“You’ll just have to see for yourself,” DJ says with a crease of his cheek muscles.
We exit the transport. I’ve been staring out at the green, brushy inclines of the screw garden and asking myself why Gurus would put such a thing at the rear of the ship. Having impossible problems to solve is what distracts me from how awful our situation is. I’m a nerd. Have been since I was a little kid. It’s kept me sane before. I’ve been a killer since I was thirteen and not once did I enjoy it or feel anything less than shitty. Killing is putting an end to threatening stuff I don’t understand, before I can ever understand it. Nerding out distracts from that essential emptiness.
The Antags flank us, all that remains of our pitiful little party, and guide us through the curvy alien regions to the hatch, which is presently shut tight. From behind us, out of glimmering shadow, emerge four more Antags in light armor. Between them are slung two squirming gray bags.
Through Bird Girl, I feel that another Antag is on her way to join us, with her own escort. The picture I’m getting is that this is the connected one, and she’s a basket case.
Then we see her. She’s spiked and awry, covered with a damp, sweaty sheen, wings drooping, feet and hands clenched. Her four eyes are crusted with snot and she’s all twitch and quiver—in worse shape than Ulyanova. Maybe the Antags have been working her over, trying to force her to tell them what they need to know.
Bird Girl advances to the bulkhead that holds the mystery gate. The three commanders bring the droopy Antag toward the gate and hand her leash to two armored officers. DJ, Ulyanova, and I are urged forward by two more officers, who let us drift up next to the bags.
Our fellow Skyrines and Kumar and Borden hang back, for the moment, eyes wide, glad they’re not us, not Ulyanova. The starshina’s previous calm, her dotty smile, has turned brittle. She’s shivering, but that might be because we’re all half-naked, in minimal pajamas, and the air around the gate is chilly.
The Antags unclasp and peel the bags, revealing two bundles of wet gray fur with floppy ears and wide, sleepy eyes. Here’s the other that Ulyanova said was necessary—but isn’t. Not if I’m around. Their sleepy eyes track us, humans and Antags, as if they would burrow deep into our heads. Eyes that do not concede any ground to our domination, our control.
God, I do hate them.
Ulyanova shudders but does not look away. She tilts her head back, curves her lips, and gives them a sharply angled look, as if she’s a dragon about to spit fire. The Gurus jerk and try to shrink away.
“Look,” Bird Girl announces, and presses a circular indentation to the left of the hatch. The hatch opens, six pieces sliding aside and back, all somehow very standard, very expected. We’ve been spending far too much time on alien spacecraft. Give me a simple pressure hatch anytime, give me a rocket, a capsule—
Then we all have to look, no choice—like facing the mouth of hell. But inside the gate, this time there’s only a neutral beige emptiness, not easy to look at, to look into, since it seems to promise the nullity I’d like to avoid, thank you—but nothing like the horror we experienced before.
Ulyanova and the connected Antag are kept about two meters apart from the Gurus. Ulyanova’s nose is bleeding. DJ tries to help, raising the back of his hand, offering to dab as blood flows down her lip and one side of her chin—but she punches his arm aside, then gives us a hard, steely look. The scruffy Antag doesn’t do much of anything.
Then, as if waking from a nap, the beige nullity gets active. Spinning gears take shape, followed by knives, suggestions of endless misery in a variety of fates and forms.
Ulyanova’s dragon flames fly now as furious words. “This place … is disgraceful,” she rasps. “Push Gurus through, first one, then the other!”
The translators work for the armored commanders, but Ulyanova seems to be in charge, not them—they’ve given up that much in their desperation.
“Will that be enough?” Bird Girl asks.
“What do you care, really?” Ulyanova says. “If we do not feed them to puzzle, if we fail, all who look will be crazy. Try, or we are all mad!”
The scruffy Antag tries to lift a wing, makes sad scrutching noises, along with high-pitched wheeps. She apparently does not agree with Ulyanova.
And strangely, that tilts the game. Bird Girl makes a hatchet chop of one wingtip.
The Gurus squeak.
Kumar moans, then tries to break free of our group—
“Hold him!” Joe calls out.
