Wildcard (50 page)

“Sorry. But pain wasn’t right last time I
hurt myself. It was…”

“Yeah, you’re right. Cool! Something’s
changed. Wildcard has found feeling somehow.”

“All we lack is smell, now.”

“Geez, it hurts, though.”

“Can you cut his pain, Trident?”

“Not without limiting his
functionality.”

“No, I don’t want that. Maybe after we get
in. I may need some relief to keep going eventually. For now, I can
tolerate it.”

“What did it feel like?”

“It fucking hurt. I think I broke my right
pinkie, too.” He pulled it. “Yeah, shattered. S-1’s missing finger,
the one LuvRay bit off. Can you fix it, T?”

“Hold it up, ring finger bent at ninety
degrees to the hand. Now straighten the pinkie along the same
line.”

The Sergeant shouted against the pain as he
did it. “Done. Wait, Trident.” Trident had begun spinning a nanotic
cast for the two fingers. “I want it in a hook. It will get in the
way like this.”

“Shall I remove the finger? The pain will be
minimal, it will not be in the way, and it will not present an
accidental pain hazard.”

The Sergeant made a sucking noise on his
teeth. “I’m losing a lot of body parts today. What would S-1
do?”

“He would have had the finger off by now and
be working on the Portal.”

“How will you do it?” Karl asked.

“I will use a self-cauterizing
nano-blade.”

“Yeah, all right. Take it off.”

The pinkie fell to the floor. The Sergeant
tossed it at the wall. “Let it pass through the tube, T.” The
finger floated away from the ship.

“Did it hurt?”

“No, totally painless. It’s just freaky to
lose a body part.”

“Hold it still, boss. I will create a hard
casing for it.”

Trident finished in a few seconds and they
turned to the Portal.

“Describe the sensation, Boss.”

“Just before it blasted my eye out, it felt
soft, almost like it was pulling me.”

“Why did you lose your eye and your pinkie?
It’s the same as the first Sergeant.”

“The q-code caused it,” Trident said. “It
establishes connection as part of its basis.”

“Shoot.” Karl clapped his hands. “I know
what to do. I have to dive in.”

“Why you? That sounds like my kind of
work.”

“I solved it, I have to do it. Trident, open
the tube facing onto the Portal. I may be able to get you in
after.”

“How do you know this?”

“The poem. I remembered a line – ‘so that
you may leap towards the light alone.’”

“Analysis, T. Is he right?”

“The line is exactly as the poem said. That
increases probability dramatically according to Juniper theory. 98%
or more that he is correct.”

“OK. Can you take Trident? No, of course
not. Perhaps pull a nano-thread through?”

“I think so. No bigger than a nano-thread,
though. q-tek?”

“NO,” Trident and the Sergeant both
said.

“Bad idea.”

“I will need help to build a Portal crossing
nano-thread,” Trident said.

“Who? Wildcard? We don’t have any help,” the
Sergeant replied.

“:3: could do it easily.”

“How do we get in touch with him?”

“I cannot. Dartagnan could do it.”

“Fantastic. I don’t like that guy. Is that
our only option?”

“I need to go.” Karl began running. “I need
to go now. Trident, guide me.”

“Boss?”

“Do it, T. It beats contacting
Dartagnan.”

Karl leapt into space.

He dove towards the tube he knew was there,
the one pointing directly towards the Star Portal.

“Keep your trajectory flat,” the Sergeant
said. “The danger is that you’ll compensate as if there were
gravity, and shoot above the Portal. Slow down as you dive, lay
flat in the air, and push off straight.”

“Dive as closely for the hole as you can,
Karl.”

It felt like a marshmallow lined tunnel, not
sticky, but soft. He could feel Trident’s guiding power.

“I can extend the tube for a distance, but I
should not touch the Portal itself. Because it is a quantum
artifact, it does not begin or end anywhere. Also, distances are
not possible to accurately guage in wildspace. Therefore, I must
let you fly alone for a time. I will attach a nano-thread, but it
probably will not go through with you. This Portal has defenses we
have not seen before.”

“What should I do when I hit it? I’m flying
blind.”

The Portal seemed to be further than it had
been moments before.

