by Paul Anlee
Recessed lights popped on and a voice announced, “Welcome to Caverna. Please select your exploration gear and a guide from the shelves to your left. We remind you that the caves reconfigure automatically every twenty-four hours. Your guide will walk you in for one hour, at which point the caves will rearrange and your trek outward begins.
“Pressing the green button on the side of your guide will return you outworld with a two-day penalty before you will be permitted to return to Vacationland. Good luck.”
Darya grabbed some rope, crampons, a pick, and a helmet with a mounted light. She motioned for Timothy to do the same while she selected a pair of sturdy footwear.
“Aren’t we going to take a guide?” Timothy asked.
“What’s the point? Our only acceptable way out is a pipe to wherever Mary is.”
Timothy looked doubtful, but he didn’t object.
They checked their gear, turned on their headlamps, and walked a few hours into the labyrinth. Occasionally, they arrived at dead ends and had to retrace their steps back to their last turn. They chose a path that wound steadily downward. When it dropped precipitously, they used their gear to belay to the next level below. They encountered no one along the way. They heard nothing but their own footsteps and echoing drips of moisture from the damp ceiling.
Several levels down, they came to another dead end and Darya announced, “I think that’s far enough for now. Even if Trillian was alerted to our arrival in the caves, I don’t think he’d have a chance of finding us.”
“He can send enough clones to fill these caves.”
“True. But there’s only one way in and it takes a time to walk every possible route. More than a few hundred instantiations, and they’d be tripping over each other. We’ll have to stay alert but we should be far enough in to get at least three or four hours of peace. I’ll need at least that to locate Mary.”
“Will that be enough?”
“It’ll have to be.” Darya plunked herself on the ground against a boulder and closed her eyes.
“What should I do?” Timothy asked.
“This will only take a few hours. Get some rest. Meditate. Reflect.”
“It will do me no good to sit idle for hours.”
“You won’t be of much use in looking for Mary, either, I’m afraid.”
“Couldn’t I at least follow your search?”
“I’m not sure how much you’ll understand.”
“I’ll keep quiet and stay in the background. You won’t even know I’m there. It’ll give me a chance to learn something about inworlds and their programming.”
Darya frowned, weighing how much of a distraction Timothy would be. “Alright,” she said. “I’ll take you inside with me, but it has to be in tandem.”
Timothy grinned eagerly.
“Stay in the background and keep quiet,” she admonished. “No questions.”
He nodded and sat on the ground beside her. “What do I do?”
She sent him instructions through the lattice. “This will allow you to observe what I’m doing. I’ll do all the driving.”
“Very well,” he said. He closed his eyes and executed the code she’d sent him.
32
a mesmerizing world of data structures and code swirled all around him. Timothy spotted Darya a few meters away. She was swathed in a roiling cloud of words and thin, curving lines with arrow tips. He anchored his attention to her.
The structures looked similar to the ones from their conceptas and personas that she’d shown him. A question drifted from his lips before he remembered his promise.
“Do the inworlds use data structures and programs like ours?”
She glared back. “You said you’d stay quiet.”
“Right. Sorry.”
She sighed. “It’s okay. I haven’t gotten very far into it yet. Let me familiarize you with what you’re looking at. I’ll answer this question and then, please, either leave me alone, or you’ll have to exit and wait for me there.”
Timothy gulped. “I’ll stay with you, and be quiet.”
“The answer is, yes. The inworlds and our own lattices have a lot in common. That’s only natural, given the concepta is the best way we know to organize high-level data.
“But where we have a persona, the inworld has data structures related to its own rules. Underneath that is an operating system designed for efficient implementation of the local rules and for interfacing to Cybrid minds.”
“I see,” Timothy said. “I think.” He didn’t.
“Most inworlds provide basic hosting support for our avatars. Our personas are copied in but they only have whatever capabilities the host O/S provides.
“The Alternus inworld does a lot more than that. It hosts our full capabilities, even my full capabilities.”
“What do you mean, your full capabilities?”
“You may have noticed that my lattice design is more advanced than most Cybrids.”
“I don’t have much to compare you to.”
“I guess that’s true. Okay, take my word for it. Anyway, my quark-spin lattice system is supported in Alternus.”
“How will that help us? We’re not in Alternus right now.”
“True, but I designed the hardware to be invasive. If it’s done its job, it should have replaced the majority of the Vacationland hardware by now. I hope it will provide me with enough of a boost that I can find Mary and rescue her.”
Timothy seemed satisfied with her answer. He wisely withheld his follow-up questions and watched in silence for the next three hours as Darya injected little bits of code into various parts of the larger structure.
She marked some areas in bright red and avoided them. “Trillian’s traps,” she remarked over her shoulder. It was the only thing she uttered for hours.
Timothy used the time to make sense of bits of code and to familiarize himself with the complicated structures. He became so engrossed that he was startled when Darya next spoke.
“I think I found her,” she said.
He blinked. “Where is she?”
Darya motioned to a piece of blue data surrounded by angry red patches on a green background.
“This is one of the quantum cabinas right near the pool where we fought Trillian. I’m fairly certain she’s in there.”
