The foot end of the sarcophagus folded down and extended to form a ramp, and he walked down it to the floor… rather unsteadily, she noticed.

  He’s old, Bianca thought. He’s frail. “I wasn’t supposed to take this long to arrive, was I?” she said. “You thought I would get here a lot sooner than this.”

  “Plans.” The voice was a croak, not at all the strong tones the wind had carried to her before – they must have been generated by some of the strange technology in this place. And here she thought the god-king had actually been shouting his encouragements to murder. “Plans seldom work out as intended. That is why we have contingencies. Redundancies. You were a backup plan for a backup plan, in fact – and yet, here you are, the one that actually came through. What is your name, child?”

  “You don’t know?”

  “I cannot read your mind. Not without special equipment. I knew you were coming – I sensed your arrival, and the World of Light woke up when it detected your brainwave patterns, designed to interface with its systems, just like my own. I scanned your ship’s database to learn your languages, and what sad and rudimentary things they are. But your thoughts, secrets, and memories – those are your own.”

  “My name is Bianca Xing.”

  “Welcome, Bianca Xing, to your destiny.”

  “Why am I here? I don’t understand. I came all this way, and I still don’t know why.”

  “I’ll tell you,” Kor Noq Weer said. His voice was getting stronger. “I do, after all, love to talk about myself.” He shoved a delicate crystal sculpture off a pedestal, sending it shattering to the floor, and sat down, the effort of standing too great for him, it seemed. “What do you know of the Mahact, child?”

  Just what Brother Errin had told her. “They ruled the galaxy, a long time ago. So long ago almost no one remembers them. There was a rebellion, and they were all killed. Or we thought so. We didn’t expect to find this place. We were looking for a paradise world, maybe the Mahact homeworld, called Ixth.”

  “Of course you were. I told the servant who built your incubator to spread those stories, and it seems some fragment of his work survived through the eons. The Mahact did rule, and ruled well, until it all started to fall apart. Our leaders encouraged us all to band together, to crush the rebellion, but I could tell our empire was doomed. The old ways had failed us, or else the upstarts would have never made any headway at all. I knew the Mahact needed new leadership.” He put a gloved hand to his chest. “They needed me. So I formed my own faction, supported by like-minded people, and clones, and our various servants. I sought to overthrow our leaders and take control of Ixth. I dabbled in forbidden practices in pursuit of those goals.”

  “What kind of practices could be forbidden to the Mahact?”

  “Gene warfare, mainly,” he said. “Oh, we had no problem using those techniques against our enemies or subjects – destroying or rewriting DNA was part of our standard approach to governance. But it was forbidden to use those powers on the Mahact. I did so anyway. I just wanted to hurry along the inevitable collapse of my world’s leaders, so I could take over, and rule the galaxy properly. I was making progress. Many victories. Others called them massacres, but, well. Semantics.” He sighed, a sound like a death rattle. “But, sadly, there was an accident. A wasting disease meant to destroy my enemies instead infected my allies… and eventually myself. I knew, then, that I could not defeat my enemies. But!” He held up one finger. “I could outlast them. As I said, their doom was inevitable. Just too slow for my tastes. I caused the World of Light to be created, in a remote part of the galaxy, accessible only by a wormhole I controlled, with the aid of my Titans. I installed myself here with all the necessary elements of conquest. Shipbuilding facilities, cloning tanks, weapons. I set in motion various plans to awaken me when a suitable interval had passed, so long that the Mahact were forgotten, and no longer considered a threat. Then I would return, and take control of an unprepared galaxy. Sadly, my plans all seem to have gone awry… except for you. Even your arrival took far longer than expected. My stasis systems were beginning to fail. Another three or four centuries, and I might even have died.”

  “So, I’m just, what? A living alarm clock?” Bianca said. “I’m here to wake you up?”

