Aurora in Four Voices

by Catherine Asaro

  Within seconds the frenzied gyrations of the bridge eased. They managed to sit up, hanging onto each other while they stared back along the way they had come.

  Meters away, the broken end of the Promenade hung in the air.

  For one endless instant they stared at the jagged remains of that break. The shuddering edge shook off a chunk of itself, and the boulder dropped into the void below, hurtling into the shadows.

  Carefully, so very carefully, they got to their feet and backed away, taking each step as if they were in a mine field. Only when they were well away from the break did they turn.

  And then they ran.

  The Promenade groaned in the onslaught of wind. They sped through a universe of wailing gales and convulsing rock, racing toward the shadowed bulk of a mountain that seemed an eternity distant.

  Finally, mercifully, they were almost there. A few more steps-

  A meter away from safety, the bridge pitched under their feet and slammed them against the wall. Stars wheeled past Jato’s vision as he flipped over the barrier. He grabbed at the air, at the rock, anything-

  With a wrenching jolt, he yanked to a stop. He had caught a projection and was hanging from it, his body dangling against the outer side of the Promenade. He scrabbled for a toehold, but the bridge was shaking too much to let him get purchase. Far below, the chasm waited.

  His hands began to slip.

  "Jato!" Soz’s voice was almost on top of him. She had fallen lengthwise on the wall, with one leg hanging over the edge.

  "Below you!" he shouted. His hands slipped again.

  As she grabbed for him, he lost his grip. She caught one of his wrists-and the force of his falling yanked her off the wall. They dropped, dropped, dropped-

  And smashed into ground. Soz landed on top of him with an impact that nearly broke his ribs. She rolled off and kept rolling, scrabbling for a handhold. He clutched her upper arm, but it jerked through his grasp, then her elbow, her lower arm, her wrist-and he locked hands with her, clutching in desperation while they slid downhill. He struggled to stop their plunge, but his fingers just scraped over stone.

  Then he caught a jutting piece of rock and held on hard, his body straining with Soz’s weight. A scratching came from below-and she let go of his hand.

  "Soz, no!" He grabbed at the air. "Soz!"

  "It’s all right." Her strained voice came from below him. "You slowed me down enough so I could stop on a ledge. We’re on a shelf in the cliff, under the Promenade."

  "How can you tell? It’s dark." Even the starlight was muted below the bridge.

  "Got enhanced optics in my eyes," she said. He heard more scrabbling, and then she was pulling herself up beside him.

  So they went, climbing the cliff centimeter by excruciating centimeter. Soz reached the landing at the end of the Promenade and stood up, her body silhouetted against the stars. He climbed up next to her, half expecting the ground to crumble. But they were solidly on the mountain now, at the top of a staircase that wound its way through the mountains down to the plateau.

  They descended in silence. Gradually the wind eased, until it was no more than a whisper of its earlier violence.

  Finally Soz said, "Someone knew we were up there."

  "The drones." Jato wondered if Crankenshaft had set alarms in the city computer web to alert him when anyone looked at records of the trial. Whoever had set the Wind Lions against them would be desperate now, knowing they had to complete what they started lest Soz escape and report back to ISC.

  "I hadn’t intended to get involved here," Soz said. "I was going to wait until I got back to headquarters to recommend they send an investigator."

  Investigator? Jato stiffened. If ISC got into this, he could be retried in an Imperial court. "Soz, why? I’m serving the sentence they gave me."

  She spoke quietly. "To find out why someone went to so much trouble to trump up that phony murder charge against you."

  That threw him. Really threw him. Crankenshaft had been meticulous in setting up the evidence, specifically to fool people like Soz.

  It was a moment before he found his voice. "How did you know it was false?"

  She snorted. "I saw the holos of that kid you supposedly killed. He was hanging around the port docks, watching a ship unload cargo."

  "‘That kid’ was a computer creation. He never existed."

  "I know."

  "But how?"

