Sea of Silver Light o-4

by Tad Williams

Sellars. Even after all this time, Renie recognized his voice. How strange, that he should look like that. If he looked like that. She suddenly felt a fierce homesickness for the real world, for things that felt and looked the way they were supposed to, that didn't change from second to second.

  The thing cocked its head at Sellars, then slowly wheeled to survey the others. "Nothing," it said at last. "I am here because I was . . . called. Were you not called, too?"

  "Called?" Renie asked. "Called to what?"

  The thing in Ricardo Klement's body did not answer, only turned its flat stare back to the rows of glowing cells.

  The others, cautiously at first, then with increasing confidence as Nemesis showed no signs of hostility or even interest, moved past the thing toward Renie and !Xabbu. As Sam Fredericks reached her, Renie found her eyes filling with tears again.

  "I haven't cried like this since I was a baby," she said, laughing as she hugged Sam. "I can't believe we're all here—all together again."

  "Oh, Renie! Look!" Sam turned back to grab Orlando and pull him toward them. The barbarian sim looked embarrassed, as though his resurrection from death had been some prank that he now regretted. "He's alive! Can you believe it?" Sam giggled wildly. "And you are, too! We looked for you—everywhere! But you were just utterly gone."

  For long moments it was chaos, but a happy chaos, despite the weirdness of the setting. Even T4b came forward and allowed Renie to put her arms around him.

  "Chizz you're not dead," he allowed, stiff and embarrassed in her embrace. "And the little bushy man, too."

  After more hugs and tears and even a couple of introductions, accompanied by a flurry of questions and half-answers, most of which left Renie feeling even more confused about what had happened—the Other had destroyed itself, it seemed, and had taken Jongleur and maybe even Dread with it—she made her way to Martine, who had hung back from the general gathering. Renie wrapped her arms around her friend, but was dismayed by the woman's passive resistance.

  "It's been bad for you," she said. "Oh, Martine, at least we're alive. That's something."

  "It is a great deal," the other said quietly. "I am sorry, Renie. I am very happy to see you well—happy for you, and for !Xabbu, too. Pay no attention to me. I . . . I am crippled. The end was . . . very bad."

  "It was bad for !Xabbu, too," Renie said. "I thought I'd lost him."

  Martine nodded and straightened; for the first time in a while Renie thought she saw in the woman's posture something of the companion she knew. Martine gently broke free, squeezed Renie's arm, then walked past her to !Xabbu. A moment later they were in whispered conversation.

  That's a step forward, Renie thought, pleased to see some animation in Martine's face. She could not think of a better ear for a heartsick person to find.

  "Just a moment." Florimel's voice cut across the other voices, loud and sudden. "I am as glad as anyone to have this reunion, but we were promised answers." She pointed at Sellars, who had been watching the gathering with a gentle, avuncular smile. "Well? I want to get out of this . . . false universe. I want to be with my daughter. If, as you say, her condition will not improve, at least I can see her, touch her. Why are we still here? What do you want to tell us?"

  It took Renie a moment to understand what Florimel meant about her daughter, then a spasm of nausea gripped her. Stephen—does that mean he won't get better either? She couldn't bear to think about it. After all this time, all that they had suffered . . . it wouldn't be fair. "No," she said aloud. "That can't be."

  "I did not say that," Sellars declared. "I have no idea what will happen to the children in comas. All I said was that I could not promise they would get better. But the reason for the coma is gone."

  "Because the Other is dead." Florimel's brisk, hard tone could not hide the anxiety beneath.

  "Yes."

  "But the system is still functioning," said the man who had introduced himself to Renie as Nandi something-complicated-with-a-P—the man from the Circle, as she thought of him for convenience. The one who had helped Orlando and Sam get out of the Egypt-world. "Thus it must still be . . . using those poor children. Sucking their lives like a vampire. That is why it must be destroyed."

