Challenges of the Deeps

by Spoor,Ryk E

  “Not just those. Trust me, we have other plans, based on your intelligence.” He looked at Simon narrowly. “You are certain of your information, right? Especially including their maneuver preparations?”

  “Absolutely certain, Captain. They have been practicing and coordinating that four-pincer assault en route for months. Their orientation appears reasonably stable, as well. My projections as to their likely assault remain exactly as they were.”

  Fitzhugh grinned fiercely. “Then we definitely have at least one more surprise for our genocidal friends; we’ll go over that and our other plans at the briefing.”

  Simon felt a—very small—trickle of hope. This will be the first real war humanity has fought in …two centuries? But it sounds like these people know what they’re doing. “Very good, Captain. Tell the other captains to be ready for their briefing and tactical information in …one hour.”

  “Understood.” Captain Fitzhugh saluted and turned away, presumably for the command deck.

  Simon and Oasis reached the briefing room, and its lone other occupant stood up quickly. “K! I mean, Oasis! It’s great to see you!”

  “And you, Vel!” The redheaded woman hugged the black-haired young man.

  Slightly below average height, Velocity Celes had a boyish, cheerful smile, with brown eyes below glossy black hair; his face, like Simon’s, had more than a hint of Japanese ancestry. He turned to Simon. “Doctor Sandrisson, it’s an honor to really get to meet you! I know we saw each other at that one party, but…”

  “But we hardly had time to talk. And unfortunately we have little time to spare now. Ariane does send her love, as does DuQuesne.” He gestured for the young man (young? Something of a misnomer; he is as old as DuQuesne, despite his behavior and appearance) to sit again.

  “Well, likewise, if I don’t get a chance to see them before you do.” He looked at the two curiously. “So …why this hush-hush meeting with me, alone? The Fleet’s got tons more questions than I do, really, and I’ve gotta get over to Hachiman as soon as I can.”

  “Because,” Simon said, and this time with a smile that had more real cheer in it than others of late, “there is something you need to know—something absolutely vital—about yourself, and what you can do, before we begin this war…”

  Chapter 43

  “I appreciate you shifting our temporary quarters to something with a view,” DuQuesne told Vindatri. “I don’t do that well in what feels like a sealed box.”

  “Think nothing of it, Doctor DuQuesne,” Vindatri replied. “Once you mentioned it, I understood completely. And while I am somewhat inured to it, the view is, indeed, quite spectacular.”

  “Can’t argue that.” The huge picture-window that covered one whole wall of their common room showed the colossal, multihued cloudbanks that surrounded Halintratha, flowing with ponderous majesty, boiling up on a timescale of months or years, lit from within by occasional bolts of lightning that might span an Earthly continent. Flocks of creatures—zikki and others—flew past the windows periodically, and once Ariane had pointed out the monstrous, streamlined shadow of something that had to be a morfalzeen, one of the largest predators in the Arena; the titanic thing had cruised onward, slowly fading into nothingness in red-shadowed cloud.

  “So, Vindatri, you know we’ve been exploring Halintratha while you and Ariane have been training, right?”

  “Of course. I had given you permission to do so, and it is thus scarcely surprising you would take me up on that offer.”

  “Well, we came to this one area that looked like no one had been there in centuries, filled with huge, unused machines. Why’s that place so deserted, if we could ask? Did you build it and stop using it, or did you find Halintratha and this is just a part of it you’ve never had a use for?”

  Vindatri tilted his head, and there was a faint flash of a smile. “Something of both, in truth. You are correct that I have not constructed all of Halintratha myself, and some of the parts of this structure I have not had a tremendous use for. However, if you are speaking of this location,” an image shone out above the table, and DuQuesne nodded, “then it is a place where the …mechanisms, so to speak, were needed for various purposes a very long time ago, but they served their purpose and I have had no need of them for many centuries indeed.”

  He saw Ariane and Wu staring at the image; Ariane opened her mouth, but then closed it once DuQuesne caught her eye. They recognize the similarity with our Sphere. Which, as Rich used to say, ‘gives one furiously to think.’