  She motioned toward the starport. "In several holos you can see the ship he’s watching. It’s a Tailor Scout, Class IV. Eight years ago those Tailors were using non-standard flood lamps to light their docking bays. Kaegul lamps. Advertised as ‘the next best thing to sunlight.’ They emitted ultraviolet light as well as visible."

  "Sounds reasonable."

  She shook her head. "Their UV component was too strong. It caused sunburns. So that model fell out of use fast. Only a few ships ever carried it."

  Jato whistled. "Dreamers have less melanin in their skin than most people. It makes them more susceptible to UV."

  Quietly she said, "Any Dreamer who spent as long under those Kaeguls as they claimed that boy did would have been broiled raw. Those records are beautiful, near perfect. Probably 99.9 percent of the people seeing them would have been fooled. But they’re still fakes." Glancing at him, she added, "That’s not all."

  "What else?"

  "Combat."

  "Combat?"

  "See enough of it and you get good at recognizing the symptoms of shock." She watched his face. "You. In every holo. You hardly said a word throughout that entire trial."

  The whole nightmare was a blur in his mind. "Nothing I said would have made any difference."

  "But why, Jato? Judging from how the Dreamers treat you-forgive me for saying it, but they act as if they don’t like having you around."

  "They think I’m revolting."

  "So why make you stay?"

  His voice tightened. "Because of Granite Crankenshaft."

  "What is that?"

  "Not what. Who. A Dreamer. He wanted me to be his model. For life. To sit for him with nothing in return but the ‘honor’ of living here. I told him no. I thought he was crazy."

  She stared at him. "He framed you for murder because you wouldn’t be his model?"

  "I don’t know why. He finds me as repulsive as everyone else here." Jato spread his hands. "He used blackmail because it’s more effective than abduction. As long as I cooperate, he won’t call in the Imperial authorities."

  "All because he wants to paint your picture?"

  "Not paint. Holosculpture. It’s on his web. I’ve never seen what he’s doing." He exhaled. "The stakes are high, Soz. His sculptures bring in millions. A few have gone for billions."

  She drew him to a stop. "This Crankenshaft-does he have glittering hair?"

  "I don’t know. It’s too short to tell."

  "Black?"

  "Yes."

  "How about his eyes?"

  "Grey, with red rings."

  "Bloodshot?"

  "No. The irises have red in them."

  She blew out a gust of air. "This is making more sense."

  "It is?"

  "The Traders established this colony."

  It wasn’t her comment that surprised him, but how she said it, as an accepted fact rather than a long-debated theory the Dreamers vehemently denied. The Traders were a genetically engineered race distinguished by red eyes, and black hair with a distinctive shimmering quality. Their creators had only been trying to engineer for a higher pain tolerance, but the work produced an unplanned side-effect: Traders felt almost no emotional pain either-they had no compassion.

  A race with no compunction about hurting people could do a lot of damage. Fast. When they began to spread the stain of their brutality across the stars, the colonized worlds had two choices: submit to them or join the Imperialate. As far as Jato knew, no one had ever willingly chosen the Traders.

  There were those who claimed the Dreamers descended from a
group of Trader geniuses morally opposed to their own brutal instincts. They manipulated their genes to rid themselves of those instincts and produced their translucent coloring as an unexpected side-effect. It led them to settle on Ansatz in the forgiving dark, where they traded the fruits of their genius for dreams, in penance for the sins of their violent siblings.

  "It’s possible Crankenshaft carries throwback genes," Jato said. "His wife, too. She’s like ice."

  Soz considered him. "You realize that except for your eyes and the relative dullness of your hair, you could pass for a Trader."

  He stiffened. "Like hell. I can trace my family-"

  "Jato." She laid her hand on his arm. "No one would ever mistake you for a Trader. It’s the Dreamers’ problem, not yours. They evolved themselves into a mild people, rejecting their heritage. Your large size, dark hair, and muscular build may stir memories they can’t deal with. It’s probably why your appearance bothers them."

  A strange thought, that. It would never have occurred to him that perhaps he repulsed the Dreamers because he reminded them of themselves.

