9 – Substitute

He checks his watch. Hurries downstairs. He's pleased – very pleased. Removal of the girl's memories went smoother than he was expecting. Life support systems running nicely. Of course, he'll need to hurry – if one of the Protectors happens upon the girl's memories in the dream-world, there'll be trouble. But he's got time to -

He opens the door and steps outside, making very sure to lock the door tightly behind him. He turns around – and – there's five people looking at him. It's them!

He knows full well that he failed to conceal the shocked expression on his face, and the five of them look equally shocked. Okay… this is bad. His brain, ever sharp despite twenty years of isolation, hurtles through a collection of different responses ranging from "Look, I can explain" to "What are you doing here" and decides that they are all equally bad.

"It's you – thank god you've come!" His voice is jumping around all over the place, but begins to settle down as he hits his stride.

"Achenar has kidnapped my little sister – he says he'll kill her if," he hesitates for the tiniest fraction of a second, searching for a convincing reason, and settles on his brother's greed, "if I don't help him steal Serenia's treasures." Not his most brilliant improv ever, but under the circumstances he'll take what he can get. They're certainly not throwing accusations at him, although they are sharing slightly confused glances. Maybe Achenar got to them already – curse the luck! Never mind – too late to back down now. He presses on, hoping to convince them.

"Look, I know you have no reason to trust me. You saw me blow up the Harvester, but I only did it to stop Achenar from poisoning the Memory Chamber… his confinement on Haven drove him completely insane. Now, all he cares about is destroying everything my father created. We have to stop him." He takes a breath, thinking furiously. He's bought himself a few seconds thinking time, so long as he can make it look like he's trying to think of a plan. It comes easily.

"Go back to Tomahna – find my father, explain everything that's happened here." Wait – Achenar will have told them not to do that. "For some reason Achenar is terrified of Father." That sounded a bit lame, but it'll have to do. "Maybe if you bring him here, then we could somehow lure my brother into a trap. I'll try and get Yeesha away from him while you're gone. Now go! Quickly! Before it's too late." He's grabbed the door handle. Slipped back inside the Memory Chamber. Locked the door.

Part of him wants to breathe a sigh of relief, but there's hardly time for that. The five of them are smarter than that. They won't take his word for it. There's only one thing for it – got to do the transfer now, quickly, before they get in. If he can take control of the girl's body before they get here, he might just be able to convince them.

"Doesn't change the plan," said Jordan, effectively summing up their discussion. "We've still got to get in there."

"What if he's telling the truth?" asked Maddy, although she sounded like she was only saying it because nobody else had and someone really should.

"Then there'll be six of us against Achenar." Jordan tried the door. It was, as expected, locked. "But somehow I don't think that's going to be the case. I mean, why would he have locked us out, for one thing?"

"Achenar's journal said that there's another door," said Brittany. "We'll have to try and get through there, I suppose."

"Hold on -" Maddy backed up a few steps and swung a kick at the door. Despite its age, it held without protest, and Maddy fell backwards onto the ground, muttering darkly.

"Ouch. Yep, okay. Back door."

He sprints up the stairs. The girl's body is still slumped in the chair. He checks the life support systems – everything's online for the chair. He powers up the systems for the cryo chamber. It'll take them a minute to boot up. In the meantime, he's setting the failsafes. Checking the memory calibrations – he'll need to latch onto the girl's memories as soon as he enters the dreamworld. If something goes wrong there, the failsafe should kick in and send him back to his own body – but he doesn't have time for that to happen; they'll be here by then.

Life support online. Failsafes active. Ready? There's only one possible answer.

He breathes deeply. Presses the switch. Darts downstairs. Climbs into the cryo chamber. The internal HUD springs to life. A reassuring robotic voice rings out.

"Life support systems online. Ready for memory transfer."

He takes a deep breath, finds the button near his right hand and presses it.

"Life support active." A gust of cold air blows up from his feet. The window over his face fogs up slightly. "Commencing memory transfer."

He waits, breath baited, half of his mind thinking something's going to go wrong. And then – then there was a sensation of falling forward, and he was surrounded by white light. A sickening lurch, and he's falling down now, into the darkness.