  "Please wait until you understand everything,'" Sellars told him. "Florimel is right. The time has come for the rest of the explanation." He let his chair float a little higher in the air so that all could see him. "First off, I told you that there is a new operating system, one created with the help of TreeHouse technicians and others—a much more conventional operating system. The network no longer requires a linked network of human brains to function. Of course, it is not quite so dramatically realistic either, but that may improve. . . ."

  "So because the last survivors of the concentration camp are soon to be free or dead, should the camp itself remain open?" Nandi was scornful. "Become a holiday retreat, perhaps?"

  "It is a more difficult question than that," Sellars replied. "Children's brains were being used to run this system, but the ones victimized are not those we sought. The brains used to supplement and expand the processing power of the Other were those of the unborn—of fetuses, or perhaps even cloned brains. I have not discovered the whole truth yet, but I will. There is a near-infinity of information to sift, much of it hidden or deceitful. The Brotherhood did their best to hide their tracks,"

  "What exactly are you saying?" Renie asked. "Do you mean that my brother Stephen isn't part of the system? Or just that he isn't . . . in the system? That he isn't one of the children in the simulations, for instance."

  "He was never part of the system, not in the way we thought. Nor was Florimel's daughter or T4b's friend."

  "Fenfen!" snapped T4b. "Heard Matti, me. Heard 'im like he was standing there."

  "But all the signs pointed here, to this network!" Florimel said angrily. "What are you trying to tell us? That we were deluded? That we have suffered all this, watched friends die . . . for a coincidence?"

  "Not at all." He let his chair drift a little closer to her. Behind him, Ricardo Klement—No, Nemesis, Renie reminded herself, whatever the hell it is—settled himself . . . itself . . . on the floor, gazing intently up at the gleaming walls as though in some fabulous art gallery. "The network," Sellars went on, "—or more specifically, the Other—was certainly to blame for their comas. But only in the same way that the Other convinced all of you that you couldn't leave the network without suffering terrible pain. As I explained, the poor, lost creature we called the Other was a freakishly powerful telepath. Mind-reader, mind-controller—he was something of both. The mind-reading—the actual remote connection to a human brain—was the freakish part. But once contact could be made directly into the nervous system, everything else was probably relatively easy. After all, that is how I managed to control the boy Cho-Cho's speech centers and talk to you."

  "Talk, talk, that's all you do—but what are the answers?" growled Florimel. "Why is my daughter in a coma?"

  "Let me explain, please. It is not a simple story, even the little of it I have discovered.

  "Despite his arrogance and megalomania, I had wondered all along whether even Felix Jongleur would take the risk of exposure that would come from putting thousands of children into comas to complete his machine. And in fact, he did not. He and his minions were not satisfied with the Other—it was too powerful, too untrustworthy. So even while they built their system around it, while they told the rest of the Grail Brotherhood that everything was working perfectly, they were looking for possible substitutes, other telepaths and wild talents that might be able to replace the Other. They concentrated on children, both because they would be easier to mold to the system, and because they would physically last longer. One such discovery was the man you knew as Dread, although Jongleur found a very different use for him.

  "They had many different programs in place to sift through children and test them, private schools and clinics like the Pestalozzi Institute, which they also used to educate the Other, if such a
term can be used for such an inhuman practice. And there were places like the virtual club called Mister J's—the spot where I first met Renie and !Xabbu—which were a sort of preliminary screening device, meant to sift out the few interesting prospects from the millions of ordinary children. Two of Jongleur's lieutenants were in charge of this project, although Jongleur himself carefully watched over everything."

  "Finney and Mudd," Martine said. "The men who chased Paul."

  "Yes, although I doubt those were their real names. From what I have seen, they seem to have had a very unsavory background." Sellars frowned for a moment.

  "But those children—my brother!" Renie said. "Why are they in comas?"

  "Because Jongleur underestimated the Other. His own body stolen, the Other was given the whole of a fantastically complicated network to be his new body—but Jongleur and his minions did not understand the Other's ambition. More importantly, they did not understand his humanity . . . and his loneliness.

