Spheres of Influence-eARC

by Ryk E. Spoor

  “NO! No, no no NO!”

  Almost he called for the clouds to support him, but he remembered that this was not Hyperion. The clouds would not support him. He could not summon the wind, or call forth the flames, or tear one of the pillars of the Dragon King’s palace out to serve as his staff.

  And he had failed.

  He fell, and fell, and sometimes the thunder roared around him like the laughter of the gods, mocking him. It was indeed a fine jest, worthy of the Generals of the Heavens, that he would be so close, have endured so much, only to be defeated just when it seemed victory was certain. He didn’t care. Ariane was gone, and no one would know she’d been kidnapped—and even if they did, they’d never know where to find her.

  Still he fell. The cloud was producing rain and he fell with the rain, trickling off him like a million tears, and he let himself cry. There seemed, for the moment, to be nothing else to do.

  But even grief could not go on forever, and as he felt the exhaustion of his frustration and sadness draping him in gloom, he remembered that DuQuesne had also begged him to live.

  And that giving up was not his way.

  “I…am still alive,” Wu said to himself. “I’m still alive, and if I’m alive, that means I’m not beaten forever.”

  He opened his mouth and worked to guide water in; he desperately needed some, he felt as though he’d been in the Desert of Souls for a week. Occasionally some sky-plankton thing went in too; they weren’t all that tasty, but he wasn’t too worried about poison. He was tough.

  Abruptly the darker space around him lightened, and he found himself tumbling through clearer air. He had fallen far enough that the Sphere he’d glimpsed vaguely as he fell from Thilomon had actually shifted its perspective.

  There was movement below him; circling, yet closing in, he saw it was a mob or school of several dozen creatures with armored torsos, grasping, armored tentacles, and flashes of nightmare mouths.

  Zikki, he realized. Predators fast and mean enough to have tried to attack small ships flying through their space.

  There were a lot of them. And they were closing in.

  He grinned finally, a smile savage and hungry, but a smile nonetheless, the first smile he’d had since Ariane had been kidnapped. He reached up and pulled his staff, Ruyi Jingu Bang, free. “Ha! You think you will make a meal of me! I will give you something to chew on, then!”

  He dove to meet the oncoming swarm.

  Chapter 33.

  “Two gates,” DuQuesne said. “So we’re in the gap, now?”

  “Most certainly, Doctor DuQuesne,” Orphan said. “And we shall prepare to close the distance—and plan on catching them in the middle, with nowhere to flee.” He looked at both DuQuesne and Simon. “You have listened to my instructions on how to operate crucial systems of Zounin Ginjou, and I am sure you will…acquit yourselves well. But I hope you realize that this is still an unequal contest.”

  Simon nodded, feeling tension mounting once more. “Yes, I think we do. Even if Zounin-Ginjou is superior to Thilomon, we cannot attack it all-out unless we are willing to possibly kill Ariane as well. We must fight to cripple Thilomon, while they will have no such compunction about us. That gives them a huge advantage.”

  “Well stated, Doctor Sandrisson,” Orphan agreed. “In addition, of course, there are but three of us and there will be many hundred Blessed aboard Thilomon. All the automation I could possibly make work is installed, but it simply is not going to make up for so many other eyes and minds at work. Fortunately,” he bowed in their direction, “Zounin-Ginjou is, in fact, superior to Thilomon in nearly every way, so it is possible that we can triumph. The odds are…not good, even by your apparently insane standards, but they are very much not zero.”

  “We haven’t been able to even see them for awhile, Orphan,” DuQuesne said, looking even more tense than Simon felt. “Can’t we get a view soon? I hate the idea that I can’t even be sure they’re there.”

  Orphan’s wings scissored. “Alas, Doctor DuQuesne, I had to make sure we were that far behind; the jumpflash would undoubtedly give us away if we were even remotely in viewing range.” Zounin-Ginjou rumbled more loudly. “But here we can accelerate. We will still try to remain unnoticed, but this is the region in which we desire battle to be joined, so I am slightly less concerned.” He glanced back. “Of course, it is also possible that we could run into something while trying to catch them. There is an excellent reason that those travelling between Spheres move vastly more slowly than one might expect.”

