Kalimantan—which she'd known as Borneo as a girl—stretched to the east in a shimmering coral of diamond and sapphire where once had been acid-rain-poisoned browning forests threaded by befouled rivers, roads, pestiferous villages, towns, cities, and to the west, beyond the golden coast, to a blue blaze of what had once been called Selat Karimata and was now wholly pure, empty ocean. Beneath the fractal encrustations of recompiled carbon, aluminum, and heaven knows what all else, the brutal scar of the fallen skyhook stretched eastward across the island into the horizon's haze, a physical manifestation of the Platonic idea of equator. How terrible that collapse must have been. And yet how satisfying. Punishment for human hubris, in its way. Had it been the work of the deformers? Juni let her eyes track the linear indentation in the crust of the world. Surely it was unnecessary to blame the K-machines for this crime. Men had brought it upon themselves. Yes, and women too.
Well, the tiny nanites had mutated themselves into equilibrium, neutrality, finally benignity, with a little help from Jules's M-Brain and Avril's Ancient Intelligence. Her small men. She smiled, extended her fingers lazily toward the Sun. A nimbus of fairy dust sparkled, light refracted from the operating fabrication fog units that hung everywhere in the atmosphere of her chosen Earth.
"A good thing the filthy machines can't use you boys," Juni said aloud. A good thing, indeed, that the small men did not—could not?—pass through Schwellen when she transited to other worlds or received visitors. Presumably the Vorpal grammar system edited them out. And K-machines despised nanotechnology, for some bizarre ideological reason of their own. Last time she'd glanced into the pages of their bible, the incomprehensible SgrA*, she'd found several pages referring to the ruin of worlds induced by molecular runaway. The machines were very angry about that, you could tell that much. And yet the hypocritical swine spent their days and nights smashing and ruining and interfering and—
"Oh, bother them," she said aloud, "this is too nice a day for that sort of distasteful topic." Briefly, it crossed her mind that she was talking to herself a little too much, a little too often, that her self-imposed isolation might have its drawbacks. "Pooh," she muttered, with a shake of her head. Prismatic light danced. "You boys are listening, aren't you? Never have much to say, but we know there's a big consciousness emulator tucked away down under the crust, don't we?" For a moment, a pang squeezed her heart, a breathless instant of lonely sorrow. No, damn it. Her life was perfect. Here she stood, she could do no other: steady as a Rock, a Player whose integrity and resolution, like that of Toby and Septimus, anchored the Contest for the rest of them, flibbertigibbets, killers, and mystics as they were, the lot of them. Including that new fool of a boy.
She spun on her right toe, pirouetting on the high platform of diamond, arms outstretched, offogs cupped at her nostrils and mouth bearing rich oxygen to her lungs, guarding her moist eyes and sensitive ears, hugging her in an embrace of warmth and air even here at the low boundaries of space. "Imagination and discipline," she cried aloud. "That's what they need to win this game. Now come along, boys, we have a Faerie party to arrange."
Juni Seebeck flung herself lightly backward from the lip of heaven, Gucci gown—silk and organza—clinging discreetly to her limbs, and the offogs bore her downward like a dream of flying.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
August
In my dream, my name was August Seebeck and I was dreaming a gelid dream deep inside the Three Heads of Cerberus Hibernacle. That means I'm dead, I realized, and a sickening resignation curdled through me. Oh, shit. In despair, I thought: That porcine Cetian wongle didn't miss me after all. At least this medical torpidity vault will hold me in suspension long enough for the Resuscitators to attempt repairs on my slain flesh. If they know that I'm here. If they have not yet abandoned hope. A dreadful thing was already pushing from the other side, forcing its way in. Dead as I was, in panic, I cried out for help. Something was pressing on my feet. A needle drove into my calf. Perhaps they had started. A whole bunch of needles. Not deep, but sharp enough to startle me awake.
"Ouch! Hey, get away from—"
I jerked up on my comfortable bed in the darkness. Just a moment ago, it seemed, five or ten artificial masseur hands had been working over my back and limbs, wonderfully soothing, tireless, probing and molding, then stroking moonlight soft in shivery delight, the kind of massage you dream of drifting off to sleep to but can never afford. Now some lunatic was puncturing me. Dream, dream, only a dream in starship darkness.
