City of Golden Shadow, Page 81

  Despite his own simmering unhappiness, Dread was intrigued. The Old Man appeared to be worried—if not about this, then about something else. "When have I ever failed you, Grandfather?"

  "Don't call me that!" Osiris lifted his arms from the throne and crossed them over his chest. "I have told you before I will not allow it from a mere servant."

  Dread barely restrained a hiss of rage. No, let the old bastard say what he wished. There was a longer game—the Old Man himself had taught him to play it—and this might be the first crack in his master's defenses.

  "I apologize, O Lord. All will be done as you say." He lowered his great black head, bumping his muzzle gently against the stone flags. "Have I done something new to make you angry?" He wondered briefly if the stewardess . . . No. Her body couldn't even have been found yet, and for once he had refrained from leaving his signature, art shackled by necessity.

  The God of Upper and Lower Egypt tilted his head down. For a moment, Dread thought he could see the fierce intelligence glinting in the depths of the Old Man's eyes. "No," he said at last. "You have done nothing. I am over-quick in my anger, perhaps. I am very busy, and much of the business is unpleasant."

  "I'm afraid I probably would not understand your problems, my Lord. Just managing a project like the one you've given me takes everything I've got—I can't imagine the complexity of what you must deal with."

  Osiris sat back in his great throne, staring out across the hall. "No, you cannot. At this very moment—this moment!—my enemies are assembling in my council chamber. I must confront them. There is a plot against me, and I do not yet. . . ." He trailed off, then twitched his huge head and leaned forward. "Has anyone approached you? Have you been asked about me, offered anything for information or assistance? I promise you, as terrible as my anger will be at anyone who betrays me, my generosity to my faithful servants is even greater."

  Dread sat in silence for a long second, afraid to speak too swiftly. The old devil had never talked this openly before, never shown worry or vulnerability in front of him. He wished there was some way he could record the moment for later study, but instead he must commit every word and gesture to his own frail human memory.

  "No one has approached me, Lord. I promise I would have told you immediately. But if there is something I can do to help you—information you need gathered, allies you are not sure of that you want to. . . ."

  "No, no. no." Osiris waved his flail impatiently, silencing his servant "I will deal with it, as I always have. You will do your part by making sure that the Sky God Project goes as planned."

  "Of course, Lord."

  "Go. I will speak to you again before the action is launched. Find someone to keep a close eye on that programmer."

  "Yes, Lord."

  The god waved his crook and Dread was expelled from the system.

  He remained in the chair for a long time, ignoring three different incoming calls while he thought about what he had just seen and heard. At last he stood up. Downstairs, the cleaning team had finished their prep and were climbing into their van.

  Dread flicked the cigar end off the balcony into the dark water, then went back into the house.

  "Look, we just have to tie the ends one more time, then we're done." Fredericks held up a handful of serpentine creepers and vines. "Those are waves out there, Orlando, and God only knows what else there is. Sharks—sea monsters, maybe. Come on, a little extra trouble now will make a big difference when we're on the water."

  Orlando looked down at the raft. It was a decent-enough job, lengths of stiff, heavy reeds knotted together in long bundles, which had then been tied together to make one long rectangle. It would probably even float. He was just finding it hard to care very much.

  "I need to sit down for a minute." He stumbled to the shade of the nearest palm tree and flopped to the sand.

  "Fine. I'll do it. What else is new?" Fredericks bent to the task.

  Orlando lifted a trembling hand to shade his eyes from the sun filtering down between the palm leaves. The city was different at noon; it changed throughout the day, colors and reflective metals mutating with the movement of light, shadows expanding and contracting. Just now it seemed a kind of giant mushroom patch, golden roofs springing from the loamy soil of their own shade.

  He let his hand fall and leaned back against the palm trunk. He was very, very weak. It was easy to imagine burying himself in sand, like the roots of a tree, and never moving again. He was exhausted and sluggish because of his illness, and he could not conceive of how he would make it through another night like the last, a night of confusions and terrors and madness, none of it comprehensible and none of it in the least restful.

