The Orpheus Machine

Chapter 12

AS the weight of the helmet settled on his skull, Ruiz heard Somnire’s voice fade in. “Ruiz?” The sound was thin, as though the helmet had partially failed, but the clarity was adequate.

“Well,” said Ruiz out loud. “The job’s done.”

“Yes, I watched. She’s a fire-spitter, that Nisa. Of course, she comes from a primitive world, so I suppose it’s an admirable trait, in her.”

Ruiz felt a rueful amusement, remembering Leel’s observations on cross-cultural tolerance.

“Yes, Leel was wise,” Somnire said, and Ruiz detected a note of sadness in his voice. “Perhaps wiser than I. Anyway, how do you propose to elude the rest of the Roderigans?”

Out of secretive habit, Ruiz attempted to keep his mind empty, but enough of his plan must have seeped through for Somnire to grasp the essence. “Ah!” said Somnire happily. “Very clever. It might even work.”

Ruiz sighed. Nisa was watching him intently, as if she expected him to momentarily collapse into a frothing fit. He gave her a weak smile, to which she did not respond. “So, what’s the terrible secret?”

Somnire’s voice went dark. “It is a terrible secret, Ruiz Aw. I hope we haven’t misjudged you. Leel said I could trust you to do what is required. I don’t know that I trust you, but her instincts were always excellent.” Nothing came through the helmet but the hiss of transient currents, for a minute; then Somnire continued. “I’m only a ghost in a dying machine, but I still feel a loyalty to the universe of living beings we left so long ago.”

“Get on with it,” Ruiz said impatiently. “The sooner I get moving, the more surprised the hetman’s people will be.”

“Yes, of course. So: In the Gencha enclave, under the stack you know as the late Alonzo Yubere’s stronghold, there exists a device. They call it the Orpheus Machine. My data don’t cover the origin of the Machine; nor, of course, do they reveal any clue as to why the Machine is again being used, after all these centuries. Anyway. Anyway. This Machine — and I have no description of the appearance of the device — allows a Gench to perform its minddiving functions with no expenditure of vitality.”

Somnire fell silent, and Ruiz tried to understand. For some reason he had difficulty focusing on the Librarian’s words. Perhaps the wreckage of the death net still cluttered the depths of his mind, because a shrill tide of alarm was rising in him, threatening to drown out rational thought.

“Yes, you understand,” said Somnire. “The Machine allows any Gench to perform an unlimited number of deconstructions. The process is swift and automatic. In fact, there’s convincing evidence that mass deconstructions are possible.”

“Oh no,” said Ruiz.

Ruiz felt a sort of odd paralysis. He wanted to throw the helmet down and walk away and never think about the Gencha again.

But his mind betrayed him with its irresistible compulsion to extrapolation, and so he could not avoid seeing the consequences of Somnire’s information, spreading out through the human universe. Suppose Roderigo obtained control of the machine and its Gencha — or what if Castle Delt did, or even one of the pirate Lords?

Someone would be able to rebuild all the dangerous folk of Sook into deadly machines. Would forge Sook into an irresistible hammer. World after world would be crushed under that hammer, and the hammer would grow mightier.

Someone would eventually dominate all the worlds.

Ruiz looked more deeply into that strange future. It seemed to him that someday the human universe might become one vast organism, a far-flung body serving one mind, changeless forever.

He wondered who that absolute ruler would be. In retrospect, it was clear that his old ally and enemy, Publius the monster maker, had intended to seize that evolutionary pinnacle.

“Emperor of Everything,” Ruiz whispered to himself, finally understanding what Publius had meant.

It occurred to him that it wouldn’t matter who got control of the Gencha machine — the end would be the same. If a saint took the machine, all would be saintly. If a demon, all would be hellish. But in either case, in all the universe only one human being would remain to be exalted or tormented. Everyone else would be a flesh-and-blood machine.

Slavery would no longer exist, he realized. Only sapient beings can be enslaved. Wasn’t that a good thing, in a way?

Ruiz shook his head violently. He felt shadows cloud his mind, and he tried to stop thinking. He couldn’t seem to get his breath.

