Medusa in the Graveyard (The Medusa Cycle)
Page 21
Twistifers and wildflowers began to dominate on all sides as we left the main part of Joe’s Salvage Yard behind. I judged we had been walking for another hour by then. There were still plenty of Sentinels standing around this far in, but very few people. The noise of machinery and commerce faded; a grand silence took its place. The ground under our feet had turned a rusty red color, and I wondered if it had eroded out of the Ernie Sandstone.
Ahead, I perceived a gap, not so much because I could see it, but because it tampered with my depth perception. A railing stretched across the path, blocking the way, but we veered to the right, around a scarp that had eroded out of our side of the Clementine Plateau. Up ahead and to the left, a bridge spanned the river gorge. The sight of it made my palms sweat.
When I looked over the railing next to our path, the drop didn’t look that bad. Dragonette hovered where she could get a good look. “Maybe one hundred meters down,” she guessed. That was still a long way, but not so far as I had worried.
Kitten jumped onto the railing to have a look.
“Kitten, don’t fall,” I warned.
“That fall wouldn’t kill me.” Kitten balanced confidently. “It wouldn’t even dent me. Not permanently, anyway. I could easily climb back up.”
She jumped down to the path and trotted just ahead of me, her attention focused on the metal structure that spanned the river gorge. We walked onto a paved platform and approached the entrance to the bridge.
“About two hundred thirty meters across,” judged Dragonette. “This is a suspension bridge. A beautiful example.”
Perhaps so, but the bridge deck was not paved—it was made of a rigid metal mesh, through which the structure and river below could be glimpsed. When I put my feet on it, my steps generated vibrations that traveled throughout the structure, which made me nervous.
We gathered on the western side and looked over the railing. One hundred meters below, the Maisy River moved sluggishly, and she had depths that looked green and murky. Large bubbles formed and broke on the surface. I shivered. “What’s making those bubbles?”
Fire leaned farther to get a look. “Gas. Probably from algae.” She straightened and shaded her eyes, looking west down the river. “See that? From here it looks like a tiny spaceship, way down there—just where the river starts to veer north?”
My artificial eyes are good at spotting things, even without Medusa’s enhanced vision. “Yes.”
“That’s the Last Sentinel. Once Ahi takes you past that ship, you’ll be out of the human side of the graveyard and into the area where the entities control everything.”
We gazed at the distant ship for a long moment.
Ashur broke the silence first. “Lady Sheba has a head start on us. I wonder if she’s waiting for us around that bend. If she kills us, she’ll eliminate competition.”
I have to admit, I felt proud that Ashur could imagine such a ruthless scenario.
“Sheba’s entrance into the canyon is in a different place,” said Fire. “Once you’re inside, it doesn’t matter where you want to go. Any plans you make will be thwarted by the entities. You have to go where they want you to go. Sheba does, too.”
Ashur didn’t like that answer any better than he had liked the idea of being ambushed. I thought it evened the playing field, if nothing else. Sheba could stack all the henchmen she wanted on her side, but it wouldn’t give her an advantage. I could work with that.
“I want to ask Queen’s Fire a question,” I said, “if that’s not forbidden.”
I sent the question in Open Forum. If I got an answer, I wanted all of us to receive it.
The entity that answered wasn’t quite Queenie, and she wasn’t quite Fire. She was the creature made of light, the angel of destruction who had killed the enemy ship.
She didn’t answer with words. Instead, she showed us the Three, standing silently in the Gorge. They cast their shadows over everything else in the graveyard.
The image faded, and we saw Queenie and Fire again. Fire knelt, and Queenie let go of the pack. When Fire stood, she said, “Ahi is coming. I’ll see you when you return. Aloha, Olympians.”
“Aloha,” we all said together, as if we were the Chorus in our story instead of the main players.
Fire turned and left us there. We watched her walk away, Queenie held high, down the wide path between the used wonders.
We didn’t watch for long. A sound made our heads turn.