The darkness is absolute, and he's not sitting well in it. He feels something almost like strong wind, striking him from all sides… and he can almost see the wind, if he shuts his eyes – glowing white strands striking him from every direction, writhing around him. It's almost painful – but he's remaining still. Risking a glance around, he sees what looks like a small white cloud below him, tethered to him by glowing cables. Yes – it worked. Perfect. Now… one way or another, it won't be long. Either something goes wrong, the failsafe trips and he's back in the cryo chamber, or -

Another sickening lurch, and he's jerked upwards. The cables tethering him to the girl's memories vanish. The wind closes in, but he's already rising into the whiteness again, leaving the shifting darkness far below him. The whiteness closes in, shifting, writhing, and then -

He blinks. He's in the upstairs room… in the chair. Everything feels wrong – which, of course, means that everything is right.

"Memory transfer complete. Chair life support idle. Failsafes reset."

It's worked. He can hardly believe it. Of course, he had little doubt in his own skills, but you never knew.

Now, maybe he can head off the strangers. If he hurries, he'll -

Oh.

Damn it! He knew he'd forgotten something! The one thing, the one thing he didn't change so it could work with just one person!

Wait… maybe this could work to his advantage. After all, wouldn't it look suspect if the girl suddenly came running downstairs? Yes… of course it would. If he waits for them, and convinces them to free him… yes. Yes.

Crammed into the damp, slightly smelly underwater tunnel, Maddy pressed the small button on the door. The panels slid open with a snap to reveal a small round grid with coloured marbles around the outside, connected by small channels.

Peering over her shoulder, Jane gave a muffled exclamation of surprise.

"I've seen this before! In Dream – a grid of white circles, like this one. Six triangles of three circles each, arranged in a circle."

"But none of the marble things are white," pointed out Brittany, perfectly reasonably.

"Yeah… but I also saw how three different colours can make white if you combine them. Red, blue and green, and purple, yellow and cyan. Those are the colours of the marbles."

"I think I get what you're saying," said Rachel. If we arrange the marbles into triangles, with each one containing one of those sets of colours, that's how to open the door. But how do we know which sort of triangle goes where? And which order the colours should be in?"

"I don't know," admitted Jane.

"I think I do," said Maddy slowly, rummaging in her pockets. Eventually, she located what she was looking for – a small round medallion, made out of what looked like silver but was actually some sort of aluminium alloy. In a circle around the edge of it were six circles in various different colours.

"Where'd you get that?"

"Spire," replied Maddy. "It was on the elevator, remember, Rach?"

"Oh yeah," replied Rachel. "We thought it was just some trinket, and Mad thought it looked pretty, so she kept it."

"I think that these colours are the colours of the marbles we have to put on the inside ring of this lock," said Maddy. "Then we match up the outer ring with the rest of the marbles so we get the triangles Jane was talking about."

Without a better plan, and with time marching on relentlessly, they decided that this was worth a try at least. It took them several minutes of shifting marbles to match everything up. They were, they had to admit, surprised when it worked first time, and the door opened with a rattle.

The inside of the old Memory Chamber was not exactly what the five strangers had been expecting. The mixture of weathered chiselled Serenian stone and gleaming modern machinery was unusual. The layout of the room was largely the same as that of the new Memory Chamber. To their left was the outside door, with the key still in the lock; ahead of them, a flight of stairs; to their right, directly across from the door, a heavy steel capsule with a glass window in it. Inside this, they saw as they peered through the window, was a small glass cylinder, housing the ancient plant that was the heart of the chamber. The plant was partially obscured by a thick green gas inside the glass cylinder, but they could still see it, twitching occasionally.

"That must be the pollen," muttered Maddy. "Clever. Don't open the door, Jordan."

"I wasn't planning to."

"Come on," said Rachel in a low whisper, "we've got to hurry. Upstairs."

The upstairs room was quite small, and packed with machinery. Lights flickered over control panels, and constant beeping filled the air. And seated in a tall-backed metal chair, struggling with the restraints on her wrists and ankles, was Yeesha.

"Achenar, you -" She looked up, and saw the five of them crammed into the doorway. "It's you! You've come to rescue me! There's a lever over there that'll set me free, but hurry, before Achenar comes back!"

The five strangers moved into the room, which was really not designed to hold six people plus all this machinery at the same time. Jane, who brought up the rear, wound up closest to the main control panel that Yeesha had indicated. There were two levers set into it – a silver one, made of what looked like aluminium, and a dull gold one, made of some sort of brass.

"Which one?" said Jordan.

