Ashes of Candesce: Book Five of Virga Read online

  "When were you going to tell me this?" she asked finally.

  "When I had some idea of what they're up to," he said. "That may be once we've had a look at what the Guard is doing at the center of that ice-free area.

  "Anyway," he added as he tossed off the last of the rum, "I didn't know how far I could trust you."

  "Captain! City's in sight!" Jacoby and Antaea looked at one another, then both bolted for the door.

  * * *

  "I TOLD YOU," Keir insisted. "That way is too dangerous."

  "Did you see those missiles?" Piero Harper crossed his arms and glared at him. "We have to get home."

  The Virgans had him surrounded--or thought they did. Actually it was Keir's second body they were looming over. He was able to watch the confrontation from thirty feet away, in his real one. Still, he felt the intensity of their desperation, and it struck a chord with him.

  "Where does this other door actually go?" asked Leal. "You just said it went to Virga."

  "It's a city on the Virgan side," he told them. "Beyond that, we don't know much."

  "And the inhabitants of this city? They're hostile?"

  "There are no inhabitants. It's like Brink, empty, except for guards that the virtuals put there. Those will tear you apart before you get ten meters."

  "But not," said Piero, "if we were suitably armed?"

  "Sure, but I--" He'd been about to say I'm not allowed to evolve weapons. And of course that was true; Keir had never had any means of equipping himself to fight the guardians of that gate.

  Not four meters away from where his main body stood, two Edisonians were vomiting weapons onto the floor.

  Piero Harper had seen this activity, and now he walked over to the members of the Renaissance who were outfitting themselves there. "Pardon, but this is our fault," he said. "There ain't no need for any of you to get hurt if they come down here."

  Gallard shook his head. "We can send our second bodies in," he pointed out. "We don't die if they're destroyed. Can you say the same?"

  "We're willing to take that risk. And this is our fault."

  Gallard cocked his head and narrowed his eyes. He was consulting with the rest of the Renaissance. Keir tried to remain silent and small, willing them to trust the Virgans. Of course, the weapons could be remotely disabled at a command from the Renaissance; there was no danger these people could pull a coup.

  Gallard gave a sharp nod. "All right. Equip yourselves. And good luck."

  As the Virgans picked up the new guns, Keir broke out of the shadows and joined his second body. "Surely we can't just abandon these people?" one of the airmen was whispering.

  "They'll be fine," he said. "They know the city. And now that they're forewarned, they can build weapons that can eliminate another attack from a hundred kilometers away."

  Keir saw Maerta approaching from the far end of the hall. If she realized what they were planning ... But before she got within voice distance, a deep rumble shook the floor under them.

  "It's a second attack!" Suddenly everybody was running again.

  Maerta turned to talk to somebody.

  "This way! Now!"

  Keir ran with both his bodies, hoping that in the chaos, nobody would wonder where they were going until it was too late.

  * * *

  AS THE SHIP'S searchlight played over the ice-choked domes and spires of the lost city, Jacoby felt an unnerving sense of doubt. The frozen towers were clutched by the fingers of a glacier that encircled most of the world. Yet on one side of the city, they stopped. The wall of the world that underlay them was swept clear here. A black plain, it stretched away into obscurity, utterly empty of any feature the eye could use to judge its scale. Two hundred miles away across that flat blackness, a hundred Home Guard ships were building a base of some kind.

  These lightless windows in empty facades, the grasping iceberg wall--even to Jacoby, this place looked like nothing so much as a gateway to the afterworld.

  The city had never known gravity, so its buildings grew out of Virga's wall at all angles. Black glittering windows corkscrewed around the towers and swept in spirals and whorls across the vast gray domes. Girdered docking gantries stood into the air, faint whiskers in the distance. No ships were berthed on them.

  The pastel airs of his home were far away, veiled behind more than two thousand miles of air. The influence of the sun of suns itself was barely felt here; nothing grew, and not even the poorest or most desperate souls would try to subsist in this place. What mad impulse would lead a people to colonize such empty desolation?

