The Orpheus Machine

Chapter 16

SeaStack grew until its towers eclipsed half the sky. Ruiz Aw approached the security perimeter, where he expected some sort of challenge from the floating forts which formed the city’s seaward defenses.

Dead ahead was a fort of burnished rose-colored alloy; it presented a low rounded profile, like a turtle of mythic proportions. He slowed the squirtboat and waited for the fort’s garrison to hail him.

But as he drifted forward, he began to notice ominous details.

No one moved along its armored battlements. Scorch marks licked up from several observation ports. As he floated a little closer, he saw that twisted wreckage had replaced the fort’s weapons emplacements.

He brought the boat to a halt, reversing its impeller momentarily. Had the fighting gotten so out of hand that the pirate Lords no longer controlled the perimeter?

A breeze eddied around the twisted shapes of Sea-Stack’s towers and brought him the smell of decay. He gagged, then forced himself to be calm. I’m not the man I was, he thought, but he felt no great regret.

He swung the squirtboat in a wide circle and passed the fort without incident.

When he neared the first of the great stacks that gave the city its name, he looked up with his usual amazement; it seemed impossible that a structure so spindly could reach such an enormous height.

Then he looked down into the murky water that surged against the stack’s base, and thought how deep the stack reached into the sea. He remembered the job he had done for Publius the monster maker, breaking into Yubere’s stack at its roots — and how it had felt, to be surrounded by the impersonal relentless pressure of the deep.

In retrospect, his assassination of Yubere appeared a rather lighthearted adventure, compared to the things he had lived through since then.

Perhaps those memories retained a certain warmth because of his conviction — at the time — that Nisa waited for him if he returned. He had no such reward before him now… nothing beyond mere survival, a prospect in which he found insufficient motivation.

He searched himself for will. Why should he again go down into SeaStack’s depths? What reasons compelled him to try?

For a while nothing significant came to him. He had made a half-promise to a ghost. What of that? He also hoped to spite Roderigo — but revenge had, very strangely, ceased to move him with any great intensity.

Then he remembered that the universe was surely full of men and women who loved as passionately as Ruiz and Nisa, who hoped to live out their lives together without brutality and coercion. Could he act on their behalf? “Better than nothing,” he whispered. Did he feel a little stronger? Perhaps.

He shook himself. Now wasn’t a time for pointless speculation. Now was a time for caution, scheming, sharp observation.

He looked up at the stack again. What was different from the way it had been when last he had passed this way, a passenger on the barge Loracca?

Then the terraces had been green with crops and flowers, spilling perfume and color into the air. Now the steep sides of the stack were brown and dead, and no farmers moved along the terraces in their eternal stoop.

Then music had floated down from the habitations higher in the stack, faint and sprightly. Now the silence was so deep as to raise Ruiz’s hackles.

He passed the entrance to an interior anchorage; the metal gates were half-melted from their hinges, and the tunnel seemed blocked by a wrecked airboat, barely awash.

He saw his first corpse, a legless woman with a face so bloated she no longer looked at all human. In the old Sea-Stack, corpses never floated long enough to decay significantly — the margars took them down. Were the margars so gorged they could no longer keep up with their task?

Ruiz Aw hunched down in the cockpit and kept to the shadows, as he made his way deeper into SeaStack.

He traveled among the spires for an hour, and in that time he saw no one, heard nothing but a single distant explosion. A few minutes after that deep dangerous sound, his boat shuddered as a confused wave pattern passed beneath it.

Where were the sampans, the armored barges, the freighters that once swarmed through the city’s channels? The city wasn’t dead, he was sure of that. Ruiz felt nakedly vulnerable; he was certain that hidden multitudes watched him and weighed his intentions. Why didn’t they attack him? His paranoia ran wild, so that by the time he reached his destination his face had developed a painful tautness, and his shoulder muscles twitched.

The gate into Deepheart’s lagoon was still open, he saw with a surge of relief — though one phallic gate post was broken off, and the other drooped at an exhausted angle.

He passed within slowly, trying to look in all directions at once. As he recalled, the lagoon was a perfect spot for an ambush.

When last Ruiz had seen the lagoon, it had been lit by low red lights — but now it was dark as a cave, and he could see nothing at all.

He switched on the squirtboat’s spotlight. He played the beam slowly around the lagoon’s perimeter.

