Shadowtrap: A Black Foxes Adventure Read online

  And so they waited, and together the river and night eked past.

  There came another quiet splash.

  “Cruk! He fell in again,” growled Kane.

  “Perhaps,” said Rith, “though this one sounded to me much larger and farther away.”

  And time dragged by . . .

  . . . and by.

  “Look!” hissed Rith, pointing at the pull-rope.

  In the eerie glow they could see the rope tightening and then slackening . . . tightening and slackening . . . tightening and slackening . . .

  “Shh!” sissed Rith. “Listen.”

  There came a purling sound from midstream.

  “Someone comes on the ferry,” hissed Kane, bringing his spear to guard.

  “Back to the shore,” whispered Arik, and the Foxes scurried from the dock and took stance on the bank behind.

  Looming darkly, slowly came the ferry through the mist, and finally with a soft thnk fetched up alongside the dock. A single figure got off.

  “Psst! Psst!” it hissed. “Where in seven hells is everyone?”

  It was Arton.

  “There’s thirty or so of them,” said the thief, panting and weary and dripping wet. “Strange creatures, half man, half . . . something else—long, dangling, hairy arms, outjutting jaws, low sloping foreheads—twisted things of Horax’s doings, no doubt. One less now—I killed the ferry guard. His ugly corpse is floating downriver. He was wearing Horax’s sigil: the red crescent bloodmoons.

  “The others are in a large barracks, having some kind of contest. I say this is the perfect time to slip across the river, while their attention is elsewhere.”

  “You mean to ride right past their billet?” asked Lyssa.

  “It’s risky, but what else can we do?” asked the thief, turning and appealing to the others. “Does anyone have a better plan?”

  Arik glanced at the ferry rope. “I may have.”

  After securing the pull-rope to one of the guide stanchions, they loaded the horses and mules onto the barge. Then Kane worried loose the knot of ferry line from the anchoring bell pole and ran down the dock and leaped on board with the others. They hauled the ferry away from the landing, then let it drift downriver. And secured by the rope anchored to the opposite shore, like a great pendulum the boat swung across the sluggish stream to fetch up against the far bank . . . a hundred yards south of the barracks, the full length of the ferry rope.

  Swiftly they offloaded the horses and mules, then untied the line from the stanchion to let the barge float away downstream and disappear into the fog.

  Arton chortled. “Now they’ll simply think that the rope came loose and the ferry drifted off.”

  Kane stepped across the squishy ground, his tracks behind filling in. “Even if they suspect otherwise, they’ll never trail us through this muck.”

  “This is no time to stand around bragging,” hissed Arik. “Mount up, Foxes. Lyssa, lead the way.”

  Into the great morass they rode, Lyssa’s unerring sense of direction guiding them on a northwesterly track, toward the heart of the Drasp and Horax’s lair, or so they hoped.

  A long while they rode, picking their way through the swamp in the dim glow of the fog, backtracking now and again to pass around some quagmire or deep pool. And all around them they could hear slitherings and ploppings and hissings in the night, and now and again a far-off bellowing beast. And in the remote distance behind there came the faint blat of a horn. “They’ve found that their ferry is missing,” said Rith, and Arton laughed in glee.

  Now the horses rode across hummocks; now through water; now through sawgrass slicing at these intruders; now among black cypress twisting up out from the muck.

  Finally on a spot of high ground they stopped to rest.

  Dismounting, they fed the horses and mules some grain and took jerky for themselves.

  As she chewed, Rith turned to Arton. “You know, my dear thief, that was quite a feat you pulled back there. But let me ask you: we heard two splashes, did you fall twice from the rope?”

  “I didn’t fall even once,” protested Arton. “But the rope, well, it dipped down into the water in the middle, and I had to swim a bit—actually, I simply pulled myself through the water using the rope. When it came back up out of the river, I went hand over hand the rest of the way.

  “The second splash you heard was the body of the ferry guard being lowered into the water. He was too heavy and I lost my grip and he fell the last few feet.”

