The Ascension Factor
Chapter 23

"Drugs, yeah," Ben said. "She's been laced up with something, something that Flattery wants people to think is kelp juice. Figures."
Ben stood on wobbly legs, holding Rico and the bulkhead, and made his way to Crista Galli. Rico watched as Ben checked her pulse, bent to her breathing.
"She's in there," Ben said. "If she's like I was, she can hear us, too."
He leaned down to her ear.
"You'll be all right," he said, and patted her arm.
Rico hoped it wasn't a lie. Some panicky feeling in his gut told him that none of them would ever be all right. The green of his aura sucked itself tight against his body. When he stuffed his unease away, it crept out from him again and mixed with the others.
The drugs are the danger, not her touch, he reminded himself. How long before they wear off?
Rico knew that a single-dose dusting didn't last that long in real time. He would have to remind himself that it was the dust that warped time. He knew they didn't have much of it to spare. They could count on help from the kelp. This was something he felt, intuited.
It's the dust, he thought.
"We'd better see what we have left," Ben said.
Rico forced himself to focus. He knew Ben was right, and if they were both dusted then they both had to pay attention.
"If we don't pay attention, we're dead," Rico heard himself say.
Ben just grunted.
Rico pulled the lasgun from his belt, checked the charges. "They'll know we're down," he said. "We have to get out from under this mess, we're too easy to spot."
He braced himself against the upside-down bulkhead. "Things were tough enough without all of us going to dreamland."
Rico started out the buckled-in hatch.
"Bring me some dust," Ben said. "That's what we need to get her out of this."
"No way," Rico said. "She's had enough, right here. We don't know what Flattery's been doing to her. A heavy dose might kill her, you don't kno..."
He heard his voice going on without him. Ben was insisting that he was right, that she'd already been dusted and it was bringing her around, that what she needed was mor...
"I'm serious, Rico. She needs it, and the antidote - you saw what it did to her. Think about it."
Rico didn't understand, and he knew they didn't have time to think about it.
He didn't say anything more, just turned on his heel and picked up Crista's legs under the knees. Ben reached under her arms and they stumbled with her through the hatchway into what was left of the cabin.
A few of the lights still worked, illuminating the burst-in walls and ceiling. The galley and aft portion of the foil remained upright, but the boat was twisted nearly in half at the cabin hatchway. The entire bow lay on its side. One of the wings had sprung from its retraction bay and sliced into the fuselage, peeling a section of hull away like a rind.
Ben brushed away debris with his feet and they set Crista down. She called his name and gripped his arm. Rico went immediately to work trying to free them from the deflated hylighter and the wreckage. Some pockets of undissipated hydrogen worried him. The rain helped, but he worried about sparks - not the spiritual kind he'd seen in the galley, but the metal-to-rock kind that might flash the hydrogen.
"There's still some gas around here," Rico warned them. "It shouldn't be a problem but we should be careful. Our judgment's been dusted, too, so we have to be extra careful. Don't move around much until we get free."
Rico's legs stood in the fuselage rip while the rest of him worked at using the wing section as a shield to push the dead hylighter away from the foil. With his head and shoulders in the open he could see that the foil lay next to the cliff, with the hylighter spread out between the foil and the sea. A small flap of the bag and two tentacles covered the foil. The whole scene whirled in a lightshow of spore-dust.
No gas out here, he thought. A good offshore breeze.
Rico smelled a greasy char, sickly sweet, as he burned through the hylighter flap with his lasgun. Peeling it back from the fuselage made him even more lightheaded and wobbly-kneed. A thick, steamy smoke filled the cabin and Crista coughed behind him.
"Crista!"
Ben's voice sounded happier than Rico had heard it in a long time. Releasing the flap of hylighter let in some air and some light. The rain had muddied most of the dust, but they'd still had a pretty stiff dose. Rico's head felt as if it was ready to take a big plunge, as if he was clinging to some giant fluke just before it sounded for the deeps. He kept reminding himself aloud, "We've been dusted, it will pass soon."
