Deception Well (The Nanotech Succession Book 2)

by Linda Nagata

  Gent slapped his anchor against the wall. “I should have foreseen this. Dammit. Lot, ready? Then jump.”

  LOT STAYED CLOSE TO GENT. THEY CHECKED EACH other’s jump procedures, on guard against the stupid mistakes that always followed in the wake of an exhausted mind.

  For Lot, the next couple of hours passed in a blur. They made good progress, dropping forty miles down the column. His mood picked up a little. The sunlight dazzled him. He felt as if he were soaring above the landscape. Though he was still cognizant of the curve of the Well, it was an arc broader than anything he’d ever experienced. Less a curve now than a cloud-covered plain, flat enough to fire the ancient synapses in his mind that had been first arrayed on primeval savannahs. But this was more. He floated over the surface, like a spirit in a vision quest, looking down on an ocean of brilliant white clouds piled upon each other in a creamy spiral, completely obscuring the grasping fingers of land that he knew lay beneath. He could see the bulk of the clouds below him, building up like a circular mountain range. He would lose himself sometimes, gazing at the structure of it, taken by the hypnotic beauty of the flowing white vistas. For a while, the clouds became his destination, with the land below of no more interest to him than the bones beneath Alta’s smooth white skin.

  LATER, LOT BEGAN TO EXPERIENCE A CURIOUS PRESSURE at his back, as if some rogue force pushed at him. When he jumped, he sailed a little farther from the column’s surface than he had before. It gave him a creepy sensation, and he thought about the phantoms below and Urban’s remark about chasing Jupiter’s ghost. Then Gent said, “We’re deep enough in the atmosphere now, we can feel the wind.”

  They fell more slowly, held back by atmospheric resistance. Within half an hour they’d entered a dense cloud deck. Visibility dropped abruptly. Water clung to Lot’s suit and the wind blew in fierce whispers past his hood. Gent shortened the length of their jumps, and their progress slowed again. But caution paid off. Through the ripping fog Lot saw below them the looming shape of another elevator car. Legs would have been broken if they’d hit the roof in a state of free fall.

  They explored the car, but it was empty, and from the track damage they guessed that it had been ascending when its progress had been stopped. Inside, they found the discarded power pack from a bead rifle and graffiti on the wall that declared in a long flowing script: on this day we have entered a higher existence.

  “So they got all the way down,” Urban said.

  Lot ran his fingers across the flowing alphabet, then turned to look at Gent. Gent’s eyes crinkled in what was probably a smile, lost behind the muzzle of his respirator. “Soon,” he said, and Lot nodded.

  They set out again, descending through the troposphere into storm conditions. Gent wouldn’t let them drop more than seventy-five feet at a time—about the limit of vision in the day’s fading light. Progress was reduced to a slow creep. The pace was frustrating, but Lot could only feel grateful for the respite from the horrible jarring of the long jumps. He was beyond tired. The false clarity of exhaustion ruled him. He babbled philosophy over the suit comm, running on about the encroachment of entropy upon the Universe until Urban kindly told him to shut up. A few minutes later he noticed that his gloves had begun to slip.

  He blinked hard, not sure he was getting the facts right. But there. When he laid his right hand against the column, he could drag it. Beneath his palm he could feel the rasp of the hot zone against the column, but it refused to take solid hold. His left hand had a better grip, though it slipped a little too. So far his leggings seemed to be holding up. Next, he slapped the anchor out flat and examined it. With a sinking feeling, he watched the edges curl. And still seven miles to go. Softly: “Gent?”

  “Yeah?”

  “My equipment’s failing.”

  “Shit.”

  Lot showed him the condition of the gloves; the peeling edges of the anchor. Gent checked his pack. “Your nutrient reserve’s been sucked dry.”

  “The suit didn’t warn me.”

  “The suit’s as dizzy as you are.”

  Or maybe there really had been a flaw in the design … though Lot didn’t suggest that out loud.

  Gent called Urban and Alta in, then carefully checked the state of their equipment. It seemed to be fully functional. He inventoried their remaining reserves, then divided it, linking a couple of full packets into Lot’s system. Lot’s gloves still slipped, but the anchor held tight. “Your suit’s putting energy where it’s needed most,” Gent said.

