"Ah." Blinking, she looked down, to find herself staring at the first page of the Book. She was too bereft to think, or to really take in the column of words there, the descriptions of where it was updated, according to what sims and when.
And then some lettering near the bottom leaped into focus: Revision No. 3340.
"There's been another breach, sir."
The words came through an old-fashioned speaking tube that ran up through the ceiling of the tunnel where Doran stood. He put it to his mouth and said, "Anybody we know?"
"It's Haver and her friend. They've got visitors."
"From the fleet?"
"Apparently not, sir."
Doran shrugged. "Then forget them. We've got more important things to worry about."
He'd opened an inscape window earlier today to watch a veritable cloud of ships that was approaching his Scotland. They were of all sizes and shapes — yachts, city-ships, shutdes, freight bots, and one-person sun-dancers. All were crowded with people who individually had no idea why they were here — except that the Book had told them to come. They'd all been given roles like Warrior and Scout. One man Doran had spoken to had excitedly explained how some sort of feedback loop had set in: he couldn't change his role anymore. Every other user of the Book this man met reinforced his role as Herald.
Collectively, they had decided that their new status had something to do with Doran Morss. Now their makeshift armada was preparing to besiege the worldship — and, co-incidentally or not, the Scotland's defensive systems were still off-line.
He paced down the stone steps that led deeper into the caves. This tunnel led to one of his clean rooms — an area of the worldship free of nosy anecliptic nano, and totally lacking inscape projectors. Officially, the place didn't exist. During the chaos of the past week Doran had felt himself under a microscope; even the annies might be watching after the fiasco with inscape. So for the past week, he had been unable to come down here and confirm with his own eyes what he already knew must have happened.
He rounded a corner and the great cavern opened out below him. This was a natural space, discovered in one of the asteroids he'd dismantled to build the Scotland. Do-ran had kept the cavern and shaved away the rest of the asteroid from around it. He liked the bizarre twisting shapes the stone made overhead; the overall impression of the place was forbidding. The last time he'd been here, brilliant spotlights had pinioned a strange object that nestled in the very center of the cavern. Now he let his breath out in a whoosh as he looked down on the empty cradle where the eschatus machine had sat.
As he'd thought. The attack on his inscape had been a cover operation. The real target was to steal the eschatus machine. With no working inscape, none of his ordinary servants could prevent the theft. The versos said they'd seen lights here that night, but what could they do? All they had was a few boats.
Doran clattered down the last few meters of catwalk and approached the empty metal cradle.
He should never have hesitated. He should have just stepped inside the machine and let the overhead cranes slam home the plug. Once the seams had grown together, the thing would have been ready. A single command from him and the process would start. The machine would drop out of the Scotland and once in free fall and well away from the worldship, it would explode. This particular machine peaked at fifty megatons.
If he'd done that, he would have transcended his human form instantaneously. The energy of the explosion wouldn't burst out randomly, it would be channeled, down to the microscopic level, into a creative reorganization of the machine's matter. Doran's body and brain would have become a template for a new, vastly more sophisticated and powerful entity. An equal to Choronzon. Eventually, perhaps, he might have become an equal to the annies themselves.
Faint sounds drifted down from the speaking tube. It sounded like someone was trying to get his attention. Do-ran hunched his shoulders, glaring at the empty cradle. Humanity needed a champion, it was as simple as that; and no merely human being could be that champion any more. The armies must be opposed. But despite decades of careful planning under total secrecy, somehow he'd been found out.
"Choronzon," he murmured.
"Good theory," said a familiar voice. "But wrong."
Doran started, cursed, and looked up. The vote Filament stood on a catwalk near die entrance of the cavern. She was cradling some sort of projectile weapon in her arms.
"The diing about an eschatus machine," she said as she strolled down the steps, "is that every atom of it has to be placed just so. Shake it up a bit, God forbid put a crack in it, and it can't organize its energies anymore. It's just a very big bomb." She hefted her weapon suggestively. "It's always best to move them when there's nobody around who might object."
