'Well, you look lost,' she said after a moment. 'In fact, I don't think I've seen anyone more lost-looking than you in the last couple months.'
'That's nice,' he said, glowering. 'I don't recall asking you for your opinion.'
He walked away from her… then stopped suddenly, staring down at the crevasse which had just opened up at his feet.
'There's a lot of that going around,' the girl said, sounding slightly amused. 'Get very far on your own?'
'Not really,' the boy muttered. 'This place is an exercise in frustration.'
'Life stinks… ' she said.
'Tell me something I don't know.'
'That you're not going to get very close to the Keep without a guide,' she said. 'Even the walk-throughs mention that. Unless you've got one of the newer ones… '
He backed away from the crevasse, angling a little away from the girl. 'Maybe I don't want a guide,' he said.
'Maybe you should have brought a chair,' she said, 'because you're gonna be stuck here a good long while without someone to go 'pathfinder' for you.'
He started away from her, and almost as if the environment had heard her, another crevasse came tearing along the ground and passed right in front of him. There it stopped, while black ash snowed down from the edges of it into the fiery depths, glittering in the hot light.
He stared down into the crevasse, and his shoulders slumped. 'It's never gonna stop doing that, is it?' he said.
'Nope,' she said. 'But some of us get the hang of 'anticipating it.'
She tilted her head a little to one side, watching him. After a moment he turned, slow and reluctant. 'All right,' he said. 'What would you suggest?'
'Telling me your name, for one thing,' she said. 'Ch-Manta,' he said.
'Manta. I'm Shade,' she said. 'You're pretty new around here, huh?'
'Yeah. Well, no. I've been here awhile… but I don't know the place real well as yet… ' He breathed out, then, turning again to look past the crevasses, across the dark plain toward Mount Glede. 'I don't know if I'm going to,' he said.
'You got problems?' Shade said, sitting down beside him.
'Huh?' Manta said, looking shocked. 'Oh, no… everything's fine.'
'I'm not so sure,' Shade said. 'You look sad.'
'How can I look sad?' Manta said. 'See, I'm smiling.' He produced a smile that even in the darkness was not terribly convincing.
Shade laughed softly. It managed, somehow, to be a sorrowful laugh. 'Yeah,' she said, 'I see that. I know that smile… I've worn it, sometimes.'
'Have you been here a long time?' Manta said.
'A couple of years,' said Shade, 'in and out. I know the place pretty well.'
'What're you doing here, then?' Manta said, studying the ground. 'If you've been here that long, you should have solved the place by now… '
'Oh, there's more to Deathworld than just solving it,' said Shade, pulling her feet up under her to sit cross- legged. 'It's about people as much as anything else… '
'Seeing them get punished,' Manta said bitterly, 'yeah. That's worth something.'
'It'd be pretty dull around here without the Damned,' said Shade, glancing around her as a few of them ran by a few hundred meters away, pursued by demons. A couple of the Damned pitched straight down into a crevasse that opened before them, and the demons stood on the air above them and peered down, watching them fall. 'Sounds like you're enjoying it, though.'
'Like to see it really happening,' said Manta softly.
'How much more real does it have to get?' said Shade. She gave him a thoughtful look. 'Or is there somebody you'd particularly like to see it happening to?' Her voice was almost playful.
'Wouldn't be much point in that,' Manta said. 'It wouldn't make any difference.' He shuffled his feet in the ash. 'Nothing will, really.'
He turned. 'Look, forget it. I gotta go.'
'Manta, wait,' Shade said, walking around in front of him. 'Look, you can't just turn away from people when they're trying to help you.'
'Watch me,' Manta said, his voice bitter. 'I'm not worth helping. Let me alone for long enough, and it won't be an issue.'
Shade gave him a look. 'You know,' she said, 'if you weren't such a Banie, you'd be a waste of time. Look, how'd you ever get down this far with an attitude like that?'
'When you hear it from all the people around you all the time,' Manta said, 'you learn to get things done anyway. But I'm tired of it now.' He turned and looked at Mount Glede again. 'I just want to do this one thing… and then it's going to be all over with. I'm going to cut the strings… '
Shade looked at him in silence for a moment. 'That's not something to joke about,' she said.
'You think I'm joking, too, huh?' Manta said, giving her a cold look. 'Get your laughing done now, then. A week or so and you won't have another chance to do it while I'm around.'
The look Shade gave him was odd. 'Manta,' she said, 'you wouldn't really-'
'I see what happened to the earlier ones,' Manta said, sitting down on a rock and looking at Mount Glede. 'Whatever else their families thought, down here they have some honor, anyway. They're the Angels of the Pit. Maybe people down here are a little crazy… but at least someone notices whether they're here or not. Not like others-' He broke off.
'You don't have a lot of friends, do you… ' Shade said.
'I don't have any friends,' Manta said. 'And I don't want any. They just pretend to care about what's happening to you, and then they dump you when they realize what you're really like. I don't need any more of that-' He choked off, as if holding back tears.
'It's not like that,' Shade said. 'We're Banies. We have to look after each other, because no one else will… I want you to meet someone I know… He's felt the same way you have.'
'If you think you're going to talk me out of how I feel,' Manta said, 'you're wasting your time.'
Shade glowered at him. 'It's my time. I can waste it if I like. Right now, though, I want you to give me a virtmail address for you, so we can meet down here again, and you can talk to my friend Kalki. He's a Banie, too. In fact, he's a more serious Banie than almost anyone else you're likely to run into down here. He's got the biggest `lift' collection I've ever seen. Thing is, he was about ready to cut the strings once, too. But it's a mistake to do that while there's still music in them, Manta. He was there. He knows. You need to talk to him.'
Manta studied the ash falling around them, and into the nearest crevasse. After several long moments he said, 'I don't see why not. It's not going to make any difference.' He raised his head and gave Shade a long, cool look. 'If I do decide to cut the strings… there's nothing you can do to stop me. You, or anyone else.'
'Of course not,' Shade said. 'But you have to be sure, first… otherwise Joey wouldn't like it.'
'Like he'd care.'
'You'd be surprised,' Shade said. 'Manta… give yourself a break.'
'Nobody else has,' he said. But he watched her as he said it.
Shade shook her head and held out her hand. 'I'm not everybody else,' she said. 'Let me have an address for you, and later on, in a day or two maybe, you can talk to Kalki.'
Manta looked at her doubtfully. But at last he held out his hand to her, and there was a little white envelope in it, the icon for a virtmail address. Shade reached out and took it from him, and tucked it away in one of the pockets of her coat.
'Meantime,' she said, 'let's see if we can't at least get you in the front door of the Keep. Come on!' Shade looked right and left. 'It's narrower over there,' she said. She held out a hand.
Manta hesitated… then took it. Together they made their way down along the length of the crevasse, stepped across it, and vanished into the darkness.
Some hours later, just after six the next morning, Charlie blinked his implant off and got up, stiffly, to walk around the den. His muscles ached more than usual, and once more he resolved to have a look at the implant