One final hideous idea occurred to him. What if it had all happened before, so long ago that memory of that time was gone? What if an ancient godmind had grown tired of its absolute rule and one day spoken to its body and said, “Go now and do as you will”? If so, was it any wonder that no one now understood the irrational intricacies of human behavior?

“Ruiz, Ruiz,” said Somnire, breaking into his spiraling dismay. “Calm yourself, please. Attend to the business at hand: survival, escape… and then the destruction of the Machine.” The Librarian’s voice seemed suddenly weaker, as if the ancient mechanisms of the helmet were finally failing.

“All right,” said Ruiz slowly. “Can you tell me anything else? Anything I might find useful?”

Somnire cleared his throat, and Ruiz wondered why an electronic ghost would make such a sound. “The habits of the body persist, Ruiz,” said Somnire. “Anyway. Do you understand the phenomenon of mindfire?”

“To some extent,” said Ruiz.

“Then a brief overview: The pheromonic exhalations of a large number of Gencha, confined within a limited airspace, cause in unprotected humans intense perceptual distortions, similar but not identical to certain recreational hallucinogens. The primary difference is this: The visions and delusions stimulated by the mindfire do not originate entirely within the affected human’s brain. The pheromonic net carries information within its structure. The visions may be purposefully imposed by a concerted Gencha effort, or may derive from past events, re-echoed over years or even centuries.”

In his present state of mind, Ruiz felt no particular dismay at Somnire’s description. How distressing could these visions be, compared to the realities he had recently witnessed? “Anything else?”

“Do not be complacent, Ruiz Aw,” said Somnire, whose voice now carried undertones of impatient anger. “If you reach the enclave, carry clean air. If you run out, be prepared to see things as terrible as any you saw on Roderigo. Remember that Roderigo, for all its evil, can do nothing quite so dreadful as the thing the Orpheus Machine can do. And that Roderigo is one small island, on one sparsely populated backwater world. Regarding the mindfire: The Gencha are olfactory creatures; their worldview is supplemented primarily by visual sensory input. Therefore the mindfire distorts most vividly, for humans, in the visual range. Auditory distortions are mild compared to the visual ones, so that if you hear something clearly and strongly, you may assume its reality.”

“I understand,” said Ruiz.

“Finally, finding the Machine will not be easy. Pay close attention, while I tell you what is known of the enclave’s geometries.” And Somnire spoke at length, constructing a mental map for Ruiz, pausing frequently to assess Ruiz’s memory. His voice grew fainter, and the static more distracting.

“The helmet’s failing,” Somnire said. “What I’ve told you must suffice.” A long pause ensued, during which Ruiz began to think the helmet had already died. “Remember us,” Somnire finally said.

“Always,” said Ruiz, from his heart.

“Good luck!” Somnire’s voice was almost gone. A thin heterodyning screech came through the helmet — then nothing more.

Ruiz removed the dead mechanism.

Nisa stood close, her eyes wide with concern. “What is it, Ruiz?”

He sat down. “A very bad thing, Nisa.”

“Ruiz,” Nisa said more urgently. “What is it?”

Ruiz raised his gaze to her. What was going on behind those lovely dark eyes? Was it human concern, or was it inhuman calculation?

He couldn’t risk the possibility that it was the latter, so he temporized. “The situation has become difficult.”

“What was it before?” she asked.

“You have a point,” he said. “Well, we must get started, anyway.” He got up, and his bruised ribs flared with pain. He knelt by The Yellowleaf and unfastened the remaining helmet latches. When he pulled the helmet loose, her head rolled like a broken-necked bird’s. Her face was as uninformative in death as it had been in life, the eyes staring coldly, the mouth slightly open.

His stomach churned at the thought of what he must do next. Close at hand was a chunk of masonry; he lifted it and smashed it down on the hetman’s skull. Bone cracked and the once-handsome head deformed. He heard Nisa make a gagging sound, and he felt almost as sick himself.

But he took the wireblade and opened the broken skull, slicing the scalp along the fractures. Then he chopped through the brain until he found the synaptic decoupler, a small black ovoid trailing a pseudoneural filament.

