Ray Aldridge - The Orpheus Machine

When he straightened up, he knew that Ruiz Aw was still on the island. A fire kindled in his belly, and he smiled.

“First to the cave,” he whispered to himself. “To see what you’ve done, slayer. Then I’ll start to find you.”

He felt better. As he climbed quickly up the path to the virtual, he hardly noticed the pain in his leg.

Ruiz followed Einduix through the rubble, down into a valley where the stones lay thick and tumbled. The little man took him into a pathless thicket, pushing the thorny branches carefully aside. “Not to break,” said Einduix. He pointed at Ruiz’s feet. “Don’t scuff. Delt and Roderigo would hunt us, could they find the way.”

Ruiz nodded and took care to leave no marks.

At the bottom of the valley, where a gully undercut an almost intact wall, Einduix stopped and rapped at a slab of black meltstone. His knuckles sounded out an odd syncopated rhythm. Was it a signal? Ruiz couldn’t imagine who or what the cook hoped to notify.

Einduix squatted beneath a little tree, offering no explanation. Twenty minutes passed and the only sound was the buzzing of flies.

When the slab grated back into a slot, exposing a dark opening, it so” startled Ruiz that he jumped up and grabbed at his wireblade.

“No, no,” said Einduix. “These will be friends.”

Two faces looked out, eyes blinking against the glare of day. One emerged into the light: an old man who looked a great deal like Einduix, except for the color of his skin, which was a pale citron.

“You I recognize, Einduix-who-fled. Who might the barbarian be?” The man’s voice was deep and measured, larger than his stature. He held a splinter gun of antique design; the muzzle was fixed on Ruiz. He seemed poised to kill, though it seemed an oddly dutiful readiness, completely dispassionate. “Never may barbarians enter the Remnant. Have you forgotten?”

“No,” said Einduix. “But he carries the commission of Somnire the Glorious.”

The man’s eyes opened very wide, and the muzzle dropped — but only for an instant. “Truth? How verified?”

“The Roderigans sent him into the virtual. He has returned whole. He spoke of the city in its glory… spoke as only a loving visitor could. He has slain Roderigans; he has caused great frustration to Roderigo.”

“Ah!” Now the old man glowed, lips curling back from the black stumps of his teeth. But he still held the splinter gun ready. “Name yourself, barbarian.”

“Ruiz Aw. And yours?” Ruiz made his voice polite and easy. What an irony it would be for Ruiz Aw to be killed by an elderly unemployed troglodyte librarian.

“Not important, to one who may soon die. Answer this, for your life: What did you see beneath Somnire’s bridge?” The old man leaned forward in his intensity, so that the light fell brighter across his face. Ruiz saw that ancient scars seamed his face.

So eager was the old man to hear his answer that Ruiz thought he might easily disarm him, unless the man had abnormally fast reflexes. Ruiz controlled the impulse. What good would that do him? If he didn’t get some help, he was finished. At worst, the librarian would execute him with more kindness than Roderigo.

“Somnire told me not to look,” Ruiz said slowly. “But before he warned me, I think I saw terrible things. Things that I had made.”

The muzzle sagged. The old man’s eyes grew wet as he returned his weapon to its sling. “Glorious Somnire… how does he fare?”

“Well enough,” Ruiz answered — though in truth he did not understand how Somnire managed to live with a heart so badly broken.

“What else can you say?” said the old man — and then in an uncanny parallel to Ruiz’s thoughts: “I would ask you more, but I would only break my heart. Hard wisdom. Come below, and we will help with Somnire’s commission.” He moved back.

Ruiz stepped inside the tunnel, stooping to clear the low ceiling. Einduix followed. There were a half-dozen little people in the tunnel, all silent, all armed. He lifted his arms and they searched him, relieving him of the wireblade and prodding at the limpet. Einduix spoke. “A medical device only.” The old man nodded and they left it in place over the injured ribs.

The slab slid shut with an ominous sound. “Thank you,” Ruiz said.

The old man made Einduix’s fart-flapping gesture. “Don’t thank us. Be grateful to Somnire the Glorious.”

Ruiz nodded, though he had an impulse to describe the nature of Somnire’s commission in other than grateful terms. “How should I address you?”

The old man frowned. “Call me Joe,” he said, finally. He turned to Einduix. “So, have you returned full of energy wealth, as once you swore you would do?”

Einduix shrugged. “I own a tidy sum, in the Northring Mercantile Bank. But I came home only by accident, naked of energy.”

Joe made a sound of derision. Then he jerked his head and they set off down the tunnel by the light of pale green lanterns.

Some of the tunnels were so low that Ruiz was forced to waddle through them like a duck, and twice he had to get on his belly and crawl a hundred meters through an ancient conduit barely wide enough to pass his shoulders. At intervals he felt a movement of air and the pressure of unseen eyes. It came to him that the conduits were actually very ingenious defensive structures. How could any attacking force survive a passage through such a tunnel?

Finally he followed the old man into a corridor lit by tubes of some blue bioluminescent algae.

Joe stopped at a steel door and several of his followers put their shoulders to it. It slid aside with a screech of protest.

“Wait here,” he said to Ruiz. “I will speak to you later, after Einduix-who-fled gives explanation.”

“All right,” said Ruiz a bit apprehensively. He stepped inside.

A dusty plastic bench stood in the center of the otherwise unfurnished room. Ruiz sat down.

The old man nodded, and the door slid shut, wrapping Ruiz in a dense velvety darkness. Locks clattered.

Ruiz found himself finally alone with his thoughts, bereft of distractions. He remembered the days of the recent past, trying to slip lightly past the dreadful deeds he had done, the madness he had retreated into during his time in the slaughterhouse. But it seemed impossible; the more he tried not to think about his bloody hands, the red glee he had felt… the more those memories seized him.

He felt himself beginning to rock back and forth in the darkness. He bit his lip until the blood flowed, trying to feel the pain and nothing else.

When the limpet’s tendril touched his mouth he jerked. A shuddery frisson of horror ran through him before he realized what it was.

It explored the jagged flesh, then applied a coagulant and anesthetic. He felt the sting of sutures, little ghostly pains that made his lip itch.

A sedative jetted into his bloodstream, bringing a sense of warm detachment. He sighed and wiped the blood from his chin as best he could. There was no point in cultivating the appearance of a self-destructive madman, even if that was what he was. Especially if that was what he was.

His thoughts drifted now along more comfortable paths. He remembered Nisa, but perhaps because of the drug, his memories were sweet, untainted by the pain of her loss.

Time passed indefinitely, and Ruiz dwelled in loving recall. After a while he began to wonder why he had chosen to give Nisa so much of his allegiance. She was beautiful. But the universe was full of beautiful women. She was brave, but though bravery was a rarer quality, he’d met many brave persons. She was intelligent, warm, witty. None of those qualities were so unusual.

Was it all just a tangle of erotic coincidence? He shook his head. Difficult to believe. But other explanations trespassed into the realm of mysticism, in which he could put no belief.