  "He discovered his power could be extended through electronic communications over a distance. Part of that power was a hypnotic effect—something the Other himself probably never understood, any more than the rest of us spend much energy considering our own vision or sense of balance. You all being trapped here is a perfect example. He wanted all of you to stay in the network. He was fascinated with you, for some reason—I watched him watching you, almost following you. . . ."

  "It was because of a story," Martine said in a raw voice. "About a boy in a well."

  "Ah. Well, I hope you will explain that to me later." For the second time in an hour, Sellars appeared startled. "But I should finish this story first.

  "The Other was interfacing with your minds directly, without you even realizing it. And at some level his wish to keep you, to hold onto you, translated into a direct plea planted in your subconscious. You could not go offline. Whether by pain or by the apparent disappearance of your neurocannular connections, you believed yourselves prevented, and it was so."

  "But that Other thing truly sixed now, right?" T4b asked anxiously. "We could go now. To our caves—home, like?"

  "Yes. But after I finish this explanation there is something very important I need from you—now, with you all gathered together."

  "Yeah? Thinkin' about it," T4b said. "Keep talkin', you."

  "So you're saying that the children like my brother were held here the same way?" Renie asked.

  "No. They were never truly here, not like we are. Instead, they were . . . and are, for all I know . . . in comas simply because the Other made it happen—perhaps even by accident.

  "I am guessing here, but I imagine that when the Other finally discovered how to move beyond the constraints of the Grail network, he reached out through Jongleur's own information web, then discovered Jongleur's ongoing search for suitable child-talents and infiltrated that as well, extending his powers all the way out into places like Mister J's. When the Other reached through that machinery and discovered the children on the other end—perhaps the first children he had been exposed to since the Pestalozzi Institute experiments, decades earlier—he must have been very excited. He tried to . . . examine these children, perhaps tried to communicate with them. I'm sure they resisted. You have all encountered the Other. He could not help the way he was, but that did not make him any less terrible, less frightening."

  Like a huge thing in the depths of the ocean, and me swimming, helpless, Renie thought. Like a killing frost. Like Satan himself, banished and lonely. . . . "Yes," she said. "Oh, God, yes, we remember."

  "Just so." Sellars nodded. "Faced with the resistance of a struggling, terrified child, my guess is that this psychologically malformed but powerful creature screamed out his own telepathic version of a command—'Be still' And so they became . . . still. But since he did not understand what he had done, he did not release them again when he was finished examining them."

  "Examining them?" Florimel sounded outraged. "What does that mean, 'examining them'? What did it want?"

  Sellars gave a half-shrug. "To make friends. There is no understanding this without remembering that the Other was himself essentially an abused, isolated child."

  Martine moved uncomfortably, seemed about to say something, but remained silent.

  "For friends?" Renie looked around at the others to see if she was the only one who didn't understand. "That's . . . I don't know. Hard to believe. It did all that to them, almost killed them . . . because it wanted to meet some new friends?"

  "You misunderstand me. I did not say 'meet,' I said 'make.' He wanted to make friends—literally. I believe that the Other wanted more than anything to be with other children like himself—or like the child he imagined himself to be. He studied real children so he could duplicate them within the network—surround himself with companions to ease the solitude."

  "So all those fairy-tale children like the Stone Girl and all the others we met here in the heart of the system. . . ." Renie tried to reason it out. "They're just . . . imitations? Made-up children?"

  "Yes. Cobbled together from his studies of real children like your brother, combined with the Other's memories—perhaps his only happy memories—of things Martine and other children had once taught him, rhymes, stories, songs. And I suspect there were more than just the fairy-tale creatures—that other invented children either escaped the Other's private place here or were created outside the sanctuary for some reason and never brought in. They wound up scattered throughout the Grail network—not human, but not part of the system either."

  "Paul Jonas called them 'orphans,' " Martine said softly, "although he did not understand what they were. His young friend Gally must have been one of them."