  “You serve multiple purposes, as all good components do. You were designed to blend in with the local population in terms of gross morphology, adapting to suit whatever society you found yourself in, while remaining Mahact on the inside. You would be able to travel in disguise, as it were, gathering intelligence about the state of the galaxy – indeed, you would have a relentless drive to learn all you could about culture, politics, technology, and military matters. Did you not find it so?”

  “I just thought I was a curious person.”

  “I made you to be curious. I also gave you the ability to defend yourself, to win, to conquer – and instilled in you a profound urge to reach this place. Your body and mind are, if I may say, the height of my art. Once you’d gained the necessary data, you would come to this place, a world closed to everyone else, and awaken the World of Light. I was already stirring, alerted by certain arcane systems to the fact of your quickening. I’ve just been waiting for your arrival.”

  “What if I’d been born after you were already awakened by some other process?” Bianca said. “What if I’d followed my yearning all the way out here, and found you already gone, departed centuries before?”

  Kor Noq Weer laughed. “Then you would have been disappointed, I suppose.”

  “I don’t think I could possibly be any more disappointed than I am right now.” She crossed her arms. “I don’t understand, though. You’re still dying. Am I supposed to continue your work after you pass?”

  The Mahact rose, and spread his arms. “Sweet Bianca Xing. I am not going anywhere. I could not clone my damaged body, no. So I used all of my art to create something new: a body possessed of Mahact capabilities, hybridized with alien DNA to create a more robust whole – one immune to the wasting disease that targets my people. That body you’re walking around in belongs to me. I designed it. And now, I intend to take possession.”

  She fell back a step. Were those dim lines of force changing direction? Flowing into her? No, oh no. “You can’t do this.”

  “Of course I can, Bianca. Your brain is specifically designed to accommodate the architecture of my thoughts, and the World of Light, my greatest invention, is an engine that will allow me to transfer my consciousness into your form. My mind, in that exquisitely engineered body! I will be strong again. Fast. And capable of moving unnoticed among the denizens of the galaxy, in your alien guise. Everyone will look at me and see a harmless human girl. It’s delicious, isn’t it?”

  “What will happen to me?” Bianca imagined herself trapped in his desiccated husk of a body and shuddered.

  He chuckled, wet and soft. “Have you ever reformatted a hard drive, Bianca? Repainted a wall? Those are not perfect analogies, but close enough. I’ll retain your memories, all that useful intelligence you gathered, but your personality will be erased. Except, perhaps, for the odd ghost and shadow of data bleeding through. The occasional fleeting memory. Perhaps an occasional dream, of what it was like to be Bianca Xing, before she ceased to exist.”

  Bianca set her feet. “What makes you think I’ll allow this? You said it yourself. I’m fast. I’m strong. You can’t force me to, to hook myself up to some machine.”

  “Hook you up? Bianca. The whole World of Light is the machine. And as for the process…”

  It’s already started, his voice said, but this time it came from inside her own mind, like an intrusive thought.

  Kor Noq Weer rose and stripped off his gloves, revealing fingers twisted into claws. He spread his arms wide. “The vessel is prepared. Come to me. We need only embrace to complete the transfer.”

  “No.” She gritted her teeth. “Never.”

  “It doesn’t have to be an embrace. Any sustained touch will do. My hands around your throat, for instance.”

  “I won’t let you take my body from me!”

  You have no choice, Kor Noq Weer said. You are part of the machinery. A mere component. You are programmed to obey. You want to reach for me – you yearn for my embrace. Don’t you?

  She did. She wanted to fold herself into those outstretched arms, just like she’d wanted to travel to the dark place at the center of that triangle of stars, just like she’d wanted to descend to the heart of the World of Light. It was more than a desire. It was a drive. She took a step toward her maker, and then another, and another.

  He started to close his arms around her.

  Bianca’s yearning to accept his embrace was powerful, but it wasn’t impossible to resist. Not anymore.