  Rith smiled. “Ah, laddie buck, you’re going to need to be more cautious than that if you have to steal the gem back from Horax . . . as slippery as Jaytar was when she took the stone from the DemonQueen.”

  “Though I don’t have a horse woven of moonbeams, I will indeed steal the gem, should it come to that.”

  “If it should come to anything,” growled Kane, “we’ll slit Horax’s throat and simply take the gem from his dead hand.”

  “I think we’ll find Horax well guarded,” said Arik. “Cunning and stealth and guile will be what’s needed, just as it was back there.” He jabbed a thumb over his shoulder, toward the far ferry dock.

  “Ha!” crowed Arton. “We slipped past them all. Past all of Horax’s warders.”

  But even as he said it, Rith held up a hand for silence, and they heard something vast and sinister moving toward them through the dank glowing clutch of the Drasp.

  30

  Ghost in the Machine

  (Coburn Facility)

  Timothy Rendell and Drew Meyer, along with two comptechs—Sheila Baxter and Billy Clay—stepped into the nitrogen chill of Avery’s “inner sanctum”—or so it was called by all the techs on the AIVR project. Above the sound of their own rebreathers, they could hear the soft susurration of Avery’s fans, cycling the cool nitrogen throughout circuit packs laden with hitemp-superconducter ICs. As always, because the nitrogen lock had been used, a faint foglike mist filled the room, and additional blowers kicked in to cycle the atmosphere through the dehumidifiers.

  Avery himself filled up nearly the whole of the glass-walled chamber, looming like some great shadowy monolith squatting in a dark crystal cube.

  Moving on a low-set catwalk just above fiberoptic cables, Timothy strode toward the back of the room, where panel access to Avery’s comm circuits was located. Behind him came the others, the beams of their helmet lamps cutting through the cold nitrogen mist, four soft halos blooming. Timothy perceived a faint thrumming, though Avery’s superconducting chips themselves were silent. Instead it came from Avery’s fans, running slightly asynchronously, the out-of-phase component producing a low-frequency beat. Even so, Timothy thought of it as the sound of Avery’s heart.

  As they reached the area of the comm circuits, Timothy turned to the others. “Look, before we try this, I want to examine the optics coming in. If they are damaged, then a simple replacement should get us back in contact with Avery.”

  “Right,” declared Billy, and he stooped down to lever up a section of the catwalk, while Timothy and Drew unlatched one of Avery’s rear panels. Sheila stepped back and set the bubblepack-wrapped keyboard and plug-in well out of the way, then moved in to help Billy.

  Mark Perry looked at the holo and shook his head. “God, I find it hard to believe that these glittering patterns are the souls of people, the souls of the alpha team.”

  “Nevertheless,” said John Greyson, “I believe that’s what they are.”

  Doctor Henry Stein, sitting at the console, snorted. “I think not, John. That these might be their mental patterns, I will concede. But their souls? Bah!”

  Greyson turned to Perry and sighed, explaining, “Henry is a physicalist, whereas I am a dualist.”

  “Physicalist?”

  “Yes. You see, like many before him he believes that consciousness, identity, and free will are nothing more than the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells. In contrast, I believe in the ghost in the machine.”

  “Ghost?”

  “You
r identity, your spirit, your soul—that’s the ghost.”

  “And the machine?”

  “The brain, Mark. The brain is the machine. The body, too, but mainly the brain.”

  “Oh.” Mark pondered a moment. “What about Avery? Does he have a ghost in his machine?”

  Greyson shook his head. “We think not.”

  Mark Perry raised an eyebrow.

  Greyson took off his half glasses. “Look, Mark, if we replicate Avery exactly—his physical being, that is—and then backload the second Avery—call it Avery Two—backload its mutable logic and memory modules with precisely the same programs and information and memories from Avery One’s physical media, we couldn’t tell them apart. That is, at the moment they were booted up together, they would both be intelligences with identical consciousnesses and identities and free wills. As to which was which we could not say. Hence, because we believe we can reproduce Avery exactly by duplicating his physicality, then we must conclude that for him the physicalists are correct. Therefore, we believe that Avery does not have a ghost in his machine.

