Deception Well (The Nanotech Succession Book 2)

by Linda Nagata

  “Verbal persuasion may not be adequate,” Sypaon said.

  Urban glared at the plane. “She’s right. Give me your capsule.”

  Lot looked down at the little capsule he still clutched in his hand. Urban snatched it before he could think how to respond. “Hey! Wait a minute—”

  But Urban ignored him. He fished the second capsule out of his own suit pocket.

  “Urban, you can’t—”

  “This is about survival, Lot! For me, for Silk.”

  Sooth. “Then maybe you should just use that stuff against me. Get rid of the source of your problem.”

  “Placid Antigua already tried that. It didn’t work, remember? You’ve got Chenzeme protection.”

  “Urban, you can’t just kill them!”

  “Why not? They want to die, don’t they? Alta wanted to die. And she got her wish. You gave that to her, didn’t you, fury?”

  “Yeah.” Lot sat down hard on the wet sand. “I did.” First Captain Antigua, then Gent and now Alta. Jupiter Junior, for sure.

  A shadow flitted across the beach. He looked up, to see the plane sweep out over the sand, then stall, to begin its vertical descent, the hum of its engines muted by his hood. “David could probably get treatment once I’m gone.”

  “We’re not scrambled,” Urban observed. “Your radio signal has gotten really weak, but it’s not inaudible.”

  Lot felt a flush in his cheeks. The plane was close enough that its communications system could be picking up their conversation. He plunged his fingers into the sand, trying to decide what to do. He could warn David. He had that option. But then Urban would be left exposed.

  Sand billowed as the plane set down. Urban strode toward it and Lot rose to follow.

  The door opened. David was first out. He skipped the descending step and jumped down to the beach, the tattoo on his arm squirming in the sunlight. Two more ados followed him. They both held bead rifles. Lot hurried forward. The plane didn’t look big enough to hold any more occupants and still have room for passengers.

  He saw Sypaon’s warden-shadow slip under it. She melted up the stairs.

  David looked from Urban to Lot with a quizzical expression. “You’re suited? How come? Something wrong with the air down here?” His voice arrived muffled through the suit, barely audible past the grumbling of the waves.

  Lot didn’t bother to answer. Without a communications link, David couldn’t hear him anyway. Maybe David realized that. He glanced uneasily toward the plane’s open door, just as Sypaon reported in over the suit’s comm link. “Nobody inside.”

  “Just these three, then,” Urban said, breaking his silence now that he knew no one else was listening. He held his arms loosely at his sides; his fingers curled naturally over the capsules. “You ready, fury?”

  Lot could see his left fist begin to close. “Don’t do it.” He touched Urban’s arm—gently—not wanting to cause an accidental release. “It’s not necessary.”

  But now David had seen the capsule in Urban’s hand. His eyes got big. He backed off a few steps. His buddies with the bead rifles raised their weapons, settling their aim on Urban’s chest. Lot stared at the tiny pore that tipped the nearest muzzle. It might take a bead several seconds to chew through Urban’s suit, but once breached, the assault Makers in the bead would ensure he’d soon be dead.

  “Lot,” David warned, “you better tell me what’s going on.”

  Maybe that would be best. “Hark,” Lot said, alerting the suit. “Unseal.”

  “No!” Urban countered.

  Too late. Lot’s suit split on the seam. He reached up slowly and pulled the hood back. Like the rest of his body, his face was covered with sores. From the shocked expressions on the ados’ faces, he knew he must be a ghastly sight. David’s mouth opened, then closed, then opened again before he could get any words out: “What happened to you?”

  Lot felt the brush of communion like a soft, silver rain. Maybe the ados felt it too. The two holding the bead rifles shifted uneasily. Doubt flowed from them. Lot caught it, amplified it, mixed it with fear. Jupiter Junior. Grimly, he let himself slide into the role. Pointing at his wounded face, he announced: “The planetary wardens did this. They tried to kill me.”

  David frowned, perplexed. “But we couldn’t locate any wardens here.”

