The Rat leader raises its axe with a loud squeal, and the other Rats jump into the pit. For a moment, the Rat’s grip loosens, and Orel breaks free and runs.
The leader screams at this desertion and sprints after him. Orel runs as fast as he dares in the darkness, keeping his eyes on his feet, fearful that he will trip and fall. Nausea and terror make him stumble, but he keeps running, ignoring the sounds of death behind him. He looks up and sees the cavern entrance to his left. A small group of Rats cluster around the entrance, guarding it. To his right are the giant elevator and its macabre altar. Orel looks back and sees the leader close behind him. Other Rats, infected by their leader’s outrage, are converging from all sides.
Hemmed in, Orel turns right and sprints as fast as he can, dodging a few Rats whose grasping hands miss him only by centimeters. As he crosses into the space defined by the framework of the gantry, the Rats squeal with anger. He is trespassing on forbidden ground. The Rats crowd around the perimeter, their heads bobbing up and down in unsyncopated indignation. Encouraged by their hesitation, Orel ventures further into the framework, looking for another tunnel out of the cavern or a place to hide. He finds nothing but girders and bones. A fresh outbreak of squealing from the Rats causes Orel to turn around. The Rat leader has stepped over the perimeter and is advancing slowly into the forbidden zone. Its head scans from side to side, drawing in huge lungfuls of air through its nostrils, tracking him by scent as much as by sight.
Orel searches desperately for a way out, but he is trapped. He has run himself into a corner. Looking up, he sees a black, inverted pit, dimly defined by the framework of the elevator. The effect, in combination with his hunger and exhaustion, is dizzying, and he reaches out to the iron of the framework to keep himself from falling. The Rat’s snuffling is growing closer. He has no choice. Using the crossbeams of the framework like the rungs of a ladder, Orel hoists himself up into the blackness.
His bare feet scrape flakes of rust from the cold metal. Alerted by the sound, the Rat leader rushes to the space at the bottom of the elevator shaft. Orel cannot see it — he does not dare look down — but he can hear the pad of the creature’s feet, the whistling rush of air in and out of its nostrils. Then he hears the sound he hoped he would not: the rasp of callused hands and feet on rock and metal as the creature begins to climb after him. Orel redoubles his effort, but he fears he is still not moving fast enough. He has never been athletic, and now he is weak with hunger, and he cannot see his fingers as he reaches for the next beam.
The girders grow further apart as he climbs higher. He has to move from one side of the framework to the other, inching his way up the diagonal crossbeams, or reach beyond the framework to the rock face behind it and grip outcroppings. His only consolation is that the Rat behind him finds the shaft as strange and confusing as Orel does. No one has ever traveled this way before; the beams are coated with a thick layer of stone dust that must have lain undisturbed for years.
The harsh breathing from below seems to grow closer and closer. Orel wishes the walls of the shaft did not echo and distort sound so much. It is impossible for him to gauge how far away the Rat is. It could be ten meters below, or just beneath him. The only thing Orel knows for sure is that he must keep climbing.
Suddenly Orel hears a squeal from close by and feels a thick-nailed hand grab at his heel. He screams — so full of terror that he sounds less human than the Rat itself — and kicks at the Rat’s hand. He loses control for a moment, wildly flailing his feet in the darkness, screaming till his throat is raw. Then he realizes his foot is not hitting anything. Has he knocked the Rat loose, or is it circling around him, trying to come at him from the side? He looks around, but it is too dark for him to see. Phantom visions swim around his head. He is completely blind.
He pulls himself up to the next girder and feels for a handhold on the rough wall. Below him the squealing begins again, coming closer. Orel climbs up the rock face, feeling with his hands for the next girder. The Rat no longer cares if Orel knows where it is. Its squeals are furious, filled with blood lust.
