Trapped lop-6

by James Alan Gardner

  "Yes, Phil. It's me." She held open her arms.

  I walked forward — knowing full well it might be a Lucifer trick. But I didn't care. If this vision of Annah transformed into a slurry of maggots that choked me to death, so be it. I was numb to fear, numb to hope, numb, numb, numb.

  She wrapped her arms around me. I laid my head on her shoulder. She kissed my hair, but said nothing.

  For a long time we just stood there, body to body. Her breath soft beside me; the smell of her skin and hair slowly working into my consciousness.

  At some point, I put my arms around her too. But neither of us spoke as the Earth slowly drifted overhead.

  We might have stood that way forever. What broke the spell was something bumping hard against my leg. I looked down and saw an amorphous black blob trying to wrap itself around my ankle. It was the size of a housecat but made of gunpowder grains that glinted in the Earthlight; I shook it off in disgust and it slid away, leaving a haphazard track in the moondust.

  Annah unwrapped her arms from me. "There are lots of those things here," she said as she watched the blob weave away. I could see she was right; the cage held more than a dozen masses of similar size, moving apparently at random across the lunar surface. They showed no sign of intelligence — deprived of contact with Satan, they seemed as mindless as worms.

  "They're used to being part of a larger consciousness," I said. "This laser cage cuts that connection; I guess it sends them into shock."

  I told Annah what I'd learned from the good Lucifer… and as I talked, questions rose in my mind. If the good Lucifer had eventually come to its senses after being blocked off from the whole, why hadn't that happened to the wandering blobs in this cage? Were the blobs perhaps too small to regain their intelligence — not enough cellules, so not enough collective brainpower? Did the "angelic" Lucifer have a stronger self-identity than the Satanic version? Was it just that the angel had Spark Lords caring for it, and somehow the Sparks had nursed it back to sanity? Or could this version of the laser cage be different from the one in Niagara: not just sealing off the cellules from the hive mind outside, but suppressing their mental capacity so they couldn't collect their thoughts?

  No answers, just questions… and when I'd finished my explanations, Annah had a question of her own. "If I understand this correctly," she said, "Dreamsinger sent Jode to this prison too. Jode had that rod which let him escape; but while he was here, wouldn't he have lost touch with the main consciousness just like these blobs?"

  "You're right. Yet he kept enough intelligence to use the ‹BINK›-rod for his return." I shrugged. "Maybe the difference was that Jode was ready for the experience. He expected to get sent here. Maybe that expectation let him retain intelligence long enough to use the rod." I looked around at the scuttling blobs. "Or maybe every Lucifer retains intelligence for a while. It's only prolonged separation from the hive mind that makes them stupid. Or even… look, Jode knew in advance he'd get banished here. He could have prepared some sort of device, a clockwork attachment that swung the ‹BINK›-rod a few minutes after he'd arrived on the moon. That way it wouldn't matter if he went mindless — the rod would tap him automatically, so he'd return to Earth, and immediately link back with the hive."

  "That last sounds most likely," Annah said. "It doesn't leave as much to chance; he could have been hiding the whole contraption right inside his body." She looked up at the bright blue planet in the sky. "By the way, I don't think that's the real Earth… and this isn't the real moon. There's no air on the moon, is there?"

  "True. And there shouldn't be this much gravity either." I took a tentative jump. It felt like jumping on Earth — nowhere near the big bounce I'd have made under weak lunar gravity. "Both Jode and Dreamsinger talked as if those fancy rods sent you to an alternate dimension. I guess it amused the Sparks to make this prison look like the face of the moon: emphasizing the sense of banishment. But you're right, this isn't the real…"

  A sizzling noise interrupted me. Annah and I whirled toward the sound.