  "Captain?" said Mauven from behind him.

  Jacoby blinked away his distraction. "Yes, yes," he said, then cleared his throat. "Locate an area that's clear of ice and has a view of the blank area. Forget the docking gantries, we'll lash the ship directly to whatever building we choose to camp in. That'll make for a speedy exit if we have to."

  Antaea was waiting at the main hatch with a sizable crowd of airmen. They were all holding the straps of packs that were bigger than they were--carrying tents, heaters and stoves, gas supplies, guns big and small, ammunition, food supplies, extra clothing, blankets, and personal items. They looked ready to settle in for a long stay; good.

  "What's that for?" Antaea pointed at two men who were struggling with a huge reel of rope.

  Jacoby grunted. "When we triangulate the direction of that nest of Guard ships, we'll unreel that behind us as we go, to make a road back. We're bringing black cloth to make a blind we can hide behind when we get close enough to watch them."

  "Ah. Clever."

  "We wouldn't have to be clever if the Guard trusted you better," he said. "Then you could have just asked them what they were up to."

  She scowled at him. With one last look at the readiness of his men, Jacoby swung out the hatch and into the darkness of the lost city.

  The air smelled of stale ice. One by one the others left the warmth of the ship behind, gathering in a knot around Jacoby. There were already several crewmen out here manning searchlights and telescopes; the telescopes were aimed into the black-on-black geometry of the city, but the searchlights were roving over the tower that they had stopped next to. This was cylindrical, with one band of glass windows that spiraled around it from its base to its crown. The windows were unbroken, and Jacoby had seen no wreckage drifting in the air. Whatever ancient event had caused its citizens to abandon the place, it seemed not to have been a war.

  "Find a way through that glass," he said. "If you have to break it, then break it. I want this tower thoroughly searched and secured within one hour." Then he turned to Antaea. "Can you fly a bike?"

  "Mine is in the hold, remember?" He heard the eagerness in her voice, and smiled.

  "We have six. Break 'em out, boys!"

  The bikes were simple: wingless jet engines with a saddle and handlebars. Each was capable of accelerating hard enough to knock its rider off, and cruise fast enough that the headwind would snap your neck if you poked your head out from behind the windscreen. Jacoby had no special ambitions for them today, of course; they were convenient for reconnoitering the ruin. He and Antaea each took one, and some of his men doubled up on the other four. They growled and grumbled into the grasp of the towers, listening to echoes murmur back from dead walls.

  One of the men quickly spotted a set of big square doors gaping at the base of the docking gantries. He swung his headlight in. "Sir? Can we?"

  The boys were nervous, and that was making them dare one another to go farther. Well, Jacoby could play that game, too. He turned to Antaea, who expertly straddled her bike a dozen feet away. "Shall we?"

  "You brought rope?" He nodded. "Then let's not waste time," she said. "Remember, the Guard may be on its way here."

  They lashed the bikes at the base of the docking gantries, and left the icy air of the outdoors for even colder inside air. One of the crew whistled as he played his little magnesium lantern around the walls.

  From the maw at the base of the gant
ries, the passages and veins of the dead city corkscrewed away like the inside of a nautilus's shell. From the first long curving chamber--like the inside of a hollow horn--large openings like the maws of great arteries branched away. Other smaller ways branched and rebranched into impossible complexity like some system of capillaries. All the open spaces were crisscrossed by cables that one could swing or jump from. Doors and windows were scattered over the walls in patterns; great dark lamps hung like dead jellyfish in the open air.

  And everywhere, there was debris. It clotted the dark air, flicking into visibility as the lantern's light found it: chairs, books, picture frames, wicker storage balls full of china plates--the whole inventory of a living city, vomited into these spaces and left to drift and assemble in strange clouds. Spiderwebs and skeins of fungi held some of the collections together.

  They moved in, casting their lights in side passages as they went, but keeping to the main way. This corkscrewed but maintained a steady direction, heading toward Virga's outer wall.

  "I saw no town wheels," said Mauven after a long silence. "Nothing to spin at all. What did these people do for gravity?... Sir? What's that?"

