Ray Aldridge - The Orpheus Machine

The shudder of Roderigan demolition charges had become heavier and more frequent. The Dirms had begun to fall apart under the relentless pressure of Gejas’s cyborgs. Only the Moc’s ferocity stood between Corean and disaster, and the longer it fought, the greater the risk that a lucky shot would kill or injure it, and then she would be in deep trouble. She shook her head. What to do?

Finally she reached a decision, though it was no great comfort to her. What could she do except fall back to a more defensible position? And if her situation deteriorated further, she could broadcast a message to the Lords, offering to trade the enclave and its Machine for her life.

She called the Moc in and summoned the Deltan squad leader, a silent and watchful man named Kroone.

“Kroone,” she said, “set up the killmechs for a harassing rearguard action — we need them to delay the Roderigans in the upper levels for as long as possible. Prepare your squad; infiltrators have penetrated the enclave below. We go to dig them out.”

Kroone nodded. “How many? How armed?”

“Only two,” Corean said. “A famous Dilvermoon slayer named Ruiz Aw, and his companion. Heavily armed, no doubt. He’s a very competent man — but we’ll have the Moc.”

“As you say.” Kroone bowed and would have left, but another thought occurred to Corean.

“Wait,” she said. “Manacle the Pharaohan prisoners and we’ll bring them along. Ruiz Aw values them and I’ll take all the leverage I can get, with that man. And if we don’t need them, I’ll give them to the Gencha.”

Kroone developed a skeptical expression, but went to organize their departure.

Nisa found herself chained to the tram’s platform, along with Dolmaero and the two Pharaohan conjurers. She ignored Molnekh, but gave Flomel a cold nod. “I hadn’t expected to see you again, Master Flomel,” she said. “Are you now a mechanism? Like Molnekh?”

Flomel was hunched over his own chains, examining the lock that fastened him to the platform. He ignored Nisa and probed at the lock with a bit of broomstraw.

Molnekh answered her. “No, I think not,” he said in his customary cheery voice. “In fact, I think Flomel is at last coming around to the late Ruiz Aw’s viewpoint.”

Nisa felt a surge of revulsion. She could not see how Molnekh could act so much like himself, when he had changed so profoundly.

Flomel raised his eyes slowly, and gave Molnekh a look of such deep hatred that Nisa was a little frightened. “Monstrous thing,” said Flomel hoarsely. “Abomination.”

“See?” said Molnekh, and winked at her.

She turned away and looked at the Guildmaster Dolmaero, who stared out over the airy emptiness of the pit.

“And you, Guildmaster? How are you?” He didn’t immediately respond, so she nudged him lightly with her shoulder. “Guildmaster?”

He shook himself and turned his broad face toward her. “Well enough, Noble Lady. But I’m afraid of what may come. There is something of death in the air here, of assassinations and terror and final deeds. Do you smell it?”

Nisa sniffed. “It smells a bit like that creature we saw in Deepheart. The Gench. Do you remember?”

“You’re right,” he said thoughtfully. “But there’s ordinary decay as well.”

A silence fell, and Nisa was left alone with her thoughts. These seemed to center on Ruiz Aw and the time they had been together. She wondered if he had somehow survived.

She hoped so.

After a long while, the doors above crashed open and Corean came striding down the platform toward them, followed by her great insect and a squad of soldiers in black armor.

Nisa looked at the slaver’s perfect face, and saw that it had begun to change, as if the skin had slipped away from the bones just enough to destroy that marvelous symmetry. Corean seemed inhumanly taut; she walked with a manic bounce.

“Crazy as a dustbear in rut,” whispered Dolmaero, wide-eyed.

“Oh yes,” agreed Nisa.

Molnekh’s cadaverous head whipped around. “What?” he said sharply.

Dolmaero shrugged and made no answer, but Nisa was oddly reassured to see this evidence of Molnekh’s changed nature.

The men in black armor arranged themselves around the perimeter of the tram’s platform, and Corean took the driver’s chair; her Moc stood beside the other chair, unable to bend its six-legged insectile body into a shape that would fit the chair’s contours.

Corean buckled her harness and strapped a big-bore ruptor to her left arm. She looked toward the blast doors that led to the stronghold; a Dirm stood there, the slump of its alien body betraying an almost human despair. “Hold fast; we’ll be back soon,” Corean called to it, and it waved slowly as the doors closed.

“So,” said Corean. “We’re off.” Her lunatic gaze fell on Nisa, and seemed to grow hotter. “Ah,” she said cheerfully. “The Pharaohan slut. Nisa, isn’t it? Well, you’ll be pleased to know that we’re going to see your lover again.”

At first Nisa didn’t know what the slaver was talking about, but then it sank in and she understood.

Corean laughed, an ugly dirty sound. “Oh, don’t look quite so bright-eyed. If I have my way, you won’t see him until I’m done with him. And I’ll have my way; of that you may be certain.”

Corean released the tram’s brake. They began to slide downward into the great pit.

Nisa shut her eyes, so that she wouldn’t have to look down into that terrible gulf, but she was strangely happy. Perhaps Corean’s words were simply a manifestation of her madness, but perhaps not. Perhaps Ruiz Aw was still alive, after all.

Even though she knew she was doing a dangerous thing, she couldn’t keep a small smile from reaching her mouth.

When the sump at the bottom of the pit appeared through the steams that cloaked it, Ruiz gagged. The stench overwhelmed his suit filters, making his eyes water. He had to control an impulse to close his faceplate and go on internal atmosphere — but his supply of clean oxygen was limited, and prudence dictated that he save it until he was deeper in the hallucinatory caverns of the Gencha.

Apparently the current master of Yubere’s stronghold was disposing of battle casualties by dumping them into the pit. Armored human forms lay half-dissolved in the sump’s pink slime, and here and there the dark glistening purple of a decaying Dirm bondguard broke the surface.

When he was still a hundred meters above the sump, he noticed several moving figures along the far edge of the sump.

He slapped at the safety of his ruptor and began to slow his fall along the rail. He saw that he had left it too long, and that he was perilously close to the concrete platform above the sump, where the rail ended. He wrenched at the brake, so that deceleration tore at him, and his vision grayed. The rider whined, a sound that ran down the scale as he began to slow.

From the corner of his eye he saw the figures at the far end of the sump resolve into vaguely human forms, which began to run toward the platform, raising an odd thin ululation.

The platform was rushing up at him, and his eyes were drawn irresistibly toward the bumper at the end of the rail, which extended energy-absorbing arms designed to engage the edge of a runaway tram and then collapse slowly.

The arms would punch right through him if he hit them with enough speed.

He hauled desperately on the brake lever. It made a dreadful shrieking sound as the lining burned away.

But finally he stopped, halfway down the platform.

He hung there, swaying. It took a moment for his vision to clear, but then he slapped the rider’s release and dropped to the platform with an echoing crash.

He glanced back and saw Junior gliding in behind him, under perfect control. He felt a stab of envy for his younger self, as he ran along the edge of the platform. He knelt behind a low parapet and heard the clatter of Junior’s armored boots.