Arms crossed, annoyed stare, tapping foot; Lapis knew these things did not help, but she did not care. Patch had a risk-taking streak; Chiddle did not mitigate his impulsive behavior. If he expected his lop-sided grin to placate her, he should know better.
Cute annoyed her.
And the alarm, the constant pounding of hooves against the door, as well as Vision and Chiddle’s bickering, throbbed through her skull. Headache did not improve her disposition.
“I wish I could read this,” Patch muttered as he stared at the words.
“Do you think it would help?”
“I don’t know. Maybe, if Jhor were here.”
Lapis looked at the screens, then scanned the room; she did not see any device like a lever, a doorknob, or any other exit-related item. Of course, Vision pressed a plate that looked like the wall, so should she expect to? She glanced at the ceiling and noted a grooved tube rising up into darkness above the circular barrier. A way out? Perhaps, but they had no way of crawling up it.
Vision stomped her foot and pointed at the dented door; hooves crashed into it and it shuddered. Chiddle buzzed in anger.
“Does she know a way out?” Lapis asked.
“She says this room moved up and down, but we destroyed the main console, so we cannot make it do so. We must wait until the khentauree regain sense, but she does not know when that will be. Their programming should complete, but she also says the interference may prevent that. It rings in our heads and makes static and interferes with some processes.”
“So we could be here for days.” They did not have days’ worth of food and water, let alone the patience, to wait that long.
“No. There is another way. Gedaavik coded failsafes. If we activate this code, the khentauree will stop.”
“But?” Lapis prodded when he did not continue.
“It reverts the programming to a specified time Gedaavik chose. The growth the khentauree have undergone through the centuries will be gone. They will return to a state before Ree-god, and they will lose themselves. It will force silence on them, when they may not want it.”
Oh.
“We might not have much choice,” Patch said. “If you’re interested in keeping us humans alive.”
“Vision is not so concerned, but she doesn’t understand humans. I think she does not understand khentauree, either. They will destroy the door long before you run out of food and water.”
The dents proved that.
“How would you trigger the failsafe? Didn’t you just demolish the main console?” Lapis asked.
“We special khentauree have a way,” Chiddle said. “Gedaavik put it in our code. We of Ambercaast have only used it once, on one whose thought processes short-circuited. N192NP harmed others, so we had to harm them. They broke and went to silence and we removed their wires to make certain they remained silent.
“But Vision does not want to do this. She says taking their memory will not help. The Ree-god code will still function. I think it will help. They will re-set to a time before they came to the workstation, and there is no programming to force them to execute what she installed.”
“So what’s the special way?”
“I will broadcast the code to begin the failsafe.”
“Won’t that open you up to Ree-god’s code?”
“No. Gedaavik’s program will block an infection. The interference is the concern. It is affecting the communication between Vision and I, and we are in the same room. I may fail to reach the khentauree. I may fail to load the entire code, which will prevent the sequence from being interpreted, and the khentauree may be harmed instead of helped.”
“Then we’ll come up with something else.”
“There is nothing else.”
Lapis firmed her lips. She had not spent five years around street rats without knowing that another way always existed. “Yes, there is. We just need to get creative.”
“Can you force the others to run that diagnostic?” Patch asked.
“Yes, with the same handicaps. And, if there is nothing wrong, the program will end quickly and they will be as they are now. I don’t think we could escape before they finish.” He looked at the door. “It will no longer slide into place. We will have to destroy it to get out, and that will take too much time.”
She closed her eyes and tried to concentrate beyond the alarm. No wonder Chiddle could think of nothing else; the interference, the localized noise, probably played havoc with his internal workings. “Do you think they’ll listen to me, if I remind them I’m working for Maphezet Kez? They followed my orders before.”
Chiddle cocked his head. “Maybe. I must translate for you. They may not think my words are true.”
“Let’s try.”
“Lanth,” Patch warned.
“It’s better than them losing themselves.”
Patch pursed his lips, unimpressed with the logic. She hugged him, her mind whirling, her chest numbing. True, she owed the khentauree nothing, but if she could prevent further harm, she would. They did not have a choice when Ree installed her code. Why punish them for that?
The speech between the two khentauree crackled, attesting to the strength of the interference. “Vision says they must hear you, even if I translate,” Chiddle said. “We need to open the door. More khentauree have arrived, and more come, so the threat is greater.”
“How wed are they to Ree-god?” Patch asked.
“They are her caretakers. If they see her and think we harmed her, they will harm us.”
Lapis glanced at the crumpled body and then at Vision. Too late, to blot out the image. Nightmares would plague her for days once she returned to Jiy. “Chiddle, I’d like to know what Ree-god was like. What does Vision think she’d do in this situation?”
The zippiness of the conversation startled her.
“She says Ree-god was a haughty woman. She wore rich clothes and much jewelry. What she said, the humans and khentauree did. She would yell to catch attention, then demand obedience.”
Lapis had experience with similar women. Her mother’s parlor overflowed with them during the busy summer visiting season, when the socially advantaged rode around the countryside in luxury carriages and visited the unlucky. The really unlucky had to accommodate more than one guest and their entourage. Nicodem, with a large mansion, served three or four visitors at a time, and put up their horses, their servants, and their spouses.
