Trapped

by James Alan Gardner

  “So you increase your mass significantly and you get practice in bringing evil Lucifers back to the straight and narrow. One step closer to fulfilling the League’s plans for you.”

  “I’m sure they have my best interests at heart.”

  I couldn’t tell if the alien was being sarcastic. An upswell of bitterness made me say, “The League has everybody’s best interests at heart. They’re the good guys, aren’t they? Supremely powerful, yet generous enough to let lesser beings take part in their schemes. Like Gretchen. And Myoko. And Oberon and Pelinor and all the others who died in this mess. If the League is so omniscient, they must have foreseen my friends’ deaths. But the League let it happen anyway; in fact, they instigated everything, because we’d all be safe in Simka if the League hadn’t nudged us into getting involved.”

  “You don’t care that I’d have become evil?”

  “The League could have prevented it without our help. A voice from the sky might have told Sebastian, ‘That thing beside you isn’t Rosalind.’ Or the League could have gone to the Sparks. If the League had warned Mind-Lord Priest what was waiting for him at the winter anchorage, Jode could have been stopped right there. But instead, they left Priest in ignorance. So Priest died, Rosalind died, my friends died...”

  I stopped. The Lucifer-Rosalind had her head cocked to one side as if she were listening to something. But the cage seemed very silent—the great black mound had stopped its rustling, leaving only the sounds of Annah’s soft breathing and my own heartbeat. At last the Lucifer in Rosalind’s form lifted her eyes to meet mine. “That was the League,” she whispered.

  “Speaking to you?”

  She nodded. “They say...they don’t interfere as much as you think. They can’t. They think there’s a chance some human will do something—they won’t say what—but something that will solve a problem...answer a question...they think some member of your race may someday provide a bit of knowledge that even the League doesn’t have. The creatures of the League are too locked into their own perceptions to see some...something...they suspect there’s something they’re not seeing, but they’re blinded by their very omniscience. And Homo sapiens are at just the right intelligence level: a bit above animals, but not so smart that you genuinely comprehend...you haven’t developed a truly logical view of the universe, so you’re more open to stumbling on...”

  I waited for her to finish her sentence. When she didn’t, I said, “You mean if we were any smarter, we’d see the world in a consistent and rational way...which would prevent us from tripping over whatever the League is after.”

  “That’s it,” the Lucifer-Rosalind agreed. “And that’s why the League hates tampering with your kind. They don’t want to push you in any particular direction. They’re afraid of imposing their own biases. So they changed Earth into a venue where your species would have ample freedom to do anything—anything. The only time the League gets involved is when something threatens Homo sapiens so severely that it endangers...whatever it is you have the potential to do.”

  “And one such threat is an evil Lucifer being loosed upon the world.”

  “Exactly. The League had to prevent that—but as unobtrusively as possible. Heavy-handed interference like voices from the sky or direct warnings might ruin everything they hope for.”

  “But not prophecies or hauntings?”

  The Lucifer-Rosalind shrugged. “They don’t want to tell humans what to do. They don’t want to direct you. They occasionally have to catch your attention; but they never interfere with your choices.” She laid a hand on my arm. “Everyone who died made a conscious choice. Gretchen chose to leave the prison of her house, pursuing a new life as a sorceress. Myoko chose to abandon her pretense of weakness and use her powers at full strength. Oberon chose to throw himself on Xavier. Pelinor chose to be the one who faced Jode. Need I go on?”

  “None of them chose to die.”

  “But they knew they were taking risks. Some risks were more obvious than others...but your friends knew the risks were there.”

  “And Rosalind?” I asked. “Did she know she was taking a risk? How could she possibly realize her boyfriend was a killer in disguise?”

  “She knew elopement was a risk. Marriage. Love. Sex. Not to mention the risks of angering her mother, and running off to Niagara where she might run afoul of her mother’s enemies. But Rosalind chose her path willingly—joyously—and if the result wasn’t what she expected, that’s just the human condition. Your species has a severely limited ability to foresee the consequences of your actions; and if some more advanced species can tell what’s going to happen, you invariably think you’re being manipulated...when really you’re just being predictable.”

