Part 6 (1/2)
If you have arms to hold me.
And he knew that he had no arms, and he would have wept bitterly if he could, but he had no tear ducts, no eyes save the sensors that continually fed him data: proximity, acceleration, time till impact.
Still, someone was coming.
Someone who cared.
Perhaps he could be loved again.
Chapter Thirteen.
Inside the Dragon THE DRAGON'S HEAD was a labyrinth. Corridors branched; the walls pulsated, were covered with an oily membrane; a rancid liquid oozed from a million pores. The dailongzhen led the landing party farther and farther downward, or at least it seemed downward to Simon Ta.r.s.es, although his sense of up and down was all askew. Everything proceeded according to some ancient ritual; two of the oarsmen were swinging gilded censers that belched forth sick-sweet fumes; two more held torches aloft, leading the way, pausing now and then to utter incantations as though to allay the dragon's spirit. Simon could not help but be caught up in the exotic rhythm of the ritual. The incense seemed to fill his nostrils; it seemed to intensify the chanting, the clanging of ritual gongs, the garish colors of the dailong's innards. He was getting a headache from the din in his ears.
Only Data was unaffected. Simon watched him as he examined the fleshy walls, at one point even appearing to taste the liquid that was dripping down. ”Intriguing,” he was saying to himself. ”An unusually high silicon content.”
Adam, the little boy, was chattering away at Data's side. He seemed quite devoted to the android. Ahead, the boy's father moved purposefully behind the dailongzhen. The incense billowed now; there was a kind of wind inside the tunnels here, and Simon could not help but breathe in the fumes. They were making him woozy.
”I'm dizzy,” he said as the android stopped to examine another curious feature, an array of tentacular arms that waved delicately back and forth like a sea anemone. ”Something in the incense.”
”That,” said Halliday, ”is gruyesh, the secret ingredient in the incense. It's mildly hallucinogenic, and an essential adjunct to most of their religious rituals.”
”Don't breathe in too much at a time,” said Adam. ”You can get drunk on the fumes.”
Simon had visions of his Romulan ancestors carousing with their drinking vessels br.i.m.m.i.n.g with ale.
At length, after descending what seemed to be a spiral staircase made of bone and cartilage, and crossing what seemed to be a rope bridge over a boiling river of bile, they came to an inner chamber. The strange thing was, the room had a pa.s.sing resemblance to the bridge of a stars.h.i.+p. There were outcroppings of bone, and a central thronelike structure on which the dailongzhen sat himself, gripping two of the tentacle-like excrescences in his hands.
”Awaken, O spirit of the deep!” he intoned. The chamber was small and most of the oarsmen were waiting in the corridor that had led here. Only the men with the censers remained, and they stood on either side of the dailongzhen, dousing him with the pungent vapors. Adam, Data, Martinez, and Halliday each sat on one of the bony seats; Simon found himself nestled against a cavity in the wall; the flesh gave way, contoured itself to his body, almost as though it were designed that way.
From the corridor beyond came the sound of chanting and the cacophonous jangling of exotic percussion instruments. Then, abruptly, the noise ceased.
The dailongzhen stood up. His eyes glowed.
He gripped the tentacles tightly and began to rock back and forth, howling. And around them, images began to form. The ocean. The convoy of skiffs that had pulled up alongside the dailong. The crowd of Thanetians, laughing, parading about on the dragon's back, rejoicing as the waves beat against the flanks of the great creature.
”Astonis.h.i.+ng,” Data whispered. ”These are membraneous ... viewscreens, projecting pictures from sensors attached to the outside of the creature. They are made from a mesh of rods and cones-like a human eye-and produce images in reaction to-”
”This is like the bridge of a stars.h.i.+p,” Simon said softly. For, as the dailongzhen began to wave his arms, there was movement, and the images in the screens were changing, s.h.i.+fting direction-the dailongzhen was steering the sea dragon! A stomach-wrenching turn, and he saw now, they had made a full turn and were heading in the direction of the harbor. He could see, rearing up above the waves, the spires and minarets and twisted towers and diamantine domes, and even, in the misty height, the very palace of the High s.h.i.+vantak-and the whole image ghostly, fringed with refractive rainbows. They were skimming the ocean's surface now, the dailong rapidly contracting and expanding its musculature. Several moons had risen, and their light danced against the purple of setting Klastravo.
”And this,” Halliday was explaining, ”is how they travel. Short distances, they use little boats, they have ca.n.a.ls and artificial waterways, naturally, but-but the wide-open s.p.a.ces of their world are all water, and these creatures are their ocean liners-guided by telepathic navigators half-drunk on the vapors of gruyesh.”
