Smoke's Fire Page 9

  Jessica entered the room. She saw they had transformed what had been a bare room with a wide stone bench around the rim into a makeshift bedroom or living space. There were pillows on the stone bench, white and brown. And blankets, a low table and, Jessica noted, two beds.

  “Ah,” she said, nodding. “Looks like I’ll be here for a while.”

  Grandmother nodded. “Let’s hope it is a short while. Once Tarl returns, we will make an arrangement with him. It’s all a big mess.”

  “There are two beds here,” Jessica said, pointing with her chin at the second low bed. About the size of a twin bed at home, she thought.

  The old woman nodded again. “This is Murnaballa,” she said, gesturing at the younger woman who had stood behind her quietly. “She’ll be staying here with you. For a while.”

  “We know each other,” Jessica said, nodding at her. Murn nodded back, mouth pressed into a line. Not happy about this arrangement either, Jessica decided.

  “Of course you do,” Grandmother said. “You spent some time together yesterday.”

  Jessica nodded. She didn’t want to reveal their discussion. She changed the subject. “Is there anything to drink here?” she asked the old woman. “Or food?”

  “Murn will help you. There should be plenty here,” she waved at what looked like some boxes of pale wood in the corner.

  “This is not quite an apology,” Jessica said. “Where I come from, holding someone against their will is a serious crime.”

  Grandmother studied her. “We don’t have crime here,” she said. “Your being here is a unique situation for us. Your being held here is also novel.” She shrugged. “Tarl has put us all in a difficult position.”

  Jessica sat on the ledge. Smoke feared this woman, and the Boy. She didn’t want to get into a long debate with her. “I’m sure there is plenty of blame to go around,” she said. “Usually how these things work.”

  Grandmother nodded. “Perhaps,” she said. “I’m not so sure.” She nodded to Murn, who hadn’t moved. “I’ll let you two get to know each other. Sadly, Murn doesn’t have any English, so you’ll have to work it out.”

  “How do you speak English?” Jessica asked, curiously. “Tourist visa?”

  Grandmother chuckled, a dry cackle. “Something like that,” she said. “The English had a mighty empire on your world, did they not? They inherited the Roman one there?”

  Jessica blinked. “I suppose you could look at it that way,” she said slowly. “Never quite heard it put that way before.”

  “And your nation took over the English empire?” Grandmother asked, eyebrows raised. “These are common patterns. The Arabs or the English, are the two most common braids we study. English is spoken on many worlds. I learned it on a few of them.” She smiled. “When I was younger.”

  “How old are you?” Jessica asked. “How old is this place? Smoke said he didn’t know.”

  “He doesn’t know,” Grandmother nodded, smile widening. “The young are concerned with age and time.” She shrugged. “I’m not sure anymore myself. Years are years. Time’s arrow pulls us forward.”

  “You should write poetry,” Jessica said, frowning at the old woman. She licked her lips. “Are you human?”

  “I think so,” Grandmother said, frowning slightly. Then she brightened, the smile flashing briefly again. “I’m in a unique position here, so my humanity has never been a big concern for me. At least, I don’t think it has.”

  “Smoke said the Center is looking for worlds like this place,” Jessica said. She knew she shouldn’t engage with this woman, if woman she was. Smoke said she was more than human, part of the Center itself. Augment, he had said. A puppet of the Center. “Worlds run by artificial minds. Computer intelligence.”

  Grandmother’s smile was kind. “That’s the gist of it,” she nodded. “People like Smoke,” Jessica could hear the ironic emphasis on the name, “are part of that search.”

  “Why do you want to find them?” Jessica asked. “Just want to make friends?”

  “The universe is a lonely place. Fundamentally lonely,” Grandmother said. “So friends would be nice. But we’re looking for more than that. He didn’t tell you anything else?”

  Jessica shook her head. Kicking herself inwardly for continuing to talk. “I’m not sure what I believe,” she said acidly. “From either of you.”

  Grandmother nodded. “You were caught up in this, I take it?” She gestured around her, at the room and the Center campus beyond. “It must be exciting. To come here. Nobody else ever has. It’s unique.”