  He looked to where the first mate had aimed his lantern. At first this artery seemed like the others they'd come through--but no, Mauven had spotted something affixed to one wall. It looked like nothing so much as a great fist, made of a substance disturbingly like cuticle or horn. The thing was eight feet across, and it clenched the wall so strongly that the ancient metal surface was furled and torn.

  Jacoby swung his own lantern around and looked back the way they had come. His heart sank as he saw that they'd already passed a number of the things, but had missed them in the jumble of junk that choked the round corridor.

  "I hate to say this," said Antaea, "but those look like eggs."

  One of Jacoby's men swore suddenly and loudly. Jacoby followed the light of another lantern and felt a prickle of shock down his spine.

  The lamplight played across a galaxy of corpses, all hanging in perfect stillness in the center of the passage ahead of them.

  The sight was paralyzing, but as soon as Jacoby saw how it had stunned everyone else into silence, he shook himself and forced himself to take a more dispassionate look at what they'd discovered. The bodies were frozen, many showing huge and distressing cuts and slashes; beads of frozen blood hung in the air next to them. They were dressed like airmen, in a style he hadn't seen since he last visited some of the more backward nations of Spyre.

  "So now we know why no one comes here," he said heavily. "But who did this? I don't like it; we'd better get back."

  They had been drifting down the middle of the corridor, but now they all tried to stop themselves by grabbing ancient pedestrian ropes or wall rings. Mauven, however, was in the middle of the way and had nothing to grab on to; he kicked his feet into the stirrups of the spring-loaded wings mounted on his back, and they flapped once. The burst of wind caught the cloud of bodies, and the corpses began to move languidly. Less massive, the frozen beads and balls of blood began colliding and spinning away. The passageway filled with a strange, rapid-fire clicking sound as a wave of movement spread through the blood cloud.

  Jacoby heard himself say, "Let's get out of here," and there was no disagreement. But as they turned to go back the way they'd come, the clicking sound was suddenly drowned out by a dry crackling noise.

  One of the ominous growths that lined the wall was rocking. It was thirty feet up the corridor--in between them and the way out--and just a gray outline in the penumbra of their lanterns' light. It shook again, and then with a shattering sound it burst, and bright metal and splintering crystal flew through the air. Something scrabbled out of the wrecked cocoon and in seconds the passageway was filled with screaming and the sound of gunfire.

  8

  MAERTA WAS WAITING in the glass-walled gallery. Both her bodies were here, and six other large multi-armed shapes hovered in the dimness behind her. "Keir, what are you doing?" she asked.

  The Virgans all stopped, looking around uneasily. Keir stepped up, meeting Maerta's gaze with a level look of his own. "This is their only way out," he said defiantly. "If they can break through the cordon on the other side, they'll be home-free. The guard bots won't be able to follow them into Candesce's field."

  "I understand that," she said gently. "That's not what I asked. What are you doing?"

  He swallowed, feeling the panic starting to return. "I'm leaving," he said; then, realizing that he hadn't yet talked to the Virgans about it, he turned to them. "If you'll have me."

  Leal and Piero glanced at one another. "We would," said Leal, "but it's not for us to decide."

  Maerta shook her head. "It's too soon, Keir. There's no telling what will happen to you if you enter Candesce's influence before the process is complete."

  "What process?" He wanted to tear at his hair in frustrated anger. "What's happening to me," he demanded, "and who did it?"

  Maerta opened her mouth, closed it, and for the first time, looked genuinely distressed. "Keir," she said hesitantly. "You're ... Dear, you're de-indexing. And ... you did it to yourself."

  De-indexing? He polled scry, but the data was inaccessible--doubtless one of Maerta's "child-proofing" locks. He shook his head in confusion.

  "I don't understand! None of this is making any sense." He backed toward the glass passage that led out of the city. "But you can't keep me here. I won't stay."

  "It's suicide!" Maerta appealed to the Virgans. "Hasn't he told you what's waiting on the other side of the door? Stay here, we'll keep you safe until we come up with a better option."