  Not since she’d put the sheathed blade she took from Sev in the small of her own back, the smartcloth of her dress helpfully forming a pocket the perfect size and shape to hold it. While the blade was covered, it didn’t make her sick or disoriented, but its proximity did somewhat dull her connection to the machinery of the World of Light and the intensity of her compulsion to obey her maker.

  As she stepped into Kor Noq Weer’s arms, she reached behind her and drew the knife. She had to grit her teeth against the sickening vertigo that seized her when she exposed the blade, and even so she stumbled into the Mahact sorcerer. His body was light, frail, a bag of sticks, and they went down together in a heap. He hissed, sensing the blade, but wrapped his arms around her more tightly, his claws scrabbling for any centimeter of bare skin, so he could complete the transfer.

  Bianca wriggled around until she freed one arm, then jammed the knife into Kor Noq Weer’s chest. She had no idea if the Mahact even had hearts, but it seemed likely there was something vital in there. She pulled the knife out, though exposing the blade made her guts seize up and her vision blur.

  She stabbed again, and again, and again, even as Kor Noq Weer screamed in her mind: No! No! You’re mine, you’re mine, you’re mine! One of his bare hands closed around her throat and started to squeeze, but it was just a spasm, and a moment later his grip went limp and his ancient claw fell away.

  The lines of force around Bianca snapped, the delicate whorls and toruses and arcs of energy vanishing from her senses. The deep machinery she felt thrumming all around and through her shuddered, and stalled, and then died. The resulting silence was the silence of an undiscovered tomb.

  The last of her strength ran out of her, and Bianca collapsed atop Kor Noq Weer. I am me, she thought. I am still me.

  The lights in the chamber went out. A moment later, so did the light of Bianca’s consciousness.

  •••

  Everything went dark in the chamber where Severyne sat, the crystals dimming and plunging the room into darkness. A moment later, everything went silent, the thrum and hum and vibration of the engines deep inside this planet-sized machine subsiding.

  Interesting. Severyne rummaged in her pack until she found a chemical light. The Letnev had excellent night vision, of course, but they needed at least the occasional stray photon to work with, and there were none here. But maybe, since the machines had stopped… She strapped on an electric headlamp instead, and, wonder of wonders, it turned on, shining a beam that illuminated the acid pit. That kept bubbling. No power source necessary there beyond its own chemical reaction, apparently.

  Hmm. If the planet was turned off, though, how long before the breathable atmosphere dissipated?

  Severyne checked her anti-grav harness… and it worked too. Whatever jamming technology the mysterious Kor Noq Weer had in place had definitely stopped working.

  She carefully made her way back through the tomb, retracing her earlier journey, using the harness to float over obstacles as necessary. The crew of the Grim Countenance should have come to rescue her by now, but of course she had to do everything herself, didn’t she? Richeline would catch the rough side of her temper once Severyne got back. Speaking of, she’d better steal the Show and Tell quickly, just in case Heuvelt and his merry band came crawling out of the depths again.

  When she reached the first corridor, the one that led to the long shaft up to the surface, Severyne heard singing from the branch Bianca hadn’t taken. The Letnev weren’t much for music, apart from martial tunes, and this was a soldier’s marching song. She considered, then crept a little way down the passage, until she saw a light.

  The bearer of the light must have seen hers, too, because it stopped. “Captain?” a voice cried out in disbelief.

  “Oh, it’s you, Voyou.” She sniffed. “You went the wrong way, I see. Where’s everyone else?”

  “They didn’t make it, captain.”

  “What, Richeline and Archambelle too?”

  “I… yes, captain. I was there when they died. Archambelle first, Richeline soon after.”

  “Hmm. Did Archambelle get dissolved in acid or anything?”

  “No, captain. It was blood loss. Her body is back in–”

  “Well go and get her,” Severyne said. “We can do without Richeline’s remains, but this whole idea was Archambelle’s, and the inquiry will go much easier for us if we can demonstrate that her wild ideas got her killed.” Severyne paused. “That was an order, Undercommandant.”

