Right in front of them there was one of six small, translucent spheres, each about three metres in diameter, all arranged around the very bottom of the vast container above and looking like hopelessly inadequate supports for its bulk. The dark walls around the vast lit space showed no other form of support, just the tiny floodlights.
“Now, we’re playing around with image a bit here,” Ximenyr said, reaching up and patting the surface of one of the small translucent spheres, “because you couldn’t see through that much of even the purest water, but this is a sort-of-true representation of what you’d see if the water wasn’t there.”
“So,” the arbite said, “what is this?”
“This is a giant water pool; you climb up those steps, get naked, stick one of these breathers in your gob…” Ximenyr picked up a stubby tube from one of the nearby shelves and waved it in front of his mouth, “…pass through one of these spheres and then float up to the bright lights up there at the top. That’s the ultimate party area; that’s like heaven, like our own little mini-Subliming. I mean, it’s just the usual stuff up there: comfy furniture, drink, drugs and lots of images and music — and dancing, and fucking, you’d imagine — but all a bit more quiet and contemplative, I guess, and all under this lovely clear dome under the top of the ship, and the whole point is this is the only way to get there, and — once you’re there — there’s no way out… but it doesn’t matter, because then comes the Subliming.” Ximenyr grinned at the arbite’s camera eyes. “This was my plan from the start of the Last Party and my original idea was to spend a year or years sort of milking myself for the fluids to go in here, but that proved impractical. Water it is. Perfumed water.” He winked at the arbite’s eye cameras.
“Fucking typical man,” Cossont muttered. “You know what he’s done in that water, don’t you?”
“Yes, but it’s art,” Berdle said, looking serious.
He and Cossont were holed up behind some lightweight furniture in a disused storage space one deck below the curving corridor Ximenyr and the reporter arbite had just walked down. They were watching the arbite’s feed along with who-knew-how-many people across Xown and the Gzilt domain; there was no shortage of fascinating screen to watch from all over the Gzilt hegemony in these end-days, for those with time to spare from their own preparations for the Subliming, but the Last Party had achieved a modest level of fame over the years, and allegedly many millions of people were watching.
“Lovely warm perfumed water,” Ximenyr was saying, “dosed with cutaneous-contact-hallucinogens, so it’ll be quite a crazy ride just getting to the top, and you can’t just float straight up either; there are baffles. So it’s more of a 3D maze, really.”
“So, is this symbolic of our struggle towards enlightenment, or a comment on our tortuous route to Subliming?”
Ximenyr shrugged. “Yeah, if you like. I just thought it’d be neat.”
“What about pressure?”
Ximenyr snapped his fingers. “Good question. You know, I didn’t think of that at first either? Just not of a practical or engineering turn of mind, I guess. But it’s much smarter than that; there are field projectors and AG units studded all around the cylinder; there are all these exotic matter particles or something dissolved into the water — whatever; don’t ask me the technical details — and you pass through these levels of pressure.” He slapped the taut-sounding surface of the nearest small sphere again. “The pressure is highest down here, but it’s only like being about eight metres down, not four hundred.”
“So, Ximenyr, anyone may join you in this?”
“Anyone but not everyone. We’ll have to be selective, let just a few people aboard at a time. We need to balance the extra weight of people coming in with our positive buoyancy… factor, or something. Anyway, there’s refuse we’ve got stored up and long-term supplies we’re not going to be using, all of which we’ll be dumping gradually as we take people on, so we’re going to have room for lots more people.” He looked up, nodding at the circular patch of bright lights directly overhead. “A few brave guys and gals are already up there, after doing the testing. Couple of panickers when it all took too long and they couldn’t work out the maze, but they’re fine by now and we’ve made it all a lot easier, with cheats and guidance available.” He smiled dazzlingly at the arbite’s camera eyes. “Should be a cool last ride.”
“That’s annoying,” Berdle said.
“Why?” Cossont asked. “Compared to the last tank of warm liquid we were in…”
“Yes, but if we have to get through that one, I’m going to show up. I’m too dense. If I support myself with AG or even field, they’ll spot me.”
Cossont was squatting beside him in her double-layer suit. She had watched the feed from the arbite on a wrist screen after deciding to risk rolling down the helmet parts of both suits. The air, she had been pleased to discover, smelled perfectly nice, though somehow you could sort of tell there had been construction work going on recently.
“Too dense? Like, too heavy?” she asked.
“Yes.” Berdle looked at Cossont, nodding at her suit. “And you’ll be, too. Those suits mass a lot more than they feel. Outer one especially. Inner might expand enough, though you might look a bit fat.”
Cossont shrugged. “I’m not my mother; I don’t care. More to the point, though, did you spot that our man doesn’t seem to have his necklace on any more?”
“Yes.” The avatar nodded. “That could be a problem.”
“We don’t even know how personal that stuff is for him,” Cossont said. “Might have just abandoned it; left it in a bedside cabinet or something. God, he might have thrown it out!”
“Maybe we should look back in the sewage tank,” Berdle suggested. Cossont looked at him. The avatar shrugged. “Just kidding; I checked it out as a matter of course when we were in there. Nothing.”
“Maybe it’s up at his… bedroom suite. Where we were when we saw him before,” Cossont suggested.
“That’s not there any more,” Berdle said. “I’ve found the remodelling plans in one of the airship’s data banks, such as they are. Whole volume was ripped out.” The avatar shook his head. “Their internal video monitoring is so patchy. There might be some record in here of what happened to all that stuff, but… found it. Ah.”
“Is that a good ‘Ah’?” Cossont asked.
“Partially,” Berdle told her. “All his personal effects are more or less where they were; in some sort of chest or locker… yes, a big sort of upright wheeled chest thing, in this ‘heaven’ space, at the top of the giant liquid tank.”
“Think Mr Q’s missing bits are there?”
“Maybe. Ximenyr’s… had a temporary cabin near the main medical suite for the last eight days,” Berdle reported, still quizzing the airship’s systems.
“Probably having all his extra cocks removed,” Cossont muttered.
Berdle shook his head. “Very suspicious AIs on this thing. I am having to do so much track-covering-up as I go along here… Yes, he had a locker or something of some sort there too. Going to check that first.”
Cossont started to stand up but he pulled her back down again. “I’ve an insectile on that particular job.”
“If they’re not there, think we’ll have to swim through the big tank?”
“Perhaps.”
“Can’t we just come in from the top?”
“No. It’s all shielded. It looks transparent up there, like a big glass dome, but it isn’t; it’s a two-way screen, metres thick. Once the ship’s back, in about twelve minutes, we have the option of blasting the shielding out of the way and Displacing in, but that’s a last resort; wasting 4D without causing horrendous collateral in the associate flat-space is almost impossible. In 4D you think all you’ve done is kick down a door, and imagine you’ve done it really neatly, minimum force, but then you look back into 3D and realise you’ve blown down the whole building. Sometimes the whole block.”