"The silver one," replied Yeesha, tugging hard with her right arm and managing – somehow – to pull her wrist out of the clamp. "Pull it and you'll -"

"NO! Stop!" roared a deep voice from the staircase, and Achenar rounded the corner into the room. He was out of breath and looked like he'd sprinted most of the way over, but his eyes were steely and determined. The potmarked stone was in his left hand, but the five strangers were more interested in his right hand, which held a small crossbow and was currently pointing in the general vicinity of Yeesha's temple. Despite this, the five strangers all took a step backwards, except Maddy, who tried to do so and fell over a table.

"This," said Achenar, still getting his breath back, "is not Yeesha!"

"What?" said Jane, Brittany and possibly-Yeesha at the same time.

"Sirrus used the machine," Achenar charged on. "He forced the Memory Chamber to remove all of her memories, and then he planted his own memories inside her head!"

"No! You're lying!"

"This is Sirrus!" shouted Achenar, ignoring Yeesha.

"This is crazy!"

The strangers shared slightly panicked glances. This had suddenly gotten a lot more dangerous for all five of them. On one hand, there was no way of knowing who was really sitting in the chair, and Achenar's story certainly matched what they had deduced from his journal; on the other, Yeesha's record of trustworthiness was much more glowing than Achenar's.

Yeesha turned to appeal to the strangers as well. "He killed Sirrus when Sirrus tried to save me!"

"Oh, seriously, would I kill my own brother?"

"Yes!"

"No!" roared Achenar, his crossbow arm stiffening, causing all five strangers and Yeesha to flinch. Achenar noticed this, and relaxed slightly, lowering his crossbow a little. "I'm telling you, this is Sirrus!"

"Look," said Yeesha, in a less frantic voice, casting her eyes to the stone in Achenar's left hand, "he's got the life stone. Serenia's Memory Chamber can't survive without the -"

"SHUT UP!" roared Achenar, raising his crossbow again. Yeesha looked at him with terror.

"I'm your little sister," she said in a very small voice. Achenar gave her a look of pure hatred before swinging his arm around and directing his crossbow at Jane's temple instead.

"He's just playing games with you!" growled Achenar. Jane looked back at him with terror.

"You see?" shouted Yeesha, a note of triumph edging her voice. "He's a killer!"

Achenar, apparently realising his mistake in physically threatening the strangers, appeared to deflate very slightly, and he lowered and sheathed his crossbow.

"No… no!" He held up the life stone. "I told you before! I only stole this to stop Sirrus from hurting Father. But I was wrong! He was after Yeesha all along!"

"No, no! He kidnapped me, not Sirrus!"

"Look!" shouted Achenar, silencing Yeesha. "We've got to put everybody's memories right again, quickly! The amber lever."

"No!"

"Pull the amber lever to start the transfer!"

"No, you'll kill me if you do that!"

"Hurry!" roared Achenar, fire in his eyes now. "Before the Chamber gets too weak to power the transfer!"

"No, please! Don't listen to him!"

Both Yeesha and Achenar were frantic now. The five strangers shared confused, panicked looks. Jane, still in front of the levers, looked down at them, and then back up at Achenar. Although she was only ten, Jane was very skilled at reading a person's eyes, scanning them for emotion. As she looked at Achenar's wild face, she saw many things behind his eyes. Panic, obviously. Fear. But – no insanity. Achenar's eyes were completely sane, albeit streaked with panic. And there was something else, something… almost primal. Protectiveness. And a hint – just a hint – of familial love.

When Jane cast her gaze onto Yeesha, she saw similar things – panic, terror, sanity. But her eyes were cold. There was no warmth behind Yeesha's eyes, none of what was usually there. No love – but there was lust, and hunger. Jane knew Yeesha, better than anyone else. These eyes? They weren't right.

Jane swallowed, and looked down at the levers again. With determination, and ignoring the frantic discussion going on behind her, she raised her right arm, grasped the sleek brass handle and pulled.

There was a clunk, and lights flickered over the control panel. A sleek female voice rings through the speakers.

"Chair life support active. Warning: failsafes offline. Commencing memory transfer in fifteen seconds."

"No, you fool!" shouted not-Yeesha. "My performance was perfect!"

Achenar breathed a sigh of relief and slumped slightly.

"Thank you," he growled, but not menacingly – it seemed like his natural voice tone was a growl.

"Five seconds. Four. Three -"

"You might have won this round, brother," hissed not-Yeesha, "but this isn't over yet."

"Commencing memory transfer."

