Sativa lifted unbelieving eyes. “You must be joking.”

“I think I told you that I’m from a world that is very far away.”

“How far? Could your world be off the Thread completely? If so, how did you get here? This is not an inhabited planet.”

“I got here … basically through a spacetime anomaly which was brought about by the same powers that fooled the security lock.”

“Magic again?”

“Yes, magic. It’s the truth, even though you don’t buy it, not for the briefest moment.”

“I did, for the briefest moment,” she said, “when you mumbled that nonsense. I suppose that was an incantation.”

“Yeah, sort of. Well, yes, that’s exactly what it was. It serves only to focus the mind. Come to think of it, magic is a mostly mental discipline. It very well could be psychic, much as I loathe that word.”

“Whatever.” She sighed. “Very well. Even though, frankly, I think you’re lying, I’ll tell you what the Thread is. It is a fracture in the fabric of spacetime … I know you know what that is, so don’t feign ignorance, please. A crack, a fault, if you will. Better to say, a seam in the continuum. It is one of an unknown number of such. These seams were formed — so the astrophysicists tell us — in the early stages of the formation of the universe itself. They were produced when the primordial flux of matter — or energy, I should say — went through rapid changes from one state to another. Since the efforts could not propagate instantaneously, sections of the flux changed independently of others. Seams, or faults, appeared between the sections. Like the surface of a pond freezing. It doesn’t all freeze at the same time. It forms plates. Think of a multidimensional equivalent to that process. The plates of spacetime are bounded by threads.”

“Cosmic strings.”

“Yes? That’s what you call them?”

“Just a theory where I come from. Now I understand. Okay. And the Thread is used for interstellar travel, faster than light?”

“You grasp things quickly for one who prides himself on ignorance. Yes, the regions of space near the Thread are anomalous, and, with the proper technology, can be exploited for space travel.”

“How?”

“Basically you pilot your ship near enough to the inner singularity of the Thread so that the extreme gravitational force pulls the ship along. The intense distortions of spacetime in those regions produce strange effects, most of which are not completely understood. One of the effects is superluminal travel. But if you get too close to the singularity, you die. Understand?”

“I think so. Nifty.”

Sativa frowned at this word, then shrugged. “The Dominion of Worlds is sometimes called the Beads Along the Thread. The Thread runs through several galaxies —”

“Travel between galaxies? Now there’s a radical concept. You’re talking about huge distances, aren’t you?”

She nodded. “But they are nothing to the Thread. The Thread obliterates space — and time.”

“I like it, I like it. Now, obviously there’s a war going on.”

“Good observation,” she said.

“A rebellion.”

“Of a sort.”

“And the Irregulars are the rebels.”

“They’re criminals.”

“Well, you’re part of the establishment under siege. You would tend to feel that way about them.”

“It isn’t a feeling. They are a pack of cutthroats posing as noble freedom fighters. They have duped everyone who has lent them support.”

“Do they have support?”

“Enormous support. They have their supporters in the legislature itself, some of them in the Upper Chamber.”

“Interesting.”

“Their cause is widely held to be just. I, personally, think they have already won. The Dominion is doomed. It’s only a matter of time. But some of us fight on.”

“To save the Dominion.”

“Yes. Some are still foolish enough to believe in it and in the principles for which is stands.”

“Which are?”

“You want a lecture on government?”

“Not if you don’t want to lecture me,” he said, “though maybe we should talk about more important matters. Like, what do we do now?”

Sativa lifted her shoulders. “I suppose you turn me in for whatever you can bargain out of the Irregulars.”

“Forget that noise. Do we hide in the mine or take to the hills?”

She shrugged again. “It matters little. They will find us no matter what.”

“Then our best bet is the mine,” he said.

“Is it? I suppose. It will simply delay my capture. There is only one way out, really. Please give me my gun.”

“Forget about shooting yourself. I won’t let them take you.”

She looked up at him. “No? Strange.” She made motions to get up.

“Rest a minute,” he said, settling down beside her.

She gave him a long, questioning look. “Why are you helping me?”

He leaned over and kissed her full lips.

“Sorry,” he said. “I don’t know why I did that. Well, yes, I do know. You’re tremendously attractive.”

“You want me? Then take me. I have no means to resist you.”

“I’d hardly want you under those circumstances.”

“If that is the reason you’re helping me, fine. At least I can understand that.”

“I don’t usually take advantage of women.”

“You like men?”

“Not what I meant.”

“Then take me.” She grabbed his hand and pressed it to her crotch.

The material of the suit she wore was thinner then he’d expected it to be.

“You know how to get right to the point,” he said.

“We don’t have very much time.”

“Your wound,” he said, running his hand along the bloody tear.

“It will be all right.”

She touched a few spots on the front of the suit and the whole thing opened up with a ripping sound like Velcro. He didn’t see any Velcro. She was naked underneath.

His hand went immediately to the laceration along her side. It was long and ugly, but had just missed doing any real damage. The bleeding had stopped, and the wound was already scabbing over. Then his hand went to her small breasts.

“Yes, take me now, before they rape me.”

“I won’t let them. You’re beautiful, do you know?”

“Some say.”

“Do you have a husband?”

“Yes. He is an artist.”

“I don’t do married women. This is ridiculous.”

“What is ridiculous about it?”

“Nothing. Sorry. I didn’t mean that you’re —”

“Then make love to me.”

“Yes, I will.”