  Three paces away, Sebastian lay in the dust, still hugging himself into a fetal ball. One of the Lucifer blobs had pushed up against him during its mindless wanderings. Now, plumes of smoke billowed between it and the boy, as Sebastian's nanite protectors fought off the alien cellules; but the blob was too stupid to realize it had caught fire. It turned to one side, like a worm that has bumped against a wall and starts to inch along the wall itself — the worst thing the blob could do under the circumstances. It continued sliding along the length of Sebastian's body, burning all the way as the nanites continued to attack… but even before the blob reached Sebastian's toes and wobbled away smoldering, the nanite-generated flames had begun to dwindle. They just weren't as strong as when the blob had first stubbed up against the boy.

  I wondered: was that because the nanites realized the blob wasn't bothered by fire? Or could there be another explanation?

  Carefully, I stepped in and eased the bottom of my boot toward Sebastian's knee. I felt some resistance, like pushing through sand… but after a moment it yielded and my foot touched the boy's pant-leg.

  "What are you doing?" Annah asked.

  "Nanites," I said. She looked at me blankly; she hadn't been there when Myoko explained psionics to me. "It's too complicated to go into details," I told her, "but just as the Lucifer consists of little independent cellules, Sebastian's powers come from the same sort of thing: microscopic entities, sort of like bacteria. They're ubiquitous on Earth… but not here. The only nanites in this place are the ones we brought with us — in our bodies, in our clothes, and in Sebastian's protective shell."

  Annah wrinkled her forehead. "So these nanites are cut off from the whole, just like the cellules?"

  I nodded. "They're used to operating on Earth, where they're always surrounded by trillions of their kind. So think about them burning that blob just now — the nanites probably did it by incinerating themselves. On Earth that would be no problem, since there'd always be plenty of replacements for the ones that went up in flames; but here, where there are no replacements… every nanite that dies protecting Sebastian means the shell around the boy gets weaker."

  "And I'll bet," said Annah, "the nanites left over aren't as smart. These things must be another collective intelligence, right? Just like the Lucifers. And when nanites burn up, it's like losing brain cells. The rest get more stupid."

  She had a point. Under normal circumstances, nanites could draw on each other for brainpower — all the nanites in the air, the soil, everywhere. But here on this barren moon, with no fellow nano except themselves… it really was like the Lucifer cellules: once part of a huge brain, now fending for themselves. My ability to touch Sebastian proved his nanite protectors were no longer functioning normally.

  I dabbed my foot once more against Sebastian's leg. This time there was no resistance at all; the protective shell had dissipated, the nanites too feeble-minded to stick to their programming. I crouched and hesitantly moved my gloved hand to the boy's arm. No nanites tried to stop me… so I gave him a light squeeze. "Sebastian. It's Dr. Dhubhai. Are you all right?"

  He whined softly and tried to crunch himself into a tighter ball. Annah knelt beside me. "Give him time, Phil. There's no hurry, is there?"

  I thought about the evil Lucifer, unrestrained now that the laser cage in Niagara had lost its power. Surely it would flee from the generating station as fast as possible, splitting itself into human-sized doppelgangers and blending into the local populace. If the creature didn't run, more Sparks would eventually show up, at which point…

  At which point, the Lucifer could have disguised itself as a group of Keepers, wearing robes pulled off the corpses of real Keepers. The aliens might take the Sparks by surprise — might even kill a Lord or two by leading them into a trap. And if the trick didn't work, so what? Satan just lost a few million cellules. The overmind wouldn't care; it lost cellules all the time. Satan would gladly sacrifice a bit of itself for the chance of
killing even one Spark.

  The first Spark to die would be Dreamsinger. Even now, she lay unconscious before Satan's malice. The great black heap could simply press down on her until it had exhausted whatever batteries powered her force field; or maybe it could form an airtight dome over her, preventing the inflow of oxygen until Dreamsinger smothered. For that matter, maybe the same biological mechanisms that made lightbulbs and toasters could also manufacture neurotoxins: poisonous gases that the unconscious Sorcery-Lord would helplessly inhale.

  All kinds of possibilities.

  "I think we might be in a hurry after all," I told Annah. "We should wake Sebastian and get back to Niagara fast. Sebastian can use his powers to cage up the Lucifer… or destroy it outright, now that it's turned bad." I paused as another thought struck me. "Even if the Lucifer isn't raising havoc, we have to remove that dam across the river. By now, it's surely causing a flood — in the middle of a big city. People could die."