Yeesha's eyes closed, and her head lolled back. Her chest rose and fell only in a very shallow, almost unnoticeable, rhythm. Achenar was suddenly tense again, and he looked up at the roof.

"No! Sirrus, don't!" There was no response. Achenar shuffled over to Yeesha's unconscious body and placed two fingers on her neck, evidently feeling for a pulse. He then turned to the small screen on the other side of the console with the levers on it and started jabbing at it. It made beeping sounds in protest.

"Oh, god… something's gone wrong…" The strangers elected to maintain their silence, as Achenar seemed to have forgotten all about them – something which they weren't entirely ungrateful for.

"Yeesha's memories should be coming back… but they're not. Sirrus must be… holding her there, somehow. God, there's got to be some way I can reach her." His eyes fell upon something behind the strangers. "If only I had a -"

There was a muffled booming sound from deep within the building. Several lights exploded, and the floor shook violently, causing Jane to squeal.

"Attention," said the calm female voice from the speakers, "Memory Chamber power levels dropping. Failure of fungus: imminent."

"Oh no," muttered Achenar, "not now. Not now! The Memory Chamber can't fail now!" He paused, and looked down at the stone in his hand. A look of grim determination made its way onto his face, and he looked up at the strangers, leaning over the console.

"Listen to me," he said in a low growl, "the Memory Chamber is dying. If it dies, it'll stop the transfer."

"What will that do to Yeesha?" asked Rachel.

"I don't know," said Achenar, "but… it could kill her. Look, I can keep the Chamber alive using the stone, but if Sirrus is holding Yeesha in the Dreamworld, her memories still won't come back. You have to find some way to reach her, to release her from him so the Chamber can restore her memories."

"How -"

"I don't know! But it's our only chance!" Achenar pointed to another metal chair, behind the five strangers, which had a stone like the one in the new Memory Chamber above it. "Use the other chair to get there, but you've got to hurry. I don't know how much time I can buy you with the stone." He turned away from them and cast a quick glance at Yeesha before hurrying down the stairs. The strangers shared confused glances.

"Come on," muttered Brittany. The five of them extracted themselves from behind the console and ran down the stairs as fast as they dared.

The lower area of the Chamber was empty. Brittany pointed at the door separating them from the chamber's ancient, deadly heart. The handle had been broken off.

The five of them approached the window and peered through. There, indeed, was Achenar. He circled the enclosed flower once, then stopped. He took a deep breath, and gripped the life stone with both hands.

"Oh, god!" exclaimed Maddy. "He's going to -"

Before she could finish, Achenar swung the stone at the glass encasing the flower. It shattered, and the deadly green fumes swirled through the air. Almost immediately, Achenar began coughing. He looked up, and saw them at the window. He waved them away with one hand.

"Go!" he roared, voice muffled by the airlock and the pollen. "Save Yeesha!" He fell to his knees, wheezing, and pressed the stone up towards the feebly twitching flower.

The glass fogged up with deadly gas. The strangers pulled away, mortified.

"We've got to hurry," said Brittany sharply. "We don't know how much time we've got. Jane, you've gotta get upstairs, use that chair and get Yeesha out of Dream."

"How?"

"I don't know… but you're smart, you'll think of something. Rach, wait for her and make sure Yeesha's body stays alive. You can do CPR, right?"

"In theory, yes, but -"

"Great. Maddy, get over to the Memory Chamber and find Anya. Even if she can't come over here, tell her what's going on. Jordan, get back to Tomahna and go to the observatory. When I was there earlier I left two books on the table near the viewer. Take the green one – that's a Tomahna linking book, just in case – and use the blue one to get to Rime. Find Atrus, tell him what's happening, and get him here. I'm going to Releeshahn – after that little noble sacrifice, Achenar's going to need a Healer."

Maddy and Jordan nodded. Brittany unlocked the door, and the three of them ran off towards the stone forest. Rachel and Jane went back upstairs.

"Can you get back to Dream without the Protectors?" asked Rachel.

"I think so," replied Jane. "I hope so."

"All right… Well, good luck. Stay safe."

"I'll try." Jane sat down in the vacant chair, took a deep breath and looked up at the eyes in the flat stone above her.

This time, the effect was near-instantaneous. A white glow appeared behind the eyes, expanding, enveloping her in its warmth. She was ready for the falling sensation this time, but that didn't make it any less unpleasant.

Rachel watched as Jane slumped in the chair. She turned back to Yeesha, who was still breathing very shallowly.

And she waited.