“You have your victory,” Dortak said, suddenly appearing at his side.
“Yes,” Sayjak said. “A good one.”
“More will come, looking for you.”
“We will be far away.”
“They may seek you in far places.”
“Let them. We can run, we can fight. We know the jungle better than bounties.”
“They may have other tricks you have not yet seen.”
“We will learn them.”
“I hope that you do,” Dortak said, and he dropped to his haunches and lowered his head, “for you are boss of bosses now.”
A sudden stillness came over the scene of carnage. The bellowing, the chattering ceased, the gambolers halted their cavorting, those overhead stayed their hands in the stringing of entrails among the tree limbs.
“Boss of bosses!” Sayjak said, knowing, at that moment, that he would not be killing Dortak. “Good idea. Me. Boss of bosses. Like old Karak. Never been a boss of bosses since him.”
“Maybe good idea,” Dortak said. “But maybe one day you hate it. Trouble comes, you got to help all clans. Otlag, Bilgad—they will come to call you boss of bosses. Here comes Otlag now. They get trouble and go drum for you at Shannibal, you got to come and help. All People your People now. Big job.”
As Dortak rose and moved away and Otlag came to offer his allegiance, Sayjak considered some of those ramifications involved in being boss of bosses. He found the prospect vaguely unsettling. Big job, as Dortak had said. Boss of bosses. But Karak had done it, long ago, and they still told stories of his deeds as though they were but yesterday. It would be good if one day they told such stories of Sayjak.
As Otlag rose, Bilgad came up to take his place, to call him boss of bosses. Sayjak licked his lips, showed his teeth, nodded his head.
“Yes,” he said. “Big boss. Go now. Have fun. Eat, dance, have sex, chop up bodies and play with pieces. Be safe. Sayjak is watching.” Moments later, he seized a passing female by the shoulder. “Your turn to have fun,” he said. “Great honor.”
* * *
Tranto loafed within his stand of trees, looking out over the herd. The transition had been very smooth. He had not even been challenged in the days since Scarco’s disappearance. Of course, since none of the herd were certain as to exactly what had happened to Scarce it was possible to believe the worst. And he was certain that at least some of them did. A number of young bulls drifted off on occasion, taking several days to return. Muggle had reported overhearing them discuss the possible locations of Scarco’s remains. He had also overheard comments that Tranto was an unlucky name, its most famous bearer being a trouble-making rogue. Of late, however, the quest for Scarco’s bones seemed to have been abandoned—and the herd continued to treat Tranto with full respect and deference.
He wandered the grove until he was facing eastward again. Yes, still there…
“Morning, boss.” Muggle had come up behind him, silent as a shadow. “Going to be another hot one. The birds say it’s been raining up north.”
“That’s nice,” Tranto said. “Who’s that one?”
“Which one?”
“The one who just raised her head from browsing and looked this way.”
“Oh, that’s Fraga. She’s a flirt. Daughter of Cargo and Brigga.”
“Any current—attachments?”
“No. A number are interested in her, of course. But she hasn’t encouraged any one of them over the others.”
“Good,” Tranto said. “That is, a girl should take her time and think these things over.”
“True,” Muggle agreed.
“Let’s browse a bit, heading down over that direction. Slowly. When we get there, we’ll just say hello. Then you can do introductions.”
“Sure,” Muggle said.
“It’s good to mingle with your people every now and then.”
“It is,” Muggle agreed.
* * *
Abel and Carla stared at the virtual form of their swollen daughter, there in their home virt space. They regarded Chalmers and the slightly hunched, white-bearded figure of Dr. Hamill.
“…highly unusual,” the doctor was saying. “I can’t recall another case of false pregnancy during transfer sleep. Her records do not indicate any psychopathology—”
Carla glanced quickly at her husband, then back at the doctor.
“What,” she said, “if it is a real pregnancy?”
Dr. Hamill met her gaze.
“The surface scan—which takes only seconds to run—showed the hymen intact,” he told her. “Is there some reason to think otherwise?”
“Not really. But humor me and check further, anyway,” she said.
“Of course. Though it would be highly unusual if—”
“It’s highly unusual that she’d be in an untraceable transfer state for over three months, too, isn’t it?”
“Well, that goes without saying. We are doing the best we can on that front—”
She turned to glare at Chalmers.
“Has it ever happened?” she asked. “A crossover pregnancy?”
“Certainly not!” he replied. “It’s physically impossible.”
“We could be making all sorts of legal history,” she said.
* * *
John D’Arcy Donnerjack and Ayradyss took up residence in the black castle on a rainy morning in early October. They supervised their robotic staff in the uncrating and disposition of furniture they had bought from antique dealers in odd corners of the Continent. The servants’ pneumatics made soft puffing sounds as they unrolled, raised, and hung tapestries to soften dark stone walls, placed chests, armoires, benches, and high-backed chairs in various chambers, erected canopied beds, assembled suits of armor, hung weapons and shields, unrolled rugs. They also installed walk-in freezers and modern instant ovens in the second kitchen. The first kitchen was a period piece in keeping with the overall decor, functional, but intended mainly for effect. Ayradyss liked the feeling of permanence that came with antiques.
