Empire of Bones (38 page)

"Amir," she cried, indistinctly. The ATV swerved off the road and stopped with a jerk. Tokai peered nervously over his shoulder.

"What's going on ?"

Anand leaned over the back of the seat and grabbed the
raksasa
by the collar of her robe, hauling her forward. The ve-hicle filled with the icy emanations of the
raksasa's
fury, but to Kharishma's considerable, if pain-filled, admiration, Anand hung on.

"What are you doing to her?" Tokai barked.

Let me go!

"Let her go, Anand. At once!" Tokai's voice carried the whip-crack of command. Reluctantly, Anand released Ir Yth, and she settled into the corner of the seat, grumbling inaudibly.

The next time you lay hands on me, you will die.

"It will be worth it," Anand informed her coldly. Then he spun the wheel, taking them back onto the road to Khokandra.

9. IVhaikurriye

To Nowhere One's manifest relief, IrEthiverris remembered a great deal about Arakrahali.

"Uploads to my First Body were frequent," he told Anarres and Nowhere One as he sat disconsolately at the edge of the liv-ing area. "I intended to make even more regular updates, but my
khaith
administrator kept coming to me with this, that, and the other. She also seemed to have become very friendly with her Receiver. He was quite a young man, and I suppose he found my administrator exotic—the people of Arakrahali were quite short, so maybe he saw her as tall and slender, I don't know. Anyway, I'm sure they were lovers. I kept finding them whispering together, and after a couple of months I noticed that people would vanish whenever I came near them. It was as though they didn't trust me. And by the time I did my last in-formation upload the atmosphere in the place had totally changed. They'd never seemed particularly delighted that we were colonizing them, but they were resigned to it. But then they seemed to grow more and more hostile. And finally I dis-covered the truth—the
'thaith
had sabotaged the communica-tions network, and turned it against them. That's when they started to die. It was the last upload I made. I've no idea what happened to my Second Body." He blinked into the sunlight. "A dreadful situation. Those poor people. I must say, though, it's nice to be home. Even under these conditions. And Arakrahali cuisine was awful. I'd rather eat house lice."

Anarres slid down beside IrEthiverris and explained about Sirru. He stared at her in horror.

"Does anyone know what's happening on Tekhei?"

"Unfortunately, no."

"But if anything happens to Sirru's Second Body, then that's it—he'll be dead. And why wasn't my First Body erased?"

"I rather suspect that's the plan," Nowhere One remarked.

"You've only got your First Body because I couldn't find it," Anarres said.

"What?"

"When I first went to the orbital, to erase Sirru's manifold, EsRavesh gave me another set of coordinates and told me to erase that manifold as well. But I couldn't find it widiout the locative. We're sure it was
your
manifold."

IrEthiverris gaped at her. "You tried to erase my First Body? What have I ever done to you?"

"I'm truly sorry." Anarres faltered. "I was a different per-son then. I did what the
'thaithoi
told me."

"I think I want a bit more of an apology than that, young lady!"

"This can surely wait," Nowhere One soothed. "We have an urgent matter on our hands. We have to contact Sirru and tell him to be very careful. Otherwise, he'll be dead." lo. /amunotri/ Himalaya Next day, Rajira and Halil could not be woken. They lay against the wall with Rajira's arm curled protectively around the child's slight frame. Rakh stood over them, scowling with worry.

"We can't leave them here," Rakh said.

"No, we can't. But we can't take the risk of Anand's finding us, now it seems likely that he knows where we are." Frustrated, Jaya leaned her cheek against the cool stone lin-tel. "How to avoid him, though?

And we don't know who else might be on our trail, either. The militia, foreign spies…"

"We don't know what's wrong with Rajira and the boy. They might die. Can't the alien do something?"

"Sirru," said Jaya grimly, "already has." She explained about the communications network. Rakh's eyes narrowed as he tried to understand.

"So all tliese people—you, and these two, and others—are now linked. By a kind of virus. Why are
you
not in a coma, then?"

"Because I think my system was modified on the ship." She took a deep breath, not wanting to acknowledge her next words. "I might be more like Sirru now than I am like a human."