"Turn the damned lights on."
Illumination filled the cabin, brightening gently enough that I hardly blinked. A ratty old brindle tomcat was perched across my feet, stropping my blanket-covered leg with warrior claws.
"Oh. Good Christ, it's you. Hooks, what the hell are you doing here?" I used to think Cathooks was Maybelline's pet, or animal companion, or whatever you call it these days, before I learned that se was a godthing from the collapsed Omega Point cosmos that had been watched for a timeless time by my brother Decius and his Auger team at Yggdrasil station. The old reprobate flipped ser half-chewed ear, offered me a growl of recognition, kept stropping.
"Cut that out!" I dragged my leg back out of harm's way, considered giving sem a stiff kick in the ribs, very quickly thought better of it. Hooks had brought me back from the dead, sort of, together with Lune, and presumably my parents, and several of my siblings. You had to feel grateful. And you had to be cautious around a being like that. "I assume Maybelline carried you onboard earlier. Not in a bag, I trust?"
In ser whisky-smoked, unnervingly high-pitched voice, Hooks told me, "Get outta here! That bitch better not stuff me in no carpetbag, no, nor that mechanical man, neither."
I coughed. Last time I'd seen this godling in motley, the K-machine James Cooper Fenimore had tipped sem out of a large burlap sack at my feet. It hadn't seemed dignified to me, and it certainly didn't seem dignified to Cathooks. I wondered why se put up with it.
"Can I fetch you something, Hooks? Bowl of milk?"
"Shut up. Facetiousness didn't get you off the planet when the deformers splattered you, right?"
That sobered me up. Fragments of a dream blew down my back, cold as an August wind from the Antarctic in Melbourne. Dead again and screaming silently for help. "All right, old moggy, point taken. I owe you, we all do." In the middle of my mind, a crystallized insight was trying to escape its shell. Hang on, hang on. "I was going to offer you a mouse, but I don't suppose a nice clean starship like this—" I broke off, felt a spasm deeper than dream memory. "Oh my God. You can get me off this thing, can't you? You're immune to the Xon star. How else could you get here?" I lunged forward, seized the animal, dragged sem up close to me, looked into ser slitted pupils.
"I'm here because you called me. Let's get it over and done with. I'm a busy god."
I called ser? In my fading dream? "Look, whatever. I hate asking for favors, but Cathooks... I mustn't be here. I kept trying to tell the women, and they won't listen. It's as if they can't listen. I've met the other members of my family, and I tell you, Hooks... Jan and Maybelline and I are the only ones who seem ready to fight these Deformer sons of bitches. Oh, Toby's a brave man, Marchmain's a Hollywood-grade mad scientist or something just as improbable, Septima's running some sort of Médecins Sans—"
"Oh, it's Septima this century, is it? Tired of the butch Odin persona?" Surprisingly, the tomcat hung unresisting in my grasp, claws retracted. "You're forgetting Ember."
I blinked. That was true, Lune had mentioned an episode where they had fought together side by side. I still didn't like him and couldn't imagine him as a worthy companion in arms. Still. "Okay, four of us out of twelve. And three-quarters of the four marooned here in a goddamned tin can for the next—what?—sixty or seventy years, completely out of touch with the rest of them. While the bad guys run riot." I was breathing heavily. "You can't tell me something hasn't been fucking with the scorecard."
Hooks squirmed free, jumped down heavily from the
bed, stretched like a yoga teacher with ser rear end in the air and front paws extended, claws extruded. I waited until se settled, eyes studiously turned away from mine. It was an impressive imposture, and I had no idea what purpose it was meant to serve. Perhaps the simple pleasure of being a cat. Se said, "What made you come to Venus in the first place—you didn't have a yen to go flying around?"
"Why, I had to... to see Jan..." I trailed off. Actually, I had no idea at all why I'd felt the unlikely urgent need to catch up with Janine. By rights, I should have gone straight back to Toby's, found Lune, discussed today's cascade of absurdities, threats, discoveries. Yesterday's by now, probably, I felt rested enough to have had a good night's sleep. Those poor children buried in a midden of postwar horror. Former K-machines in clown suits and nurses' uniforms. Weird mystic diagrams presented by the foe for my edification.
