The Emperor of Everything

Chapter 14

“What now?” asked Publius.

“Troops,” said Ruiz.

Publius nodded agreeably. “You can take your pick of my security barracks.”

Ruiz snorted. “Oh, sure. No, you’ll have to let me choose my own people. I’d feel insecure, surrounded by your henchmen — and that would reduce my effectiveness. Take me to the Spindinny and bring lots of money.”

Publius argued, but without great heat. Eventually he called for a slave collar, which he locked around Ruiz’s neck. “I can’t risk you giving me the slip before I get you sealed into your sub. You might have an opportunity while we’re wandering about the city. I’m sorry to be so suspicious… but you started it, Ruiz.”

Ruiz settled the collar in place as comfortably as he could. It seemed a great deal heavier than it really was. “Give me a high-necked tunic, at least. The people I want to hire would be unwilling to work for a slave; slaves get sent into hopeless situations more frequently than free folk do.”

“As you say.”

When they emerged from the labyrinth, Ruiz saw that his little speedboat had indeed been stolen. He had expected it, and however his job for Publius turned out, he wouldn’t be needing the boat, but for some reason it still angered him.

Publius had brought two Dirm bondguards with him, and now these herded Ruiz toward the armored airboat that Ruiz had admired only yesterday — though it seemed as though much more than one day had passed in the monster-maker’s stronghold.

Publius was tense and uncommunicative. Ruiz deduced that the monster-maker felt exposed, away from his safe lair. He took a certain pleasure in Publius’s discomfort, though he was careful to show none of it.

The Dirm sealed the boat, and one of them took the pilot’s seat and drove carefully out of the anchorage. In a few minutes, they were easing into the Spindinny’s moorage.

“I’ll send Huey here in with you,” said Publius, indicating one of the Dirm. “Huey, you’re to act as though you belong to Ruiz, unless he tries to get away, in which case you blow his head off. Understood?”

The Dirm nodded solemnly.

Publius held up the controller of Ruiz’s collar. “And remember this, Ruiz. I won’t hesitate to take your head, if I get even a little nervous. Don’t make me nervous.”

Ruiz took a deep breath. “Let’s go, Huey,” he said.

On the other side of the inner lock, Huey returned Ruiz’s weapons; no free person would enter the Spindinny unarmed. Then he opened the outer door and they stepped onto the Spindinny’s dilapidated dock.

The Spindinny was a joyplex frequented by unaffiliated mercenaries, and it functioned as an unofficial hiring hall. Ruiz and Huey entered, unquestioned by the two killmechs stationed by the doors — apparently they looked dangerous enough to be on legitimate Spindinny business.

Inside, Ruiz was briefly assailed by nostalgia. The air seemed so familiar, thick with the stinks of his trade: sweat, alcohol, smoke, gun oil, ozone. Harsh voices drifted from the various curtained openings along the entryhall. He heard sudden ugly laughter, curses, off-key song, the clink of glasses, the bubble of pipes, sighs, and moans.

He shook his head. It seemed strange to him now that he had ever lived that life… though it wasn’t so long ago.

“Let’s go down to the message room,” he said, and Huey followed obediently.

The message room was an island of hygienic technological calm in the steamy depths of the Spindinny, full of chrome and glass and the soft hum of machinery. Ruiz sat at a dataslate and entered his requirements and payscale. When he was done, he rented an interview room and went there to wait for his troops to crawl out of their revels.

Four hours later he had five mercenaries he judged competent, out of almost a hundred applicants. Publius had allowed him six choices, but he was growing discouraged. And he was exhausted; every session with the verifier — the limited brainpeeler he was using to assess the skills of his applicants — had taken a little more out of him. The holomnemonic oceans of the mercenaries who frequented the Spindinny were murky dangerous waters.

His squad so far consisted of: a much-scarred graduate of the downlevel bloodstadia, a cyborged clone of the famous emancipator Nomun, two solemn women from Jahworld who were expert pinbeamers, and a beaster-addict who favored the wolverine persona. The beaster might have been a mistake, Ruiz thought, brought on by exhaustion and frustration with the poor material from which he’d had to choose. The beaster was ferocious, no doubt about it, and skilled at killing — but could he be relied on to control his murderous alter ego in situations calling for more detachment than ferocity? Ruiz was unsure.