She had disliked most of them, especially the ones with peripheral attachment to the royal court in Jiy. They did not find her a delightful child and commented on her outlandish behavior. Picking berries was not something only boys did, and she resented the implication that her hands were too delicate to continue her favorite pastime. When her mother told her those same uppities picked berries at farms surrounding the capital during holidays, she became even less enamored with city nobility.
Her mother laughed at her spitting anger, hugged her, and explained how some people degraded others to justify their boring, unhappy existence.
“How far do you think the door will open?” She studied the dents and the small gaps between the frame and the door.
Patch pointed at a larger bulge near the sliding edge. “That will block it from opening wide. There’ll be maybe a hand’s width of space, but that will be enough for them to try to pry the door open. Is there anything we can use as a barrier?”
Lapis glanced around, but the only thing that might work as extra protection was the broken console facing. Her gaze lingered on the corpse, and she shuddered. A teeny, tiny part of her half-expected the revengeful ghost of the woman to rise and assault those who so thoughtlessly destroyed her body. It was the same reason she never understood Scand’s desire to live in the graveyard cubby, or a guttershank’s choice to escape her by entering the sewers near the Pit. If restless undead existed, would they not inhabit the spaces reserved for the deceased?
“Will they attack the blank?” Patch asked.
Chiddle swiveled his head to Vision, who buzzed at him. “She says no. It is the sacred vessel for Ree-god. Even without sense, she doesn’t think they will harm it. I am not so sure.”
Lack of sense meant they might not recognize it, and his reluctance meant he thought they would break it. That did not prevent Lapis from trotting to it and investigating the hooves.
The bottoms had frozen to the metal on which it stood. The local khentauree had taken care of the buildup, or the cold might have done more damage. What kind of code did they follow, to make so much effort for a dead vessel? She touched a leg; something seemed off. Lifeless. Interacting with the Ambercaast khentauree did not give her the same sensation. They were alive, their surfaces vibrant, warmer.
“Chiddle, what’s a blank?” she asked.
“It is a new machine, without local code,” Chiddle said. “They have the minimal programming they were shipped with. That is all. But I do not think this one even has that. If they expected Ree-god to transfer her soul to it, then they would clear it of all programming. Maybe that is why it did not work. She did not know how to tell the body to function.”
The thought of Ree-god’s soul trapped in the body for year upon year, unable to move, communicate, do anything . . . that would lead anyone to insanity.
She dug her shoulder into the chassis and pushed. Patch and Chiddle joined her; the hooves gave way with a sharp crack. The two khentauree tugged the heavy blank to the door, while she and her partner watched. The walkway around the glass was not large enough for them to help.
Patch settled his hand on her back, below her pack, a comforting act. Her head sank to his shoulder, and she closed her eyes. Was she going to do this? Would it work? It had to. Not only did the four of them rely on it, so did the other infiltration group, and Ragehill, and the people trapped in the Shivers. Who knew, the mechanical beings might even charge down the mountain to the nearest human habitation and destroy things there.
The ones warped by the markweza’s scientists had done so, attacking hunting outposts and leaving behind destruction. Had Faelan discovered the fate of the people who hunted from the lodge they flew over in her uncle’s Swift? Probably dead, as the Meergevens intended.
Chiddle and Vision set the khentauree crosswise, and they pressed the front of their horse torsos against its shoulder and hindquarters, bracing against the anticipated rush to get into the room. Then Vision pressed the panel.
No warning to get ready. The door screeched and stuck, a hand’s width open. Hands and arms shot inside, grasping, and high-pitched whines echoed around the hallway. Another alarm sounded from behind them, just off enough from the one in the room to irritate.
“Chiddle, what’s the word for stop?”
“Mekot.”
“MEKOT! Maphezet Kez!” Did she sound haughty?
The immediate silence hit as hard as any blow, leaving the alarms blaring incessantly. She had their attention, at least.
“I represent Maphezet Kez. Ree-god has gone to silence.”
Chiddle relayed her words, and rustling began, accompanied by a low, ominous buzz.
“She no longer needs khentauree care. She no longer needs khentauree prayers.”
The buzz grew louder and fear shot into her heart. She was not the slickest tongue, and while she spoke from the heart, that did not mean she could convince the khentauree to listen to her.
“You will help Lanth and Patch and Chiddle and Vision when they need it. You will help humans from Ragehill when they need it. Return to your place of rest for now.”
A hoof thrust through the opening, nailing the blank’s upper back. It rocked, but the weight of the mechanical beings kept it in place.
“Most are leaving,” Chiddle said. Clicks of hooves on tiles died under the returned banging on the door.
Vision’s head swiveled, and she chirped at him. He growled, annoyed.
“We cannot reach the khentauree who still attack. We must reset, even if she says no.”
“MEKOT!” Lapis screamed.
They stopped.
“Chiddle, I need to know how to say ‘go rest’.”
He clicked. “Say ‘Medoaa keethem ba vara’.”
“MEDOAA KEETHEM BA VARA!”
Three attempts later, and the pounding returned.
“Others leave. Two remain.”
“MEKOT!” The attack stopped.
“How do you say shut down?”
He buzzed. “Mevoto dees.”
“MEVOTO DEES.” Easy enough.
Vision slumped and hummed. Lapis took that as a sign that her order worked.
“They are shutting down,” Chiddle said, nodding. “Too bad, you did not say it to all. But they shut down. You did not say when to reawaken, so I do not know how long they will remain shut down.”
“Hopefully long enough to get out of here,” Patch said.