A great face looked back at him from the far side — the bow of a Deepheart effigy barge. It lay along the quay, half-submerged, the black water lapping over its chin. Its heavy-lidded erotic languor seemed tragically inappropriate, and a wild laugh forced its way out of Ruiz’s throat.

The sound echoed across the otherwise empty lagoon. Was Deepheart deserted? If so, his plans would need reformulating.

He heard the hum of a switched-on loudhailer an instant before the voice boomed across the lagoon. “Deltan! Show empty hands and make no sudden moves! Irresistible weapons are locked on you. What are you doing in Deepheart?”

Ruiz laughed again, this time with relief. He stood up and tugged off the Deltan helmet. He raised his hands high and shouted: “It’s Ruiz Aw. Let me in.”

Ruiz left the squirtboat moored to the quay, hidden behind the sunken barge, where it would not be immediately visible should enemies visit the lagoon.

He was met at the blast doors by a fragile-looking young woman in scarred servo-armor. He didn’t recognize her, but she opened her faceplate and spoke in a whispery voice.

“Ruiz Aw. I’m oddly happy to see you again.”

“Again?”

“It’s me, Hemerthe. Your friend from before.”

The first time Ruiz had seen Hemerthe, he had been a tall green-eyed man. “Ah,” said Ruiz. “Hemerthe. How are you?”

“Personally, well enough,” she said, her narrow face dimpling. “SeaStack has become dangerous — as you surely saw. Did you have any trouble reaching us?”

“The city was very quiet,” he said.

“Sometimes it is. At first the fighting was constant and bloody. Now it comes in great spasms that fill the channels with corpses and shattered war machines. Between times they lay low and plot the next frenzy of killing, They grow exhausted, but their ferocity doesn’t fade, at all. No one can understand it.”

“Yes,” he said. “I need to talk to the Joined. About what’s going on in SeaStack.”

“All right,” she said. “We wondered if you would return to us. Come.”

Just inside the blast doors, they passed a squad of armored men and women, crouched behind the shield of a heavy ruptor. They looked up at Ruiz through cloudy faceplates, and in their eyes he recognized suffering puzzlement.

Ruiz followed Hemerthe down the spiraling corridor into Deepheart, remembering his first visit. He and Nisa, with Dolmaero and Molnekh and the treacherous conjuror Flomel, had walked this same path, afraid and expectant.

His frame of mind then seemed, in retrospect, inexpressibly innocent, as remote and forever lost as childhood’s innocence. They had escaped from the slaver Corean and survived a trip across Sook’s violent lands. Ruiz and Nisa had found a deep closeness — never in his long life had he been as happy as he had been on that night aboard the Deepheart barge.

As he walked behind Hemerthe, he felt his mouth pull down into a strange sad shape.

Hemerthe spoke over her shoulder. “We’ve gathered the Joined to hear what you have to say. Don’t be too surprised by what you may see.”

They reached a cross-corridor, turned left, and eventually reached a set of ornate brass doors, carved in low relief. A number of naked smiling people, artfully intertwined, copulated in a variety of imaginative ways. Such cheerfully ribald icons were common in Deepheart.

Hemerthe pushed the doors open, flinging them back and raising her thin arms high. Ruiz smiled a little. They loved drama in Deepheart.

“The slayer Ruiz Aw,” Hemerthe announced, and swept one hand down to point at him with a quivering finger.

Ruiz looked up at the platform where the Joined sat in a half-dozen chairs. He felt a disorienting shock of recognition.

Nisa sat in the leftmost chair, regarding him with sleepy eyes. She looked as though she had just been roused from a nap; her hair was still pleasantly tousled.

He started forward, to sweep her up, to touch her, to feel her life — but then he remembered where he was and stopped. She was watching him with impersonal hostility — nothing more.

“Yes,” whispered Hemerthe at his side. “Jufenal wears the body of Nisa. The body has just become available and Jufenal, because of her position as leader of the Joined, had first claim. We would not have purposely arranged it so, but you arrived suddenly.”

“I see,” said Ruiz painfully. Somehow he had avoided thinking about the clones he and Nisa had given to Deepheart in return for their freedom and Deepheart’s help — even though his half-formed plans had included one of those clones.

Jufenal-Nisa stood abruptly. “What do you want here, Ruiz Aw? It was an ill day when you came to us the first time.”