"Why have you done this?" he snapped.
"But Doran, we haven't spoken in days," she said with a smile. "Not since my fleet appeared. It seems you've been avoiding me."
Doran had always known that Filament was the Good Book's vote. Despite his contempt for the Book, it had never been an issue. She was a vote, after all; ultimately she worked for the Government. And the Government had no jurisdiction over Doran Morss.
"You set this up, didn't you?" he asked as he backed away from the cradle. Filament sat down casually on a metal step, her amber eyes bright in the shadows. "Did the Government put you up to it?"
"The Government knows nothing about it," she said. "It was the Book's plan."
"The Book? How can the Book have a plan?" He shook his head in anger and frustration. "It's not a thing."
"You know that doesn't matter," she said. "Anyway, you should be saying, 'it's not a thing yet.'
"Because with your help, very soon it will be."
"I've never seen her jump like that," Peaseblossom was saying.
"There was that time when she was ten, and the wasps came out of the treehouse — "
"Oh, yeah!"
Livia and Qiingi were sitting on either side of the fire, with the Book open on the hearth between them. They had been staring at it for a while now, not knowing what to do or say. Livia felt like some primitive faced with her first radio. The thought made her giggle incongruously. "Where are the little men who make it go?" she asked, lifting one leaf of the thing to peer under.
Cicada misinterpreted her. "There's no central authority behind the Book — it's open-sourced. It's compiled by testing new rules on simulated societies. If the majority of people act a certain way, what happens? The sims are open to everyone to examine."
"The Book is one thing," said Qiingi. "The behavior of its followers is another thing entirely." He looked, if possible, even more shocked than Livia felt.
She glanced up at him. "You think the Book's users are behind the invasion of Teven? But anybody who's fanatical about the Book is so because they refuse to organize any other way ... How would they coordinate such an attack? Through the Book itself?" She shook her head. "I don't think it's that specific in its commands."
"Oh, it can be," said Cicada.
"But they wouldn't have to use it," said Peaseblossom. "After all, just like every other interest group in the Archipelago, the Book has its vote."
Livia and Qiingi both sat up straight. "Let me guess," said Livia. "The Book's vote is named — "
"Filament," said Qiingi.
Peaseblossom stood up suddenly. "Uh oh."
"Are you thinking what I'm — " said Cicada.
"Yeah. Okay, people, we gotta go."
"Go? How?" Qiingi looked from one agent to the other. "What do you propose we do? Run into the sea with you? Fly away? Or become invisible as you were and hide among the rocks? Doran Morss will find us anywhere aboard this worldship."
"Yeah, that's why we're leaving it." Cicada and Pease-blossom began clearing an area of hard-packed earth in the center of the hut's floor. "We're not going out, or up. We're going down."
Cicada then did something very unsettling. He opened his shirt, reached his right hand over to the left side of his
chest, and pulled. His whole chest hinged out like a door, revealing a large cavity inside. He pulled several packages out of the space and slammed himself shut again. Behind him, Peaseblossom was doing the same.
"Activate these," said Cicada, tossing two translucent packages to Livia and Qiingi. "Emergency angels, Archi-pelagic style. They'll keep you going when we hit vacuum."
Peaseblossom knelt down and began pouring some sort of liquid in a big circle on the sand. "Sealant," he said. "It'll keep the hole from collapsing for a minute or so while we leave. You two had better step outside for a second. We're about to blow the roof off your happy home." He hefted a metal sphere about the size of a fist.
Livia and Qiingi hastily left. Outside it was getting dark, and a chilly wind was blowing in off the sea. The illusion that they were on a planet was pretty good at this time of day, but there was no way she could believe in it now. Nervously, she pressed the emergency angel against her throat and it blossomed around her like a solid mist. Beside her, Qiingi did the same.
Nothing happened for a minute or so. Qiingi paced in an agitated circle around Livia. She was about to ask him what was wrong when a fearsomely loud bang! knocked her to her knees. She watched in fascination as the hut's roof did indeed fly away. The hut's stone walls leaned out drunkenly and one collapsed. A ripple of leaping dust spread out to sea and inland up the rocks, as the skin of the worldship bounced from the explosion.
