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Part Two

Eleven

T
HE CHUTE OPENED
and Nellie flew down the ramp into the maze, a cold remorseless wind blowing out of nowhere toward nothing. Narrowed to speed and silence, she veered around blind corners and raced through passageways glowing with stars and planets. Black blood pounded in her ears and electronic sound cues pierced her brain as she pivoted, whirled, and ducked every drone, trapdoor and virtual-reality catastrophe the maze threw at her.

Five traps down and she hadn’t used her adrenalin capsule yet. So far her time wasn’t bad, in spite of the fact the last trap had been a suction pocket. Eyes slitted, Nellie blew on down the central passageway. Today she was really tuned, the maze’s many corridors vibrating madly in every direction, and the through route was exceptionally clear — three more turns, all to the left, then a double-back, the last trap and the exit.

Abruptly she picked up something new around the next corner — two figures moving cautiously, side by side through a small chamber. Slowing her pace, Nellie scanned carefully. The chamber was pitch dark, but even so it was obvious the figures weren’t drones; no robot with a half-decent program would be out in the open like
that, and besides, their vibes were definitely human. They must have just entered the maze through a door in a wall, or she would have picked up on them earlier.

Could be a tricky holograph,
Nellie reminded herself, one hand moving toward the pulse gun in her belt. And anyway, humans weren’t necessarily safer than drones.

Creeping toward the chamber’s entrance, she probed the area beyond it with her mind. The figures seemed to be a girl and a boy, probably Outbackers and without weapons, but she wasn’t able to pick up anything more. With a quiet grunt, she increased the intensity of her probe. The girl’s vibes were going fast and furious, as if she was deliberately running some kind of interference. Nellie had never encountered anything like it. Pressed to the wall, she scanned again but the girl wasn’t just difficult to read, she was impossible. A scowl crossed Nellie’s face, and then suddenly she grinned. It looked as if she didn’t need to scan after all. Unbelievable as it seemed, the idiots were actually talking.

“Careful, Deller,” the girl hissed. “There might be another trapdoor in the floor.”

“We should get down on our hands and knees,” the boy replied. “Feel our way. You can’t see anything in this place.”

“But then we can’t run,” objected the girl. “What if something attacks us?”

“I guess,” said the boy. “That’s why they shoved us in here, right? Some kind of test? Doesn’t seem to be anyone around, though.”

“It’s only been two minutes,” said the girl.

Hesitating at the entrance, Nellie kept one hand hovering over her pulse gun. Could these two be a trap — without weapons and stupid enough to be talking out loud? It was possible they were an elaborate ploy to get her to lay down her gun so a horde of drones could jump her. Holding her breath, Nellie slipped silently through the entrance and along the wall to her left.

“Wait a sec,” the girl in the chamber whispered immediately. “Someone just came in.”

“Where?” asked the boy.

“Over there,” said the girl. “I felt her. A girl.”

Without warning the chamber walls exploded into a burst of stars. Shrill sounds pierced the air as the stars whirled, then slowed and formed into several familiar constellations. To Nellie’s left glowed the Cat, to her right the Red Planet. Squinting in the dim light, she focused on the outlines of the girl and boy standing on the other side of the chamber. A vague unease stirred in her and she scowled. The two figures felt familiar, but how was that possible? She scowled again, tensing against a wave of dizziness as something shifted inside her head and a filing cabinet surfaced. Drawer three opened and file seven fell out. She remembered.

“You!” she gasped, shock riding her like a tidal wave. This time recognition was absolute. There was no doubt about it — across the room stood the shorn-headed girl of her dreams, and to her left was the green-eyed boy. As Nellie stared, gaping, the boy stepped in front of the girl.

“It’s all right, Deller,” said the girl. “She knows us.”

“So what?” said the boy. “She’s part of this place.”

“She’s part of me,” said the girl.

The boy paused as if remembering something, then nodded slightly. “Okay, so put the gun down,” he said, pointing at the weapon in Nellie’s hand. Her eyes slitted and she stared at him silently, remembering the way he’d held the shorn-headed girl while she slept. Slowly she lowered the gun.

Suddenly the wall to her left filled with the image of Lt. Neem’s face, twisted with rage. “Code 999, cadet!” he shouted, the chamber filling with his voice. “Shoot the boy! Shoot to kill!”

