Deception Well (The Nanotech Succession Book 2) (29 page)

Higher than the plunging anchor, though dropping at precisely the same speed, he could make out a human figure, arms and legs askew. He told himself there was no way their cords could cross. But he glanced at his own line anyway. The gold thread of it was visible for only a few feet before it disappeared against the dim glow of the night sky. But the section that he could see was pointing down, not up. A U-shaped loop must have formed as the full length of the cord plunged through vacuum at the same rate as the falling anchor. Against his belly, the cassette fought the slack, sucking in line in an intense, vibrationless spin.

The anchor swept past him—well out from the column—at what seemed like meteoric speed. Lot half-expected the momentum of its plunge to yank him off the column. But instead the cord stretched, absorbing the kinetic energy so that he felt only a hint of recoil before the cassette busied itself hauling the anchor back up.

“Get out of the way, fury, I’m coming in!”

Lot started at the shouted warning, then ducked hard as Urban swung in nearly on top of him, boots striking the wall just inches above Lot’s head. “Alta’s right behind me,” Urban panted. His gloves locked onto the column. Lot watched him struggle to pull them off again. “Shit, how are we supposed to move?”

“Dunno.”

“Urban!” Gent barked over the suit audio. “You secure?”

“Stuck fast.”

“Heads up, then.”

Alta swung in hard, but she moved with more grace than Lot or Urban, running sideways along the wall for a few steps before her boots locked on. Obviously,
she
knew how to handle the equipment. “Secure,” she called, with a glance back up toward the city. Lot looked up too and saw Gent begin to descend. “You guys want to get out of his way?” Alta asked.

Lot felt a flush work its way up his cheeks. The anchor dangled at his waist, once again a sluglike knot of protoplasm encasing a thready flower of gold cord. “Maybe I should have taken a tutorial,” he said, not quite able to meet her gaze. Gent was approaching swiftly.

“Cue your suit,” Alta said, as if the procedure should have been obvious. “‘Hark: climbing, climbing.’ You’ll get one limb free at a time.”

Lot tried it. He managed to scramble a few feet toward Alta before Gent hit.

“Now spread your anchor against the wall,” she went on.

Lot frowned at the globular slug, then tried pushing it flat. Alta laughed at his effort. “Come on, Lot, we have to move fast. Just slam it. Punch it down.”

His cheeks grew hotter still. But he shoved the slug hard against the gray, stained surface. When it stuck, he punched it square in the center. Ripples ran out from the point of impact as the anchor spread in a large patch across the wall. “Okay?” Lot asked.

“Clear to jump,” his suit answered.

He gritted his teeth. His muscles still hummed from his first jump. “Why can’t we just use the mats to slide down the column?”

“Generates too much heat,” Gent said. “Besides, this way’s faster. You’re clear, Lot.”

“I know.” He closed his eyes. Then, with a spasm of leg muscles, he launched himself away from the elevator column. This time he managed not to scream. He remembered to start counting, and reached a slow eight before the cord played out. Despite the cushioning effect of the stretching cord, the abrupt deceleration hit with jarring force. His head rang; his vision swam. Then he had the wall under his hands; locked on.

Again Urban came down almost on top of him. “Some fun, huh fury?” he panted, landing a little more gracefully than Lot this time.

“Sooth.” The suit offered him a straw, and he took a long sip. Only two jumps, and already his body felt like it was about to give out. The suit gave him clearance. He jumped again.

A
FTER THEY’D TRAVERSED FIVE MILES
, Gent let them rest for a few minutes. The city no longer loomed like a roof over their world. It had shrunk against the vast spread of the milky sky. Far below, tiny sparks of lightning flickered among the cloud tops.

Lot huddled against the column, too tired to feel either fear or wonder. He hadn’t slept for almost two days. Slowly, his eyes closed. He only opened them again when he felt a nudge against his arm. He turned his head, expecting Alta. But it was Urban.

“What’s with the little monster?”

Lot followed Urban’s gaze. With a start of surprise, he realized Ord still clung to his shoulder, its tentacles looped under his arms. “Hark, climbing, climbing,” Lot muttered at his suit. He got a hand free, and used it to nudge Ord, but the robot didn’t respond. It felt stiff; its tentacles almost brittle.

Urban stared at it malevolently. “It’s gone dormant?”