While they waited for Ruiz to find his last recruit, the three men played a card game in the corner. The women held hands and watched Ruiz with wide golden eyes.

When he was about to close up and make do with what he’d already found, a familiar figure stumbled into the interview room, a tall gangly individual who wore his silver-plated hair in a stringy ponytail. His lumpy face was embellished with random slashes of blue-green beauty paint, and he was dressed in a worn-out unisuit, decorated with souvenir patches from a number of Dilvermoon tourist attractions.

“I’m not too late, am I?” asked Albany Euphrates, swaying a bit. He peered at Ruiz, took a shaky step forward. “Ruiz? Ruiz Aw? What are you doing in this devil’s den?”

“Looking for you,” said Ruiz, not altogether facetiously. He couldn’t quite contain his delight. Albany was no more saintly than any other person who fought and killed for money — and for the perverse pleasures to be found in violence. But Ruiz had campaigned with Albany on two prior occasions, and had witnessed Albany acting from both loyalty and compassion. These were rare qualities in a freelance slayer. He had formed a cautious friendship with Albany, even though in the second instance, the ill-fated campaign on Line, they had ended up on opposing sides. Albany’s major personal weakness was a predilection for the various chemical recreations; at the moment he seemed quite drunk.

“Looking for me,” said Albany wearily. “How odd. Well, I’m found. What’s the job?”

“Sneak and snuff,” said Ruiz.

Albany shook his head doubtfully. “I don’t know, Ruiz. I’ve never been much for the cold blood.”

“I know. But this is a worthwhile job. The target needs killing badly — a lot depends on it.” And this was no lie, Ruiz thought.

Albany sighed. “Well, if you say so. I don’t think you’d mislead me — you were always funny that way.”

“Good,” said Ruiz. “Let’s get you sobered, and then we’ll go. It’s a rush job.”

They were all in the hold of Publius’s armored airboat, except for Publius, who had seen the wisdom of Ruiz’s suggestion that he not make an appearance. “One of them might recognize you and come down with a fit of moral qualms,” Ruiz had said.

Albany was sober, but still a little shaky. The on-board medunit had fitted a perfusor cuff to his arm and was pumping restoratives into him. “So,” said Albany. “What’s the plan?”

They were on the way to the storage facility where Publius kept his submarine, and Ruiz had a few minutes to go over the plan he’d developed in conference with the false Yubere. He explained how and where they’d break into Yubere’s stack. He discussed, though not in horrifying and discouraging detail, the obstacles they might have to deal with on their way up to Yubere’s quarters. All of them were experienced in urban warfare and had been trained in the basic maneuvers necessary for such an assault — though Ruiz hoped they could be crafty enough to avoid any pitched battles.

Occasionally one of the mercenaries would ask a question about the target’s identity or the stack’s location, but Ruiz parried the questions as gracefully as possible. He felt an unwelcome sense of responsibility for the killers he’d hired, especially since Albany had joined them. He was certain that if any of them learned what was going on, Publius would see they didn’t survive long enough to spread any inconvenient rumors.

When he was done, he asked for questions. “No one?” he asked, looking around at the stolid faces. “All right. When we get to the depot, you can draw whatever personal weapons you prefer. Albany, you’ll be our trap man; you’ve got a good nose.” He nodded at the cyborged clone. “Huxley will run the antisurveillance gear; that’s his specialty.”

The beaster, whose name was Durban, spoke in his breathless way. “And I?”

“Point walker.” Ruiz turned to the ex-gladiator, who claimed no name. “You’ll leapfrog with Durban. And you two will flank,” he told the women, who called themselves Moh and Chou.

“How ‘bout you?” asked Albany. “We seem to be doing everything.”

“I wish,” said Ruiz. “I’ll be herding the nonexpendables.”

The stolid faces acquired sour expressions. “Who might they be?” asked Durban the beaster.

Ruiz answered reluctantly. “A Gench and a noncombatant ringer.”

Now the faces were turning mulish. “What the hell,” said Albany weakly.

Ruiz shrugged. “Well, that’s why you’re getting the big money. What else can I say?”

“How about: ‘If you’ve changed your mind you can get off at the first stack we come to’?” asked one of the Jahworld women.

