Spheres of Influence-eARC

by Ryk E. Spoor

  “Something of that nature, yes. He could possibly do such a thing to me…but again, had he wished it, he could do so without resorting to adulterating our food.” Sethrik picked up one of the large insectoid things and she turned slightly away; the faint splintering crunch that followed still made her wince, as did the clearly-audible whistling screech that cut off suddenly.

  Averting her gaze from Sethrik, she picked up one of the rolls and tried it; if Sethrik didn’t expect danger from the food, she wouldn’t worry about it.

  The roll was actually quite good, with a surprising peppery taste. She ate a little of everything, then went to lie down for a while on the provided cot. She called up one of the books stored in her minimal headware and read for a while, but found that she was surprisingly tired. Then again, the stress of being attacked, kidnapped and imprisoned isn’t something I’ve had to deal with before outside of a simgame, and with those you could always drop out.

  Using the same discipline that she often used before a big race, she cleared her mind and let her body relax. Breathe in, breathe out…

  A loud hum awakened her; sitting up, she saw Sethrik had already leapt to his feet and was twitching his wings in an agitated fashion. “Stop that Minds-condemned noise!” Sethrik demanded, the translated voice an annoyed bellow. “We are quite awake and torture is unnecessary.”

  Two guards were visible at the door; Ariane guessed that there would be at least two more out there that WEREN’T visible. And even if we could take them—which we might, because if I remember right Sethrik was supposed to be a new, better replacement for Orphan, which means he should be damn dangerous—a ship this size probably has a lot of reinforcements.

  “Vantak says he is ready for you now,” one of the guards said. “Replace the bindings on each other.”

  After they followed those directions, the guards directed them out into the corridor. After several airlocks and turns, they emerged onto what was obviously the command deck; multiple stations currently manned by various Blessed, with a central perch atop a stepped dias that must be the equivalent of the captain’s chair, on which Vantak was currently draped in what was she suspected a deliberately casual manner. The Minds may have done a lot to them, but they’re still just as much people as we are—good and bad. She could, just barely, sense occasional bursts of the ultrasonic communication between Blessed; the acoustics of the room were obviously designed to facilitate this. Wonder why I don’t understand those? Maybe the Arena treats those as thoughts being exchanged?

  Besides a large central (obviously well protected and armored) viewport, displays around the walls showed different views of Arenaspace surrounding Thilomon, as well as portions of Thilomon’s exterior. These views shifted in some kind of rotation, so that presumably the entire panorama around Thilomon, and the entire surface of the vessel, was in view for at least a moment during any given cycle.

  The viewport showed that they were passing by a Sphere—red-brown tinted continents and blue-green oceans—amid billowing clouds of violet, rose, and white that surrounded the Sphere. Judging by the size of the Sphere, we must be very close to the edge of its gravity region.

  “All right, Vantak,” she said, “Explain yourself.”

  “From others I would have expected a different tone,” Vantak replied, straightening a fraction on his perch. “But the Minds did not envision you to be easily intimidated. On the attack, even when you are in no position to demand.”

  He rose, and descended towards them, stopping only a short distance away. Vantak then looked towards Sethrik. “The Minds directed the entirety of this operation. You are of course to be replaced as Leader of Faction—by me, in all probability, but the Minds have not made the formal announcement yet as that would have betrayed the plan.”

  She could see that Sethrik was shocked to his very core. “The Minds…ordered you to do this?” He took a furious step forward before the guards’ raised weapons forced him to halt. “Why? What insanity is this? I cannot believe you! They expressed every approval for my actions! They supported me in—”

  “Of course they did. Had they done otherwise, you would have had forewarning,” Vantak said bluntly. “You did not return in person according to schedule—”

  “I have had many things demanding my time of late, and you…” Sethrik trailed off. “I see.”

  “What?” Ariane asked.