  Lot blinked in surprise. His gaze cut briefly toward the plane’s open door, where Sypaon had disappeared. But of course they wouldn’t know about her. His mouth felt dry as he turned back to David. Still, he knew what to do. He knew what Jupiter would have done. “Liar. You sent the wardens after me.”

  David’s eyes widened in shock. “No!”

  Lot gestured at the rifles. “You came here to kill me.”

  “No. We only wanted to protect you—”

  “You wanted to steal the loyalties of my people! Set yourself in my place.”

  “It isn’t true,” David panted. “Lot, I only—”

  “I’ll find out what’s true!” he barked, startling himself: it might have been Jupiter speaking through his mouth. He caught his breath. He could feel David’s dread, as if it were his own. His hand trembled as he signaled to the two with the bead rifles. “Watch him closely. You’ll be safe here, until I can send the plane back.”

  He looked at Urban. But he could see him only as a lightless rent in a world that he suddenly realized had gone all silver. “Get on the plane.” He had to force the words out. He wasn’t even sure if he’d said them aloud. He wasn’t made for this. Jupiter had never shown him how to successfully betray his own being. The beach and the air around him swirled in silver. He could make out vague shapes in the matrix, Alta and Gent and a hundred others, waiting for him.

  Slowly, he turned back to David. He didn’t need to cut David off. He could draw him in, make him part of a greater whole, they could all be as one—

  Urban yanked his arm hard. “Get on the plane, fury.” He half-pushed him, half-carried him up the stairs, then shoved him stumbling through the door. Lot went down on his knees in the tiny aisle, suddenly nauseated, his pulse pounding in his skull. Ord slipped past him. “Believe in him!” Urban shouted at the astonished trio on the beach. Then the door closed. Sypaon must have convinced the plane’s DI to cooperate, because the engines started with a roar. Urban stomped past him, dropping into the forward seat. “Slick performance,” he growled. “Now, why didn’t I think of that?”

  CHAPTER

  33

  SYPAON GOT THEM ABOARD THE ELEVATOR CAR. The warden at the terminal building was still armed, and she used it to burn a perimeter around the loading bay. The plane set down on the charred ground between the wings of the building. A crowd of ados had fled to the road beyond. There were maybe six hundred altogether.

  Lot watched them through the plane’s window, picking out faces, setting names to them. They were angry. He could see it in their posture and in the way some of the ado boys paced the edge of the burned zone, back and forth, in ancient threat. The warden figure stood in the savaged ground, affecting a charred color and nearly invisible, though obviously the ados saw it, because it drew dark looks from knotted groups of them. They surged forward when the plane landed.

  The warden reacted calmly, flitting toward the ados almost faster than the eye could follow, laying down a precise line of spray that caused the ground to bubble and steam. The surging ados fell back.

  “That’s dangerous,” Urban said. “It could set off a defensive reaction in the governors.”

  “Unlikely,” Sypaon responded. “The warden defensive mechanism is strictly limited by time and initial substrate. Specific damage in the Well is necessary and must be allowed.”

  Lot pulled on his hood before the door opened. He had to do it manually, because the suit refused to do it for him. Energy reserves absolutely did not support the action. To his concern, the hood felt thin and insubstantial. He pressed the seam shut, hoping it would seal. Then he descended the stairs. The plane lay between him and the ado crowds. He ke
pt his back to it, and did not look around.

  Two elevator cars rested on the pad. Lot walked toward the nearest, concentrating on each step like a drunk pretending he was not.

  He could hear a staccato noise behind him: sharp, commanding sounds muffled only a little by the decrepit hood. He hummed loudly so he would not have to hear much of it and ask himself if it was only creaking tree branches or his name barked out over and over again.

  The elevator doors stood open. He walked past them. A warden slipped in beside him.

  On the wall he recognized the graffiti he had seen once before: On this day we have entered a higher existence.

  But they had not survived that long.

  Regret rolled over him as he considered again the glory of the Communion. There had been beauty there, and a vast reach that already he could only dimly recall.

  “Shut the doors,” Urban said. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

  “They will wait for us in the city,” Sypaon pointed out.