The other members of Deepheart’s ruling council were nodding. Jufenal went on. “Your arrival signaled the beginning of the convulsion that is destroying SeaStack — and now rumors reach us that the pirate Lords search for a Dilvermoon slayer named Ruiz Aw. That he has something to do with this great treasure they are killing each other to find.” She gave him a look both severe and despairing. “It’s only a matter of time before they trace you to us. And what will we do then?”

Ruiz looked up at that collection of grim faces and wondered what he dared tell them. Would their unique perspective, their commitment to an extreme form of personal freedom, make them immune to the temptation of the Orpheus Machine? He sighed. It was not his nature to trust, and now what choice did he have?

“I must tell you a terrible story,” he said finally.

When he was done, when he had answered all their disbelieving questions, when he had seen skepticism replaced by horrified acceptance… a silence filled the almost empty hall.

“Why have you come to tell us this monstrous thing, Ruiz Aw? Why us?” asked Jufenal, after a long time.

Ruiz was beginning to wonder the same thing. As he had retold the story, all the unlikely coincidences that had brought him his knowledge of the Orpheus Machine, he had begun to feel a treacherous doubt. Was any of what he believed really true, or had the events on Roderigo broken some essential part of his sanity? Had he made it all up, seeking some justification for the suffering he had endured, the death he had inflicted on so many innocents?

He shook his head. What did it matter? He must act, if there was any chance that Somnire existed and that his information was correct.

“I’ve come for your help,” said Ruiz.

Jufenal shook her lovely head, and Ruiz’s heart ached to see a gesture so much like one Nisa might make. “What help can we give? It’s all we can do to defend our lives, and we don’t know how long we’ll be able to do that.”

“I don’t want anything you can’t give.” He looked down at his hands. “I need an armored submarine. Weapons. A light flatscreen camera with a transceiver powerful enough to be received here — even if the cam is a thousand meters down in the roots of a stack.”

Jufenal looked puzzled. “Why a camera? I had not thought you so eager for fame.”

Ruiz laughed bitterly. “No. Of the things left to me, anonymity is what I value most. But the camera will serve two purposes. I’ll be going down into the Gencha enclave. To survive there, I may have to abandon what shreds of sanity remain to me, and I’ll need someone at the other end of the link to tell me which things really exist — and which are hallucinations.” He looked at Jufenal. “The second purpose is yours. The camera can document the destruction of the Orpheus Machine, so that the pirates will cease their struggles and SeaStack will survive.”

“If you succeed,” said Jufenal. “And is that the entirety of your list?”

“No,” said Ruiz. “I don’t think I can do it alone. I want to borrow the use of my clone. Body and personality. I need someone I can trust at my back.”

Jufenal blinked. “You regard yourself as trustworthy?”

Ruiz shrugged. “I’ve tried not to betray myself… not always succeeding, I’ll admit. Is what I propose so different?”

“I’m not sure; it’s a confusing idea,” said Jufenal. “Well, you must give us time to discuss these requests. Go with Hemerthe; she’ll get you a room and see to your other needs.” The familiar wonderful face grew stern. “If you plan some treachery, control the urge. You cannot evade our surveillance.”

“I plan no treacheries against Deepheart,” said Ruiz in a small tired voice.

Hemerthe conducted him to a small suite. “Here, the hygienic facilities,” she said, indicating an oval door. “Here, an autochef; ask for anything you like.”

She gave him a warm smile. “Here, the bedroom,” she said, standing in the doorway. “Come, we’ll see if the bed’s comfortable.”

There was nothing but kindness and uncomplicated desire in her voice, Ruiz was sure — but he felt no interest at all.

“I’m sure it’s comfortable enough for someone as tired as I am, Hemerthe,” he said, trying to smile at her as pleasantly as she had smiled at him.

Apparently he succeeded in his attempt at tact — or else she wasn’t unduly sensitive. “Sleep well, then,” she said, and went out.

When she was gone, he sat down in the lounger and looked about in a sort of bemused amazement. He saw all around him the conveniences of civilized pangalac life; it was as if the monstrous realities of Roderigo and Dorn had been nothing but bad dreams.

He had a very unsettling thought, sitting there safe and at least temporarily at rest. Why, he wondered, have I so many times left my comfortable retreat on the empty world, my flowers and my vistas? What had he ever accomplished, beyond the ending of a few evil lives — and far too many innocent ones? What had driven him here to Sook, where he must attempt to do a job that all the pirates in SeaStack had failed to do?

