Ray Aldridge - The Orpheus Machine

Ruiz could see a small arc of horizon beyond the entrance; the sea was frothed with whitecaps and the sky had a brassy dangerous look.

“The weather does not entirely bless us,” said Einduix. “But at least Roderigo does, by its absence.”

“I should go as soon as possible, bad weather or no,” said Ruiz. “Roderigo will be searching for me.”

“True. So, follow!”

Einduix set off through the ruins, zigzagging from one pillar to another in an apparently random pattern. Ruiz followed, feeling somewhat foolish. How could anything useful survive in the midst of this destruction and decay?

By the time Einduix stopped before a pillar, Ruiz had begun to wonder just how sane the stackfolk could be, after all this time spent hiding and brooding.

Einduix picked up a jagged stone and chipped carefully at the calcite. In a minute he had uncovered a dim carving of a mermaid. “Ah,” he said, and pressed it. Nothing happened. He frowned and tapped fussily with his stone. He pressed again, and the carving sank into the stone.

Einduix stepped back nimbly, as the pillar hissed. Calcite fell from its side in glittering fragments; a seam opened. A tall narrow door swung out, to reveal a long bundle wrapped in mirror-finish monomol.

“Escape boat,” said Einduix, with evident satisfaction. “Help me to assemble it.”

When they were done, a graceful catamaran lay on the wet stone. Seven meters long, laminated wood hulls like two bright curving knives, a spidery platform of carbon-fiber slats linking them — the boat seemed extravagantly beautiful, to Ruiz’s anxious eyes. A tall wingmast of some clear composite material rose from the platform, controlled by a crank wheel at the helmsman’s station. A tiny jib hung from the forestay.

“She is fast,” said Einduix. “Once she was strong. Use care, Ruiz Aw. The fibers of her hull were encapsulated with inert resins, but time is time.”

Then the little man demonstrated the controls, showed Ruiz the survival capsule, with its ancient water canisters and nutrient blocks, its charts and compass, its sextant. He smiled at the navigation almanacs, so long out of date. On a chart he pointed out the course Ruiz must take.

“Do you proceed direct to SeaStack?”

“Yes,” said Ruiz. “If I’m right, the pirates will still be letting traffic in; they’ll need soldiers and slaves. My biggest worry is getting too close to the Namp shore. Other than that, I should be all right, if no margar hunters stumble across me.”

“She is radar-transparent, but not invisible,” said Einduix, patting a gunwale. “You’ll need some luck, Ruiz Aw.”

Just before they picked up the catamaran and slid its hulls into the green sea, Ruiz took Einduix’s small hand between his. “You’re staying?”

“Yes,” said Einduix. “Here is my place, if only to die. But we stackfolk live a long long time; what use ephemeral librarians?” He laughed. “So I can hope to see Roderigo’s death before my own.”

“I hope for the same,” said Ruiz. “Well, thank you. And thank Joe for me.”

A strange look crossed Einduix’s ancient face. “‘Joe’ never was his name, Ruiz Aw. You should understand: In a time long lost, in a place long dead… far away from the sadness here and now, Somnire the Glorious was his name.”

Einduix gave his hand a little shake. “Good luck to you, Ruiz Aw, and good-bye.”

Gejas had buried the sad ugly remains of The Yellowleaf under a cairn of heavy stones, to keep the scavengers away from her until she could be returned to Roderigo.

And then, not knowing what else to do, he had climbed up to the heights, so that he could look down on the island. So that he could see Ruiz Aw when the slayer finally crept from his hiding spot.

The sun set, the sun rose, and still the slayer had not shown himself.

By midmorning Gejas began to grow restless. What would he do if the slayer had met some accident among the ruins? A pack of joykillers from Delt, perhaps? Or maybe he had fallen into some pit; the island was riddled with caves. Had The Yellowleaf inflicted some wound on the slayer, some slow-to-kill injury, and did Ruiz Aw now lie in some unfindable place, bright with fever or dull with lost blood?

These thoughts moved Gejas to a great anger. “No!” he shouted, raising his face to the sky. “You will live, until I find you.”

When he looked back down at the north headland of the island, he saw a tiny boat make out from the cliffs.

Who else could it be? His fury increased; what could he do to prevent the slayer’s escape? Nothing, nothing.

His head buzzed; he clamped his jaw so tight his teeth creaked. All he could do was watch the slayer sail away, unpunished.

As he watched, the boat tacked to the east, clearing the headland by several hundred meters. It fell off onto a course that would bring it down the island’s windward shore.

After a bit, he could see the slayer’s small figure, crouched over the tiller, feathering the wingmast into the strongest puffs. The boat was very fast, slashing over the sea, throwing roostertails of spray several meters into the air.

In minutes Ruiz Aw would be gone. But then Gejas realized something that gave him hope. The boat was sailing to the southeast, in the direction of SeaStack.

SeaStack. Gejas’s anger was gone, replaced by a sort of violent contentment. Soon Roderigo would send a boat for him. They would make him suffer for The Yellowleaf’s loss, they would hurt him and try to break his mind; that was Roderigo’s way, and a good one.

But he would survive. Because The Yellowleaf — and by extension, her tongue Gejas — had been Roderigo’s greatest student of that strange city, eventually they would allow him to take a force into SeaStack.

Where Ruiz Aw was bound, for reasons Gejas could not comprehend. Because of his dirtworld woman? Because of the slaver Corean? It didn’t matter.

Gejas turned away from the sea and made himself comfortable, to wait.

Ruiz Aw had his hands full with the catamaran. The lee hull sliced deep into the waves, pressed down by the weight of the wind. Einduix had warned him about allowing the lee bow to dig in; apparently the boat was capable of tripping over its nose. The weather hull hissed along the surface, trembling. Ruiz could feel its willingness to rise, to capsize the boat laterally.

He cranked the wingmast out a few more degrees to spill a little wind, and the weather hull settled a bit more firmly into the sea.

He began to get a feel for the boat’s helm, and some of the tension drained from his muscles. If the wind grew no stronger, he should be able to manage.

In the early afternoon the wind dropped, and Ruiz was able to lash the tiller for a while. He swallowed a mouthful of antique water, but was unable to bring himself to try the nutrient block. It had a gray, mummified quality and a musty smell. For all he knew, it had always been that way, but at his present speed he’d reach SeaStack long before hunger became a serious problem.

He took a sight with the small bubble-sextant, crossed the position line with his dead-reckoning track. He marked the fix on his chart with a certain satisfaction; for the past three hours he had averaged fourteen knots. He began to feel an ambiguous hope. It seemed he might survive to reach SeaStack, and that was good. But then he would find himself in SeaStack, facing an impossible task.

He unlashed the tiller and concentrated on the task at hand, and in that concentration he found some comfort. He passed the afternoon in a state of almost pleasant thoughtlessness.

As night began to fall over the sea, low clouds raced across the horizon to the west, and the wind grew heavier. The waves grew taller and began to break with a tumbling hiss.