Grand Central Arena

by Ryk E. Spoor

  Yeah . . . Ariane’s coming down from the combat high, and even though—somehow—it looks like all her injuries were wiped away in that ‘‘Awakening,’’ she’s got a shell-shocked look around her. ‘‘He’s right, Captain. I think we’d better get you back to the Embassy.’’

  Ariane looked about to protest, and then stumbled slightly in her attempt to follow Mandallon’s celebratory dance. ‘‘Whoa . . . You might be right, Marc.’’ She let go of Mandallon, who suddenly stopped, crest feathers fanning out in a covering motion which DuQuesne guessed was something like a blush of embarrassment.

  ‘‘I . . . I was overcome by the moment, Captain, I apologize . . . ’’

  Ariane laughed, a touch of exhaustion now audible in her speech. ‘‘It’s all right—I don’t mind people getting excited about that win, I’m pretty excited myself. But Nyanthus and DuQuesne are right, I’m starting to feel the aftereffects.’’ She smiled around the group. ‘‘But you’ll all be invited to the celebration later, I promise.’’

  ‘‘Then we bid you farewell, and look forward to our next meeting.’’ Nyanthus spread his openwork tendrils, enfolded Mandallon, and—apparently unwilling to be upstaged this time by a Shadeweaver—slid backward and vanished through a door of golden light.

  ‘‘Now, Captain,’’ DuQuesne said, as he and Simon put an arm out to help support an Ariane clearly reaching the end of adrenaline-fueled endurance, ‘‘let’s get you home.’’

  Chapter 69

  DuQuesne entered Ariane’s room and waited for the door to close before speaking. ‘‘You sent for me, Captain?’’

  Ariane was sitting on the edge of her bed, dressed in her regular clothes. A glance around the room didn’t show the odd outfit she’d materialized in, back at the Core Ring, but she could have put it any number of places. She looked up. ‘‘Sit down, please, Marc.’’

  He gave the gesture he’d selected to indicate to their Embassy ‘‘I need a chair’’; the specially-designed oversize chair grew out of the floor near Ariane. He sat down and gazed at her for a moment. ‘‘Time for a private after-action talk, I suppose?’’

  ‘‘Before I go talk to everyone else, yes. Because we need to settle things between us first.’’

  I’m not sure I like the sound of that. ‘‘Beg pardon, Captain?’’

  Ariane gave a snort of laughter. ‘‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to sound quite that grim. I mean that you’re the other rock this group relies on, and we need to make sure there’re no questions between us. Right?’’

  ‘‘I check you there to about nine decimals,’’ he said, relief allowing the old habits of speech to resurface momentarily. ‘‘You’re rested up, I hope.’’

  ‘‘Slept like the legendary log.’’ Ariane shook her head, ran her hand through the deep blue hair with a laugh. ‘‘Which surprises the hell out of me; I’d have expected nightmares, freaky dreams, something. But yes, I’m all better now. I was hurt bad in that fight—you saw it—but the actual injuries just . . . disappeared when I triggered that Awakening.’’

  ‘‘Which brings us to the first subject. What happened there, Ariane? How the hell did that work? It can’t be the words, it’s just not possible; if it was that simple, everyone would be a Shadeweaver or Initiate Guide.’’

  ‘‘Oh, it’s not that simple. Remember the conversation I had with Nyanthus? There’s a very limited number of Initiate Guides, and a similarly limited number of Shadeweavers. And, according to Nyanthus, whenever a new species emerges into the Arena, they are ‘blessed’ with the opportunity to elevate one or two new people to Initiate Guide status. It’s pretty clear, reading between the lines, that the same applies to the Shadeweavers.’’

  DuQuesne nodded, thinking. ‘‘And since the Shadeweavers think the Initiate Guides are just using the same power, either that’s true, or—as the Guides believe—there’s two sources of power, theirs and their enemies’, but either way they’re getting just a couple representatives each every time a new inhabited Sphere comes online.’’