“Guess so. It must need O
2
to function.”

“Then dump it, fury. Just drop it.”

Lot’s eyes widened in shock. “Why?”

“Come on. It’s your best chance to get rid of the thing. You like it tagging after you?”

Lot frowned. Ord was annoying. Certainly it had messed him up in front of Kona. But Ord hadn’t reported him to authority when they’d been down in cold storage. And Ord hadn’t tried to stop him running away through the tunnels. . . .

“You know,” Lot said, feeling himself on the defensive. “Ord has a lot more data storage and analytical facilities than we do.”

Urban rolled his eyes in disgust. “Come on, Lot!”

“It might be useful on the planet,” Lot added quickly. “You never know.”

“Or it could trank you when you’re not looking.”

True. Still, Lot couldn’t bring himself to just drop the DI. “You like it,” Urban accused.

Lot shrugged. “Hark, release both hands.”

In a voice that sounded distinctly disapproving the suit asked, “Are you sure?”

“Yeah. Let’s try it.” Lot strove to keep his weight over his calves as he slid first one arm, then the other, out of Ord’s frozen embrace. After that he carefully pressed against the tentacles, and with some effort was able to squeeze them down against Ord’s body, winding them into tight coils.

“Now drop it,” Urban said again.

But Lot just swung his pack down on one shoulder and stuffed the robot inside. “Could be useful,” he said again.

Urban swore softly. He slammed his anchor against the wall and punched it flat, then kicked off the column, dropping away while Lot was still trying to get his pack strapped down.

A
UTHORITY FOUND THEM JUST BEFORE DAWN
. They’d dropped almost a hundred miles beneath the city. Lot’s body felt numb. Whether that was because his onboard Makers had flooded him with painkillers, or because he was just too tired to feel anything, he couldn’t say. Gent moved with him on every jump now, reminding him to grab the wall, to lay out the anchor, encouraging him to drink from the suit’s feeder tube. Lot tried to talk to him, but his words slurred. He would find himself gazing down at an infrared glow that spanned the thickening atmosphere below them, wondering what produced it, and what it might be like to be down there in that light. The glow had beckoned to them for hours, so he guessed it was a chemical or electromagnetic effect rather than a harbinger of dawn. He was locked in one such circular contemplation, waiting for Urban to complete a jump, when a new voice broke into his sensorium.

“Urban!”

Lot started. He swiveled his head wildly, looking for the speaker.

“Urban, I have to hope you can hear me.”

“Daddy?” Urban croaked, as he swung into the column.

“It’s your old man,” Lot blurted the obvious.

“Urban, I don’t know what you’re doing. I don’t know why. But if you descend any farther, we can’t let you back in the city.”

Urban froze up, dangling on the end of his line, only one hand secured against the column. “Hark: climbing, climbing,” Lot growled at his suit. He shrugged off Gent’s cautioning hand, then traversed the wall until he could reach Urban’s arm. He yanked hard, pulling Urban against the security of the column’s face.

“Urban, listen to me. You might not be able to ascend, but don’t go any farther down. We’ll send someone for you. . . .”

Lot put his arm around Urban’s shoulders.

“I’m okay, fury.” His voice overrode Kona’s continued pleas as the suit sought a clear channel. He glanced up, as if he might see Kona looking down on him, like some dark god at home in the sky, the deity that had ruled his life . . . or that had sought to. Urban’s apostasy had begun years ago. “Think he can hear us?”

“It’s not likely,” Gent said. His voice was soft, as if that would make any difference. “The suit transmissions are fairly weak.”

“—a lot of anger. Too many people are in custody. Urban, we need you to speak to the ados—”

Alta completed her jump, her boots touching lightly over the column’s face as she slowed. “Urban as authority’s mouthpiece. Now that’s an enthralling concept.” She swung in close, peering into Urban’s eyes past the shading of his visor. Lot could see the humor in her own eyes gradually drain away. “Hey. You’re thinking about it, aren’t you?”

“No.” Urban ducked his chin and started pounding his anchor against the wall.

Lot backed off, but Alta did not yield Urban any space. “You’re thinking your old man might still forgive you.”

“I’m not asking for it.”

Alta said, “I hope you’re not looking for it, either. You know Kona wouldn’t be so nice if he had the deck guns at hand. It’s lucky for us they were moved out to the burster’s orbit.”