  “First time for everything, I guess,” Jessica said. She frowned, not wanting to give away anything more than she had to. Caught up? She mulled the phrase.

  “You and Tarl are lovers?” Grandmother asked, and smiled at Jessica’s choking laugh. “I see, so that’s a no then. Not Tarl then.” She smiled. “The others, the women, then?”

  Jessica peered at her. How much did this old woman know? “You know about them? Silver and her pal?”

  Grandmother nodded briefly. “You mentioned interrogations?” She smiled. “There’s no need for that. We know most of it already. Those two are at the heart of this.”

  “I want out of here,” Jessica said, not wanting to talk about Silver or Gold with this woman. “When he comes back, what is the plan? Assuming you have a plan. I’m a poor bargaining chip.”

  “I’m not so sure about that,” Grandmother said. “Tarl is a romantic.”

  So that was it then, she was a hostage. “You can’t keep me here forever,” Jessica said, hoping it was true.

  Grandmother pursed her lips. “Forever is a long time,” she said. “But we’ll talk more later.”

  “I want out of here,” she said. “Send me back to my world. I’ll forget I ever met you.”

  Grandmother considered this. “I know you do,” she said. “And I believe you. And that might be possible. But not yet. Patience, please.” And with that she turned, rapped on the outer door behind her with a gnarled knuckle, and glided out without a backwards glance. Jessica got a glimpse of the hallway beyond, and saw several white-robed figures there, awaiting Grandmother. The door shut behind her and clanked. A bar, she thought, across the doorway. She was trapped.

  She looked at Murn, who smiled shyly at her. The girl was maybe twenty, Jessica thought. Blonde and fresh faced in a way that had always bugged Jessica. Girls that looked like Murn had always made her feel lumpy and mousey. She smiled at her anyway, no point in making an enemy of the girl. She pointed at the boxes in the corner, and mimed eating.

  Murn nodded, clapping her hands. While she rummaged through the boxes for food, Jessica considered her situation. She was trapped. A hostage. Grandmother said she would be back. She wondered what she had revealed in talking with her. Probably more than she thought, she suspected. She resolved to not talk more to her. Take the Fifth, she told herself.

  Murn returned with a tray of bread and bowl of fruit. There was a spread of a kind of spicy paste in a shallow bowl, which Murn showed her how to dip the bread into. Chickpeas or some other kind of bean, Jessica thought. Like hummus, but spicier, with a lemony overtone. She hoped she wasn’t allergic to anything here, but she needed to eat.

  Murn touched her hand. “Friend,” she said, pointing at herself. “Friend,” she repeated.

  “They teach you that?” Jessica asked her, knowing that they were almost certainly monitored. But Murn’s smile was infectious, and she nodded and smiled back. “Friend,” she repeated.

  She seemed to know only that word. “Friend Tarl. Friend Jessica.” She seemed pleased with herself, having not mangled her name.

  “Friend?” Jessica gestured with a hunk of bread at where Grandmother had stood. She caught the younger woman’s eye as she asked.

  Murn looked down at the plate of food. She dipped her own bread in the hummus. She nodded. “Friend,” she said, but flatly. She nodded slowly. “Friend,” she repeated, meeting Jessica’s eye and holding it a moment, bef
ore taking another bite. Murn smiled. So.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Silver looked at him over the firelight. They’d built the fire in the courtyard, near the machine they called Truck. Truck still had the black spider trapped under his massive yellow claw. Occasionally one of the spider’s legs twitched, knocking, ceramic on metal, in the darkness. The others had gone to bed, Warren and her officers. Li was resting in the fortress, and Carter was sleeping in the Dutchman, with the dog.

  He’d had Alpha bring them a pizza from that place called Pietro’s. The Super Special, they agreed, was clearly the best pizza in the Tapestry. He shared it among the three of them.

  “Warren and her troops are going to be jealous,” Silver said, around a mouthful.

  He nodded. “We’ll burn the evidence.” He hoped this peace offering might soothe things between them, but Gold was still scowling at him, despite nodding at their jokes.