  Lot nodded.

  Urban smoothed his anchor against the column. “We’re going to have to start risking longer jumps. We can’t keep moving at this pace, or the suits will fail before we reach the ground.”

  Gent was a silhouette in the gathering dark. He nodded. “I’ll go first.” That assertion was greeted by a three-way chorus of dissent, but Gent silenced it with an angry chop of his hand. “This is my expedition,” he said.

  “But—”

  “No. Don’t follow until you get my all-clear. I want Lot coming down second. Then Urban, then Alta. Understood?”

  “But Gent—”

  “Understood?” Something in his tone left no room for argument. They nodded. Gent checked his anchor, then kicked off, disappearing swiftly into the running clouds.

  NEAR FULL DARK THE CLOUDS AROUND THEM BEGAN to flicker dully with distant lightning. Thunder rumbled in ominous warning, and Gent began taking longer and longer jumps. Over the next twenty minutes the thunderheads moved closer. The surrounding clouds began to light up like lanterns, and a few minutes later they could see lightning bolts forking across the cloud faces. The thunder was so loud now it could be felt as much as heard. The column itself seemed to hum with an inner vibration that intensified with every deafening clap.

  They were quiet, their pensive gazes fixed on the storm around them while they waited for their turn to jump. Like small animals, sensing the approach of a predator.

  Gent kicked off. Lot checked his anchor, waiting for permission to follow. Nearly forty seconds passed. He started to get scared, but finally Gent called up. “Okay, Lot. Set your cassette for maximum range. Check him, Alta.”

  “Checking.”

  Lot dropped. Lightning flickered twice during his fall, and somewhere near thirty-five in his count it began to rain. He hit the end of the cord, every muscle in his body braced against the impact. Then he swung into the wall. Rivulets of water ran sideways around the column, blown by the wind. More water skittered across his visor, blurring his vision. He secured a grip with his leggings, using his hands in a near-useless attempt to screen his visor from the rain. “Gent?” He could just make him out, about twenty feet below. The DI called his anchor down.

  “Stay there,” Gent said. “I’ll climb up to you.”

  The cassette spun. Gent had covered maybe half the distance when the next bolt struck. It hit Lot’s dangling anchor, then forked, one branch leaping onto the column, another blasting up the anchor cord and through the fabric of Lot’s suit. Lot felt a sense of compression close around him. Something wrenched at him. Then abruptly, he was falling.

  He didn’t have time to scream. He brushed past Gent, feeling the harsh jab of grabbing fingers. The suit DI was running a technical chant in some foreign tongue. Then Lot remembered the anchor at his waist. He clutched at it, expecting to find a ruined mass. But it felt spongy, and whole. He pitched it back toward the elevator column. An edge caught. He remembered to brake the cord. A bone-jarring jolt, and his descent stopped. “All systems nominal,” the suit announced, in its accented Silken voice. “Please secure position immediately.”

  Lot swung frantically toward the wall, his gloved hand out. But before he could touch it, the anchor slipped. He bounced down several inches.

  Another bolt of lightning ripped close by. In its glare he saw the anchor … hanging by its edge. As the bolt flickered, another couple of inches peeled off. He dropped again. With a desperate effort he lunged for the wall. But the wind was agai
nst him, blowing him out over the abyss. He screamed, bracing himself for the moment when the anchor would rip free.

  Gent dropped out of the clouds. Lot saw him in IR. Gent used his boots to brake his descent. As soon as his leggings locked on, his anchor came plummeting after him. He didn’t have time to secure it. He lunged for Lot’s anchor, grabbing it with both hands just as it peeled off the wall. Lot felt the sickening plunge, and squeezed his eyes shut. But he was brought up again with a sharp jerk. He flailed for the wall. Maybe the wind had eased, because this time he got a finger on the column, though he still couldn’t get close enough for the glove to knit. He could see Gent overhead, secured by only his leggings as he bent nearly double in a struggle to hold on to Lot’s failing anchor.