  "Okay, I've double-tied everything. Are you at least going to help me carry it down to the water?"

  Orlando stared at him for a long time, but still Fredericks' pink, unhappy face refused to disappear. He groaned. "Coming."

  The raft did float, although parts of it remained resolutely below the waterline, so that there was nowhere dry to sit. Still, the warm weather did not make that too uncomfortable. Orlando was glad at least that he had prevailed on Fredericks to bring the wall of the palm-leaf shelter along, no matter how short a trip his friend expected. Orlando tilted it over them, letting it lean against his shoulders. It kept off the worst of the afternoon sun, but it did little to cool the heat in his head and his joints.

  "I don't feel very good," he said quietly. "I told you, I've got pneumonia." It was about the only conversation he had to offer, but even he was growing tired of it. Fredericks, splashing obdurately with a makeshift paddle, did not reply.

  Astonishingly—to Orlando, anyway—they were actually making a kind of slow progress toward the city. The crosscurrent was bearing them unmistakably to what Orlando guessed was the northern side of the shoreline, but the drift was slight; he thought they might very well make it to the far side before the current pulled them out into what were probably ocean waters. And if they didn't . . . well, Fredericks would be disappointed, but Orlando was having trouble seeing what the difference would be. He was adrift in some kind-of limbo, his strength leaking away hourly, and what he had left behind (in what he still quaintly thought about from time to time as the "real" world) was no better.

  "I know you're sick, but could you try to paddle for a little while?" Fredericks was working hard not to be resentful; as if from a distance, Orlando admired him/her for it. "My arms are really aching, but if we don't keep pushing, the current will take us away from the beach."

  It was a tough call as to which would take more energy, arguing or paddling. Orlando went to work.

  His arms felt as flabby and weak as noodles, but there was a certain soothing quality to the repetition of dipping his paddle, pulling, raising it, then dipping it again. After a while the monotony combined with the sun's rippling reflections and his fevered driftiness to lift him into a kind of reverie, so he didn't notice the water rising until Fredericks shouted out that they were sinking.

  Alerted but still buffered by his dreamy detachment, Orlando looked down at the water, which was now up to the crotch of his loincloth. The middle of the raft had descended, or the sides had risen; in either case, most of the craft was now at least partially underneath the water.

  "What do we do?" Fredericks sounded like someone who believed that things mattered.

  "Do? Sink, I guess."

  "Are you scanning out, Gardiner?" Clearly fighting back panic, Fredericks looked up at the horizon. "We might be able to swim the rest of the way."

  Orlando followed his gaze, then laughed. "Are you scanned? I can barely paddle." He looked at the length of split reed in his hand. "Not that it's doing us any good, now." He tossed the paddle away. It splashed into the water and then popped up again, bobbing along far more convincingly than the raft.

  Fredericks shouted in horror and stretched toward it, as though he could reverse physics and draw it back through the air. "I can't believe you just did that!" He looked down at
the raft again, full of twitchy, terrified energy. "I have an idea. We'll get in the water, but we'll use the raft as a float—you know, like those rafts in swimming class."

  Orlando had never been in a swimming class, or anything that his mother feared might be dangerous to his fragile bones, but he was not disposed to argue anyway. At his friend's urging he slid off the raft into the cool water: Fredericks splashed in beside him, then braced his chest against the trailing edge of the raft and began to kick in a manner that was a credit to his long-ago instructors.

  "Can't you kick, too, at least a little?" he panted.

  "I am kicking," Orlando said.

  "Whatever happened," Fredericks gasped, "to all that Thargor strength? All that monster-ass-kicking muscle? Come on!"

  It was an effort even to explain, and frequent mouthfuls of salt water didn't help. "I'm sick, Frederico. And maybe the gain isn't turned up as high in this system—I always had to crank the tactor outputs way up to make it work as well as it did for someone normal."

  They had only dog-paddled for a few minutes when Orlando felt his strength finally desert him. His legs slowed, then stopped. He hung onto the back of the raft, but even that was difficult.