  I don’t doubt it, Simon thought. He remembered Ariane’s race against Sethrik; clouds could hide gargantuan creatures like the vanthume, or floating lakes, or even pseudo-planets, accretions of stone and earth shed from uncountable spheres and accumulating in the deeps between. But we have to take risks now.

  Simon and DuQuesne glued themselves to forward viewing instruments, scanning the heavens. We can’t use radar, unfortunately, because we’re trying to hide. Still…that doesn’t mean that they won’t…

  He picked up the signal almost immediately. “Marc, Orphan, there’s a radar source up ahead, about five thousand kilometers. It’s attenuated but clearly there.”

  “Let me see…ah, yes, that must be Thilomon; the pulse pattern is very characteristic of Blessed vessels.” Now aware of his quarry’s location, Orphan shifted the direction of the vessel and accelerated. “Prepare yourselves, my friends.”

  Slowly the rose-purple mists in front of them cleared; a tiny dot appeared in the distance, and optical and electronic magnification showed clearly that it was, indeed, Thilomon.

  Suddenly, Simon noticed a portion of Thilomon’s hull snap outward, then close. “What in the world was that?”

  “I confess, I do not know. There was no maneuver underway which would involve the guide sails, and in any case that was—”

  DuQuesne suddenly swore loudly. “Those sons of—they just gave Wu the boot.”

  Simon felt as though ice water had drenched him. He liked the energetic Hyperion Monkey King. “How can you be sure?”

  “Sure? I can’t be a hundred percent sure, but that’s exactly the kind of maneuver you’d use to remove some unwanted guest from your hull, and…” he squinted, “…and I think they had just entered the gravity field of that Sphere, which means that Wu wouldn’t just be tossed away, he’d fall and keep on falling for a long, long time. Orphan, we’ve got to—”

  The alien’s hand flicked outward in his “no” gesture. “Doctor DuQuesne, I dislike the thought of leaving anyone to drift between the Spheres. Understand that; I was once in that position myself, and there is no fate more isolating and fearsome.

  “Yet if we stop to try and find a single falling object within the vast spaces of the Arena, do you imagine we will succeed immediately?”

  “I…”

  “We are here to rescue Ariane Austin,” Orphan pushed on, and to Simon’s surprise there was anger and sympathy both in that voice. “If we stop to rescue Sun Wu Kung, then we will lose many hours, I will guarantee it, and the Blessed will be far beyond our reach.

  “Still, you are my friends—as is Ariane Austin. You tell me—should we continue on our mission, or stop to rescue Wu Kung?”

  DuQuesne glared at Orphan, huge fist upraised, and Simon waited nervously; he knew that DuQuesne was as…interested in Ariane as he was, but Sun Wu Kung was something older and probably just as important to DuQuesne.

  Abruptly DuQuesne dropped into his seat and slammed his hand against the console. “Damn! Damn you, you’re right, Orphan. He was a bodyguard. He wouldn’t ever forgive me for rescuing him before getting her back. We go on.”

  Orphan nodded, started to turn back towards his console.

  “But—”

  Orphan looked back.

  “But as soon as we have Ariane, we come back here, and we find Wu. If we have to spend half a year to do it. Understand?”

  The wingcases flared. “I understand and most certainly agree, Doctor DuQue
sne.”

  Zounin-Ginjou moved forward more swiftly, still transmitting nothing but gaining ground slowly but surely on the unsuspecting Thilomon. Orphan pointed out the key points on the target vessel. “We wish to damage her engines. We do not want to damage the energy storage areas or the living quarters.”

  Simon nodded. Room-temperature superconductor loop batteries are the usual means of energy storage. If you damage them, they tend to release all their energy at once. Which means an explosion. He hadn’t been present at DuQuesne’s defeat of Blessing of Fire, the Molothos scout ship, but he had seen the glassy crater the nuclear-level blast had left. Interstellar ships carried a great deal of energy on board.

