Spheres of Influence

by Ryk E. Spoor

  “We don’t get to set the rules. We don’t get to change the rules. We generally won’t get to argue the rules. No one does. The Arena says how things get done, and we can either take it, or try to pick up our marbles and go home. But that won’t stop the Arena’s people from butting in on our turf eventually, so even that isn’t really an option.”

  Wu Kung frowned rebelliously, and DuQuesne didn’t need to be a mind reader to know what was going on in Wu’s head. Arbitrary godlike rules chafe on the Monkey King, and I’m gonna have to sit down and try to pound sense into him real soon, before he tries to do something perfectly in character but disastrous.

  “So,” Michelle Ni Deng said after a moment, “You’re basically warning us that all of us here are in the line of fire, and we need to be careful.”

  “And open to opportunities,” Carl emphasized. “We want to avoid getting screwed . . . but we also can use the Challenges to our advantage. You can’t, in general, Challenge away your home Sphere; the closest I know of would’ve been if the Molothos had kicked our asses and taken the Upper Sphere, but even then we’d still have the Inner Sphere and Gateways.”

  “I see. And the prizes of a Challenge are proportional to the resources of the participants,” Oscar said.

  “Exactly. Which means that as a new, tiny Faction, we can generally stand to gain a hell of a lot more than larger Factions can from us.” He grinned. “And politically we’ve gained a lot from the Challenges. Yeah, okay, we’re at war with the Molothos, but—”

  Oscar bowed from his seat. “—But I have conceded that, given the circumstances, there was indeed no way to avoid that outcome, based on what I now have seen of those enemies. I hope to find the Blessed at least somewhat more amenable to discussion.”

  “Right. What that means is that we’ve got great publicity and public image—and recognition—right now. The shiny new coolness will wear off eventually, but not yet, and right now we’re the brand new kids on the block who managed to outfox the two scariest Factions when we first showed up, then whip the biggest bullies around as an encore. That’s the advantage of the spectacular Challenges.”

  “And—pardon me for asking you to repeat yourself,” Ni Deng said, “there is no actual limit on what the Challenged party can put forth as a Challenge?”

  “Well . . . there are some. You can’t for instance Challenge someone to a water-breathing contest when you’re a natural water resident and they’re only an air-breather, so to speak. There has to be some reasonable way that both of you can participate in the Challenge, and the Challenge itself can’t assume proxy use by either side. Other than that . . . no.” Carl grinned. “And they can be all sorts of mixed-mode kinds of things. For instance, the one I was watching with Selpa a while back? That one was called ‘Racing Chance,’ and it combined a sort of combat maze-race with a gambling game.”

  DuQuesne raised an eyebrow. “How’d that work?”

  “Pretty neat, actually. Each side had a racing individual and they ran through a mostly parallel but sometimes intersecting maze. The contestants couldn’t directly interact with each other but they could try to mess up the course for the guy behind them, and they each had to deal with combat threats along the way. Meanwhile, each side also had a couple people playing a game that was sorta like poker, and you could spend the points you won in the game to up the challenges put in front of the opposing guy’s racer.”

  Ariane nodded, smiling. “That would be . . . pretty exciting. Strategy, luck, and combat all in one package; let your chips ride so you could put down a devastating opposition toward the end, or spend them right away so that you can’t lose them to a bad hand, things like that—plus choosing the right racer. And I’d guess they might have something to do with agreeing on the racecourse, too.”

  “Probably.” Carl looked around. “That’s mostly it, I think. The thing to remember is that Challenges aren’t casual. We can’t back out of them without forfeit, and they will cost us to lose or to forfeit—but at the same time, we can gain a hell of a lot if we take and win them.” He looked seriously at the three newcomers. “We can’t keep you out of that part of the game, Oscar, Michelle, Oasis—not and let you guys do anything useful around Nexus Arena. So you may find yourselves in the position of having to decide whether to accept a Challenge—or, if someone’s clearly pushing on you, whether you need to issue one. We can’t reject them all, but we sure can’t afford to just accept them or issue them blindly . . . because what we do here could affect everyone.”

