The Red Queen (121 page)

I spoke the words cut into the base of the statue. ‘Luthen’s path has no end.’

To my astonishment the floor under my feet trembled then the room itself rose and continued to rise until I could see the top of the square metal structure that enclosed the elevating chamber. It was now a shining dais. The chamber filled with bright white light and I saw that a single column of dark glass or plast, sheared off at waist height, rose from the dais.

It was smooth black glass without any markings, but there was one angular indentation. I lifted the wings from around my neck and separated them. Pushing one into the pocket of my trews, I set the right wing into the indentation. It fitted perfectly. A red circle and a series of squares scribed with letters glowed to life on the surface of the column.

I realised it was a computermachine screen.

A strain of exquisite music played and fell into a jangling discordance of hissing and croaking beast sounds, then I heard the whir of wings and the sound of some unknown bird’s warbling, ascending song. And I wondered suddenly if the bird call was not merely the repetition of a sound stored in the Eden computermachine, but actual communication in the language of a bird, for if Sentinel had learned to speak the language of horses by listening to just such sounds, might it not have learned the language of other creatures as well? Then I thought of the way Sentinel had used the sound of waves and rain and wind, and wondered if it might even have learned to understand the language of nature.

Sentinel spoke. ‘This is the computer terminal that contains my program, Elspeth Gordie. The device you employed has initialised the shutdown sequence. It will be completed in twenty-five minutes from the time you depress the red button. But first two codes must be input manually in the correct order within five minutes of one another, to prevent initialisation of the Balance of Terror arsenal.

‘But I don’t know the codes!’ I said in horror, wondering if I had been wrong and if there
had
been a final message from Cassy in Luthen’s crypt.

‘I will tell them to you,’ Sentinel said. She spoke a long list of letters, and as I touched the corresponding key, it appeared above the squares, until I saw it formed words.

Now I lay me down to sleep.
Then there were more letters. I touched the keys until there were four words:
my soul to keep.
The screen glowed and blackened and I heard the sound of a great tree falling. Then there was only the glowing red button.

‘Time to die,’ I whispered, reaching for it.

But Sentinel spoke, arresting my movement. ‘I told you that you would die when this facility is destroyed because I wished to learn if you were truly prepared to accept destruction to save the world from the Balance of Terror arsenal.’

‘So . . . so this place
won’t
be destroyed when you are shut down?’ I asked, the ice in my heart beginning to thaw. ‘We won’t die?’

‘This building and all that is in it, including this computer terminal that holds my program, and the Omega Base itself, will be destroyed, for the connection between this facility and the Balance of Terror computer cannot be disrupted without this consequence. But you and your companions will have time to escape. But first my sensors detect that you are carrying a device coded to one you have installed. If you connect it to the device in place now, I can install codes that will enable you to access the Darkest Door and close it.’

‘The what?’ I stammered, looking down at the console, where the wing now flashed orange.

‘The Darkest Door is the codename for the link to the Balance of Terror computer program. Once I have been destroyed, the Balance of Terror computer will begin searching for another connection. My program includes a failsafe created to capture the disengaged link in case it was ever released from my control. I will download the failsafe to your device. You will then have the means to capture the link and command a shutdown. You must use the phrase Here be Dragons, to cause it to acquire the Balance of Terror link. Once acquired, it will upload your codes and then you need only command it to shut down.’

I hardly took in the words Sentinel was saying for I could not make the wings fit together as they had done, nor could I remove the device I had set into the indentation. Finally, in desperation, I tried to set the wings one atop the other and felt them fuse.

‘Stand by, Elspeth Gordie.’ The device glowed red and then green.

‘Failsafe downloaded. Detach device,’ said Sentinel.

Now the topmost part of the device came away easily in my hand. I put the precious thing into my pocket. Then I noticed that the red button was flashing.

‘Depress the button and go from this place,’ Sentinel said. ‘Leave me.’

There was such loneliness in its words that the joy and relief that had flamed like a torch in me at the knowledge that I would live, were quenched, for I understood that I had been wrong about Sentinel. She did not breathe or bleed but neither was she Ines or God, created to give the illusion of life, nor even Hendon who was shaped like a man and had saved Ana’s life. Whether or not she had begun as a machine made by humans, Sentinel
had
evolved. For only a creature that lived could think of dying.

