In his present state of mind, Ruiz felt no particular dismay at Somnire’s description. How distressing could these visions be, compared to the realities he had recently witnessed? “Anything else?”
“Do not be complacent, Ruiz Aw,” said Somnire, whose voice now carried undertones of impatient anger. “If you reach the enclave, carry clean air. If you run out, be prepared to see things as terrible as any you saw on Roderigo. Remember that Roderigo, for all its evil, can do nothing quite so dreadful as the thing the Orpheus Machine can do. And that Roderigo is one small island, on one sparsely populated backwater world. Regarding the mindfire: The Gencha are olfactory creatures; their worldview is supplemented primarily by visual sensory input. Therefore the mindfire distorts most vividly, for humans, in the visual range. Auditory distortions are mild compared to the visual ones, so that if you hear something clearly and strongly, you may assume its reality.”
“I understand,” said Ruiz.
“Finally, finding the Machine will not be easy. Pay close attention, while I tell you what is known of the enclave’s geometries.” And Somnire spoke at length, constructing a mental map for Ruiz, pausing frequently to assess Ruiz’s memory. His voice grew fainter, and the static more distracting.
“The helmet’s failing,” Somnire said. “What I’ve told you must suffice.” A long pause ensued, during which Ruiz began to think the helmet had already died. “Remember us,” Somnire finally said.
“Always,” said Ruiz, from his heart.
“Good luck!” Somnire’s voice was almost gone. A thin heterodyning screech came through the helmet — then nothing more.
Ruiz removed the dead mechanism.
Nisa stood close, her eyes wide with concern. “What is it, Ruiz?”
He sat down. “A very bad thing, Nisa.”
“Ruiz,” Nisa said more urgently. “What is it?”
Ruiz raised his gaze to her. What was going on behind those lovely dark eyes? Was it human concern, or was it inhuman calculation?
He couldn’t risk the possibility that it was the latter, so he temporized. “The situation has become difficult.”
“What was it before?” she asked.
“You have a point,” he said. “Well, we must get started, anyway.” He got up, and his bruised ribs flared with pain. He knelt by The Yellowleaf and unfastened the remaining helmet latches. When he pulled the helmet loose, her head rolled like a broken-necked bird’s. Her face was as uninformative in death as it had been in life, the eyes staring coldly, the mouth slightly open.
His stomach churned at the thought of what he must do next. Close at hand was a chunk of masonry; he lifted it and smashed it down on the hetman’s skull. Bone cracked and the once-handsome head deformed. He heard Nisa make a gagging sound, and he felt almost as sick himself.
But he took the wireblade and opened the broken skull, slicing the scalp along the fractures. Then he chopped through the brain until he found the synaptic decoupler, a small black ovoid trailing a pseudoneural filament.
“No good,” he said, sighing regretfully. “I’d hoped it used some sort of electromechanical trigger, so we could use it against Gejas.” He started to crush the thing, but then it occurred to him that perhaps it incorporated some sort of tracking device. He wiped it clean on a wad of the hetman’s coarse hair and handed it to Nisa. “Put this in your pocket. Who knows? It might help.”
He rolled the body over and rotated the catches that held the dorsal plating to the plastron, then began to pull the pieces off.
“What are you doing now, Ruiz?” Nisa asked in a troubled voice.
He looked up and saw that she was pale. “I’m retrieving your new wardrobe.”
He was pleased that she offered no hysterical objections. She stood still for a moment and then nodded jerkily. “I see.”
“It’s the only chance we have to approach Gejas, I think,” he said. The armor was accumulating in a little pile beside The Yellowleaf, who had begun to look smaller and less important, as corpses always did.
When the body was stripped, Ruiz stood up and handed the first piece of armor to Nisa. She took it. Apparently she had been watching, because she donned the pelvic girdle without fumbling.
“Good,” said Ruiz. Nisa was a bit smaller than the hetman, but her bulky unisuit would pad the armor well enough for their purposes. Her breasts were larger, but her chest was not as deep, so the plastron seemed not too uncomfortable.
She dressed rapidly, without wasteful movement, and Ruiz found himself envying her apparent calm — no matter the source.
When she was done, except for the helmet, she stopped and looked at Ruiz. “Do you think this will work?”
“I hope so,” said Ruiz. “It’s all I can think of.”
She frowned. “I have a question for you, Ruiz.”
“Can’t it wait for another time?”
She shook her beautiful head. “There may not be another time, Ruiz. Your luck can’t last forever. I need to know: Did you mean those terrible things you said, at the camp? You were very convincing.”
Ruiz shook his head violently. “Oh no, no… how could you think so? It was necessary, to keep the Roderigans from knowing how I valued you. They would have used you to destroy us both.” He looked at her and remembered all the sweetness they had shared. He felt weak dangerous tears cloud his vision.
She looked away, as though embarrassed for him. “But it was true, what you said about me dying in Bidderum? Yes? Well, I think I always knew that I was dead when you found me. And that you had given me a second life. I always knew. Sometimes I wonder if I got a second soul as well; I don’t seem to be able to touch it.”
He didn’t know what to say.
Finally she said, “I realize you can’t advise me. I think you’re none too sure about your own soul.”
“That’s true,” he said in a somber voice. “Nisa… I want to apologize for striking you on Roderigo.”
“I’m sure you thought it necessary.”
“Yes, of course….”
“Then why apologize?”
He tried to smile. “I feel the weight of it on my heart.”
She shrugged. “What do you expect me to do about it?”
“I don’t know,” he answered humbly. “I suppose there’s nothing to be done.”
She looked at him with an ambiguous expression, part pity, part anger.
He couldn’t bear to see that look, whatever it meant, and he closed his eyes.
In the next instant his head rocked back, as she struck him across the mouth with her gauntleted hand.
He touched his lip where it had torn and looked at her, too surprised to speak.
She smiled — a cool smile, but unforced. “Now we’re even,” she said.
To his further astonishment, she bent and kissed him… just the lightest touch of her mouth on his.
Then she lifted the helmet and drew it down over her head.
Ruiz found a length of half-rotted rope and knotted one end around his neck. He used the wireblade to slice through the fibers, so that the loop hung by a few fibers. He handed the other end of the rope to Nisa. “I’m your prisoner,” he said, with a hopeful smile.
He regarded her critically. The ends of her hair fell lower on her torso than had The Yellowleaf’s; he took the wireblade and hacked them off. He slid the wireblade up his sleeve and tightened the cuff.