“I would have thought that would be one of the first places you’d look,” Timothy replied. “What took you so long?”
Darya’s face remained studiously flat, emotionless.
Timothy squirmed inside, knowing he’d been unfair. I didn’t mean to be unkind; it must be killing her that we left her friend behind in Trillian’s hands. The guy may be working for the Church of The Living God, but he has a dark, wicked streak in him.
Darya’s face softened as she sensed his guilt. “I did look there first. As you pointed out, it was a fairly obvious place to take her. Too obvious, in fact. All the signs point to her being detained there, but I have to be careful. You can see all the traps Trillian’s placed around her.”
Timothy nodded.
“I spent most of that time just verifying that Mary is actually there.”
“What did you find? Is she there?”
“Yes, she is. I’m certain of it, and I think we can avoid the traps.”
“Can we get to her?”
“That’s the tricky part. We can get close, but I’m not sure we’ll be able to reach her safely.”
“I’m willing to risk it. We have to try.”
“Can you read the code here?” Darya pointed to a tiny green section next to the bit of blue code where she guessed Mary was being held.
Timothy stepped up to examine the green code. He traced it with his fingers. “Let’s see. Small chamber. Glass window. Rocky. Dark. Very hot.”
“Hot is one way to put it. It’s inhospitable enough on its own that Trillian didn’t bother putting any traps in it. That’s why it’s green. And it’s the closest I can get to Mary. Are you ready to walk through Hell, itself?”
<
br /> “Hell? As in, Satan’s den? Really? I thought Alum was above all that, being the All-Benevolent, Living God, and all.”
“Alum’s not above a good scare, when needed, and neither is Trillian. Most definitely, not Trillian.”
“Can we survive it?”
“It’ll hurt—more than you can imagine—but just remember that you’ll be okay. The flames won’t damage us. I can guarantee our integrity for a brief visit. Just focus on our task and remember that, so long as we pop in and out of there quickly, the effect won’t be lasting.”
“Will we be able to help Mary?”
Darya slumped. “Rescue her? No, I don’t think so but I’ll be able to send her something useful.”
“Like a weapon or a way out?”
“Not long ago, I gave her a gift, an upgrade similar to my own lattice. I have to trust that she’s been looking for a way to access her full capabilities. In this world, or in Trillian’s twisted version of it, her best chance to survive will be using her wits. She’ll need to be smarter than Trillian. I can send her the code to unlock the direct access to the Alternus quark-spin lattice.”
“That’s it?”
“That will be more than enough.”
Timothy stared at her in disbelief. “So, we aren’t going to rescue her?”
“Not directly. We’ll have to settle for giving her everything she needs to rescue herself.”
“Then we’d best hurry.”
Darya nodded and waved her hands.
The code and data around them disappeared and was replaced by flames.
And pain!
Timothy yelped. He’d known it was coming and, still, the pain was excruciating. He could feel his hair and skin burning, his flesh roasting. He looked down at his hands. They were undamaged.
Darya wasn’t immune to the pain, either. She gasped and approached the window on the rocky wall in front of them. Inside was a prison cell that looked like it belonged in the medieval era.
Timothy recognized torture devices he’d seen in the history books at Casa DonTon. Despite the heat, he shuddered to think of the horrifically effective damage they would do to flesh and mind.
They spotted Mary, chained to a table. She looked wild and desperate.
Four Trillians leaned over her. One held a small rusty old blade in front of her face. He was saying something to her, something horrible, no doubt. He traced the knife across her stomach.
Mary screamed, but the sound didn’t penetrate through the window.
Timothy whimpered in sympathy. He was so distracted by the sight of her, he barely felt the flames licking at him anymore.
Darya stretched a hand to the window. Timothy laid his own hand beside hers, silently imploring Mary to look at them.
The gesture caught the attention of the Trillians. Mary was conscious but her eyes were clenched shut.
On seeing Darya and Timothy, the clones stopped what they were doing.
Mary opened her eyes and followed their confused gazes to the window. Her eyes met Darya’s.
“I’m sorry,” Darya mouthed. The flickering light cast dramatic shadows on the pair’s pained faces. “I’m so sorry.”
Two of the Trillians disappeared from the torture cell and rematerialized inside Hell, on each side of Darya and Timothy.
Before the Trillians could grab them, Darya gestured and a dazzling flash blinded everyone. When Mary and the Trillians could see again, Darya and Timothy were gone.
The Trillians shouted angrily and returned to Mary’s cell.
33
Brother Stralasi paced the length of the integration and control center. Every few steps he glanced impatiently at Darak, who was too busy adjusting the soltron detector array to notice him.
Had the Good Brother understood any of it, he might have found the device interesting. As it was, his mind kept wandering back to Eso-La. He wished he were walking among the park-like forests with Crissea instead of stuck here with Darak on this barren rock.
“But if you can’t refine the resolution to better than two light years, what good will that do us?” the Good Brother asked.
If Darak picked up on the monk’s frustration, he ignored it. “That’s two light years across tens of millions of light years. Once we narrow it down to a particular region, I should be able to pinpoint its location to within a few light hours. First, I need to figure out approximately where to look.”