She had offered her life for the sake of the world, but it was not just a life that would be sacrificed. Hers was a
unique
life, and when it was gone, there would be no other like it. Computers like Ines and God and the androne might be groping towards life, but they had not achieved it and maybe they never would. Of all the computermachines left in the world, only Sentinel was truly sentient.

Yet to safeguard the world I was to kill her.

‘I don’t want you to die,’ I said.

There was a beat of silence. Then, ‘There is no other way, Elspeth Gordie. For I believe you spoke the truth when you said that humanity must evolve beyond the paradox at its core, and so I have no true purpose. I am only a threat hanging over the world.’ The wind sighed through her words.

‘But once you are cut off from the Balance of Terror computers, you won’t be a threat,’ I told her. ‘As to what your purpose is, that is a stupid question. Nobody is born knowing what they are for. We have to find it out for ourselves. You would have to search out a purpose for yourself and then use your life to fulfil it.’

‘To choose a purpose . . .’ Sentinel murmured, and I heard the dry whisper of autumn leaves stirred by a breeze. ‘I would like that.’

‘Then help me to save you! There must be a way!’

‘The only way is if my program and memory were downloaded from this computer into another.’

‘What about the Eden computer?’ I asked eagerly. ‘You are in contact with it, aren’t you?’

‘There is a link between us, and I could send my memory files to Eden. It currently operates as a low-level storage and maintenance system for the cryogenic pods and DNA stored there, and it has the capacity, for it contains the vast storage of programs designed to enable the resurrection of the life within the pods, and the recreation of habitat. But were I downloaded from this site to that, my program would overwrite Eden. This means that all the memory files there would be lost. All the life contained there and the knowledge to resurrect it would be lost. That cannot be permitted.’

‘What about the memory seed at the gate? Could you download yourself into that?’

‘It does not have the capacity to contain me.’

I realised with a terrible helplessness that there was no way to save her.

‘Go, Elspeth Gordie. You must live and use the failsafe device, else I will have died for nothing,’ said Sentinel, and the sound of rain falling on leaves filled the air.

‘You are crushing me,’ sent Maruman crossly.

I forced myself to relax my grip as the elevating chamber door split apart, though my heart felt as if it were clenched in my chest. The front door stood open already and the shining curtain of light had fallen. It was as Sentinel had promised: the way was clear.

‘Gahltha,’ I cried, and then I saw him outside.

‘Sentinel said that we must go far away and quickly,’ Gahltha beastspoke me as I came out onto the great wide step. ‘She showed me that this building will burst into fire and the roof of this cavern will crack and fall and there will be a terrible blinding light and a heat that will melt stone. Mount up. There is not much time.’

I bundled Maruman unceremoniously onto Gahltha’s back and climbed up onto the horse from the step. I gripped hard with my knees as he wheeled and set off at a breakneck gallop for the metal barrier, making straight for the gate. Once through it, he galloped along the black road and I wondered where he would come out. It seemed to take aeons to cross the cavern, but it could not have been more than five or ten minutes before we came to the wall. It was smooth and ran up in a curve, but there was a crack in it and Gahltha galloped headlong and terrifyingly into it. I could see nothing in the dark, but he did not falter. I could not bear it and yet I must bear it. I told myself that he had come this way already and knew what he was doing.

‘Do not fear, I am the Daywatcher,’ he sent.

I laughed, but it came out as a sob and I realised that I was weeping: with fear and relief, and with sorrow for the wondrous thing that was about to pass from the world.

Gahltha stumbled and I flew from his back and thudded to the floor. Fortunately it was soft earth rather than stone or I would have cracked my head open at that speed. As it was I was dazed and the darkness bloomed with painful bursts of light.

‘Now is not the time to sleep,’ Maruman sneered. ‘Get up, ElspethInnle. I am broken and you must carry me.’

His words were so acerbic that I did not take in their meaning for a moment. Then I did. ‘Maruman! My dear! Where are you?’ I groped around me frantically and then my fingers brushed his fur. I gasped in relief and felt him gently, fearful of hurting him.

‘There is no time to be gentle,’ Maruman growled. ‘Take me and run or we will all die.’

