Karl Schroeder - Lady of Mazes

"Aaron, where are we?"

"How did you survive?" someone asked. "None of our sims predicted it! And those other survivors — " He waved to where they had been, but it was too late. The others who had followed Aaron all these days had already crossed their own horizons. Now that they were back in the embrace of inscape, they would be found by their own people within hours.

" — Don't know how she did it. She talked to us, encouraged us, beat us when we tried to lie down and die ... " Who was Aaron talking to? Livia stroked the warm, dry upholstery next to her, trying to sort out what was going on.

" — Damage to the implant interface. It's likely that the amygdala suffered some ... "

"Rest. You're a hero, everyone's talking about it. How you led them all out. How you suffered so they didn't have to ... "

"Aaron?

"Rest, Livia. Just rest. I'll be right here."

Livia shut down the memories and just lay there among the pillows. Curiously, she felt nothing at all — as if she had known all along that it was Aaron, and not her, who had saved them.

Aaron who had loved her — for how long? Aaron who had made her into the person she was now.

The minutes ticked on. She waited for a change to occur — for her identity to unravel completely in the face of this revelation. Part of her was ringing with shock, but she realized that another part was continuing on as though nothing had happened. Coolly planning what she must do when they reached Teven. That part of her went on about its business as though nothing she had just learned mattered.

I am what I was made to be, she realized: a leader, not prone to paralysis. It didn't make any difference if that trait had been woven into her personality by others. Her feelings for Aaron had deepened to a fathomless sorrow and yes, there was anger there, too. But it was he who'd left in the end, and she had had enough of tears.

She would have time later to wonder at the irony and strangeness of it all. Right now she had to plan how to hide her real purpose from Choronzon and the annies, and Maren Ellis and 3340. Eventually, thoughts and disguises composed, she called Qiingi and said, "Come talk to me. We need to get back to Teven before the annies. And we need a plan for what we'll do when we get there."

A lone figure moved slowly down the leaf-strewn avenue. There were few people out; most moved in a trance, their senses overtaken by some inscape vision inaccessible to the lone walker. This person wore drab clothing and a hood to keep out the autumn drizzle. She seldom looked up from the rain-glossed street, but if she did, she saw the towers and sails of Barrastea restored. Then she would touch something clipped to her ear and quickly look down again.

Not everything was as it had been. The sky above Livia's city had once been open and bright. Now, a fine web of cables spiraled up from the city center, disappearing into the gray haze of the lowering clouds. Here and there triangles of white sailcloth poked down from the clouds like frozen wings, implying another city hovering above the one she knew. In those cables, Livia recognized the work of Cirrus manifold.

Just what they were doing in the capital of Wester-haven she couldn't yet tell.

She had been cautious so far. Emblaze's ship had docked at Teven without incident; no one was watching for visitors, it seemed. Livia and Qiingi had only to walk up a flight of stairs and step out of a disused, vinecovered door, and there they were: on the outskirts of Barrastea.

Qiingi had left her reluctantly. His mission was to find Raven, so in the end he turned and walked into the woods without looking back. Livia had never felt so alone and had entered her city with reluctance, expecting to see ruin and bodies. To her surprise, whoever now controlled the place had rebuilt it to something approaching its former beauty. Somehow, that fact upset her more than anything; perhaps it was because where once she had owned the avenues and parks here, now she was entering the city as a spy. She no longer belonged.

Livia did not allow herself the luxury of sorrow. She examined the faces of those she passed, gauging their health and happiness. She assessed the buildings, loitered for a while watching some bots rebuilding a house, and poked her head in a few restaurants and bars. People ignored her — often, she knew, because the little earpiece Emblaze had given her jammed any inscape signals sent her way, making her invisible to many here. Though they were oblivious to her, the people seemed relaxed and unhurried. Indeed, there was no sign that Barrastea was a conquered city. Her vision of the city was that of cripple-view, but she couldn't help but wonder if what she saw now had always been the crippleview version of the city. Even the cableways of Cirrus might have always been here.

But no; she knew people who'd traveled in Cirrus. There had never been a net thrown over Barrastea before.

She listened to people talk as she walked. Mostly they gossiped, just as they always had. Every now and then, though, someone would say something like, "Oh, but I'm the Postman today. That makes you a Relay." The terms and phrases of the Good Book had insinuated themselves into Westerhaven's speech. Subtle though its influence might be, there was no doubt that version 3340 of the Book was in control here.

As evening fell Livia sat down on a public bench and aimed a little laser at a particular star twinkling above the Southwall mountains. "I'm here and okay," she transmitted — mostly she imagined herself speaking to Qiingi, but he was incommunicado while he investigated Raven's people. Emblaze and Sophia and the lads would be listening, though.

"There's not much to see," she continued. "They say mat when people use the Book properly, a Utopia results — and that's happened here. But we thought we lived in a Utopia before, didn't we? It's not so different now — so why? Why attack us? I don't understand. I mean ... there's no sign of why Teven was so interesting to 3340; they had to kill the tech locks to make the Book work here at all." She heard the bitterness in her voice, and lacking an anima, could do little to suppress it. "Anyway, things are back to normal — almost, anyway. I guess you could say the conquest is complete." She blew out a heavy sigh. "I'm safe for now. I just have to find a place to sleep. I'm going to ... " She bit her Up for a second, momentarily losing her signal lock on the distant star. "I'm going to see if my old bedroom still recognizes me."

Bad idea, she told herself as she paced increasingly familiar avenues leading into the heart of the city. Even so, the quiet of the city lulled her; as evening fell she found it easier and easier to pretend she was back in the old days. Barrastea surrounded her in all its centuries-old grandeur and peace. She could imagine the flutter of social manifolds surrounding her again like the breathing of a god, and she would run home ...

She stopped, scowling at herself. This was foolishness; yet she was only a few blocks from the Kodaly estate now. And though she had told herself not to, she couldn't help but wonder if her parents were there, and safe.

Her footsteps took her unerringly in that direction.

Committed now, she began to relax. After all, she was hardly the lone agent she appeared. Just before they arrived here, Peaseblossom had shown Livia a telescopic image of the deep clouds of the Lethe. At first she thought she was looking at a navy of ghosts — just the smeared wavering outlines of ships coalescing in the dark. Then Peaseblossom had zoomed in and Livia realized what was happening. The trillions of parts and supplies that made up the Lethe were not, it seemed, entirely unpow-ered and dumb. At Gort's command, rod and girder, plate and lever were sailing together, clinging and forming larger pieces of machinery. These too precipitated and self-organized — a process, Peaseblossom said, that required but a few rules of construction, and no overseer. Out of the limitless resources of the Lethe, in a matter of days, a fleet of dreadnoughts capable of subduing the entire human Archipelago was condensing like dew.