Ruins

by Orson Scott Card

  But they did not take the stairs. “Down,” said Vadesh, and a set of doors opened to reveal a smallish room. Vadesh walked in. Loaf and Rigg followed, and then the doors closed. Rigg could not understand why they would enter such a room, which had no doorway other than the one they had come through.

  “It’s an elevator,” said Loaf. “It’s on pulleys. The whole room goes up and down, with counterweights to balance us. Some of the taller buildings in O have them, and a bank in Aressa Sessamo had one, too.”

  “Very good,” said Vadesh. “Only there’s no counterweight.”

  They plummeted.

  “Exhilarating, isn’t it?” asked Vadesh.

  Rigg and Loaf were both clutching at the wall, filled with panic.

  “Oh, sorry,” said Vadesh. “I forget how sensitive humans can be.”

  Suddenly the sensation of falling went away. “Now we have a mild inertial field. You have to understand that humans knew about this sort of thing when we first built the colony. They used to enjoy riding the elevator down without the field. They enjoyed the thrill.”

  “Then they weren’t human,” said Loaf.

  “Oh, people get used to so many things,” said Vadesh, “if they only give themselves the chance.”

  The doors opened. There was a bridge in front of them, spanning a gap of about six meters. On the other side was a smooth, convex surface of fieldsteel, exactly like the surface of the Tower of O.

  As they stepped onto the bridge, Rigg looked to left and right, up and down. “It’s the Tower of O, lying on its side,” he said.

  “Let’s say that the Tower of O, as you describe it, was probably intended to be a monument to a starship. Not the real thing. Come along. Ship, open!” said Vadesh.

  A gap appeared in the side of the ship, right where the bridge ended.

  “Welcome to the starship that brought humanity to Garden,” said Vadesh.

  “One of nineteen,” said Rigg.

  “It began as a single ship,” said Vadesh. “We had an accident. The physics of it is beyond you, I promise you.”

  “You never know how much Father taught me,” said Rigg.

  “I know he didn’t teach you that, because even the ship’s computers don’t understand it. Nineteen computers brought one ship into the folds of space, but brought it out again in nineteen slightly different locations. Oops.”

  “And where on this starship are you taking us?” asked Rigg.

  “To the control room. To the place where all the decisions were made. Where Ram Odin plunged the human race toward its first successful colony on an earthlike planet.”

  As they walked along narrow passages, Rigg got the distinct impression that something was helping them move—that each step took them farther than it should, that their bodies were somehow lighter here. Another field? Probably.

  A door opened and they stepped into a spotlessly clean room, walls and floor and ceiling all the same light-brown color. Along one wall there was what seemed to be a track, rather like the passage that the wagon had run along, only much narrower. There were doors at both ends.

  In the middle of the room was a table, about as long as Vadesh was tall. Dangling from the ceiling were three lights, surrounded by what looked like arms or tentacles. Vadesh raised his hand and the lights all moved toward it. Also, a seat emerged from under the table and slid into position in front of the table.

  “This is where the ship was controlled?” asked Rigg.

  “You see the track there—I know you noticed it, Rigg, you’re such a clever boy. There are really three control centers—one for navigation through space, one for controlling all the systems internal to the ship, and one for field generation. Whichever one the pilot needs is brought in along that track and placed on the table here. Very quick and completely automatic. The pilot sits here and the controls come to him.”

  Lies, Rigg was sure of it. The system seemed unwieldy. Why would controls be hidden away? It made no engineering sense.

  The table was about the size of a human body—just long enough, just wide enough. Rigg looked up at the arms surrounding the lights. Vadesh was controlling the movements of those arms right now. What was on the ends of the arms? Tools of some kind. Hard to guess their purpose.

  “Have a seat,” said Vadesh to Loaf.

  “Don’t,” said Rigg.

  “Now, Rigg,” said Vadesh. “I thought you said you weren’t in charge of the expedition anymore.”

  “It’s not what he’s telling us,” said Rigg.

