“Yes, yes. So what is its significance? Did Ramirez tell you?”
Beni smiled. “A unicursal maze has a single path from the entrance to the centre. It looks complex but is really very direct.”
“Why it appealed to the Tastans too.”
“I’m sure.”
“ Beni, I fear you’re an optimist.”
“What do you mean?”
“You see it as something complex being ultimately very simple. Like your comp reading there.”
“So?”
“Why not a simple path made difficult. Look at your comp now.”
Beni glanced down, saw with a stab of alarm, panic, sudden terror, a new reading. He keyed randoms, saw only the new double-peristyle configuration.
“This does get interesting,” she said. “Oh, by the way, ‘ichneumon’ also refers to a parasitic, hymenopterous insect that lays its eggs on another’s larvae, using it as food for its own young as they hatch. Nice thought, yes? Little hunter.” And she vanished.
Beni had been told this would probably happen, the host’s hunt-mode surfacing, solicitous, caring, then cold, callous, vindictive, seeking to undermine any sense of hope.
He strode on, left the columned hall, plunged into the next length of corridor, just the tiniest dagger edge of doubt pushing through the confidence Ramirez had given him. What if there were a second peristyle hall? What if the tomb plan actually shifted, shunted him from one course to another, on and on? The mound was large enough.
Ramirez had spoken of it. It was a doubt he could still push aside. The tholos, the skull chamber, would be ahead. Not far.
The yellow cone pushing ahead became brighter, strengthening, whitening, as the host flashed in.
“Can we resume, Beni? You said that we want you here. Tell me why?”
Beni did not look at the intercept. He walked on, glancing at his display, then ahead, corridor, display, repeating that. He might have stayed silent, punished her for the trickery with the plan. But he sensed, just as Ramirez had told him, that it would probably be the worst thing to do. The tomb profiles liked to talk.
“It occurs to me, Arasty, that a sentry program would want visitors to test itself against, that the self whose tomb this is would have designed the tomb so its sentry profile would be exercised, challenged, kept entertained and satisfied. It’s what I’d do.”
“That’s a very smart observation. What made you think of it all of a sudden? Or was it also something-”
“I asked Ramirez about it that day in the orchard. Mentioned it before he did. We talked about what the tombs really were. He told me that your intercept, Dormeuse-Arasty-would appear at various times, run different modes-”
“And walk with you like this?”
“Not necessarily. Some intercepts did, he said. He also told me that whoever could code personalities and structure reality perception would not bother with ancient mortuary forms-corridors, burial chambers and such like-unless they were playing at something, wanted to invite plunderers.”
“Again, very shrewd. He didn’t say much when he was here but I miss this Ramirez. You’re both right. We do want you here. We give each other purpose.”
Beni watched his display for the slightest flicker, let his peripheral vision guide him. “We are your future. We let you exist in time.”
“Empowering each other. Yes, Beni. I like that. Like the fish and the fisher. Here for each other.”
“So let me get on with it, Arasty. You try to stop me. I try to reach the core chamber.”
“And what? Put your name up there with Ramirez’s. Scrawl it on the watch screen and hurry out again? Did he tell you he did that?”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Did he tell you what else he did? Everything he did? You said Ramirez drew my face. Did he love me too, do you think? This image from an ancient age?”
Which part to answer? She was distracting him with her intriguing remarks, possibly giving deliberate untruths to unnerve him. “I’m not sure what he felt. Fascination. Determination to see you as the person who made this. Set this up for the future. It makes for a sort of intimacy. Something very powerful.”
“Intimacy. I’m flattered. I never expected this sort of-well-kinship across centuries.”
But Beni had stopped.
“What is it?” the phantom asked. “Worried that there’s no core chamber? No second peristyle?”
“I should have reached it. Show me the plan. The real one.”
“You’ve already seen it. Look.”
Again there was the alarm, the panic, terror surging up.
“You continue to make it more interesting.”
“It’s all I have, like you say. The chance to challenge, be entertained.”
Beni needed to talk it through. “One of the few things we learned from you Tastans was sealed comp technology.” He touched his scanner. “This can’t be tampered with, so you’ve interfered with my perceptual processes.”
He pressed a contact, randomized the grabs, sent surges through both equipment and self. He had practised this, did not flinch from the small electroshocks. The original tomb-plan came and went: single peristyle original, this new triple corridor display, double peristyle, single, double, triple-they flashed and flickered, cycled from one to the other.
It wasn’t his vision then-unless it was misinformation at the brain’s visual centre.
And when he looked at the phantom’s face, saw the smile under the black glass eyes, he understood her simple strategy.
“I can’t be sure now can I?”
Again, Ramirez’s words were there. Allow that the Stones have you.
Beni sighed as if in frustration and despair, closed his eyes, accessed, believed he accessed, the neural link Ramirez had given him, actually given him, a parting gift surgically implanted in the town clinic, a legacy from surrogate father to surrogate son.
The single peristyle configuration-classic Tastan grab-sat in the light of his mind’s eye. He was in the second length of corridor, so close to the chamber. He dared not linger over it in case she suspected. Again he sighed as if in frustration.
“Your decision?” she said.
“Excuse me?” Feigning bafflement, exhaustion, loss of resolve. Let her read those. The battle had been joined in earnest.
“On or back? I still may let you go. Perhaps with a souvenir as a reminder. Or perhaps none, provided you promise to come back and talk to me again. Keep me entertained.”
Was that a possibility he dared consider? This intercept-this tomb, to make the distinction-did seem different from all accounts, rhapsodizing, showing whimsy, negotiating, pretending to, taunting like this, first one mode then another, just as Ramirez had told him she would be.
“I’m your little egg-stealer, remember. We continue.”
“Hope is always beautiful,” she said.
Beni didn’t comment, strode on five, ten, twenty metres, surely into the tholos, but would not glance at his display now, nor at her, would not consult his link. He wanted her to court him, whatever came of it. This visit had to matter. But he was in the tholos, the skull chamber, he told himself. Had to be.
Finally she spoke, easily, losing no face by it, perhaps in a new mode, he couldn’t tell, though her question suggested it.
“So, little hunter, have you ever wondered why there are only 85 tombs? The Tastan culture lasted seven centuries, at least 35 generations. Why only 85 tombs?”
He didn’t understand all her words. Generations. “Tell me.”
“Guess.”
“No more games.”
“Entertainment, remember? There really are only my games here. I’ll reward you.”
“How?”
“Trust that I will. I’ll give you a clue. We were not necessarily royalty. Not rulers.”
It did intrigue him. “Another caste in your society?”
“In a sense. Go on.”
Beni fought to think, pressured by the changeless, vitreous dark, by the unchanging yellow fan of his lamp showing not the tholos but only more and more corridor, its glow whitened by the added glow of the figure floating, standing beside him, seeming to.