“Sorry,” said Ruiz, shaking his head. “Your chop is on the contract. Nonperformance gets you sold in the Pit.”

“You’re a harder man than I remember,” said Albany, shaking his head ruefully.

“I have a tougher contract than you do,” said Ruiz, thinking of Publius’s knife.

Before they boarded the sub, Publius sent Huey to fetch Ruiz to him. When Ruiz arrived in the command cabin, Publius was looking out through a large armorglass port, at the twinkling lights of SeaStack. The cabin was lit only by a central cluster of dim red glowbulbs, presumably to accommodate the preferences of the small Gench who waited in the corner. On a couch at the back of the cabin sat the false Yubere, smiling his thin unemotional smile. Four Dirm bondguards stood spaced around the cabin, fingering their weapons and watching Ruiz alertly.

Publius turned as Ruiz entered, raised a hand in greeting. “Ah! Ruiz! Are you ready to turn the tides of history?”

“I suppose,” said Ruiz doubtfully.

Publius frowned. “Ruiz, you have no sense of the magnitude of this moment. That’s a shame; I wanted you to feel the importance of your task. When you succeed, the universe will change forever.”

Ruiz was growing weary of Publius’s grandiosity, but he concealed his contempt. “I’m glad you have confidence in me, Emperor Publius.”

Publius was happy again. “Oh, I do. But now, to business.” He beckoned, and an immature Gench shuffled across the floor toward them. “Let me take your slave collar,” Publius said.

Ruiz bent his neck, and Publius applied his molecular key to the collar’s lock. “Doesn’t that feel better,” asked Publius. “Are you sure you want to wear the madcollar with my little Gench?”

Ruiz didn’t bother to answer.

“Oh, all right.” Publius took a metal case from a storage slot and opened it, to reveal two madcollars. “You’ll want to examine them, I suppose.”

Ruiz lifted them from their case and carried them to a pool of brighter light. He noted that they were of SeedCorp manufacture, ordinarily a sign of reliability. He checked to see that their seals were undamaged. He ran both controllers through their diagnostic sequence, while Publius stood waiting impatiently.

“They seem all right,” said Ruiz without great confidence.

“Of course they’re all right. What do you take me for?”

“A clever man,” said Ruiz.

“Well, of course you’re correct,” said Publius, mollified. “Get on with it, then.”

Ruiz turned to the Gench. “Has Publius explained the arrangement to you?”

One of the Gench’s mouth slits trembled, then opened. It spoke in a faint whistling voice. “I am to be a hostage.”

“True,” said Ruiz. “You understand how the madcollars work?”

“Yes.”

“Please verbalize your understanding,” said Ruiz.

“If I die, you die. If you die, I die.”

“That’s right. Also, once the collars are locked on, they can only be removed if we both agree to it.”

“I understand perfectly,” it said.

“Good. Let’s do it, then.” Ruiz snapped his collar around his neck, then watched closely as Publius set the collar around the Gench’s neckring, securing it with anesthetic staples. Ruiz picked up his controller; the Gench opened another mouth and extended a manipulator to its controller.

They both pressed the appropriate stud, and Ruiz felt his collar click into active mode. Foreboding rushed into him; he thrust it away. He would need all his skills, every fraction of concentration, to perform Publius’s task — and then to survive Publius’s gratitude.

“Let’s go,” he said.

The submarine drifted silently down through the black SeaStack depths, feeling its way through the murk using passive sonar. Several times Ruiz heard the surging thresh of a margar passing nearby, and the sonar constantly picked up the sounds of smaller life forms, the engines of other, less clandestine subs, and the passage of surface craft. The sonar analyzed the reflectance patterns of these vibrations and constructed a ghostly green image of the stack’s underwater wall, projecting it in the holotank. It marked their own position with a red dot, which seemed to crawl down the vast wall at an almost-imperceptible rate. Ruiz watched intently for a while, then satisfied that the sub’s autopilot was functioning properly, he went aft through the cramped cargo hold where the slayers sat with their equipment. He beckoned to Albany, who got up and followed him into the private cabin where the Gench and the false Yubere waited.

