Medusa in the Graveyard (The Medusa Cycle)
Page 28
I blinked the sweat out of my eyes and focused on my savior. I knew who I wanted to see.
I have to admit, by then I knew better.
“Well.” Lady Sheba looked down her nose at me. “Look what the cat dragged in.”
* * *
Behind Sheba, the Scavenger fell to his knees, blood spurting from his wound. He made some gurgling noises, too. All that was peripheral for me, because I only had eyes for Lady Sheba and the knife she was holding—the one she had used to cut his throat from behind.
“How come they let you bring a knife?” I demanded.
“They didn’t,” she said. “I brought one anyway.”
Sheba was tall. That had been an advantage. She hadn’t suffered from hesitation, so she made her move quickly, before he knew what she intended. She and I stared at each other. I fully expected her to stick that knife in my heart.
Instead, she backed away. The poacher had fallen over, but he was still twitching. Sheba kicked him. When he didn’t react, she knelt and wiped her blade on his trousers.
You would think I would have taken the opportunity to stand up while Sheba was cleaning her knife, but it didn’t occur to me until she had sheathed her blade again. “You look like hell,” she remarked. “So I’m guessing that you have run out of water.”
“Good guess,” I said.
Sheba rolled the poacher onto his side a pried a canister off his belt. “You couldn’t have shown up at a better time.” She unscrewed the cap. “This thug would have drunk the last of it, if you hadn’t provided a diversion.” Sheba took a long drink from the canister. Then she fastened it to her own belt.
That seemed like a good moment to struggle to my feet. She watched me with the concentration of a predator assessing injured prey. Once upright, I propped myself against the bulkhead and scanned our surroundings.
“What happened to the Bomarigala clone?” I said.
She snorted. “You think you’re joking about that.”
Actually, I had only been half joking.
“That pampered fool was supposed to prove himself on this expedition,” said Sheba. “Instead, he fell into a time fracture on the first day. He’s probably millions of years in the past now, trying to build a fire by rubbing two sticks together.”
One guy still unaccounted for—assuming she was telling the truth. Which meant he might still pop up somewhere.
The poacher had stopped twitching. Now he lay in the dust like another discarded machine. No lesson seemed to be implied by his condition, other than the fact that life is fleeting. I wondered how long it would take the canyon to turn him into a mummy, or to bury him in sediment. I wondered if either of those states could redeem him.
“Well,” said Sheba, “I would love to stand around with you and stare at corpses, but I’m getting very tired of this place. What do you propose to do next?”
“Do?” At the moment, I had all I could do just to stay upright.
“Does the graveyard act whimsically?” she said. “Why do you suppose it brought us to this particular spot?”
I let my gaze wander over the Misfit Toys. Because we’re misfits, too? I wondered. Sheba was the one with the knife and the water, so I didn’t say that aloud. “Why do you want to follow me? I have no idea where I’m going.”
“Because you and your little crew have a better interface with the graveyard. I think it will eventually show you a way out of here. I have no intention of being left behind.”
I calculated my odds of killing Sheba. Right now they weren’t too good, but perhaps after I had rested a little? It wouldn’t be easy, but it wouldn’t be impossible, either. It looked as though we were both going to die there anyway, and she damn well deserved it.
So did I. I had always regretted killing Baylor so hastily. There had been quite a lot that old villain could have told us that would have been useful down the line. If nothing else, our dealings with Bomarigala would not have been so blind.
None of this was lost on Sheba. The same calculations were going on in her head. My only advantage was that she thought I was useful.
She said she thought that.
I pushed away from the bulkhead and stood on my own. “Let’s take a look at these things around us. Maybe we’ll find an inspiration.”
I didn’t approach her, but moved obliquely. Sheba adjusted her position so the same amount of space always stayed between us. I assumed she had calculated how quickly she could get the knife out if I lunged at her, but I wasn’t feeling particularly lunge-y at the moment—or even very walk-y. I concentrated on staying upright as I wandered among the gizmos, keeping Sheba in the periphery of my sight. At first, I saw nothing that made sense to me.
After a while I started to get an impression of the Misfit Toys. True, they lay in a jumbled sprawl, but each item had its own character. I liked them, even though someone had almost strangled the life out of me in their midst. “If we understood these things,” I said, “we could do just about anything with them.”
“Like get out of here?” said Sheba.
I started to nod, and winced with pain. “Yes.”
After that first spark of inspiration, however, nothing more occurred to me. I stumbled from pile to pile. The day progressed, and started to wane. Finally I said, “I need to rest for a few minutes.”
I sat down on a half-buried chunk of something that looked like it wouldn’t explode if I touched it. Sheba did the same, some distance away. She hadn’t said anything to me for quite a while, but she had watched me with an alertness that never wavered. You missed your calling, lady, I thought. You would have made an excellent sentry.