“Karl, that is not the true Portal. It will
kill you if you enter it. I have found the true Portal and am
hitting it with a scatter-focus laser. It is 4 degrees right and 45
degrees up from where you are headed.” Karl saw it. I will end the
tunnel soon, and you must correct your course by push off. The
tunnel is not stiff, so overcompensate by 50%. You will pass close
to the trap Portal. Be careful. Do not touch it.”

“Roger Wilco. What is this stuff, anyway?
Why didn’t you tell me, before?”

“The new Portal just appeared. It is called
nano-web.”

“Hold your arms in front of you so you can
feel the end of the tube.”

“What do I do when I hit the end of the
tube? Do I lose coms, then?”

“Beats me,” the sergeant said, “I just want
to get you there without losing body parts.”

“I can maintain voice-coms until you enter
the Portal.”

“What do you think? Just fish out in your
coms thingy for someone to ask.”

“LuvRay.”

The Benefactor’s voice came through Trident,
talking to someone else. “What advice would you give me?”

“Never lie again,” said LuvRay.

The communication was gone. Trident and the
Sergeant were gone. Karl was alone, floating toward the Star
Portal. The wrong one. Trident was wrong, the coms were broken at
the end of the tube. Karl’s kick had been feeble, ill-timed,
against mush. He had not changed course. He was nowhere, and alone
there.

“I have established contact. The Sergeant
attached a microphone and resonating speaker. We can maintain until
you hit the Portal. It is old technology, although I used
nano-material, so I can keep it on until you enter the Portal.”

“Thank God. I’m off course, though.”

“I know. The Sergeant is working out a
solution. I think you have a few moments.”

“Is LuvRay there?”

“No, we lost him.”

“‘Do not lie anymore.’ What does that mean
for me?”

“Play on words,” said the Sergeant. “That’s
what it is. Trident, synonyms for lie.”

“Meaning- an intentional misstatement, or
the act of uttering one-Falsehood, untruth, fib, fiction,
hyperbole, fraudulence, inaccuracy, myth, fable, deceptiveness,
disinformation, lying, untruthfulness, prevarication, mendacity,
falsification, subterfuge, defamation, detraction, calumny,
fabrication, deception, slander, perjure, forge, obloquy

“Meaning- to be situated. Extend, be on, be
beside, be located, be fixed, be established.

“meaning- to be prostrate. Recumbent,
supine, flat, prone-”

“That’s the one,” the Sergeant said. “Karl,
I think you need to go through standing up, relative to the Portal.
Whatever that feels like for you. Just don’t dive through
headfirst.”

“As I currently will enter the wrong
one.”

“Pretty much.”

“How do I change my physical position? I’m
getting close, I think.”

“I know. My solution depends on you getting
fairly close, then using momentum. Curl yourself up, turning your
orientation as much as you can.”

“How do I change direction?”

“I’ll do that for you.”

“There’s more to the lying thing.”

“What else?”

“Don’t know.”

“It’s possible. OK, Karl, extend your arms
and legs when I strike you.”

“What?”

He felt two feet hit him on the buttocks and
left thigh, then push. He looked back at the Sergeant who was
headed for the other side of the false Portal.

“Don’t look back, dammit. Look straight
ahead, at the new Portal.”

The new Portal was clear now, the trap one
fading away.

Karl went floating past it. It slid aside
just before he got to it. He thought he heard rocks laughing as he
did. He looked over his shoulder, saw the Portal slide back,
between him and the ship.

“Sergeant? Trident?” Nothing. He pulled on
the nano-cord. It had no resistance. It was severed.

Karl felt something grab
him, something
curious
. An odd and alien mind. He was meeting a very old being,
much more than the old man. The mind he met tasted ancient, like it
had crawled from the well of time. From before Wildcard had met
men, before he knew what they were.

“Who are you?”

“We are firstchild. What does it wish in
this place?”

Karl thought about the question, began
racing away from the Portal. “Why are pushing me back?”

“Existences who hesitate answers lie. We
send away. We protect.”

Karl had slowed, though. “I want to see the
Poet. I want to see the Poet.”

“Why does it wish to see the Poet? What is
its…,” firstchild paused as if searching for a word “…name?”

