Betrayals: Four

Zero minus eighty-one years

---------

ArGartha City was old, but so were most of the people in it. It cascaded down the side of a two thousand metre mountain, and spilled into the sea as a series of quays and fish docks. In ArGartha, the second largest population centre on Rendell Ring, a large proportion of the two hundred thousand citizens liked to eat fish. There were many others who thought it was a barbaric practice, and this conflict (amongst many others) made the old city a lively place to be, especially during the Fish festival and the Shoal Emergence, when the Shroom, a local race of intelligent provolved lungfish paraded through the streets and squares blowing whistles.

At forty degrees up the curve of the Ring could be seen the much larger city of Dornoway, which glowed yellow and white at night when the Lamp at the Ring's centre was dimmed.

Some folk held that Dornoway was an even more interesting place to live than ArGartha, and many from Dornoway were prepared to prove it, and the ArGarthans were prepared to prove them wrong. Every street corner and roundabout had a fantastic sculpture of some sort, in fantastic shapes and sizes, abstract and figurative, motionless and animated – the production of material artefacts was the highest goal of the Mutual Progress Alliance, but it was not the only way in which the people of ArGartha strove against their rivals (and each other) to succeed.

They competed with each other in arts, sport and business. They used opera, Grand Guinol, No plays, and mime. They used freeclimbing competitions, self- powered flight, skin-balloon racing, steampunk drag racing and endurance keel-hauling. They used cross-country man-hunting, carnivore wrestling, blackjacks and knuckledusters.

The spirit of ArGartha, hilly and fishy, with its thinking buildings of white stone sometimes lit with an internal blue or yellow fire, and squares full of brawling, happy people was so distinctive that some people became obsessed with its mysterious character. The Psychogeographers of the city wanted to analyse their home, some in love with it, some hating it, aware that it was a living entity.

ArGartha City actually was a sentient being in its own right, the sum of all the sentient service programmes and town maintenance routines, but had never been known to communicate verbally on a one to one basis to any one.
ArGartha didn’t need to talk; instead the city and its people had evolved a hybrid character, and the people knew what was good about the town (and what was wicked); the people of ArGartha together spoke their collective likes and dislikes often and in the matter of the rivalry with Dornoway they were of one mind. 

The ArGarthans called their home CodHead City, and the Dornoway opposition were labelled Woodentops because of the living wooden architecture their own city preferred. Dornoway was not a steel and glass town, with skyscrapers rising from the ring floor towards the Lamp; it was instead a growing, wood and shingle affair, with low-rise suburbs clustering around the larger central tree-cathedrals and civic palaces.

Deep beneath Codhead City were catacombs and service tunnels, which the Psychogeographers considered to be the font of the city's subconsciousness, and they had been mapping and exploring these tunnels for hundreds of years without finding their full extent. If the city would not talk to them directly the Psychogeographers intended to read the huge city mind from within.

The Dornoway Spelunkers claimed that the Underworld of their own city was far more complex, which may have been true. As part of the culture of rivalry teams of Dornoway spelunkers also plumbed the thousands of miles of tunnels beneath ArGartha, and vice versa- the CodHead teams scrambled beneath the massive roots of the Woodentop buildings.

Gus Gienah, Nobby Karafa and a guest spelunker from Dornoway, Freddey Leary were attempting to reach seventeen kilometres into the Sludge Trap system of caves and tunnels, three kilometres further than anyone had ever gone before. To get to that level, they had to avoid the security bots in the tunnels beneath the water reservoir at the top end of ArGartha’s Hill Street, and crack the code on the metal door into the Downwards Passage. 
Max Handy was particularly useful for code cracking, and when he finally got the door open he rolled about the chamber floor like a piece of tumbleweed. "Ye utuvienies!" he said in some forgotten artificial language.

  "Okay, Max. That’s great. Now hop up and we can get down to the Big Digger level before lunch."

Max jumped up onto Gus’s head, and wound himself round like a turban. Gus unclipped his torch and held it above his forehead, and Max grabbed it and folded it into himself, so that the light shone forward.

  "The versatile safety helmet and lockpick," he said to Freddey, who wore a solid lowtech helmet himself.

  "I’ve lost contact with the Net already," said Karafa, slapping the side of his head with his palm as if to clear the connection.

  "That is the best part, lads- just us and the dark, and that ignorant citymind of yours that never talks to anybody," said Freddey. "Not having cold feet, are you, Codheads?"