  “Can you get Truck to let him go?” Smoke asked, nodding in the direction of the massive earthmover.

  “Not yet,” Silver said. “I still don’t trust him. He’s dangerous.”

  Smoke nodded. Chen was dangerous. Alpha had said, someone new. Chen was new, and he was involved in this. He had been part of what happened here, and what happened here had wider implications beyond this thread. Alpha was sure of it.

  So he’d spent weeks stalking Chen, with Alpha’s help. It hadn’t been easy, the former policeman was slippery. He’d found the old systems, deep underground in a bunker north of what had been Beijing. There Alpha had recovered the keys to supervision, the oversight control that mastered Chen. Once Smoke had those, he’d revealed himself to the Spider.

  “I hold his leash,” Smoke said. “He’s under control. We need him.”

  “Do we?” Gold asked. “Not from where I sit.” She spat into the fire. “He going to get us into the space ladder?”

  “Elevator,” Silver muttered.

  Gold waved her away. “He’s under your control, you say. Your control.” She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “I still don’t trust you.”

  “Not saying I haven’t made mistakes,” Smoke said. “I shouldn’t have banished you two, but I didn’t trust you either. And the Marines were just down the hall, remember.”

  “Do you now?” Silver asked. “Trust us?”

  He was silent a moment. “I think I do,” he said slowly. “I’m caught in the middle here.”

  “How so?” she asked, tossing another stick onto the fire. The flames brightened, casting shadows over her face, making her look old.

  He frowned at her. “The Center has moved against me.” He sighed. “I can’t go back there yet. Not unless I’m willing to risk some serious escalation.”

  “Jessica is there, you said,” Silver said. Her face was a mask in the flickering firelight.

  “They took her,” Smoke admitted. “I was lax. I didn’t think they would risk an attack, but they did. I barely got out.”

  Silver seemed to consider this. She glanced at Gold, who looked away.

  “Look,” Smoke said. “Your gods aren’t here, are they? They’re not in your heads, are they?”

  Gold shook her head in disgust. “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said. “Be careful.”

  “I know they used you,” he said. “Like a puppet.”

  She was very still, and he wondered if he’d crossed a line. Gold was dangerous, more so than Silver.

  “Look,” he said. “You know me. You know me,” he repeated, emphasizing the word. “I’m not lying about this.”

  “You’re a good liar,” Silver said. Looking off into the darkness she paused a moment. “So, what do you propose?”

  “We need to take the Elevator,” Smoke said. “It’s guarded. Systems like Chen here. He can help us.”

  “Can’t you get their keys too?” Silver said. “Like you did him?”

  “Those systems are in orbit,” he said. “Alpha can’t get there.”

  “Why is that?” Gold asked, stirring the fire with a stick so that cinders sprang up. “Why does being offworld matter.”

  Smoke cocked his head, holding up a finger. “Gravity,” he said, at length. “Or rather, his ability to focus her attention depends on the underlying mechanism that causes gravity. Lack of it means she gets lost. Messaging loses coherence.” He grinned. “There’s math but I don’t follow it.”

  Gold glanced at Silver. Silver leaned forward. “Were you just talking with Alpha?”

  He nodded. He tapped his head with a finger. “She’s in my head. I can hear her.”

  “Wasn’t she a man? When we met her?” Gold said. He could see her brow furrow.

  “Gender is fluid,” Smoke said. “Why shouldn’t she be female?”

  Gold shrugged. “Fluid or not, she’s in your head, right now?” Silver asked.

  He nodded. “She’s listening, yes.”

  Silver frowned again. “OK,” she said. “OK. Good to know what we’re dealing with. When we talk to you, we’re talking to both of you.”

  He nodded. “Basically, that’s the gist.”

  “This probably cuts both ways,” Gold said. “If your pet demon can’t see things offworld, that probably means that our gods or whatever they are can’t either.”

  Silver looked at her. She nodded. “That could explain things,” she said.

  “Like what?” Smoke asked, though he suspected he knew where she was headed.

