Peal of joyous laughter from the apparition. Loud buzz of wings, blurring the tiny woman’s body as she soared over their heads, swooped low with a buzzsaw roar, right between Rahman’s legs, Rahman jumping and screaming and grabbing at her crotch while the creature danced overhead.
“Aarae be my name!” she cried. “Silvestris nympha.” Bride of the forest.
She shimmered and buzzed again, twirled around them like a mote of magic dust, flew behind Kincaid and goosed her hard, flew between Inbar’s legs and seemed to swing from his penis for a moment while he jumped and screamed, floated over their heads again for just a moment, grinning downward, laughing at the man, “Pixie to you, Toots!”
Shimmered and buzzed and flew straight up into the sky and was gone.
There was a moment of silence, then Kincaid said, “Well. Jesus Fucking Christ. What the Hell next...”
o0o
No use trying to make any sense of it, or argue the point. Is this Pellucidar, or merely Never-Never Land? In the Multiverse, there’s no reason there can’t be a place that partakes of both. On the other hand, there’s no reason to believe, really believe in any of it.
There was that, during the walk back up the hill, after they’d slowly, silently put on their clothes, more or less oblivious of one another. Funny, though, to see Inbar standing there, spraddle-legged, looking down at himself in disbelief. Me Tarzan. You vine. Toots.
And then there’d been the puzzled, unbelieving stares of the others, back at the ship. Genda finally saying, “What do you mean, you were attacked by Tinkerbell? Tinkerbell who?”
Kincaid staring at him, bemused. Well of course there’d been no Walt Disney in his universe. Not to mention J.M. Barrie.
Then Brucie said, “Ya mean the cartoon fairy? Hey, I remember that! There’s this scene where little Tink stands on a mirror, sort of looking over her shoulder at her own rump, where it looks like she’s looking up her own skirt. I kind of liked that when I was kid.”
Blank stares from everyone else.
“Well. I guess it was a Forties kind of thing. I guess you had to be there...” Trailing off.
Tarantellula put her hand on the back of his neck, black glove of a hand almost engulfing his head, giving him an affectionate sort of shake. “I can just see you watching something like that,” she said.
Genda sighed and shook his head. “Well, it doesn’t matter what you saw. I’m sure we’ll run into worse.” He turned the Bimus computer, which he’d set up on one of the flat rocks lying loose around the crash site, turning it so they could all see the screen.
“This,” he said, “is from the software package I picked up on Crimson Desert, a dataset, actually, for software I picked up in its audience track universe.”
A three dimensional image of a transparent globe, bumps and valleys on its surface, like mountains and continents and empty seas. He said, “I thought it was just a normal planet, kind of an odd view, of course, but...” He tapped one of several smaller spheres embedded in the larger one. “I couldn’t imagine what these were supposed to be. Now...”
He looked up, into the bright sky, then pointed at a small half-moon hanging just above where the rising “horizon” disappeared behind the sky. “That, I suppose, is this one.” Pointing to one of the smaller globes on the map. “The coordinate set for the gateway to God’s Machine lies underneath this larger, um, moonlet, I guess we could call it, which I’ve placed in a south polar position. The gateway seems to lie on a small mountain peak in the middle of this depression.”
Ling said, “In the Land of Awful Shadow.”
Brucie Big-Dick said, “Right. Very melodramatic. I’m sure some script guy was well-paid to think it up. So what the Hell is God’s Machine?”
Tarantellula said, “In olden times the Latin phrase machina dei was used to mean ‘a contrivance of the gods.’ In drama, it’s a plot device that you just pull out of thin air and make up any excuse for.”
Odd look from Kincaid: “I thought that was deus ex machina...”
Another sigh from Genda. “I doubt that’s what it means here.” He shook his head slowly, seeming tired of the lot of them, perhaps of the whole business. “I’ve been researching this, following an old, cold trail for centuries now. If the hints are right, God’s Machine lies at the core of the Multiverse. It’s the whatever the runs the show. The contrivance, as you say, at least. From there...”
Kincaid said, “Scavengers thought the Colonials believed in something like that. I guess they thought the Space-Time Juggernaut was just a myth, a religion maybe, until the Jug came for them.”