The rock outcropping where Orel has planted his left foot shudders and cracks. It begins to slide loose from the rock face. Orel loses his balance. His grip on the other rocks is not strong enough to keep him from falling. He grabs wildly with his other hand, reaching as far up as he can. His fingers brush against metal. The rock under his foot comes loose completely as Orel grabs one last time for the girder. The tips of his fingers grasp the edge of it. It is not much, but enough to hold him. The rock falls. Feet dangling in mid-air, he grasps the girder with his other hand and pulls himself up with his last bit of strength. The squealing below him is interrupted by a loud crunch, the sound of heavy rock striking flesh and bone.
For a moment, the shaft is silent.
Then the squealing begins again, softer this time, weaker. The sound seems to oscillate, growing fainter with each iteration. It takes Orel a moment to realize that the inconsistency is caused by the fact that the Rat is tumbling end over end as it falls down the shaft. The sound continues for a long time, then ends with an almost inaudible impact. Orel hadn’t realized he had climbed so high.
He sprawls on his back, stretched across the girder, weeping with exhaustion. There is no way to tell how long he lies there, and at times Orel cannot even say with certainty whether he is asleep or awake. Obscure, barely audible sounds echo up the shaft. The smell of calcite and corroding steel is almost refreshing after the stink of the Rats and their dung fires.
After a while, he stands, balancing himself precariously on the girder. He looks up, then down. The two directions are the same — utter blackness, distinguished from each other only by the pull of gravity. He considers the situation for a while. Up or down? He tries to analyze his position logically. There is, he decides, only one option. He begins to climb again.
CURIOSITY PIECE
Gloss ducks under the counter of his tinker shop and inspects the autowalkers he picked up earlier. He got a good bargain, he decides. He gives them a cleaning and sets them high on a shelf. Nobody uses autowalkers anymore, but they can always be knackered for parts.
Leaning back in his chair, he plays with a camshaft, trying to entertain himself. The electronics and re-engineering business is slow today. He wonders if the cave rescue party that people are talking about will mean more orders for sonar helmets. He makes a mental note to check on supplies.
He hears the buzzer that indicates a customer and threads his way through the over-packed shelves to the counter. A young woman, one of the Engineered, is looking around his shop. She wears a single stripe across each shoulder. Her clothes are finely made, but wrinkled and dirty. Gloss tries to size her up: a tersh pretending to be something she’s not? A primey fallen on hard times? She carries herself like a primey, but primaries do not usually come here unless they have some heirloom to unload, and her hands are empty.
“Can I help you?” he asks.
The young woman turns, and Gloss can see that she is indeed a woman in trouble of some sort. Her eyes are bloodshot, with dark circles beneath them. He beautiful green hair has been chopped short, apparently by herself, and apparently without the aid of a mirror. She steps up to the counter, still looking around at the shelves.
“I want to buy a soft gun.” Her voice is low and tight, as if she is forcing herself to be civil but wants to scream.
Gloss coughs. He wishes she would stop peering up at the shelves. She is making him nervous. “Miss, you don’t just walk into a store and buy a soft gun. Every one that’s made is registered and licensed. Accounted for. Not to be had at any price.”
The woman looks down, studying her hands. She turns them over. Studies the other side. “I see,” she says in that same quiet voice. She turns to leave.
“Wait! Wait!” Gloss says quickly. “That’s not to say I can’t help you. There may be something else here you want.”
She waits, her feet toward the door, but her head turned and her eyes fo
cused on him.
“I take it you don’t need a soft gun per se? Looking for a weapon of some sort?” Gloss asks, stepping around the counter. “Not for the commission of a crime, of course. Couldn’t sell it to you if you were. Against the law. But you only want a curiosity piece, right? You’re a collector.”
She says nothing. Her gaze is unnerving: emeralds in pink marble.
He hurries to a shelf. He wishes he had dressed better today. He likes to cut his coverup and leggings short — he finds them too confining — but he knows he looks ridiculous, an old man with his knobby knees showing. “Perhaps I can interest you in this item,” he says, pulling a spikeflyer from the shelf. “Look at the craftsmanship. Every tooth is hand-carved. Not legal above Deck Seven, of course, but I have a special carrying case for it.”
She frowns.
“No, of course not,” Gloss says. He is feeling her out. He has a good idea what she will want to buy from him, but he wants to build up the suspense, pique her interest. He can get the best price that way. “You’re a sophisticated woman. You want something unique, something with a little history.”