The little rabbit bundles squeak again, but that doesn’t stop two of the armored Antags from pushing one forward, sack trailing like an afterbirth, into the growing, awful gate. Sending a Guru into Guru hell. The squeaks rise to wailing shrieks. The illusion inside the hatchway seems to reach out and grab, pin the little rabbit bundle, yank it from the gripping hands of the Antags, almost dragging them in with it, but they let go—
Together, Ulyanova and the pitiful Antag make sick musical sounds, like a small orchestra about to throw up. The other Guru squirms and suddenly changes shape without growing or shrinking, looking for a few seconds like a miniature Antag, then a small human, then something I’ve certainly never seen before—
The inner illusion of the hatch turns black as night—
And spits out pieces of flesh and fur. My God, is that magnificent! Isn’t that absolutely what we need to see!
But then the dead puzzle returns. The madness starts all over again. We try to turn away and can’t. “Fuck!” DJ says, drawing it out in classic DJ style. We’re all on the line, or way over it.
Ulyanova makes a little hmm, then looks back at me, at Borden. “Does not seem good,” she says. “Not convincing. There is more than two!”
And she’s not talking about me.
The eyes of the second Guru sink back into its rabbit-puppy skull.
“It would be most interesting,” Ulyanova says, “if both die, and there is a third that needs to die also before I can take their place. I have their minds, their thoughts. We do not need any of them.”
Bird Girl and the Antags are not at all happy with these results, or this suggestion. I can’t blame them, really. One Guru down, only one left that anyone can see, and the same thing seems very likely to happen if it’s fed into the gate. After all, why would the Gurus allow one of their ships to be accessed by unauthorized personnel, even Gurus? And who knows what the Gurus think about personal death, about sacrifice?
The scruffy Antag seems entranced by Ulyanova’s words. She reaches out as if to touch the starshina, but the armored officers deftly push aside her wing-hand. Ulyanova intervenes and to our surprise grasps that hand—clenches it tight, and surveys us all with her head drawn back.
“It is offering to solve puzzle,” she says. “But we must not let it help us. If I am become what it is … ”
Her eyes turn to mine.
I see the chamber vibrate like a remote that wants to change the channel but can’t.
The scruffy Antag makes distressed, angry sounds that are not translated, but the other Antags listen close. Ulyanova says, “This is disgraceful. It is not interesting. The Guru says, it thinks, there is way to add to drama. We will be more entertaining if we let it teach and guide us. That must not happen. Instead,” and she looks back over her shoulder at me, “if it lives, it will block everything we must do. There will be no Gurus on this ship! I will become!”
She’s following through. She gestures for me to come forward, and this time she grabs my hand. The translator buzzes and makes strident musical notes. There’s disagreement and confusion between Bird Girl and her commanders, and apparent concern that we’re all about to make a huge mistake. This I get through the ragged connection with Bird Girl. They do not want to put control of this ship, even assuming we can take control, into human hands.
Bird Girl disagrees. We’ve gone this far. Not to go farther will mean defeat and death.
The last Guru puts up an awful, sad barrage of squeaks and guinea-pig growls, as if intent on maki
ng us all feel it’s totally without resources or power. Inside my head, I feel those embedded chunks of suggestion vibrate as if in sympathy. And I’m not the only one.
“Agree with it!” Kumar says, aghast. “It’s the only way!”
This doesn’t convince any of us, least of all Joe. But our Antag counterparts have made up their minds. Bird Girl and her commanders pull the bag and shackles off the Guru. The Guru’s squeaking becomes slower and deeper, like a toy whose batteries are running down. Then it makes a sound like a cat playing fiddle on its own sick guts.
What lies beyond the doors is nighttime black. Neutral. Waiting.
Maybe a little hungry.
“No pain if it is gone,” Ulyanova says so softly she can barely be heard. “If it dies, I become—I think and solve right here. Right now. Kill the Guru. Kill it!”
Kumar shrieks, “No! It wants to die!”