  “Yes, captain!”

  Severyne waited for a while, gnawing on a protein bar, until he came floating back, dragging Archambelle’s corpse. She dangled, slack, in her own anti-grav harness, tethered to Voyou’s waist by a rope. Now that he was closer, she got a good look at his face. “You’ve got blood all over you.”

  “Yes, captain.”

  “How many people were in your little expeditionary force?”

  “Thirty-six, captain.”

  “And you are the sole survivor?”

  “Yes, captain.”

  “You know, Voyou, you may be due for a promotion. Come on. Let’s get out of here.”

  “Is… did you… what about the princess?”

  “Bianca Xing is dead.”

  Voyou didn’t speak as they returned to the main corridor and reached the bottom of the long shaft. There was no light shining at the top, now, just more darkness. This place had seemed like a necropolis before, but now it was dead in truth.

  “How did Bianca die?” Voyou said.

  Severyne grunted. They began to rise up the shaft in their harnesses, holding onto the dangling ropes, just in case. “I didn’t see her die, directly, but she must have. This whole world came to life when she arrived, somehow activated by her very presence. Now it’s all dark. I suppose it’s possible she’s alive, but her death is the most likely explanation for why a planet-sized machine would turn into a chunk of dead metal.”

  “When your tracker died, we thought you did too, but you were still alive,” Voyou said, seemingly to himself.

  “What are you going on about?”

  “Nothing, captain. So, the mission is a failure, then?”

  “The point of the mission was to ascertain whether Bianca Xing could lead us to valuable Mahact artifacts. My report will say no: she led us to a hole full of death traps, and it killed everyone who came near it, and then shut itself down when Xing died. I suspect Archambelle’s one-armed corpse will have a chilling effect on the enthusiasm of her colleagues. The Barony may send engineers here in case there’s something they can salvage, but I doubt they’ll have much luck. That’s if the Titans on the other side don’t seal the wormhole and cut this place off again. Frankly, I hope they do. I hate it here.”

  “Oh, darkness, the Titans – what if they’re waiting for us on the other side? They nearly tore the Grim Countenance apart when we arrived!”

  “We’ll deal with that if it happens,” Severyne said. “Don’t we have enough current problems without worrying about future ones? The Titans were tasked with preventing anyone except the princess from passing through that wormhole. I doubt their orders require them to stop anyone who comes out. My expectation is, as long as we leave them alone, they’ll leave us alone, too.”

  “I hope you’re right, captain.”

  “Oh, Voyou,” Severyne said. “Haven’t you realized yet that I’m essentially always right?”

  Chapter 35

  Heuvelt shouted, “Bianca! Bianca, where are you?”

  Everything had gone dark and silent a little while ago, but their tech started working again at the same time, and Ashont could still smell Bianca’s trail, so they soldiered on. That trail led them here, to an impressive set of golden doors, standing ajar. Heuvelt squeezed through and shone his light around the inside. Ashont and Clec came in after, and Clec rose up near the ceiling in her harness, shining lights down and illuminating the cluttered space.

  Bianca was on the floor, her arms wrapped around what appeared to be a bundle of filthy rags. Heuvelt rushed to her and pulled her into his lap. The rags proved to be the corpse of some unknown creature composed mostly of rotten meat and dust.

  He looked for Bianca’s pulse, and breathed out in relief when he found one, but it was rapid and thready, her breath shallow and uneven. He pulled up one of her eyelids, and her pupil didn’t respond to light. Heuvelt was no physician, but he knew that was a bad sign. “Bianca? Are you all right? Bianca?”

  “She appears to be comatose,” Clec said.

  “We have to get her out of here, back to the Show and Tell.”

  Ashont put a heavy paw on his shoulder. “We will. Of course we will. But Heuvelt… you have to prepare yourself–”