“I don’t care about history,” she says, an edge creeping into her voice. “I want something that will . . .”
“Nit!” Gloss shushes her. He points surreptitiously at the camera on the ceiling, his hand close against his chest so the camera cannot see the gesture. “You say the wrong words,” — like ‘kill a man’, Gloss thinks — “and we can’t do business. Got it?”
Gloss is unprepared for the look of fury that sweeps over the woman’s face as she stares up at the camera. Her teeth clench, and her cheeks turn red. Her hands ball into tight fists. She actually seems to grow a few centimeters in height. She looked so frail when she walked in, but now she looks like a small killing machine. What the hell has walked through my door? he thinks.
“Show me what you have,” the woman says.
He nods, shrugging. Whoever she’s mad at, it’s not him. He steps into the back of his shop.
“Come this way.” He opens a cabinet and pulls out a Blue Sleeper. “Ever seen one of these before?” he asks, gripping the handles and adjusting the snout with his thumbs. “Koba was still alive when this beauty was made. An astounding piece of technology. Took it apart once. Couldn’t make heads or tails of it. The expertise we’ve lost since those days . . .”
The woman looks at the weapon. She runs her fingers along the air ribs.
“A wonder, isn’t she?” Gloss says. “Pacify an entire crowd in under ten minichrons.” The woman frowns again and looks around at the other shelves.
“No?” Gloss puts it back in the cabinet. “No. You’re looking for something more . . . personal. If you’ll wait just a minichron, I have something that may interest you.” He kneels by a small safe on a low shelf. Dust smears on the surface as he fiddles with the combination. At last, it opens. He reaches in and pulls out the gun, rubbing his thumb lovingly across the blue steel of the barrel.
“Do you know what this is?”
She shakes her head.
“It’s called a revolver. When you pull this trigger here, this hammer falls and causes a small explosion of sulfur and potassium nitrate inside the chamber. The explosion propels a cylinder of metal out of the barrel, this tube here. Not a very efficient system, but the slug travels fast enough to punch a hole right through a man.”
She reaches out and takes the gun from him. That last part got her attention, Gloss thinks. The woman turns the gun over in her hands, studying it. “It’s heavy,” she says.
“One hundred percent high-grade steel,” Gloss says proudly. “Not a single piece of plastic in it. What you are holding in your hands is a rare and genuine example of pre-Founder technology. I estimate this particular piece to be approximately 400 years vintage.” Of course, Gloss has no idea if the damn thing works after all this time. He would never waste a bullet or risk an explosion testing it. But he sees no reason to tell her that.
The woman’s eyebrows raise appreciatively, but she still seems undecided. Gloss decides to push it just a little further. “It’s a very primitive, dangerous weapon. You must never point it at anybody when it’s loaded. If you hit a man in the head with a bullet, he’ll die instantly. If you hit him in the gut, he’ll die slowly and painfully.”
“How much is it?” the woman asks.
Gloss names an outrageous sum, more than three times what the item is worth, figuring she’ll haggle him down to only twice its worth.
“I’ll take it,” she says.
Gloss doesn’t even blink. He reaches into the safe and pulls out a small box of cartridges. “You’ll need these to go with it.”
HOME
Astrid is a hundred meters away, and a deck down from the Quad Concourse, when she feels a hand on her shoulder. She turns to look, but no one is there, only the meandering crowd of the lower level causeway. “Can we talk?” a voice out of nowhere asks. She be-gins to cry, because this means Samael is dead.
The voice does not wait for a response to its question. An invisible metal hand grabs Astrid by the bicep and pulls her into a narrow, deserted alley. The blender does not work so well in the shadows where there is less light to bend. Astrid can almost make out his silhouette of disturbed air.
“Why did you run?” he asks.
Refusing to answer while being manhandled, Astrid looks down at her arm, where the fabric of her coverup in crinkled and black beneath his invisible hand. Suddenly the sleeve lightens and puffs out as he releases her. Flakes of dried blood cling to the fabric.