  “That was how the directives were given. Vantak served as my liason to Homesphere and the Minds. Thus he would be able to take his private orders from them, and convey to me their public instructions. But if they had actually removed me from leadership—even trying to do so in secret, which would be extremely difficult to arrange—I would have noticed the first time I tried to do something which required the authority of the Faction Leader. However,” he looked at Vantak, “I still do not understand why.”

  “The Minds showed me their projections. You were following the path of the heretic. You were accommodating others in paths not favoring the Minds’ long-term interests. You had established a posture of mutual respect with Orphan himself. You failed to return for the scheduled presentation and evaluation, and the Minds believed that whatever excuses you might give yourself or others, this was in large part due to the subconscious knowledge that you feared the result of that evaluation.”

  The bridge crew were all watching the confrontation. Not surprising; how often are you present at a coup that involves one of the Great Factions? But on one of the displays across the room, behind Sethrik, she thought she saw—for just a moment—a flash of brilliant colors that did not fit with the smooth, utilitarian design and painting of Thilomon.

  Instantly she gripped hard on her self-control. It can’t be. I must be imagining it. But if it is Wu Kung, I can’t give anything away. She continued to listen to the discussion, trying to watch the monitors without staring.

  “The Minds thought I was going to betray them?” Sethrik’s outraged bellow was delivered with such force that the accompanying buzz of the actual sound made her ears ring. “I have done everything they have asked—”

  “The judgement is not mine, but the Minds. Do not make the mistake of thinking you understand even yourself as well as they,” Vantak said, cutting his former commander off sharply.

  “I…” Sethrik contained himself, then looked at Ariane, gesturing at the Leader of Humanity. “But why in Their name would they ask you to do this?”

  Ariane had been thinking about that as well. A second flicker of color, a moving object that sparkled gold and crimson and jade, told her that perhaps the impossible was real, and she had to keep everyone’s attention off the monitors.

  And she’d figured some of it out. “Political negotiations. That’s why everything seemed to be going so swimmingly with Michelle Ni Deng.”

  Vantak gave an ironic push-bow. “Many of your own faction find you…an extremely inconvenient choice for Faction leader. At the same time, the Minds felt it was important for us to demonstrate that their reach can extend even here, into the very heart of the Arena, to remind others why the Blessed To Serve are not to be trifled with.”

  Sethrik was so outraged that he buzzed incoherently. Ariane grimaced. “So. You figured that you could establish a stronger relationship with Humanity by promising a lot of Blessed support—maybe even an alliance against the Molothos—and demonstrate the Minds’ power at the same time, by removing the Leader of the Faction of Humanity and letting us replace the Leader in our own way—proving that no one gets away with humiliating the Blessed, while not shooting down an interesting alliance. Since you’d seen me in action but didn’t have clear ideas of what my new bodyguard could do…” light dawned. “You were the ones who set up Wu Kung for that duel. And you—or rather the Minds—decided not to take chances with him and figured out a plan to get him to separate himself from me at just the right time.” It was a damned good plan, too. Of course he’d push me into any nearby shelter and then go to deal with the threat. Utterly predictable. />
  Thilomon quivered, engine noise shifted, and she realized they were now just inside the Sphere’s gravity field. And that little figure is still moving…is that a hatch near him?

  “Well reasoned, Ariane Austin,” Vantak agreed. “They expected you would have little trouble deducing the key features of the plan—except, possibly, for one. Your bodyguard was an unknown quantity, and they believed that he was even more formidable than we had yet seen, and so should be removed from the equation.” He raised a hand. “As always, they were correct, and it was even more difficult than I had expected to remove that factor.” His hand came down.

  The main viewport suddenly showed a view down the hull of Thilomon, with that tiny, brilliantly-colored humanoid figure now striding quickly towards a hatchway. But even as the scene registered, an entire section of the hull on which Sun Wu Kung stood sprang outwards, hurling the Hyperion Monkey King into empty space; with no warning, no chance to grab a handhold, Wu Kung curved outward and plummeted away, disappearing into a cloud that crackled with lightning.

  “But,” Vantak said calmly, “I believe that, too, has been dealt with now.”