  Lot felt the floor lurch. He staggered, lost his balance, and went down on his ass. He decided to stay there for a while. Exhaustion had made the blank white wall below the graffiti an interesting focus of observation. With some prompting from Urban, he remembered to unseal his hood.

  HE BLINKED. URBAN HAD SHOVED SOMETHING into his hands. “Eat fast, fury. We make the city in a few minutes.”

  Lot looked down, to see a rolled crepe filled with mint green cream, just like the ones Urban had served him that day. He chuckled softly.

  Urban gave him an odd look. He had more of the crepes piled on a plate. “Hey,” he said with a shrug. “At least they stocked the kitchens.”

  “How are we going to get past them?”

  “Ord got through to Clemantine. She’s coming for us.”

  “She still has a hand in it?”

  “Says so.”

  The change of velocity was only half-sensed. Lot wasn’t sure the elevator had come to a stop until the doors whisked open. He scooped the last crepe from the plate, then stood, gazing warily out into a cramped darkness.

  The floor of the elevator had not aligned with the floor of this receiving chamber. A three-foot difference remained, with the elevator on the low side. An apron of light spilling outward from the open door showed a rough, unfinished gray floor—and only four feet higher, a ceiling of the same material. Lot could hear a ringing, pounding, erratic vibration, though he couldn’t guess its source. The chamber beyond looked empty, though it was not.

  The food had brought back some measure of alertness. Lot moved his head slowly back and forth, sampling the cold, thin air to confirm the trace. “Security’s outside the door. They’re hunting us.”

  “Clemantine!” Urban shouted into the silence. “We want to help. We don’t want to fight.”

  His announcement received an immediate response. Armored security personnel clutching bead rifles scuttled around both edges of the door. Ducking their heads, they dropped into the elevator car then drove forward into Lot, slamming him against the wall. The muzzles of two bead rifles thrust into his throat, aimed upward, at his brain.

  From somewhere to his right Clemantine whispered, “I told you I wanted silence.”

  Lot turned his head a quarter inch. They had Urban against the wall too. Clemantine held a rifle at his chin. “We’ve got almost a thousand crazies on the floor directly overhead. They don’t know we’re here. We’d like to keep it that way.”

  The low whump! of a small explosion resounded on one of the car’s upper stories. Clemantine glanced up, her face flushed with anger. “Sounds like some children are coming to visit. But you two boys have been naughty. I’m afraid you can’t play. So let’s go.”

  The bead rifles pulled back. Lot could hear footsteps on the floor overhead. He scrambled for the door, using one hand to boost himself up to the chamber floor. Then he ran hunched, following Clemantine’s security detail. He thought he saw Sypaon flit past before the elevator doors closed behind him, cutting off the light. He blinked down to IR. The sharp nudge of a rifle urged him toward an opening on the right. They were hardly through when the door slammed shut behind them. “Vent the chamber,” Clemantine said. Beyond the thick, insulated walls came the scream of escaping air.

  Lot still held the last crepe. He took a bite. Clemantine noticed. Cool amusement crackled in her eyes. She edged up close to him and laid a controlling arm across his shoulders. “How ya doing, Lot?”

  He kenned her mood: raw contempt, edging onto hatred. He didn’t want any part of it, so he breathed slowly, softly, seeking the cold, machinelike state that would let him pass through the minutes untouched.

  Perhaps she saw this nonreaction as a challenge, for she leaned a little harder. “You know Lot, you really stink. Did your skin suit die?”

  The idea startled him. Clemantine laughed in satisfaction at his obvious disconcertion. Then she slapped him on the shoulder—”Don’t worry about it!”—and turned to the security detail. “Let’s go,” she barked, starting them all trotting up the narrow passage.

  “NO,” KONA SAID, WHEN URBAN MADE THEIR PLEA for sanctuary aboard the approaching Null Boundary. “The situation’s changed. The crisis is past. The ados have been running on little more than a riot mentality, and without Lot, that’ll quickly wind down. They still control the elevators and the main tunnels. But it’ll take days to move even half of them to the planet surface. In the meantime, we have a lock on organic resources. When they get hungry they’ll start to think—and after that it won’t take long for most of them to go crawling back to Mommy and Daddy.” He said this with confidence, though behind his words Lot sensed a disingenuous strain.