While ninety percent of Castle Donnerjack was a showpiece, the other ten percent was state of the art in all technical effects associated with work and pleasure. Entering the upper west wing, one came into contemporary times. There, John Donnerjack had his office, containing modern furniture and voice-activated and manual terminals, with walk-in holographic display stages capable of transporting machine from within machine from within machine constructs—so Gedanken-‘pure of operation that they could function only in Virtu—into seeming imported pockets of that place, to allow for laser-pressure forcefield manipulations of a sort that might not be enacted elsewhere. Beyond the office was the Great Stage, where illusion-master Donnerjack, with great expense and technical innovation, had wrought the same effect, full-scale. To enter the Great Stage was a translation; it was like walking into Virtu in the flesh. He was to use it for testing pieces of his large-scale projects. He was also, frequently, to use it for his coffee breaks.
He and Ayradyss stood on a high balcony that night of the first day, regarding the stormy North Minch by moonlight.
“So you have actually restored your ancestral home,” she said at last.
“In a way,” he said. “I don’t really know how the old place looked. Not likely this good, though. Probably about the only thing we have in common with it is that we built it on the same spot. We dug it out and formed everything up. There were indications there had been an old cellar down there—”
“With tunnels,” she said, “leading off of it. Where do they go?”
“Way back into the rock. They seem to be natural. I didn’t try to explore them all. Just sealed them off with a big metal door. If the wine cellar were to grow monumentally I suppose we could set some racks inside it. Otherwise, they serve no purpose.”
“But that’s how you know this was really the site?”
“Well, my grandfather’d said something about the old place supposedly having tunnels. That, along with the foundation, makes
me think I was probably right.”
“It is so different from Virtu.”
“In what way?”
She gestured outward.
“That storm will pass after a time,” she said, “and things will return to a—ground state that is stable.”
“But it is that way in Virtu, also.”
“Yes, but it can be changed instantly, and there are places noted for their fluctuation.”
“One can landscape here. Hell, we’ve terraformed parts of the moon, and Mars—and the insides of asteroids.”
“And one can take a step sideways and backwards in Virtu, find the proper guides and be in a totally different place. Then there are the wild lands, which develop their wild genü, which generate their own wild programs.”
“We can play games with reality here, too.”
“Yes, but later you return to the firmness of the ground state. Remember all of the wild places you took me through on the way back? You’ve nothing like them here.”
“True,” he agreed. “I understand what you’re saying. It’s a different kind of order, that’s all.”
“Yes. Different.”
They repaired within and made love in the new bed for a long while.
It was several days before his equipment was up and running to his satisfaction. In the meantime, he would break from his labors with it and they would enter the Great Stage, which was also functioning. There, they could set the environment to vast and pleasing vistas, including genuine sections of Virtu. When the forcefield pressure interface was engaged they could experience it directly at the tactile level. So they could walk in Virtu within the limits of the Stage, a small-scale equivalent of the transfer phenomenon itself; if full transfer was desired the necessary medical equipment was housed within adjacent chambers.
They sat in a dale amid vermilion hills where ancient statues worked their ways back toward boulderhood. Red lyre-tailed birds inspected damp grasses near a small pond.
“It is odd to come as a visitor,” she said. “What magic did the Lord of the Lost employ to work this change?”
“I think that when he reembodied you he simply did it as one of us rather than a creature of Virtu.”
“Still, how could he do this?”
“I have been thinking long and hard about it. It has occurred to me that Virtu must possess a level of complexity beyond what we have postulated.”
“Oh, I’m sure it does.”
“Implying a higher level of structure.”
She shrugged.
“If it explains how he did it, it must be right.”
“A guess doesn’t explain anything. I still have to work out a theory and figure the mechanisms.”
“Then what?”
He shook his head.
“Its application would be—unusual. I want to shelve everything else and just work on this one. But I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“I owe the Lord of Entropy his Palace of Bones and bowers of dead flowers.”
“How did you discover what it is that he wants?”
“A list of specifications and general layout appeared on one of the screens this morning.”
“How do you propose making delivery?”
“He’s watching. He’ll know when it’s ready. I will be shown what to do at that time.”
“That’s frightening. Do you think he’s watching us right now?”
“I suppose it’s possible.”
She rose.
“Let’s go back outside,” she said.
“All right.”
Later that night, as they lay hallway between sleep and wakefulness, she touched his shoulder.
“John?”
“What is it?”
“Do all castles make strange noises at night?”
“Perhaps,” he said, listening. Then he heard a distant, metallic rattling sound. “It’s windy,” he said after a time. “The workmen might have left something lying about unsecured.”
“It sounds like a chain.”
“It does, doesn’t it? I’ll look around in the morning.”