  "Your feet get bloody cold when you get near the Outside, you know. There is a layer of superconductor just above the Buckytube lattice, so if you touch the Ring floor, wear gloves." Gus said.

They crept past the Big Diggers in the dark- something like five hundred earth moving machines, sealed into a tufa cave, robotic minds deactivated and stone cold. All three of the spelunkers utilised infrared sensitive contact lenses- enabling them to see each other easily in the dark, as well as any warm-blooded creatures they might encounter.

  "Hello! Wake up, you ugly bastards!" said Gus. Freddey laughed, and kicked one. “It looks like one of your revolting sculptures, Gienah,” he said.

  “Everyone is an art critic these days,“ said Gus, who hadn’t made a sculpture himself for thirty years. “Still, it’s good that people remember my work.”

  “Only as an unwelcome obstruction of empty space,” Freddy guffawed.

Somehow, Karafa seemed uncomfortable.
  "Let them sleep. And remember the Unhcegila. We might wake that up, instead."

A drainage channel led downwards again, and came to a data tunnel five feet high full of optic cables, but enough room to squeeze along beside the pipes for a couple of kilometres till they came to a damp square chamber, covered in graffiti, where they had lunch. Many adventurers had come this far, including some superbrights with augmented skills, judging from the artistic endeavours on the walls. There was no light anywhere except from their lamps.

By the map in Max’s memory they were two kilometres beneath the hill Troller’s Pike, and six kilometres from the outskirts of ArGartha. Three hundred meters of rock below them separated them from the cold of space.
After using a blind alley as a toilet they went down to the Sludge Pipe, which was muddy and wet, but sloped upwards and ended a couple of kilometres away in a tall, thin granite chamber called the Strake- there seemed to be several of these, allowing drainage of, and providing support to, the hills above.

The collected maps of the Psychogeographers showed a star-like pattern beneath the hills, but much was inaccessible. The next part of the journey had only recently been discovered, and they needed to utilise the wetsuit/rebreathing apparatus they wore to get there.

Ten metres of underwater wriggling later, they were in a collapsed chamber, evidence of the absence of repair robots.
Gus waved his arm upward to indicate the new tunnel. "Welcome to the kingdom of the Unhcegila."

This infamous haunter of the caves, beloved of the Psychogeographer chatter groups, had never been seen, only heard. Whatever the Unhcegila monster was, a rumour, a biospliced joke, or pet of the secretive city, it could perhaps subsist on the blind minnows and crayfish in the water, or the ever-present bacterial slime on the walls; perhaps it took char from the mountain lakes, or rats from 
the village drains far above.
Was it one or many? No-one knew, but spelunkers sometimes were never found again, even after searches by teams such as this one.

  "Perhaps old Morag 3Tech came this way; we might find the bodies in the next air pocket," said Karafa.

Freddey was doubtful. "More likely to find Ol' Unhk. What's the betting he's just some kind of giant crayfish? Of course there's no monster in our caves under Dornoway." He laughed again. "If there was it would have been eaten long ago by the covens of Dispatcher cannibals down there."

  "Dispatchers aren't cannibals!" said Karafa sharply, then continued, "ah, as far as I know."

Now the three cavers were entering uncharted territory (that is, uncharted by anyone who had survived.)
Each new chamber was surveyed and recorded by Max as they inched forward. Clambering up a shaft twenty metres tall from a wet start at the bottom yet again, they spoke little and in short sentences.

  "Catch this-"
  "Corrupt my backup - missed it -"
  "Useless codhead, it's underneath you-" 
  "Thanks, planktop, if you'd thrown it right - "
  "Are we all set, now?"
  "Come on, Nobby, wake up down there."
  "Sorry, Gus, hang on."
  "I was intending to do that, thanks; now shift."


Now they came to a gallery, consisting of a granite slab suspended by rough-cut columns over a muddy floor. Max scouted ahead by himself, Leary busied himself winding the ropes, while Gus knelt by Karafa, who seemed out of sorts.

  "OK, Nobby? You seem a little distracted."
  "It's nothing- just the people in my church group have been bugging me. Nothing, really." 

  "Oh, yes, you're an Omegist isn't it? End of the worlders- well, the world isn't going to end while we're down here."