  “Doctor Sandrisson, you were involved in the entire construction of your Holy Grail. You obviously have a good overall grasp of the systems involved in a ship, and so I will be counting on you to assess and direct repairs through the semi-automated maintenance systems. It is my guess that Doctor DuQuesne is more capable with weapons systems than you, and therefore I intend to make him our gunner, overseeing the actual firing upon our opponent.”

  Unspoken, but clear to Simon, was the fact that putting the guns in DuQuesne’s control meant that Orphan would not be the one to blame if Thilomon was accidentally destroyed during combat. And I can’t blame him. This is our problem, we have to work to solve it ourselves.

  “What’s the range on our weapons?”

  “Technically, we are within range of my largest missiles already,” Orphan said, “at a range now of two thousand kilometers. Thilomon has not changed course or speed, so apparently they have not yet noticed us, which is good. The energy cannon have ranges of up to a thousand kilometers for the largest, but against something like Thilomon we need to be much closer. Hypersonic cannon, about three hundred kilometers.

  “I hope to bring us to within two hundred kilometers or less before initiating hostilities, and ideal ranges would be much shorter than that.”

  “You really think you can get that close without them knowing?” Simon asked.

  “Automated visual scans are not useful, and other forms of sensing do not work well through the Arenaspace, except active radar to some extent—although even that has a fairly limited range. Zounin-Ginjou has excellent radar-absorbent properties. As there is a cloud-bank only a few kilometers below us, extending a very long distance ahead, we should be able to close in on their radar signals while allowing them little chance to detect us.”

  Orphan suited actions to words, sending Zounin-Ginjou diving into a sea of blue-tinted cloud. Occasional lightning bolts made the trip somewhat more exciting than Simon would have preferred. “One of those would cut our trip rather short, I would think.”

  “Ahh, Doctor Sandrisson, it is true that I would rather avoid being struck. Still, Zounin-Ginjou is very well insulated and will tend to conduct through its outer superstructure. A large enough bolt would produce…unfortunate consequences, but in enterprises as risky as these, I think that worry is the least of our problems.”

  Two more hours passed, and the radar pulses grew more powerful with each passing minute. Finally Orphan gestured to them.

  “It is time. I do not dare risk approaching closer. Are you both prepared?”

  Simon nodded, and realized his hands were sweating as he laid them on the controls. I am going into a battle between starships. I have…never actually been in a real fight before. Simulations, yes…but I know this is no simulation.

  His heart began to beat even faster, as Zounin-Ginjou tilted up, climbing. The deep-blue gloom lightened, thinned.

  Suddenly new signals appeared on Simon’s scanners. “Orphan! I’m seeing—”

  But Zounin-Ginjou was already emerging from the mist, into clear air, and Thilomon was turning. Turning too fast—they must have started the turn as soon as we began our run!

  “Damnation,” DuQuesne said in a calm, almost tranquil, voice. “They knew we were here all along, and they let us come…so we’d fall straight into their trap.”

  Emerging from the cloudbanks, Simon could see the source of the new signals: a fleet of ships, ten, fifteen, maybe more.

  “They allowed for the possibility of being followed and are prepared,” Orphan said, and a fatalistic tone was clear in his translated voice. “They are already deploying to cut us off.” He gave a shrug and bowed from his seat to them. “It would seem that you will no longer need to worry about paying my faction back, my friends.”

  Chapter 34.

  Ariane watched in disbelief and shock as Wu Kung was catapulted into empty air and dwindled to nothing below them, and then whirled on Vantak, who looked at her with clinical disinterest.

  “You…you…” she felt red rage building, a fury she hadn’t felt since Amas-Garao had tricked her into accepting his Challenge through the Blessed. She stepped forward and the guards raised their weapons. “You murdering bastard!”

  Blue and green-white sparks erupted around her, shattering her binders, tossing the guards aside, knocking Sethrik down but also breaking his own bindings. She felt a shock of surprise, hope, but even as she desperately tried to grasp that power, shape it, channel it, the energy dwindled, faded, and was gone, sealed away again.

  Vantak had not even moved, but now he slowly rose, wingcases spreading. “Excellent. Everything the Minds have believed, so has it come to pass. Under sufficient stress, the powers of Shadeweaver or Faith that you possess can manifest for a few moments.”