“No good,” he said, sighing regretfully. “I’d hoped it used some sort of electromechanical trigger, so we could use it against Gejas.” He started to crush the thing, but then it occurred to him that perhaps it incorporated some sort of tracking device. He wiped it clean on a wad of the hetman’s coarse hair and handed it to Nisa. “Put this in your pocket. Who knows? It might help.”

He rolled the body over and rotated the catches that held the dorsal plating to the plastron, then began to pull the pieces off.

“What are you doing now, Ruiz?” Nisa asked in a troubled voice.

He looked up and saw that she was pale. “I’m retrieving your new wardrobe.”

He was pleased that she offered no hysterical objections. She stood still for a moment and then nodded jerkily. “I see.”

“It’s the only chance we have to approach Gejas, I think,” he said. The armor was accumulating in a little pile beside The Yellowleaf, who had begun to look smaller and less important, as corpses always did.

When the body was stripped, Ruiz stood up and handed the first piece of armor to Nisa. She took it. Apparently she had been watching, because she donned the pelvic girdle without fumbling.

“Good,” said Ruiz. Nisa was a bit smaller than the hetman, but her bulky unisuit would pad the armor well enough for their purposes. Her breasts were larger, but her chest was not as deep, so the plastron seemed not too uncomfortable.

She dressed rapidly, without wasteful movement, and Ruiz found himself envying her apparent calm — no matter the source.

When she was done, except for the helmet, she stopped and looked at Ruiz. “Do you think this will work?”

“I hope so,” said Ruiz. “It’s all I can think of.”

She frowned. “I have a question for you, Ruiz.”

“Can’t it wait for another time?”

She shook her beautiful head. “There may not be another time, Ruiz. Your luck can’t last forever. I need to know: Did you mean those terrible things you said, at the camp? You were very convincing.”

Ruiz shook his head violently. “Oh no, no… how could you think so? It was necessary, to keep the Roderigans from knowing how I valued you. They would have used you to destroy us both.” He looked at her and remembered all the sweetness they had shared. He felt weak dangerous tears cloud his vision.

She looked away, as though embarrassed for him. “But it was true, what you said about me dying in Bidderum? Yes? Well, I think I always knew that I was dead when you found me. And that you had given me a second life. I always knew. Sometimes I wonder if I got a second soul as well; I don’t seem to be able to touch it.”

He didn’t know what to say.

Finally she said, “I realize you can’t advise me. I think you’re none too sure about your own soul.”

“That’s true,” he said in a somber voice. “Nisa… I want to apologize for striking you on Roderigo.”

“I’m sure you thought it necessary.”

“Yes, of course….”

“Then why apologize?”

He tried to smile. “I feel the weight of it on my heart.”

She shrugged. “What do you expect me to do about it?”

“I don’t know,” he answered humbly. “I suppose there’s nothing to be done.”

She looked at him with an ambiguous expression, part pity, part anger.

He couldn’t bear to see that look, whatever it meant, and he closed his eyes.

In the next instant his head rocked back, as she struck him across the mouth with her gauntleted hand.

He touched his lip where it had torn and looked at her, too surprised to speak.

She smiled — a cool smile, but unforced. “Now we’re even,” she said.

To his further astonishment, she bent and kissed him… just the lightest touch of her mouth on his.

Then she lifted the helmet and drew it down over her head.

Ruiz found a length of half-rotted rope and knotted one end around his neck. He used the wireblade to slice through the fibers, so that the loop hung by a few fibers. He handed the other end of the rope to Nisa. “I’m your prisoner,” he said, with a hopeful smile.

He regarded her critically. The ends of her hair fell lower on her torso than had The Yellowleaf’s; he took the wireblade and hacked them off. He slid the wireblade up his sleeve and tightened the cuff.

She was as perfectly disguised as he could have hoped. In fact, had the hetman’s mutilated corpse not lain between them, he might have thought The Yellowleaf still regarded him through the eyeslots of the ghoul mask. Nisa’s regal carriage seemed an eerily close approximation of the hetman’s style, so close that it gave him a shiver.