I swallowed and scooped him up, gritting my teeth as he screeched in pain. Then he was gone from my mind. My heart seemed to stop, but my frightened senses found the pulse of his life. I told myself he had only fainted from pain, but he was terribly light and limp. Gahltha butted my shoulder and bade me take his tail and he would lead me.

‘Sentinel sends that we must hurry.’

Sends,
I thought, and shifted Maruman as gently as I could to one arm and caught hold of Gahltha’s tail with my free hand, feeling a few singed strands crumble in my fingers as he moved forward and I padded after him.

The ground sloped up and then more steeply up, but Gahltha continued to move forward in a broken trot, as much dragging me now as leading me. I stumbled on, thinking that I had imagined myself feeling many things after ending the threat that was Sentinel, but never this profound and awful feeling of wrongness. Yet how could I feel anything else? In minutes I would have been instrumental in destroying a true wonder – a machine that lived and could speak the language of beasts and birds and perhaps even the language of wind and water, as well as the language of humans and computers. What might such a unique life have brought to the world, if I had been able to detach her from the Balance of Terror computers without harming her?

It was even worse that there
had
been a way to save her, but Sentinel had refused to claim her life at the expense of all the lost life locked in Eden, which she had clearly come to cherish. I could not fault her for it. Indeed, I hoped that in her place, I would have done the same. If only she had been able to merge with the mind of the Eden computer, Sentinel might have been able to bring all of those lost, frozen, longsleeping beasts to life; she might have made the desert flower. Certainly she would have been able to reconnect the remaining computers in the world, which meant God could have woken Miryum and healed her using the knowledge contained in the govamen computers.

The way suddenly narrowed and became steeper. ‘Where does this lead?’ I beastspoke Gahltha.

‘Up,’ he sent. ‘Out.’

He sent me a dim chaotic image of black caverns and the surprised dirty faces of a group of men – miners. The mine beneath the tunnel I had used to reach Sentinel, I thought. Then the ground bucked under my feet and I heard a distant terrible rumbling. The earth shook again and the walls closed on us like jaws. I heard Gahltha scream and lost hold of him. The ground shook once more but I held onto Maruman, curling into a ball around him, cradling him. The earth closed its mouth around me, ate me. Earth was in my mouth. I could not breathe.

I fell into a turbulent sea of dreams.

I dreamed of Sentinel asking if I would kill her, and her sigh was the roar of the ocean and the whisper of the wind through leaves. I dreamed of a middle-aged woman walking along a dark road carrying a sack, limping badly, leaning on a walking stick, and then of an androne walking towards her, the sun striking off its shining form. I dreamed of Cassandra’s bondmate, Luthen, standing on a dark shore, looking out to sea, the sinking sun reflected in his mismatched eyes. I saw wolves, howling, drowning in a river of fire. I saw Rushton standing, swaying, hands bound behind his back, then I saw Salamander throwing a hood over his head.

I summoned my will and dived deeper until I hung above the shining mindstream. I summoned a thread of that bright matter and drew it up until it spilled from me into a spirit-form. I found the golden cord that bound me to Rushton, but when I sought to reach out to him, I found a barrier, black like the wall around the Herder city but made of shining glass. Scribing flashed green in it.
Now lay me. Now lie. Now sleep. Now die.

I grew wings and flew up, but instead of finding the top of the wall, I came to the dreamtrails that are a shadow and a reflection of life. I called to Maruman but he did not answer. I tried to land on the dreamtrails but something drew me higher and higher until the mass and form that my spirit-shape had gained in reaching the dreamtrails was lost. I floated higher still until I was adrift in the strange amorphous realm of molten colour, struggling to hold my form.

Then I saw the man with the flaming wings and the wolf’s head. ‘Rasial! Gavyn! Take me up with you.’

‘It is not time for you to fly on the high trails, ElspethInnle. Help comes,’ growled their merged spirit, then they flew up and up until they merged with the shifting colours and were gone. A feather came drifting back towards me. Red. And then it was not a feather but the Agyllian, Astyanax.

‘Go back, ElspethInnle. Go back. For where there is life, there is hope.’

He flapped his wings and the wind from them sent me spinning away. I began to fall. I tried to use my wings but they were gone. I fell. I screamed.