  ‘‘Right. Which both explains why they’re very picky about who they elevate, but also why they’re very pushed for time. If these special slots are distributed between them, then they’re competing for the slots, but don’t dare waste them on the wrong person. And probably have evolved traditions that prevent them from coming to blows over it. That’s why they initiate one person at a time; if there’s a semi-random number of slots, say two to six, then if you do one at a time, everyone gets a fair shot at their share.’’

  ‘‘Okay,’’ DuQuesne said. ‘‘I’ll buy that. And since you were present at the one ritual, you were able to connect the words I overheard with the ones you heard at Mandallon’s Elevation. But you can’t be the first person to ever find that out. And even if not, you can’t be the first person to try just saying the words of the ritual.’’

  Ariane grinned. ‘‘Sure, you’re probably right. But you’re missing two other points. First, with the limited number of slots, someone would have to see the ritual, make a guess that it’s really those last few lines that trigger the Awakening, and then go out and try it . . . and do this all within a relatively few days or weeks of the arrival of the species in question. Otherwise, the slots would all be taken up—there’d be a full complement of Shadeweavers and Initiate Guides, and no room for a new Awakening.

  ‘‘Second, the Shadeweavers call themselves the Brotherhood of the Arena, or the Blood of the Skies . . . and the ritual of the Faith involves blood from other Initiate Guides—’’

  DuQuesne could not restrain the laughter as comprehension burst in on him. ‘‘Dammit, that’s brilliant! You figured blood was the final key—maybe there’s some kind of nanotech or whatever transferred that way—’’

  ‘‘—and it has to be present in you for those key phrases to trigger the Awakening. And Amas-Garao had, without probably even realizing it, donated his own blood to the cause. Yes.’’

  He shook his head in appreciation. ‘‘A hell of a gamble, but based on reasonable deduction. The combination would make it almost impossible for someone to stumble on it, too, especially given the time limits, and the fact that it would require the same person to have direct knowledge about both factions. Otherwise all the other training, meditation, and ritual involved would totally obfuscate the issue.’’ He leaned back. ‘‘So . . . can you say who’s right, or if they’re both wrong?’’

  As she frowned, he knew the answer wouldn’t be one he’d like. ‘‘I really wish I could, Marc. My guess, when I started this, was that it was just some mechanical access to power, like programming the biggest AIWish ever imagined, and these people had just ritualized it to the point that they didn’t see it for what it was. Especially since everyone else who got this power would have gone through probably years and years of . . . training, or if I’m being less diplomatic, indoctrination bordering on brainwashing, to give them the ‘proper’ point of view.

  ‘‘But when I finished . . . ’’ He could almost hear the last words of the ritual again, echoing in both their memories. ‘‘When I finished, it was . . . transcendant. Mandallon tried to tell me what it was like, and I’m going to try to tell you, but now I know what he went through, knowing that nothing he said could possibly get across what he’d experienced. Not if I lived to be a thousand and spent every waking moment trying to talk about it.

  ‘‘It was like . . . ’’ she trailed off, searching for words, then starting again. ‘‘ . . . like . . . you know the moment when you suddenly understand something? That instant where it’s all totally clear, where all the things that confused you are for just that second perfectly in perspective? It was like that. But like having that feeling for the entire universe. I saw it all, Marc, I saw hundreds of billions of Spheres, and all the people living on them. I saw the expressions of every inhabitant of the Arena. And I saw how all of it went together, how every part of it works; I know I saw all of this, and more—I felt what my friends were feeling, and what Sethrik was going t
hrough, and I looked out, and I saw the Solar System and . . . ’’ her eyes were glazing over. ‘‘I . . . I . . . ’’ she shook her head, blinked, fell back on the bed, staring upward. ‘‘I can’t . . . it’s all there, but I don’t have the words. I’m not a writer, Marc, I’m not a poet, I’m not a scientist, and I’d have to be all three of those and more to even make a stab at it.’’

  I don’t think even that would help, not if you really saw all that. ‘‘What about these ‘Creators’?’’