“Listen,” he said. “You must walk as if you owned the world, as if everyone else was shit on your shoes. Can you do it?”

“Of course,” she said. “I remind you: For most of my life this was my attitude exactly — until quite recently, in fact.”

“I forgot,” he said, smiling more broadly. “Well, good, then. The other thing you must remember is this: Never speak. When we come out into the open, the Roderigans may have a spy bead or long-range monitors on us, so we must play our roles to perfection. No matter what happens, no matter what I do, remember to act as the hetman would.”

“I’ll remember.” There was a short silence; then she spoke again. “I’m pleased to see you more yourself, Ruiz Aw. You’ve seemed so cold, so distant, since we left SeaStack — I hardly knew what to say to you. Something good must have happened in your dream world — something that healed you a little.” Her voice had a somewhat ambiguous quality, as if she were pleased but also apprehensive.

“Yes… a pleasant dream,” Ruiz said, thinking of Leel and her serene imaginary life. He hoped Nisa wouldn’t question him further. Though he was tired of telling lies, even kind ones, he could see no point in telling her of Leel.

But she didn’t ask anything else, and after a moment he said, “Time to go. You lead, I’ll follow.” Then he had her knot another decayed length of rope around his wrists so that he would seem to have his hands bound behind his back. With care, the rope wouldn’t break before the time was right.

“One last thing,” he said. “If things go badly, if I’m killed or captured, try to get away. The armor should protect you from most long-range weapons, short of a direct ruptor hit. You’ll have a chance.” He didn’t suggest any good place she might run to; probably there was no place of refuge on the island. Still, he wanted her to live as long as she could.

She nodded, the ghoul mask gleaming.

Gejas walked nervously back and forth beneath the weapons arch, pausing occasionally to glance at his surveillance screens.

His tracking screen signaled him with a low chime when The Yellowleaf’s implant began to move. It seemed very soon; he had expected to camp in the hills for several days at least. He waited impatiently before another screen, which displayed the transmission from a spy bead hovering on the slope above the tunnel.

When The Yellowleaf emerged from the tunnel leading the madman on a choke rope, he felt a wave of relief wash through him. He wondered briefly what had become of the primitive woman, but then his attention was attracted by a subtle wrongness in The Yellowleaf’s movement. She seemed to walk with a slightly easier, more sexual motion, as though her hips had been oiled. The relief he had felt was replaced by a furious envy. She had obviously indulged herself, had required the madman to please her, there in the cave of the virtual.

He told himself that he was angry because she had so casually risked Roderigo’s interests. What if the madman had hurt her, or escaped? He was quick and strong — and dangerous as only the utterly reckless could be. But now Ruiz Aw hung his head and stumbled, as if exhausted.

When Gejas began to wonder exactly what The Yellow-leaf and the madman had done together, he turned abruptly from the surveillance screen and shouted to the nearest guard. “Get the landwalkers ready. We meet the hetman on the beach.”

He went to the center of the encampment, where the prisoners huddled around a glowpoint, attempting to stay warm. The little orange subhuman still lay on the ground, eyes half-open, obviously too weak to walk.

“Up,” Gejas said. “We go.”

The fat old Pharaohan gestured toward the orange one. “What of him, Master?”

He would have harvested any ordinary prisoner who asked such a question, but he restrained the impulse, remembering that the Pharaohan was part of the bait they were dangling before the slaver Corean. “Leave him,” he said, and turned away.

Outside, the night was clear, and the starlight bright enough to illuminate the path.

By the time Ruiz and Nisa reached the site of the encampment, the Roderigans and the other prisoners had been gone for a long time. Besides the beaten-down scrub, the only evidence of their presence was a bit of rubbish — food wrappers, discarded ammo packaging, scraps of paper — and the prostrate body of Einduix the cook. At first Ruiz thought the little orange man must be dead, but as they passed, Einduix rolled over and showed Ruiz a feeble smile. On Einduix’s chest, Ruiz caught the glitter of the limpet — Dolmaero must have given it to the cook.