Without hesitation, Nellie’s hand whipped into position and she fired. The small room exploded with the sound of the shot, and the boy crumpled to the floor, a dark stain at his throat.

“Deller!” screamed the shorn-headed girl, dropping to her knees beside him. “Oh no, Deller, no no. Please, sweet blessed Goddess, hear my prayer because even if Deller doesn’t
know
he believes in You, he really does. Please, Deller, no no no ... “

Gun in hand, Nellie stood waiting for her next command, but Lt. Neem’s face had faded from the wall, leaving only distant starpricks of light. Body tensed, her blood still roaring with the after-kill adrenalin rush, she shifted uneasily on her feet. What was the matter with the shorn-headed girl? Couldn’t she see the boy was dead, his head at that odd angle due to the force of the shot? No functional cadet would miss at such close range, it was unheard of. So why did she keep patting his face and trying to open his eyes?

Oh, sweet Goddess, now she was kissing him. Gripping her gun, Nellie scowled uneasily. She felt ... strange, as if she was watching the scene before her through a wall of glass. She’d just made a kill for the Goddess, but it felt wrong, out of kilter. If only Lt. Neem would show up again and tell her what to do next. Was she supposed to leave the shorn-headed girl for the drones to deal with, or escort her to the exit?

“Look,” she said finally, pushing her voice up the thick tunnel of her throat. “We’ve got to get moving. Don’t worry about him. The drones’ll dump his body through a trapdoor.”

Still hunched over the boy’s body, the shorn-headed girl stiffened. Slowly she lifted her head, then turned it slightly toward Nellie. “Murderer,” she whispered, stretching the word as if tasting it. Then she was on her feet and launching herself, silent and so quick that Nellie was knocked to the floor, pulse gun spinning out of her hand before she’d realized what was happening.

“Murderer,” the shorn-headed girl hissed again, her oddly slanted eyes glaring with something beyond fury, beyond anything Nellie had ever seen. Hands gripped Nellie’s wrists, yanking them over her head, and no matter how she twisted, the girl rode her
easily. Panic took over and Nellie jackknifed desperately, but still the shorn-headed girl was a vice keeping her down.

“Get off,” Nellie wheezed furiously. “They’ll send the drones in when my time’s up, and it’ll be everything I can do just to get myself out. I won’t be able to help you.”

“Help me,” spat the shorn-headed girl. “Like you helped Deller?”

“It was an order,” Nellie snapped. “Code 999. The Goddess required it.”

“The
Goddess
?” The shorn-headed girl stared, incredulous, but her grip on Nellie’s wrists didn’t loosen. “The GODDESS,” she bellowed suddenly, leaning in so her face was an inch from Nellie’s, “wouldn’t order you to kill anyone.”

“Oh yes, She would,” Nellie shouted back. “She’s always ordering someone killed. For the Star Lords and the Empire and the Great War against the heathen. She especially wants
heathen
killed.”

The shorn-headed girl’s eyes widened, and then, without warning, she let go of Nellie’s wrists and clamped her hands around her throat. “Deller wasn’t a heathen,” she screamed into Nellie’s face. “He was full of love, for me and his brother and his mother and the levels, and just
everything.
The Goddess wouldn’t kill love like that. She
is
love, and beauty, and ... “

Her hands tightened, sending stars whizzing through Nellie’s brain. Dizzy, she was getting dizzy, everything melting and running together. Abruptly a great pressure lifted from her brain, her mind jumped its usual invisible barrier, and she saw what appeared to be a crowd of girls pressed in behind the shorn-headed girl and peering down at her. Transparent, overlapping, they were there and not there. Each resembled the shorn-headed girl, but differed in some aspect — one had wings, another was furred like a bear. Briefly, Nellie thought she saw a gargoyle-like creature and one that seemed to be made of fire. Then, leaning over the shorn-headed girl’s left shoulder, she saw an exact look-alike dressed in a stained, sagging, gold-brocaded dress.

“Take it easy,” said the look-alike, trying to loosen the shorn-headed girl’s fingers. “We came to rescue her, not kill her.”

“She killed Deller,” choked the shorn-headed girl, not even glancing at her look-alike. She’d begun to cry, her tears dripping onto Nellie’s face.

“You knew anything could happen,” said the look-alike.

“I didn’t know she’d kill Deller,” hissed the shorn-headed girl.