He ducked back inside and Crista leaned on one elbow, coughing and gasping, and shook her head.
"Ben," her voice was gravelly and deep, "we are saved. Avata will see to it."
Just then a tentacle slithered through the hole above them. In less than a blink it snaked around Rico's waist and in another it snatched him through the hole. Its grip on his waist was stronger than anything he'd felt in his lifetime, but it didn't hurt. He heard a shout and felt a grab from Ben, then the hole and the foil disappeared from sight and Rico couldn't see anything but water.
***
Therefore, if it was more necessary in those days to satisfy the soldiers than the people, this was because the soldiers had more power than the people. Toda... all rulers find it more necessary to satisfy the people than the soldiers, because the former now have more power than the latter.
- Machiavelli, The Prince
Holomaster Rico LaPush was a fine prize indeed. The Immensity respected this human LaPush as a sculptor of images, the best that the humans had ever mustered. For nearly a decade the Immensity had monitored human transmissions in all spectra. Through these transmissions it witnessed the inevitable unraveling of human politics. When it had its own data to compare, it compared, and it found significant facts wanting. From humans it learned to lie. Then it learned the subtle differences between lie and illusion, truth and illumination.
The Immensity intended to learn holography. On its own it had mustered transient illusion at times - ghost ships at sea, phantom radio transmissions - the parlor tricks of broadcast. Holography was more precious than that. The Immensity knew humans, now, and human history. It knew that holography, the pure language of imagery and symbol, would become the interspecies tongue.
There were the other forms, of course - electrical voice-talk of the humans. They spoke to each other of fish concentrations, weather, delivered the mysterious modulations that humans called "music." Except for the music this had been easily understood, but not very interesting. Then the human they dared call "Kelpmaster" began using the kelp itself as a medium of conduction. This private communications channel linked the Orbiter with the Zavatan world, and the kelp heard everything. The Immensity spoke in pictures, and these words over the kelp channel helped weave a picture of the world as it was, and as it could be. Though the Kelpmaster listened, he lacked the subtleties of holography that the Immensity required.
The Immensity could think of no better place to start than with LaPush, the Holomaster. The Immensity knew good holos from bad. In this matter it would apprentice itself to Rico LaPush.
The hylighter tentacle that gripped LaPush was, in turn, gripped by a huge frond of blue kelp. It transmitted every move directly to the kelp. Rico's automatic lapel camera unreeled a ten-second broadcast every hour, beamed back to its recorder in the foil. The Immensity received all broadcasts, including these.
Flattery was the dominant human, but the Immensity saw no future in him. He enslaved the kelp, but worse, he enslaved his own kind. Flattery didn't trust any creature that might know what he was thinking, including humans. He had plans to hide the future of a world from its people, and the kelp noted a heavy stink of greed about him. Except for the kelp channels, Flattery controlled communication among humans. He discouraged it, as he discouraged their education. The kelp often marveled that humans survived themselves. They appeared to be their own fiercest predator.
Flattery would sacrifice many to save himself, it realized one day, perhaps even to the last human.
The Immensity harbored no illusions about its position in Flattery's hierarchy.
The kelp knew that as long as humans accepted Flattery as the Director they would never realize their potential as One. If they did not do this, then neither would they recognize the need for Oneness among the kelp. Flattery saw this need as a threat, in humans and kelp alike. There would be no true Avata again as long as Flattery ruled. Whenever the brain grew, Flattery dealt it a stroke.
Since the day of insight, the Immensity had set about the downfall of Raja Flattery and the unity of pruned-down stands of kelp throughout the seas. The answer, it knew, was in holo. If it could project holo images, it could communicate in a way that humans would understand. It could speak to distant humans and to kelp alike.
A language between sentients, the Immensity thought, this is the Pandoran revolution.