  “But now let us look at mankind: if there is not a ghost in the machine, and if we physically replicate a particular human, down to the very chemical signatures in each of his billions of engrams, then we should once again have a pair of duplicates we cannot tell apart.”

  “You mean like identical twins, right?”

  “No, no, Mark. Identical twins are not exactly alike: their biological makeup is only identical within the limits of chaos—chaos theory, that is. They also have different experiences right from birth. Instead, we are talking of an exact copy, more like a clone, but a very specialized clone at that, for the memories themselves are precisely the same.”

  “Oh, I see. But this—this duplication only works if there is no ghost in the machine?”

  “Right. You see, if there is a ghost in the machine, then we cannot generate a soul simply by replicating the physicality of a man or woman. We’d have the machine but not the ghost.”

  Mark took a deep breath. “You mean we’d’ve created a human without a soul, right?”

  Greyson nodded. “If you could even call it a human.”

  Perry rubbed his jaw. “Would it have, say, free will?”

  Greyson shrugged.

  “Of course it would,” snapped Stein as he rotated his chair to face them. “Look, everyone knows that a primary seat of so-called free will is in the anterior cingulate sulcus. When that area is damaged—ha!—no volitional activity occurs; a person cannot make choices at all. But given a brain that is whole, free will is a natural outcome.”

  Stein tapped a finger to his temple. “No matter what idiocy John spouts, injuries, strokes, diseases—such as when Alzheimer’s is left untreated—they all demonstrate that if you damage the brain you damage the mind, hence mind does not exist independent of the brain. As to all this claptrap of souls and spirits, of out-of-body experiences and other such stupidities, only ignorant fools believe in such superstitious mumbo jumbo. Listen, it’s simple: humans are driven by neural activity and not by some hypothetical ghost haunting the human machine. And that’s that.” Stein turned to view the holo again, but immediately rotated back ’round and fixed Greyson with a stare.

  “Let me ask you this, John: would you say that the brain is the seat of consciousness, of identity, indeed of the so-called ghost in the machine?”

  Greyson paused, then said, “Yes, Henry. I would say they reside in the brain.”

  “Then, John, would you say that all creatures with brains have consciousnesses, identities, ghosts in their machines?”

  Again Greyson paused, knowing now where Stein’s questions were leading. Nevertheless he replied, “Yes, Henry, I do so believe, although others will dispute it.”

  “Consider this, then: a human being has tens of billions of neurons, and you claim a ghost in the machine. If humans are not the only animals with ghosts in their machines, then let us look at, say, chimpanzees, since genetically they have much in common with mankind. However, their brains consist of fewer neurons; does this mean they have lesser ghosts? Now consider a chicken with even fewer neurons; is there an even lesser ghost in its machine? How about a creature with, say, only a thousand neurons, or a hundred, or ten, or just one; what about the ghosts in their machines? Does a flatworm have but a minuscule soul? Consider your answers well, for if a creature with but one neuron has no soul, then neither, I claim, does man. —Pah! I claim it regardless.”

  Once again Stein rotated toward the holodisplay.

  Mark Perry arched an eyebrow at the philosopher.

  Greyson shrugged. “What Henry says about damage to the brain damaging the capacity of the mind to fully function—it’s true. But that doesn’t mean that the spirit, the soul is damaged. Think of the soul as a person inside the control center of a complex machine. Certainly if one part of the control center breaks down then the machine can no longer function as it once did. But that doesn’t mean the soul, the spirit is damaged . . . only part of the machine.”

  Mark Perry’s brow furrowed, and he gazed at the floor, slowly shaking his head.

  “Look,” said Greyson, “in metaphysics we have no absolute way of examining that which we call reality and undeniably proving what it is and how it came to be—or if there is incontrovertible proof of a particular metaphysical view, we have yet to discover a way to scientifically demonstrate it. Hence, as far as dualism versus physicalism is concerned, for now I can only tell you what I believe in and my reasons why, and Henry can only do the same. Perhaps there is no ghost in the machine; perhaps there is. Perhaps the size of a soul depends on the number of neurons in the brain; perhaps it does not. Perhaps only mankind has a soul; perhaps all animals do; perhaps some do and some don’t; perhaps none does. Perhaps someday we’ll know the truth; perhaps we never will. Perhaps—”

  “Perhaps this is all a lot of baloney,” interjected Perry, looking up. “But tell me this”—he pointed at the holoscreen—”if those are not the souls of the members of the alpha team, then just what are they? Some kind of ersatz duplicates?”