  “Thanks,” he said to Vindatri. “Gives me the idea you think a lot differently than we do; building something like that—or like this station—and living in it mostly alone, and not using most of it?”

  “When you move into a new home, do you always instantly fill each room? Especially if nothing has constrained you as to the size and nature of the rooms?”

  “Well, no, but eventually…” He saw what Vindatri was driving at.

  “I see you understand. Eventually means something rather different for you or Captain Austin than it does for your friend Orphan, and different still than it does to me.”

  By implication, he’s saying the difference between him and Orphan is about the same as that between Orphan and us. Which is about two orders of magnitude. Is Vindatri really that old? That’d make him maybe older than homo sapiens.

  Then again, if that room of statues maintained its implied order to the end, Vindatri might be older than the Molothos, which would make him …what, millions of years? Older than the entire genus Homo.

  “Indeed, perspective changes many things,” Orphan said. “I am, however, curious to know how much longer the training must continue. I have many things to attend to in Nexus Arena—as you know—so it is somewhat urgent for me to know when I can expect to return. And, of course, I suspect the Leader of Humanity cannot long abandon her duties.”

  Ariane smiled. “Well, actually, I have good news on that front. Vindatri and I have been talking, and we think that it’s best we head back home very soon.”

  That’s a relief. Once we get out in the Deeps, I can find out what he’s been up to in her head and none the wiser. Hopefully. He was still tense; a part of him was sure it wasn’t going to be that easy. “So you’re done?”

  “Oh, not even close,” she said with a laugh. “But we’ll go back and drop you and Orphan off. I’ll get one of our own ships and come back.”

  “What?” Orphan said in surprise. “Not to discourage you from returning me to Nexus Arena, Captain, but I am quite sure that you have not memorized the route, and—if I understand Doctor DuQuesne’s position, he does not want you traveling solely with your bodyguard.”

  “I,” said Vindatri, “shall provide Captain Austin with her own route to Halintratha. Yours shall remain yours, Orphan.”

  “And I won’t be alone. Marc needs some time to do his own stuff back home. I’ll bring Simon.” She glanced at Vindatri. “Vindatri really wants to meet him.”

  Oh, Klono, Noshabkeming, and every other blasted curse I can think of. SIMON. I didn’t cover that up, and of course he wants to meet Simon. There’s no damned way he didn’t get some hint from Ariane that there’s something special about Simon. You stupid, incompetent, half-baked excuse for a superman, you’ve gone and blown it this time. Mentor would be roasting me over this, and he’d have every right to do it.

  Although—to give himself the very tiniest smidgen of an excuse—the more of Ariane’s memories and thoughts he had to wall off, the more obvious it would’ve been that someone had been doing some kind of work on her head. Walling off the very specific information about the Hyperion advantage hadn’t been a big chore. But Simon was another huge part of Ariane’s life, and the Human entry into the Arena itself, and trying to keep all that surface stuff available while preventing any possible detection that Simon himself now had unusual powers? That would’ve at least doubled the difficulty, and maybe more than doubled the chance that Vindatri would catch on.

>   Aloud, he said, “If you’ve learned the basics, we can probably just go on our own from there. Simon and the rest of us are still gonna be busy as hell for a while.”

  She looked at him in surprise. “Marc, with a chance like this? For me to learn from someone outside the two main groups, and for Simon to learn things about the Arena that even the Analytic probably doesn’t know? It’s well worth the risk.”

  On the surface, of course, Ariane was one hundred percent right. But the problem was he had no idea how much Vindatri knew or guessed about Simon. Even a little was too much; no telling what Vindatri would do with that information.

  And then he felt it: cold, subtle, insinuating itself into his surface mind as though the Hyperion-engineered defenses weren’t even there. He’s figured that trick out—not that I’m surprised. He could feel the surface DuQuesne becoming more receptive, ready to accept whatever directions Vindatri gave next. Beneath, he considered the situation. Still …maybe the best course is to just go along with it. He’ll just be making sure we go along with his plan. Once we’re well away, I can counteract that. He’ll wonder what went wrong, but I don’t think even he can guess the truth.