Rico LaPush had been difficult to follow. He moved quickly and under cover, and spent most of his time landside these days. He'd been exposed to the kelp from organic islands that were the old cities and on assignment with Ben down under among the Mermen - still, he had chosen not to communicate directly with the kelp throughout most of his adult life.
It is simply a matter of privacy.
Unlike Flattery's political fear of betrayal and death, Rico's was simply a reluctance to let the kelp eavesdrop through his psyche. It did not make him feel "at one with Oneness" as it did many of the Zavatans, this the Immensity knew. What the kelp knew of Rico it had gotten from other sources, and from the airwaves of Holovision.
Perhaps the Holomaster Rico LaPush would become the kelp's Battlemaster if the image alone was not enough. Timing and presentation of images were essential. As a kelp channel, a simple conductor, the Immensity allowed itself to be used by the faithful in their struggle with the Director. Now it was time to use them in that same struggle.
The Immensity would win over other stands and reestablish Avata as the true governor of Pandora. It planned to help humans win over Flattery and to come to some symbiosis with these fearful humans. Oracles and kelpways were not enough. Images were tools beyond value, and the kelp would learn to use them.
"Seeking visions in the kelp violates civil rights," Flattery had proclaimed. "If your son uses the kelp, then he and all who use it, including the kelp, know the most private thoughts and dreams of your youth, of your entire life before his conception. That constitutes mind-rape, the ultimate violation."
He passed his law making contact "for the purposes of communication" an offense punishable in varying degrees, all of them unpleasant. The Zavatans universally ignored this law, much to the benefit of the kelp.
The Immensity had to snatch Rico quickly, before he alarmed the others. The enemy Nevi approached, and there was no time for petty confrontations. The Immensity had appropriate reverence for the kelpling Crista Galli. She would be the instrument that would complete the symphony of the kelp. But without Rico's genius the kelp saw hopelessness, death and despair in Crista's future, and in all of their futures.
The hylighter had turned in a superb performance. The Flying Fish now rested atop an Oracle, an old one secured by a small but hardy Zavatan band. Its cavern, much larger than Flattery's, was occupied equally by the live kelp root and the Zavatans. Passage from the water side was too dangerous for a foil. The humans had burrowed a passageway down from the top of the bluff to meet the kelp's burrow in the rugged rock near shore. It was identical to the Oracle that lay at the foot of Twisp's command center beneath the high reaches.
Flattery had scoured the kelp clean from his cavern, to make it suitable to his tastes. He had destroyed one of the kelp's nests, a socket where the kelp rooted into the continent itself. Zavatans protected hundreds of these stations along the coastline, careful to keep Flattery's people at bay. Each Oracle was a strategic kelpwork of communication, a link with the entire world and with the Orbiter above it.
The Immensity had learned from certain Zavatans how images are formed on the matrix of the human brain, and how its own flesh correspondingly formed the images that it saw against the dreamscape of the sea. When it had learned to project its thoughts, its images, as Rico LaPush projected his holos to fill empty space, then it would commence the salvation of Avata and of humans. Woe to Flattery, it thought. Woe to selfishness and greed! It dragged Rico inside the Oracle and among his own kind as quickly as it could so that he would not be unnecessarily fearful of his new pupil, Avata.
***
What happiness could we ever enjoy if we killed our own kinsmen in battle?
- Bhagavad-Gita
When he announced after their midday ration that he would run the P, the Deathman's squad beat him up. They thought that would bring him to his senses, or at the very least make running around the demon-infested Dash Point physically impossible. It didn't work.
"I know why you're doing this," his squad leader told him. He was called "Hot Rocks," and his sister was married to the Deathman's brother back in Lilliwaup. They talked in private behind some boulders bordering Kalaloch's refugee camp.
"Just like everybody else who does this, you're fed up with killing. You want to do something for somebody, leave your insurance to your family, right?"
The Deathman just leaned back against the boulder and stared at a clear patch of blue sky scudding with the clouds.