  Chapter 32.

  Wu Kung felt Thilomon vibrating under him as he made his way along the hull. Wind began to rise, pushing at him, and he crouched, digging in his claws. The ship was covered with a tough yet somewhat resilient material that reminded Wu of the skin of some undersea animals. Maybe reduces friction? Keeps instruments like radar from detecting it? Whatever the reason, it was exactly what Wu needed; his claws, reinforced like his whole body with what DuQuesne called “ring-carbon composite,” penetrated and held firmly.

  “Ha!” he said, and felt his spirits rise. “They thought they had gotten rid of me. They almost had! But now I am on their vessel, and they do not even know it!”

  But the wind was still rising, and Wu suddenly realized that getting on Thilomon had only been the first—and possibly easiest—hurdle. The great ship of the Blessed was accelerating, the winds rising even higher.

  This is like the time I rode Orochi-sama, when he tried to shake me off by climbing into heaven and jumping down!

  No, he corrected himself, bending down and getting a grip with his hands, looking for ridges, outcroppings of the vessel that might afford some protection, it’s much worse. Because there, I was The Great Sage Equal to Heaven, I was the TRUE Monkey King. Here…Here I am just someone’s old experiment.

  It was the first time he had really admitted this to himself. He was not a demigod, not a warrior who had bested ten thousand atop the Mountain of Fruit and Flowers, not the greatest Hero of all ages; he was not human, but closer to human than anything else…and the gods would not help nor hinder him, nor even mark where he fell, if he failed.

  Almost the thought made him too weak to hold on, piercing his nearly invincible confidence, echoing the time he had fallen in Hyperion, when the CSF had gassed him but he had remained conscious long enough to see his world erased. Two tears trickled from his eyes, were whipped to mist.

  But there was still a face before his mind’s eye, a courageous face with blue hair and a warrior’s gleam in sapphire eyes, and a voice in his memory telling him that it was his job to protect her, no matter what: “even from me if you have to, Wu. Even from me. I’m trusting you to keep her safe.”

  And he had sworn to do that.

  “I…” he hissed through his teeth, and pushed forward against a wind that was starting to feel like a thundering stream, a river raging around him, “…will not…be…foresworn!”

  There! Ahead! Parts of the hull were deforming, rising slightly, moving apart, adjusting to the flow. And behind them, yes, there the wind would have to be less.

  If he could reach it.

  He risked freeing one hand, grasped his cloak, pulled it over his head, tightened all fastenings. It was made to protect me from the fires of the underworld and the ice of the nether realms, forged to repel the weapons of mortal and god alike. Maybe…no, obviously, that’s all a lie too…but just as they tried to make me the Monkey King, maybe they tried real hard with these, too…

  The wind did seem just a slight bit less savage, it felt as though his robes somehow were cleaving the wind and making it flow around him more. But…it’s still bad. And getting worse. How fast does this monster go?

  He slammed down one hand, shoved one foot forward, dug in, repeated the maneuver. Now it was like climbing a sheer mountain, with weights hanging from him…and more added all the time, like one of the sadistic tests he’d been subjected to by the Generals of Heaven. Tests none of you could pass!

  It’s hard! It’s really hard…air is screaming, pulling, demons of the netherworld trying to pull me down. But I have to move forward! One more step! One more grip with my hand! Now push! Don’t stop! Ariane’s face blurred into Sanzo’s before him, and he wondered at how similar they were. And I won’t fail Ariane any more than I would Sanzo!

  He wondered if Sanzo were still awake, back in the other world, in the universe of simulation that was to him as real as this Arena. Did they shut off the simulation when I left, freeze the world? Or is she putting Gen to bed now, saying a prayer for me? Is Sha Wujing watching over them for me, or just sitting beneath his waterfall, training, waiting for me to unlock the riddle of reality with my fists?

  One more grip, the roar of the wind so loud he no longer heard anything, just felt the shrieking, screaming, rumbling of the demon wind in his bones, clawing at what little skin remained exposed with immaterial talons of fire and ice. Pull! Pull forward!