  Oscar nodded, and so did Michelle and Oasis. “Understood, and this little session has helped make this clear to me.”

  “One more thing,” Steve said. “Carl mentioned that almost everything of importance gets settled by Challenge—but that almost is important. The last maneuver that the Molothos tried on us was deliberately not a Challenge; they learned stuff about us, made some guesses, and set up a plan that was in no way directly confrontational which would—if they guessed right—deprive us of our Arena citizenship and negate the victories we’d already achieved.”

  “Worse than that,” DuQuesne said. “I thought about that scenario right after you,” he pointedly indicated Steve, who gave a slightly embarrassed but proud grin, “saved our asses at the last minute, and I got cold chills. If we were deprived of our citizenship like that—we might not have been able to go back to our Sphere at all. We’d have become like the natives of Arenaspace, at least until someone else from Earth came through and restarted the whole thing. I’m not sure exactly what would have happened, but given what we already know, I’d have to guess it would’ve been worse than just being sent back to square one, at least for those of us stuck on this side.”

  “So,” Wu said, “that means that there’s real Challenges, and then little challenges—that might not be so little—and we have to look out for both.”

  “Exactly right, Wu. The ‘real’ Challenges may be the usual way of doing business, but as Steve and the Molothos showed, the stakes can get plenty high without being in an official face-off.”

  The meeting broke up then, and people filed mostly out of the room; Ariane, along with Wu, hung back. “So . . . do you think they understand, Marc?”

  “Oscar sure as hell does,” he answered. “Ni Deng . . . yeah, probably. She’s maybe not as experienced as Oscar Naraj, but she’s probably smarter. You can bet Oasis gets it—and she’ll be real careful.” He frowned to himself.

  “What is it, Marc?”

  He knew there were at least two levels of inquiry there . . . and he wasn’t ready to address the second, at least not until he got a chance to talk to Oasis privately. “I . . . dunno, really. We had to tell them about Challenges, they’ve got to understand how much rides on them . . . but that also makes them real players in the Arena now, and there’s no way to stop it.” He looked at the now-empty doorway. “I just hope I’m worried over nothing.”

  CHAPTER 16

  “Are you sure this is okay, DuQuesne? I mean, I really really want to go with you, but you want me to guard Ariane, and—”

  “Relax, Wu,” DuQuesne said, smiling. Already talking a mile a minute. “We all agreed you needed to be able to get out and about.”

  “Quite so,” agreed Simon absently, as they made their way along the broad corridor towards the elevator to the Outer Gateway. Low, flat tracks of shaped superconductor now lay along the entire length of that corridor, and also to the Inner Gateway, allowing magnetic levitation to be used as a support and guide for cargoes. In this case, both Simon and DuQuesne were drawing large cases along behind them.

  “And Ariane’s agreed that she’s not leaving the Embassy whenever you’re gone. Anyone wants to see her, they have to go in our territory.”

  Wu grimaced. “I’d still feel better if you were with her right now.”

  DuQuesne shrugged. “I don’t expect direct assassination, to be honest. The Arena clamps down pretty hard on anyone who initiates violence, unless the Shadeweavers or—I’d guess—th
e Faith mess with that.” There was a faint sensation of acceleration as the elevator doors closed and the room shot up towards the Outer Gateway. And if the geometry of the Sphere is anything like we’ve guessed, we’re actually accelerating at a lethal pace. We’ll cover a couple thousand kilometers from down here to the top in about five seconds. Something like thirty thousand gravities—hell, that wouldn’t be too shabby even from the old Skylark’s point of view.

  Almost before he had finished thinking that, the chamber slowed and the doors opened. They were now in what Gabrielle, if he remembered right, had christened “the antechamber” to the Upper Sphere.

  But things were very different from the first time. Now, the superconducting tracks continued all the way to the huge doorway, and the whole area was covered by simple automated weapons emplacements, with storage areas for needed items and materials . . . and tracks and marks showing how much traffic there had been over the past few months. Carl, Tom, and Steve have been busting their humps over this, that’s obvious. “Open Outer Gateway,” he said.