Genda said, slowly, thoughtfully, looking away into the landscape, “I think God’s Machine has something to do with the maintenance of gate connectivity. It’s what the gates access.”
Kincaid: “The Toolbox.”
“Yes. If I understand you right. I don’t think God’s Machine is in fact God Himself.”
Rahman said, “So you believe, somewhere out here, somewhere deep in the Multiverse, God is... real.” You could hear it in her voice: Really real?
He shrugged. “I don’t know. God was never really a part of my cultural surround. Not like Tao. Not even like the Goddess Amaterasu, sacred to my ancestors...” A dark-eyed glance at his robot lover. “But many of my friends are, were Western Deists, and Zen Catholicism was a potent political force in China during the early days of the Space Age.” Back up at the sky now, staring at that hazy moonlet. “It was difficult enough to believe that the One Universe was just an accident, a confluence of meaningless rules. This...” Hand taking in Faux-Pellucidar around them, but meaning the Multiverse beyond.
Ling said, “The Watchmaker?”
“Maybe so. I don’t know. I hope to find out.”
Laing said, “Easier for people like us,” a gesture at Jensen, who seemed uninterested, “to believe a world must have its creator. Someone, somewhere did make me.”
“And me,” said Amaterasu, looking at Kincaid.
Avoiding her gaze, Kincaid said, “And yet, if all rules are possible, all possibilities must be, whether they are willed into being or not.”
Ling thought, Peaks and valleys. Always a surprise. He said, “So what made possibility itself?”
Brucie Big-Dick said, “Long-hair bullshit. Who the Hell cares who made what or why? Let’s just go find out. If we can. If we want to...”
Genda passed a hand over his face, sweaty-looking face, seeming exasperated, exhausted. “Well. No telling what we’ll run into in a world like this, whatever it is. Or where.” A glance round at the others. “I guess, in the morning, we should just start... walking?” A pointed look at Amaterasu, perched silent nearby on a rounded tan boulder. “I guess we should try to get some sleep.”
She arose, as if on cue, and together they walked over to the remains of Baka-no-Koto, went inside. Watching them go, Kincaid thought, I made her to be like that. I did it. Why didn’t I think of this while I was doing it? Why did I make a thinking toy for my selfish little brother Roddie?
Hard to watch her being so... compliant. Hard to watch it, and know why it’s so.
o0o
Ultimately, Kincaid knew, they would have to start walking, for Baka-no-Koto was beyond being saved. Imagine that, she thought. Reduced from interstellar travel at hundreds of times the speed of light, to creeping on foot across the inside of some vast sphere. Thousands of kilometers to what was, apparently, this world’s only easily accessible gate. If you can call this a world. Some impossible hollow in the midst of an infinite, solid, nothingness.
Supplies gathered, clothing gathered, packs packed, graves looked at one last time, the Arabs with heads bowed, saying one last guttural, muttered prayer for Alireza’s soul. Jensen standing silent by that other grave, Laing’s arm around his shoulders.
Did the ants believe in immortal souls?
As well ask if I do.
I never could accept the hypothesis that a perfect emulation was the same as me. What if there were tw
o of us? Would my consciousness imbue both? Unimaginable. Impossible. Partaking of the qualities of... God. Omnipresence, at least.
A whisper of distant sound.
Tarantellula, shading huge white eyes, looked up into the strange blue-gray sky, and said, “Sergeant? What the Hell is that?” Pointing.
Kincaid raised her rifle and looked through the scope at a distant silvery speck, speck hardly distinguishable from a thousand other sky glimmers on the edge of vision. Soft grunt. “Some kind of... flying machine.” The thing began to grow larger, coming closer, sound growing from a whisper to a soft rumble, as of powerful engines.
o0o
Watching the ship hover above the crashed starship, Kincaid saw it as a flying cabin cruiser. A hull obviously intended to cleave water. Superstructure with windows. A little mast with a fluttering, colorful penon, little flag a seemingly abstract pattern of pale blue, cornflower, and something like salmon pink. Kincaid found herself remembering a box of Crayola crayons she’d had as a child, so many years ago. The names on those crayons defined the true meaning of colors for me...