  Such subtleties were beyond Urban. His anger flared across the narrow, echoing chamber to which Clemantine had brought them: a command center that had been set up somewhere in the vast, uninhabited city core. Tactical holos lined one long wall. Along the other a window looked into a factory room, where great stirring blades turned slowly in glassine vats. They’d passed sixteen pressure doors to get here. Clemantine had vented each corridor behind them.

  “Don’t you understand what I’m telling you, Daddy? Lot’s a catalyst. The Communion will happen if we don’t get him away.”

  Lot huddled cross-legged on the floor. The air was fiercely cold, and his suit wasn’t keeping him warm at all. A foul odor rose from it, wreathing him in decay. Clemantine had ordered him to sit down and shut up. One of her assistants still held a bead rifle against his throat with a pressure that could not be described as friendly, so for the most part he’d obeyed, leaving Urban to argue his fate.

  Now he felt Kona’s gaze, framed on a ribbon of subterfuge. “Urban, we understand your concerns. Believe me, we share them. But it’s important that we keep Lot here.”

  “You only say that because he’s infected you too!”

  “Don’t you think I know that?” Kona’s anger was a hot spike. But after a moment, he recovered his composure. “This is Sypaon’s wish. She wants him kept safe—and close.”

  Sypaon? Lot jerked in surprise. But the rifle’s muzzle bit deeper into his neck, squeezing off his questions.

  Kona turned again to Urban, his calm voice at odds with a tension he could not contain. “She feels sure that if she can compare the two Chenzeme dialects, she can learn enough details of the language to truly control the swan burster, and that would be a priceless breakthrough.” He raised a hand to quiet Urban’s protest. “She would not use it against the Well. But she could protect us in the void … if we cut the elevator. We could reshape the column into a great ship, Urban. We’d have to retreat to cold storage, but Sypaon would keep us safe.”

  Despite the threat of the rifle, Lot could not keep still for this. “She’s lying to you!” he croaked. The rifle’s muzzle suddenly withdrew, whirling away in his sight while the butt swung round—

  He threw himself back as it whistled past his cheek.

  “Stop it!” Kona barked. “Let him talk.” Anxie
ty hung around Kona like a dark fog. He didn’t trust Sypaon. Lot felt sure of it.

  “It’s not a language barrier that stops her,” Lot said. “It’s the Well. It doesn’t matter what language she uses to persuade the ring cells. The Well has arranged every decision to end in an inactive state.”

  “That can be changed,” Sypaon said.

  Urban hissed. Lot jumped at the sound of her voice. For the first time, he noticed her warden shape, darkened with shadows, pressed against the wall. The lines of her tiny eyes slid and folded, creating warped expressions as she groped for the proper words. “The Well sees me as the enemy. But it has not recognized you, child, though you carry the Chenzeme virus.”

  So. He’d wondered why Sypaon had chosen to protect him in the Well. Now he knew. She saw him as a key that might unlock her obsession with the ring. But she was mistaken. “It won’t work,” he said softly, aiming his words at Kona, not at the warden-fragment of Sypaon. “The Well made its defense against the virus millions of years ago. I can skim its surface, maybe delve a little into its depths, but that’s all. The Well will never be dominated by conscious processes—”

  … anymore than we are.

  He broke off, startled by this unexpected analogy. But wasn’t it so? So much of human thought was shaped by the unfathomable currents that ran in the dark mental oceans beneath the conscious mind. The intellectual processes that could be perceived were only a small part of a greater mechanism… .

  Except, perhaps, in the Hallowed Vasties. Within the cradle of the Communion it might be that too much was perceived at once. Against that, the Well offered no shelter at all.

  So Jupiter had been wrong. He looked at Kona, feeling stunned by this heretical certainty, rising whole like some mythical beast from the dark well of his own mind, sweeping into view like a Chenzeme weapon set to destabilize all that he thought he knew. Was it true? He whispered it aloud, to see how it felt: “Jupiter was wrong.” Then again, in a stronger voice: “Jupiter was wrong.”