  ‘‘There was . . . something. That’s the problem, Marc. It wasn’t just mechanical. I could feel something—somethings—watching me. Some of them I think were in the Arena, but some were . . . were . . . ’’ she shuddered suddenly. ‘‘ . . . elsewhere. I don’t have a word for it. It wasn’t here, in the Arena, and it wasn’t back home, our own space. And some of them I thought I might almost be able to understand, and others . . . others were just beyond me. There was a sense of danger and malevolence . . . and at the same time, I saw a Light, something singing to me and protecting me, like what Laila described.’’ She sighed. ‘‘So . . . I don’t know. But I wouldn’t feel comfortable saying that there weren’t things like Gods out there. Because there might well be. Or it might just be the old Sufficiently Advanced Technology schtick, and I’m a caveman with stone knives trying to make sense of it all.’’

  For a moment the two were silent. Then Ariane looked up. ‘‘So am I me?’’

  ‘‘Why,’’ DuQuesne asked after a pause, ‘‘do you ask me?’’

  ‘‘Because I saw you, too, Marc.’’ She held his gaze, but there was color in her cheeks that hadn’t been there before.

  That’s unfair. Reading a man’s mind as a side effect of touching the numinous. ‘‘That hardly qualifies me to judge. Some would say it disqualifies me.’’

  ‘‘Not if they knew you. You were sure the Arena was real when Steve got us all convinced it was a fake, and then you argued him down. You’re Marc C. DuQuesne, the Hyperion. If anyone can tell if I’m myself, it’s you, Marc.’’

  He studied her for a long time. ‘‘Ariane . . . I’m a superman with a very, very small ‘s.’ On a human scale, and maybe a few of these aliens’ scales, I might be something special. But I’d be a fool to believe that an artificial—or natural—intelligence capable of building the Arena, or overseeing it, couldn’t fool me easily if it wanted to. Maybe it couldn’t, but that wouldn’t be the way I’d want to bet.

  ‘‘That said . . . you’re right, I’m not an easy man to fool. I’ve had the world’s biggest lies played out through my life, and I saw through them.’’ He took her hand, hardly even conscious that he was doing so. ‘‘And I think the hardest thing to fake for any alien would be a personality that I knew well. You’re Ariane Stephanie Austin, Captain. That’s my professional opinion. It might be a wrong professional opinion, but it’s the one I have, and—to be honest—it’s really very much the same question as whether all this is real, or an incredibly convincing VR setting. It’s pointless for us to worry about you being someone other than who you seem, unless we have a real good reason to believe it. With Laila, I’ve had some real questions, and they still haven’t gone away. But with you, I don’t have any doubts at all.’’

  In the silence that followed, he was suddenly acutely aware of her eyes gazing into his, the warmth of her hand gripping his tightly.

  She let go suddenly and stood up, cheeks pink, and spoke a little too briskly. ‘‘Well, that’s good, now that we’ve cleared that up.’’

  ‘‘Capt . . . Ariane, I think—’’

  ‘‘I think we have another couple of issues to deal with, yes, but that one can wait, Marc. It has to wait, for now.’’

  Blast it. She’s thinking of the dynamics of command, and once more, she’s right. ‘‘I don’t like it. You and Simon—’’

  ‘‘—Simon is in a different position. You’re my second-in-command, Marc. And I have to be able to trust myself not to let any personal feelings get in the way when I’m doing this job that I got stuck with. Also . . . I thought it might be years before we got home. Which isn’t true any more, which puts me back in the hotseat.

  ‘‘And,’’ she continued, before he could get a word in edgewise, ‘‘which also reminds me that you have some explaining to do, Dr. DuQuesne. How, exactly, did you manage to arrange for enough power to get us out of here, when I hadn’t even won my Challenge yet?’’

  Let it go. She’s right. For now. ‘‘It was simple, Captain. I just laid down a bet.’’

  She looked at him skeptically. ‘‘Mmhmm. A bet. When I had it on good authority that there wasn’t a bookie anywhere taking bets on this Challenge.’’

  ‘‘True enough. But this was a private bet, and since I was taking the incredibly short end of the stick, Ghondas wasn’t going to turn it down.’’

  ‘‘And exactly what did you offer her if you lost?’’

  Bite the bullet. ‘‘Myself, Captain.’’

  She stared at him, aghast. ‘‘I didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of winning that thing, and you went against my direct orders with a bet like that?’’