"Who gets your back pay? Your mom? Your brother? That little piece of blonde action you've been plugging in the camp?"
The Deathman's hand snapped toward Hot Rocks but stopped still at his throat. Hot Rocks didn't flinch. Hot Rocks never flinched.
"My brother."
Hot Rocks cursed under his breath, then whispered, "Wouldn't it be better to go back there? Tour's almost over, the worst is over. We're all going home in a month. One month. If you still feel this wa..." he looked both ways, "...hen fight this thing at home. Work it out at home."
"I'm no good for home," the Deathman said. "The things I've don... I'm not normal, you're not normal. We can't go back there. We can't!"
"So, instead of going home you run the P, you make the dash out Dash Point and back. You know the odds. Lichter made it a month ago. Spit made it and collected a year's worth of food chits. Two out of twenty-eight - it's suicide and you know it."
"Either way, my family's better off," the Deathman said.
His voice was a monotone, and Hot Rocks could barely hear him above the light breeze.
"They get my insurance and back pay if I don't make it, and the winnings if I do."
"Yeah," Hot Rocks said, "but they don't get what they want - which is you. If I come back without you my sister will have my ass."
"I can't go back. You know that. You of all people should know that. They should make a place for us, or let us go after these Shadows and take over wherever they are and stay there and then we won't have to hurt anybody anymor..."
The Deathman choked up, and Hot Rocks looked away. He peeked around the boulders and saw the rest of the squad near the beach, backs together, watching for demons or a Shadow attack.
"You're my brother-in-law, but let's forget that," Hot Rocks said. "You're the best man I've got. These guys are alive today because of you - doesn't that count for something?"
"It don't mean shit," the Deathman said. "It means I've got more ears in my pouch than anybody else. They throw rocks and garbage at us and we hit them with lasguns and gushguns - shit, man, if they were animals we wouldn't even say it was good sportsmanship."
"I think -"
"I think you better stop thinking for me, and start thinking for yourself," the Deathman said. "I've learned how to kill here, but I haven't learned how to like it and I sure as hell haven't learned how to sleep nights. Last I heard, there were no openings for assassins in Lilliwaup."
He stood up, brushed off his fatigues and hefted his lasgun.
"Now this is how it's gonna be," he said. "I'm doing the running whether you let me take the bets or not. You gotta admit, a sizeable winnings is good incentive, and I intend to add an attractive twist."
Hot Rocks flicked his gaze around the beach, the cliff side, the tumble of boulders around them. This was hooded dasher country, and his caution was automatic. Besides, they'd burned out two boils of nerve runners here in the past week and nothing gave Hot Rocks the creeps more than nerve runners.
"Let's do it," he sighed, and they joined the rest of the squad at the tideline.
The bright afternoon suns ate away the tail of the daily squall and glistened off the wet black rocks of Dash Point. The narrow point jutted three kilometers into the ocean, and was named for its popularity as a place to run the P.
"Running the P" was a game as old as Pandoran humans. The first settlers took bets, then ran unarmed and naked around the perimeter of their settlement, hoping to beat the demons for a thrill and a few food chits. Though technically illegal, it was a game resurrected by the Vashon Security Force. In the old days, survivors of the run tattooed a single chevron over an eyebrow to mark their success. Though this tradition, too, had been resurrected, the runs were set in places like Dash Point that were famous for high demon populations. The two in twenty-eight that Hot Rocks had seen survive were exactly twice the actual average.
"Bets are always two to one," the Deathman said. "The six of you match my month's pay, then that means I get a year's pay when I get back."
"When he gets back," McLinn muttered. "Listen to him."
"Well, I want five to one," he said.
"Five to what?"
"You been hit too hard in the head."
"No way."
"Shit," McLinn said, "for five to one he just might make it. I'm out."
"Hear me out, gents," the Deathman said. "See that big rock yonder off the point? Not only will I run the P, but I'll swim out to that rock and back. For five to one."
