Lady of Mazes

Home > Other > Lady of Mazes > Page 25
Lady of Mazes Page 25

by Karl Schroeder


  "Why?" he said bitterly. "Nothing works."

  "Well, nothing's worked so far" she said. At this Aaron turned, to see the vote smiling mischievously.

  "In order to stage a credible attack on the anecliptic's empire, you need a staging area that's free and clear of the Government's influence." She sauntered out onto the balcony. "Doran Morss's worldship was a good idea, but as you discovered, it's not far enough removed from the Government networks."

  He snorted. "And I suppose you know of a better place?"

  "As a matter of fact," said Filament, "I do."

  18

  Qiingi watched the little boat pop up to the tops of waves and then disappear into the pits that rolled after diem. It was only a kilometer away from shore now; he was surprised it had made it this far. Behind it stretched a gray expanse of sea that curved slowly up until the shoreline of Doran's Scapa became visible, a mottled gray-green scab in the haze.

  Either a couple of fishermen from Scapa's verso hamlet were lost, or this was some kind of a rescue party. Did they really mink that they wouldn't be caught? He shook his head in grudging admiration at the sheer determination they were showing. But in the week that he and Livia had been stranded here on this rocky isle, no one had made it to shore here.

  In his fury over their supposed part in the attack on the Scotland's systems, Doran Morss had exiled them here in an inscape-free part of the worldship. The woman Veronique had been sent to another nearby island. Doran had declared that he would summon them all to account for themselves soon. But even he seemed to have forgotten about them.

  Squatting on the sand, Qiingi idly drew a circle with a cross inside it Everything moved in circles, the elders had told him; everything was made of teotl and so was hurrying to become whatever it was not. Teotl might be just a story, but it was a story about a real thing. It was the story of how men and women made sense of their lives.

  Teotl was inscape, he knew. It made a story out of life. And the great spirit Ometeotl was the tech locks. Inscape could tell the tale — as it did in the Archipelago — but only the locks could make the narrative of life both meaningful and true.

  He watched the waves roll in and out. They didn't change at his whim. Qiingi felt a laugh build up in him; shaking his head he walked back up the beach.

  He was humming as he pushed open the driftwood and pine-bow door. Livia looked up from where she was coaxing more heat from the fire. "You're uncommonly cheerful today," she said.

  "I was just thinking," he said. "Doran Morss does not know it, but he did us a favor by stranding us here."

  "A favor?" She squinted at him. "How?"

  "His rules have become our tech locks," said Qiingi. "As the days roll on, my mind clears more and more. I'm beginning to understand everything that happened to us. Without this stable manifold," he gestured at the walls, "I could not have done that." He sat down on the flat stone bench that was the only piece of furniture here other than their rude bed.

  She smiled ruefully and shook her head. "Lucky for you that the place is so similar to where you grew up."

  "Of course, you must miss your Society." He took her hand. "But at the same time, there is a marvelous silence here that I haven't felt since I left Raven's people. Don't you feel it?"

  "I feel cut off and helpless," she said, hugging herself. "But I was starting to feel that way even before we were stranded here. Doran was right — public life isn't possible under the annies. Anyway, what would we be doing if we were free? Just wallowing in our narratives like everybody else."

  "Maybe — but the Archipelago no longer intimidates me," he said with a shrug. "These people think they have access to every answer humanity has invented to explain life and the world. They believe they can pick and choose, but it is not so. When there are too many explanations for something, its meanings are lost"

  She frowned at him. "That's unusually cryptic, even for you."

  He sighed. "We suffered a great loss. We are refugees. I know you struggled long against accepting mat The narratives helped you do that, by fitting everything that happened to you here into a meaningful story with you at its heart. You tried not to be deceived, as did I — but as long as you could even change your view of this Archipelago, you could find some new way to put off facing our loss. Would you have done that back home? I don't think so. You can only run so far in a manifold."

  She turned away. "You're saying Teven was real, and the Archipelago is an illusion."