  The wind suddenly wavered, felt disrupted, uneasy, shifting so that he was nearly pulled from the hull of Thilomon. Desperately he lunged forward, sinking all his claws deep into the resilient coating, and suddenly he realized the wind was weaker.

  He was just in the lee of one of the moving sections. It was only raised a short distance, but just high enough that he could crouch, flat to the hull, behind it, and the wind now screamed mostly over him, not trying to tear its way through.

  Now I have to hold on, hold on until it slows down…it has to slow down sometime…

  But the roaring, raging wind went on, and on, and on. He held tight, grim, unrelenting, but the wind was tireless. It could continue forever, and it did. He held on, but he could not see where they were going, or how far they had come. The wind tore at him, gripped and yanked and pulled, sometimes almost teasing at the edges of his hood. Other things hissed and rattled against his clothing, some of the sky-plankton DuQuesne had mentioned. He thought, at moments, that he heard voices in that wind, some screaming curses and imprecations, others playful, asking him to let go, come play!

  I can’t go play. I can’t let go. I can’t ever let go.

  Arms and hands which had almost never known fatigue, could not truly remember being tested, began to throb with the dull ache of weariness. His fingertips hurt, the claws themselves transmitting vibration and stress through his body. Can’t let go. He repeated that to himself, focusing on Ariane, on his promise, on his life, on the few things that really mattered. Can’t let go.

  Can’t let go.

  Can’t ever let go.

  He did not let go. He held on, held when the ache in his hands became agony, when heat and chill threatened to rob him of endurance, held through the battering of wind and the turns of Thilomon as it travelled some unguessable distance in the endless sky. He held on. He did not let go.

  The world suddenly blazed with crystal-light that jolted him to the core of his being, and he felt a strange tingling go through him. That…that was a Sky Gate jump?

  The speed of the vessel was not slackening, and still he held on, through a sudden turbulence that would have loosened his grip had it been any less tight. We’ve come somewhere. They have a destination. They have to slow down sometime.

  Sun Wu Kung hung onto that thought desperately. They have to slow down. This is a ship. It will go somewhere, and it will stop.

  But for the first time in his life, he reall
y wondered if he could last long enough to see the end of a journey. His arms and hands and feet and legs felt like they were on fire, were cramping and threatening to fail in their grip even against the drive of his iron-held will. No! I mustn’t! If I let go, they will have Ariane and no one will ever know, no one will be able to save her! I’m the only chance she has!

  And then the rainbow shockwave of light hit again. Another Gate…still in the Arena, had to be a Sky Gate…Good, I don’t think I’d like breathing vacuum…

  It took several moments for him to realize the wind’s scream was starting to reduce. He couldn’t believe it at first. But then he saw the bulwark ahead of him shifting. The wind increased slightly, but only because he was no longer sheltered.

  Clouds, he realized. We’re travelling through clouds. They’re slowing down because they can’t see everything.

  He cautiously straightened up, feeling his ungrateful muscles now trying to rebel because he dared shift his position. I can…handle this wind. It’s only about 300 kilometers an hour or so, I think. Fast, but not impossible with care. And still dropping.

  He patted his inside pockets, yanked out one of his high energy snacks, stuffed it in his mouth, realizing as his jaws ached for a moment just how hungry he was. I must have been there for…hours!

  He crouched down again and ate the other two bars he had on hand. Need that strength later.

  Wu Kung straightened and looked around. After a moment, he spotted a squarish area that looked very much like the same kind of hatchway Ariane and Sethrik had gone into. That’s what I need!

  Carefully, he made his way across the hull towards the hatch. Don’t mess up when you’re that close to—

  Without warning, the hull rose up and slapped him like the hand of an angry Buddha—or maybe Kali on a real bad day!

  He realized he was flying…no, falling. Thilomon was receding, he was dropping down, down, farther, and then the ship disappeared as he fell into a roiling cloud.