Pixie Aarae flying above the little ship, buzzing swiftly around it, around the two people on its aft deck, tall, thin, fire-haired woman clad in bright, silvery chain-mail leaning on the rail, looking down at them, short, bald man at the helm, operating controls, holding the wheel; short, bald man clad all in dusty-looking black leather.
The ship descended, settling to the ground, and Aarae spun from the mast, turning cartwheels in the air, buzzing among them, whirling around Inbar, whirling around his waist. Somehow, in the twinkling of an eye, she managed to get his beltbuckle undone, his fly unzipped, Omry Inbar cursed, clutching his pants once again, holding them up.
Laughter from the people on the ship, the woman’s voice high and sharp, the man’s voice very deep, that rough testosterone frogcroak common to heavyset bald men.
Kincaid held her rifle across her chest, careful to aim it at no one, finger kept outside the trigger guard. A quick glance at Tarantellula, who’d retrieved her own weapon, making sure she was doing the same. The black giant was holding Brucie’s hand again, Brucie himself staring, staring at the red-haired woman. Tired of your monster yet, Brucie? Maybe so. And this is one showy little piece in front of us now...
The woman wore a long sword with a half-basket hilt strapped across her back, shorter sword at waist, dirk clasped to her belt at the opposite hip. A holster for some kind of small handgun. Looks like a classic Luger. No helmet, though. I’d wear a helmet if that were my getup.
The man, big headed, with large, muscular-looking hands, rounded, sloping shoulders, bulging stomach, short, almost-bowed legs, was indeed dressed in cracked and dusty old leather. Just a short sword here. And a long-barreled gun strapped to his hip, either an antique horse-pistol or a sawed-off shotgun. Looks like he’s a good deal older than her. And standing two paces back. Not husband then. Or lover. Not father, nor even younger brother. A servant, perhaps...
The ship barely touched the ground, floating light on its keel. The man did something, a little gangplank dropped with a dull, echoless thud, and the woman stepped down, stepping forward to meet Kincaid, looking her right in the eye. Off to one side, out of the corner of her eye, she could see Lord Genda, frowning, nonplused.
The woman held out her hand and said, “Amanda Grey, Knight Errant of the Silver Thread.” A little head gesture, back at the bald man, who stood up on deck, also frowning, thumbs tucked in his studded belt. “My squire, Edgar.”
The man nodded.
Kincaid took the proffered hand, felt its softness. Shook her head slowly, glancing up to where the pixie fluttered, just above Inbar’s clearly discomfited head. “Sergeant-Major Astrid Kincaid, United States Marine Corps. And I’ll believe anything right now. Just try me.”
The woman laughed. “You’ll have to forgive little Aarae. She means well.”
The being settled on Inbar’s shoulder and began nuzzling his ear, the man growing rigid, face darkening slowly. Up on the ship’s deck, Edgar muttered, loud enough for all to hear, “For a pixie, that is.”
Amanda Grey said, “We saw your ship from afar, falling from the sky. It seemed like a... phenomenon worth investigating.”
And squire Edgar, dark eyes on them, measuring them all: “No one flies at such incandescent speed, here in Hesperidia. Few fly at all. And those few who do fly, generally creep along just above the landscape.”
Remembering the ship they crashed into, on emerging from the undocumented gate that must lie somewhere up by the inner sun, Kincaid said, “Not all, though.”
Amanda said, “The Garsetti Traders are known to take perilous shortcuts in their quest for enhanced profit.”
Edgar: “If you struck someone up there,” a nod sunward, “they may be falling still.”
A long, long damned fall. Tumbling endlessly, hour upon hour, until the end came at last.”
Ling said, “Hesperidia. Dawn World? If you have a name for this... place, perhaps you know of others?” Fishing for knowledge.
Amanda said, “This is the only real world. But... there are stories of others.”
Edgar, shadow deepening behind his eyes, said, “Your words imply you’ve come from... elsewhere. Where might that be?” Voice filling with an unspoken demand.
Then the story was told, a bit at a time, Knight-Errant Amanda Grey incredulous, unbelieving at first. Squire Edgar, Kincaid saw, had no problem with any of it. Saw him go to stand before the wreck of Baka-no-Koto, by the two fresh graves, eyes troubled but understanding. Finally, he turned to them, and said, “What are you going to do now? I can’t imagine you being content to... settle here.”
