Challenges of the Deeps

by Spoor,Ryk E

  From the crunching sensation and the strong, complex flavor and texture, he was sure this was some sort of meat, fried in hot oil of some type. And spicy it was, with hints of cinnamon, pepper, and capsicum …and maybe a touch of something like lemony cardamom? “Very good. I like it. Here, try my …um, marinated uljuru, which I think is some kind of worm-type creature.”

  He watched with seeming casualness as she scooped one up, popped it in her mouth, and chewed. Her eyes flew wide, but she did finish swallowing before she went for her glass. “Holy cow, that’s hot! HOT hot!” She paused, then suddenly laughed. “Well, that will teach me to underestimate you! You’ve got a more asbestos-lined mouth than I do!”

  “My best friend when I was young, Marisol, had a heritage of Indian-Mex cooking going back generations, and she would try to give me something I couldn’t eat—it was a sort of friendly contest. For my part, of course, I refused to admit that anything she brought was too hot, so I developed quite a cast-iron palate.”

  “Holy cow,” she repeated, now on her second glass of water. “You could’ve probably given Sydney a run for her money.” The wistful note was very faint, but he could still hear it. Another Hyperion memory.

  That rang another bell. “May I ask you something?”

  “You can ask anything, Simon. Can I have another of those?”

  “Of course,” he said, taking one himself and enjoying the tingling burn. “Back in our little conference, I was quoting DuQuesne in saying that the Arena seems almost tailor-made for your people, and I noticed a little …change in your expression. What was that about?”

  She seemed to be taking the second uljuru much better; perhaps the first had numbed her mouth. “That, Simon, is …something we might actually want more privacy for. Back at our Embassy, if not all the way back to Earth. Let’s just say that it’s maybe more the other way around.”

  That they were made for the Arena? Yes. That fit with his internal sense, even though he did not have that Olympian perception active. “Very well, we can discuss that at a later time. But perhaps you can tell me something of what you’ve done since Hyperion?”

  “I could bore you for hours on that topic, Simon,” she said.

  The rest of the meal passed swiftly, and Simon found he was very much enjoying it. Oasis had a quick wit, a ready laugh, and despite her warning of boredom had lived an exciting life, helping Saul Maginot clean up the occasional but often very dangerous fringes of the otherwise peaceful Solar System of the late twenty-fourth century.

  Finally, the two of them rose and went to the overlook, gazing out over the Dock several hundred feet below. She had taken his hand and was talking about what she saw. “…and that’s actually a Tensari cruiser; they’re not much into military stuff, but they do have a few—I think it’s still Tantimorcan design, but the decoration’s pure Tensari. That little one in between the two big cargo transports, that’s someone’s personal flyer; the general design looks like it could be Vengeance but I can’t be sure. Now, looking down towards Nexus Arena, we can—”

  She broke off, and her face had gone stark pale.

  Following her gaze, he had a quick impression of a tall figure, human or very humanoid, wearing a white suit of some sort. But before he could get a better look, the figure was swallowed up by the crowd.

  His hand was empty, and she was already halfway to the stairs, at the stairs, running down them, flying down them at a speed he simply could not match. “Oasis!” he called, trying to catch her, “Oasis, what is it?”

  She was a blur, leaping from one side to the other of the spiral stair, sliding down the banister and then bounding to the other side, making the other patrons going up or down the staircase seem frozen in place. Oasis reached the bottom before he—fast as he could run—was more than a quarter of the way down.

  Panting with the exertion, he finally burst out onto the Dock, looking around, searching the crowd. He saw a flash of red hair in the distance, forced his now-aching legs into a sprint, weaving between Daelmokhan workers and Milluk tourists and a Chirofleckir businessman, until he finally came into sight of her, slowing down, feet unwillingly going to a walk and, at last, a stunned, immobile stillness.

  “Oasis, what is wrong?” he demanded as he finally reached her.

  “I …don’t know,” she said after a moment. “Did you …see anything, when I was looking?”

  “A person—which could have been, or not been, a human—in some kind of white outfit, clothes and hat. But I could not even confidently say what kind of outfit, let alone whether it was being worn by a human being.”

