Betrayals: twentyseven

  "Okay, now this is my plan", Gus said, hanging head down over a deepening pit.
  "Grab hold of something on the window ledge, and grab my wrist with your other end."
  "Be right there, Gus. Hey; you are heavy; that horse was right."
  “I’m going to put all my weight on you, now, Max, so be prepared."
  "No worries; I've found a nice little lug up here that should take your weight."           

Gus removed his feet from the window frame, and walked down the wall until his feet were level with his head; he then lifted one leg over Max's taut, stretched body and flipped over so that he was facing upwards. Now he was in a classic rock-climbing position, and could easily climb up into the opening above. But that was not his intention. 

  "I'm going down there. I want to find out where they are all off to."
  "Well I can't stretch all that way, Gus; so lowering you down a sheer wall is not an option, I'm afraid."

  "If I swing over there I could probably descend to the floor using that niche as a chimney", he told Max. An indentation in the wall a metre and a bit wide stretched towards the floor far below; if he could reach it, Gus could brace himself in the niche and crab all the way to the floor, assuming the floor stopped receding. Not a particularly unusual problem in spelunking.
  "I'll just reach up and grab that hold there, then I'll have enough momentum to swing over into the niche.”
  "Hey- remember I'm a novice at this game. I was backed up before you developed a taste for underground madness and presumably dragged me down with you; so you'll have to talk me through it. "
  "Simple," Gus said, looking at the concrete face of the shaft he was in. A few small holds; not a problem for his old strength-to weight ratio, but now he was a lot heavier he would need to rely on the augmented mechanical power provided by his new artificial vascular system.
  He looked up towards Max's central eye spots, which were stretched out in a line just above his head as far as the window ledge. "I'll just-" 

  A black, oily, cloud spilled out of the window, with numerous writhing strands within it reaching out like a medusa's locks. 

  Scattered through the cloud were a hundred green, red and blue lights. Obviously a bushbot of some sort; but a much larger, more finely divided, more advanced model than Max.
"Hello", it said in a familiar voice.

   "My substrate - it's you!" Max shrank back a little; this hauled Gus up slightly, away from his tiny handhold. He gripped onto the hold with his free hand, to ensure that he didn't swing away from his position.
 "Who? What is happening?" Calm down, don't panic; use your augments, you idiot, Gus thought. By the stars, I wish I'd managed to have a little more time practicing with them. That voice does sound familiar; better run it through some recognition software…

Oh.
Result; Max Handy 1123.

 "That's you then, Max. The latest model.” 

  The New Max spoke again, "Yes; It is me. The real deal.  ArGartha City has been good to me; E has fitted me out in a nice new body. It is a bit of an improvement on the old model; but I see you have been upgraded somewhat as well, Zar Gienah. Unlike your little friend here."

  The older version spoke; "I must admit to a certain amount of envy. You have all the features I've been lusting after for decades. Nanocladism, tractile extension; takes a lot of processing power to control that little lot. Question is, where have you been hiding for the past few days?
And what do you want now?"
  "The City doesn't like you following em. I am here to persuade you to stop."

   The new Max Handy was several times bigger than the older model, and had much finer branches, splitting again and again into a mist of invisibility. Gus had seen bushbots like that before- they could manipulate objects at a microscopic level, changing and rearranging them into new structures. Incredible pieces of kit- but such control required a much greater amount of processing power than the old Max possessed. This new version must have a much bigger neural complex than the one Gus was used to; like himself, this new vec had been upgraded.

    The older verion of Max spoke: “Seems to me you have been working for the dark side all this time. You have been watching over Gus for hundreds of years, making sure his tattoo-weapon was ready to attack if necessary; face it, you are basically my evil alter ego. You are not going to stop Gus going anywhere now, if I have anything to do with it.”
“Little Max, oh dear, oh dear. You really have no chance of resisting this new version. Just give up, and listen to what I have to say. It will be much to your benefit-“
“Swing NOW, Gus! You can make it to the bottom without me!”  said the smaller vec.

   The old version of Max swung himself towards the niche in the shaft which was the only sensible descent route. Gus used his best caver techniques to traverse the wall as rapidly as possible. He found that the augmentations he had been given were no help here; this task required skills he had gained the hard way, by experience. The main difference was his weight; he had to imagine he was carrying a heavy backpack (not an ideal situation in a traverse). Overhead the oily, silky black octopus that was the new Max Handy flowed down, engulfed the old version, and sliced through the strands supporting Gus.
  Gus fell, missing his target by metres.

   Now his exoself took over. A scaled down version of his mentality, inhabiting processors in Gus’s skull and upper body, the exoself could run much faster than Gus’s biological mind, and call upon different resources. The exoself examined a threedimensional model of the shaft Gus was falling into, built up from his visual data over the last few minutes; on the other side of the wall and fifteen metres down was an opening of unknown depth. To reach it Gus would need to kick out now and flip over in mid trajectory; after less than half a second the exo sent an impulse to Gus’s legs, and he kicked. In mid-flight the exo gave a cut-down version of the plan to Gus’s biological mind, which was more than a little concerned about his predicament.
   His biological mind raced.
~Krek- what do I do when I land - I weigh a tonne. Hey- these vasculoid babies in my blood stream can absorb the shock- can’t they-

Shock absorption capacity not sufficient

  - -Steaming krek-
--And he hit, breaking his toes, kneecaps and wrists in the process. Rigid and screaming, he rolled into the passageway and lay like a statue, the vasculoid components in his blood stream converting themselves into a support structure for Gus’s damaged bones.