  The great door—made of the same “coherent quark composite,” or CQC, that appeared to be the Arena’s preferred structural building material—rolled effortlessly aside, and a blaze of golden sunshine poured in, along with the warm fragrance of a living world.

  “Wow!” exclaimed Wu, and bounded out before DuQuesne could stop him. His voice came immediately from outside. “It’s beautiful! And there’s a waterfall over there—and look, something’s flying way, way over there, like a bird, but not quite!”

  The tracks cut back from the Gateway and headed up the ridge from which the Gateway projected. “Ah. This road must lead up to the river, just above the falls.”

  “So I am given to understand,” Simon said. DuQuesne noticed that he was not spending much time looking around—which was not characteristic of the usually highly attentive and aware scientist. Simon drew ahead of DuQuesne, because DuQuesne had to wait and catch Wu’s attention. “This way, Wu. Yes, this way! We’ll go over and look at the jungle in a minute, just hold your horses!”

  The Monkey King bounded back towards him, then stopped at a gesture. “What is it?”

  “First, I’ve got some things we need to get straight. You heard the lecture on the Challenges, and I know you read the accounts of what we went through here. I want you to be double careful, Wu. Yes, I know, there’s probably still not much here that could beat you, but this isn’t your world, remember, and you can’t just bust heads whenever people piss you off.”

  Wu looked slightly hurt. “I know that! I wouldn’t . . . I mean, I never just break heads because . . . Well, almost never . . . unless they’re really mean . . . or . . .”

  “See, that’s exactly what I’m talking about. You’ve got to think, just like if Sanzo—or Ariane—were holding the charm to make your headband go crunch, got me?”

  Wu Kung nodded, red-black hair tumbling over his face in emphasis. “I got you, DuQuesne. Think before I fight.”

  “And about fighting—it’ll probably come to that, sooner or later. But I want you to hold it down, hold way back unless you’ve got no choice (like, for instance, Ariane’s life is in the balance).” He glanced, saw that Simon was still moving along towards the crest of the hill, grinned at Wu. “These people still don’t really know what we can do, you see . . . and I don’t think that even the best of them can match us.”

  “I thought you said that you were beaten by this wizard, this Amas-Garao.”

  “Well . . .” DuQuesne shrugged. “He’s a tough customer, no doubt about it, and he can cheat in a way no one but another Shadeweaver can. But truth? Wu, I spent fifty years shutting myself down, and even with active resistance clothing to keep me sort of in shape and a few other tricks, I just wasn’t anywhere near up to top form. I’d been . . . awake, I guess you’d call it, for only a few weeks when that happened, and to be honest? I think I was fighting at best at about eighty percent. Which means that they don’t know what I can really do when I’m pushed, and they sure as hell haven’t a clue as to what to expect from you.

  “So remember, we need diplomacy and sneakiness here. I don’t want them getting any idea just how much tougher and faster you are than me. Except—just a little bit—Orphan, because I think he’s guessed it and we did imply we’d show him. Even then, though, I want you to baffle those jets way down.”

  Wu grinned, showing his fangs. “Until there’s no choice—and then I have surprises!”

  “Exactly.”

  Wu looked more serious, and DuQuesne followed his gaze. “He’s . . . not happy, exactly,” Wu said.

  Yeah, I knew it. “How do you mean?” he asked aloud.

  “He smells . . . nervous. Upset. Confused,” Wu said after a moment. “Not about what he’s doing now—he’s pretty sure about that. But something else—maybe related to it, maybe not—that’s bothering him.”

  Wu’s senses were always the best. “Noticed it myself. But he hasn’t decided to talk about it, and I’m not quite ready to force him to talk.”

  Cresting the hill, they could see the broad, swift-flowing river flashing in the light as it ran from the mountains which lay to the east (figuring apparent sunrise as “east” and sunset as “west”) and then plunged straight down thousands of feet. The rumble-roar of the shimmering cataract was clearly audible.