  "Yes. And I am saying that we have lost Teven." She looked at him again, her face still as a statue. "Perhaps the time for grieving is over," he continued quietly. 'It is time to feel awe and pride at what we once had; accept that we have it no more, and move on."

  "And how do I do that?" she asked.

  He quirked a smile. "I don't know. But Livia, there is a tiny boat out in the bay. It seems to be trying to make it to shore."

  "Oh!" She jumped up and ran to open the door. "Think they'll make it?"

  "No." He looked over her shoulder; she needed a bath, he thought idly — but then, so did he. "Look there."

  A hair-thin black line had appeared below the clouds: a skyhook, lowering down over the bay.

  "A week ago you would have run down the sands to see if it was Aaron returning to you," said Qiingi. She had waited for Aaron for the first few days; she had stood by the shore and watched for boats. But he had not come, nor had Doran Morss's agents delivered him as a prisoner. She had not spoken his name for two days.

  She winced. "Are you asking whether I've finally stopped struggling? If I've accepted our situation?" She returned to the fire and sat by it, clenching her hands in her lap. She peered up at him with stark intensity. "You're asking me to accept that we failed our mission. That we've let down our friends, our families — everyone who ever meant anything to us. You say they're gone forever. And I need to accept that."

  He watched her sadly as she struggled to breathe around these words. Finally she looked down at the dirt floor. "I can do it, you know. I can let them all go. It's just that ... once I've done that, what will I have left?" Her eyes held agony.

  "I don't know," he said softly. "But learning that is our task now." She nodded, her shoulders slumped.

  Several minutes passed. She remained sitting, head bent, and he stood by the door. Then she looked up, a ghost of a smile on her face. "Go on," she said.

  "What?"

  "You're dying to go down to the shore, just to see what's happening, aren't you?" Qiingi crossed his arms uncomfortably. But she was right. "Oh, go on," she said with a weary wave of the hand. "I'll be all right. And I'm sure they'll appreciate knowing that you saw them." He smiled, and left the cabin to trudge back to the beach.

  He raised his hand to the little boat, and was rewarded by a wave back. The skyhook resolved into a black cable with a nest of grappling arms at its end. Its claws were big enough to pick up the entire boat and it seemed determined to do just that. Qiingi watched with interest and some regret. It would have been good to know what was happening elsewhere in the wide world.

  Suddenly some kind of wooden arm shot from the bottom of the fishing boat. A whirling net flew straight up and entangled the descending hand of the skyhook. Qiingi gave a shout of surprise, then laughed. They had seen this coming; the versos were not so naive as people assumed — himself included, apparently.

  The fishing boat shot forward. They had some kind of engine in there. Now it left a white wake behind it and the nose tilted up with the force of its push. "Livia, you should see this!" he shouted, knowing his voice probably wouldn't carry inside the cabin from here.

  The skyhook clenched and unclenched its spider fingers, trying to dislodge the net. Above it a second one popped out of the clouds and plummeted at the boat. Do-ran must have an endless supply of those things, and they would be wary of the nets now.

  A brave attempt by the versos, but doomed to failure.

  A shimmer just offshore caught Qiingi's attention. The waves there seeme
d skewed, out of synch with one another in one — no, in two spots. The horizon became clipped and rose up and down just over the waves; then he understood what he was seeing.

  Two man-sized, man-shaped things had just stood up out of the water. They were nearly invisible, but the view of the waves behind them was updated just a fraction of a second late, making the sea and sky jerky in those spots. The two nearly-invisible men splashed out of the surf and ran toward Qiingi.

  He backed away, frightened but aware that it was far too late for him to try anything. Irrationally, he wondered whether one of those figures was the false ancestor Kale, come to pay Qiingi back for dropping a tree on him.

  "Come on!" said a male voice as a half-visible arm waved at him. "We need to get inside." The two forms raced past Qiingi and he found himself standing still for a moment, staring. Then he ran after them.

  "The boat," he shouted. "It was a decoy!"