He shook his head slowly. Bizarre beyond words, his life had been… and had he ever really noticed that before?

Ruiz felt smaller and less significant at that moment, than he could ever remember feeling. A long time passed before he could get up and go wash the stink of the Deltan armor from his body.

As tired as he was, he slept only a few hours before restlessness drove him from his bed.

He wandered aimlessly about the suite, idly shuffling through his memories. He ordered a meal: noodles with fish and mushrooms, a meal from his childhood. It tasted not at all as he remembered, but it was good and he felt a little better.

He discovered a datalink screen concealed behind a framed print, and to his amazement it responded to his touch.

His surprise diminished somewhat when he saw that it was locked to input only — he could observe the data-stream, but post no responses. The security people of Deepheart were subtle, he thought. He could send no treacherous messages, but they could monitor what he viewed, and thereby glean clues to his purposes.

“Well, why not?” he said. He focused the screen’s retrieval algorithm on the latest offerings in the SeaStack slave market. He began to page through the offerings, surprised at how few items appeared in each category. The disturbances had severely curtailed business, evidently.

A new image formed, and Ruiz’s heart thumped.

It was Nisa, staring moodily from the screen. In her lovely eyes was a look he recognized: controlled anger.

Was this some cruel Deepheart trick? He shook his head violently and looked at the datatag at the bottom of the page.

Member of Pharaohan royalty, it said. Perfect health, well-developed sexual skills, intelligent, biddable. Biddable? Ruiz smiled and read more. Available for viewing. Make appointment.

A datastream address followed, a code which meant nothing to Ruiz. He attempted to search for a real-world address, but the limited capacity of the screen defeated him. Finally he made a note of the code and sat back, looking at her face.

If this wasn’t just some manipulation by Deepheart, then Nisa was alive and in SeaStack. Did it change anything?

Finally he sighed and said, “No.” The task he had set himself must still come first. If by some miracle he survived the trip down into the enclave, then he could go find her.

“I’m sorry, beloved,” he said to her, and shut off the screen.

In the late Alonzo Yubere’s dungeon, the sound of fighting was only a distant thunder. To Nisa’s ears, it was no louder than the storms that sometimes rumbled through the steams of Hell, far below the edge of the world where she had been born.

She had not seen the slaver Corean since their return to the Yubere stronghold.

Corean had thrust her into this small room. “I’ll get around to you, slut,” Corean had said, smiling in an odd lopsided manner. “Now I’ve other things to do.” She had slammed the steel grate and locked it and gone away.

Nisa was glad to see Corean go, despite the unpleasant promise implied in her parting words. The slaver had acquired a brittle volatility of manner, since killing the old cyborg; no longer was she the calm confident murderer she had once seemed. Whatever sanity Corean had once possessed seemed lost forever.

Nisa speculated that the old pirate had meant a great deal more to Corean than the slaver had understood.

She had little else to do but speculate. Her cell was reasonably comfortable, if bare. The light never changed. The food was some bland anonymous paste, the water tasted faintly of some astringent chemical.

So she spent her time thinking about the strange circumstances that had brought her here, and inevitably her thoughts centered on Ruiz Aw, that strange, strange man.

It occurred to her after a while that he had meant a great deal more to her than she had realized. In retrospect, it seemed to her that she had been very foolish to treat him so coldly during the last days of their time together.

She imagined how it could have been. Aboard the Loracca, they might have spent several nights together, several precious nights. Would those nights have been as wonderful as the night aboard the Deepheart barge?

She shook her head. Perhaps not — how could anything surpass that? But what did it matter, these subtle degrees of perfection? Now, in this barren dusty room, when she would never see Ruiz Aw again… just to touch him, to hear his voice, to see his quirky smile — these impossibilities now seemed terribly dear. Her memories of him glowed more vividly than all the things she recalled from her former life on Pharaoh.

“That was the dream,” she said, sadly. “And this is the truth.” She looked around the cell. How childish she had been to blame Ruiz Aw because he could not protect her from all the dangers of Sook. On this terrible world, there was no safety, no refuge — not for more than brief sweet moments.

She had learned that truth too late. Too late. She put her face in her hands and cried.