Karl Schroeder - Lady of Mazes

Aaron started. Real was not a term he'd heard much lately.

"I'm not sure," admitted another Veronique, "because the pieces are distributed among so many people. But I think the virus is ready. All we needed was an entry point from which to inject it into the Archipelago. The big problem was, it had to gestate outside the Government-controlled part of the network."

Aaron laughed, only slightly disappointed. "Doran Morss isn't an Archipelagic citizen. So the Scotland is outside the Government's inscape."

"Yes. You see now why I had to come ... why I leaped at the chance to meet you. Morss allows very few guests. But his guests can have their own guests, within limits." Some of her looked down contritely. "I wanted to meet you anyway, because you're an exotic, I mean I've never met anybody from outside the solar system. I hope you're not angry to learn I had an ulterior motive."

He laughed again. "I assumed you had one. But it's one I like."

She grinned at herselves. "Then you're not angry with me?"

"On the contrary." He leaned forward, clasping his hands on his knees. "When were you planning on taking down the Government?"

Qiingi tried to avoid staring as he sat down in the verso house. He could see that the roof was about to slide off, and the wall had been patched but the stones were still crumbling here and there. The stove was improperly placed and most of its heat would leak out before it reached the cots. Politeness kept him from saying anything about these matters, but perhaps he could volunteer to help around the place. Then he could discreetly fix some things.

Qiingi had been sitting cross-legged on the shore of Doran Morss's ocean, weaving twine from grass, when she'd come walking up out of the fog: a young woman of Archipelagic perfection, dressed in uneasily patched cotton. She'd stared hungrily at his hands as he continued to work. "Show me how you do that," she had said, even before introducing herself with the unlikely name of Ishani Chaterjee.

"There are doubtless inscape tutorials that will teach you better than I could," he had said mildly.

"But I want to know how you do it," she'd insisted.

" ... And this is my housemate, Lindsey," Ishani was saying now. Housemate Lindsey wiped hands covered in chicken grease on her apron. "Would you like some stew, Qiingi? It's my own attempt at a highland recipe."

He was skeptical at the smell coming from the pot, but he smiled widely anyway. "That would be very welcome."

Ishani had talked a great deal about her new friends during the several craft sessions he'd had with her. She had tried for years to come to Doran's Scotland, but he could sense the unhappiness in her voice at finally being here. Qiingi had been amazed to hear it — among Raven's people, such discontent would not have arisen. Ishani would either have come to love this new home, or Ome-teotl would have provided a world for her more in keeping with her spirit As it was, Ishani could summon any view she wanted through inscape — but she seemed unable to commit to any of them.

The two women sat with him and Qiingi choked down some of the flavorless food. "Ishani says you're new here," said Lindsey after a silence that Qiingi had felt comfortable, but which he sensed she thought of as awkward.

"I apologize if I am encroaching on your land," he said. She laughed.

"This whole world is owned by Doran Morss. It's not our land, is it? Besides, we're happy to have a neighbor. What brought you here? You're a verso, obviously ... "

He shook his head. "I am unfamiliar with many of your terms. Worldling is not my first language."

"Verso," she said uncertainly. "Someone who does ... well, this." She gestured around at the stone walls. "Someone who's turned away from the insanity of the narratives. Returned to the old ways — pure ways of living."

Again, he shook his head. "My people did not turn away from anything. We turned to something." Her face eloquently expressed her incomprehension. "I am not from the Archipelago," he said reluctantly.

"Oh! An alien," said Lindsey. "Or a colonist? That explains ... " She gestured at bis recently-made doming. "But this is fascinating! Ishani, the things you find."

"So what are you doing here?" asked Ishani. "Are you working for Morss?"

"No." He frowned at the black hulking stove, an abomination of heat-pump technology where a fire should be. "I am doing nothing," he said at last. "Because I do not know what I could do to help my people. They have been destroyed. Many of my kinsmen and friends are dead. The rest are enslaved to a power I do not even understand." He had no reason to tell these people any of this. But Qiingi found he couldn't stop talking now that he had started. "I came to this place to be alone, away from your Archipelago of illusions. To mourn."

Lindsey sat back, clearly unsure whether to act appalled or admit to being in on the joke. "Your people ... They're dead?"

"Many of them, I'm sure."

Her look of skepticism was infuriating; Qiingi knew she could have no idea what he'd been through. Suddenly spiteful, he said, "Those that are not dead will be slaves now. And our cities and canoes, our longhouses and our great Song of Ometeotl are gone. Our animals speak for the invaders." Lindsey glanced uncertainly at Ishani, who was gazing at Qiingi with wide eyes.

Qiingi grimaced. "We came to your worlds to find help for our people, but no one will help us. We cannot find anyone to defy your anecliptics."

"The annies?" Ishani looked puzzled. "The annies attacked your coronal?"

Qiingi didn't answer; he felt tears welling up in his eyes. He glared at the tabletop, feeling a surge of deep helplessness. It was a familiar feeling, one that had come upon him daily ever since he had left the Song. These people could never understand what he was going through.

Surely he was being unkind. Yet, everyone he had met in this forsaken place seemed to lack some essential spark that he had known at home. He glanced miserably around the room, wondering why this hut, so similar in many ways to those in Skaalitch, felt like a parody of a reality only his people had known.

"Qiingi ... that name is familiar," said Lindsey. "Oh, where have I heard that, it's on the tip of my tongue, I'm tempted to do a query." She laughed at Ishani's expression. "I won't, of course. But Qiingi, you said we just now. Ishani said you were living alone."

"True. My friends have ... lost their way. One is mesmerized by the wonders of your science and technology, and the other has thrown herself into the service of Doran Morss. They neglect our search for allies. Every day they seem to remember less why we came here." He tried to express the depth of his feelings of betrayal and pain at Livia's absence, but all he could say in the end was, "I do not understand."

Ishani shook her head sympathetically. "It's the narratives. They're making sense of your friends' lives; that's what they do. It's insidious, you don't even know it's happening. I'll bet they've both found causes they can believe in. They've even met people, haven't they? ... Beautiful men or women who hold out some hope of completing them, of being their match ... " She sighed ruefully at his expression. "It's true. Narratives will do that. And what they find for you is genuine, and emotionally fulfilling. It's just that it's been given to you, you haven't made it yourself."

He looked around the cabin, suddenly frightened. "And have the narratives given me this?"

"No. If you're here on the ground of the Scotland you're outside the narratives' influence. This is Doran Morss's ship, and he's not part of the human Archipelago. That's why we," she gestured at Lindsey and herself, "can be ourselves here."

"I came here to respect the loss of my people through isolation and genuine sadness," he said after a while. "Why did you come here?"