What the hell was I doing here? What the hell was I doing here? Again I felt my concentration slipping, my thoughts edging off sideways, skittering like mice... Cathooks chose that moment to snare my eye. Fierce, unrelenting. I stifled a yawn, dragged my attention back to the question. What had Jan said before I left her on the bridge? It's the next move in the Contest, that's all. Wonderful.
"It seemed like a good idea at the time," I said. "Is that how it works?"
That whisky-rich crackly purr: "Looks like. Not that I'd know how it feels."
I climbed off the bed, found yesterday's tired, plaster-dusted clothing, pulled it on. "Ship, where do I get some breakfast for me and my friend here? Is there a commissary or mess or whatever you call—"
Hanged Man said from no particular direction, good morning, August. i can compile anything you choose from a comprehensive menu. or you may have coffee in the wardroom until the commander or your sister Maybelline awakens. by the way, why are you talking to yourself? i am baffled by your reference to a "friend." you are alone.
"Huh? I mean Cathooks. Some raw meat—"
"Can't see me. Hey, Tiphareth," the cat yelled, "wake up, you dumb tin can. Smell the cat piss." Suiting action to word, se strolled to a nearby bulkhead, propped with tail high and quivering, squirted a rancid yellow stream. The full tomcat stench.
"Cut that out!" I yelped. "I have to sleep in here."
"Old Hanger will handle that," the cat told me. "These machines, you have to bang them on the nose to get their attention."
i now detect Vorpal flux at extreme levels. ah, your greeting card, monsieur. your presence was subtle, your arrival unannounced. welcome. how may i serve you?
"Fix the kid some breakfast. Something simple but hearty. He's an Australian, give him a Vegemite sandwich and a mug of black tea with three spoons of sugar."
"Hanger, I'll have black tea with no sugar, toast with canola margarine, low-fat peach yogurt, fruit muesli with one-percent milk, and by all means hold the grilled bacon, lamb chops, slimy fried eggs sunny side up, kippers, kedgerry, flapjacks with maple syrup, hash browns, monkey brains, and fresh-peeled camel eyeballs. No, wait a moment, you can throw in a couple of eyeballs with the raw steak strips for my animal here."
The cat growled, showed teeth. "We're feeling a bit more feisty, are we? Got over our little anxiety nightmare, eh? Prefer to be left alone for a while, would we? Sixty or seventy years in interstellar space, perhaps?" For a moment, se shimmered, and I swear it seemed that the solidity of ser body faded, all but that lethal, fanged mouth and the gleaming eyes. I could actually see through the spurious cat body to the stained flooring, where a small machine had emerged from a hidden nook to sponge up the puddle of urine.
"Come on, Hooks," I said wearily. "I can put up with tantrums from Maybelline but not from an Omega Point god. It's... undignified."
After a moment of tense silence, the cat guffawed in its wheezy high-pitched tones. I relaxed—a little. The wheezing, or rather hissing, continued for a moment, faded. It was not the cat. A panel opened in the bulkhead, extending a servery shelf covered in my breakfast, plus a bowl of repulsive warm, naked, cow flesh, which I put on the floor immediately and nudged away from me with my foot. I took the tray, sat on the edge of the bed, nibbled a buttery crust, sipped the tea, dipped a spoon into the yogurt. It was all excellent. "Thank you, Hanger. What did Hooks call you just a moment ago?"
Tiphareth is the central Sephiroth of the Kabbalah Tree of Life, the starship told me. in tradition, it represents the sun. i must decline that honor. commander Janine Seebeck holds the station of Tiphareth.
"Don't be humble, old soul," Cathooks said. Se had ser head down sideways into the animal protein, dragging a hunk of meat on to the floor, growling in a menacing way. Between growls, se added, "Major Arcana, Card Twelve. It's your name, buster. Got you nailed, no wriggling."
I wolfed down my breakfast, thinking furiously, replaced the tray. "That was good, thank you. Hooks, will you take me to Lune?"
"Not the best idea, chum. Rather not."
What the fuck? But you can't coerce a god. "Damn it, Hooks, did you just come here to gloat?"
The cat said nothing for a moment, industriously gobbling down ser disgusting treat. Then: "No spoon-feeding in the Contest. Sorry, my boy. Love to help, against your Accord. But there's a way off. Obviously." And the animal was gone. *Pop*, bye.
