Ruler of Naught (35 page)

The inner hatch slid shut behind them. Osri felt the deck
fall away under him as the lock cycled down to free fall, and he braced himself
for what might come next.

o0o

The lock opened onto a long tunnel made of some flexible,
ribbed material with guide cables lit internally with a pleasant, pearlescent glow.
The air whiffed of a faint, spicy-sour scent that tickled his nose. Osri could
feel his sinuses thickening. Skipnose again. Do Rifters ever get used to the
changes? Neither Jaim, Marim, nor Vi’ya seemed to be affected, but Brandon
winced, and Lokri sniffed, then carefully pinched his nose, avoiding the side
with the black eye. There was no telling with the Eya’a.

Everyone but Marim used the guide cables. She moved along
with almost imperceptible flicks of her fingers and toes—she was barefoot as
always—against the side of the tunnel where it curved, pausing frequently for
the others to catch up.

They emerged from the tunnel into a large cylindrical
vestibule, as though climbing out of a hole. The shift in orientation jolted
Osri’s equilibrium. The vestibule was large in radius but short in length, with
other entrances piercing its walls all over. Running around it about halfway
along its length was a bright yellow-and-black-striped line; beyond the line
the walls were smooth, and rotating slowly with respect to where they stood.

Next to the opening they’d emerged from was a small dais
with two holes in it. Marim drifted over, waiting as the others followed and
one by one thrust their feet into the holes.

When Osri’s turn came he found the sensation familiar—not
sticky, not magnetic, but somewhere in between.

Affinity dyplast.
It was a ubiquitous technology, but
he’d never encountered this use of it before.

When everyone was done, Marim made a reluctant gesture and
touched her feet to the deck—and they stuck. Some of Osri’s disgust at the
black mat of microfilaments on the bottoms of her feet dissipated at this
evidence of their utility.

Vi’ya led the way, Jaim falling in behind. Marim and Lokri
traveled side by side, busy with privacies, without troubling themselves with
proper etiquette. Osri tried to suppress his irritation. It wasn’t like the
Rifters’ ignorance of manners was new.

It also reminded him out easy it was to inadvertently
subvocalize. As they approach the black and yellow line, he keyed the tap-only
privacy code, then was startled when transparent letters of red flame appeared
in midair above the line.

Upside down at first, the letters dissolved and re-formed as
sensors detected the group’s orientation:

WELCOME TO CHANG’S
VARIGEE HOSTEL AND WHOLESALE EXTRAVAGANZOO!

A strange wailing, thumping music commenced.

Out of the air came a voice. “What’ll it be, genz and
captains? Buying, bunking, or both?”

“Buying.” Marim laughed. “Go-juice and gutstuffing.”

“Comestibles are available at every gee-level, and you may
negotiate for fuel at the same time. Orientation is available at any time
through Rift-3 on your boz’ls.” The voice became formal. “Cross the line and accept
house rules. Ignorance is no defense. Do you wish a summary, or printed list?”

“Nope,” replied Marim.

“Enjoy your stay.” The letters winked out.

“Anything about these rules we should know?” Brandon asked.

“No special rules,” replied Marim. “Pretend you’re in somebody’s
palace and you’ll be fine.”

Vi’ya made a gesture, prompting them onward. Osri was
relieved to see no signs of violence in the quiet space. He began to hope that whatever
problem had faced the proprietors of this establishment had already been dealt
with—and so he could put his mind to escape.

As they crossed the line, Brandon asked, “It doesn’t seem
very busy here. Is this normal?”

“Might be at the other pole, or just slack time,” Marim said
in a careless tone.

And then fear doused Osri with a cold flood when Vi’ya’s
voice came to him through the boswell:
(No. This is too slow. Look relaxed
but be alert. A little of the Panarchy-blit attitude will probably help.)

“Panarchy-blit.”
Another Markham reference. Osri
recalled one of his earliest memories of Brandon’s friend, surprising them in
an Academy cadet lounge while Markham was in the middle of a funny anecdote.
Osri had been irritated at his exaggerated impression of a certain Service
scion—the slack-eyed, unassailable air of superiority mixed with amusement at
the antics of one’s inferiors—but the cadets had obviously thought it
hysterically funny.

And so must have these Rifters, he thought, carefully not
subvocalizing.

