by Wil McCarthy
“No?” Viktor looked and sounded surprised. “Why not? I feel so much larger than I was before, so much clearer. The only true way to know your home is to return to it after long travel.” He looked around him, at the walls and ceiling of the winding, hexagonal tunnel, at the refugees, at the Gateans, at the children, at Malye herself. And he smiled. “I know this place. I love you, Malyene Andreivne Kurosov'e, and I've come back to help you in your time of distress.”
Well that, thought Malye, was easily the craziest thing she'd ever heard him say.
“Cease conversation,” Crow called back at them.
On the floor ahead, the red stripe took a sudden, right-angle turn and vanished through a large membrane doorway. He vanished through it as well, with Plate right behind him, and so the refugees followed, as was their lot in this future time.
In the chamber on the other side, Sasha fainted, and Svetlane screamed, and Malye grabbed her children and pulled them tightly to her.
Across the chamber, behind a thick, triangular partition of glass, stood a group of hideous... monsters, arranged like pieces on a chess board, poised to make their first move.
Viktor Slavanovot Bratsev simply looked at them and giggled.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
217::09
HOLDERS FASTNESS, GATE SYSTEM:
CONTINUITY 5218, YEAR OF THE DRAGON
“I'm all right,” Sasha said almost immediately. He climbed unsteadily to his feet. “I'm sorry, I'm okay.”
Malye ignored him, her eyes riveted to the sight behind the partition. Monstrous figures, twisted and absurd. Waisters? It seemed dizzyingly impossible, and yet what else could they be? A day or two early, she thought, but what else could they be? There was a Dog, superficially much like the Gatean ones except for the bulging eyes and darker, purpler skin. But even a cursory inspection showed its long, wide snout to be ringed not with fleshy lips but with what appeared to be dozens of hinged disks, open just wide enough to hint at complex flapping things inside the mouth, a hundred tiny legs groping blindly where the tongue should be. And the eyes—Ialah! They were not bulging at all, but actually mounted on the surface of the head, two solid, featureless spheres of flat brown that squirmed and wriggled, clearly looking around. Clearly looking at the refugees themselves, returning their scrutiny.
And that was the most normal-looking of the creatures. The Queen, for thus she must surely be, looked like a half-toroidal bladder, a kind of “C”-shaped balloon that had been filled with heavy, viscous fluid. From the top of her curving form dangled a pair of flabby arms terminating in myriad wormy fingers or tentacles, and at the bottom, balanced on four short legs, was her...face. Much like a fatter, flabbier version of the Dog's face, except that the eyes protruded even further, were in fact mounted on fleshy stalks. And the mouth, twitching and flapping in a hundred ways, appeared even more hideously complex.
The Queen's “back” faced forward, Malye realized with a shock. She looked like the Dog, her body essentially a wide, flat roll, but one that had folded back on itself, the rump stretching and lifting behind her like a fleshy, forward-leaning tower. Her arms were really her tail, split in two and arched back over her head until they could easily reach the floor in front of her.
On either side of her, the two Drones followed the same C-shaped body plan. Smaller and leaner, yes, but they gave off an impression of solidity, as if their bulging muscles were springs and cables of steel beneath a resilient outer sheath of tough plastic. Each of them massed easily as much as a Gatean Drone, and looked at least a hundred times more frightening. In a fair fight, there was no doubt which of the two species would emerge victorious.
Flanking the Drones, the two Workers appeared much less formidable. Thin, willowy creatures that looked as if they should crumple under the two-gee gravity here, their twisted backs folding and breaking, their tiny legs crushing atop splayed feet, bodies sagging and flattening. But the bodies held firm, and in fact when they made the small movements that showed they were alive and not mere statues, they did so with an easy grace that made Malye think of weightlessness.
All six of the creatures looked back at Malye and the other refugees with clear interest, their alien features flexing and shifting in alien yet unmistakable ways.
The colors sang high, aching notes in Malye's head.
Images flashed through her: Tyumen splitting open in a hail of unseen projectiles; passenger ferries flashing and dying; the blood streaming from Grigory's nose and mouth, filling his mask, killing him.
Killing him.
These creatures were guilty of murder a billion times over, the torture and murder of an entire star system. Ialah, it dwarfed to nothingness the crimes of the Monster Andrei, who had after all killed only thirty-nine, and that over a period of many years. Did they hear the colors, these Waisters? Did they feel the unclean urging of impulse through the illusion of self-control? Did they feel anything at all?
“Ialah,” she whispered. Her hatred too great for expression, and so too her fear.
The space back there was wedge-shaped, just a corner of the greater octohedral chamber that had been walled off with a triangle of glass pointing straight up to the ceiling, braced and attached along its three edges with bolted strips of metal. The whole thing looked hasty, functional but lacking in the sort of finesse she'd come to expect from the Gateans. It was not a jewel, or a fog, but a simple glass tank of the sort people once used for algae farms.
So the Gateans had been taken by surprise as well. Which meant that nobody was prepared for this, which meant that anything at all could happen. Anything at all.