  “How would you know?” asked Loaf. “You’ve never seen a starship. How do you know anything?”

  “It makes no sense,” said Rigg.

  “Nothing has made any sense since I met you,” said Loaf. “But if this is the way to take down the Wall and get home, then I’m going to sit down.” Loaf sat.

  At once the chair moved—but only a little, to take Loaf’s height and weight into account. Then it held still.

  “You see?” said Vadesh. “It adjusts to the pilot. Which it thinks you are, since you have a jewel for this starship.”

  Rigg wanted to ask Loaf for the jewels, but he didn’t want to test Loaf’s friendship. Nor did he want to find out just how determined Vadesh was to keep them out of Rigg’s possession.

  “Shall we bring in the controls for the field generators?” asked Vadesh.

  “If that’s what will let me bring down the Walls and get home,” said Loaf.

  “You have to hold up the jewels—just hold them up, palm open—and command the starship to bring in the controls.”

  “What do I say?” asked Loaf.

  “Try, ‘Bring in the field controls, ship,’” answered Vadesh.

  At that moment Rigg made a connection. Vadesh was telling Loaf to speak to the ship and give it an order. Father had taught Rigg a special command language. He had said it was a way to rule the stars. It wasn’t a real language at all, of course. Just a series of numbers and letters, which Rigg had had to memorize and repeat every few days, then weeks, then years. Father wouldn’t tell him how they might rule the stars, and no matter how many times Rigg repeated the sequences that Father called “words” in this command language, the stars never did anything. Rigg had called him on this once, and Father had looked at him as if he were a child—which he was—and said, pityingly, “It doesn’t work here,” as if Rigg should have known that.

  Now Rigg was inside a starship. And an expendable just like Father was telling a human to issue commands.

  Loaf had already spoken the command while Rigg was thinking back and making the connection. One of the doors opened and a low cart slid in along the track, then transferred automatically to the table in front of where Loaf was sitting.

  Loaf looked at the array of instruments rising from the control panel; as he did, he lowered the hand holding the jewels, but kept it open.

  Rigg stepped closer, as if to look at the controls as well. He even pointed toward something with his left hand, reaching across Loaf’s body to do it. “I know this part,” murmured Rigg. As he did, he grasped the jewels in his right hand.

  Maybe the business about the jewels had all been nonsense, but maybe not. Rigg wanted them in his hand when he spoke the words of command. And Loaf made no protest.

  Father had told him that the first and most important word was named “Attention,” and Rigg began to recite it.

  “F-F-1-8-8-zero-E-B-B-7-4—”

  Vadesh glanced down, saw that Loaf no longer held the jewels, and then reached out to the control panel and touched a certain spot on the side.

  The whole top of the control panel flipped back out of the way, revealing an open box.

  “3-3-A-C-D-B-F-F—”

  In the box was something alive. A facemask.

  He’s going to flip it up onto one of us, Rigg knew at once. He could try to prevent it, but that was useless, Vadesh was too strong, he had proven that already. So all Rigg could do was finish the word of Attention. For it was clear to him now t
hat this was what Vadesh had feared—that Rigg would start reciting this sequence while holding the jewels. Beginning the word had prompted Vadesh to act; finishing the word was the only thing that Rigg could do.

  So when Vadesh did indeed flick out a hand, quicker than either Loaf or Rigg could react, Rigg did not let it stop him or mix up the word.

  “1-zero-5. Attention.” Rigg hadn’t known whether that was just a repetition of the name or part of the word, but he said it all just as Father had taught him to recite it.

  The facemask flipped up out of the box and slapped wetly onto Loaf’s face. Loaf’s whole body stiffened, shuddered.

  “Ready,” said a gentle voice that seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere at once.

  “4-A-A-3, I am in command,” said Rigg.

  “You are in command,” said the nowhere voice.

  Vadesh pushed Loaf backward off the chair and lunged toward Rigg.

  “Protect me from the expendable!” cried Rigg.

  Vadesh stopped instantly, still posed in mid-lunge.

