“Oh my God,” Lucian said. Larry spun around and looked at— what? at Lucian? at Lucian’s computer projection as directed by the simulator? At a projection of Lucian’s body as controlled by his mind?
“He’s still in it,” MacDougal’s voice, whispering. “We’re getting his visual output here, and he still sees it the old way. It’s a bit muddled here and there, but he’s seeing what he’s always seen—”
“They know we’re here,” Larry’s voice said through the headphones, though he had not spoken. It was Lucian’s memory of his voice, of what he had said five years before. Larry was hearing his own ghost, and the idea terrified him.
Then Lucian’s body flew up in the air, lifted by invisible arms, and he was carried away, down the tunnel, by enemies unseen.
“Good God,” MacDougal said. “I’m watching Lucian’s optic nerve output, and he saw the Charonian you just killed pick him up and run out of the tunnel with him. He didn’t see your actions at all. The computer sim matched what Lucian thought was happening to him and carried him out, even if the simulated Charonians weren’t there to move him. Incredible.”
“Yeah,” Larry agreed, panting. He realized he was still holding the Charonian’s left rear wheel, and he flung it away.
“We’re going to have to reset, try again to snap him out of it,” MacDougal said. “Do you think you can do it again?”
Larry looked down at the computer-generated phantoms of the things that attacked him, killed him five years before. He was whole, and they were bits of mangled metal. “Oh, yeah,” he said, “I can do that as often as you like.”
Two more times, three, four, a dozen more times, until Larry lost track of how long ago he had lost track, until even the idea of revenge had lost its savor. The simulated Charonians would always lose. Killing them the first few times had been good for Larry’s soul, but by the twentieth time—if this was the twentieth time—his strongest reaction to killing the wheeled Charonians was that his arms were getting tired. He grabbed at the second one and kicked a hole clean through this time, just to give his arms a rest.
Larry turned around and watched Lucian being borne away by invisible hands once again—but there was definitely something jerky, uncertain, about the motion. Lucian was still heading down that damned tunnel, but it was less smooth every time.
“Okay,” MacDougal said. “One more time, from the top.”
“Right,” Larry said, his voice weary. The base of the Rabbit Hole faded to darkness, then reappeared once again. Lucian—or at least the computer image of Lucian in his pressure suit—was back where he had started.
But Lucian’s image—Lucian—didn’t stay there. He stepped forward toward Larry, did not cry out a warning. He had changed.
Changed. Larry turned and saw the wheeled Charonians there. Should he attack again? No. Nothing brutal, nothing violent this time. Enough of destruction. Show Lucian something else. Make it different. Larry raised his hand, palm out, to the simulated Charonians, praying that whoever was operating their images would have the wit to follow his lead. “Stop,” Larry said. “Go away. Don’t bother us anymore. We don’t want you here.”
The two alien machines regarded him for a moment—and then wheeled backwards, turned around, and rolled away. Larry watched them going, knowing that at least some of his own nightmares were leaving with them. He had exorcised his own demons.
But what of Lucian?
Larry turned back, toward Lucian’s image as it came toward him, moving slowly, awkwardly, the image a bit jerky, Lucian’s mind moving his body in ways it had not used in a long time. “Lar-ree?” Lucian asked. “Lar-ree… tha you?”
Sixteen
The Only Way to Travel
“It is almost impossible, and certainly pointless, to explain the Naked Purple Movement. Even the term ‘Movement’ is misleading, as it implies a large group moving purposefully toward a goal. While the number of the Purple has at times been large, no one would say they have ever moved toward any clear goal. They are not known as the Pointless Cause for nothing.
“At least the term ‘Naked Purple’ is meaningful. Paint yourself purple, and wander around naked in public, and you will achieve what at least passes for the basic Naked Purple goaclass="underline" you will be annoying, disconcerting, and confusing to outsiders. In their strange dress, in their often belligerent—and yet whimsical—rejection of the norms and ideas of society, in their deliberately incomprehensible speeches and writings, the Naked Purple work to shake things up, turn things upside down, force us to look at things in a new way. While it is true that this is often a good thing to do, few would deny that the Purple tend to overdo it…
“…The catastrophe of the Abduction wiped out every other orbital facility. Only NaPurHab, the Naked Purple Habitat, survived. While that can be ascribed mostly to luck, I for one would like to suggest that it was destiny as well. Who else better suited to spend their lives in close orbit of a black hole?”
“And here be coming numero uno,” Mudflap Shooflyer announced as the first of the Charonian things arrived.
“Thanks, Mud, but they didn’t name me for my hearing,” Eyeball growled as she stared out the porthole. “I can see it.”
“No harm in saying it,” Mud replied.
“But what the foggy blue that thing gone do?” asked Ohio Template Windbag. “Weirdest looking thing seen in some time. ’Cepting you, ’course, Mudflap.”
“Thanks for nod, hefe,” Mudflap said, clearly pleased with the compliment.
“Pipe down anytime you like, boys,” Eyeball said, struggling to concentrate on her instruments. Bad enough that Mudball smelled the way you’d expect a chap with that label would. Chatter made it worse. “Else clear out and watch from elsewheres.”
“Sorry. Will zip it,” Ohio said. At least Ohio had a reason for being here. He did, after all, run the hab. But why did he have to bring a schnorrer like Mud along? Maybe it was Be Nice to Losers Day. Eyeball knew it was sometime this week, but she’d been too busy to check her calendar.
Her hardware was all ticking along fine, recording everything. What was the thing going to do? She punched up the long-range scope and set it to auto-track the thing.
The massive Charonian sure as hell wasn’t like any SCORE or CORE Eyeball had ever heard tell of. Most of them were shaped like short, fat cigars. This thing was more or less rectilinear, and about twenty times the size of the biggest CORE on record. It had what appeared to be cantilevered swivel capture latches running along the edges of one long face. It was also dazzle-brite white in color, a definite departure for the Charonians, who usually favored a dirty grey for most of their gear. Sum up, a big white shoe-box shape with legs. There were fifteen more just like it on the way.
Now it was hanging in space, inside the Moonpoint Ring, and exactly abeam of the Ring’s interior surface, lining up with it perfectly. And then, suddenly the thing was moving, straight for the Ring, fast, like maybe it was going to ram it or some such. Oh, God damn, don’t let it be. “Were those things here to smash up dead Moonpoint Ring, clear the way for something else? The hab would get caught in debris for sure, beat to rubble.