  She met my eyes, then nodded. "Any ideas on how to break through the boy's trauma?"

  "No. I tried and got nowhere."

  Annah gave me a reproachful look. "You weren't working under the best conditions… but if you don't want to talk to him again, I'll see what I can do."

  "He's all yours. He might respond better to a female voice."

  She held my gaze a moment longer… then turned to Sebastian and called his name softly. I stood and walked away — as if my very presence could hamper Annah's progress. Ridiculous to feel self-pity at such a time; but as I stared at the Earth in the big black sky, the only thing on my mind was the leaden weight of failure.

  The good Lucifer had believed that some force — the League of Peoples or someone else — recruited me to preserve the angel's soul. I'd been brought to Niagara Falls by the haunting and the prophecy because I supposedly had some strength, some skill, some gift which would let me save the day. Part of me had wanted to believe the myth: that I was special, a hero with hidden depths who could turn defeat into victory.

  But I hadn't got through to Sebastian. The laser cage had flickered out. The good Lucifer was gone forever, its consciousness swallowed by evil. And if Sebastian eventually came to his senses, the credit would be Annah's — Annah, who'd rescued herself quite handily without any help from me.

  I hadn't rescued a single person. Hadn't died in noble sacrifice. Hadn't used my scientific knowledge to conquer the foe. Hadn't used anything except my friends and my money-purse… as always.

  A surge of disgust swept over me. I reached into my pocket, pulled out the purse, and cocked back my arm — intending to hurl the damned thing away from me, a symbol of my perennial uselessness. But before I completed the throw, I stopped. Something wasn't right. The purse: it was heavier than it should have been. Much heavier. And bulging tautly, like a rubbery black soccer ball inflated to maximum pressure.

  I opened the purse. A rush of gunpowder grains spilled dryly onto my hands.

  For a moment, I stared stupidly at the dark sandy flecks. How could a shovelful of cellules get into my purse? Only one answer: it must have happened while I was mindlinked with the good Lucifer — while I was surrounded by the mound, blind to the outside world. And it couldn't have happened by accident. The purse always sealed hermetically shut, airtight, watertight, impenetrable. The angelic Lucifer must have shaped itself into fingers, opened the purse, deliberately crammed the interior with cellules, then closed it up again… all while I was oblivious.

  I turned toward Annah, intending to tell her about this strange development; but I never opened my mouth. All around the cage, the blobs that had been blundering blindly were now slithering my way: moving with sudden purpose, converging on my position. Cellules rasped against each other and the moondust beneath them — a hiss like the sound of the great black heap when the lasers had winked out and evil poured in.

  Uh-oh. I dropped the purse, then ran to Annah and Sebastian, vowing I'd protect them from whatever happened next.

  The closest blob reached the purse and flowed over it, merging with the cellules that had been inside. A ripple went through the dark mass, like a shudder of pleasure. Then another blob arrived and the process repeated: a melding, a ripple, the sounds of grain on grain.

  "What now?" Annah asked.

  "I had a stowaway. It seems to have given the other cellules a new lease on life."

  "Was it a good stowaway or a bad one?"

  "That's the question, isn't it?"

  More blobs coalesced in the center of the cage — like tumbleweeds blown into a rock niche and massing in a single snarl. When all those cellules finished coming together, they'd create a mound as big as the one in Niagara… and judging by the purposeful way the blobs were moving, I was sure the mound would be intelligent.

  Intelligent, yes; but good or evil? It had to be evil, didn't it? The good Lucifer's consciousness had been erased as soon as the laser cage lost power.

  Unless…

  Could my purse have kept the angelic Lucifer safe? The angel had stuffed its cellules into my purse before the protective field collapsed. Therefore the little black grains had been angelic when they went in. Could the purse have kept them isolated from the onslaught of Satan?

  A normal purse couldn't… but this purse was a gift from the Sparks to my grandmother… who bequeathed the purse to me…

  I suddenly found myself laughing. Laughing freely out loud — not with hysteria but truly appreciating the joke.