  The one part of that he really didn’t like was that he still would have no idea what Vindatri knew about Simon …and Vindatri certainly wasn’t restricted to this area of the Arena. If he was sufficiently intrigued, he might just come straight to Nexus Arena for his answers, and DuQuesne had a very bad feeling that none of the normal Arena protections would work against Vindatri.

  There was a growling noise.

  Sun Wu Kung half rose, shaking his head. “You …you are …in my head! Get out! GET OUT!”

  Like lightning, Wu Kung leapt across the table straight for Vindatri.

  That’s torn it. This is it, the blow-off!

  So unexpected was Wu’s assault that he actually caught the tall, cloaked figure with one blow, sending Vindatri tumbling across the floor. But even as Wu charged after him, Vindatri gestured.

  Ropes of black light lashed out of nowhere, caught Wu in midair, dragged him back to the wall. As DuQuesne started to his feet, he found the same ebony tendrils yanking him back; they dematerialized, to reveal shackles integrated with the wall itself.

  Ariane was frozen, eyes blank, unmoving, unseeing; flicking his gaze in that direction, DuQuesne saw the same was true of Orphan.

  “How inconvenient,” Vindatri said. Wu swore at him in half a dozen languages, and yanked futilely at the chains. “Do not waste your effort, Sun Wu Kung. Those chains are made of the very foundation of the Arena, what your people have called CQC, matter woven of the most fundamental particles in a single self-supporting mesh.”

  Vindatri studied them dispassionately. “There are …anomalies about the two of you. I wished to be more subtle about this, but your reaction makes that the less desirable and useful approach. While these others wait, their minds frozen in a single instant, I shall finally perform the very detailed examination I have had in mind all along.” His hand rose, and green-yellow light played along it.

  “Now I will learn all of your secrets.”

  Chapter 44

  Wu struggled against the chains despite Vindatri’s warning, but in his heart he knew the Shadeweaver-like being was right. I don’t think I could break ring-carbon composite chains half this thick, even on my best day. This CQC, it will be like the Heaven Chain wrapped around my rock. Only the power of a god will break it …and the only god here is Vindatri.

  The thought itself was a crushing weight. He could see Ariane, her eyes staring into nothingness, a scant few meters away but beyond his reach …beyond his protection. He was going to fail again, and the tearing shame of that fact threatened to tear him apart. “Ariane! ARIANE, wake up! Ariane!”

  But she did not blink, did not shift; whatever spell Vindatri had on her mind was absolute. Glancing to his side, he saw to his utter horror that DuQuesne’s eyes also looked blank, gazing only inward, completely unseeing.

  As always, rage was his only antidote to despair. “Sorcerer, I will kill you! I will—” he shifted into the native, mangled tongue that had been his, and filled the air with invective, threatening Vindatri’s body and soul with every injury and torment he had ever seen.

  “Fascinating. I could understand the first part, but the latter is incomprehensible; yet I am sure you are speaking coherently, if rather predictably.” Vindatri shook his head. “But it is your companion I am more interested in.”

  Wu Kung found himself so furious, yet so filled with a complete knowledge of his failure and dishonor, that he fell silent as the alien turned away from him, dismissing Wu Kung as unworthy even to speak with. And …he may be right. Even the time I fell from Thilomon, I was still free, I could still act. Here …here I will merely stand in chains as this monster rips my friends’ minds apart.

  Vindatri paced the short distance to stand in front of the massive Hyperion. “Doctor DuQuesne, you and Sun Wu Kung had some intriguing defenses around your minds. It required some thought to devise a means of circumventing it; and I now see that Wu Kung’s was somewhat different than your own, thus allowing him more latitude to act than I had expected. I will certainly investigate him in depth later. But for now, I think I would like to know what you know about Simon Sandrisson, and most especially what unique capability he has that I have sensed in Captain Austin’s mind. I could of course ask it of her—and I shall—but I will have your view first. It…”

  Vindatri trailed off as both he and Wu Kung became aware of a tremendously incongruous fact: a smile was spreading across DuQuesne’s face, a broad, savage grin, and the black eyes were glittering with a keen awareness. “Like I told Maizas of the Molothos, Vindatri—your problem is that you think that you have the faintest idea of what you’re dealing with!”

