The Emperor of Everything

“Ruiz Aw told us where you were. He hoped to trade your lives for his, he wanted to bargain with us. But it won’t do him any good. We’ll find him anyway, so he betrayed you for nothing.”

“I don’t believe you,” said Nisa. She glared at Remint. “You must think we’re fools. If Ruiz Aw had sold us to you, you wouldn’t have had to blow up the place and fight the guards to get us.”

“He didn’t sell you to us; he had already sold you elsewhere. Your new owners were stiff-necked folk; they wouldn’t put a price on you, so we were forced to act directly.” Remint shrugged, and returned to his piloting.

Nisa glared at Remint through a mist of hot tears. But she was no longer absolutely certain he was lying — and there was an aching hole where her heart had been.

Ruiz contemplated the Gench. Like all its kind, it was a repulsive creature in human terms. Its baggy loose-skinned body was covered with weedy tufts of sensory fiber. Three eyespots roamed in a random pattern over its squat head, and it exuded a nauseating odor.

It seemed to be attending him with as much attention as any Gench ever gave to a human who wasn’t trying to hurt it.

“Listen carefully,” Ruiz said. “Your owner intends to kill you, in order to kill me.”

“You will not inform him of the repaired madcollar?”

“Yes, but it will make no difference. He needs to kill me, and he will sacrifice you to do it.”

The Gench fluttered its mouth parts, a gesture of skepticism. “I am too valuable a property.”

“It’s true, you’re valuable. But your value will largely disappear if I succeed in my mission.”

“How can that be?”

“Because our target, the man we intend to replace, owns a large number of Gencha — so many that your death will represent only a minor loss of capital for Publius.”

The Gench became very still. Ruiz waited patiently for it to process this information.

Five minutes later it spoke again. “This is true?”

Ruiz nodded. “You will be able to confirm it as soon as we are inside the stronghold; the pheromones of many Gencha will fill your olfactory organs.”

Another five minutes passed. “What must I do to survive?” it finally asked.

Ruiz sat back, feeling a cautious optimism. “Let’s consider. I have a suggestion, but it’s only a beginning and not a solution. Let’s take off the madcollars.”

The Gench quivered back, an expression of rejection. “Publius would punish me severely if I do so — he explained this to me at length. You cannot imagine what terrible threats he made.”

“Oh, I think I can,” said Ruiz. “But you miss the essential logic of the situation. If we do not remove the madcollars, Publius has only to kill you to kill me. If we remove them, he must kill me directly, and may spare you, if it comes to that. Though to be honest with you — I intend to retain you as a hostage, for whatever good that may do me.”

“I see.”

“I wish you no harm personally. But I do wish to survive.”

“This is understandable.” The Gench seemed unresentful, but Ruiz cautioned himself to make no groundless anthropomorphic assumptions about the creature.

Ruiz took his madcollar controller from his pocket. “We must press the disengage key simultaneously.”

The Gench was motionless; then a slender glutinous tentacle emerged from its second mouth, the tip wrapped around the other controller. “Yes,” it said.

They both pressed, the collars made a series of muted clicks and fell away.

Ruiz took a deep breath, rubbed his neck where the collar had chafed it slightly. He wanted to savor that small increase of freedom, but time was slipping away. “How proficient are you in human minddiving?”

“I have only minimal skill as yet. But I will learn, in time.”

“There’s no more time,” Ruiz said harshly. “What do you know about diving a deconstructed person?”

The Gench shuddered. “Difficult to think about it… the holomnemonic ocean of such a person is a cold place, bright with unfriendly light.”

“What changes are possible in such a person?”

“Without tearing down the personality and rebuilding it? Very few.” It shifted uncomfortably. “I lack those skills.”

“Other than such an extensive process, which in any case we don’t have time for, what could you do to prevent Publius from making use of his puppet without our cooperation?”

The Gench became still again. Ruiz felt his patience slipping away, but he stifled the impulse to badger the Gench. If he should cause the Gench to succumb to hysteria, he was lost.

After what seemed an endless silence, the Gench spoke uncertainly. “I find this modality difficult. My experience of treachery is almost nonexistent; perhaps I have no aptitude.”

“Nonsense,” said Ruiz. “You’re an intelligent being; no species attains sapience without recourse to treachery. Let me restate the problem: What can we do to make our survival necessary to Publius? Let me suggest a possibility — can you install some sort of blockage in the puppet’s perceptual channels, so that he will be unable to respond to Publius’s instructions? Could you make the blockage contingent on some stimulus, perhaps a code phrase known only to us?”