  “Thanks so much,” I muttered.

  “Don’t be upset,” the Lucifer-Rosalind said. “It’s precisely your lack of foresight that makes you valuable to the League. Smarter creatures always pursue their goals in the best way they know how—terribly boring! But you humans are mostly blind to the future, no matter how much you believe you’re taking precautions. That’s why someday, you might accidentally...”

  She stopped. “I’ve said enough. And now it’s time for me to whisper in Sebastian’s ear.”

  The creature walked past Annah and me, a placid smile still on her borrowed Rosalind face. She knelt beside the boy; she began to talk softly to him, touching his cheek, caressing his hair. There was no way to tell, but perhaps she was also linking with Sebastian’s mind, showing him the same things she showed me. Now that the boy had no nanite shell sealing him off, the Lucifer could touch him directly.

  Annah took me aside. “Do you really think she’ll get through to him? He’s seen so many false Rosalinds; another might send him over the edge.”

  I shrugged. “If we were on Earth, he’d use his powers to reveal the truth; then he’d probably make the impostor explode. But here, there aren’t enough nanites to allow psionic tricks. Sebastian can’t send this Rosalind away or make her shut up...so in time, I think she’ll find the words to bring the boy to his senses.” I paused. “After all, this Lucifer is so much smarter than us mere humans, it can say exactly what’s required.”

  Annah didn’t answer right away. Finally, she said, “Do you think that was really the truth? All that stuff about the League hoping humans will do something or discover something...”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe it’s just a lie to keep us happy—to make us think we’re important, and that the League isn’t controlling our lives. Oh no, we aren’t using you as puppets, you’re too valuable to tamper with. Or maybe it is the truth...in which case, we’ll find out soon enough.”

  “How?”

  “The Spark Lords will come for us. If the League really told the truth, they can’t have us free to tell everyone else what’s going on. That would spoil the experiment: ruin the naive spontaneity that the League claims to value in the human race. So the Sparks, acting on League orders, will either kill us or conscript us...like War-Lord Vanessa did with Opal in the tobacco field. We’re loose ends now; we have to be tied off.”

  Annah made a face. “I wish you hadn’t said that.”

  “You’d rather not think about it?”

  “No. Now the League has to kill us or conscript us; that’s the only way to convince us they weren’t lying.”

  “Sorry. Didn’t think of that.”

  She smiled ruefully. “My Uncle Howdiri—the greatest thief in my family—always had a saying. ‘Don’t be a little paranoid; worry about everything, or let it all go.’ So shut up, Phil, and let’s just enjoy the Earthlight.”

  Obediently, I shut up.

  We held hands.

  We drew closer.

  We enjoyed the Earthlight.

  26

  THE END OF THE RAINBOW

  A sound caught my attention. Reluctantly, I turned from Annah and saw Sebastian standing a short distance off. He looked shockingly pale, like someone out of bed for the first time after a month-long illn
ess; but the boy was conscious and vertical, his eyes able to focus even if they didn’t quite meet my gaze.

  The Rosalind look-alike was gone. A girl-sized mass of black slithered back through the dust toward the main heap of cellules. That surprised me a bit—I thought the Lucifer might have remained in Rosalind form to prod Sebastian in case he showed signs of a relapse. But maybe it was wise not to keep reminding the boy of the girl he’d loved and lost: best just to wake him and get out of the way.

  Annah released her grip on me. “How are you feeling?” she asked Sebastian.

  “Bad,” he said. “But I’ll live.”

  “Did the Lucifer explain everything to you?”

  The boy nodded.

  “You couldn’t have known,” I said. “There’s no reason to feel bad because you were fooled by a monster.”

  “That’s not why I feel bad.” He took a quick breath. “Let’s get this over with, okay?”

  “You know what you’re supposed to do?”

  “I know what I’m going to do,” he said. “Back to Niagara. Put things right. Once the cage is working again, we can bring the Lucifer home.”