Lot shivered. The city’s bulk shadowed them from the defensive lasers on the upper column, but they would have been wide open to the deck guns that were normally mounted below the city . . . if those had still been in place.

Urban’s hand stiffened against the anchor; he seemed ready to denounce what Alta had said. But then the rigid set of his fingers relaxed. He stroked the anchor’s smooth surface. “You might be right.”

Lot felt his own heart hammer, wondering how long it would take to retrieve the deck guns from their high orbit and bring them into firing position. “We should hurry.”

“. . . won’t be any prolonged internment. We’ve contacted Null Boundary and he’s agreed to come in-system. Lot, return to the city. You’ll be given passage on the ship. Freedom. We won’t—”

Urban hissed. He twisted around to look at Lot and excitement enlivened his eyes.
Freedom
. It was a rousing promise: Get out of Silk free. Go away. Find new worlds, new systems. Never have to face the Well, not ever. Lot felt the temptation himself—and immediately reviled himself for it. He slammed his anchor against the wall, and started pounding it flat, unnecessarily chasing the moving ripples outward from the mat’s center. It was empty temptation anyway. “You think Kona would let
you
go?” He glared at Urban, the charismata of his anger impacting against his own cheeks. “Kona didn’t say
he
was getting on the ship. He’ll exile me, but he won’t risk you on it. You said it yourself: Null Boundary’s same as the old murderers in their eyes.”

“You don’t know.”

“So climb back up and ask him!”

“What’s rotting you? You know I’m never going to be authority’s puppet. But if there is a real chance of getting out—”

“I don’t want out! I’m going down. That’s why I’m here. That’s what we came here for.” Lot adjusted his cassette, ready to kick off. But then he hesitated. He looked at Urban, while something seemed to open up inside him, a blade of loneliness cutting a red swath through his chest. The tension gathered, while Kona’s pleading, reasoning, rational voice worked on.

Finally, Gent broke the spell. “What are you going to do, Urban? Going up? We’ll need the supplies you’re carrying.”

Urban laughed softly. “Shit. Say it. You’ll need
me
.”

“Maybe.”

Urban nodded slowly. “Lot’s probably right anyway. The old man wouldn’t let me near that ship.”

“Does seem likely,” Gent agreed.

Lot wanted to say something, but his own pride was so thick in his throat he couldn’t force words past it.

“Let’s get going then,” Urban said. His voice sounded strained, but there was a note of victory in it too. “Before they bring the lasers around.” He looked up at the city one more time, while Kona talked ineffectually on. “Hark,” he said to his suit DI. “Edit that. I don’t want to hear anything else from the city.” Then he kicked off the wall.

Lot watched him fall, and when Urban completed his jump, Lot followed. But it was three more jumps before the tension had bled away enough that he could talk to Urban, and that Urban could talk to him.

D
AWN CAME QUICKLY IN A GLARE OF WHITE LIGHT
that swept across the massive cloud structures below them. Their suits glittered silver, reflecting away the radiation. The sight triggered memories, and for a moment Lot felt as if his will had slipped away. He felt hollow inside, waiting . . . for something, he wasn’t sure what.

Gent nudged his elbow. “You okay?”

Lot shook his head to clear it. “Yeah. Just tired.”

Fatigue had become a real hazard, and they moved more slowly now. Spots drifted in Lot’s vision, disorienting him, so that more than once he thought he saw the lasers drifting into position in the dark void overhead.

Daylight also revealed a knob on the column below them. Urban mentioned it first. “Yeah,” Gent said. “I think it’s an elevator car.”

Lot leaned away from the wall, looking down past his shoulder. Half in light, half in shadow, a tiny bump was visible on the column. He couldn’t tell how far away it was, or how large. He tried blinking his eyes up to telescopic, but he couldn’t get his vision to work right.

He didn’t think about the car again for a couple of hours. By then the anomaly had grown large in his vision, and he could clearly make out the truncated crescent of the roof. Even through his fatigue, a chill knotted his gut. Jupiter had left the city. But even authority didn’t know if he’d ever reached the planet.

They climbed out on the car’s roof around mid-morning. They’d come down 140 miles, but a 60-mile climb still lay between them and the planet. They’d gotten no glimpse of the land yet. A storm system hung over the ragged edge of the continent, and all that lay below them was a white glare of cloud tops.