Ray Aldridge - The Orpheus Machine

“The same to you,” said Junior.

Ruiz smiled and took a deep breath. To Nisa he said, “Here we go.”

“Good luck,” she whispered.

He pushed up on the lever and began to slide down the long spiral into the red-gleaming darkness.

Alone in her war room, Corean took some satisfaction in having slowed the advance of the Roderigan cyborgs, but they were slowly pressing her deeper into the fortress. The Moc was her best weapon — it had accounted for more enemy casualties than all her other fighters combined. But it was insufficient.

Yubere had, in her opinion, somewhat neglected the defenses of his fortress. The Dirm bondguards were too slow and stupid to do much more than inconvenience the cyborgs.

She had decided to hold in reserve the half-squad of Deltan shock troops that Yubere had bequeathed her, as well as the Muramasa-Violencia killmechs.

The Roderigans had penetrated the cross-baffled elevator shafts and were slowly consolidating their position at the topmost level of the stronghold. She was starting to feel a little trapped. How was she going to get out, if she could not find a way to reverse the tide of the engagement? The only lane of retreat was downward, down the great pit that led to the Gencha enclave.

No, surely Gejas would eventually grow weary of his losses, or his superiors would recall him.

Still, there were some very odd things about Gejas’s behavior, she thought. Why, for instance, was Gejas so sure that Ruiz Aw was here? Or did he intend to take the stronghold and then wait for Ruiz Aw to show up? She shook her head. Ruiz Aw was far too wary; he seemed to sense danger with inhuman sensitivity and accuracy.

Another unpleasant thought struck Corean. How long would it be before the pirate Lords sensed that significant events were in the offing under Yubere’s stack? She might soon be opposed by layers of enemies, pouring into the stack, pressing her deeper into the roots of the world.

“Well,” she told herself sternly, “how bad can it be down in the enclave? Can it be any worse than Dobravit? If worse comes to worse, I’ll take the Moc and hide. They’ll never pry me out. Or better yet, I’ll hold the Machine hostage.”

She felt a little cold, and she put her arms around herself. She thought of Marmo and his slow cautious advice. She remembered again how much she had regretted having killed the old pirate. It was, she thought, another thing for which Ruiz Aw must pay — she would never have done it except for her hatred of the Dilvermoon slayer. Never.

But the thought lacked urgency. Was her hatred deserting her? She felt a thumping explosion, and a shiver ran through her. Without her hatred, she would be soft and helpless, nothing but a thing to be victimized.

So she sat in her war room and recalled all the things Ruiz Aw had done to her, starting with his arrival on Sook and ending with Gejas, whom Ruiz Aw had somehow called down upon her.

She finally began to feel a bitter heat, and soon she was strong again.

Ruiz whirled around the spiral, falling down the rail, the rider making only a whisper of sound as it slid. At intervals he heard a metallic snick as the rider passed one of the standoffs that supported the rail.

His body swung outward until he hung at a forty-five-degree angle to the perpendicular walls of the pit. His speed increased a bit more and his metal boots touched the wall, making a terrible screech, and trailing a rooster-tail of sparks. He spun violently on his tether. Recovering, he drew up his legs slightly and tugged lightly on the brake. He gripped the tether above the swivel in his gauntleted fist, and the friction slowed his spin.

When he had stabilized his position, he heard Junior’s low laughter in one ear and Nisa’s whisper in the other. “Are you all right?” she asked. “It made me almost sick, just watching.”

“I’m fine,” he said, though in fact he was quite dizzy.

“Are you?” asked Junior, and Ruiz realized he had forgotten to switch channels. He felt a sudden confusion, and swiveled to watch the wall of the pit. Images almost too momentary for comprehension flickered past: the mouths of tunnels, the slagged-over scars of ancient battles, the scribble of incomprehensible graffiti — left by tram riders or perhaps by the devolved alien refugees that inhabited the deepest caverns of the stack. Once he saw the yellow flash of lamplight at a cavern mouth, and a moment later his passage startled a sticklike figure with too many limbs.

“Busy place,” Junior commented. Then his voice changed, became metallic. “Something moving in the pit, dropping a little faster than we are.”

Ruiz swiveled, tipped his head back. He could see nothing in the murk above. “Visual?”

“Not yet. Wait. Yes, I see it now. A bird, maybe, or a bat… but more likely an ornithopter drone.”

Ruiz cursed and slowed his descent a bit. He unslung his ruptor, wrapped the sling around his upper arm so that he could use the weapon one-handed. He could see Junior above him and to the right; his clone had dropped quite a bit faster than Ruiz had. Bolder than I am, he thought.

“Slow down,” Ruiz said, and he saw the clone’s body jerk and swing as he applied his brake.

“It is a drone,” said Junior. “I’ve got an uplink energy spill. The signal originates somewhere in the stronghold, I think.”

Ruiz looked ahead, desperately seeking a tunnel mouth they might hide in. The pit was as smooth as glass for at least the next two hundred meters — as far as he could see through the thickening haze. “Of course,” said Ruiz.

Now he could see the drone, a flash of silvery red glitter in the darkness above. At almost the same moment, whoever was flying it saw Junior; the drone plummeted with the speed of a raptor, metal wings folded against its meter-long body.

It slashed past the clone, snapping its wings open into bright knives — but Junior had applied his brakes strongly and the drone’s operator misjudged the vector.

“Missed me,” shouted Junior.

Corean held the inductor against the side of her head, seeing what the drone saw as it hovered in the pit. “How?” she breathed, watching the two armored men sliding down the rail. Her first reaction was bewilderment. How could the men have gotten below her, into the pit? Were they from her own forces, deserting the stronghold? No… deserters would have taken the tram, which was still locked to the top of the track. She made a mental note to post a reliable guard on the tram.

Then the uppermost man braked again, until his speed had dropped to a slow glide. He drew out a gyro-stabilized pinbeam, with a graceful purposefulness that she instantly identified.

“Ruiz Aw?” It was. It was.

Ruiz tried to bring his ruptor to bear on the drone, which for some reason was hovering in the center of the pit, as if the operator had abandoned it.

But again Junior was quicker, and fired his pinbeam. The drone shattered into a cloud of glowing fragments, which drifted downward.

Ruiz released his brake and drew up his body, knees to chest. Now the need was to get down to the bottom as quickly as possible, before the person who controlled the stronghold sent someone, or something, after them.

He picked up speed with what seemed painful slowness… but soon he was falling down toward the Gencha at a speed close to terminal velocity, trying not to think about his destination.

Until the drone’s arrival, he had truly believed that he might survive somehow. Might stand again in the sunlight.

Corean paced the war room in a frenzy of anger and indecision. Each time she passed the drone’s dead monitor, she gave it a spiteful thump with her fist.

Of course she had expected to find Ruiz Aw again. Of course. Over the past weeks their meetings had taken on a quality of inevitability. But she had never thought he would come to her so soon. And at such a terribly inconvenient time.