The glass was fogged on the far side, as if it were hotter and wetter in there, like a shower stall, and behind the glass hung another haze, thinner and yellower. What kind of breathing air was back there? What was the tank holding in? Not the Waisters themselves, surely; they had a door back there, a white hexagonal membrane covering an opening to... What, a corridor? Another chamber? A seven-kilometer warship bristling with weapons? How close was this place to the surface of Holders Fastness? At any rate, it appeared the Waisters could leave any time they liked. And no glass she was aware of, metallic or otherwise, was likely to hold those Drones back for long.
The Queen opened her mouth, and through the thick partition Malye heard the sounds of her voice, fluting and scratching in exactly the same way as the Gateans'. That, at least, they had imitated well.
“There is no word for 'hello' in the Waister language,” said Crow, standing over beside the tank, lined up with Wende's six in a formation of their own. “But this Queen, whose name is #Hthw#, wishes to know whether you are physically well.”
Malye turned and eyed Crow sharply, surprised that he should lie about so small a thing. And yet lying he was, and not casually; his posture and facial expression left little doubt. Filled with spite and resentment, earnestly hoping to deceive... About what? For what possible reason?
“These... creatures,” she said to Crow, “are responsible for the destruction of everything we ever held dear. Names of Ialah, why have you brought them here? Why have you brought us?”
He shrugged, glancing up at Wende beside him. “They wished to speak with you. Actually, they insisted.”
In all her tightly controlled life, Malye had never once spat on any floor, anywhere, but here and now she did so, unable to contain her fury. She'd aimed for the glass partition, but misjudged the gravity so that her spittle landed instead on the floor, halfway between her own feet and those of Wende's nearest Drone. The Gateans bristled, stiffened, glared. They knew an insult when they saw one.
“I have nothing to say to these monsters. Nor to you, if you will not speak truthfully. What did she really say?”
“As I've told you,” Crow said with false calm.
“Then our talk is over.”
Line, the largest of the Drones, whom Malye had nearly spat on, took half a giant's step forward. “It certainly is not,” he said in a low, deep voice. “You will not act c
ontrary to the interests of Gate.”
“Oh,” she said, stepping forward herself, refusing to let her body language surrender for her, “so now your interests are those of Gate, are they? What did we do, have a little territorial dispute? Am I addressing the kings and Queen of Gate, here in audience with the enemy?”
Wende held up her hands, palms down. “Please,” she said to Malye, “from you we require help. You will provide help because of friendship? You and I, we have tested one another.”
Around Malye, the refugees were half mad with fear and rage and confusion, hating the fact that they could not understand what was happening, and yet not daring to make a move for fear they might upset some delicate balance. All except Viktor, who stood beside her with an infuriating, loose-limbed, almost meditative calm. Damn him, he had not lost his ability to shame her. She strove to imitate his stance, forcing down her rage like half-vomited bile.
“I will not help you, Wende, if I am not told the truth. What did this Waister Queen actually say to me?”
Wende made a frightening attempt to smile. “Your people were clever to surrender. Not as stupid as they had expected. That is what she said.”
This time, Malye had a clear impression of truth. She shot a poisonous glare at the Queen behind the glass. “Yes? Tell her she was not at all clever to return here. My husband is dead, everyone I ever knew is dead, and I hold her responsible for this. Tell her I wish her only pain.”
Wende turned, fluted at the alien Queen.
“Hey,” Konstant demanded, “how do we know she's translating faithfully?” The words were confident enough—Konstant seemed to be at his best when he had a technical or semantic complaint to throw in the face of an enemy—but nonetheless he was standing behind Malye, placing her body between his own and the Waisters'.
“I don't see that she's lying,” Malye told him.
“Oh, well, that's wonderful then,” he sneered.
Viktor turned to face the two of them, holding out the Congress of Advisors in his hand. Damn, how had he gotten ahold of that?
“Actually,” he said, “I believe I can help.”
And he put his thumb on the trigger and pressed it down.
“No!” Malye shouted. “Viktor, no! Let go of it, let me have it!”
She wrested the device from his grasp. His eyes, which had glazed over, now cleared.
“There,” he said, “it's finished.”
Malye held the Congress up in his face. “Where did you get this? Why did you take this from me? Damn it, Viktor, you're not to touch it!”
“What's finished?” Konstant asked, and for once his mood seemed more pragmatic than Malye's.
Viktor smiled that same, peaceful smile, as if he were buried deep down inside himself, where none of this turmoil had any ability to reach him. “Enter the Congress,” he said to Malye. “I've rigged a translator for you. The parameters may need some adjustment to suit your needs and tastes, but the basics of it are all in place.” His grin widened. “It runs in real time, so you needn't worry about becoming trapped.”
She eyed him suspiciously, unwilling to believe any good could come of his using the Congress. Surely he'd had enough time—almost a full second—to set such a thing up if it were possible, but... But what?
“Don't be afraid,” Viktor said, and now that was the craziest thing she'd ever heard him say.
“If you don't use it, I will,” Konstant said, reaching for the Congress.