  Home. Interesting choice of words.

  I’d tucked the -rod into my sleeve. Now I pulled it out and held it up. “I’ll go with you,” I said.

  “No.” Sebastian gave me a hard look. “I want to do this alone.”

  “You will be doing it alone,” I said, “but the first few seconds might be messy. The rod likely takes us back exactly where we started—which means the middle of the cage. If the evil Lucifer is still there...well, it’ll take your nanite friends a moment to swoop to your rescue. I want to make sure you survive that moment.”

  “You think I’m just a helpless kid?”

  “No,” I said, looking into his angry eyes. “After everything you’ve been through, you aren’t a kid. But you aren’t a man either—not if you let stupid pride reject a reasonable offer of assistance. A true man knows when he can use help.”

  “Oh good,” Annah said. “Then you’ll let me come too. I was afraid you’d want me to stay here until you big strong males made Niagara safe for womenfolk. But if a true man knows when he can use a help...”

  I glared at her. She returned a look of total innocence.

  “Let’s just go,” Sebastian said. “I’m tired.”

  Annah put one arm around the boy’s shoulders and the other around me. “If we’re linked together, will we transport together?”

  “Only one way to find out,” I said. I raised the rod.

 

  I expected we’d return to blackness—the utter absence of light that had filled the prison cavern once the laser cage stopped working. But now there were oil lamps burning near the entrance to the chamber: lamps held by eight figures in Keeper robes, shedding enough light to see the entire room.

  Every last cellule had moved outside the prison cube. They must have wanted to avoid getting trapped if the lasers miraculously reactivated. A mound of them now lay heaped where Dreamsinger had fallen—probably trying to penetrate her armor’s force field, or to suffocate her by sealing out fresh air. The mound was much smaller than the original Lucifer heap; the remaining mass had reshaped itself into human figures, those who were now dressed as Keepers. The false Keepers were busy assembling devices near the mouth of the cavern, contraptions of metal and plastic and electronic parts. I assumed the devices were weapons, traps to spring on the first Spark Lords who came to investigate. The components of the devices must have been produced by the evil Lucifer itself, in much the same way it created lightbulbs.

  A moment after Annah, Sebastian, and I materialized, every Keeper turned our direction...their attention drawn by the distinctive noise. The black mound pressing on Dreamsinger hissed sharply as if it too had noticed our arrival. The mound didn’t move—if it shifted off, the Sorcery-Lord would be able to breathe again—but the Keepers by the entrance dropped what they were doing and charged at us full speed.

  Their eyes were on Sebastian. They obviously realized they had only a tiny window of time to kill the boy before his powers reasserted themselves. Already, nanites in the air must have been processing Sebastian’s presence; soon they would recognize him and congregate en masse to do his bidding. But not instantly—I didn’t know how fast nanotech could work, but I suspected it would take several seconds to analyze the situation and summon sufficient force to provide adequate protection. Most of Sebastian’s life, he’d been surrounded by an attendant nano cloud, immediately ready to do his bidding...but he’d left the normal plane of existence, and now that he was back, the nanites needed time to regroup.

  Annah and I had to buy the boy that time.

  We stepped in front of him, putting ourselves in the path of the charging Keepers. When we’d first arrived, they’d had normal human faces; but in their haste to reach us, they made no effort to control their features. Eyes and skin reverted to masses of granuled black, with here and there a maggot of white from the mutated Jode, All semblance of humanity vanished in a flash...and yet their writhing fleck-filled faces conveyed ferocious hatred, a lunatic hunger to splash our blood onto the cold stone.

  I raised my fists the way Impervia always did when facing drunken rowdies. Beside me, Annah did the same. Our job was simple: keep the Lucifers away from Sebastian, even if we ourselves got torn apart in the process.

  I wanted to tell Annah I loved her but that seemed so trite.

  The Lucifers hit us like a battering ram. I managed to throw a punch in the split-second before impact...but my fist simply buried itself in yielding grains of sand, and then I was knocked off my feet by the sheer mass of attackers.