No. Not bloody likely, however much Professor Ling went on prattling about Pellucidar.
Amanda said, “Perhaps we can assist you in going back the way you came?”
Genda said, “Without the starship, the sun’s gate opens on a... void. No, we have information this... world’s other exit lies at a place that seems to be called Koro’mal’luma.”
Silence.
Then Edgar said, “Well. It figures.”
It figures? Curiously out of synch with the cadences of their speech, thought Kincaid.
He said, “Do you know the word synchronicity?”
Amanda said, “Perhaps you should know that the Heart of Darkness is our ultimate destination as well.”
o0o
The little ship, little nameless ship, whose sparse accommodations suggested space for five perhaps, had struggled to lift them all, swaying on its keel, teetering just above the ground like a balloon whose helium was about depleted, before staggering into the sky, Squire Edgar muttering to himself as he worked the controls, tipping the wheel this way and that in an effort to keep them rightside up.
Now they flew slowly along, flying above the smaller mountains, around the larger, through passes that terrified, above glistening fields of ice and snow, or far above dark tropic jungles, passing sometimes above small, fluffy white clouds, other times dodging the classic, dark-bottomed anvils of thunderheads, passing westward, or so Edgar said, under a pinprick noonday sun.
Like flying over the middle of some vast, cotton-rimmed bowl, thought Ling Erhshan. Like we’re standing still. The landscape moves underneath, trees and mountains hazing away to nothing aft, new mountains, new forests, new red deserts materializing to the fore. This is, finally, more real than any dream I ever dreamed. More real than all the stories. More real than my life.
Down below, hundreds of meters below as they passed over some high, dry plateau, he watched a fire-breathing dragon slay and eat a monster so huge it defied probability. A monster the size of two blue whales, a monster that must weigh in the thousands of tons. A monster that was grazing peacefully, munching the tops of dry brown trees, until the dragon came and slew it.
Not just any dragon. A special dragon. A familiar dragon. Tyrannosaurus rex vomiting a steady stream of napalm on the screaming, writhing herbivore’s back, ra
ising blisters that grew to holes, exposing ribs, melting skin away, jellied gasoline pouring in to cook tortured flesh, tree-crunching monster falling and dying, familiar dragon bending to his feast. Things on his back, little tree-shaped spines, wriggling as if with pleasure, as he bit and chewed and swallowed.
Standing by his side, watching, knight-errant Amanda Grey said, “Lucky you came down where you did. Those well-watered highlands don’t support much in the way of really dangerous fauna.”
Why not?
Too soft, she’d said. Too easy.
Wouldn’t you say a sabertooth tiger was really dangerous?
She’d smiled, nodding at the scene below. What would smilodon be to a thing like that? A skin parasite?
Down below, the plateau of the fire-breathing dragons passed on, giving way to a huge canyonland, dark, red-orange rock eaten away to vertical walls, giving way to a desert country kilometers below, desert country of spires and columns, tiny mountains surmounted by dry, stunted trees.
No rivers, Ling whispered. No water at all. This is a valley of the winds...
Some people call it that, said Amanda Grey.
The people of Hesperidia?
The people of this place, which is a hole in nothing at all.
This place?
Hesperidia. What you see below is called the Aino Plains, the landscape around Aphrodite Terra, our destination. At his inquiring look, she said, Aphrodite Terra. The land of Yttria...
Meaningless, though the words themselves had meaning.
How is it you speak English so well?
A puzzled look. The language is called Têtonic. Why do you speak it so well?
Well, I studied hard in school and... He smiled, spoke a few words in Guoyü. She said, Ah. I’m not surprised. You certainly look like a Han, though obviously you’re not...
Everything so subtly twisted around. I must keep reminding myself what it means, for the Multiverse to be. To port, in what they referred to as north, another mountainous land appeared, dark rock, gray, like granite, weathered granite, with green stains here and there, as if the rock supported moss or algal growth. Lichens, perhaps. Lichens will grow on rocks, even very dry rocks.
The Transmigration of Souls Page 24