  DuQuesne’s head snapped around, and he looked straight at Wu. “Wu, I’m sorry, but I’ve kept a couple secrets from you. And it’s time you knew one.”

  “Secrets? What …? ”

  Vindatri gestured at DuQuesne again, but though the black brows furrowed and tension rose in the big man’s body, his voice did not change. “That you’re not as limited as you think. That the Arena is like Hyperion in one way. It accepts us, Wu. Accepts us for what we truly are in our hearts.”

  Accepts …?

  And suddenly Wu Kung remembered DuQuesne’s startled glance when he talked to the animals on Humanity’s Upper Sphere; the astounded, disbelieving stares of Sethrik and Ariane as he made his return aboard Thilomon; the insistence of the Vengeance that what he had done was impossible, that it could not happen.

  Accepts us for what we truly are.

  For what I truly am …?

  A tremulous wonder and hope began to rise in him. For what we truly are in our hearts.

  In my heart? In my soul?

  He lifted his arms, scarcely daring to believe, but even as he did, he realized he barely felt the chains, they felt light as cobwebs, not even as heavy as the Hyperion-designed body would have sensed them.

  In my soul? What I truly am?

  “What are you saying, Doctor? How are you speaking? How can you resist me?” Vindatri’s voice was rising in annoyance and confusion.

  “He is saying,” Wu said, hearing awe and gratitude echoing in his voice, “that I have been playing a part even to myself all along, and that the chains that bound me this time were those of my own making, of my certainty that I was only what I seemed to be.”

  “What you seemed …? ”

  “What they told me I was. And I believed them, and so was chained.” He looked up, and knew his green eyes were dancing with emerald flame. “But the chains are gone.

  “The Monkey King lives again!”

  He threw his strength against the shackles, and the concussive force threw Vindatri, Ariane, and Orphan to the ground. He heard a groaning noise from the chains, chains they thought could bind the one who once took the Pillar of the Ocean and made it his staff! HA! This Vindatri would be
taught the error of his ways!

  DuQuesne’s laugh boomed out. “And as for me, Vindatri? Let me find out how strong your mind is!”

  Wu could see the bolt of psychic power that screamed from DuQuesne and hammered Vindatri like an avalanche, see it with the senses that had been dark for decades. I’d forgotten what it is like to see the realm of spirit, the fire of life.

  Forgotten myself.

  Vindatri was on his feet somehow, and a shield surrounded him, protecting him from DuQuesne’s assault for the moment. “My …mind is …strong enough. What mysteries! What surprises! Yet you are still restrained, and—”

  “NOTHING restrains me except the Gods assembled, and even their armies shudder to face the Great Sage Equal of Heaven!” Wu shouted, and threw all his strength into a single great pull. Muscles bulged on his chest, on his arms, and the veins and tendons stood out on his neck. His breath came quicker, and he let his anger kindle to full flame, caught it, shaped it, channeled it into himself, into his spirit. He could feel the power around him now, the world of the Arena, so different …yet so very much the same …and it answered his call.

  “Even the gods of a thousand worlds could not break those chains, Sun Wu Kung,” Vindatri said, and his voice was stronger, his shields seemed to be reinforcing themselves. “Even the power of nuclear fire could only wear them away slowly, not tear them asunder like crude matter. What hope have you of …Segatha’s Mercy!”

  The Soul-fire ignited around Sun Wu Kung, and Halintratha vibrated with a deep, bass thunder like the string of a colossal cello. “I …,” he ground out, and strained against the quivering chains, claws digging into the deck below him, “…will never …,” and drew the Soul-fire inward, catapulting his strength to that he had needed when tested against the Three Stone Brothers, strength to lift the Brothers and the mountains they stood upon, “…be chained…”, and he heard the whining, stretching sound of something strained beyond its limits, threw the last ounce of self and soul into one final lunge, “AGAIN!”