"Okay!" Peaseblossom — or Cicada, it was hard to tell — opened the door, which promptly fell apart. "Your ride is waiting, Lady!"
There was a large hole where the hard-packed floor of the hut had been. A whirling tornado stood over it, and sandwiches, bedding, spare clothes, Qiingi's tools were all being sucked into it. One of her faeries took a nonchalant step and was yanked down and away. And there went the Book —
She lunged for it, managing to snag one corner before she realized she was over the hole and being pushed from behind by what felt like a giant's hand. Livia had a split second in which to curl into a defensive ball, and then she was in the hole.
Stars whirled around her. Peaseblossom's face came into view then swung away again. She saw the flat black surface of the worldship and the hole, which was rapidly sailing away from her; now Qiingi appeared through it, blazing sunlit on one side and blackly invisible on the other, a half-man. Fog swirled around him.
Then someone grabbed her leg and she was hauled unceremoniously into an airlock that had appeared suddenly out of nowhere. The others bumped in after her and Livia staggered to her feet in a nauseatingly different rotational gravity.
"Thank the Book!" said Sophia as she slammed the hatch shut. "You're safe!"
PART THREE
The Good Book
Politics will eventually be replaced by imagery.
The politician will be only too happy to abdicate in favor of his image, because the image will be much more powerful than he could ever be.
— Marshall McLuhan
19
"Why are you looking at me like that?" Sophia was backing away from Wordweaver Livia. Livia glared at her with such intensity that Qiingi thought he should step between them. "I came to rescue you," said Sophia, appealing to Qiingi. "Livia, it's me, Sophia."
The city of Brand New York shone in sunlight outside the windows. A few of Sophia's friends — the hangers-on of her narrative — lounged around her apartments. Several were intently scanning copies of the Book. Had Qiingi not just seen a vision of whirling darkness and stars, he might have thought he was really there. As it was, the sight brought back all his distaste at the illusions of the Archipelago. Better a sod hut on the beach than this.
"Did you bring Sophia into this?" Livia asked Pease-blossom. Her voice had that metallic quality it got when she was angry. "Or did she find you?"
Peaseblossom toed the floor. "Actually, she found us."
Livia opened her moudi, closed it, men visibly took control of herself. "I'm sorry, Sophia," she said. "It's been a day of shocks, and I'm afraid it's not over yet. I'm going to have to ask you to do something for me that you won't like." She looked around the tiny room. "Who is the captain here?"
Peaseblossom shrugged. "Sophia was the ruling human until you arrived. But we all agreed to see what you would do once you got out. Where do you want to go?"
"I don't know. But could you shut down all our outside communications, please? Immediately?"
Sophia gaped at her. "But that would cut us off! The only reason I agreed to come along physically on this mission was — "
"Because you could do it and continue to live in your own narrative, I know. Peaseblossom, Cicada, do as I say." She walked over to Sophia. "Here's the part you won't like. I'd like to shut down inscape entirely, at least for now."
Their words washed over Qiingi, a gabble of noise. He knew he should be trying to catch up to everything that had just happened, but his mind couldn't stop whirling back to one terrible question:
Had he been wrong? Had he given up on their mission too soon?
Sophia was staring at Livia as if she were insane. "Why are you doing this?"
"I'll explain in a minute," said Livia. At that moment the sumptuous apartment disappeared from around them. Qiingi now found himself standing in a rather cramped plastic room. It had several doors and, in the floor, the big metal panel through which they had entered. Qiingi looked around the place in sad distaste.
"Turn it back on!" yelled Sophia. "Things are happening — important things! I need to be in the loop!"
"You've been in touch with other users of the Book all through this, haven't you?" asked Livia. She seemed coolly accusatory.
Puzzled and angry, Sophia nodded. "Of course I've been in the loop. I'm trying to help! Why else would I be here?'