“Well, she did,” her look-alike said flatly. “And he’s gone. There’s just us now, and her. That’s all the meaning we’ve got left in this world.”

The shorn-headed girl let out a long hissing breath. Slowly her hands slackened, and stars stopped whizzing through Nellie’s brain. For a second her eyes flickered shut in relief. When she opened them again, the crowd of girls had disappeared and there was only the shorn-headed girl glaring at her as tears streamed down her face.

“I hate you,” she said in a dull voice. “I think I always will.” With a grunt she rose to her feet, crossed the chamber and knelt beside the boy’s body. Immediately Nellie rolled to her right and retrieved her pulse gun. The shorn-headed girl might be an incredible fighter but she was a fool, leaving her back exposed like that. Lifting the gun, Nellie trained it on the other girl’s head.

“What did you say they’d do to him?” the shorn-headed girl asked without turning around.

“Dump him through a trapdoor,” Nellie said coolly. “There are tunnels running under this place that hook up with the Goddess’s Redemption Cathedral. The Goddess’s dogs have the run of them. They’re trained to kill on sight and devour the remains.”

The shorn-headed girl sagged visibly. Then, leaning forward, she sucked in her breath and screamed once, straight into the dead boy’s face. For a long stretched moment the wail hovered, penetrating every corner of the maze. As it faded, Nellie heard the shorn-headed girl whisper, “Deller, I have to go now. But I’m not leaving you.
I’m not leaving you.”

She got to her feet in stages, as if each small movement carried immense weight. Then, without looking back, she came slowly toward Nellie and stood stiffly before her. Silence rode the room, pressing its full weight down upon the girls. “So what do we do now?” the shorn-headed girl asked dully.

“There’s one more trap and then the exit,” Nellie replied, her voice coming to her as if from a long way off. “But sometimes there are stray drones. Walk ahead of me and do what I say, and maybe I can get us both out alive.”

The girl’s eyes flicked toward Nellie’s gun. “I’ll walk behind—”

The fine bright lines holding Nellie together finally exploded and she jabbed the girl’s chest with the gun, following her as she backed away. “I don’t know who you are, or why you stepped out of my dreams,” she hissed. “But don’t think I’m going to let you fuck with my head. I know this place like I know every nerve in my body. You listen to me and do
exactly
what I say, or you’ll be as dead as your boyfriend.”

The shorn-headed girl’s eyes slitted and slid briefly across Nellie’s face. Again her shoulders sagged, and Nellie could feel her fighting an urge to turn back to the boy’s body. Then she hugged herself tightly. “Over there?” she asked, pointing to the exit.

“Yup.” Keeping her gun trained on the girl’s back, Nellie followed her through the doorway.
Two left turns
, she thought grimly,
double-back, trap, and we’re out. And then they can do whatever they want with this bitch.
Sending her mind down the passageway and around the next curve, she probed carefully but came up blank. Her focus was shot.
Two left turns,
she reminded herself,
double-back, trap. Two left turns—

“We came here to rescue you,” said the shorn-headed girl.

“Ssssst,” Nellie hissed, shrugging off the words. She had to stay
focused.

“Didn’t you hear what I said?” The girl turned slightly, giving her a contemptuous look. “Deller and I came to rescue you, and you killed him.”

The words sank in. “
Rescue
me?” Dumbfounded, Nellie de-manded, “From what?”

Her eyes raked the girl’s face, searching for meaning, the reason the Goddess had brought the two of them together in this maze. Sullen, the tears sliding down her face, the shorn-headed girl stared back. Nellie took a small quick breath, her eyes blinking rapidly. This stranger looked so much like her that she was almost a mirror image. Her face was a bit broader and her hair so short they would never be mistaken for each other, but the resemblance was uncanny.

“Look,” she said tersely, cutting off the shorn-headed girl as she opened her mouth to reply. Up in the Masters’ Room, someone was sure to be watching. Wasting time in conversation would count as points against her final tally. “We’ve got to get out of here,” Nellie snapped, prodding the other girl with the gun. “C’mon, get your ass moving.”

For a moment the shorn-headed girl stared at her, eyes slitted, then turned and started forward. “Left,” said Nellie when they reached the next fork, and “Left” again at the one after that. “Okay, there,” she said, pointing to a curve just ahead. “It should double-back, and then we’ll be at the trap.”