I found myself actually gnashing my teeth. I'd always assumed it was a figure of speech. My jaw hurt, and my teeth ached from the pressure of my angry frustration. I said to the starship, "Is there a way off this vessel while we're in space?"
Hanged Man said, you will have to ask the commander.
"Is she awake yet?" I was at the door, looking up and down the companionway at unmarked doors.
i fear not.
"Well, wake her the hell up, right now."
i cannot do so. if you will wait in the wardroom, amusements will be made available. or you are welcome to return to your quarters and activate the Entertainment system.
I went straight to Maybelline's door and started banging on it, hard. The racket would be difficult to sleep through. I yelled her name at the top of my voice, and Jan's, too, just on the off-chance. In thirty seconds the door slid open, and my furious sister started yelling back just as loudly, two inches from my face. Her own face was covered in green-and-brown, dried, cracked restorative night makeup. Her hair looked like Medusa's. Her vocabulary was impressively vile. I stopped shouting first and stood waiting. After a time, she shut up for a moment, and I said, quickly, "I've just been talking to Hooks. We need to wake Jan up. How do I that?"
Maybelline shook her head in disbelief. "You woke me up from my first decent sleep in days to tell me about a dream? August, you are such a—"
I raised my voice again. "The cat came to visit me. The ship won't wake Jan. Someone is screwing with us, Maybelline. I need your help."
Astonished, she regarded me in silence for a moment. "That's a refreshing change of tack. A request for help. No demands and tantrums. All right, August, give me a moment to wash my face." She shut the door. I closed my eyes and practiced breathing slowly. After a minute of that, I did some katas, stretching slowly, crouching like a tiger, hiding like a dragon, floating like a butterfly, stinging like a bee, cutting like a piece of paper. I'd been missing my daily workout. By the time Maybelline opened the door again, fresh-faced and clad in purple spandex, I felt much calmer.
"Her quarters are on the command deck, of course. You're telling me Cathooks turned up in your room just now? A woman feeds the damned thing for years, combs out its knots, and the moment her back is turned..." Her complaint mumbled away into inaudibility, or maybe I just stopped paying attention. Jan insistently wanted the three of us to fly to the Xon star. She was unlikely to tell me anything that would help me abscond. I could threaten her with violence, but the very idea offended me, and besides, I was fairly sure that my X-caliber implant was as neutralized as my ability to access the Schwellen. The inside of the elevator didn't seem like a good place to test this theory. I followed Maybelline to another unmarked door, stood beside he
r as she hollered Jan's name and rat-tatted with her knuckles.
"Kether's balls! What?"
"He's been talking to the cat."
"Do you know what time it is?"
"Three bells, matey," I said brightly, peering past Maybelline's shoulder. The commander's quarters would not have passed muster with Horatio Nelson's navy. Clothes scattered everywhere. But then there was nobody else here to tick her oft and keep her up to the mark. And besides, we Seebecks all had a definite anarchist streak. Except, perhaps, for Septimus/Septima. I had no idea how many bells represented rise-and-shine, or reveille, or whatever the military and merchant marine types called it. But you have to say something perky when you drag the pilot out of bed. "The game's afoot. The wheel's in spin. The loser now will be later to—"
"Is he drunk?" Jan asked in exasperation. "Is he stoned?"
"He's been talking to Cathooks," Maybelline told her.
"Don't be silly, we're in deep space and you didn't bring your cat with us. I'm sure I would have noticed."
"Cathooks is not a cat," I said. "Cathooks is an Omega godling. Hooks can walk through walls."
Jan looked very fetching in her teddy, which was lacy and black and had more holes than lace. I stopped looking at her, remembering that she was my sister. Allegedly. If I could believe any of this. She said, "You got into my stash, you bastard. Hanger won't compile hallucinogens, says it's against his principles."
"Do you want me to breathe on you?"
She recoiled. "Certainly not. Oh shit, you're not going to go away, are you? The two of you might as well come in. Just kick things out of the way. Hanger, get us all some coffee."
coming up. i tried to stop him, sorry.
"That's all right, old thing. Next time, though, clap the bastard in irons."
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