"You are still my brother's wife. My sister," Rakh said gen-tly, responding to the sense of loss in her words.

"Thank you, Rakhi."

"How does it work, this net of disease? And you say Amir Anand is part of it?"

"Anand must have become infected through one of Rajira's line." She grimaced. "I can see how Kharishma might drive a man to seek out prostitutes… Sirru tried to explain about the network. He said that what we think of as diseases are muta-tions of systems that the irRas left when they first came to this planet, millions of years ago. They are our creators, Rakh. They started us off, linking our genes with a symbiotic set of diseases. But something went wrong on this world. Sirru's people don't get sick. They don't live forever; they wear out eventually, or suffer heart failure, or simply choose not to continue. But they don't suffer from the range of viral and bacterial infections that we do. They use diseases as mechanisms for all sorts of things: communication, information storage, learning. But those 'dis-eases' are benign. Sirru wants to set the world right again. Or so he says. And I'm not sure what 'right' might mean."

"And do you believe him?"

"I don't know. I think I'm beginning to. But you see, Rakh, he can influence people to think things, and I don't know how much of it is me and how much of it is Sirru making me have ideas."

"If you can think that," Rakh said, "then it is possible that he is
not
influencing you. It seems to me that he's powerful enough to make you unquestioning. Your uncertainty has al-ways been your strength."

Jaya stared at him. "And here was I thinking you all fol-lowed me because of my wonderful sense of conviction."

"No. We followed you because you questioned yourself, all the time. You were never a blind leader, wrapped up in your own sense of surety. And that is why I am following you now. Do what you think is best," Rakh said. "I will support you."

"Then stay here," Jaya said. "Stay here with Shiv Sakai and guard Rajira and Halil. If they wake, then try to get them somewhere safer. I will go on with Sirru."

For a moment, she thought Rakh was going to balk at that, but then he gave her a wintry, rueful smile.

"After all my fine words… Very well. I have talked myself into the trap, haven't I ?"

"We don't have very many choices. I don't want to leave them here, but if we can't wake them… There are no settle-ments anywhere nearby; vehicles can't get up here. And I have to get Sirru to a place where no one can find him. I'll explain things to him."

But when she attempted to do this, she discovered to her dismay that the alien had other plans.

"It is too late. I told you: Ir Yth already knows where we are, and so do her new allies," Sirru explained.

"How?"

"Haven't you heard them?"

"I'm hearing things all the time, but I can close it off. I have to. It's just voices whispering in my head like a damned echo chamber. I'd go mad if I couldn't tune it out."

"Then you have not learned who it is who is whispering. Anand is now a part of the network—you know thi*—and so is his consort, your Second Body."

"Please stop calling her that."

"Kharishma, then." He stumbled over the name. "We are all linked, now, by only a few degrees of separation. I can see through their eyes—flashes, glimpses, fragments, but enough. And they can see through ours. They do not yet understand what is happening, but I believe that Ir Yth does. I saw her, out of the eyes of your Second—via Kharishma. Anand knows this country, Jaya. He knows where we are, and he can come for us whenever he wants—at least before the network gains critical mass and comes on-line."

"When will that be?"

"It is not far off now. But Ir Yth has other plans. I have learned from Anand that she is concocting an antidote to the virus that facilitates the network. This is what Anand has been told, anyway. I doubt very much that Ir Yth will stop there. I believe she has a more wide-scale termination in mind." He was speaking fluently now, Jaya noticed, and the accent was flattening out to resemble her own speech.

Jaya said, "Then how can we stop her?"

"We need to use her allies to our own advantage. The truth," Sirru said, "needs to be spread. But I will need your help, and that of Rajira and the child."

"What are you planning to do?"

"Come here," Sirru whispered.

She took a step back. "Not before you tell me what you're going to do."

"I am going to send the truth down the lines of the net-work, to Kharishma."

"Why to her?" His gaze met her own, and she could see the calm ruthlessness in his eyes. She wondered whether he even realized that it was there.