  "No, that's not we think – that's all a myth, Gus - "

  "Come on, fishheads, stop cuddling up, give me a bit of mint cake and we'll be on our way," said Freddey, thrusting between them and shining his headlight in their eyes.

  "This sump looks promising. I'll swim through and check it out. Agreed, everybody?" Max called from the far end of the chamber.

They stooped in the dark until Max came back, visible as a constellation of tiny red, blue and green lights in the black water. 

  "There's a long crack, might lead to a passage, might even get near the surface somewhere. Ten metres of water. Going to try it?"
  "Hop on board, you can show me the way," said Gus. Max took position as safety turban on Gus' head again.

They dived into the water, lit ahead by their lamp, and resurfaced in the narrow crack Max had described. Resting for a while on a ledge just out of the water, they played word association games while they waited for the others. 

And waited.

Faint echoes from somewhere could be heard above the sound of the underground stream.

Finally they came round to worrying. 
  "If it is Unhk, he probably doesn't eat robots," said Gus. 

  "Assuming he knows that already, I'll be safe." And Max leapt, like a wirewool jellyfish, into the water. Gus was alone, with a hand-held torch, six hundred metres below the hillside, and a hundred metres above the vacuum of space.

Well, corrupt my backup, he thought. 
Then he thought about his real backup, nearly three months out of date now. Living as a disorganised bachelor he had forgotten about that little chore, despite Max's reminders. If he disappeared down here- no bones ever found- he would be backed up from a copy that 
knew nothing about this cave system, and had never even met that wacky woodentop Freddey. 

He, now, as he was, would die, just like an ancient earthling, or a pioneer at the edge of the civilised galaxy. Somehow, that made him feel intensely alive. To be able to live, one must have the option to be able to die.

  "Ellelelelellleee!" he ululated, like a successful ArGarthan fisherman who has caught a coelacanth. 

A little later,
  "To hell with that,
… come on, Max, this isn't funny!"

Faint echoes in the dark once more. Something was happening back there.

Gus looked up at the ceiling of the cave; the broken vertical slabs he had swum under to get here were slightly separate from the ceiling, and perhaps he could get all the way back without having to
swim.
Climbing up, he switched his light off to see if there was any light or infrared visible from the other chamber, to indicate a good passage, and thought he saw a tiny glimmer. Without putting his
light back on, he scrambled quietly over the broken slabs, navigating by the faint false colour glow given off by his own warm face and hands.

This was not as easy as he had imagined, and he hit his unprotected head twice.

In a burst of chaotic noise a signal came through on the channel he shared with Max.
  `—Ajaattttllh/ emp/emp>>hhiudd=='

Gods, Gus thought… sounds like Max has been hit by a mag-pulse.

Just in case, Gus shut down all his neural implants he could think of. If there were to be another electromagnetic pulse, that should prevent any painful spiking.

He decided not to shut down his infra-red sensitive contact lenses.

With them he could see some disturbing things. Below him in the muddy chamber Gus could see a rapidly cooling body, lying face down; nearby was a weakly pulsing bushbot covered in violet distress lights. Over them stood Nobby Karafa, peering into the cold water, waiting for his next victim.

Karafa was agitated, waving his arms over his head alternately as if trying to dislodge demons.
  "Come on, Gienah, come to me, I'll help you, you'll see, I'll help you go before, come on," he said.

Karafa looked up, and suddenly seemed to notice the faint infra-red glow surrounding Gus' face and hands. He brought up the rod-like object he was carrying, which might have been an antirobot EMP weapon, obviously brought along to deal with Max, but would no doubt have stunned Freddy Leary by overloading his implants. Allowing Karafa to perhaps cut his throat or-

The weapon was discharged, interrupting Gus' speculations and burning out his IR lenses. Now he was effectively blind, and he scrambled around on top of the rock until he thought he was facing
away from the open gallery, and began to scramble back the way he had come-

And instead fell off the slab sideways, knocking Karafa flat, and ending up winded half in and half out of the underground stream.

Gus was stunned, and in pain from his left forearm, which might have been broken, but he wasn't sure. His right hand still clutched the knife, and he instinctively brought it up to ward off Karafa.

Gus could feel the madman lying underneath him in the dark, and felt him scramble for the weapon on the muddy floor and try to fire it straight into Gus' face. Metal clashed against metal. Weapon and knife went flying into the water.

  "Say Hello From Me!" Karafa called in the darkness.