“I cannot say why I wish to see the Poet.”
He was echoing firstchild out of nervousness. He stopped moving.
“My name is Karl.” He began moving slowly towards the Portal again.
He almost looked around for the ship, cut the reflex before it cost
him entry.

“I wish to see the Poet because I seek the
truth.” Stop. Slowly moving away again.

“I wish to see the Poet because I wish to be
free.”Moving faster away.

“I wish to see the Poet because he is my
father.”

“What?” Firstchild said. His voice sounded
like a thousand voices speaking at once, layered and interwoven
with each other, no voice taking prominence. All asking the same
question, but out of phase with one another – tune, pitch, speed,
stressed syllables. “What did it say?”

“It was a joke. That the Poet might be my
father.”

Firstchild laughed, deep, throaty, from a
hundred caves, echoing insanely. “Impossible is this belief.” It
was like a mountain come alive, rocks scraping together, trees
ripping free. But somehow a laugh, which went on and on.

It continued for minutes, then hours, just
heavy booming, many voiced earthquake laughter. Karl shouted
questions, begged for attention. It turned into days, even weeks
for all he could tell. He lost his grip on his mind, went insane,
came back to more laughter. Maybe a month he listened to that
booming strange million voice disunified laughter, which was not
really laughter at all. It was the sound of the earth spinning
around the Sun. Or the tide, rising and falling. It spoke of
dinosaurs becoming extinct, primates taking their place, evolving
to man, and the planet cooling in its first billion years. The
noise was the unsteady lurch of time in a place where time had no
meaning because it had nothing to refer to for its passage.

He was tied with a thick, rough rope, hands
and feet, to a wooden device, with gears and levers. The room was
stone, bars on the semi-oval windows, torches in metal wall
brackets. Apparently, Karl was being tortured. He remembered the
time-derangement of firstchild and wanted to go back. How had he
gotten there? Or here?

A man in a red Catholic outfit with white
highlights stepped into his view. He was holding a bible and a
rosary. “I am Fernando, Signore. I am an inquisitor. Why do you
wish to see the Poet?”

“What does Wildcard do?” Karl shot the
question back.

The inquisitor hesitated. “Wildcard ties you
to a pair of dice for to gamble your life, if he notices you at
all. Better to not be noticed.”

“I want to see the Poet because I’m supposed
to. It’s my destiny.”

The inquisitor walked over to a wall,
covered with hanging implements. Hooks, curved knives, long
needles, barbs, brands, forceps, hand drills, saws, peen hammers,
chisels, and many more. It looked like the workshop of a deranged
carpenter-blacksmith. Fernando took his time. He picked up a brand,
looked at a firebox in the corner, then at Karl. He pursed his
lips, put it back. Picked up a meter long needle a millimeter
thick. He strolled to Karl, tapping the non-pointed end of the
needle in his left palm. He made a tsking noise and began tapping
Karl in the face with the blunt end. Not really painful, but
irritating.

“Why is it your destiny…Karl?”

“Why not?”

Fernando stabbed the point deep into his
thigh.

“Fuck. Goddammit. Please, what do you want
me to say?”

“I do not know. Only you can know what you
need to say, venerable Signore. Perhaps I need a different
instrument to help you remember the words.”

He walked back to the wall, picked up a rag
and slowly wiped the blood off of the long needle. Karl began to
hyperventilate. He had not expected the torture to be real. Just a
show, surely. He jerked against the ropes. No chance, he was
expertly secured. Mind only. Why was he here? What was his destiny
with the Poet? He had no idea. He rifled his memory
frantically.

8-Ball world, he found Trident. Then the
Sergeant who killed the old couple.

“Redemption for the old couple’s death?”

Fernando put the needle lovingly back in its
place, and was reaching for a pair of forceps. He changed his mind
when Karl said this and grabbed a brand. He walked over, put it
into the fire.

“Why are you really here, Karl? Wildcard
knows nothing of redemption. He looks to the future, not the past.
Don’t be a fool.”

He picked up a bellows and began to work it
attentively.

“Heating the fire, heating the fire,”
Fernando sang. “Heating the brand to burn the skin to teach Karl a
lesson.” He made the rhythm and the sound of “skin” and “lesson”
rhyme within the song.