The Emperor of Everything

“There’s a random ident uplink, I think. If it works as I assume it does, someone upstairs occasionally calls, and one of them responds. Puts some part of its anatomy in a topological scanner. What do Dirms use for that?”

“Elbow whorls,” said Ruiz.

“Ah. Well then, no problem — we’ll just keep an elbow handy and hope we recognize the calldown. Then there’s an anti-intrusion field — sets off a silent alarm if any unauthorized person tries to board the tram between stops. Fortunately our employer didn’t skimp on our gear, and I think I can tune our armor into an invisible resonance with the field — its pattern shift isn’t terribly sophisticated.”

Albany laughed softly. “Yeah, great, Huxley, what a relief. Otherwise we might have had to give up and go back to our nice little sub. Wouldn’t that’ve been a tragedy?”

Huxley gave Albany a chilly glance, but didn’t bother to reply. “Then,” he continued, “there seem to be several purely mechanical devices: proximity jects, tanglefoot decking, razor rails. Those are more properly your department, Albany, but they seem to be electronically linked to a central activity monitor — another job for the pinbeamers.

“Then there’s some sort of feedback uplink on the tram itself, hooked to a lowtech inertial guidance unit, which probably is designed to report any sudden change in the tram’s speed.”

“What about the pit itself?” asked Ruiz.

“Nothing, as far as I can tell,” said the cyborg, shrugging his metal shoulders. “If we had a week and the right gear, we might be able to scale the wall, if no one came along and noticed us. The rail is hot with detector filaments, though, so we can’t just climb the webbing.”

“So,” said Albany. “Let’s see if I can sum up. Our freaked-out sisters got to get steady enough to punch the solenoids, we got to pop the Dirms without losing any elbows, and then we got to get on the thing without slowing it, even though it’s moving fast enough to break our legs if we land wrong. Then we got to miss the jects and the razor rails, keep from stepping in the tanglefoot. Then when we get to the top, we’ll probably have a reception waiting for us because we missed some detail, or stuck the wrong elbow in the scanner. Stop me anytime, someone.”

“I guess I’ll go talk to Moh and Chou,” said Ruiz. “Meanwhile, figure out how to get on the tram.”

Ruiz went back along the tunnel, to where the two Jahworld women huddled in the angle between wall and floor, each clutching her pinbeam, as if deriving some comfort from its heavy glass and metal barrel.

“I’m sorry you’re frightened,” he said. “But we’ll need you when the tram comes back.”

“Too deep,” said Moh in a voice trembling with strain. “Way too deep. You told us this was going to be a cavecrawl.” Her tone was only slightly accusing; her terror seemed to be occupying all her attention.

“I thought it was,” said Ruiz. “But it’s not; and that’s too bad. I’m going to put you two up at the tunnel mouth — you’ll have to burn out some gear for us. Can you do it?”

Chou sat up and disengaged herself from the other woman’s grip. “We’ll give it a shot. But if you think we’re going out into that hole, you’re wrong.”

“No, no, I don’t expect that. What good would you be to me there? I’ll leave you here to guard our back door, after we get the tram. You wait for us.”

Chou’s flat broad face cleared. “We’ll camp down the tunnel, where we can’t see the light or feel the deep.”

Ruiz nodded and went back to the lip.

“Go set up the sisters’ fire pattern and priorities,” he told the cyborg.

* * *

More than an hour passed before Ruiz heard the rail begin to sing again.

They had used the time to formulate and refine a plan. It depended too much on perfection of execution, Ruiz thought pessimistically, but it was the best he could do. He didn’t really believe that he would be able to come up with a better plan if they waited for the tram to make another trip; besides, who knew when that might occur — it might not go down to the Gencha again for a week. And he’d always been luckiest when he improvised quickly.

Ruiz had sent the gladiator, the puppet, and Durban the beaster out along a horizontal crack in the wall that widened sufficiently to hide them, a few meters closer to the rail and perhaps fifty meters farther up — a point from which boarding the tram would be somewhat easier. Ruiz had sealed the puppet’s leash to the gladiator’s wrist — and told the nameless man that getting the puppet safely on the tram was the most important job.

Ruiz, Albany, Huxley, and the sisters lay on their bellies at the tunnel mouth, rehearsing each other in their roles in the impending attack. The sisters would burn out the deadman solenoids, so those mechanisms would stay locked in the live positions. Albany would try to burn off as many of the physical antiboarding devices as he could. Huxley wasn’t notably skilled with long-range weapons, so his job was to get his and Albany’s gear aboard undamaged.