  Two Keepers went down with me, unable to keep their balance after the tackle. We all hit the stone floor hard. I took the impact on my shoulder, slamming into the uneven rock; fortunately I was still wearing my winter coat, padded with enough eiderdown to soften the blow...but shoots of pain still lanced down my arm, leaving my fingers numb. The Lucifers, clad only in fight robes, made more of a splash: close to my face, one of their arms literally exploded when it struck the stone, like a sandbag rupturing at the seams. The arm devolved into black grains spurting out the robe’s sleeve. The splashing cellules made a raspy sound; but seconds after they burst apart they began skittering together again, trying to recoagulate into the semblance of human flesh.

  More robes rushed past me as I sprawled on the floor. I lashed out wildly, hoping to trip someone; my leg caught somebody’s foot but I don’t know how much effect it had. The world was a chaos of robes, cellules, and pseudo-anatomy. I couldn’t see either Sebastian or Annah. The Lucifers seemed as disoriented as I was—if they’d made an effort to hold me down I could have been pinned easily, but they showed no interest in doing so. Even the Keepers who’d tackled me had scrambled off, struggling toward Sebastian. He was their target; I was nobody, a mere distraction. Therefore I had the freedom to claw at the creatures that crawled close beside me, with no answering attacks from the Lucifers. They were simply trying to get disentangled while I was doing everything I could to slow them down.

  In the middle of all this confusion, I caught sight of Sebastian: still on his feet, but with three Keepers clutching him, one with its hands on the boy’s head. It was trying to snap his neck...to give a sharp twist that would crack the cervical vertebrae or even rip the head clean off. Sebastian was fighting back, and perhaps a small number of nanites were helping him—resisting the pressure that torqued on his skull—but thus far, there was no overt sign of nano coming to the boy’s aid. Millimeter by millimeter, Sebastian’s head was turning too far; and even as I watched, one of the other Keepers sprouted a long bony claw and reached out toward the boy’s exposed jugular.

  A mass of black fury hurtled into the fray. For an instant, I thought it might be a chunk of the good Lucifer, ed in from the moon. Then I saw it was...

  Impervia.

  Blood smeared her hands and the front of her clothes.
I thought I could see a bullet hole pierced through her shirt high on the chest; but she was moving too fast for me to be sure.

  She slammed a foot hard into the knees of the Keeper who was trying to break Sebastian’s spine. Her heel drove straight through the Lucifer’s legs, spraying cellules in all directions: instant amputation at the knees. The Keeper, no longer braced and supported, couldn’t maintain the pressure on Sebastian’s neck...and a moment later, the creature had to worry about its own head, as Impervia’s elbow smashed into its temple.

  The Lucifer’s skull burst like a melon struck with a ballpeen hammer. Gunpowder grains flew in a black shower, splashing hard into the faces of the other two Keepers holding Sebastian. Considering that neither had eyes, they couldn’t have been blinded by the sandy facefuls...but they were distracted long enough for Impervia to sweep one of the attackers off its feet and to hit the other with a palm-heel that dislocated its shoulder. Literally. The arm ripped off the torso and slumped limply, its fingers still gripping Sebastian’s jacket.

  I don’t suppose any of Impervia’s blows caused the Lucifers true pain. When you’re a galaxy-spanning intelligence, a little wear and tear on your component parts can’t hurt very much. But Impervia was striking hard enough to disrupt the intercellule cohesion that kept limbs attached and bodies in one piece. In other words, she was destroying the Lucifers’ effectiveness. A detached arm has no leverage; a legless torso has no balance or mobility. The pieces were still dangerous—lethally so if you gave them time to sprout sharp extensions or garroting tendrils—but Impervia was systematically eliminating their capacity to fight in human form, and they obviously needed a few seconds to reshape for other modes of combat. One of the legs Impervia had kicked off was starting to shove up spikes along its surface, and the other was stretching out into something like a spear. In half a minute, both might be serious threats...but I doubted they’d have nearly that long to do what they wanted to do.