  Lot swung closer to the wall. His ankle brushed the column, though the legging didn’t seize. Another bolt of lightning cracked overhead. He slipped down with a sudden jerk, then slammed hard into the wall. This time his leggings knit, and one of his gloves too. He felt a snap-pressure at his waist, and looked down to see his bundled anchor hanging at the end of his cord. Then he looked up. Even through the rain-blur, he could see immediately that the wall of the elevator column above him was empty.

  “Gent!” His hoarse scream cut through the cacophony of voices on the radio. He started crabbing down the column, as fast as he could move while the suit muttered soft warnings in his ears. “Gent!” he screamed. “Gent!” Until finally Gent’s voice reached him through the lightning crackle.

  “Secure your anchor, Lot!” He was breathing heavily, his voice pitched metal-tight. “Now! Get it secured.”

  “Gent, where are you?”

  For long, dark seconds the suit radio was silent. Then Gent’s voice came to him, as close and familiar as his own skin. “Convince them that it’s right,” he said.

  “Gent!”

  But Gent did not speak again.

  Lot hugged the wall, his hooded cheek pressed against its slick surface, while Alta and Urban’s panicky voices played in his ears. “I’m here,” he croaked. “I’m okay. But Gent’s gone.”

  He thought of Nesseleth and her own dreadful plunge into the Well. He pressed himself harder against the wall, his hood’s optical band filling up with liquid that he only gradually realized was tears. He closed his eyes tight and the suit quickly absorbed the excess.

  By the time Alta and Urban found him he was calm again. They huddled together, sharing the pressure of bodies, if not heat, and waited for the storm to pass.

  AROUND MIDNIGHT THE SKY STARTED TO CLEAR. A few bold stars appeared, and then the dim wash of the nebula, though the wind didn’t ease. Lot’s anchor had begun to curl at the edges again, but there was nothing they could do about it. They started descending, calling constantly for Gent, in case a swirl in the wind had swept him back against the elevator column.

  Near four in the morning they began to see vegetation on the column: at first only clusters of lichen growing in tiny, scalloped depressions in the column wall. But soon they saw small shrubs too, rooted in pockets of windblown soil that had collected behind the lichen patches. At about the same time, Ord woke up. It slid silently out of Lot’s pack, sending one tentacle probing across his face. He jumped so hard he almost lost his failing grip. Ord mouthed something, but Lot couldn’t make out the words past the muffling layer of the hood and the sough of the wind.

  Dawn had begun to lighten the sky when they finally reached the last elevator car. Lot remembered the day he’d seen it through the warden’s eyes. Now he dropped down numbly on its roof, his boots sinking deep into a soggy moss that supported a thick assortment of sword-leafed plants and several small trees.

  “We should be careful,” Urban said. “Could be animals here.”

  “This high up?” Lot asked. They were still some twelve hundred feet above the terminal building.

  “Some things fly.”

  Alta crossed the hummocky roof, to peer down the car’s front.

  “We can’t break in,” Urban said. “No explosive spray.”

  That had gone with Gent.

  Alta turned back to look at him. “The doors are open.”

  Lot frowned. He and Urban went to have a look, and saw that she was right. All three pairs of doors stood open.

  “It could be drier in there,” Alta said.

  Lot shook his head. “We can’t stop. We’re not down yet.”

  Urban laid a reassuring hand on his arm. “Easy, fury. Nothing’s going to stop us now. But we should rest, for a few hours anyway.”

  Lot felt uneasy, but he didn’t argue. Maybe Urban was right.

  They dropped down the front of the building. Lot dangled outside the central entrance, carefully scanning the interior. Vegetation choked the lobby. Using IR, he sighted several small warm-fuzzies within the foliage. Urban confirmed that interpretation. “Things in there,” he said warily.

  “They’re small,” Alta countered.

  “Could be toxic. You don’t know.”

  “We’ll move through quietly. Find a back room.”

  Urban went in first. As he clambered across the vegetation, one of the warm-fuzzies in Lot’s field of view began to stir. “Watch out,” Lot warned. “There’s something—” A horrible screech ripped through the air, almost enough to separate skin from muscle, even within the muffling barrier of the suit. Urban dropped flat on his face just as a swarm of warm-fuzzies popped out of the vegetation, shrieking and darting for the doorways, their ribbed wings scratching at Lot as they passed.

