Ray Aldridge - The Orpheus Machine

Junior showed him a quick humorless smile. “Well. Don’t waste any energy sympathizing with me. From what you say… and what you don’t say, your escape has been more of a trial to you than my time in Deepheart has been to me. After all, I’ve only been out of the replicant tank for a few days, which is why I’m still in this body. The nights have been… interesting. During the day I train defense teams, so I’m still working at our old trade, in a way.” He laughed a bit sourly and looked away. “And if Deepheart survives SeaStack’s destruction, Hemerthe has promised to teach me how to make porcelains.”

Ruiz could find no appropriate response. The clone’s face was desolate.

Finally he said in a hesitant voice, “And Nisa? What of her? Have you seen her clone?”

Junior’s manner became hard and distant. “No. I try not to think of her. Tell me your plan for penetrating the enclave.”

Ruiz explained his less than exhaustive plan.

When he was finished, the clone nodded his elegant predatory head in understanding. “Holes exist into which we will likely disappear. But as you say, we have little time. How long, I wonder, will it take for Deepheart to charter a sub? If it takes a few days, we can work on your plan, grind a few of the burrs off of it.”

“All right,” said Ruiz.

The clone pondered. “We need intelligence. Deepheart has a fairly passive security apparatus — though it’s good for what it is. Get them to comb the datastream for us. I don’t think they’ll find out much — the Lords are suffering from extreme paranoia at the moment, and all their sensitive communications are going by courier.”

“Good idea, anyway. How do we learn more?”

“There’s no one here who could go out into SeaStack and survive long enough to bring back any useful news.” The clone smiled a bit sadly.

“One of us will have to go, then,” said Ruiz, full of sudden apprehension.

Junior shrugged. “I suppose. How else are we to make our plans? For all we know, Yubere’s fortress has fallen to one of the Lords, and who knows how far down the stack they’ve penetrated? If the Machine has already been captured and adequately fortified… then there’s no hope.”

“You’re right.”

They looked at each other in sober assessment.

“Do you want to go?” asked Ruiz.

“Yes, actually I would like to go. However, my personality isn’t yet perfectly integrated with my new body — or anyway that’s what Deepheart’s technicians tell me. There’s a lag in perception and reaction. It’s a terrible feeling, and sometimes embarrassing. A few of the men and women I’m training can best me at hand-to-hand; any competent slayer would chop me up.

This was an unpleasant revelation. Ruiz frowned. “How long before you recover your skills?”

“Not long. A day or two, I’m told. I’m much better than I was, and it’s an accelerating process. When I first came from the tank, I could barely walk.”

“Ah,” said Ruiz. He felt a dull dread. He had hoped to rest in Deepheart for a few days. Clearly he hadn’t been thinking.

Already the clone had been useful.

Ruiz was about to get up when the clone spoke again. “I can’t help this, I must ask you. What has become of Nisa? Your Nisa, the original?”

For the first time, Ruiz could read the clone’s eyes; he felt the same bittersweet pain.

“I lost her,” he said. “She was with me, she helped me escape the Roderigans. I’d have died on Dorn, without her help. But — and this will strain your credulity — she was taken by Corean. Corean.”

“How?”

“I don’t know. Corean must be mad, to have followed us to Roderigo. But she has Nisa, and Dolmaero. We didn’t know it until we were almost in Corean’s hands.”

The clone stared at the floor. “This is difficult to grasp. So much must have happened to you since our lives divided.”

“I suppose so.”

“Where do you think she is now?”

Ruiz saw again her picture in the datastream. “She’s here. In SeaStack. She’s for sale. She was listed in today’s market offerings.”

The clone leaned toward him, eyes glowing. “Who owns her?”

“There was a datastream code… but my screen is locked to input only, so I couldn’t look for her.”

The clone settled back. “Mine too. They say they’ll trust me one day.” A small sad smile twitched up the corners of his mouth. “Well, you probably think the same thing I do: that she’s bait. Corean must be fishing for you.”

“No doubt,” said Ruiz.

“So you’ll ignore the whole thing?”

Ruiz looked at his younger self, frowning. “Of course.”

When the clone started to laugh, Ruiz held his frown for a heartbeat. Then the laughter began to bubble out of him, escaping from some secret place, where it had hidden for most of the time since he had arrived on Sook.

If he laughed a little bitterly, that was not so surprising.

“Another night to rest,” Ruiz told Hemerthe, as she walked him back to his room.

“That seems reasonable,” she said. “And then?”

“Weren’t you listening?” he asked.

She had the grace to look uncomfortable. “Well, yes. But I’m a polite person. I like to observe the civilities.”

“Oh?”

“Yes!” She saw that he was smiling. “Well, I do. We all do.”

“I know,” he said. “You were the only people in Sea-Stack that I thought I could trust with my story. Maybe there are other decent folk in the city, but I wouldn’t know where to look for them.”

“Nor do we, which is why we’re so untrusting,” she said, wryly. “So. What did you think of Ruiz Aw, the famous slayer?”

“He isn’t me,” Ruiz answered instantly. “I find it hard to believe that we were ever alike. He’s so young. I was never so young.”

“You think so? He’s you —as you were when you came to us. Or as close as makes no difference.”

Ruiz shrugged. “Maybe… but I don’t recognize him.”

They reached his door. It slid aside, and Ruiz turned to Hemerthe. “Tell me something,” he said.

“Almost anything,” she answered.

“My clone… is he happy? Is he adapting to life among the Fuckheads? Will he want to stay, if we survive?”

She dropped her eyes. “That’s hard to say. We have anxieties about him. He still lives in his birth flesh, of course, so we don’t know what will happen when he cuts those bonds and flies free. Perhaps he’ll learn to appreciate our life, then. Of course, if he doesn’t survive… or runs away, one of his clones will eventually adapt. We keep trying.”

Ruiz frowned. Somehow he hadn’t pictured his clone’s future in quite those terms. Apparently Deepheart would contain a Ruiz Aw for as long as it existed.

“And Nisa? Is she happy here?” He had asked almost casually, but now he found that he wanted to know the answer, very badly.

Hemerthe seemed indecisive; she had the look of one who contemplates a kindly lie. When she answered, he wasn’t sure if she had succumbed to that impulse. “Again, hard to say,” she said. “You may ask her, if you wish.”

“No,” he said quickly. “There’s no point to that.”

In truth, he had no desire to see Nisa looking out at him from a stranger’s eyes. No desire at all.

He stepped inside his room. She laid a hand on his sleeve. “I’ll stay with you, if you wish.”

He shook his head. “Thank you, but—”

She smiled brightly. “Would you prefer another? I can advise you.”

“No, no. I know you mean well. But the one I want doesn’t live in Deepheart.”

“You’re making a tragedy for yourself, Ruiz Aw.” She seemed not at all angry, only a little sad. “Love exists only where you find it. Nowhere else.”