  “I swear it was…” She trailed off. “But that isn’t possible.”

  “Why? Who did you think you saw?”

  Her smile was fragile now, like a cracked crystal goblet. “Someone …someone who not only should be dead,” she said in a shaken whisper, “but technically wasn’t even ever alive.”

  Chapter 22

  Wu Kung found himself feeling an incredibly rare tinge of apprehension, as well as awe, staring at the thing that had just become visible through the mists of the Arena’s Deeps.

  Silhouetted against a backdrop of dull crimson clouds, it was black as night, an angular shape of incomprehensible vastness. An ebony stitching of criss-cross darkness that looked like monstrous girders, great arching curves with hints of fluted, organic shapes rising about a central assemblage of contours that implied some gargantuan onyx flower of alien and unsettling aspect.

  Ariane’s voice echoed Wu Kung’s own nervousness. “Orphan? Is that—”

  “—our destination, the home of Vindatri? Indeed, Captain Austin.” Though his voice was relaxed and controlled, Wu could smell a great deal of nervousness from him. He may have a duty to fulfill here, but this Vindatri guy doesn’t make him comfortable.

  “And he lives there alone?” DuQuesne asked. The tones and DuQuesne’s posture showed how wary his fellow Hyperion was. “That’s an awful lot of house for one guy.”

  “Not alone, entirely. Later in my …stay with Vindatri, I did see and meet others who were apparently his servants. And as I said, there is a Sphere not far away.” He gestured, and Wu could see, through the clouds a faint hint of form, a curve of an artifact larger than Earth. “I believe that Sphere to be inhabited, although I have never actually landed upon it.”

  Ariane was studying the huge, shadowy assemblage. “Where exactly am I heading? There’s an awful lot of that thing—if I’m getting the scale right, it’s something like three or four thousand kilometers across!”

  “Larger than that, Captain. If I recall correctly, I docked at—”

  A quiver ran through Zounin-Ginjou, and Wu tensed, seeing that the position of the distant shadow had shifted slightly in the forward port. “What was that?”

  Orphan’s wingcases had compressed, and his stance was rigid; the scent of tension and even fear was suddenly sharper. But he answered in his customary relaxed tones, “Ah. I believe the decision of how to approach and dock has been taken out of our hands. Note that Zounin-Ginjou has already altered its course.”

  Wu felt very little other motion, yet the …Castle of Vindatri, as Wu Kung had to think of it, began to swell before them at astounding speed, as though Ariane had set the engines on full power and was driving them towards collision. “Crap,” Ariane muttered. “I sure hope this Vindatri doesn’t fumble the ball at the last minute, or we’re just gonna go splat when we hit.”

  The alien structure rushed closer, expanding beyond the width of the forward port. Glints of light—diamond-white and emerald green, shimmering ruby and sapphire, warm amber—became visible, dotting the forbidding megalithic blackness with jewels set on a crown of night; Wu could now pick out hints of detail, of scalloped planes and oval ports and sharp-edged lines of decks or floors.

  A cavernous opening yawned before them, six lines of white light guiding their uncontrolled, headlong rush down the center of a landing bay so huge that it seemed to Wu that it could have held a fleet
of ships like Zounin-Ginjou. Without more than the tiniest jolt, the massive warship of the Liberated came to a halt, its incredible speed reduced to nothing in less time than needed to draw a breath, and settled into a cradle that rose from the massive deck, a structure of dark metal and glinting crystal that enfolded Zounin-Ginjou as though made for it. Wu heard both his human companions exhale shaky breaths, and Orphan’s spiracles whistled once more.

  “It seems,” Orphan said after a moment, even his voice wavering with uncertainty or fear, “Vindatri is very eager to meet with us.”

  “Have you ever returned here before, Orphan?” Ariane asked, rising slowly from her pilot’s seat.

  “Once, long ago …in part, I must admit, to verify to myself that he and this place truly existed. I had the …item that I used in our confrontation with Amas-Garao, yes, but I had never yet used it—nor had good reason to at that time—and that experience was so unheard-of in the annals of the Arena that I had to remind myself that I had truly experienced it.”