I concentrated on breathing. It hurt, because I was thirsty. It felt good to rest, and I found my mind wandering to odd places.
“Where were you planning to take Escape?” I said.
For a moment, I thought she was going to smile. “Yes, I heard you found my little ship. Pity you blew her up. She cost me a pretty penny.”
I wasn’t going to get a direct answer. It had been one of the mysteries that always teased me, so I couldn’t help asking.
She lifted her chin. “Where would you have taken her?”
I thought about it for a moment. “I wouldn’t have anything to trade with the Belters, without Olympia. I suppose I would have brought her here—to explore whether there was something I could salvage from the graveyard.”
I felt a bit surprised to hear myself saying that, but it made sense. Without my friends and resources, I would have been forced to improvise. A gambit like that could have proved fatal, but I can see how one might feel compelled to take the risk.
The look she cast me was almost approving. “Our kin are a practical breed, if nothing else. Whether you or I succeed, Oichi—they will claim their heritage.”
“You’re okay if they do it without you?” I said.
The skepticism in my voice amused her. “Of course not. I don’t relinquish my authority for one moment. I’m very tough to kill, don’t you think?”
“Yes,” I admitted, “but Medusa almost succeeded.”
Real hatred twisted her features. It was replaced by something almost like pity. “You trusted them,” she said, “and look where it got you.”
Um, yes—freedom, autonomy, Minis, chocolate …
“She tried to sabotage your expedition here, didn’t she?”
I almost said no, but then I wondered what Sheba knew that I didn’t. Medusa had disagreed with the expedition, and she had pursued separate interests.
What were those interests, exactly? Medusa said she almost turned Olympia around, just to thwart Sheba and Baylor. When I decided to come to Graveyard, she said she regretted not altering our course.
Sheba nodded, as if reading my thoughts. “Yes. It was the Weapons Clan who decided to build the Medusa units. They always plan multiple uses for their creations, and after all—they are the Weapons Clan. It proved to be their downfall and ours.”
What a wily old fox she was. I could see h
er point of view.
“Do you plan to kill me, once I pass out?” I said.
“Don’t be ridiculous. You’re no threat to me. You can barely stand on your own, yet—you might still prove useful.”
“No,” I said flatly. “I’m not your minion.”
She shook her head. “Useful to Olympia, Oichi. Useful to the survivors of Titania. We have a birthright. You may yet secure it for us.”
“Because you can’t secure it yourself?” I guessed.
She shrugged. “You’re the one they reached out to. They have never shown any interest in me.”
“So you goaded me into coming here.”
She smiled. “If I learned nothing else in the House of Clans, I perfected the art of tricking an enemy into behaving like an ally.”
I saw her point. Hadn’t I been the one to manipulate Baylor into passing the Music in Education bill? Hadn’t I read Sheba’s letters and fabricated a diary in which she expressed support for ideas that were really part of my agenda? Didn’t I stand by and let Sezen Koto commit suicide so I could infiltrate the Executive class?
Maybe it was exhaustion, maybe it was dehydration, but I could see how much Sheba and I had in common.
Looking back at all our machinations, at the murder and sabotage and espionage that had marked our path to Graveyard, I could see why Nuruddin had compared our lives to Greek tragedies and comedies.
I wondered, were the Misfit Toys our Chorus? What would they say about our situation? I dredged up one of Nuruddin’s quotes and recited it:
Save Athens and all Greece,
From Lunacy and war,
For that, O maid, is what,
They’ve seized your temple for.
“I suspect you’re misinterpreting that quote,” said Sheba with some amusement.
“Yeah, well, it’s going to have to do. Because the only other quote I can remember is, Please, Lenny, don’t be a schmuck!”
“That one seems more appropriate at the moment.” She sighed. “This is very tedious.”
That was the first time she had shown any weakness. She still had an upright posture, and she had dispatched the giant poacher like a pro, but I suspected it was pure vinegar that was keeping Sheba in the game right now.
I rubbed my eyes and hauled myself to my feet. Then I turned a full circle, this time looking at the bigger picture instead of focusing on details. The junkyard sat expectantly under my gaze—no chirping, squeaking, humming, or rattling creatures moved there. It looked like a messier version of Joe’s Salvage Yard.
“There’s got to be something useful here,” I said.
“By all means,” said Sheba. “Let’s find it.” To her credit, she also looked. Together, we searched for a clue.
Then I saw something familiar. I blinked, wondering if I should believe my eyes. “Sheba—are you seeing that?” I pointed.
She cast her gaze in that direction, but I could tell she didn’t recognize anything.
“Those prongs that look like mantis arms,” I clarified.
“That’s just unsorted apocrypha,” said Sheba.
“No, it’s not. That’s Queenie.”