(That should be real easy,)
Brandon’s reply came.
(I’ve had a lot of practice in the last ten years.)

“First time visitors may need some help in null-gee
courtesy,” Vi’ya said.

Osri was offended at the suggestion that he was ignorant of
null-gee courtesy, which was part of every well-bred person’s education.
Nullers were hardly unknown in the Douloi world, and in fact tended to be
politically influential.

Marim said loudly, “If you enter a room, you orient your
head to match the people already there, unless they’re all over—then they’re
nullers and don’t care.” Marim wrinkled her nose. “And since it sounds like
you’ve got a nice case of skipnose comin’ on, remember: don’t ever sneeze—hold
your nose and blow your eardrums out if you have to.”

Marim glanced upward, apparently trying to recall to mind
things that were second nature to her, and Osri understood what was going on:
this speech was part of a ruse. For some reason yet unclear, Vi’ya wanted them
all to appear to be ignorant visitors.

Osri mentally shrugged that away. More interesting was
Marim’s assurance in this environment, and the facility she’d displayed maneuvering
along the lock tunnel. Wherever she’d come from, she must have spent a lot of
time up at the spin axis.

The Eya’a hissed. Vi’ya winced.

They were now standing on the other side of the line, in the
bubbloid proper. The Eya’a were canted at a strange angle, as though subject to
a different gravitational environment.

(What’s the matter?)
Brandon asked.

(I’m not sure—it may be the coriolis or the gee-delta.
They’ve never been in a spin-habitat,)
came Vi’ya’s answer.

The rotation of Granny Chang’s at this radius didn’t create
enough of a coriolis effect to bother humans. Perhaps the equilibrial sense of
the Eya’a was diffused throughout their bodies, making them far more sensitive.

(They say they want to go on, but they are disoriented.
We may not be able to rely on them.)

During this exchange, Marim kept up her constant vocal
chatter aimed at Brandon and Osri, pointing out sights that they could
obviously see for themselves.

Brandon’s smile widened to a gape as they reached the end of
the vestibule—he was clearly enjoying the charade. Osri turned his head,
fighting the urge to yank at the domino’s eye slits, and peered inside Granny
Chang’s.

To his Downsider eyes they stood at the edge of a dizzying
precipice. The cylinder of the vestibule jutted out into space at one axis of
an immense sphere—confused by low gee, he couldn’t begin to estimate the size. Above
his head a broad catwalk extended out to a smaller sphere in the exact center
of the space. The catwalk was upside down with respect to them, and at some
distance a figure was standing on it head-down. He struggled not to crane his
neck in order to bring everything into alignment.

The smaller sphere, which he guessed was where Granny Chang herself
lived, was entirely covered by brightly lit signs—everything from giant flat
posters in the ancient fashion to holograms and lumensquiggles—advertising a
bewildering array of goods and services.

YANDRA’S GREENZLS WILL GRAB YOUR GULLET—LEVEL THREE

USE IT OR LOSE IT AT NOZZIPAOUT’S HOUSE OF GOOD REPUTE

GULLET GAS? DON’T GET SPACED, GET SACKBUT’S NULL-CARMINANT

There was no sound accompanying these displays, but he could
hear faint snatches of music and other noises. He noticed that his boswell was
flashing, indicating an incoming public-access signal. He reached to accept out
of curiosity, but Marim put a hand over his wrist.

“Don’t bother, unless you want that inside your head.” She
waved at the light-show.

Osri was no longer looking at the advertisements. He’d been
in several Highdweller communities, but they were so large that one could
almost forget they were in orbit—if you could ignore the landscape hanging
kilometers overhead.

Here was very different. Granny Chang’s was far smaller than
the typical Sync, and the interior of the sphere was divided into a series of
progressively larger ring-terraces from the spin axis to the equator. Osri
realized that each ring represented a different gee-level, giving guests the
choice of acceleration. People thronged all the rings, strolling along brightly
lit walkways, others riding in little open carriers in slots at the center of
each ring. All their heads oriented toward the spin axis of the sphere—once he
saw that, Osri felt his own perceptions orient.

Without a central illumination, the interior of the sphere
confused the eye with an explosion of lamps and strip lights. Many of them
formed enormous ideographs not unlike the Tenno glyphs that Brandon used so
well.