  “I get that,” DuQuesne said with a touch of humor. “We felt a little like that about the Arena.”

  “Indeed.” A wing-snap of decision and, Wu thought, a touch of bravado. “Well, friends, shall we greet our host?”

  Ariane and DuQuesne nodded. “No time like the present,” Ariane agreed.

  Wu immediately stepped in front of her. “Bodyguard, remember?”

  She smiled. “I remember,” she said. “Do what you have to.”

  Orphan led the way. DuQuesne took the rear, which made Wu feel slightly more comfortable; this would let him focus mostly to the front and sides. Ariane made no protest about being in the middle.

  The main lock from Zounin-Ginjou opened to reveal a wide platform already in place outside of it. Stairs led down to the dark-polished deck of the massive installation. It is all dark; it feels like a fortress of one of the underworlds. Even the Dragon’s Palace was brighter-lit, and that was at the bottom of the sea! He reached back, touched Ruyi Jingu Bang, reassuring himself that the mighty staff was still there. Though it is not a thousandth as mighty as it was in the real-dream of Hyperion, he thought sadly. Against this Vindatri it may be of less use than the floating drift of a dandelion.

  The dim-lit volume was silent save for the echoes of their motion. Orphan stopped a short distance from the bottom of the staircase and looked around, then raised his head and arms. “Vindatri, you have guided us thus far; where must we go?”

  The echoes of the question had not even died down when four lines of fire sketched themselves through the air, arrows of brilliance leading across the great landing bay and then splitting to follow separate paths. Each line was a different color, and all four started in the air scarcely three feet in front of Orphan: a line of red, a line of green, a line of blue, and a line of pure white.

  “Wonder which is which—or whether it matters,” DuQuesne said.

  “I have little doubt that it matters,” Orphan said. “But it may be that the selection is nonetheless up to us.”

  “In that case, I’m taking blue,” Ariane said. “Always been one of my colors.”

  “I refuse to choose another color,” Wu said. “I am following Ariane. I am responsible for her.”

  “I agree with the principle, Wu,” said DuQuesne, “but my guess is that you’re gonna find out it’s not that easy. Me? I’ll take green; has a little resonance for me in the space-exploration context.”

  “I see,” said Orphan. “White is, I believe, for me.”

  “Still not taking red,” Wu said.

  The four of them made their way across the deck, echoes of footsteps chasing themselves around the nearly-empty room. Finally, they reached the point where the paths split, and Wu could see that there were four separate staircases; one turned and went straight off to the right into blackness, the second bent right for a short distance than turned back to go ahead through a dark archway, the third similarly went left for a short distance and then turned back ahead through a different archway, and the last turned left and also faded into darkness. Ariane’s blue took the strong righthand turn; the neglected red line turned to the far left, while green and white took the middle paths.

  Wu Kung continued up the blue line, glancing back to make sure that Ariane was following. When he turned his attention back to the glowing line of light before him—a delay that was no more than the blink of an eye—he saw a brilliant scarlet streak leading into distant darkness.

  He spun around, to see Ariane and the others staring at him; Ariane stood with one foot in the air, frozen in the act of following.

  Wu Kung growled faintly and started for Ariane again—

  —to find himself marching with the same angry determination up the red line of fire.

  Now the growl was a snarl. “I am her bodyguard and you do not get to take me away!” He whipped Ruyi Jingu Bang off his back and commanded it to extend; DuQuesne and Orphan ducked out of the way as the pole streaked out to place its one end in front of Ariane. “Grab on, Ariane!”

  “Wu, I don’t think this is going to work,” Ariane said reluctantly. “But …okay.” She grasped the golden ball at the end of the staff tightly.

  “Good!” He retracted the staff slowly, following along until he reached Ariane. “Now keep hold, okay?”

  “All right,” she said.

  “Now we can go!” he said, confidently stepping forward.

