Nexus by Robert Boyczuk (best large ebook reader txt) 📕

“Wait!” Liis called after him. When his light had first swept the room she’d seen several other doors-including wide double doors that looked like they’d been carved from pearl-and another stairway spiralling to her right. “How do you know they’re this way?” But Yilda ignored her. His light bobbed from sight. Hebuiza jostled roughly past her, causing her to wince as he brushed her injured arm. With a snarl, he loped down the stairs after Yilda.

“Shit!” Liis shouted loudly to the empty room. “Shit!” Then she plunged down the stairs after them.

They descended several hundred steps before the stairway ended at the entrance to a long, low-ceilinged corridor. Judging by the direction of the passageway, Liis guessed that it ran beneath the massive cylindrical structures. Yilda, who’d been waiting impatiently at the foot of the steps, took off down the corridor the moment Liis’ foot touched the floor. Hebuiza followed immediately in his wake, his head almost brushing the ceiling with each of his bounds. The smaller man loped straight ahead, ignoring the frequent branching corridors and arched doorways. Liis struggled to keep up, her wounded arm jarring painfully with her elongated gait.

Abruptly, Yilda swung left into another passageway, Hebuiza a step behind. Liis was cast into darkness. She faltered, moved cautiously, reaching her good arm out to feel along the wall until she found the junction where the Facilitators had turned.

This new corridor was also dark, the Facilitators already out of sight. Far away, she could hear the pounding of their feet. She stumbled ahead, caught her foot and shouted as she pitched forward. Her palm struck a surface sooner than it should have, skidded until she jammed her fingers painfully into something. Stairs! she thought before she collapsed atop her broken arm. Pain seared her vision. Gasping, she rolled onto her side, phantom lights darting in her vision.

Ignoring the agonizing throb in her arm, she pushed to her feet and began ascending, feeling her way gingerly along the wall, tapping the toes of her boots against the risers. Her foot pushed into air and she stumbled past the final step onto a landing. In the distance was a vertical band of bright light. Liis moved towards it, quickening her pace; she sensed the walls falling away, and, by her echoing footsteps, guessed she had entered a sizeable chamber. Opposite her the light grew more distinct and she realised that what she was looking at was the crack of a curtained doorway. A steady hissing grew as she approached the light. Liis parted the drapes, blinking in the sudden onslaught of light and sound. Twenty meters away a waterfall dove through a high, sharp cleft of rock and crashed into a foaming pool. On all sides a steep rockface soared out of view. Slick black rock, the colour of slate, made up the floor and ran right up to the doorway in which she stood. Liis craned her neck to look up: the underbelly of the dome filled the ragged slice of sky overhead with its pale luminescence.

I’m at the foot of the mountain.

There was no one to be seen.

She re-examined the walls of rock carefully, noticed an opening to the right of the falls, half-hidden by turbulent clouds of mist: the mouth of a large tunnel, its smooth, machined walls trailing away in dark perspective towards the heart of the mountain.

Liis took a tentative step onto the slick-looking surface of damp black stone, fully expecting her foot to slide out from under her. But what she found was that her footing was amazingly firm despite the film of water. She took another step. It felt as if the soles of her shoes adhered to the surface. She moved forward with more confidence, passing through a sudden spray from the waterfall that rose and swirled around her, wetting her face and arms and aching head. She paused, revelling in its coolness, letting it soak into her and refresh her. She jogged forward.

The tunnel was wide enough for ten people to walk abreast. It ran straight, inclining gently downward, and was lined with thick-napped red broadloom. The carpet displayed no signs of water damage; it didn’t look wet, even where the mist continually settled on it. No other doors or side-passageways were evident. Although the tunnel was without illumination, a fixed round light, blinking erratically, was visible in the distance. Squinting, she realised the light wasn’t in fact blinking; its source was being alternately blocked and revealed by the tiny figures of the Facilitators as they were interposed between her and the source of the light. Liis hurried after them, her steps noiseless on the carpet, wincing as each step jarred her arm.

Minutes seemed to pass; her breath grew ragged. Ahead, the Facilitators fell into the light and disappeared. She knew they had passed into another room. The light grew slowly, took on shape. A doorway and a softly lit chamber beyond.

Muffled shouts echoed into the tunnel from the doorway, followed by the distinct whump of Hebuiza’s bolt gun.

Liis dashed forward, her arm forgotten. She ran into an empty room, skidding to a halt. It was brilliantly lit, the walls lined with a glowing material that resembled alabaster, fine veins of burgundy marbling its surface. The floor on one side of the chamber was lower by several centimeters and had small dark holes spaced evenly along its length; nozzles sprouted from the wall above. On the other side was a bench; in front of it was a row of hooks on which robes, so white they seemed effulgent, had been neatly hung. Beneath each garment was a pair of sandals, identical to the ones worn by the Speaker Yilda had shot.

A shower room, she thought. At the far end of the chamber was another doorway hung with curtains like those she’d passed through before. A long protracted groan came from that direction. Liis loped up to the door and jerked the heavy material aside.

A naked figure lay face down at her feet.