  "Yeah, aren't we brilliant?" Both human-shaped blurs were waiting at the hut's door. One gestured for Qiingi to precede them. "After you, Voicewalker."

  "How did you know — " He pushed in ahead of them. Livia stood up, eyes wide. "Livia, we have visitors, I — "

  "Who are you?" she said. Qiingi turned.

  As the door shut the two men became visible. They looked like brothers, similarly tall and slender, with elfin faces and delicate jaws. They were sopping wet and had identical, ridiculous grins on their faces as they high-fived one another.

  "Ha, I knew it would work!"

  "No you didn't, you whined about the plan all the way — "

  "That was just to motivate you."

  "I'll motivate you, just wait."

  "But Livia, here we are! You didn't think we'd leave you helpless, did you?" The man puffed out his chest with pride.

  "It can't be," muttered Livia.

  Qiingi looked from her to the men. "What? Who are these people?"

  She swallowed and shook her head. "If I'm right, you've met them before, Qiingi. But you were never formally introduced." She walked up to the first man. "Qiingi Voicewalker, this is — "

  "Peaseblossom!"

  "And I'm Cicada!" And they stuck out their hands for him to shake.

  The lads professed to be hungry, so Livia brought out one of the loaves of bread that occasionally fell from the sky. "Are these bodies biological, then?" asked Qiingi politely, as the agents piled cheese and raw onions on big slabs of bread.

  "Oh, no, we just like to eat," said Cicada.

  "Give me that!" Livia grabbed the sandwich away from him.

  The momentary annoyance — somehow reassuring because it proved to her that these really were her faeries — finally made Livia snap out of the state of shock she'd been in since they arrived. "But what are you doing here? And how did you get ... these?" She indicated their robust bodies.

  "Some of your fans made them for us," said Cicada.

  "Along with some supplies; and when they heard that Doran Morss had kidnaped you, the whole bunch of them went together and got us a ship. It's waiting outside." He pointed down.

  "Fans? What fans?'

  "Well, you know," said Peaseblossom around a large mouthful. "You're a huge celebrity now so there's thousands of people willing to kick in to support whatever you do."

  "Celebrity?" She stared at them, then noticed that Qi-ingi was looking guilty. "Why? Tell me."

  "Well." Qiingi looked to the others for support. Cicada whistled and examined his fingernails. Peaseblossom just grinned.

  "Remember when we first arrived in mis place," said Qiingi reluctantly. "Our inscape was unguarded. Your own data stores were raided by data-thieves ... "

  She paled. "Oh no."

  "Many of your recorded experiences were stolen in those few seconds. We didn't know. And ... Livia, we just found out about the Life of Livia — "

  "The what?"

  In a state of horrified disbelief, she heard Qiingi tell her that her memories had been distributed as an entertainment; millions of people had seen them. As the vast depths of die data began to become obvious, he said, the Life of Livia had recently taken on a new significance. There was enough of Teven there for people to become intensely curious about the manifolds. Versos and even mainstream citizens had begun styling themselves after Westerhaven fashions, and adjusting their narratives to resemble the Societies of Livia's home.

  "But this is — it's impossible!" She couldn't stay still, but paced up and down the narrow confines of the cabin, wringing her hands. "It's like rape! How much do they know? What have they seen?" She felt physically ill at the thought. Finally she rounded on Qiingi. "Why didn't you tell me?"

  He shrank back from her intensity. "I did not think you were prepared to hear it in the right spirit," he said. "It would have been one more confirmation that your public life has been stolen from you."

  "It's not that bad," said Cicada, patting her arm. "When people copy the Life, they also unknowingly copy us, and we've been guarding the stuff you wouldn't want anyone to see."

  "We even changed your looks — "

  "We've been talking to the other copies of us, so we could coordinate it — "

  "And we hide the important stuff."

  She shook her head. "That was not your decision to make! You should have told me! So ... so how many copies are there?"

  "As of now?" Cicada leaned back, cracking his knuckles behind his head. "Well, about seven hundred million, I'd say."

  Screaming seemed too weak a reaction at this point. Livia slumped down in a corner, hating them all.