  “Well, I guess it’s ours now,” Alta said, when the commotion finally died down. Lot could only see a few small IR points still lingering in the lobby of the car.

  Urban got up, cursing softly. “Nice world you inherited here, fury.”

  Lot smiled. As soon as he got inside the car, Ord slid off his shoulder and across the floor. Urban jumped as it swept past him. It slipped up the escalator and disappeared. “Where’s it going?”

  “Check things out, I guess.”

  Lot stood quietly in the doorway, while Alta pulled in her anchor. Outside, he could see tree branches swaying grandly up and down in what was still a powerful wind. He could hear the wind’s own raspy voice as it growled past the corners of the suspended car. Deception Well, real time. “We’re not dead yet,” he observed.

  “Haven’t breathed the air,” Urban pointed out helpfully.

  Lot nodded. That was true. The governors hadn’t passed judgment yet.

  He stepped closer to the door, feeling as if he were a rogue spirit floating high above the forest. We came here for a reason. He reached up to squeeze the seam of his hood.

  “Do you wish to unseal the hood?” the suit asked him.

  “Yes.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.”

  The suit’s queries must have been audible over the general comm, because Urban was staring at him. Alta too.

  He turned away from them. Looking out over the wind-tossed forest, he touched the seam again. It split under the pressure, and a finger of warm, humid air touched his throat. He pulled the hood back, off his face, and drew in a cautious breath.

  With his nose he could smell a sweet, heavy scent. With his sensory tears he caught stray wisps of human emotion: curiosity, anger, pent-up sexuality, as if someone were snapping open select pheromonal capsules several hundred yards away. He rubbed at his sensory tears, but the sign persisted, diverse as a night in Silk… .

  “I can sense them,” he whispered. The suit mike was still against his throat, picking up his voice. He leaned out the doorway, searching the forest and the terminal building below. But even in IR he could detect no large life-forms.

  Urban had come up behind him. Now his hand closed firmly on Lot’s elbow. He tugged him back from the edge. “Come on.” His voice sounded tinny and distant, coming from the crumpled hood. “Let’s sleep. A few hours, that’s all. Then we’ll look.”

  Ord found them a room on the third floor. The carpet and walls
were black and moldy, and the air in the room had a sour smell, but at least there weren’t any animals. Lot and Urban dragged the door mostly closed; then they settled down with Alta, leaving Ord to watch.

  Lot lay on his back, staring at the ceiling. An odor of hot spice and rot rose up from the carpet, pressed out by his weight against the fibers. He snuggled close to Alta, but she held herself stiff, and did not respond. After a minute, she asked, “Urban?”

  “Yeah?” Their voices rising faint from somewhere behind his neck.

  “These suits won’t last much longer without a resupply.” Urban lay on her other side, and she turned now to face him. “The nutrient reserves are so low … if the rebreather function fails, we could suffocate in our sleep.”

  “Yeah.” Urban was silent a moment, then he sat up, and started rummaging in his pack. “There’s some reserve left in here. I’m going to transfer it to your pack—”

  “No.” She put her hand on his.

  Lot stiffened, but he didn’t move, or say anything. Several seconds of silence passed. Finally, “You’re right,” Urban conceded, his voice curiously full. “We should save it for the climb down tomorrow.”

  They initiated the query sequence, then opened their suits—at precisely the same time. Abruptly, Lot could sense their fear … and other things he didn’t want to examine too closely. Still, he couldn’t completely stifle the sense of dread that bloomed in his belly. He lay quietly, listening to their whispered conversation about the quality of the air, the slimy dark walls, about Lot.

  “Is he asleep?”

  “I think so.”

  But he remained awake long after they’d slipped out of the room. When the wind blew hard, he imagined he could feel the elevator swaying slightly on the column. Ord came over and laid its tentacles on his forehead and tut-tutted … and Lot drifted into a—dream? Strange. He’d lived most of his life without being aware of any dreams. Now he climbed through an endless, dark descent with Gent falling, always falling, and no matter how many times the dream looped back Lot could not reach out a hand in time to catch him.