A fat man, his paunch spread around his sides like a deflated balloon, beat his bald head rhythmically on the floor. His buttocks jiggled with each convulsion. Overcoming her repulsion, Liis stepped around him and into the room.

It was a hexagonal structure. Six seamless walls rose to a vaulted dome overhead. Wide bands of pastel colours flowed on every vertical surface in hypnotic patterns, softly illuminating the chamber. The motion insinuated itself into Liis’ consciousness, wrapping around her like a soothing web, easing her troubled mind, softening her pain. But the scene on the floor belied the peacefulness of the room: twenty meters away, Yilda stood under the cusp of the dome, at the hub of six white couches that fanned out like the spokes of a wheel, all angled so their occupants would face a different wall. A naked, spasming body lay on one of the couches; a second had slid partway off a couch that faced the opposite wall, only a jerking foot and one limp, pale arm was visible. Liis hadn’t heard the discharge of a Yilda’s weapon; but then its report had been almost inaudible back at the lake. Yilda, the stock of his rifle resting on his hip, its barrel pointing up, turned slowly, apparently surveying his work.

A sound like that of a whimpering child caught Liis’ attention. She swung around, saw Hebuiza to her right, near the wall of the chamber. At his feet were three more naked people-only these Speakers had not been incapacitated. They sat on the floor, huddled together, heads bowed, backed up as far as they could against the wall. The one in the middle, a man with a sparse thatch of yellow hair, was clutching at his thigh; blood seeped from between his fingers. He sobbed. Hebuiza swayed above him, the muzzle of his bolt gun centimeters from the man’s skull.

“I told you not to damage them,” Yilda said.

Hebuiza looked up; his eyes seemed huge in his cadaverous face. “He would have escaped,” he said petulantly, his basso voice echoing loudly beneath the vaulted roof. “You told me not to let a single one escape.”

“Now he’ll probably be useless.” Yilda sighed. “Show me his face.”

Poking the barrel of his weapon under the man’s chin, Hebuiza levered the Speaker’s head up. The man’s eyes were glazed, unfocussed, his features contorted with pain. But Liis recognized him instantly. He had Yilda’s face.

Liis spun around to look at Yilda. With one hand, the small Facilitator hefted his rifle. This time Liis was close enough to hear the faint pop of the weapon discharging; the man with Yilda’s face flopped backwards like he’d been hit in the head with a board, then went slack in the arms of the other two Speakers.

“Sweet dreams,” Yilda said to his twin.

The Twins

“You are expected.”

The words stunned Sav. But the phrase had transformed Josua: he’d gone rigid, the tendons in his neck standing out, the blood draining from his face. He stared at the tiny, phosphorescent words on the comm screen-‘Link Established’.

“Viracosa.” It was the woman’s voice again. Her intonation was clear if slightly laboured, as if she were unused to mouthing the phonemes of the language. “You are approaching Nexus space. Interdiction laws prohibit non-affiliate ships, and weapon bearing ships, from entering this space. On current course you will be in violation of both interdictions, and fourteen minor points of conduct, in…” A pause. “…_twenty-one point three hours, measured in Bh’Haret standard time. Acknowledge_.”

Sav had set communications circuit in ‘receive only’ mode. With the incoming message a rocker switch on the panel had changed from steady red to a blinking red to indicate that a link for incoming messages had been established. Such switches were standard on all longhaul ships: they were spring loaded, so that only when pressed and held in place would they turn green to indicate the transmit portion of the circuit was active. Sav lifted a headset from its rest on the side of the comm board, put it on. Then he reached for the switch. But Josua shoved his hand away.

Sav swung his chair around to face him. “What’s the matter with you?”

“No!” Josua’s face had twisted up. “It’s my decision.” He curled his hands into fists. The knuckles on his right hand were scraped and bloody, and Sav thought of the smashed panel next to his cell.

“Request acknowledgement, Viracosa.”

“We’ve got to talk to them.” Sav tried to keep his voice calm, even. “That’s why we’re here. We’ve come to negotiate for the cure. Remember?”

“Negotiate,” Josua repeated. Confusion seemed to mingle with his anger, to dilute it. Then his rage dissipated-or, perhaps more accurately, Josua seemed to quash it, swallowing it like a sour pill. “Yes,” he said gruffly, unclenching his fists and flexing his fingers. “Of course.” Walking unsteadily to the pilot’s station, he slumped into the seat. He gripped the armrests on the chair. “Proceed,” he said.

Sav pushed down on the switch; it changed from flashing red to green. “This is The Viracosa,” he said.

“Viracosa, this is Novitiate Lien and Surveillance Platform Aogista 12-42-1031. We have been expecting you.”

I know, Sav thought irritably. You already told us.

“You are requested to alter your course. Or you will be in contravention of the two major interdictions stated earlier and the following minor ones: entering Nexus space with an unregistered craft; failure to comply with directives issued by a representative of the Pro-Locutor’s council; use of an undamped, Level Zero fusion engine in Nexus space….” The voice rattled on through a list of transgressions.

Sav’s mind raced. The woman-what had she called herself, Lien?-had said