“That’s good,” said Nisa neutrally.
Ruiz bent, ignoring the pain in his ribs, and picked up the wireblade. Nisa took a step backward.
“What?” he asked, bewildered by her fearful expression.
She took a deep breath. “You should have seen your face when you woke. Anyone might have been frightened.”
“Yes,” he said sadly. “I suppose so. But I would never hurt you intentionally.”
“Is that true?” she asked, unsmiling.
“It’s true.”
She wrapped her arms about herself, as if she were cold, and he noticed that the air had grown chill and damp.
“Well,” he said. “We won’t be here much longer.”
Ruiz went to the corner and threw aside the rubbish. Underneath, he found the tarnished wire mesh of the inductor helmet.
He lifted it up and wondered if Somnire planned some trick. Certainly the Librarian was devious enough. Perhaps Somnire was content with The Yellowleaf’s destruction; perhaps he meant now to get rid of the evidence. If Ruiz were retaken by the Roderigans and brainpeeled, he would reveal the Compendium’s adamant hostility to the hetmen. From Somnire’s viewpoint, it might be safer to eliminate that possibility.
Even worse, Somnire might now impart some knowledge to Ruiz that would burden him with yet another responsibility. His strong impulse was to drop the helmet and run away.
But where would he run to? Were there any hiding places on the island where he and Nisa would be safe? He imagined Gejas’s ferocity when The Yellowleaf’s corpse was discovered. A shudder ran through him.
And beyond all pragmatic concerns, did he owe Somnire something? Or Leel? He had entered the virtual as a cunning madman; he had returned as a human being — or as much of a human being as he had ever been.
“What’s that?” asked Nisa, pointing to the helmet.
“Trouble.” Ruiz sighed. But finally he lifted the helmet and set it on his head.
Chapter 12
AS the weight of the helmet settled on his skull, Ruiz heard Somnire’s voice fade in. “Ruiz?” The sound was thin, as though the helmet had partially failed, but the clarity was adequate.
“Well,” said Ruiz out loud. “The job’s done.”
“Yes, I watched. She’s a fire-spitter, that Nisa. Of course, she comes from a primitive world, so I suppose it’s an admirable trait, in her.”
Ruiz felt a rueful amusement, remembering Leel’s observations on cross-cultural tolerance.
“Yes, Leel was wise,” Somnire said, and Ruiz detected a note of sadness in his voice. “Perhaps wiser than I. Anyway, how do you propose to elude the rest of the Roderigans?”
Out of secretive habit, Ruiz attempted to keep his mind empty, but enough of his plan must have seeped through for Somnire to grasp the essence. “Ah!” said Somnire happily. “Very clever. It might even work.”
Ruiz sighed. Nisa was watching him intently, as if she expected him to momentarily collapse into a frothing fit. He gave her a weak smile, to which she did not respond. “So, what’s the terrible secret?”
Somnire’s voice went dark. “It is a terrible secret, Ruiz Aw. I hope we haven’t misjudged you. Leel said I could trust you to do what is required. I don’t know that I trust you, but her instincts were always excellent.” Nothing came through the helmet but the hiss of transient currents, for a minute; then Somnire continued. “I’m only a ghost in a dying machine, but I still feel a loyalty to the universe of living beings we left so long ago.”
“Get on with it,” Ruiz said impatiently. “The sooner I get moving, the more surprised the hetman’s people will be.”
“Yes, of course. So: In the Gencha enclave, under the stack you know as the late Alonzo Yubere’s stronghold, there exists a device. They call it the Orpheus Machine. My data don’t cover the origin of the Machine; nor, of course, do they reveal any clue as to why the Machine is again being used, after all these centuries. Anyway. Anyway. This Machine — and I have no description of the appearance of the device — allows a Gench to perform its minddiving functions with no expenditure of vitality.”
Somnire fell silent, and Ruiz tried to understand. For some reason he had difficulty focusing on the Librarian’s words. Perhaps the wreckage of the death net still cluttered the depths of his mind, because a shrill tide of alarm was rising in him, threatening to drown out rational thought.
“Yes, you understand,” said Somnire. “The Machine allows any Gench to perform an unlimited number of deconstructions. The process is swift and automatic. In fact, there’s convincing evidence that mass deconstructions are possible.”
“Oh no,” said Ruiz.
Ruiz felt a sort of odd paralysis. He wanted to throw the helmet down and walk away and never think about the Gencha again.
But his mind betrayed him with its irresistible compulsion to extrapolation, and so he could not avoid seeing the consequences of Somnire’s information, spreading out through the human universe. Suppose Roderigo obtained control of the machine and its Gencha — or what if Castle Delt did, or even one of the pirate Lords?
Someone would be able to rebuild all the dangerous folk of Sook into deadly machines. Would forge Sook into an irresistible hammer. World after world would be crushed under that hammer, and the hammer would grow mightier.
Someone would eventually dominate all the worlds.
Ruiz looked more deeply into that strange future. It seemed to him that someday the human universe might become one vast organism, a far-flung body serving one mind, changeless forever.
He wondered who that absolute ruler would be. In retrospect, it was clear that his old ally and enemy, Publius the monster maker, had intended to seize that evolutionary pinnacle.
“Emperor of Everything,” Ruiz whispered to himself, finally understanding what Publius had meant.
It occurred to him that it wouldn’t matter who got control of the Gencha machine — the end would be the same. If a saint took the machine, all would be saintly. If a demon, all would be hellish. But in either case, in all the universe only one human being would remain to be exalted or tormented. Everyone else would be a flesh-and-blood machine.
Slavery would no longer exist, he realized. Only sapient beings can be enslaved. Wasn’t that a good thing, in a way?
Ruiz shook his head violently. He felt shadows cloud his mind, and he tried to stop thinking. He couldn’t seem to get his breath.
One final hideous idea occurred to him. What if it had all happened before, so long ago that memory of that time was gone? What if an ancient godmind had grown tired of its absolute rule and one day spoken to its body and said, “Go now and do as you will”? If so, was it any wonder that no one now understood the irrational intricacies of human behavior?
“Ruiz, Ruiz,” said Somnire, breaking into his spiraling dismay. “Calm yourself, please. Attend to the business at hand: survival, escape… and then the destruction of the Machine.” The Librarian’s voice seemed suddenly weaker, as if the ancient mechanisms of the helmet were finally failing.
“All right,” said Ruiz slowly. “Can you tell me anything else? Anything I might find useful?”
Somnire cleared his throat, and Ruiz wondered why an electronic ghost would make such a sound. “The habits of the body persist, Ruiz,” said Somnire. “Anyway. Do you understand the phenomenon of mindfire?”
“To some extent,” said Ruiz.
“Then a brief overview: The pheromonic exhalations of a large number of Gencha, confined within a limited airspace, cause in unprotected humans intense perceptual distortions, similar but not identical to certain recreational hallucinogens. The primary difference is this: The visions and delusions stimulated by the mindfire do not originate entirely within the affected human’s brain. The pheromonic net carries information within its structure. The visions may be purposefully imposed by a concerted Gencha effort, or may derive from past events, re-echoed over years or even centuries.”