A distant figure had set her feet on the far side of the bridge. Vibrations from her steps played along the structure.
“That’s got to be Ahi,” I said.
The girl walked toward us, never touching the railing, glancing down from time to time, not like a sightseer, but as someone looking at favorite things well known to her.
The canyon sent her … came a thought.
I’m still not sure it came from me.
18
The Dragonfly
The girl shaded her eyes to look as us, then waved. We waved back. She stared at us all the way across the bridge, her curiosity lively and unabashed.
Ahi was a younger version of the Belters and the Graveyarders we had met so far—tall, with brown skin that took on a golden tone in the bright light of Joe’s Canyon. Her black, wavy hair had been cut to chin level, and surrounded her wide face like a halo. Her eyes were the color of honey, at least from a distance. It made her gaze appear molten—intimidating for a person so young. I doubted she was older than Ashur.
She wore the same sort of shirt, slacks, and boots that we had put on. She walked with confidence, with the grace and energy of youth. Her wide mouth looked like it would rather be smiling, though at the moment her expression was neutral.
“Hello, Olympians,” she said when she was close enough that we could hear her. “I’m Ahi. I’m your guide in-canyon.”
“Hello, Ahi,” I said. “I’m Oichi. This is Dragonette, Ashur, and Kitten,” I indicated my companions in turn.
Ahi gave us a grin. “I like your names.” She closed the last few meters between us, her feet striking hollow sounds on the metal bridge. “Let’s have a look at these supplies.”
We stepped back so Ahi could inspect the packs. She did so with a professional efficiency. “Well, now! Someone packed these well. I couldn’t have done it better myself. You there, Ashur, you look like a strong fellow. Will you carry my pack, too?” She put her hands on her hips and regarded him with a wistful expression.
“I—” Ashur stuttered, “I don’t think—”
Ahi laughed. “I’m joking! You’re so funny, with that serious face! Do you always look like that?”
Ashur frowned. “It’s kind of a serious situation here.”
“If you keep frowning like that, what do you think your face is going to look like by the time we come out the other end of this canyon?” demanded Ahi.
Any worries I had harbored that Ahi might turn useless at the sight of Ashur’s handsome face evaporated on the spot.
“Dragonette—” Ahi held up her hand as a perch. “—may I see you closer?”
Dragonette flew to Ahi’s hand and hopped onto a finger. “Ashur made me,” she said. “I was the first Mini.”
“Ashur made you!” Ahi regarded him with far more respect. “That was a wonderful thing to do. Did he make you, too, Kitten?”
“He did.” Kitten trotted over to Ahi and Dragonette. “How do you do?”
“Very well, thank you.” The girl smiled at Kitten, her face revealing a potential for joy that dazzled me. “Are you ready to go into the canyon, Kitten?”
“I am!” declared Kitten.
“Then let’s get cracking. The cool temperature won’t last forever.” With that, Ahi strapped
herself into her pack and started off across the bridge. The four of us followed in her wake, marveling at her definition of cool temperature.
When we were almost to the other side of the bridge, I heard a sound from the far end. I stopped, and turned to look across.
Nothing moved over there.
Why did I get the feeling someone was following us?
* * *
My research had informed me that Joe’s Canyon was 830 kilometers long, if you counted the long tributary canyon that angled north from its eastern tip. You might also measure the other tributary canyons that cut across its main segment, zigzagging in from the the northeast and southwest, making Joe’s namesake a canyon system rather than one single feature and adding extra kilometers to its total.
Officially it started where we began, where the bridge spanned the Maisy River. Though its deepest point was three thousand meters, from the North Rim to the bottom of the Gorge, our little part of it descended to a modest depth. Once we had crossed the bridge, Ahi led us onto a path that snaked around to a series of switchbacks that led us down to the river. She didn’t speak to us as she walked, and her pace made me feel grateful that we were walking down instead of up.