  Loaf lay on the floor against the back wall. His face was completely covered by the facemask.

  “2-F-F-2. Information. What is this room?”

  “Revival and medical chamber,” said the voice.

  “What is its purpose?”

  “To bring humans out of stasis and revive them. To treat any maladies that have arisen.”

  “Can it treat my friend Loaf?”

  “I do not know.”

  Rigg had no idea who he was talking to. “Who does know?”

  “I do not know.”

  A machine. The voice had to come from a machine. Probably the ship’s computers. One of the nineteen. Or all of them. Whatever it was, it had power over the expendable, who was still posed where he had stopped, one hand on the seat, the other on the box that had contained the facemask.

  “How can you find out whether you can help Loaf?”

  “Identify Loaf and let me examine him.”

  “He’s the only other human in the room,” said Rigg. “You have my permission to examine him.”

  “He is too far from the table,” said the voice.

  “I can’t lift him onto that,” said Rigg.

  There was Vadesh. Vadesh could lift him up easily. But Vadesh was only held in place by the ship’s computer, if that’s what the voice was. “Who are you?” asked Rigg.

  There was no answer.

  “2-F-F-2. Whose voice am I hearing?”

  “This is the voice of the composite decision-making module of the human interface unit.”

  “This expendable is between Loaf and the table, and there’s this box on the table that’s in the way. What can you do about that without waking up the expendable?”

  “Nothing,” said the voice.

  Rigg thought again. Maybe there was something wrong with the way he had phrased the command.

  No, he needed a new command. “7-B-B-5-zero, Analyze. How can I get Loaf to where you can safely examine him, without letting this expendable harm him or me in any way?”

  In reply, Vadesh abruptly stood up and wordlessly touched the box. It closed, then slid back onto the cart, which zipped along the track and out the door. Then Vadesh strode to Loaf, lifted him easily, and laid him on the table.

  “You’re making a mistake,” said Vadesh mildly.

  “Keep the expendable silent,” said Rigg.

  Vadesh said nothing more.

  “Make him stand back against the wall and turn his back to me,” said Rigg. He didn’t want Vadesh out of his sight, but he also didn’t want him watching.

  Vadesh did exactly what Rigg had demanded.

  I can’t command Vadesh directly, Rigg now understood, but the ship’s computers can. By controlling them, I control the expendable.

  “Please examine my friend,” said Rigg.

  All the floating lights plunged downward toward the table where Loaf lay. The arms reached down and around so rapidly that Rigg could not follow their movements, though he could see that some of them pulled Loaf’s clothing from his body while others poked him or slid along the surface of his skin.

  Almost at once, two of the lights homed in on the facemask, while the other continued the scan of the rest of Loaf’s now-naked body. Probes reached down to sample the facemask, which seemed to recoil from some of the arms, but then flexed upward toward some of the others, as if trying to catch and absorb them. Those probes retracted, the arms taking them away to renew their approach from other angles.

  Some of the arms tried to pry up the edges of the facemask. That was the first time Loaf made any kind of reaction. His body twitched as if he were startled, and a sharp high cry came from under the facemask.

  “Can he breathe?” Rigg asked.

  “There is no open passage for his lungs to take in air, but his blood is fully oxygenated,” said the voice. “This is the parasite called ‘facemask’ and it is irrevocably attached to your friend Loaf. It has already penetrated his brain so deeply that it cannot be extracted without causing seizures and death. But it has taken over oxygenation. Your friend will not die.”

  Rigg was tempted to say, “Kill them both,” because he believed that was what Loaf would want.

  But Loaf’s life did not belong to Rigg; nor did it belong entirely to Loaf. It belonged in part to Leaky, and if she were in the room, Rigg doubted that she would decide so quickly that Loaf’s life should end here and now.

  “If Loaf were to die,” Rigg asked, “what would the facemask do?”

  “Transfer to another host, if one could be found quickly enough, or it would die.”

  “You’re familiar with this parasite?” asked Rigg.