Soaking wet and blind, Gus rolled backwards, and in what felt like slow motion kicked away from the madman, squeezing into a hole that led to Binah knew where.

That's what the-
The Dispatchers-

  "Get off me-"
-say when they send souls to the Omega at the end of the Universe.

Send them by killing them.

Hands grabbed at him, pulling him back down the chimney, and from somewhere a knife appeared, cutting into his leg, pulling and cutting, and a scream, not his own, and a noise like a flock of birds or bats.

The hands stopped pulling. Gus drew his bleeding legs up into the chimney.

The noise increased, the screaming stopped. *Something* moved below, devouring. Finally it moved away, taking with it a sound like a wooden stick tapping slowly against metal railings.

After many minutes he fell out of the chimney like a haul of fish out of a net.

He was now the only human, living or dead, in the chamber.

Perhaps hours later Max recovered enough to wrap himself around Gus' bleeding leg, and the pair made their painful way seven kilometres back to the graffiti room, which held a small startled spelunker group eating breakfast.


The remembered scene froze as Auguste Gienah and his vec staggered into the painted chamber.

---------

Shiny black and almost featureless, the avatar of the Negentropist Bailiff turned to the Librarian and shook his head.

  Bless me. I am experiencing mild surprise. It seems we can eliminate the Dispatchers as protagonists in this game, unless they are extraordinarily ill organised. And it is a reasonable hypothesis that the cave dwelling monster was sent by an unknown protagonist to save the all-important tattooed skin of Mister Gienah.


  An alternative interpretation is possible; the Brushbot recovered itself almost immediately, using its integral biological systems. Electromagnetic pulse has been a killer for thousands of years, but most modern vecs have various kinds of immunity. Strangely, the Unhcegila has been heard less since, some say not at all, and of course still has never been seen.
Perhaps it never existed at all; or if it is real it need not have been involved in this event.
The Librarian adjusted her glasses fractionally as she spoke.

  I follow your line of reasoning. It is within the bounds of possibility that this brushbot Handy is not all e seems; a vec of that description could have faked the apparition of this unseen monster, and disposed of the bodies in the dark. Are there any surveillance recordings of these events available?

  I am afraid not. ArGartha city maintains no monitoring equipment that far underground… 
The various habitats in the Necklace are Human Sovereign Polities, and we do not try to live their lives for them.

The Bailiff folded his imaginary arms and smiled lightly.
  Some might say, on the other hand, that we Negentropists take a more interested role in the lives of our populace. You say that your people have greater freedom, and we maintain that our worlds are safer.
Nevertheless, I presume you are still happy to accept the help of the Negentropy Alliance in this matter?

  More than happy. Both the Necklace and the Mutual Progress Alliance as a whole have excellent working relationships with your Bailiffs and Inquisitors.

  Good; I am happy to help. We need to examine the Brushbot in great detail; it looks increasingly likely that he carries part of the responsibility for this subversive attack. Have you taken him into custody yet?

  Max Handy cannot be found; he was last seen entering this very cave system with a female vec companion, two days ago; a discrete search of the tunnels has not found him yet.

  This is unlikely to be a coincidence. I suggest you intensify your search somewhat…
Another option is open to us, of course; I believe all your citizens, human and robot, are regularly scanned and copied for back-up purposes. Is that not so, cousin?

  Indeed they are, at a frequency of their own choosing; some choose never to be backed up at all.


  Then we will need the recordings of any backups taken from this missing brushbot, and any backups taken from Gienah at any time during the period with which we are concerning ourselves. Assuming there are any, of course.
The Bailiff leant forward and peered at the frozen image again.

  I have one recent snapshot of Gienah, taken six months ago; that will tell us very little, as we have the original here. On the other hand the robot has not been fully backed up for twenty years; after such a long period the data will have been sent to our long term data repository.
I can certainly retrieve this information but it will take some time… the dead record storage is kept in the mutual Oort cloud, six thousand astronomical units from here

  Ferjik's Beard! Our whole investigation so far has taken no more than six hundred seconds. Now we are talking about a delay of sixty days.

  The records are very safe, protected in a Deeper Covenant stronghold. If it is any consolation, a request for these records was sent as soon as Gienah was brought in here, so has been on its way for more than fifteen standard minutes.
The avatar of the Librarian appeared somewhat chastened.

  Well, I suggest we continue to inquire into the memories contained within Gienah's head, as that seems to be all we have to go on for the moment.

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