That decided her. She wouldn't let anyone else even touch the thing, not after what happened to Viktor. It was her responsibility. And maybe a large part of her still didn't want to be a leader, to be a Queen, but she'd be damned to Hell before she'd take orders from Konstant.
“Hands to yourself,” she said to him, as she might to Vadim or Elle. And she pressed the trigger.
The result was not at all what she'd expected; she did not appear suddenly in the middle of the Senate floor on Council Station, nor in a smaller conference room with a subset of the Congress. Rather, she appeared right where she'd previously been, in the “interface station” with Wende's people and the six Waisters and all the refugees. The place had taken on a sculpted, simulated feel, though, and before her stood the familiar figure of Mediator, and in the air between them, just below chin level, hung three flatscreens, marked GRIEF, DENG, and JONSON.
“Hello,” said Mediator. “This configuration has been saved by the previous user. You may return to default mode now or at any other time, simply by subvocalizing a command to that effect. In the present configuration, any words you speak aloud will be redirected to your actual vocal cords, and will not be recognized as commands.”
“Uh, I understand,” Malye said.
Mediator did not react.
“You understand what?” Konstant snapped.
She turned to face him, a sculpted statue of himself, quite lifelike and yet quite clearly not alive. The three screens, which had followed her around, remaining centered in her vision, cut rectangular pits in his body, their edges gray and smooth.
“I understand what Viktor has done with the Congress.” She said, and turned to the simulacrum of Viktor. “You've done an excellent job. I had no idea such a capability existed.”
Still smiling, he bowed slightly. You see? his sculpted features said, I am not so much a fool as you've come to believe, and though I can hardly demand your love, I may at least hope for your respect. The image was quite good, full of nuance and detail that was lacking in the true Congressional simulacra. This one, at least, had a real image and a real person to draw upon for inspiration. Malye turned away from it.
'what are these three flatscreens for?' she subvocalized at Mediator.
“The three screens in front of you,” Mediator replied dutifully, “represent the best translations of overheard conversation in Waister, as rendered by the three Congressional simulacra who are capable of speaking that language.”
'are you capable of speaking that language?'
“Yes, I may be configured to operate in any of fourteen languages, singly or in combination, including Waister, Standard—”
'that's fine,' she told it. 'add a fourth screen.'
Mediator didn't argue or seek clarification; a fourth screen, marked MEDIATOR, simply appeared on the right, shifting the other three slightly so that together they remained centered.
The Waister Queen looked on with obvious interest. She sang a few brief notes.
GRIEF | DENG | JONSON | MEDIATOR
Your fetishism | What a pretty | Your use of that | Interest
interests. | device. | object is | Object
Fetishism. | Device | fascinating to me. | Employ
Explain. | for what? | That object is | Object
| | fascinating. | Query
| | What does it do?
Wende turned to the Queen and replied in a fluting, rattling whisper.
GRIEF | DENG | JONSON | MEDIATOR
Our fetishism | An object | The object | Object
listens. | for listening. | comprehends speech. | Listen
Stupid-lings | Stupid-lings | Stupid-lings | Small and stupid
do not speak. | listen poorly. | do not comprehend. | Deafmute
The Waisters reached their arms out to touch fingers with one another, in a brief but complicated gesture that communicated a sense of unease, perhaps of... what, sorrow? It was hard to say—Malye was looking only at their simulacra, for one thing, and for another their movements and postures and twitching skins resembled nothing she'd ever seen. And yet, they seemed as pregnant with meaning as any human gesture.
These are also creatures of Ialah, she reminded herself. Creatures with an animal past, with an eons-long heritage of preverbal communication. Long abandoned, that heritage—the Ken Jonson simulacrum had dated Waister civilization at several millions of years—but since when had anyone been able to escape the past? It had a way of reaching forward, to color and shape the future, all the things you had been sharply limiting what
you might become.
The Waister Queen spoke again:
GRIEF | DENG | JONSON | MEDIATOR
Perception of | This sphere has | I sense their | Perception
that group | dreamed, and | people have | Sphere
hallucinating | piled stones | aspired, and | Illusion
and constructing. | beside the | achieved much. | Megalith
Confirmation? | water, yes? | Is this so? | Shore
| | | Query
With silent curses, Malye eyed the screens in front of her. Four interpretations, wildly different. Two were from green-hairs, of course, and therefore suspect, but they differed even from one another, hinting that the Queen had expressed some alien subtlety that did not translate well.
How bizarre a position this was, how bizarre a problem! Mere weeks ago, there had been no Waisters. Humanity the sole offspring of Ialah, with all the universe stretched out before them, all of time and space and mind awaiting their investigation. Not lonely, not longing for company, humanity complete unto itself. The smugness of it now made her ill—a sin of pride, so easily avenged by these strong, twisted creatures.
She did not want to be here. She did not want to speak with the Waisters, or even the Gateans, and for the first time she wondered if perhaps Tyumen might have been a better resting place for her, if she should have stayed behind to assist the multitudes there as they gave up their mortal bodies and fled to Ialah. The thought was compelling. But no, Elle and Vadim had needed her more, and needed her still in the here and now. This place held their future, shaped by what Malye and the others would say and do in the next few minutes.