  “Why they went upwell to begin with,” she said, nodding up at the black sky. “To get free of the gods.”

  “The Bloom killed the gods,” Gold said, looking at Silver. “Didn’t it?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, looking at him. “Did it?”

  He reached for a stick from the pile. He stirred the fire with it, the glowing coals muttered and crackled. He tossed it onto them, and spread his hands. “No,” he said softly. “The Bloom may have knocked them back, but they didn’t die. At least, we don’t think they did. They seem to have been active in other areas.”

  “How so?” Silver said. “What areas?”

  “There’s a rip in the universe,” Smoke said, relaying words directly from Alpha. “That’s what the Center has been calling the Tangle. All these worlds are part of it. The ones with you two in them, basically.”

  “We’re here,” Silver said after she and Gold had exchanged puzzled looks. “What do you mean, ‘the ones’?”

  “The Tapestry is…” he spread his hands, “many worlds. An infinite array of threads, each one its own universe, like ours. This,” he said, gesturing around them, “is a thread. You follow me?”

  “You explained this before,” Gold said, sounding bored. “So we have, what, twins in other worlds?”

  “Basically,” he said, waving at the smoke from the fire that had shifted, blowing back at him. “There are versions of both of you on these worlds. I’ve met some of them. Silver, anyway.”

  “Why’d you do that?” Silver asked. “Go there to meet with them?”

  He sighed. “Originally, it was part of my work for the Center. I met you,” he indicated, “in Mexico, but a radically different post-Collapse Mexico. You claimed to remember me, but I didn’t know you.”

  “How is that possible?” she asked, peering at him across the fire. “That I knew you if we’d never met?”

  “That’s the rip,” he explained. “It’s causing what the Center called congruence, but it’s more than that. That’s just on the fringes of the Tangle. The worlds at the center of the Tangle are being destroyed. Their threads are just…cut.”

  They sat in silence for some time, listening to the wind through the trees and the crackle of the fire. The fortress behind them brooded in the darkness. Silver stood.

  “I need to piss,” she said, and stalked off into the darkness. “Don’t do anything until I get back.”

  “These worlds. The ones that are ending,” Gold said, after she passed out of earshot. “Why is that happening? Do you know?”r />
  Smoke listened to Alpha in his mind. He shook his head. “We don’t know for sure why any of this is happening. But we know it is happening. The rip is ending threads, and it’s growing. It could be here tomorrow, or it could be here a million years from now.”

  “How can that be? Time is time,” she said. “We’re not going to be here a million years from now. At least, I hope not.”

  “Time is relative,” he said, nodding to Silver as she reentered the circle of firelight. “That’s part of what the Tangle is…time gets mixed up in there. I met a version of you that was downstream, timewise, by at least ten thousand years.”

  “I hope I kept my figure,” Silver quipped, sitting down on her log. “Seems like we’re at an impasse then,” she said. “You need our help to take the Elevator, which is guarded by an army of spiders like Chen here, right? What’s in it for us?”

  “What do you want?” Smoke asked, knowing there would be something.

  “I want,” she said, “a farm, nothing too big. Maybe with goats and chickens.” She smiled wanly at him. “Maybe near a river?”

  “Sounds nice,” he said, smiling back. “I’d visit.” He looked at Gold. “What about you?”

  “I told you before,” she said. “I want off this merry-go-round.” She made a twirling motion with her hand, then lapsed back into her brooding silence.

  Smoke noted Silver’s long glance at Gold as she said this, but he didn’t probe. “I’m for bed,” he said, stretching. “OK if I camp over here?”

  “Sure,” Gold said, waving at him. “Over there,” she pointed behind him. “Don’t get close to Truck, he’ll make a really loud noise, and he doesn’t need sleep.”

  Smoke nodded. He was pretty sure that Chen’s keys could override Truck’s security, but he needed their help. Their goodwill was worth Chen’s discomfort. The Spider deserved worse, he decided.

  Alpha had brought him a backpack. He hauled it up and carried it with him away from the fire. It was a blue nylon affair, and must have weighed forty pounds.