Marim led the way into a lift tube, and Jaim fell in behind.
They floated up a guide cable to the catwalk overhead, somersaulting onto its
surface as they reached it. They were met about halfway across by a tall young
man with slanted eyes and a smooth, uncharacteristically light complexion the
color of old parchment. He held a jac at ease as he stepped into their path.

“Your pardon, genz and Captains, this is a private
residence. May I suggest instead the inestimable delights—” He stopped, and
bowed to Vi’ya.

She bowed back—the gesture looked odd in null-gee—and said
something in a fluid, singsong language. all its vowels were at the back of the
throat with the mouth open. Osri thought he recognized some distorted versions
of Uni words, but the tonalities defeated his ear.

“Ancestors and honor,” the man replied formally—in Uni.
“Excuse me.” His gaze slid away and his lips moved slightly in a boswell
privacy.

(There’s definitely something wrong,)
came Vi’ya’s
voice.
(He should have replied in Han—somebody is monitoring him.)

The man bowed formally to Vi’ya. “Your humble sibling
apologizes deeply, sister-Captain, but the venerable Chang cannot receive you
at this time.”

Vi’ya reached into her pouch and pulled out a small figurine—some
sort of dog-like beast with a gaping mouth and flowing mane—carved from
greenish stone. Osri recognized it: part of the loot from the antechamber to
the Hall of Ivory. He was too anxious to be angry.

“This dutiful daughter wished merely to present a small gift
to her venerable mother.”

The man’s eyes widened and he sucked in his breath between
his teeth. Again the silent conversation. He appeared to be arguing.

(He’s one of Granny’s family, out here under duress,
judging from his emotions. I think she’s being held hostage. He’ll get us
inside now—wait for my cue.)

Finally the man said, “Come with me.”

(How will we know friend from foe?)
asked Brandon as
they followed the man.

(The Changs are purists—any that don’t look like him,
don’t belong.)

At the end of the catwalk the young man opened a hatch and
motioned them through. They entered the lock, and the hatch closed behind them.
The inner one was already open, and Osri tensed himself for whatever might come
next.

A greenish wisp of light resembling a Tenno glyph danced in
the air beyond the inner hatch, and it preceded them down the corridor,
beckoning them onward. Osri noticed that the hatches in the corridor were
likely to be found in any of the four surfaces—there was no “down” at all. As
they pulled themselves over one hatch, he glimpsed machinery in a darkened
room.

At the end of the corridor they came to a larger hatch, bordered
in some smooth, shiny reddish substance ornately carved with ideographs and
mythical beasts. Some of them resembled the small figurine in Vi’ya’s pouch.

The hatch swung open as they approached, and they stepped
out onto a small balcony-like projection in the most confusing room Osri had
ever seen.

It was a fairly large cube—perhaps fifty meters in each dimension,
but the clutter of furnishings and bricbrac made it look smaller. Furniture
stuck out of all six surfaces and also floated in the air, while potted plants
drifted about in apparently random orbits, and several large, sleek brown dogs
with goggle-eyed faces not unlike the lion drawings, and polydactyl toes,
lounged against various surfaces.

There was even what appeared to be an incense burner, a
black lacework pot with a little fan attached and a red glow within. smoke
drifted out of it as it moved about, diffusing into the air in a way quite
foreign to Osri’s Downsider expectations. The smell of the incense was sweet
and resinous.

In the very center of the space floated something
reminiscent of a sedan chair with a vaguely humanoid crumpled bundle of cloth
and sticks in it. Next to it floated a huge, fat man who wore a enormous
Hopfneriad Signeur wig.

Osri blinked, astonished. Those wigs were reputed to still
be in fashion among the Downsiders of Hopfneri, though the Highdweller nobility
there had dropped them. Osri had seen them in vids and retained an impression
of complicated rolls of white hair built high and tumbling down over shoulders,
decorated over the entire structure by shifting lights, or blooming and
closing flowers, or a myriad of other eye-pleasing variations.

This man’s wig was so large it made him seem nearly double
his size. He was actually short and spare. The wig itself was an astonishing
concoction of curlicues, roleaux, and braids. Nestling, hovering, winking, and
whirring among those was an agglomeration of lights, fantastical insects, and
color-changing jewels. Osri wondered how large a powerpack was needed to
animate the wig.