  "Orphans," Sellars said. "An apt term—especially now. But all of them would have been based at least in part on what the Other found in the minds of real children. That is why some of them retain memories, seem to have had some kind of prior life."

  "So . . . my Eirene is not on this network. . . ?" Florimel spoke slowly, as if just waking. "She has never been on this network?"

  "No. And as to whether the Other's post-hypnotic suggestion will now disappear, too, I can't say." Sellars shook his head grimly. "I wish I could, Florimel. If we are very lucky, your daughter and the other Tandagore children were only comatose because the Other retained some kind of continuous, reflexive mental grip on them, perhaps even by direct contact—through hospital lines, monitoring equipment, who knows? But I simply cannot guess what might happen now. We could study for years, I think, and never fully understand the Other."

  "So we don't know if they'll wake up?" Renie could not keep the bitterness out of her voice. "After all this. . . !"

  "We do not." He spoke carefully. "But perhaps there is more we can do to help them. Perhaps we can use the knowledge we have gained in some kind of therapy. . . ."

  "Oh, yes, therapy!" Renie bit her lip to keep from saying something that would lead her on into screaming and cursing. !Xabbu put his arm around her shoulders. She closed her eyes, suddenly sick of the place, the lights, everything.

  Orlando broke the startled silence. "That still doesn't explain me. Why am I here? Maybe if you've got super-hypnosis power you can tell someone, 'Be in a coma!' or 'Feel like you're on fire if you go offline!' and it works, but you can't just tell somebody who's dying, 'Don't be dead.' Sorry, but they wouldn't even try that in a Johnny Icepick flick."

  "We have not had much chance to talk, you and I," Sellars told him, "but I suspect you guess the answer already, Orlando. You have received the same kind of virtual mind as the Grail Brotherhood were expecting for themselves." He turned briefly to look at the Nemesis thing, which still seemed lost in some deep meditation. "And a body, too, like that one meant for Ricardo Klement, which was . . . borrowed, instead. But yours was constructed for you by the Other, just as he did for Paul Jonas—he may have been using some version of the Grail process on you the entire time you were in the system, letting your own brain build itself a virtual duplic
ate. He did follow you closely, Orlando, that I know for certain. Perhaps he felt some unspoken . . . affinity to you. To your illness, your struggle."

  Orlando shook his head. "It doesn't matter. Dead is dead, and that's what I really am."

  Before Sam Fredericks or anyone else could protest, they were distracted by a sudden movement from the Nemesis creature, who stood.

  "The next ones are almost ready," Nemesis said. "I have a . . . feeling, I think it would be called. That I . . . desire waiting to end. Is that a feeling?"

  "What's that fenpole talking about?" growled T4b. "What 'next ones'?"

  Renie, who had been present for the Klement-thing's first groping explorations of language, could not help feeling disturbed that it now seemed to think it was having feelings, too.

  "What it is talking about is the last part of these long explanations," Sellars said. "The reason we are here—and my most shamed confession." He extended his thin arm to indicate the honeycomb of lights. The gleam of it was less now, as though the fires were banked, but its bizarre potentiality still set Renie's nerves twitching. Sellars seemed oddly nervous, too. "These are the Other's true children."

  "What—another abomination?" Nandi from the Circle spoke lightly, but Renie heard a flash of real rage.

  "But this can't be them," Sam Fredericks said indignantly. "All those teddy bears and Bubble Bunnies and things like that, the ones that didn't get killed, they were still up there like half an hour ago, up at the top of the pit. How did they get here?"

  "They are not here. These are something different. Please bear with me a little longer, Sam," Sellars asked her. "Just a little longer.

  "Most of you do not know my true story, but I will spare you all the details now. I have certainly talked enough already, and there is much more that must be said, and quickly."

  Sellars hurried through an explanation of the PEREGRINE project and its tragic ending. Renie found herself almost overwhelmed. Is there no end to these strange stories? she wondered. How much more can we absorb?