If you can hang on long enough, I pointed out, they might be able to help you too. La Reine too, if anythings left of her. I came down here thinking she might have had some kind of backup system hidden away near the fuser.
So did I, the android said. She did but its dead. Its all dead. She underestimated the bad guys firepower. She didnt understand the magnitude of the problem. Shes as dead as dead can be, Madoc. Im sorry about that. I deserve this, but she didnt. Others must have died by now, and more will die before they can find a way to stop. La Reine and I might have died anyway wed have been fighting for the same side whenever the fight beganbut thats not the point. Im the one who set a spark to the bonfire. La Reine picked up the wreckage of my mistake. Im the one whos to blame. If it werent for me, youd all be safe on Excelsior.
Maybe I should have tried to let her off the hook, but I wasnt yet in any shape to disagree with her. The firestorm would probably have started eventually whatever happened, but Child of Fortune had been the one whod lit the fuse, and it was Child of Fortune that had shoved me right to the front of the cannon-fodder queue. I wasnt brimming over with forgiveness.
How long will the air last? I asked, deciding that Id better try to make the best of whatever breath she had left in her makeshift body.
At least forty days, she said. The carbon dioxide sink will prevent harmful accumulation, but the oxygen pressure will decline slowly. The food and water will see you through easily enough, but there may be other problems.
Can we get any of la Reines apparatus working again? The communication systems?
Perhaps but the destroyers did a more thorough job than she or I anticipated.
Its not necessary. Your whereabouts will be known to every AMI in the system by now. The bad guys cant win. The secrets well and truly out. Shooting us down was stupid and pointless.
I wondered whether I ought to feel some relief in the knowledge that AMIs were as capable of insanity, stupidity, and spite as human beings, or whether it made the idea of their existence ten times more nightmarish.
Ill carry you back to the cave, I said. The others will want to see you, if only to make sure that I didnt make you up.
Dont bother, she whispered.
Its no bother, I assured her. You weigh hardly anything, and you wont get much heavier on the way.
I wont last, she said. Let me be.
I didnt believe her. I didnt believe that she had the slightest idea how long she might last. She had no experience of androidal existence, and no way to judge the quality of her fakery. So far as I knew, she might be convinced that she was dying for all the wrong reasons. She might be far more capable of life than she had yet begun to imagine.
But her eyes had closed again, and her voice could no longer muster so much as a moan. I touched my fingertips to her neck and her torso, searching for signs of life, but found none.
I was distracted then by the light of another lantern, eerily reflected from the glistening walls. For a moment I was frightened, in case it was someone I didnt know someone who had been here all along without anyone suspecting. But it was only Mortimer Gray.
What are you doing here? I asked, although there was no reason at all why he shouldnt have been there.
Following your trail, he said. Is that?
The tenth passenger. A life raft for AMIs. If all else fails, try something organic. It didnt work. Shes dead.
He looked at me curiously, as if he couldnt decipher the tone of my voice. He knelt down on the far side of the androids body and made his own search for signs of life. He found none.
Is anything working? he asked.
Nothing Ive found so far. I havent found the fuser yet. Before she died she said shed checked it out and found nothing. Why were you following my trail?
He seemed slightly embarrassed. Its not important, he murmured, presumably meaning that its importance couldnt compare with the enormity of the fact that someone had just died in my presence. He was an emortal from a world of emortals. He didnt know that I had run across corpses before.
Theres nothing we can do, I reminded him. What did you want?
He stirred uncomfortably. Ive been thinking about what you said to me. About Diana Caisson. I wanted to ask youwhat she was like.
I was surprised, although I shouldnt have been. Seeds of curiosity usually germinate eventually, taking advantage of any existential pause.
She was like her name, I told him. It was an answer Id had ready for some time.
Diana?
Caisson.
He didnt understand. Hed never taken the trouble to look the word up, perhaps never having realized that it was a word which once had a meaning several meanings, in fact.
Among other things, I told him, A caisson was an ammunition chest. A box used to store explosives. That was Diana. From time to time, she exploded. She couldnt help it. It was the way she was. People thought that if only shed stuck harder at her biofeedback training, or equipped herself with more careful IT, shed have been more controlled, but the problem if it was a problem was deeper than that. It was just the way she was. It had its upside. She could be exciting as well as excited.