  Just before the river plunged into air, there were new, rough-looking structures erected on each side. Our first native generators; thank the Gods for people like Tom and Steve and Carl. Together they got this stuff going with nothing but one AIWish unit and a lot of personal sweat. And not a minute too soon—we’re going to be getting new potential colonists any day, maybe any minute now.

  Simon looked around. “This should be as good a place as any. Marc—”

  “On it.” He unslung his own pack and started setting up the control relay set. Have to hope it works . . . “Wu, hold on, would you? Once I’m sure this is all working I’ll show you some of the sights.” Damn, but I’d forgotten how it’s like babysitting a toddler sometimes. I don’t suppose I should really worry right now; there’s not much he can hurt wandering around here, and there’s sure as hell not much here that could hurt him.

  Still, he wanted to make sure he kept an eye on Sun Wu Kung; getting into trouble seemed to be his tradition.

  “Seems like a beautiful day for this,” Simon said, sounding more relaxed than he had been. “Hardly a breath of wind.” He squinted into the distance. “I see some clouds off to the horizon, but nothing worrisome.”

  DuQuesne glanced upward. He suspected that what he saw was somewhat different than what Simon saw; to DuQuesne, the alien shadows behind the deceptively-normal blue sky were clear and ominous, the echoes of a universe that violated every law DuQuesne had thought he understood. But I’ve figured out tougher puzzles in stranger worlds, he thought wryly. Even if the worlds were simulated, I didn’t know it at the time.

  “What are you doing?” Wu asked, having bounded back nearby. “I mean, I know you’re looking for these Sky Gates, but how?”

  “Well, that’s . . . fairly simple and complicated at the same time,” Simon said, smiling. “The simple explanation . . . we need to search a large portion of the sky over our Sphere to find the Gates. I’ve . . .” DuQuesne caught the slight hesitation, “made some quite sensitive instruments that should be able to detect a Gate if they get within a reasonable distance of one. The problem is that the Gates are . . . well, out of our gravity well, so to speak. Just above the region where gravity ends, much as I hate to use such a term.”

  “Accurate here, though. Border’s just about as sharp as a knife from everything we’ve seen; goes from no gravity to full in maybe a few meters.”

  “But that’s a really long way up, isn’t it?” Wu asked. “I mean, way higher than even the Mountains of Heaven!”

  Simon’s smile returned at that. “Yes, much higher.” He glanced at DuQuesne. “Is he exaggerating himself for me?”

&nbs
p; Wu snorted and looked slightly embarrassed. “There’s your answer. Look, Wu, I know your personality. You don’t have to go making yourself look stupider than you are around Simon. Or me, or Ariane, for that matter. Other people, yeah, but the core group—the eight originals? Be yourself, but no less than yourself.”

  “All right! You’ve caught my tail fairly.” He bowed apologetically to Simon. “So, that’s a long way up—thousands of kilometers, yes?”

  “About twenty thousand above the Upper Sphere, and extending about five to ten thousand kilometers to the sides of our Sphere, yes.”

  Wu thought. “You came here with DuQuesne before, a couple of days ago, while I was out with the captain, right? So you started it . . . hmm . . . Ha! Balloons!”

  Simon laughed. “Not a bad idea, but I’m afraid too slow. At any reasonable ascent rate a balloon would take on the order of a month to get there, and we have something of a time pressure involving our friends the Molothos. But your general concept is right. DuQuesne and I sent the instruments up in what amount to heated-air ramjet drones manufactured by Tom according to my specifications. They used the majority of the energy in their coils climbing, but in the weightless environment above they should be able to recharge from the sunlight provided by the so-called ‘luminaire’ above our Sphere, and they won’t need nearly so much power to maneuver.”

  Wu squinted up. “So that is not really a sun at all?”

  “Nope,” DuQuesne said. “It still isn’t small, of course—not in any way. We’re pretty sure it’s at an altitude just a little ways outside of the gravity area, which would make it about a hundred, hundred and ten kilometers wide.” He remembered the lighting shifts and grinned. “The Arena also does some kind of lighting tricks with it so that you get sunsets and night pretty much like at home . . . though you’ll be seeing something other than stars in the night sky.”