Ruiz resisted an impulse to stop. He didn’t know what he might have done for the former sea cook — perhaps nothing — but in any case he couldn’t risk an act that Gejas might perceive as uncharacteristic. Surely stopping to aid a discarded prisoner was not the sort of thing that would ever occur to The Yellowleaf.

Nisa played her role well, not even glancing aside as they passed Einduix.

Ruiz was certain that they were watched. The more he thought about it, the more foolishly optimistic his plan seemed. Could a man like Gejas, who for a lifetime had studied the hetman with an obsessive intensity, be deceived? Ruiz found it increasingly easy to play the demoralized prisoner; unfortunately, his performance was not the crucial one.

They continued down the path toward the water, and now Ruiz heard a rustle to one side. He presumed this indicated the presence of one of the mirrorsuited Roderigan guards.

With all his heart, he hoped that the guard would be incautious enough to approach them before they reached the beach.

Corean watched the beach through her light-multiplier. The ghostly figures of the Roderigan party had appeared ten minutes before, and now they had settled on a terrace just above the high-water mark. Four landwalkers were arrayed in a defensive formation, and she saw a fairly sophisticated weapons arch visible above the alloy backs of the machines.

“Not too bad,” she said, chewing distractedly on her lip. “We seem to have the firepower edge. But where is he?”

Marmo shook his head stiffly, engrossed in his perpetual processor games. Lately the old cyborged pirate seemed less and less interested in the real world. Corean wondered if he had finally become a liability. She contemplated him for a moment, and he glanced up sharply.

Still alert, then, she thought, and returned her attention to the multiplier. “Where is he?” she whispered.

Dawn glimmered just below the eastern horizon when Ruiz and Nisa stood atop the last foothill ridge and looked down at the beach, where Gejas had reestablished the camp. Under the weapons arch, the tiny figure of Gejas hovered over the dim blue glow of his screens. The three remaining prisoners waited fifty meters down the beach, in a little dismal huddle.

“Let me catch my breath, please, Master,” Ruiz said in pleading tones — just in case anyone was listening. He collapsed dramatically to his knees and hung his head. The path here went through deep beach grass, which now rose chest-high on Ruiz.

Nisa nodded, a disinterested gesture. Ruiz was a little surprised that she made such a convincing hetman. But then he recalled the first time he had ever seen her, when she had played the goddess Hashupit so well. That day in dusty Bidderum seemed a very long time ago now… it might almost have happened to someone else.

The rustles in the underbrush had grown closer as they approached the beach, but now Ruiz heard nothing. He tried to gather his thoughts. How could he get past Gejas and aboard the waiting transport? How could he ensure that the transport took them where they needed to go? How could he prevent Gejas from pursuing them when the Roderigans arrived?

He breathed deeply, trying to suck inspiration from the air. It proved as dry of ideas as his own brain.

He leaned his hip against a square of broken paving stone that jutted from the sand. He noticed that it was loose and not too large to be lifted.

Abruptly, a plan suggested itself to Ruiz. He went over the idea, and quickly detected a dozen ways it could end in disaster. However, surely the same would be true of any plan he could devise. He should probably consider himself lucky to have hatched any scheme, however farfetched.

He glanced up at Nisa. Could he rely on her to keep silent if he startled her? He couldn’t explain his plan in advance. Gejas surely watched and listened — in fact Ruiz’s plan depended on it.

He probably should have gagged her before they had left the cave. He sighed. Hindsight was always so clear, and so useless.

Nisa faced away from him, still watching the beach. He snapped the rotten rope that bound him. He took the stone in both hands and rose up, lifting the stone high. He brought it down in a vicious arc that just brushed the back of her helmet, managing in the same motion to snap his left shin across the backs of her knees so that she collapsed as if from the force of the descending stone.

As she fell into the deep grass, he waited for her to cry out. But she didn’t, she didn’t — and his heart gave a hopeful leap. He raised the stone high again and smashed it down into the sand beside her head. He crouched over her, hidden by the grass.

She turned over and looked at him, and he was glad he couldn’t see her face. He held an admonitory finger before his mouth before he remembered that the equivalent Pharaohan gesture put the finger under the chin.