With blinding speed, Bird Girl is handed a bolt weapon by one of her assistants, one of the pair holding the Guru. The commanders try to stop her, but she points it and fires point-blank into the damp, mewling gray bundle. At such short range, the bolt cooks and spatters. Half-baked blood flecks my face. I wipe it away, fascinated beyond disgust.
Then she turns the weapon on the scruffy Antag, their contact, and fires two more bolts into her chest. The unfortunate creature wilts like a spider in a candle flame. Her limbs shrink and curl, her chest caves in—her head wrinkles like a rotten apple.
Then—
She’s gone.
None of us can believe what we’ve just seen.
“She is Keeper mind-fuck,” Bird Girl says. The translator throws her words back verbatim. “Yours is real.”
“You’ve done what the Guru wants!” Kumar shouts, furious. But nobody is listening. Instead, as if hypnotized, we’re locked on to Ulyanova’s face, her sharp eyes, her words.
“We go now!” she sings—and the pieces in my soul combine, spin, helpless—
“See and follow!” Ulyanova cries out.
I’m right behind her, we’re linked by hand, the puzzle gate requires two Gurus, and suddenly, I’m good enough. Ulyanova is strong enough. We click all the tumblers together, melting the little bombs inside me, using all their energy. The nerd part of me just loves puzzles, doesn’t it? And with all that extra, perverse energy—and Ulyanova’s deep connection—
The Gurus are not necessary.
I feel the gate succumb and become very, very simple.
Empty air, really.
Bird Girl says something to her fellows and the Antag commanders grip Borden and Litvinov and violently shove them through the blackness, like shoving swimmers into a pool. The darkness swallows all. That’s it, I’m thinking. Nice knowing you. They’re going to be coughed out as mincemeat.
But the gate doesn’t throw back anything. Again, it remains black, neutral—empty.
“All go, now!” Ulyanova sings again, hand releasing mine and waving like a wagon master’s.
Our leashes are gathered; we’re surrounded by Antags and kicked and shoved into the blackness. Our screaming gets kind of silly, really, like tourists on a roller coaster. I manage not to make much noise as I go through.
I briefly see Borden and Joe …
Kumar! Looking old and baffled.
But where are they? Where am I? Deep cold but no pain. No cutting or dicing.
When I emerge in a shimmering, shadowy space, not that different from the in-between, I’m still thinking and firmly believe I’m me, always my gold standard for feeling alive. Tak and DJ and Joe float limp beside me. Bird Girl is here, too. She’s got a tight grip on the leash that holds Ulyanova. The starshina appears to be asleep.
The Antag commanders come through next, followed by the rest of our Skyrines, and what might be the last of the Antags. I’m astonished, as much as I can be astonished, in this condition, the condition that prevails—numb and cold and alive.
I never thought we would make it this far, or take it this far. I always assumed that somewhere between here and then Ulyanova would spark out, or I would, or the Antags would give up and kill us all. I did not know what to believe or think while passing through. Nor do I know what to think of where we are now. The problem with dealing with Gurus has always been that nothing is what it seems.
I try to look deep. Am I empty of those little instaurations, those buried bombs, all fused and used?
No time to know.
We’re in a big, dark nothing. Okay. Got it. That makes me giggle. Only nothing is what it seems.
We killed all the Gurus we had, didn’t we? And the scruffy Antag, who seems to have been an illusion, a deception, and a damned fine one to last so long.
Where’s the glowing fog coming from? Our eyes are adjusting to a different kind of illumination, a grayish, dead-looking elf-light that surrounds the gate. At least I think it’s the gate. The center is covered. No going back? Or can Ulyanova solve the puzzle whenever she wants?
Is she human now, or Guru?
Can she control what’s in her mind?
Or control me?
DJ takes hold of his section of our leash and pulls himself into view. His face is as thin and pale as an El Greco saint. Tak and Joe are right behind him. Jacobi, Ishida, and Ishikawa are leashed up to Vera and Bilyk. In the back, Litvinov has Kumar by the shoulders. The elf-light seems to glue itself to everything that came through the gate, like plankton in a passing tide. Patches wrap us here and there and we all look like broken ghosts.