  "It's the versos," said Qiingi hurriedly. "It's not you they're interested in — well, except insofar as you're what Mr. Morss called a 'baseline' for them to emulate. No, it's Westerhaven they're fascinated by. And Raven's people, and the other manifolds. There is nothing like them here."

  Cicada nodded violently. "There's this huge movement to try to make manifolds, but they don't know how to do it, because the plans for the tech locks weren't included in the Life. People know about tech locks now, but they're having trouble making them — "

  "Because the key to the locks is this giganormous database," said Peaseblossom, "that cross-references a thousand years of anthropological data on how technologies affect culture."

  "We looked into this database thing," said Cicada. "The data were compiled centuries ago by scientists in the monoculture. A huge effort. But all existing copies were corrupted in the Viability War that ended with the anecliptics coming to power."

  "There were rumors at the time that a clean copy of the database was saved," said Peaseblossom. "By one of the main researchers. A woman named — "

  "Ellis!" laughed Cicada. "Maren — "

  " — Ellis." Peaseblossom glared at Cicada.

  "And anyway," pouted Cicada, "everybody's coming down hard on the versos who are trying to build manifolds. They say that tech locks would be disastrous — "

  "Who says so?" Qiingi stood up in sudden excitement "Do you know who it is that's so opposed to creating locks?"

  Cicada shot him a reproachful look. "Well, I was just getting to that, wasn't I? It's certainly not the Government, though it doesn't approve, as it made abundantly clear to us the last time we spoke." He nudged Peaseblossom and rolled his eyes.

  "There's all kinds of people against it," said Peaseblossom. "Lots of the votes — basically, churches and any social groups that are trying to expand. They've figured out that tech locks equal horizons, in the long run. And horizons would prevent them from expanding, see?"

  "And don't even get me started about the Good Book people," scoffed Cicada.

  His words somehow penetrated Livia's cocoon of misery. She looked up. "The Book isn't connected to any political movement," she said. "It's just an emergent system."

  "Yeah, but what emerges?" asked Cicada. "Not just a Utopian human society, but all kinds of solitons and other high-level constructs that you can't see from the human level. The Book's an insanely complex system on the macro level. And that mac
ro level sends orders back down to the bottom; it's a feedback loop, like your own brain." He pointed at her head.

  "The thing is, the book relies on open communications," said Peaseblossom, "except that it needs to communicate through different channels than inscape. Any hint of a manifoldlike horizon would fragment it It would be the network equivalent of a stroke."

  Livia barely heard him. Her head was still rattling with the idea that millions of people had ransacked her private records.

  Cicada was saying, "You'd have to write a new version of the Book for every manifold, because technological differences change the way the roles interact. Not that people seem to mind doing rewrites. Apparently," Cicada leaned forward conspiratorially, "they've been adapting the Book to nonhuman species in the Archipelago. Trying to make the anecliptics obsolete by creating an emergent civilization that includes the post-humans."

  To shut him up, Livia reached under the rock shelf that served as a bed, and brought out her copy of the Book. "Sophia said she was giving me the very latest version." She tossed it on the table and went back to fuming.

  "Really?" Peaseblossom flipped through the Book. "Oh, yeah, the text is changing — I think it's trying to figure out what class of entity I am." He stuck out his tongue at the book and slammed it shut.

  Livia took it from him, but didn't put it away. Instead, she flipped distractedly through it. She hadn't looked at it since their exile here; the rules of the Book were pretty irrelevant to a society of two.

  "So there's lots of versions, are there?" she said indifferently.

  "Yeah. It's easy to verify," said Cicada. "With printed books, they always put that information right in the front."

  "Hmmph." None of it mattered; all this talk of politics was just a way to avoid the real question that was eating at her. She nervously flipped through the Book as she summoned her courage. Then she asked, "What about Aaron?"

  Cicada and Peaseblossom glanced at one another. "I'm sorry," said Cicada. "We haven't been able to find a trace of him since the inscape virus."

 

‹ Prev