  The line of fire was suddenly red, and he felt no other hand supporting the great Staff. His cheeks burned under his fur with embarrassment. “All right, you coward sorcerer! Come out here! You are mocking me? I will beat your face in!”

  “Wu!” Ariane’s voice was sharp, although he could hear a note of sympathy too. “We are visiting his stronghold. He seems to want us to play by his rules. Please, try not to antagonize our host, no matter how …peculiar his behavior is.”

  He snarled again and stamped his foot, causing an echo like a gunshot to chase its way around the room half a dozen times. Then, seeing DuQuesne’s remonstrative look, Wu swallowed, closed his eyes, and forced his breathing to slow, his meditations to begin. It was not easy; besides his anger, other, unsettling thoughts insisted on intruding. Like Sanzo. So like Sanzo. Even the same commands as Sanzo, sometimes.

  Finally, he felt a semblance of balance and calm returning. “As you command, Captain. But I will still be angry with this Vindatri!”

  “Be angry all you want, but behave, Sun Wu Kung. Do you promise?”

  He rolled his eyes. This was all so unreasonable. But it was not the first time he had had to deal with unreasonable people …and this sort of negotiation had been part of the Journey to the West, and he had learned that, often, Sanzo was right about not starting fights. And Ariane probably is too. “Yes, Captain. I promise I will behave myself.”

  Decision made, he turned and began loping down the direction indicated by the red fire. The faster I finish whatever is ahead of me, the faster I can go back to guarding Ariane! He gritted his teeth. She had better be all right, or I will somehow teach this “Vindatri” a lesson!

  The darkness ahead was not so dark to his own perceptions, and he could see that there was an archway through which the leading line of light passed. The light shrank before him at the exact speed of his own progress, so the line always started just a short distance in front of him. That’s a nice trick. I remember how one of Guyamaoh’s underlings could trace lines of smoke and flame sort of like this. He had to admit it was pretty, a bright crimson shimmer that receded ever before him like a rainbow.

  Up another set of stairs and finally the light ended at a door, an oval affair set in the metal wall, with a wheel in the center. He tested the door, found it did not move, and so grasped the wheel and turned. It yielded smoothly, and with a clack he heard a lock or latch disengage. The door swung easily back now, and Wu Kung stepped through into a pitch-black space. He advanced cautiously, on guard, all other senses extended; he heard nothing, smelled nothing but faint traces of oils an
d metals and old, alien scents of things long gone.

  Abruptly the door behind him slammed and the latch engaged. At the same instant, lights blazed on, illuminating the room as brilliantly as day, and in the glare before him was a tall figure. As his eyes adjusted and he could make out the figure before him, Wu Kung felt his jaw dropping and the staff in his hand sagging down.

  “Took you long enough,” said the towering gray-skinned form of Sha Wujing.

  Chapter 23

  DuQuesne stared narrowly at the man before him. He knew the patrician, lined face, the graying hair that had once been brown, the sharp brown eyes looking levelly into his own, the half-smile of the lecturer and scientist so familiar to him.

  “I had expected to end up talking with myself,” he said finally. “Not you, Professor Bryson.”

  Clearly this couldn’t be the man he looked like; this had to be one of Vindatri’s guises. At the same time, it was almost impossible to think of him as anyone else, when the man lit up a cigarette and took a swift puff, raising one eyebrow. “Indeed, Mr. DuQuesne? And why would you expect to have a conversation with yourself? Admittedly, this would allow you to have a conversation with someone on your intellectual level, but I would expect, a rather boring one.”

  DuQuesne moved forward a bit closer—warily, because he had no idea what this …manifestation of Vindatri’s was supposed to accomplish or what might trigger a less innocuous reaction. “Oh, I’ve had some pretty interesting arguments with myself, whenever I’ve been of two minds on a subject. As for why, Orphan’s story ended up with him facing himself.”

  “Ahh, Orphan. It was exactly as appropriate that you meet me as it was for Orphan to confront himself. And I hope you are aware that Orphan neglected to tell you various details of that encounter.”

  “Suspected it, yeah. He’s been a stand-up ally in some ways, but I don’t think that guy even tells himself everything that’s going on.”