  “You…expected that?” She felt a chill down her spine. What are these Minds? Do we have AIs like that?

  Vantak nodded, even as the guards recovered and aimed carefully at both her and Sethrik. “It was the concensus of the Minds that this was of a high probability, and if the opportunity arose I was to test this theory. They did not believe you could summon sufficient power to pose a significant threat, not with the binding having been completed only months ago.

  “Your bodyguard thus provided the ideal situation. It had been clear that you had an affection for him, and thus believing that we did not know he was present, and distracting us so we would not notice, would give you a powerful feeling of hope. Dashing that hope quickly, while effectively killing him in such a fashion, would produce a peak surge of agitation. As you can see,” he gestured to the shattered binders, “their predictions were correct in all particulars.”

  “So why do they want that?”

  Vantak tilted his head. “You are not unintelligent, but you do not think far enough ahead. You provide the Minds with a chance to study the power of the Shadeweavers or the Faith—or both, if both are in fact merely facets of the same power.”

  Crap. She couldn’t think of an epithet bad enough.

  “I see you begin to understand. One cannot—dare not—attempt to kidnap either a Shadeweaver or an Initiate Guide and analyze them. Even if you could hold them, the retribution of their respective orders would be…fearsome. But you are neither, a possessor of their power but an embarrassment and concern to both. Your disappearance will be a relief for both sides, as well as your own Faction in a way…and in analyzing your power the Minds believe they can find a way to use it, to make themselves able to operate within the Arena itself.”

  That’s…horrifying. The one thing that the Arena seemed clearly designed to do was prevent artificial intelligences—except, probably, The Arena itself, if it’s an AI—from operating, from being able to use their particular advantages to utterly outmatch living creatures in the Arena. But the Shadeweavers can “trick” the Arena, get away with things no one else can. If the Minds can learn that power—

  “Of course,” Vantak continued, looking at Sethrik, “they will take the opportunity to return you to proper service. Your loyalty renewal treatments will be performed upon arrival in Homespace.”

  “Ariane Austin,” Sethrik said calmly. “As you are still alive, and you have not turned your authority over, you are technically still the Leader of Humanity, yes?”

  “As far as I know.”

/>   “Then if you would be so kind, accept me as a member of the Faction of Humanity.” Sethrik glared at Vantak. “For I do not wish to be associated with this treachery even as a part of the Faction of the Blessed, not now.”

  She was surprised and gratified. Her first impulse was to accept; it was a futile gesture, yes, but a very human gesture, and one that obviously nettled Vantak, whose wingcases had tightened in offense. But…“I appreciate the sentiment, Sethrik—but you are still, technically, the Leader of the Blessed. If I accept, that means a replacement will automatically get chosen—probably Vantak there. It may be a futile gesture on my part, but I damn well want them to have to go through the hoops to replace you instead of get it handed to them.”

  Sethrik gave a small push-bow. “So be it, then.”

  One of the Blessed at the controls of Thilomon turned. “Guidemaster Vantak, I believe we are being followed.”

  Vantak turned his attention to the speaker. “Why so, Kandret?”

  “Polarization shadows behind us. They are distant and very faint and at first they could have been noise. But the statistics are too high and correlate too well with our path.”

  Vantak bent over Kandret’s displays. “I see. Could this not be a phenomenon of our own wake?”

  “No, Guidemaster. See here, and here; shifts in time and velocity that did not accord with our own.”

  Vantak studied the display again, then looked up, seeming to think for several minutes.

  “Guidemaster? Shall we turn to engage?”

  After another moment, Vantak flicked his hands outward. “No. Continue on course. Keep me apprised of the follower’s distance. As soon as it begins to shift course to rise from that cloudbank we will make our turn.”

  Kandret looked at Vantak uncertainly, but then bob-bowed agreement. “As you command.”

  Ariane glanced at Sethrik, puzzled but feeling a faint hope. Who could have followed them? She thought back to the dock. There was one ship of the Analytic docked. I’d like to think they wouldn’t let something like this happen. And the Faith certainly wouldn’t…I hope. But I don’t remember if there were any Faith vessels at that Dock.