Before Legroeder could learn what was bothering Ker’sell, the Narseil changed the image—as though he could not bear the clouds any longer. Dark forms loomed in the fog, then faded back, like dream-shapes. What were those—something they needed to see? Too late: the fog dissipated and the surroundings changed to night. Now they were floating in a glass bubble over a dark, featureless plain.
Featureless plain like the featureless sea.
But was it? Legroeder sensed that something was building beneath the surface. The plain below was not altogether still and motionless; it was smoldering with sulfurous fire. Once he realized that, the fire seemed to spread. In just a few heartbeats, the plain was sprinkled with burning pools of sulfur, reddish orange, like a collection of portals into Hell. Legroeder’s pulse quickened. What do you all see down there? he whispered.
Looks pretty featureless to me, said Deutsch.
Also to me, murmured Palagren.
Was he the only one who saw the fire? Legroeder glanced up at Ker’sell, and knew the answer. The Narseil was staring down from the top gun position, not at the landscape, but at Legroeder. Those weren’t portals down there; that was Ker’sell’s anger. Flickers of fire, of suspicion and rage.
Legroeder spoke softly to Ker’sell. What is it? What’s bothering you?
What’s to tell? Ker’sell’s eyes seemed to say. The Narseil was eaten up by distrust of Legroeder, but he wasn’t going to speak it aloud.
If you think I betrayed you, I did not. Legroeder was surprised by his own calm, in contrast to the smoldering sulfur. I see your anger down there. That’s you, not the Flux, isn’t it?
Ker’sell didn’t answer, but Palagren glanced back at Legroeder in surprise. Palagren clearly didn’t know what Legroeder was seeing, but he also seemed to be struggling with something else. Self doubt? Uncertainty about whether he could fulfill his promise to bring them through this place? Is everything all right with you two? Palagren asked. Then he grunted, as if he suddenly understood.
Perhaps he was glimpsing a moment or two into the future, because Ker’sell suddenly hissed to Legroeder, You work with the enemy, you make friends with them. Do you make love to them, too?
Legroeder was speechless. He had to grope for words to reply. I did not betray you. I did my job. What would we have learned about Impris if we had not come here with this crew?
Something in the Narseil’s eyes brightened and then went dark, and Legroeder couldn’t gauge the effect of his words. But below the ship the image suddenly changed again—the seething landscape dissolving to reveal something moving beneath it, a shadow under the molten surface.
Wait! Legroeder cried, as the image began to fade away. Did you see that?
The others looked, but whatever he had seen was gone now, and the sulfur with it. Perhaps it was just a reflection of all the disturbances in the net.
He shook his head as the images continued to evolve. They were high above ground in night flight, a weblike array of thousands of tiny nodes of liquid light sprawled out on the surface below. The array seemed to loom out of an infinity of darkness, as though they might fall down through the spaces between the threads, into some other universe altogether. This reminds me of our homeworld, Palagren said suddenly, with wistful longing in his voice. From Ker’sell, there was an even stronger reaction. He seemed to be struggling with a desire to break out of the net, to dive into that world and leave all of them behind.
A heartbeat later, a similar homesickness hit Legroeder, as if his own homeworld might be hidden somewhere below.
Something’s there. I feel it, Deutsch said quietly from the keel position. For a moment, Legroeder could not identify the emotion disguised by Deutsch’s metallic voice. And then he had it: fear.
Why fear?
What do you see, Freem’n?
Not sure. Not sure.
Legroeder peered, but could see nothing to be afraid of. What does it look like? I don’t see anything at all.
Not sure. Shadows. Just a glimpse of something. Gone now, said Deutsch. His voice reverberated with increasing fear.
I felt it, too, said Palagren. A presence. I don’t know what. He seemed to be catching some of Deutsch’s fear, overlaid with a deep and troubling need. Do we dare go closer?
Deutsch tensed perceptibly at the suggestion.
Let’s be careful here, said Legroeder. What do we hope to find?
Movement, Palagren said. If there is movement…
Then we shouldn’t turn away from it, Legroeder thought. But that doesn’t mean we should plunge right in, either. All right, he said. But cautiously.
It felt as if the image simply swelled up to engulf him. It was dark and mysterious, drawing him into something beautiful and exciting…
With a rush of memory, he felt himself becoming aroused as the shadows resolved into a powerful image of Tracy-Ace/Alfa, unclothed, reaching out, open to him at her center, eyes filled with inexpressible longing. Legroeder fell toward the image with a muted groan, unable to resist the hunger…
What’s this? Ker’sell hissed, wheeling around to glare at him.
With a jerk of recognition, Legroeder tried to veer away from the thought; this was the last thing he wanted any of the others in the net to see. He strove to banish it, but Tracy-Ace was moving toward him, fingers closing around his shoulder blades, mouth closing on his…
Exactly as I thought! Ker’sell hissed, his anger flaring in the net like a pale, crackling flame.
No—it’s not—! Legroeder protested as he struggled to change the image. Did Palagren and Deutsch see it, too? (Help me!) he whispered to the implants.
// Initiating change, // they answered, and began a swift reweaving of the image.
Tracy-Ace was transformed in an eyeblink into another woman…
(Not you!) he whispered, as the beautiful, raven-haired pirate from DeNoble beckoned to him, augments flickering with sinister delight. (Christ, not Greta!)
// Changing again… //
(Just help me wipe it—!)
There was a flicker, and the image changed abruptly. The female form turned into a luminous wire figure and spun away from him, moving out across the darkness with a final sparkle. Legroeder gasped in relief.
I’m not sure I understand what’s happening here, Palagren said slowly, as though rousing himself from a daze.
Ker’sell was still hissing, but his outrage seemed to ebb as he was distracted by changes in the scene below. The spiderweb pattern of lighted cities was turning into a cyber-landscape of cyan and crimson webbing suspended over black, illuminated from within by speeding pulses of sapphire and orange. They were dropping toward it as though moving through an intelnet. We must not fly through this! Ker’sell cried.