When we reached the canyon floor, I was the last in line. I listened for more noises behind us, but I didn’t hear any. We walked on gravel that must have been deposited when the Maisy River overflowed her banks. Ahi led us west along that side, where, one presumed, we would pass the Last Sentinel and enter the weirdness. Or the Greater Weirdness, since we had seen plenty of that already.
Crunch, crunch, crunch, crunch went our feet, marking a rhythm that lulled me into a sort of waking dream. The red canyon walls seemed to climb as we descended. Black streaks marked the spot where water seeped out of the sandstone and trickled down, eroding regular gullies that cut across our path. Some of them still trickled; others were dry—at least until the next storm.
Gravity, I thought. Water, sand, and even boulders eventually settled into basins. Everything moved here, even if it was too slow for you to see.
Crunch, crunch, crunch, crunch.
Kitten trotted at a comfortable pace. Sometimes she lifted her head to follow the flight of some winged creature; sometimes she paused to watch a bug. Sometimes I joined her. We couldn’t stop for long—we had two young people to keep up with. Dragonette remained on her perch atop Ashur’s pack, as if unwilling to leave his side. I wondered about that. I didn’t ask, because I was too busy trying not to look like a slow grown-up.
I had thought the Last Sentinel was closer than it turned out to be. Fire warned me that it was bigger than it looked from the bridge, which of course meant it was also farther away. You don’t want to know that when you’re just starting a long hike, when the day is heating up and the sweat keeps trickling into your eyes.
We turned a bend, and there stood the Sentinel, far ahead. We turned another bend, and it disappeared. The river elbowed back, so the ancient ship was in sight again, and hey—it didn’t look that much closer. Another turn took it out of sight, and I was beginning to feel downright surly when we saw it again, and we still did not seem to have made that much progress.
Yeah, I chided myself, let’s just march right up to the Three—shouldn’t take more than an afternoon, right?
How long was it going to take, then? I hadn’t asked. I had thought Fire would tell me if it was going to be several days. After all, didn’t we have water to worry about? Ahi didn’t look concerned.
Still, if I was going to get pissed off this early into the hike, I was going to be in a pretty bad mood by the end of the day. I already knew we were going to be camping, so—Get over it, I told myself, and get on with it.
Crunch, crunch, crunch, crunch in the gravel by the Maisy River, three people and two Minis, no waiting. I stopped expecting to see the Sentinel getting any closer—so when it did, it took me by surprise. Once I quit mentally complaining, the journey didn’t seem so hard or so long. Before I expected it, we rounded another bend, and the Last Sentinel towered near the wall of the canyon, perhaps three hundred meters away. I felt glad, which was ridiculous, considering that this was the beginning of our journey and not the end, but it still seemed a milestone.
Ahi marched toward the ancient ship as if it were an old friend. At the pace she set, we traversed the distance quickly. One moment I was looking south toward the river, which had picked up both momentum and depth as it flowed down the slope, making a pervasive noise unlike anything I could have heard on Olympia, and the next I was looking up at the Last Sentinel as we walked around its base.
Sand and gravel had piled up against its flanks from countless seasons of flooding, higher on the east side, since the Maisy flowed from that direction. We had to slow our pace as the sand got deeper. Kitten gave up and perched on my shoulder. Soon our efforts to make our way through those drifts consumed our curiosity over the Last Sentinel.
On the upside, I wasn’t falling so far behind the others anymore. That sand slowed all of us down. By the time we had struggled most of the way around the base, we had formed a loose clump.
Ahi stopped and half turned. “When we get to the west side of the base, there’s a lot less sand. We’ll have an easier time. Almost there!”
“Okay,” Ashur said, sounding downright cheerful.