  "What is it?" Annah asked. "What's so funny?"

  "My purpose in life," I said. "To carry…" I broke up again, unable to speak.

  I inherited the purse from my grandmother. She'd received it from the Sparks thirty years ago. The Sparks got it from their mysterious sponsors in the League of Peoples. And the League, with flabbergasting prescience, had produced this high-tech purse way back when because they'd foreseen that on this very night they'd need a small container to protect the sanity of a few million "angelic" cellules.

  My purpose in life was to carry the purse. Just that. My brains, my scientific training, whatever other virtues I counted as points of pride — they weren't important. I was merely intended to carry the purse.

  Curiosity made me wonder how much the League had tampered with my life. I didn't believe for an instant they could actually see thirty years into the future; no, they'd made this happen by subtle pushes and shoves. Not just the haunting and prophecy that aimed me in this direction — how much had they influenced me back in the past? The League controlled the nanites that pervaded my brain; had those nanites been the reason I chose to leave Sheba? Why I crossed the ocean and took a teaching position at Feliss Academy? And what about my friends? Were they manipulated too, prodded this way and that to satisfy the League's scheme? Probably. Without the sacrifices of everyone else, I never would have arrived at the right place and time to save the Lucifer.

  To carry the purse.

  "Insh'allah," I said, still laughing.

  "What?" Annah asked.

  "It shall be however God wills. Or if you prefer King Lear, 'As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods. They kill us for their sport.' "

  "Now you're doing quotations too?"

  "Why not?" I smiled… but the smile was bitter. "We've done what we were supposed to, Annah. We've fulfilled the quest and redeemed Lucifer. We've won."

  "How?"

  I gestured toward the accumulating heap of cellules. Just as big as the mound in Niagara. Lucifers had been sent here over the years and rendered mindless by the suppressing laser field — turned into blank slates ready to be assimilated when the good Lucifer arrived. That had been part of the League's plan too: assembling sufficient mass to be reclaimed. Now the angel had arrived; now the mindless cellules had become part of a new consciousness. A good consciousness… or at least one that pleased the League better than the roaringly defiant Satan.

  Now we had a saintly mound as big as the demonic one back in Niagara. I didn't have the prophetic powers of the League of Pe
oples, but I could guess what would happen next.

  A humanoid clump of black pulled away from the pile in front of us. It shivered as if it were cold; then the outer crust of gunpowder flaked away to reveal a smiling, radiant Rosalind.

  "Hello again," the Lucifer-Rosalind said. Her voice was soft; her eyes shone. "Do you understand what's happened?"

  Annah didn't answer. I said, "I understand in general. You might explain a few specifics."

  "Such as?"

  "How much of this the League made happen. How much they interfered in all our lives."

  "I can't answer that," the Rosalind said.

  "Can't or won't?"

  "Can't." The girl lowered her eyes. "Your purse is roomy for a purse, but it couldn't hold enough to preserve my entire consciousness. I saved the most important parts of my personality — at least I think I did — but I had to sacrifice almost all of my memories. Whatever I knew about the League's plans… the knowledge is gone. I'm virtually tabula rasa."

  "How convenient for the League."

  "Very. I'm as curious as you are about the League's influence. How, for example, did I choose which memories I'd discard and which I'd keep? Did the League do that, or did I choose of my own free will? Does free will exist at all?" The Rosalind shrugged. "I have no answers. Considering that the amount I stuffed into your purse was roughly the size of a human brain, at this point I'm no wiser than you."

  "At this point?"

  The duplicate Rosalind smiled and gestured to the looming black heap behind her. "I've acquired new brain cells. With each passing moment, I can feel my mind expanding."

  "Lucky you. The laser cage isn't trying to expunge your intelligence?"

  "No. The suppression effect turned off as soon as you showed up with the purse. I believe the purse sends out a signal."

  "Oh." I shook my head ruefully. "The League thinks of everything, doesn't it?"

  "They do plan for contingencies."

  "But you don't know what their plan is?"