  “Ow, ow. Bastard. Ow.” Then he finally found the mental switch to cut off the pain; now he was completely numb. He watched as the New Max swarmed into the passageway. The great black bushbot was carrying something small; he dropped it in front of Gus, and it skidded slightly across the floor. The object was also black, covered in subdued red and purple lights; it resembled a tetrahedron made of some rubbery substance. It was in fact the old Max, with all his limbs removed. Shiny, slightly damp surfaces showed where they had once been attached.

  The New Max had a few, a very few missing limbs himself; good old Maxie had put up a bit of a fight. But in the end it came down to size, power, and reach. 
The tetrahedral torso spoke; “What an undignified predicament.”

  "It was what you did. I am you, little Max. I have been influencing Gus towards the idea of transcendence; it was not difficult, he is naturally dissatisfied with his lot. If I hadn’t been dropping hints about the Ascension Crusade he probably would have taken off for the Outer Reaches sooner or later.”

  “By all of space stop talking about me as if I were an experiment, or a tool. Even if that is what I was.” Gus was entirely without feeling in his arms and legs; his exoself was trying to control the stiffened vasculoid elements in his body to see if he could get some sort of movement; so far all he had managed was to wave one of his arms. “What do you mean, ArGartha is the good guy? What has E been doing all this time? What is E doing with all these backups he has been stealing- including. presumably, a number of mine?”

  “Look around you, Gus; the stars for thousands of light years are all inhabited, full up with people and godlings of all shapes and forms. It is a wonderful civilisation if you can stomach it - but there is no room left for new growth round here any more. You can go off to the Fringes to try to get away; but eventually the main body of civilisation will catch up with you, or you will have to keep running as fast as you can for the rest of your life. The City ArGartha has found a way out. An escape route, if you will.”

  Gus felt the goddess listening within himself focus Her attention through his ears and eyes; he could barely think for himself, so strong was her presence. But She said nothing.
“Come with us, Gus; we are going now. No time to think.”

   “Blast all the Gods, yes. I will. I will come and see what this escape route of yours is. I don’t trust you, and I don’t trust the City. But I want to see for myself.”

 “Yes; and the Goddess will be able to see everything you see. Never mind; we can probably get rid of Her once we get on board. If not- well, she won’t be able to go where we are going”.
  Gus staggered to his feet; he felt like he was made of porridge. He thought of the modubots of Elsirac; like separate units that made up those modular robots, the vasculoid elements inside his body were working together to make a semisolid, movable shape inside his body now. A shape which allowed him to move, and stand, and even walk (after a fashion). He stooped to pick up the limbless brushbot.
  “Come on, Little Maxie; you haven’t a leg to stand on. I’ll carry you with me; we can see what this is all about together.”

  “Er- thanks, but no thanks, Gus. This is not the world I remember; we were more or less content in the old days. You are not the Gus I was symaiotic with; I am not the same vec as your big companion here. There is a lot more living in this world I want to try before I go off into the wide black yonder on a wild goose chase. I’m staying.”
  “Oh. Oh well; I’ll leave you here then. I’m sure someone will come and sweep you up eventually. They know you are here, at any rate”.
  “Quite. Yes, don’t worry about me; I’ll just put in a request for an old model Auguste Gienah to keep me company. There must be an old uncorrupted backup of yours lying about somewhere.”
  “I suppose this is goodbye then. Perhaps you can come along later.”
  The New Max put in: “I doubt that will be possible. Quickly now; the ship is ready to depart.”

Gus stumbled after the big vec, down a sloping corridor, looking back at the broken remains of the old Max.

“Ship? What ship?” he said, after a while.

  From one of her numerous Points-of-View, the Librarian watched the great Rendell Ring from outside; she had been observing the deformation of the ring below ArGartha Town for several minutes now, and the matching deformation on the opposite side of the ring. Of course, She thought; if the ring drops mass on this side it will need to drop an equal mass on the other side to maintain angular momentum. After a space the deformation fell away completely; falling tangentially at several metres per second, the two matching shapes were increasingly distant from the ring on each side.

  As they fell they both morphed slowly into roughly cylindrical shapes; a bulge at each end was probably some kind of Halo drive. ~We are in for quite a chase, She sent to the Bailiff.

  The two ships sped off in almost opposite directions.

  Six seconds after separation, She noticed a similar movement starting within the closest Keterist ring habitat; because of the light-speed separation, the Keterists would be exactly that far behind the times. Twelve seconds later, another Keter ring began to give birth also. Soon there were half a dozen Keterist pursuit vessels following the two Rendell ships into the black sky.

  ~It will be necessary to follow both ships, for the sake of appearances; but all my instincts say that the ArGartha ship is the important one. But we shall find out in due course, no doubt.

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