“You’re the trapman, Albany,” Ruiz said. “Look at the madcollars and tell me if they’re straight.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” said Albany. He began to lay out the probes and analyzers of the trapman’s trade.

Half an hour later, he rose from an examination of the Gench’s collar, wrinkling his nose against the Gench’s stink. “This one is gimmicked,” Albany said. “There’s a monomolecular film over the receptor port, which would have filtered out the destruct signal. When your boss kills you, the Gench won’t die.”

Ruiz shook his head. Publius’s greed was monumental; he wasn’t even willing to sacrifice his little Gench to expunge Ruiz. He felt a bit insulted. He reached up to the overhead and activated a videocam. “Let’s make a record of this,” he said. “It might come in handy, later. Can you clear the filter?”

“No problem.” Albany applied an atomic eroder to the collar, set a timer.

Ruiz addressed the Gench, who received Albany’s attentions impassively. “Did you know of this trick?”

“No. But I am a valuable property; it seems logical that my owner would attempt to protect me. Do you plan to inform him that his trick is discovered?”

Ruiz grunted noncommittally. When Albany had pronounced the collar functional, he said, “Do me a favor, Albany. Take the ringer and go forward for a while. Entertain him however you like, but don’t bruise him up too much.”

Albany took the false Yubere by the arm. The ringer smiled placidly and went without protest. Ruiz shut the pressure door behind them and spun down the lockwheel. He switched off the camera.

“We must confer,” he said to the Gench.

Nisa, holding her back straight, sat chained to a bare steel bench in the back of Remint’s sled. Beside her, Flomel muttered curses: at her, at Ruiz Aw, at the unkind fate that had led him to this unhappy end.

“Shut up,” she finally snapped, wearied by his endless sniveling. “Must you carry on in such a contemptible manner?”

Flomel glared at her. “Slut… it’s you who should be silent. It’s your fault all this happened. The casteless slayer was seduced in Bidderum — thus he threw himself onto the stage and our dooms were sealed. If not for him, we would even now be performing for the princes of the pangalac worlds.”

Dolmaero, who sat back to back with Nisa, made a sound of disbelief. “Unlikely, Master Flomel. And our minds would no longer belong to us, had Ruiz Aw not interfered.”

“How much longer will they belong to us, anyway?” asked Flomel. “Besides, if I’d never learned that my mind had been remade, why would I care? It doesn’t sound so terrible to me.”

“It wouldn’t,” said Molnekh dryly.

“What do you mean by that?” asked Flomel hotly.

“You’ve always been more devoted to the appearances of things than to their actuality. It served you well when we were conjurors — that was the nature of our art. But now we’re slaves.” Molnekh seemed grimmer than Nisa had ever known him to be. She realized unhappily how much comfort she had taken from his dependable cheerfulness.

Flomel nattered on, oblivious, pronouncing ever more imaginative curses on Ruiz Aw’s head, until Nisa could no longer keep silent.

“You should be ashamed,” she said. “Ruiz allowed you to live when the rest of us would have killed you. If he hadn’t been merciful, you wouldn’t have been able to inform Corean of our whereabouts. We’d still be back at the pens, and Ruiz would have come to take us away from this terrible world.”

At that, the massive man who was piloting the boat turned his head and spoke tersely. “You’re wrong,” Remint said.

“What do you mean?” Nisa said stiffly. Remint was a frightening person; he seemed a stylized icon of destruction, not quite human. In the pen, she had watched him coolly kill dozens of the pen’s security troops; he had never displayed any expression but intense concentration.

“Flomel didn’t betray you,” said Remint. “How do you think we found Flomel?”

“How?” demanded Nisa, feeling a sudden dreadful anticipation.

“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?”

The Gench’s eyespots ceased their endless circulation, as though it had focused all its energies on the solution Ruiz had proposed.

Finally, when Ruiz had almost decided that the Gench had fallen prey to some self-circuited fugue, it spoke. “It seems at least possible,” it said.

Ruiz considered. He no longer wore the collar, so he might now turn around and flee to some dark corner of SeaStack, there to hope to hide from Publius’s anger. But he would be in no better position to get off Sook. No, his best hope still lay in gaining leverage over Publius.

Ruiz bounced to his feet. “Let’s try,” he said, and went forward to fetch the puppet.