  "Orlando? I need your help!"

  The city, which once had waited squarely before them, had now shifted to the right The blue water between the raft and the beach, however, had not narrowed appreciably. They were drifting out to sea, Orlando realized—as he himself was drifting. They would get farther and farther from land, until eventually the city would disappear entirely.

  But that's not fair. The thoughts seemed to come in slow bumps, like the waves. Fredericks wants to live. He wants to play soccer and do things—wants to be a real boy, just like Pinocchio. I'm just holding him back. I'm the Donkey Island kid.

  "Orlando?"

  No, not fair. He has to paddle hard enough to pull my weight, too. Not fair. . . .

  He let go and slid under the water. It was surprisingly easy. The surface snapped shut over him like an eyelid closing, and for a moment he felt complete weightlessness, complete ease, and a certain dull smugness at his decision. Then something seized his hair, jerking him into fiery pain and a throatful of sea water. He was pulled to the surface, spluttering.

  "Orlando!" Fredericks shrieked, "what the hell are you doing?"

  He was clinging to the raft with one hand so he could maintain his grip on Orlando's—Thargor's—long black hair,

  Now nobody's kicking, Orlando thought sadly. He spat out salty water and barely avoided a coughing spasm. It isn't doing any good at all.

  "I'm . . . I just can't go any farther," he said aloud.

  "Grab the raft," Fredericks directed. "Grab the raft!"

  Orlando did, but Fredericks didn't relinquish his grip. For a moment they just floated, side by side. The raft rose and fell as the waves moved past. Except for the stinging pain in his scalp, nothing had changed.

  Fredericks, too, had gotten a mouthful of seawater. His nose was running, his eyes red-rimmed. "You aren't going to quit You're not going to!"

  Orlando found enough strength to shake his head. "I can't. . . ."

  "Can't? You impacted bastard, you've made my life a living hell about this stupid goddamned city! And there it is! And you're just going to give up?"

  "I'm sick. . . ."

  "So what? Yeah, yeah, it's really sad. You've got some weird disease. But that's the place you wanted to go. You've dreamed about it. It's the only thing you care about, practically. So either you're going to help me get to that beach, or I'm going to have to drag you like I learned in that stupid swimming class, and then we'll both drown, five hundred yards away from your goddamned city. You goddamned coward." Fredericks was breathing so hard he could barely finish his sentence. He clung to the bobbing raft, neck-deep in the water, and glared.

  Orlando was faintly amused that anyone could muster so much emotion about a pointless thing like the difference between going on and going down, but he also felt a slight irritation that Fredericks—Fredericks!—should be calling him a coward.

  "You want me to help you? Is that what you're saying?"

  "No, I want you to do what was so important that you got me into this impacted, fenfen mess in the first place."

  Again, it had become easier to paddle than to argue. Also, Fredericks was still gripping his hair, and Orlando's head was bent at an uncomfortable angle.

  "Okay. Just let go."

  "No tricks?"

  Orlando wearily shook his head. You try to do a guy a favor. . . .

  They edged forward until their chests were back on the raft and began kicking again.

  The sun was very low in the sky and a cool wind was making the tips of the waves froth when they made it past the first breakwater and out of the cross-current. After a short celebratory rest, Fredericks let Orlando climb up onto the bowed raft and paddle with his hands while Fredericks continued his out-board-motor impersonation.

  By the time they reached the second breakwater they were no longer alone, but merely the smallest of the waterway's travelers. Other boats, some clearly equipped with engines, others with full-bellied sails, were beginning to make their way back from a day's work. The wakes of their passing made the raft rock alarmingly. Orlando climbed back into the water.

  Above them and around them the city was beginning to turn on its lights.

  They were debating whether or not to try to signal one of the passing boats when Orlando began to feel another wash of fever pass over him.

  "We can't try to take this raft all the way in," Fredericks was arguing. "Some big ship will come through here and they won't even see us in the dark."