Qiingi finally roused himself from his bewildered misery. He put a hand on Livia's arm. "Moderate yourself," he said. "None of them know."
"Kale knew," she said, shrugging him off. He frowned and retreated to a corner. He knew he should argue against what she was saying — but he couldn't think right now.
Nonetheless, Livia seemed to relent "I'm sorry," she said to Sophia. "We ... have reason to believe mat we're being tracked through our inscape connections. Until we get to the bottom of it, we need to run silent."
Sophia seemed devastated — but not with the shock of an inhabitant of the manifolds suddenly thrust out of them. Hers was more a profound distaste, as if she had learned that all her friends were low-born criminals. Silently she led the way into another of the ship's rooms; she stared around at the place as though seeing it for the first time, as in fact she was.
This place was quite large, and Qiingi supposed someone already out of touch with nature might consider it luxurious. There were actual oil paintings on the walls, and a deep artificial carpet that he instinctively hesitated to step onto. Livia collapsed on a couch in a boneless pose, and Qiingi had to smile; he did understand her relief at having a surface softer than sand under her for a change. Still, for him it was sufficient to have a wall to lean on.
Livia seemed spent. Qiingi knew he should think about what was happening, but he didn't know where to start. He turned to glowering Sophia. "You said 'things are happening,'" he said. "What things?" Sophia was staring around at the walls as if she'd been thrown in prison.
"Skyy — uh, Qiingi — you need to see it," said Sophia. "You have to be involved! You too, Livia. That really is your name? We really need to be connected right now, because the votes — the Government — they're being dismantled! All over the Archipelago. It just started happening spontaneously, like an adhocratic sort of thing."
Livia looked up wearily. "It's the Book." Sophia nodded vigorously.
"Yes. We've reached critical mass — that's what people are saying. Nobody knows for sure, of course, it's not like you can talk to the Book directly ... but it has its votes, you know."
"But what started it?"
Sophia smiled. "That inscape virus that came out of Doran Mo
rss's worldship. It knocked out the Government on a bunch of coronals, but you see, the Book wasn't affected. People started flocking to it, and it's suddenly issuing very clear directives ... "
"So ... it was the Book who put you in touch with Cicada and Peaseblossom?" he asked her. His head was starting to hurt
"No. It was the Government. One day she came to me and pressed me to visit some sims. No explanation — but then she likes to play it mysterious. On a whim I started exploring the Life of Livia, because it's become part of a lot of narratives. I met a copy of your Cicada in a sim of Westerhaven; he was disguised as an old gardener. When he found out I knew you, he let me in on everything."
Livia lay back, flinging an arm over her eyes. "What is going on?"
Qiingi realized that he had somehow wedged himself into a corner of the room. "Does any of this matter?" he asked desperately. "We still cannot return home."
Livia stared at him in a way he hoped was not accusatory. "We don't know that anymore. Do we."
He sat down on the floor, shaking his head unhappily. "I am sorry. I gave up too soon."
"No, Qiingi, don't think that — how could we have known this would happen? Anyway, it's too soon to know where we stand." She yawned spasmodically. "And I don't think we're going to figure it out right this second."
She sat up. "We need to sleep. Boys, are we safe?"
Cicada poked his head around the doorjamb. "Nobody's coming after us. A bunch of ships are converging on the worldship. Either Doran Morss is gathering reinforcements, or he's in big trouble, too."
"Then let's get back to Brand New York while we can," said Sophia.
Qiingi looked over at Livia; she was nodding.
"No!" he said, levering himself to his feet.
He had everybody's attention now. "No," he repeated. "We are not going back to the narratives. We are not going back to the Government and we are not going back to the Book."
"Where else is there?" asked Sophia in annoyance.
"Home," said Qiingi forcefully. He stood up and stepped out of his corner. 'Teven Coronal may be officially off limits to any Archipelagic ship, but obviously the Book's followers found a way to get mere. If they can do it, so can we."
Lady of Mazes Page 26