“Why did you run?” he repeats.
“I was afraid.”
“No, I mean why did you leave our domus?”
“Our domus?” she asks incredulously.
“Yes.” His voice grows steely, impatient. The light in alley dims as he leans forward. “Ours. I told you everything I have is yours. And I meant it.”
She looks out at the people passing by on the street. Some of them turn and stare at her as they pass. “Make yourself visible,” she says, wiping her eyes. “I don’t like this.”
“I prefer to remain invisible. It makes me uncomfortable, the way the crowd reacts to me down here.”
“Well, I don’t like looking like one of those vagrant women who talk to themselves. Let me see you.”
He grumbles something inaudible. Suddenly she is floating in the air. He has picked her up and hoisted her over his shoulder. He climbs up the wall, his body shuddering with the impact as he jams steel fingers into the cement. She realizes she can see him. She lifts her head and he is invisible again. It is the blender field: when she is this close to him, she is within the field and he becomes visible to her.
He finds a broken window, and climbs through to a dark room filled with dusty, broken machinery. He sets her down. Through the broken plaster of the low ceiling she can see the girders that support the deck above, vibrating with the tramp of passing feet. The stag-nant air stinks of wet asphalt, even through her respirator. Edward walks past the narrow windows, his armored form becoming visible in the shafts of dusty light. He leans against a wall, breathing raggedly. She stands, wiping smudges of soot from her coverup. “What’s the matter?”
“Nothing!” he snaps. Then, realizing he has spoken too loudly, he says more quietly, “I’m fine.”
She says nothing.
He unlocks the helmet and slips it off. His face is sweaty and spattered with blood. His head looks small, cradled in the metal rings of the neckpiece.
“Why did you break my mother’s vase?” he asks.
She sighs. She does not want to be having this conversation. “It was an accident.”
“What happened?”
“I was exercising. I knocked it over.” She stops, realizing she is being flippant. “It was an accident. I’m sorry, Edward. I know how much it meant to you.”
“It’s all right.” Edward shuts his eyes, a look of pain squeezing his features. “I forgive you. Now let’s go back home. I
don’t like it down here.”
“Edward, I don’t want to go back there. I want to go back to my home, where I belong.”
Before he can suppress the impulse, Edward laughs bitterly. “You want to go back? To that little room?”
Astrid raises her voice to override his derision. “Breaking the vase made me realize the truth about a lot of things, Edward. It made me see that I don’t belong in your world. I can’t stay because nothing there is mine.”
“I told you,” Edward says, frustrated by her obstinacy. “I give it to you. I give it all to you.”
“And I have nothing to give back to you.”
“That doesn’t matter.”
“Not to you,” she says, “because it leaves me indebted to you.”
Edward blinks at her, uncomprehending.
“Edward, you’re richer than me, you’re stronger than me, you’re higher class, you may even be smarter than me, whatever that means. Whenever we’re together, you’re in complete control. There’s nothing left over for me. At least my room, small as it is, is mine.”
She takes two steps through the machinery, looking for a way out of the room. Edward staggers after her, holding one hand up against his head. He seems to be in real pain, physical and emotional, but she cannot bring herself to care.
“Astrid,” he says. “Astrid, I love you.”
She turns to him, her eyes narrow, her mouth a down-curved line. “Edward, I may only be a dumb quaternary, but I know what love is. And what it isn’t.”
OFF-CENTER
In the Central Chamber of the Hall Mediary, Second Son rests in the chair that was so recently his father’s. The panel on the small desk before him displays the results of the latest plebiscite: the Culminant will have his expedition into the caves, the search-and-rescue for his son. Raising his head, Second Son looks at Selachian, who sits on the other side of the bowl-shaped room. His expression is not that of a concerned father. He looks only somewhat more peevish that usual. The other Mediaries stand, one by one, and make their speeches, arguing tiny points about the size and composition of the search party. Second Son drums his fingers impatiently against the panel, waiting for the random number generator to raise his code. Finally, the green bulb lights and Second Son sees his face projected on the dome ceiling.
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