  Henry Stein spun ’round and looked at Mark Perry, the neurosurgeon’s mouth agape.

  As additional staff trickled in from their homes, answering the “Greentree” recall, Toni Adkins looked at the diminishing time on the doomsday clock: 1:45:32 . . . 31 . . . 30 . . . 29 . . .

  Drew glanced at Timothy. “The cables, they look all right to me. No damage whatsoever.”

  Timothy nodded his agreement, then called. “Find anything, Billy, Sheila?”

  Lying on their stomachs and peering down through the open section of the catwalk, both comptechs looked up from the fiberoptic lines below. “Nothing,” said Sheila.

  “Me, too,” said Billy, clambering to his feet.

  Timothy shook his head. “Damn. Then there’s nothing for it but to try the kludge. Sheila, would you bring it here? Billy, while she gets the plug-in, let’s put the catwalk back together.”

  As Sheila rolled to her feet and stepped toward the bubblewrapped lash-up, Timothy and Billy slid the walkway section back into place in the support frame.

  Sheila removed the plastic wrap and unrolled the flatwire cable and handed the plug-in to Timothy while keeping the keyboard.

  By this time, Drew had opened another panel to the comm circuits. He pointed to one of the multipin sockets, illuminating it with his helmet light. “Jack three, Timothy. It’s past all the fiberoptics and straight into Avery’s comprehension circuits.”

  Timothy looked at the others and took a deep breath then expelled it. “Wish us luck.”

  “Break a leg,” said Sheila, and grinned.

  Timothy eased the auxiliary interface board into the guides, then pressed it home, its gold-plated pins sliding readily into the mating receptacle slots.

  Timothy stepped back. “There, that ought to—”

  Zzzzt . . . ! With a shower of sparks every chip on the board seemed to explode simultaneously.
r />   Stein looked at Mark Perry in wonderment. “Out of the mouths of ignorant fools—”

  “Doctor Stein! Doctor Stein!” came Alya Ramanni’s frantic voice through the comband.

  “I’m busy; what is it?” Stein replied.

  “Get up here, stat! We’ve got a medical emergency on our hands!”

  31

  Hellkite

  (Itheria)

  “Ssst, what is it?” breathed Arton, shuttering the lantern as all the Foxes peered outward through the luminous mist.

  Again there sounded the heavy swash of something moving slowly, massively through the dank environs of the fog-shrouded Drasp.

  On the hillock the horses and mules shied back.

  “It can’t be good, no matter what it is,” murmured Lyssa.

  Blades were drawn, Arton cocked his crossbow, and Kane took up his spear.

  “Perhaps it’s pursuit by those creatures of Horax that Arton saw back at the ferry,” hissed Rith.

  “I think not,” whispered Arik. “Even though it’s been awhile since we heard their bugle, I don’t believe they’ve had time to catch up to us, given that they have a way of tracking us at all.”

  “Nevertheless,” growled Kane, “it still could be one of Horax’s creatures—something he’s set to roaming the Drasp to waylay intruders.”

  “Shall we ride?” muttered Arton. “It seems to me—”

  “Look!” sissed Lyssa, pointing. “A light.”

  Through the glowing vapor, illumed by Orbis above, there shone a brighter patch, bobbing up and down as if someone bearing a lantern came.

  “Looks like a will-o’-the-wisp,” whispered Rith, “bouncing about as it does.”

  “A swamp lure?” snorted Arton. “Well, this is the place for one, if ever there was.”

  “We called them corpse candles where I come from,” breathed Kane. “Nothing to mess with, you know. They’ll lead you to your death by drowning.”

  “Ssst!” hissed Lyssa, pointing slightly to the right. “Another one.”