  She peered down the stairs, though they were too far up to see much except the lonely circle of light from a lamp at the bottom. "Who do you think activated the Wind Lions?" She turned back to him. "Are we up against the city government or this Crankenshaft? Or both?"

  He considered. "Most city officials don’t believe I was set up. Those few involved with the set up would be more subtle, use a scenario easier to pass off as an accident. This is Crankenshaft’s style. He would go for drama and make it look like I planned it, some rape-murder-suicide thing."

  "Charming man," she muttered. "Stupid, though. ISC would never buy it. I have augmented strength and reflexes. You would more likely end up dead than me."

  "Even with the Promenade breaking?"

  That made her think. "It would complicate things," she admitted. She motioned at the plateau. "If he’s the one who turned on the Lions, those drones down there must be his."

  "Drones?" Jato swore and started back up the steps.

  Soz grabbed his arm. "There’s nowhere to go that way."

  He stopped, seeing her point. They couldn’t go up, they couldn’t go down, and the chasm waited beneath them. Now was the time to find out what arsenal, if any, they had at their disposal. "What else can you do besides see in the dark?"

  "I’ve a computer node in my spine with a library of combat reflexes." She bent her arm at the elbow. "My skeleton and muscles are augmented by high-pressure hydraulics and powered by a microfusion reactor that delivers a few kilowatts. It gives me reflexes and strength two to three times greater than normal, as much as my body can sustain without overheating."

  "Can you stop the globes?"

  "Three or four, I could handle. But there are nine there." She looked down the stairs again. "They’re coming."

  He saw it now too, the Mandelbrot sparkle of globes revving into active mode. Their lights flowed upward in a fractal curve of luminance.

  "Jato," a voice said.

  He nearly jumped. The voice came out of empty air: cool, impersonal, commanding.

  "Come down here," it said. "Bring the woman."

  As Jato’s adrenalin surge calmed, he realized it was only a globe transmitting the voice. "Go to hell, Crankenshaft."

  "You have twenty seconds to resume descending," his tormentor said.

  "Let her go and I’ll do what you want," Jato said.

  "Fifteen seconds."

  The globes continued up the stairs, whirring like a swarm of huge bugs. Ten steps away, five, two. A syringe hissed, and Soz feinted with a speed that blurred, kicking up her leg. Her heel smashed into a globe, and it spun out from the cliff in a spiral of glittering lights.

  A second globe rolled in to fill the gap, a third came from the side, a fourth whirred behind Soz, and a fifth hung over them, its syringe pointing down like the cannon on a miniature battlecruiser. Jato and Soz kept moving; feint, dodge, feint, Soz using her augmented speed. Two globes collided in midair with the grating racket of ceramoplex crashing together.

  It was only a matter of seconds before a syringe shot hit Jato in the chest. The area went numb almost instantly and the sensation spread fast. As his arms dropped like stones to his sides, he lost his balance and tumbled down the stairs, stars and mountains careening past his vision.

  He had one final glimpse of Soz lying on her back on the stairs, pinned down by globes, before his head hit stone.

  Part IV: Aurora

  A high ceiling came into focus. After a while a thought surfaced in Jato’s mind. He was alive.

  He sat up, favoring his bruises. He was alone in Crankenshaft’s studio. No, not alone. Soz lay on the other end of the ledge, eyes closed, her torso rising and falling with each breath. Relief rushed over him, followed by a Neanderthal impulse to go over, stake out his territory, and protect her from Crankenshaft. It wasn’t the world’s most logical response given she was an Imperial Messenger, but he had it just the same.

  He wondered why she was still unconscious. Even his body contained nanomeds designed to repair and maintain it. An ISC officer probably carried molecule-sized laboratories.

  As he got off the ledge, a clink sounded. Turning, he saw a chain with one end attached to a ring in the wall. Its other end fastened to a manacle around his ankle.

  He gritted his teeth, wishing he could wrap the chain around Crankenshaft’s neck. At least the tether was long enough to let him reach Soz. That almost made him back off; he trusted nothing Crankenshaft did. But his instincts were still at work, conjuring up protect mate impulses, so he went over to her.