  ‘‘Begging the Captain’s pardon, while it is quite possible that she meant to have the same orders extend to any risks I took, your precise words were that under no circumstances were the Shadeweavers to have access to me again.’’

  She glowered at him. ‘‘I also made a point of your particular value to Humanity, which should have given you the hint that you weren’t to be lost at all.’’

  He certainly had, but implications that went against the interpretation he needed had been of course discarded. ‘‘I evaluated you as being at least as valuable, Captain, and you were already at risk. The bet would net us the power to go home in any case; Ghondas was willing to take what she saw as the infinitesmal risk of losing the bet in exchange for one of the few prices that we already knew would pay for the power, and in the guise of the bet it would not have any implications under the Anathema for her to worry about.’’

  ‘‘But under what right—’’

  ‘‘Captain, it was my strong belief that the Shadeweavers would not be satisfied with you. Once they had you, they could—and eventually would—arrange something which would threaten our people again, until I was forced to comply with them. We are a new faction, a small faction, and overall a weak one. Give us the chance to go home, to let our people start really participating, sending out new ships, and all that, then we get a far better position. Eventually we could find a way to win me back from Ghondas, while keeping the Shadeweavers from harrassing us.’’

  Ariane stared at him, then laughed and threw up her hands in surrender. ‘‘Fine. fine! I should know better than to argue with you. So you expected to lose the bet and arranged for the long-term consequences to be overall better.’’

  ‘‘Actually, Captain, I expected to win.’’

  She blinked. ‘‘You’re completely nuts. I expected to get my ass whipped out there.’’

  ‘‘No, Captain, with all due respect, you didn’t. Your conscious mind might have expected that, but your heart didn’t. And neither did mine. I believed in you, Ariane. I was afraid for you, but a part of me was still sure that somehow you’d do the impossible.

  ‘‘And you did.’’

  Her gaze was softer. ‘‘Thank you.’’ she said quietly. ‘‘For everything, Marc. I do want to say . . . I’m glad we came here. And I’m really, really glad you were with us.’’

  He looked back at her, searching for the right words to say. At that moment, the door rolled open. ‘‘Sorry to interrupt,’’ Carl said, ‘‘But Nyanthus and Gona-Brashind are both here and insist on speaking to you, Cap.’’

  DuQuesne raised an eyebrow. ‘‘That’s . . . interesting.’’

  ‘‘For apocryphal Chinese values of ‘interesting,’ yes,’’ Ariane agreed. ‘‘I’ll meet them in the main briefing room, Carl.’’

  As Carl Edlund left, she looked over at DuQuesne. ‘‘Back to work, I
guess.’’

  ‘‘So it would seem.’’

  I have a bad feeling about this.

  Chapter 70

  ‘‘Gentlemen,’’ Ariane said, ‘‘what can I do for you? The party’s tonight, and even you,’’ she nodded at Gona-Brashind, ‘‘were invited, so I’m a bit concerned as to what brings you here now.’’

  She noticed that Mandallon trailed behind Nyanthus, looking unusually subdued, with nothing of the elated animation of the prior evening. Nyanthus’s movements, however, seemed at least superficially more normal. Gona-Brashind, much less familiar, was harder to read, but he did not appear to be overly tense. Perhaps this wasn’t as bad as appearances would make it.

  ‘‘I would hope that there is no true reason for concern,’’ Gona-Brashind began, low voice speaking with soft courtesy. ‘‘It is merely that there is a minor . . . loose end which should be resolved before the festivities; the longer it waits the more difficulties it may present, and while it remains unresolved there will be much unneccessary tension in certain quarters.’’

  She could see DuQuesne’s face from the corner of her eye, and his frown was not comforting. ‘‘What loose end?’’

  ‘‘Let us say, rather, an opportunity,’’ Gona-Brashind said, dipping slightly on his seven legs. ‘‘Though you have not had the training or discipline, you have shown that you have the talent that so few possess, and we would like to welcome you to your proper place as one of the Shadeweavers. You will need much teaching and practice to learn the control of that which was unleashed yesterday. But in this case you have the great advantage of being welcomed in as a full member, with none of the unfortunate implications of coercion which would have accompanied your entrance had you failed against my brother Amas-Garao.’’