Parts of the glow break off as we move and gleam in the dark like flakes of mica in clouded moonlight. I’m reminded of the Spook’s big steel tables and the quantum treatment. More of the same? All Guru tech, we’ve been told. How much more of this before we crumble like dolls made of dust?
But the Antags, and in particular Bird Girl, seem to still have it together, even after they destroyed two Gurus and bolted one of their own. Has this been their plan all along? A double deception right up until the crunch? Do they trust Ulyanova?
I don’t.
They gather our leashes and arrange us like posies in a bouquet. We’re all here, Kumar and Litvinov taking up the rear, and the way the Antags are exercising their wings, I think we’re about to be drafted to the forward parts of this godawful ship. For a time, I almost want to resist—to force them to bolt me, all of us, just to end the suspense.
But that’s not an option.
“Up there,” Bird Girl says, pointing with both wingtip hands into the forward darkness. “We hear searchers. Gurus take them as slaves. It is what we expected. What we have been told. Up there.”
“What the hell is a ‘searcher’?” Joe asks.
“She means the squids,” DJ says. That’s the image she’s feeding us.
PART TWO
PLUTO AND BEYOND
The Antags beat against the thick, cold air. We’re still in pajamas, of course, and now we’re freezing. Antags don’t care. We’ve made it this far, we’ll go the distance. Valley Forge. Battle of the Bulge. Those soldiers had it worse. It was lots colder in those places than here. But we’re still clacking and chattering and shivering. DJ is blue with cold, pale gray in the bad light—and maybe it is bad light, infected light. Who knows what the Gurus could use to punish intruders?
I don’t hear any echoes, any fragment of sensation that could help me figure out what sort of space we’re in, how big, how wide, whether it’s empty or filled with invisible snares.
Joe’s eyes must be sharper than mine. He tugs on my forearm. “Out there,” he whispers.
I look. Very far away, no scale to judge how far, I see what could be tangles of silvery branches filled with those elfin lights. Striking two ghosts together could make sparks like that. No surprise to find a Guru ship is haunted, right? Not just our dead back in the hamster ball. So many wars, so many seasons, so many corpse entertainers hanging around to learn about their ratings, how they rank in the sum of history.
“Bamboo groves,” Tak says. “All pushe
d together.”
“Bigger than that,” Jacobi says.
Ishida asks, “Wonder what could fit in there?”
Then the lights fade and for a time we can’t see anything. The Antags are still pulsing and drafting, still silent, and I don’t hear Bird Girl or anything else in my head. I thought getting beyond the gate would be some improvement, provide some sense of accomplishment, maybe a hint of our next destination, but so far no joy.
“Fuck this shit,” says Bilyk. Bird Girl’s translator goes to work. The Antags fluff their bristles, maybe in amusement. Maybe they agree. GI bitching is universal.
“We are okay for a while,” Bird Girl then says through the translator, so that all of us can hear. The translator moves over to Russian.
Litvinov growls. “Progress!” he shouts. “We need progress!”
Old-man words, I think. He’s the oldest of us, other than maybe Kumar, and he’s fading. Doesn’t make me happy. Litvinov is one of those people I’d like to sit down with and find out how they’ve lived their lives, where they’ve been, what they’ve done—outside of Mars and all this shit. We all have instincts about guys we’d like to ask personal questions or just listen to, no questions, over vodka.
Kumar is allowing himself to be dragged, not resisting, not protesting, hardly moving—maybe suffering from a hangover after giving in to his Guru conditioning. He said you had to be around Gurus for a long time to come fully under their spell. Maybe they lied to him about that as well. I don’t want to think about Guru lies or illusions because that takes me straight back to what was or is in my head and how Ulyanova used me, used that. Let’s pretend there really is progress, that we know what we’re doing, at least a little.
What did Bird Girl mean by searchers used as slaves? Their slaves or Guru slaves? Would finding them mean progress? And if we do find them and hook up, and they mean progress, but only for Antags—are humans then disposable?
Ulyanova would be so disappointed. She’s coming into her own, getting her own way, making this all work for Bird Girl. Her allegiances are getting complicated.