"Stay awake, men," Hot Rocks warned, and everyone swept the area quickly. "Standing here this long we make excellent bait, remember that. OK, let's get it on. Bets or not? Run or not?"
"I'm in."
"Me, too."
"In."
"Here's mine."
Each of the men handed five of their food coupons to Hot Rocks to hold. Each coupon represented a month's rations in the civilian sector. The Deathman handed over five of his own against their twenty-five. Hot Rocks stayed out of it, and the Deathman didn't press him.
"Do me one favor," the Deathman asked.
"Name it," Hot Rocks said.
"Name that rock after me," he said. "I want something around for people to remember me by. Rocks, they're a lot more permanent than people."
"'Deathman Rock,'" McLinn chimed up. "I like the sound of it."
Hot Rocks gave McLinn one of his paralyzing stares and McLinn busied himself with sentry duty.
"If you're going to do it, do it," Hot Rocks said. "Myself, I'd just as soon shoot you here as see you go out there. Stick around much longer and I just might."
"Here's the paperwork," the Deathman said, handing Hot Rocks a small packet. "Back pay, retirement, insurance all go to my brother."
"Who gets the ears?"
"Fuck you."
The Deathman reached into the neck of his fatigues and showed Hot Rocks the necklace he'd made out of the brown little dried-out ears. Though human ears, they looked like seashells now, or twists of leather. He unfastened his fatigues and stepped out of them without a word. He handed Hot Rocks his lasgun and started running toward the point dressed only in his boots. The heavy necklace spun around his neck like a wot's game hoop as he ran.
They took turns at sentry, keeping him in sight with the glasses.
"He's almost at the point," McLinn reported. "What do you bet he leaves his boots on for the swim?''
The quiet one they all called "Rainbow" took him on for a month's worth. Everyone else was quiet, scanning the point with their high-powered glasses for signs of dashers or, worse, nerve runners. Rainbow lost. They were all surprised when he made the rock.
Nobody more surprised than the Deathman, Hot Rocks thought.
"Well, he's earned his place in history," McLinn said, and laughed.
The Deathman stood atop the offshore rock, yelling something they couldn't hear and shaking his necklace of ears at the sky like a curse.
The dasher must've been lazing in the sun on the oceanside of the rock. The impact from its leap carried the Deathman and the dasher a good ten meters into the narrow stretch of sea off the point. Some of the froth boiling up with the waves was green, so Hot Rocks knew that somehow, before he died, the Deathman had drawn dasher blood. Neither the Deathman nor the dasher ever came up.
Hot Rocks paid off the debts and pocketed the Deathman's packet of paperwork. While he packed up the fatigues, the lasgun and the rest of his brother-in-law's gear, none of his men's eyes met his own. He barked a few orders and walked flank while they finished their long sweep back to camp.
***
Reveries, mad reveries, lead life.
- Gaston Bachelard
This was the dream Crista had endured for years, the one of her return to the arms of kelp, cradled again in a warm sea. She rubbed her eyes and images flickered across the lids like bright fishes in a lagoon: Ben, beautiful Ben beside her; Rico in a cavern beneath them. There were others, fading in and ou...
"Crista!"
Ben's voice.
"Crista, wake up. The kelp's got Rico."
She blinked, and the images didn't go away, they were just overlain with more images like a stack of wot's drawings on sheets of cellophane. Ben knelt at the center of these images, holding her shoulders tight and looking into her eyes. He looked tired, worrie... scenes from his life dripped from the aura around him and spread out on the deck beside her.
"I saw something around his waist, a tentacle," he said. "I think it pulled him into the water."
"It's all right," she whispered. "It's all right."
He held her as she got her wobbly legs under her. She breathed deep the thick scent of hylighter on the air and felt strength pulse out from the center of herself to each of her weary muscles. Everything seemed to work.
"I see Rico," she said. "The kelp has saved him. He is well."