  Crankenshaft had no illusions about Soz needing protection. Her wrists were manacled behind her back and also to a ring in the ledge. He had set her boots on the floor and chained her ankles to the ledge. For some inexplicable reason, he also put metal bands around her neck and waist. Jato leaned over to lay his palm on her forehead-

  Her hand clamped around his wrist so fast he barely saw her move. He froze, staring as she sat up. It hadn’t been obvious from the way she had been lying, but the chain joining her manacles was broken.

  He found his voice. "How did you get free?"

  She dropped his hand, her face relaxing as she recognized him. "Nano-chomps. I carry a few hundred species."

  "You mean molecular disassemblers?"

  "In my sweat."

  He stepped back. He had no desire to have voracious bugs in her sweat take him apart atom by atom.

  "They can’t hurt you," Soz said. "Each chomper disassembles a specific material. The ones I carry are rigidly particular, even down to factory lot numbers."

  He motioned at her manacled feet. "Wrong lot number?"

  "Apparently so. Or else flaws in the molecular structure." Leaning over, she rubbed her wrist against the chain attached to his ankle.

  "Hey." He jerked away his leg. "What are you doing?"

  "They might work on yours."

  "You don’t think that’s dangerous, carrying bugs in your body that take things apart?"

  "They aren’t bugs. They’re just enzymes. And they’re no more dangerous than being trapped here."

  He knew it was probably true, but even so, he was having second thoughts about his amorous impulses. People sweated when they made love. A lot.

  "Jato, don’t look like that," she said. "The chompers are produced by nodules in my sweat glands that only activate when I go into combat mode. Besides, they can’t take apart people. Our composition is too heterogeneous."

  He sat on the ledge, near her but not too close, and motioned at his still-chained ankle. "Wrong lot, I guess."

  "I guess so." She tugged the manacle on her wrist, managing to slide it up about a centimeter. The skin on her wrist was more elastic than normal tissue, not a lot, but enough so she could drag it out from under the manacle. He saw what she was after, a small round socket in her wrist.

  "You have a hole," he said.

  "Six of them, actua
lly. In my wrists, ankles, lower spine, and neck."

  That explained the neck and waist bands. "What do they do?"

  "Pick up signals." She held up her arm so the socket faced the console across the room. "If I insert a plug from that node into this socket, it links the computer web inside my body to the console."

  That didn’t sound like much help. "The plug is there and you’re here."

  "That’s why consoles transmit infrared signals." Her face had a inwardly directed quality, as if she were running a canned routine to answer him while she focused her attention elsewhere. "The sockets act as IR receivers and transmitters. Bio-optic threads in my body carry signals to the computer node in my spine. It processes the data and either responds or contacts my brain. Bio-electrodes in my neurons translate its binary into thought: 1 makes the neuron fire and 0 does nothing. It works in reverse too, so I can ‘talk’ to my spinal node."

  He suspected Nightingale was probably flooded with IR signals. "How can you stand so much noise hitting you all the time?"

  "It doesn’t. Only if I toggle Receive." Her full attention came back to him. "The signals do get noisy and it isn’t as secure as a physical link. But it’s enough to let me interact with a node as close as the one over there."

  "And?"

  She made a frustrated noise. "This room ought to be bathed in public signals. But I’m getting nothing at all."

  He doubted Crankenshaft would cut himself off from the city. "Maybe he did something to you."

  "My diagnostics register no software viruses or tampering." She paused. "But you know, my internal web is engineered in part from my own DNA. Maybe he infected it with a biological virus." Without another word, she lifted her wrist and spit into its socket.

  Dryly Jato said, "Insulting it won’t help."

  She smiled. "The nanomeds in my saliva may be able to make antibodies if there’s a virus loose in my biomech web."

  "Are you getting anything?"

  "Nothing." Several moments later she said, "Yes. A notice about a ballet." Her concentration had turned inward again. "I still can’t link to the city system… but I think I can get into the node in that console over there."