I decided to save my breath. Once we were on normal footing, I would fall behind again. My ego wasn’t bruised, but I worried that I wouldn’t be able to protect them if they got too far ahead. I wondered if I should mention that to Ahi, and if it would hurt her pride. She had a lot of confidence in her ability to guide us safely, and her confidence must be justified or …
I took another step and staggered as the sand gave way beneath my feet. Kitten leaped free and fell into a soft drift. As I started to topple, I flailed out with one hand and planted my palm firmly on the side of the Last Sentinel, to steady myself.
The implant inside my head flared to life. The heat and light of Joe’s Canyon vanished, and I was suspended in the void. At my feet, two suns were locked in a spiral, a yellow giant and a smaller, blue-white companion. I knew the one that looked small had a gravitational footprint far larger than its partner.
Hella One and Two, I thought. She can see them. She can see Charon, too.
She was so cold, I couldn’t maintain the contact, so I let go of her. The Hellas disappeared, light and heat rushed back, and once again I was stuck in the sand at the feet of the Last Sentinel.
I breathed a sigh of relief. I thought it was over.
Before I could take another step, a figure swooped and fluttered around me like a giant bird. I staggered back, expecting to feel claws, but the only thing that touched me was a slight breeze as the thing rushed past and then back again. I stopped and tried to get a better look at the nebulous shape.
“Time and trees are telling,” it muttered with a woman’s voice, “follow them and see. Under arches shells are dry. Time is hanging, but who makes the loops? Gifts, but gone, then what? Bite the ones who take. Running ruins and sad! Can you keep your feet? Prosper! Oichi, where is the cannon?”
It stopped and regarded me expectantly.
“Where is the—what?” I stammered.
It turned and was gone, as if it had slipped around a corner. I turned 360 degrees, trying to find it. When I came back to where I started, Ahi stood there, her mouth agape. “You’ve been here less than a day,” she said, “and already a Sentinel talked to you.”
* * *
“So how long does it usually take people to talk to a Sentinel?” said Ashur.
We had left the Last Sentinel behind us, and now we perched in the meager shade of a twistifer tree, sipping water and eating snacks from our packs.
Ahi nibbled her protein bar before answering, as if she wasn’t accustomed to thinking much about it. “You can talk to them all you want. They might even listen. They usually don’t talk back.”
Kitten, untroubled by the heat, settled on top of a sunny ro
ck. “Did they ever talk to you?”
Ahi nodded. “Once. It didn’t make a lot of sense. When they talk, they sound like poetry.”
Time and trees are telling, follow them and see.…
Ahi regarded me with fascination. “It wanted to talk to you, Oichi. It didn’t even notice Ashur and me. Did it make sense to you?”
“No.” I took a long drink of my water. My legs were thrumming with the blood flowing through my veins, because of the extended exercise we had done. It felt good. “Is it supposed to make sense?”
“Yeah,” said Ahi, “lots of luck with that. I think the Sentinels try to warn us, but they weren’t made by humans, so they end up talking to the wrong parts of our brains.”
“They don’t just watch the canyon,” I said. “They watch the whole solar system.”
Everyone stared at me. “When I touched her, I think I saw the Hella system through the eyes of the Sentinel.”
Ahi chewed another bite while she thought that over. “When my Sentinel talked to me, I didn’t see anything like that. And the conversation was a lot shorter.”
Dragonette settled on Ashur’s pack frame. “Can you remember what it said?”
“It said, Blue lightning breaks time. Hide with the merman.”
I glanced at Ashur to see if blue lightning set off the same sparks in his head as it did mine, but he had never seen a gravity bomb in action. He fixated on another part of the message.
“I wrote an immersive program where I was a merman,” he said.
Ahi grinned at him. “Can I hide with you if the blue lightning gets out of hand?”
Ashur wasn’t in the mood to joke. “If the Sentinel was talking to Oichi’s brain, how come I saw it? How come I could hear it?”
“If they start to talk, anyone nearby gets caught up in the effect.” She shrugged. “I don’t know why, but we should remember what it said. It might have been warning us.”
“I recorded it,” said Dragonette.
Kitten perked up. “You can record a mental hologram?”