And now the dailongzhen seemed to have settled into a kind of trance, and the great creature was settling. A deep thrumming permeated the chamber.
”And this,” said Halliday, ”is one of the profound mysteries of this planet. These creatures-the principle mode of transportation-don't seem to be entirely natural. But the Thanetians didn't build them. No. They rely on these ritual hunts to bring in a new beast every time they require another vessel. But the dailong are triumphs of bioengineering.”
”I bet the answer is right here somewhere,” Simon said. ”Any s.h.i.+p this complex must have a computer, right? It might not be a computer as we know it, but well, isn't Commander Data living proof that computers don't have to look like computers?”
”I believe you are correct,” said Data. ”We are within the interior of an extremely large artificial intelligence, and the dailongzhen is navigating by means of a human/machine interface, crude but effective. Dr. Halliday, is it permitted for me to attempt to interface with this machine?”
Halliday said, ”I don't see why not. I've been attempting to interface with one for months, and no one has said I couldn't.”
Around them, the rainbow-fringed viewscreens showed vistas of Thanet's oceans; to starboard, the capital city loomed up in front of a setting sun and whirling moons. The dailongzhen was fully in control now, and the dragon sailed smoothly; they could see, on one screen, its body stretched out across the sea, with finlike appendages propelling it through the waves. Overhead, a flock of snowy inari birds flew in geometric formation that s.h.i.+fted periodically against gathering darkness.
”Those bunches of tentacles,” Halliday said, ”that line the walls. As you can see, these people are able to communicate with the dailong in some way through them. I've always thought they were some kind of psionic amplifier, and that the dailongzhen must have some kind of telepathic talent that can link to the creatures; but perhaps there's a more technological side to it all.”
”Is there a location here,” asked Data, ”with an especially high concentration of the tentacles? A data node, perhaps?”
”Yes,” said Halliday. ”Behind the control throne, there's usually a pa.s.sageway that leads to-I've always thought of it as a brain of sorts.”
Carefully, Halliday threaded his way through the crowd of celebrants. Absorbed in their chanting, the throng parted for the group and closed up again without missing a beat. Behind the throne, there was a round opening in the wall; a ring of muscle-like flesh encircled it, and they could see a tunnel descending into gloom. Simon noticed that young Adam had pushed his way to the front of the queue; he showed no fear as he led the way into darkness, feeling his way along the dank walls.
In the pa.s.sageway, they could barely see. ”Don't they have any lights in this place?” Adam said.
No sooner had she spoken than the walls began to glow with a faint bluish phosph.o.r.escence. The pa.s.sageway was widening. ”It's almost as if-it understood you!” Simon said.
”The dailong does appear to be conscious of your human thoughts,” Data said.
”Not human, maybe,” Adam said. ”After all, I am part Betazoid.”
”Part is the part we must emphasize here,” said Dr. Halliday. ”And we're not a hundred percent sure of which part.” Father and son laughed.
”And therefore in possession of rudimentary telepathic abilities?” asked Data.
”Really good intuition, at least,” Adam's father said.
”Look!” Adam cried. ”Down there!”
Sure enough, they could see another of the rainbow-fringed doorways, around which the dragonflesh pulsated and oozed. The belly of the beast, Simon thought, thinking of myths he had heard. The last few yards of the pa.s.sageway descended steeply, but to his surprise there was a bony flight of steps and even a rail made of a tendonlike material, and the lights brightened. If he hadn't been convinced before that this creature was made by a humanoid species, he certainly was now.
The chamber they found themselves in was completely symmetrical, with a circular wall covered with small tentacles. They were delicate, fibrous strands that glowed an eerie blue and waved back and forth as though immersed in the waters of the sea.
The ceiling was another viewscreen, divided into sections that each seemed to monitor the outside world from a different direction. In the center of the room were raised platforms; as Data, Tormod, and the others reached the platforms, soft tongues of flesh rose up and licked their hands.
”I do believe the creature is trying to locate some kind of input-output port,” he said. ”Perhaps I should provide some a.s.sistance.”
Data held out one arm and with his other hand opened up his forearm to reveal a ma.s.s of hardware. Simon watched in awe as, snakelike, the tentacles slithered and hissed and found connections inside the commander's body.
”What are you experiencing?” Halliday asked.
”A welter of images-streams, rivers of information,” Data said mildly. ”It is unquestionably intriguing.”
”But what is it you see?” said Halliday. ”I've been here for months, trying to find out what makes this planet tick-and you seem to have gotten right through to it in a day.”