Jack Dann - Dangerous Games

“My father died over in 37. Left our orchard one day, just upped and turned tomb-robber, tomb-visitor, whatever term covers it. It’s what more and more of us do. Spent all we had on maps, comp and the best sentry tech he could get. I didn’t find out till later! A neighbour came over and told me he hadn’t come out of 37. I didn’t even know he’d gone in, been planning it all those years. So I ask you: why would he do that? Why do any of us?”

“But I’m asking you that, little hunter.”

“Don’t call me that. I’m Beni.”

“ Beni. So as well as being in love you’re in hate and loss. Potent mixture. Think of it though. I’m five hundred years in your past, yet held accountable, made responsible somehow for a boy losing his father centuries later. And, marvellous paradox, without me, without the loss and envy, it seems your life, all your lives, would be lacking in purpose.”

“That’s not it.”

“Would be meaningless.”

“That’s not it!” The cry was swallowed in the ebbing, flowing, warm ceramic night. The thief had stopped walking at last, stood grimly silent. The ghost hovered, drifted, spoke.

“Maybe not. But perhaps you fear so. All your people. So you come here and test yourselves, steep yourselves in the mystery, could that be it? Plunder us from time to time. Carry out acts of astonishing vandalism.”

“I haven’t done that.” Beni started walking again, drew the phantom along with him.

“No, Beni. You haven’t yet. Thank you.”

“Ramirez didn’t.”

“No. I agree,” she said. “A lot don’t. You’re different to most. Ramirez was, both of you are, that curious blend of romantic and”-she said it very gently-“innocent. After something else.”

Doesn’t mean I won’t though, he almost said, felt he should say it, a young man scared and confused. But didn’t. “So what are we after then, Dormeuse?”

“Back to that, are we? Both wanting the same question answered.”

“I’m afraid so.” He continued walking, watching the scanner.

“All right. I allow you’re motivated by the quest, by envy and reprisals against the past, the need both to have the past mysterious yet know it. I allow disenchantment, rites of passage, because it’s there, all that. But we’re generalizing. It doesn’t tell me why you’re here, does it? Why Beni is here as an individual.”

Because I want to win, he could have said. Be up there among the greatest of them all: Ramirez, Callido, Asparan. But again didn’t, feared sounding arrogant, brash, deluded like so many who came here. He was after something more. He was.

“You’re being gentle with me, Dormeuse, so I’ll try to find an answer. A real answer.”

“Please do. And my name is Arasty. ‘Dormeuse’ means ‘sleeping woman’ in an ancient language. Which is what I am, just as you are ichneumon.”

“I’m what?”

“Ichneumon. Another very old word. Means ‘hunter’ or ‘tracker.’ A small animal that used to hunt along river banks. Ate the eggs of crocodiles.”

“Of what?”

“No matter. Beni and Arasty. We’re here now and, yes, I’m being gentle because you are.”

“But it’s a mode as well. Tactical.”

“Yes. It is.” The black eyes glittered.

“You could stop me?”

“I’m sure I can.” Glittered.

“Yet the fact is you want us here.”

“Oh, tell me why.”

“Not yet.”

“I’m curious. Tell me why.”

“I need to concentrate.”

For ahead, his cap-light’s glow fell on something different at last, caught in strange verticals, made new shadows for his eyes and tech to fathom.

He had reached the peristyle hall.

Beni had expected it to be little more than a widening of the axial corridor, with the seven pillars on either side keeping the passageway’s alignment from entranceway to central tholos. But when he entered, he found it went back even deeper behind the smooth featureless columns than his stylized display suggested, just as the corridors were so very much longer than the plan showed. The walls shone with the same vitreous pallor as the corridor, but opposite each other in the centre of each back wall was the circular intaglio motif Ramirez had told him of.

The intercept appeared beside him while he stood exploring one of the grooved mandalas with a finger.

“Know what that is?”

“Ramirez told me. It’s a maze. The classic seven-ring design. The archetypal unicursal maze built round a cross and four points. Used by lots of ancient peoples, the Romans, the Cretans and Syrians, the Irish, the medieval Christians-”

“Yes, yes. So what is its significance? Did Ramirez tell you?”

Beni smiled. “A unicursal maze has a single path from the entrance to the centre. It looks complex but is really very direct.”

“Why it appealed to the Tastans too.”

“I’m sure.”

“ Beni, I fear you’re an optimist.”

“What do you mean?”

“You see it as something complex being ultimately very simple. Like your comp reading there.”

“So?”

“Why not a simple path made difficult. Look at your comp now.”

Beni glanced down, saw with a stab of alarm, panic, sudden terror, a new reading. He keyed randoms, saw only the new double-peristyle configuration.

“This does get interesting,” she said. “Oh, by the way, ‘ichneumon’ also refers to a parasitic, hymenopterous insect that lays its eggs on another’s larvae, using it as food for its own young as they hatch. Nice thought, yes? Little hunter.” And she vanished.

Beni had been told this would probably happen, the host’s hunt-mode surfacing, solicitous, caring, then cold, callous, vindictive, seeking to undermine any sense of hope.

He strode on, left the columned hall, plunged into the next length of corridor, just the tiniest dagger edge of doubt pushing through the confidence Ramirez had given him. What if there were a second peristyle hall? What if the tomb plan actually shifted, shunted him from one course to another, on and on? The mound was large enough.

Ramirez had spoken of it. It was a doubt he could still push aside. The tholos, the skull chamber, would be ahead. Not far.

The yellow cone pushing ahead became brighter, strengthening, whitening, as the host flashed in.

“Can we resume, Beni? You said that we want you here. Tell me why?”

Beni did not look at the intercept. He walked on, glancing at his display, then ahead, corridor, display, repeating that. He might have stayed silent, punished her for the trickery with the plan. But he sensed, just as Ramirez had told him, that it would probably be the worst thing to do. The tomb profiles liked to talk.

“It occurs to me, Arasty, that a sentry program would want visitors to test itself against, that the self whose tomb this is would have designed the tomb so its sentry profile would be exercised, challenged, kept entertained and satisfied. It’s what I’d do.”

“That’s a very smart observation. What made you think of it all of a sudden? Or was it also something-”

“I asked Ramirez about it that day in the orchard. Mentioned it before he did. We talked about what the tombs really were. He told me that your intercept, Dormeuse-Arasty-would appear at various times, run different modes-”

“And walk with you like this?”

“Not necessarily. Some intercepts did, he said. He also told me that whoever could code personalities and structure reality perception would not bother with ancient mortuary forms-corridors, burial chambers and such like-unless they were playing at something, wanted to invite plunderers.”

“Again, very shrewd. He didn’t say much when he was here but I miss this Ramirez. You’re both right. We do want you here. We give each other purpose.”