  “The expendable has been breeding them for a hundred thousand generations. This is type Jonah 7 sample 490.”

  “What was the expendable breeding for?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Wrong question. “What are the traits of this facemask type that makes it different from other facemask types?”

  “The Jonah strain has been the expendable’s sole focus for eight thousand years. Type Jonah 7 emerged more than three thousand years ago. This type differed from the rejected types by being able to reach adulthood without a host, by being exceptionally quick to attach to the host, by being prepared to recognize and bond closely with a human brain, by being ready to co-metabolize with human blood of any type, and by bonding with higher-function parts of the brain, as well as the brain root and spinal column.”

  Rigg tried to think these things through. Vadesh believed that symbiosis between facemasks and humans was good, but he had also talked about the facemasks working for instead of against civilized behavior.

  “7-B-B-5-5,” said Rigg. “Prediction. What will happen to Loaf if this facemask remains attached to him?”

  “He will survive.”

  “Beyond that?”

  “Jonah-type facemasks have never been tested on humans. There is no data.”

  “And you don’t know how Vadesh expected this to turn out?”

  “Vadesh is dead,” said the voice.

  Rigg looked at the expendable. “He can’t die. Can he?”

  “You call the expendable Vadesh. He cannot die.”

  “So whom did you mean when you said Vadesh is dead?”

  “The founder of this colony. The expendables call each other by the name of the wallfold. This is Vadeshfold. Now I understand you. No, I do not know Vadesh’s expectations. He used us for storing data but not for analysis beyond a primitive level. He did not discuss or share his thinking with us.”

  “Will Loaf be safe if I leave him here?”

  “He will need nutrition within a few hours. Would you like me to supply nutrition?”

  “Yes,” said Rigg.

  “Waste elimination as well?”

  When Rigg said yes, arms began to attach devices to Loaf’s body.

  “Can you keep this expendable here, immobile?”

  “Yes.”

&nbs
p; “How long?”

  “Forever.”

  “Then keep him here, immobile, until I tell you to do otherwise.”

  “Yes.”

  “Now tell me, am I controlling you because I knew the codes, or because I have these jewels?”

  “What jewels?” asked the voice.

  Rigg opened his hand. A light moved toward his hand and an arm scanned the jewels.

  “These are command module jewels. The red teardrop controls the starship of Ramfold. The pale yellow pentacle controls the starship of Vadeshfold.”

  “But right now you are obeying me because I spoke to you in command language.”

  “You said the codes,” said the voice. “You are acting commander of this vessel.”

  “Acting commander,” said Rigg. “Who is the real commander?”

  “Ram Odin,” said the voice. “He is dead.”

  “So as the acting commander, I’m the only commander, right?”

  “Unless someone else knows the code.”

  “Does Vadesh know the code? The expendable?”

  “I know whom you mean by Vadesh now. Yes, he knows the code.”

  “Can he use it to control the ship?”

  The voice seemed to Rigg to be almost offended. “Expendables do not control us. We control the expendables.”

  “Not very well,” said Rigg.

  “Your judgment is misapplied,” said the voice. “Expendables are designed to have almost complete freedom of movement and judgment. They can draw on our data but we do not interfere with their decisions until and unless we are ordered to by a human commander.”

  “Vadesh told us this was the control room,” said Rigg.

  “That was not true.”

  “Is there a control room? A place where I can use this jewel?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can you take me there?”

  At once Vadesh came alive, turning from the wall and heading for the door through which Rigg and Loaf had entered the room. “Follow the expendable,” said the voice.

  After one last look at Loaf, lying on the table under the lights, hoses attached to him, the facemask covering his face, Rigg followed Vadesh out into the corridor.

  CHAPTER 7

  Control

  The real control room made far more sense than the medical room that Vadesh had lied about. A single seat in the middle was held up by an arm that could move it in any direction, swiveling as needed. Three main control stations surrounded it, and this far Vadesh had told the truth: One was devoted to navigation, one to life support and other aspects of the internal running of the ship, and the third to the creation and control of fields—including the Wall.