“Yes, do that.”
“‘Night, love.”
“‘Night.”
* * *
Death sat on his throne of bones and regarded the model of his palace he had brought into being. With brief movements of his fingers in the space before him he opened sections, enlarged them, enhanced them. At times he rotated the image of the structure slowly, nodding or shaking his head.
“Interesting,” said Phecda, who had come up beside him and mounted the chair’s high back. “Will it have dungeons?”
“Of course,” Death answered.
“Secret passages?”
“Certainly.”
“Lots of ledges and crannies?”
“Plenty.”
“Blind corridors?”
“Those, too.”
“Some of the stairways seem to do funny things.”
“Escher Effect,” Death said.
“A place one could slither through forever, bigger even than your current dwelling.”
“Exactly.”
“So you are pleased with it?”
“In my fashion.”
“You will cause it to be created then, here, in Deep Fields?”
“Not as it stands. It requires considerable elaboration.”
“And when that has been done… ?”
“Oh, yes. Then.”
* * *
Donnerjack found a set of revised specs waiting for him on a screen early in the morning. He lowered himself slowly into his chair and studied them. Tricky, very tricky, he decided, and why should the place have a nursery?
He called up a holo of his proposal on the nearest stage, stared at it, commenced rotating it. Tentatively, then, he entered some of the proposed changes, holding back those which would not lend themselves to representation here.
It was several hours before he had cobbled together an approximation worth examining in greater detail. When he had, he transferred a section of it to the Great Stage, went over and walked through it. Then he returned to his console, made adjustments, and moved another section to the Stage. He walked back and inspected it.
Later, deep into his alterations, he turned, to discover he was not alone.
“Ayradyss! Good morning. I didn’t realized you were up.”
She smiled, took his hand, and squeezed it. He drew her to him and they embraced and kissed.
“Yes, I was awakened again by an upset stomach. Might the food of Verite do that to one from Virtu?”
He shook his head.
“I don’t see why it should.”
“Well, I’ve been nauseated every morning for several days.”
“Really? Why didn’t you say something sooner? There are things you can take, to settle the stomach.”
“It always passes quickly. Then I am fine again.”
“Any other symptoms?”
“I threw up a little bit.”
“I will order something for your stomach.”
“Thank you, love. —This is your latest project?”
“Yes, the one I owe to the master of Deep Fields. I can set it to sequence for us, if you would like to walk through it with me.”
“I would. Shall we take coffee with us?”
“Let’s.”
* * *
Neither an eeksy nor a bounty, Virginia Tallent knew all their territories, though from a different vantage. She was a ranger with the Virtu Survey Department, keeping track of emerging territory and fluctuations in existing lands. She traveled far, observing and recording, and while her function was mainly passive, her knowledge was extensive. One of the few Veriteans employed in this capacity, she delighted in her work, hiking the wild lands and recording her discoveries there. Every day was a revelation to her. She worked harder than others in the business, and she resented returning home at the end of each tour of duty.
She climbed a trail amid rocks and ferns, flowers an
d squat trees. Above her, winged shapes—some fresh-emerged from red fruitlike cocoons—fled, croaking. Occasionally, a small, pale figure darted across her path. Slim, dark-haired and pale-eyed, skin the color of cocoa, she made her way with grace and agility. Hot breezes played through the morning’s sunlight, and her way lay within shade. She had timed it that way. Periodically, she would pause to sip from a water bottle or to record an observation.
At one point, a voice came to her out of a tree at a place where the green swirled darkly within it.
“Virginia Tallent, you have traveled far.”
“That is true,” she responded, slowing, “and the foliage here seems lusher than usual, for the season. And I’ve seen more hunting wilches.”
“Excessive rains, which favor the leaf-eating gronhers. They multiply quickly, as do the wilches who eat them. Soon the wilches will reach a point where their dancing begins. There will follow a southward migration on the part of the dire-cats, who prey on them.”
“Why southward?”
“When the gronhers’ numbers dwindle they will seek the herd-mice, which will soon be numerous in the south.”
“Why?”
“The grains they feed on are even now in unusual development, because of nutrient-bearing flooding earlier this year.”
“…And the land, from the rains?” she asked.
There was no reply. The green flame had ceased to dance.
She smiled and walked on. Clouds gathered and blocked the sunlight. There followed a low rumble of thunder. The trail bore her left, its steepness diminishing. A few drops of rain spattered against fronds. There came a flash of lightning. She hurried.
The full downpour caught her in a largely open area where the trail had widened as it neared the top of the plateau. She wisely avoided a grove of tall trees, choosing instead the less complete but safer shelter offered by some broad-leafed shrubs that partly intersected an outcropping of stone.
Seated, in a leal-fringed cave beneath the shrubs, she watched the water become a beaded curtain about her shelter, wiped occasional droplets from her brow, watched a stone in a less sheltered area to her right darken, saw its surface become a flow of glass and shadow.
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