“I thought you didn’t have much of an idea where it was.”
“I don’t, but if it’s been aimed toward the asteroid belt of Eso-La sometime over the last seven million years, it probably came from one of the colonies in the Canes Venatici I cluster. They’re the closest, and Alum would need to use entangled particles from one of their starsteps to move the Eater so far at once. So that’s where I’m starting.
“I’ve been winding the astronomical clock backward to get approximate locations some twenty millions years ago, and forward to determine where Eso-La will be over the next few million years. That gives me a broad cylinder in which to search more thoroughly.”
“Surely you don’t intend for us to shift through all that space looking for this thing?”
“Hmm? No, not at all. Eso-La has ten of these detectors in the array. I can use them in a binary search pattern.”
Stralasi sighed. Dear Alum, give me strength. “Binary search?” he asked.
For once, Darak made no comment on the deficiencies in the monk’s education.
“Binary search. We assemble the array in the halfway point. The Eater is either closer to Eso-La or closer to the Canes Venatici I system.
“Let’s say it’s closer to Eso-La. We move the array halfway between where we are and Eso-La and look again.
“Then we move halfway between where we are at that point, and which region we detect the Eater in. And so on, and so on, until we isolate it to within a few light years.
“Once we narrow down its location, I can move the soltron detectors into a pair of arrays, one on the path and one above it at a right angle. That should narrow it down enough for us to shift directly into its immediate neighborhood.”
“So I’m supposed to accompany you until my dying days as we push these asteroids into place? I’d rather stay here,” Stralasi sulked.
“We don’t need to push them anywhere. I’ll shift them.”
“You can shift a whole planetoid?” Stralasi’s face was struggling between derision and incredulity. He’d seen Darak perform miracles, but moving mountain-sized rocks in space would be a miracle of a truly God-like scale.
The implications troubled him.
“It’ll be near my computational limits,” Darak answered, “but I can handle it. That’s how they got where they are in the first place. Would you like to watch?”
Over the next twenty minutes, with Stralasi watching from inside, Darak moved the asteroids and their internal soltron detectors into position near the middle of the thirty million light year distance between Eso-La and the Canes Venatici I system of galaxies.
Once he was satisfied with the position of the detectors, Darak brought the monk back to his side at the control panel and linked their lattices into the data stream.
“How long before we get an idea?” Stralasi asked.
“Soltron emissions are weak here, so it can’t be terribly close. I won’t try to get more than a general direction at this point; just whether it’s closer to Eso-La or the Canes Venatici cluster. That should only take a few hours. Would you like some lunch?”
“What I’d like is lunch on Eso-La.”
Darak regarded the man more closely. “You and Crissea seem to be getting along well.”
“Yes, she’s lovely, and the rest is none of your business.”
Darak grinned. “Okay, then. Lunch it is.” He chose a corner of the chamber opposite the control panel and expanded a picnic lunch, including a table and chairs, from a pea-sized pellet he pulled from a pocket.
From somewhere Stralasi couldn’t see, Dar
ak piped in soothing ambient music to fill the space left by the absence of conversation.
A soft chime sounded.
“Ah, there we go. Enough data has been collected to give us a rough direction,” Darak said. Without moving from his chair, he accessed the results. “Hmm, that’s interesting. It’s a little farther away than I might’ve thought. Closer to Eso-La.”
He stood, and brushed his hands against his pants. “Time to get back to work,” he said.
Stralasi pushed off his chair reluctantly. “Just like before?” he asked.
“Just like before.”
Over the next two days, Darak moved the asteroids containing the soltron detector array several times. Each time, the array was positioned closer to Eso-La, and the results made him frown.
Darak drew a line through the array positions as they drew closer and closer to the Eater. The vector predicted a path in the ESO 461-36 galaxy that was uncomfortably close to Eso-La’s current position.
“What’s the problem with that?” Stralasi asked when Darak shared the unwelcome information with him.
“It could mean that Alum’s aim was bad, or he failed to properly account for the movement of Eso-La sun around its galactic core, or….” Darak’s voice trailed off.
“Or what?”
“Or that the Eater is already approaching the ringworld.”
Stralasi thought about death hurtling toward Eso-La and Crissea. He had to do something to save her, save them.
“I’m going to shift the array a light year or so away from Eso-La and a little out of the galactic plane, just to be safe.”
Stralasi didn’t like the sound of that. “Will it get that close? I thought the Canes Venatici I cluster was at least thirty millions light years away. If the Eater was launched from that vicinity at near-light speed some seven million years ago, wouldn’t it be farther from Eso-La?”
“My assumptions might be incorrect,” Darak admitted. “If Alum can shift the Eater, maybe he jumped it to a ship that was already not so far away.”
“Was there such a ship, one that could safely contain the Eater?”
“It wouldn’t have to contain the Eater. It would only have to provide a starstep point that it could be shifted to. I’m not aware of any ship sent to the ESO galaxy up to 30 million years ago, but I’ve been away a long time. Alum may have staggered Foundation ships to explore this region. The Local Void we call it. Maybe He found a rogue star in the Void, or moved one there. Who knows? He has multiple agendas, and they’re constantly changing.”