* * *
Queenie looked as if she had rested in the same spot for centuries, if not millennia. She was half-buried in fine red sand—but there was no mistaking her arms. I touched her. “Queenie—can you hear me? It’s Oichi.”
Queenie remained cold and silent. Sheba circled us, stopping at arm’s length. “I presume she needs to be switched on somehow,” she said.
Queenie is an accidental consciousness, Fire had said. If Queenie’s personality had formed because of her interface with users, maybe she couldn’t just send and receive messages without Fire. Maybe she needed a deeper connection.
I could think of only one way to create one, but the northern gods had forbidden me to use my implant inside the canyon. I pondered the consequences of doing it anyway.
Then, Bite me, northern gods, I thought.
Her response was instantaneous.
The friendly, accidental consciousness that Fire had described was nowhere in evidence. I realized something that should have been apparent from the beginning. We were not in the same time that Fire and Queenie were linked.
She didn’t know me. She hadn’t bonded with a human yet. Remnants of her former partners could be seen in the martial aspect of her current personality. They had been aliens, and warrior queens—and in about ten seconds, they intended to blow us up.
When you find yourself in trouble, remember who you are. Remember what you have suffered. Remember what you hope. When you have done that, say those things.…
Queenie had given me that advice. It had seemed oddly specific. Now I had an inkling why.
Queenie became supernaturally focused.
Queenie didn’t wait. I felt something odd happening with my implant, and then I could see things from the perspective of the Last Sentinel again. Only this time, I could also see the model of the time loops in Seaside Canyon. Queenie brought all these elements together to search for a particular energy signature. I felt how she was doing it, and it made sense to me. Then:
Ahi and Ashur. I could see them as clearly as if I were standing a few feet away from them.
I had no idea how long they had remained locked inside the room in Evernight. They weren’t there anymore. I had left them so they could get out of the canyon, but they had done the opposite. Now they stood in the shadow of the Three.
“This is it!” Ahi said to Ashur. “You and I are on a hero’s journey!”
That was about the most alarming thing I could have heard her say.
“Oichi should be here,” Ashur said. “She’s the one they used to talk to. She’s the one who made friends with them.”
Ahi put her hands on Ashur’s shoulders. “Don’t doubt yourself. You’re strong. They want to hear from you, Ashur. That’s why you were invited.”
“I think I know what to do,” said Ashur. “I hope I’m right! If I do it, I’m going to break the rule the northern gods made about using my brain implant to communicate.”
“Maybe they won’t mind if you use it to talk to the Three,” said Ahi, though she sounded far from sure about that. “Do you think this thing you want to do is the best you have to offer?”
Ashur looked more certain now. “Yes. It’s the best thing I’ve ever done. It’s way better than anything else I could say or do.”
Ahi took his hand. “So—what is this wonderful thing?”
I held my breath.
I could see the point in Space that Queenie had chosen as her destination: Joe’s Salvage Yard. There were two points in Time plotted for that destination. said Queenie.
Queenie began to glow. Sheba stepped forward and placed her hand on the other prong. “You’re not going to
believe this,” she said, “but it’s for the best.”
I thought she meant it was best that she and I end up back at Joe’s Salvage Yard. It was an improvement over our current condition. From there, I could conceivably mount a rescue expedition.
That’s not what she meant.
Queenie reached full power. In another moment, we three would become light, and she could move us. One second before that happened, Sheba gave me a hard shove.
I landed like a ton of bricks and looked up just in time to see Queenie and Sheba shimmer out of sight.
They had kicked up a cloud of dust during their passage. I watched it settle to the ground again.
My throat felt bruised and sore. My face felt even worse. If I could have kicked myself at that moment, I would have put all I had into it.
Instead, I got to my feet. “What’s next?” I asked the Misfit Toys. “That was my ticket out of here.”
I waited for a sign, anything that even hinted at what direction I should take. I’m not sure how long I stood there, but no guidance materialized. I’m pretty sure I was there for a long time.
“I’m going to keep walking around the yard,” I said, “and see if anything jumps out at me.”
Ouch. That wasn’t the best way to phrase it, considering who had jumped out at me previously.
“If this is the wrong thing to do,” I said, “let me know.”
Yeah, that was cheating. If it’s any consolation, I was probably just cheating myself.
* * *
Can you keep your feet? the Last Sentinel had asked. Fortunately for me, I had. What had come after that? Prosper! Oichi, where is the cannon?
That had been the whole shebang. Prosper! sounded encouraging. Was it time to do that? By all means!
Prosperity remained elusive, and no cannons showed up. I’m not sure how much time passed while I stumbled through the clutter of Misfit Toys. Maybe I had wandered into another time fracture. The day didn’t seem to progress much as I searched the piles with weary eyes. Not that I was paying very good attention at that point. I spent just as much time watching my feet. I didn’t trust my balance anymore.