She nodded slowly, and he smiled in what he hoped was a reassuring manner. Then he slithered as silently as possible into a slight depression a few meters away.

He waited.

Gejas tried not to look at the screen that showed The Yellowleaf and the slayer, but occasionally he felt the compulsion to glance that way.

Eventually The Yellowleaf and her prisoner stood on the last ridge above the beach. When he looked again, they had both disappeared.

He swore and cued the playback mechanism.

For a long breathless moment he found himself frozen in horror. He watched the crazy slayer jump up, he watched the huge chunk of stone descend, he watched The Yellowleaf fall bonelessly into the long grass.

The terrible stone rose above the grass, fell again.

And then, nothing.

Gejas clawed at his communicator, keyed the channel of the guard he’d detailed to flank The Yellowleaf’s return. “Herin, The Yellowleaf’s been attacked by her prisoner. She’s down. Go to her aid, kill the offworld slayer if you can get a clear shot — but above all, take no risks with The Yellowleaf’s safety. Be very careful — the slayer is dangerous.”

The remaining guards ran up. “Irsunt,” Gejas barked. “Man the weapons arch — but hold your fire, unless I’m killed. Then burn them all. Call the sub right now, and let them know what’s happened.”

The guard set down his ruptor and started warming up the heavy weapons.

Gejas was delayed for precious seconds, looking for a medical limpet. Finally he found one and stuffed it in his jacket. He took the guard’s ruptor, slung it across his back, and started running toward the ridge. If The Yellowleaf was seriously hurt… his vengeance would be monumental. He couldn’t yet consider the possibility that she was dead.

Someone crashed through the bushes toward them. Ruiz rose to a half-crouch and waited, wireblade in hand.

The guard was no more than a glimmer in the starlight, his mirrorsuit making him almost invisible — but his progress was so noisy that Ruiz had no trouble finding him.

Just before the guard reached him, Ruiz felt a disorienting intensity of perception. The night air was chill on his suddenly sweaty skin; he heard the movement of the guard and the sound of Gejas’s approaching feet, thudding on the sand. The dry clean scent of the beach grass filled his nostrils. The tautness of his muscles, the readiness, the focus — all these seemed for that instant to return him to a comfortable reality he had almost forgotten.

All kill-thrilled, he thought in disgust. A sudden bleakness washed over him. Never mind. Never mind.

He forced himself to leave thought behind. He leaped as the guard passed, knocking the man off his feet and into the concealing grass.

The man writhed under him and attempted to bring his weapon to bear, but Ruiz once again moved in the illusion of invincibility that had served him so well over so many years. He smothered the man’s struggles and punched the wireblade through the tough fabric of the mirrorsuit, up into the man’s vulnerable throat.

Ruiz twisted the blade and the man died. Blood ran smoking over his hand and he felt an unexpected weakness.

His energy sagged away, but only for a moment. Gejas was much closer, though the rhythm of his footsteps had moderated to a more cautious tempo. Ruiz pried the guard’s weapon loose from the clenched hands and crawled back to Nisa’s side.

There he examined the weapon, and discovered to his disappointment that it was a splinter gun, deadly at short range, relatively useless at over fifty meters.

And he could no longer hear Gejas. Either the tongue was moving more carefully, or he had deduced his mistake in sending the guard against Ruiz and was waiting just out of range.

Ruiz ground his teeth together. What now?

As gejas ran, it occurred to him that he had been very stupid. The slayer had bested The Yellowleaf, after all. What chance would an ordinary guard, unarmored and unaugmented, have? He had probably just armed the slayer with the guard’s weapon.

He crouched on the sand and used his communicator again. “Herin,” he barked. There was no answer. Gejas groaned and ran on.

He took cover behind one of the huge boulders that edged the top of the beach, gripping the ruptor in sweat-slick hands. What should he do? If he went blundering up to the ridge, the slayer would surely chop him down. But The Yellowleaf might be badly hurt; he must get the limpet to her before it was too late.

Fifteen seconds passed before his fear for The Yellow-leaf grew too great to contain. “Ruiz Aw!” he shouted in a voice hoarse with hate and apprehension. “Speak to me, Ruiz Aw.”