  To Keir's relief, Leal shook her head with a frown. "I have to deliver my message. I'm overdue."

  Maerta took an angry step in Keir's direction; he backed away. "What message could be so important that you'll risk your own lives to bring it back to Virga?"

  Leal just stared at her in disbelief. From the look on her face, Keir expected some outburst from her, but what she said was "I've been wondering something ever since we arrived here, Maerta.

  "How is that you and your people are still human?"

  Maerta said nothing.

  "You're not from Virga," Leal went on. "Keir said he's from a planet named Revelation. Are you as well?" Guardedly, Maerta nodded. "And is Revelation within Artificial Nature?"

  Another nod.

  "Yet you fled here. You're hiding here. From what? What happened on Revelation?"

  Maerta looked at Keir, then away. Finally she said, "Revelation was ... a little bubble of humanity in the larger universe. Outside of the arena, you understand, where truces hold between the various forces that contend inside A.N. Then ... the balance of power shifted, several years ago. Revelation's protection evaporated. The planet ... fell.

  "We came here because Brink was an obscure place, a secret place, and right next to Virga."

  "You came to study Candesce," said Leal.

  "Yes. To try to find a way to defend ourselves."

  "Then let us go," Leal commanded, "because you are not the only ones with this goal. And if I succeed, I may be able to give you direct access to Candesce, to study it from the inside. --And besides," she added, "if you can rescue the rest of our people from the plains below the city, they can stop this assault. Half of them are Home Guard people, anyway; if the others try to land they'll put a stop to whatever lies Loll's told to incite them. Take care of them, and I promise you, we will take care of Keir Chen."

  Maerta looked at Keir. Again he held her gaze defiantly. Her shoulders slumped. "Then go," she said. "And yes, Leal, we'll find your men."

  Keir turned and, without a look back, raced up the crystal passage that led from Aethyr, Brink, and Complication Hall to Virga.

  * * *

  FOR A FEW minutes, Leal thought they would make it. Yet as the mysterious blockhouse that hung in the precise black between the worlds came nearer, she heard muttering among her companions; Piero and the other men were slowing. Leal
peered ahead, and she, too, faltered.

  John Tarvey was waiting for them at the end of the crystal tunnel.

  The lads were drawing their guns, both the ones they'd brought and the new ones Keir Chen's people had made for them. Tarvey just stood there, his hands up and his face half-turned aside--not a gesture of surrender, but a pose that said hear me out.

  Keir had come abreast of Leal and now he sent her an uneasy frown. She guessed what he was thinking. They could go back; he could summon his people to help. She shook her head minutely. If the firepower they had with them wasn't sufficient to deal with this thing that had taken on the shape of her friend, whatever force would be enough might also be enough to shatter the crystal tube, and kill them all through exposure to the vacuum.

  She brought her party to a halt about thirty feet from the creature. "We shot you before," she shouted. "What makes you think we won't do it again?"

  "I'm absolutely sure you will," he said. Still with his hands up, he continued, "But I'm not out to stop you. I can help."

  The lads exchanged suspicious glances; then their eyes turned to Leal. She moistened her lips and thought about what to say. "What do you mean?" was all she could finally summon.

  "We can end that primitive bombardment that's threatening your friends," said Tarvey. "It's just chemical weapons, after all--primitive airships. They could be swept aside in seconds. All I have to do is make the call."

  "Make the call?" She shook her head, uncomprehending. "To who? Who's this 'we' you're talking about? I thought we were your friends."

  A look of distress flickered across his face then, to be quickly erased by the uncanny serenity that was so unlike the John Tarvey she knew. "You know us as the virtuals," he said. "We're a vast and ancient civilization--the inheritors of humanity's original spark of consciousness. And we want to help you."

  "We don't want your help!" shouted Piero Harper. He raised his pistol. "Stand aside. Now!"

  Leal touched her hand to Piero's wrist. "Wait," she said. "Tarvey, we don't need the help of the virtuals right now. But we could use your help."