"Because she is already half mad, and she might be easier to convince than others. I do not know if this is possible yet. But I need you, now." He held out his hands, palms upturned. Warily, Jaya edged forward and took his hands in hers.

"Jaya," he said, almost fondly, and pulled her forward so that her head was resting against his breastbone.

She could hear the slow beat of his heart, far within. And then it was as though the wall of his chest was opening up, so that there was no flesh and bone and blood between them, but only limitless space. She wondered, for an unnerved moment, what sex with him would be like. It felt strange, to be both invader and invaded.

She could sense Sirru—the outer walls of personality, emo-tions ebbing and flowing like a tide, carefully regulated and controlled for the most part but with sudden eddies and cur-rents that, Jaya suspected, took Sirru himself by surprise. Across what seemed like a great gulf, she could sense con-straints, the duties and compulsions and functions that formed the core of his being. For a disconnected moment, she experi-enced herself as Sirru did: similar in structure, but far less or-dered and cohesive, as though she were nothing more than a rind encasing a mass of undifferentiated impulses. The im-pression was not a pleasant one.

But then they swept by each other and into the embryonic reaches of the viral net. Jaya was suddenly aware of the sleeping forms of Rajira and Halil, and the mesh that was forming itself in-side their minds: an array, ready to receive and transmit. Beyond them, at what seemed like no greater distance, were others.

Ready
? Sirru's speech reverberated through her body.

Ready. I thin't.

Now.

11. fxhokanctra lalace

Kharishma lay very still, hoping that the voice would go away. She had been hearing it off and on throughout the night. She tried to ignore it, but the voice was lodged in her head like an in-sect in amber.

It was soft and insidious; it poured poison into her ear, but it was also seductive. It spoke to her sense of honor and necessity, flattering her vanity and her need for power. It told her that she and she alone could set matters right. It told her that Ir Yth had lied. It told her that Ir Yth must be disposed of, and how this might be done. The thought of killing the
raksasa
was an ap-pealing one. Kharishma had come to fear Ir Yth: the terrible as-sault in the car, the way the
raksasa
could turn her knees to water with a single glance, the manner in which she could make Kharishma feel emotions that she had no desire to experience. Kharishma huddled against the pillows, thinking that it would be good to do the bidding of the voice and get rid of Ir Yth. But then the door opened and the
raksasa
herself appeared.

It took only a single glance for Kharishma to see that Ir Yth was perfectly well aware of what had just transpired. She tried to leap from the bed and run, but she was paralyzed. A chilly languor spread through her veins, and her head was suddenly too heavy to support. It lolled grotesquely back against the pillows as though she were nothing more than a broken doll. She could feel a thin thread of saliva trickle from the corner of her mouth.

"Don't," she whispered, through locked lips.

The
raksasa
glided closer, to stand over Kharishma.
You have been listening to lies. I know. I can
hear them in your head. But since you have become a nexus, you might as well be made use of
.

Methodically, the
raksasa
began to fold back her sleeve, bar-ing a pale, soft forearm.

Do you know what you have become?

Kharishma tried to gesture "no," but she couldn't move her head. She tried to think of nothing, fixing her gaze on the cracks in the plaster and concentrating with all her might. But slowly her body arched back, until her heels were dragging along the sheets and she was bent in a strychnine curve above the bed.

Let me into your head
, the
raksasa
commanded,
or I will snap your spine
.

Kharishma, bent like a bow, was abruptly unstrung. She collapsed back onto the bed, and the
raksasa's
presence surged through her mind.

You will be the first wea't link
, Ir Ydi said, with grim satisfac-tion. The skin of Ir Yth's forearm peeled back, layer by layer, un-til it oozed droplets of dark and oily blood. The
raksasa
held her wrist above Kharishma's gaping mouth, and then a single drop of blood coalesced and dropped. It seemed to the stricken woman diat it took an eternity to fall, as though the world had slowed and stopped. Then die blood splashed across her tongue, stinging as it went. Kharishma began to shake, a tremor that be-gan at the tip of her tongue and passed down her body like light-ning, leaving a trail of neural fire in its wake.