  "I think all the . . . big ships come in the other . . . side," Orlando said. He was finding it hard to get enough breath to speak. "Look." On the far side of the harbor maze, beyond several jetties, two large vessels, one of them a tanker of some sort, were being hauled into the port by tugboats. Nearer, vastly smaller than the tanker but still fairly large and impressive, was a barge. Despite his exhaustion, Orlando couldn't help staring at it. The barge, covered in painted carvings and with something that looked like a sun with an eye in it painted on the bow, seemed to belong to a different age than the harbor's other ships. It had a single tall mast and a flat, square sail. Lanterns hung in the rigging and at the bow.

  As Orlando stared at this strange apparition, the world seemed to pass into some greater shadow. The lanterns flared into blurry star shapes. He had a moment to wonder how twilight had become dark midnight so suddenly, and to feel sad that the city's residents had doused all their lights, then he felt the water slide up and over him again.

  This time Orlando barely felt it when Fredericks pulled him out. The fever had gripped him again, and he was so exhausted that he could not imagine it ever letting go. A distant foghorn had become a smear of sound that rang in his ears, fading but never completely stopping. Fredericks was saying something urgent, but Orlando could not make sense of it. Then a light as bright as anything Orlando could imagine replaced the darkness with a whiteness far more painful and terrible.

  The spotlight belonged to a small boat The small boat belonged to the Harbor Police of the great city. They were not cruel, but they were briskly uninterested in what Fredericks had to say. It seemed that they were on the lookout for outsiders, and the two men treading water beside a handmade raft seemed to fit the description. As they hauled Orlando and on board, they talked among themselves; Orlando heard the words "god king," and "council." It seemed that he and Fredericks were being arrested for some kind of crime, but he was finding it harder and harder to make sense out of what was happening around him.

  The barge loomed above them, then the carved hull began to slide by as the patrol boat motored past it on the way to the dock of the Great Palace, but before they had reached the hull's far end, consciousness escaped Orlando's grasp.

  CHAPTER 35

  Lord of Temilún

  NETFEED/NEWS: Vat-Beef Poisoning Scar
e in Britain

  (visual: mob outside Derbyshire factory)

  VO: A rash of fatal illnesses in Britain has caused chaos in the cultured meat industry. One food product company, Artiflesh Ltd., has seen drivers attacked and a factory burned to the ground.

  (visual: Salmonella bacteria under microscopic enlargement)

  The deaths are blamed on a Salmonella infection of a beef "mother," the original flesh matrix from which up to a hundred generations of vat-grown meat can be derived. One such "mother" can be the source of thousands of tons of cultured meat. . . .

  "Atasco!" Renie raised her hands to defend herself, but their captor only regarded her with faint irritation.

  "You know my name? I am surprised."

  "Why? Because we're just little people?" Confronted with the first real face—as real as any sim face could be—behind Otherland, she found she was not frightened. A cold anger filled her and made her feel she was standing apart from herself.

  "No." Atasco seemed genuinely puzzled. "Because I did not think my name was commonly known, at least outside of certain circles. Who are you?"

  Renie reached out and touched !Xabbu on the shoulder, as much for her own comfort as his. "If you don't know, I'm certainly not going to tell you."

  The God-King shook his head. "You are a most impertinent young woman."

  "Renie. . . ?" Martine began, but at that moment something slithered at high speed across the floor of the Council Chamber, an iridescent blur that skirted Renie and !Xabbu by a matter of inches before disappearing into the shadows.

  "Ah!" As he followed the odd apparition with his gaze, the annoyance faded from Bolivar Atasco's face. "There it is again. Do you know what that is?"

  Renie could not gauge his tone. "No. What?"

  He shook his head. "I haven't the slightest idea. Well, that is not exactly true—I have an idea of what it represents, but not what it is. It's a phenomenon of complexity, the immense complexity of the system. Not the first, and I dare say not the last or the strangest." He stood for a moment, pondering, then turned back to Renie and her friends. "Perhaps we should cut this unsatisfying conversation short. There is still much to do."