"The oaks' gift," said Keir. "A set of flocking rules for the fleet. All you have to do is watch what your neighbors are doing, and follow this or that rule depending on the situation. It's an emergent system--creates ordered behavior on the macro scale."
"They're acting like they're all controlled by one mind."
"In a way, they are. But there's nothing magical about it--nothing technological, either, which is the point. Those rules will work here, where all the machineries of the virtuals won't."
"So you're saying we have a chance."
He shrugged, and then, realizing she couldn't see the gesture in the dark, said, "We wait now. If it's all been for nothing, I'll feel it."
"How?" asked Hayden.
He wondered how to describe the sensation of scry turning itself on.
"I'll wake up," he said.
* * *
WHETHER SHE'D KILLED its pilot or disabled its engines, Antaea didn't know; but whatever had been firing on them was gone. It was small comfort to her, because right now it looked like the entire universe was collapsing in on their exact spot.
Venera had crammed herself in next to Antaea and, companionably, they were pointing out this or that feature of the approaching apocalypse. "Those ones look like a hawk's head," said Venera, indicating a formation of carriers visible only as glittering running lights.
The sky was full of such constellations, some superimposed on purple-, orange-, or green-colored cloudscapes backlit by distant suns. Most were maneuvering in darkness, and they were drawing closer, both to each other and to the Thistle. The little sloop was running flat-out now, its two remaining escorts straining to keep up. All the while, four fleets whirled and coalesced behind them, like flotsam in their wake.
"Haven't seen any trash for a while now," Antaea said. Venera nodded.
"We're nearly there. Anything that fell this far in during the day would have been incinerated."
Even as she said this, something flickered past--not from behind them, as a missile would have done, but from in front. Antaea stared in shock as she realized what she'd seen was just a highlight gleaming off something so big that she'd completely missed it. It was like a vast crystal spike, miles long. Others began to cut off portions of the view above and below.
"Refractors and reflectors," Venera explained. "They're what give Candesce the illusion of being a single object."
The engines slowed, then their scream lowered to an idling grumble. An airman pounded on the hatch behind them and both Antaea and Venera turned. The man thrust his head in.
"You," he said to Venera. "You're to guide us in to the dock."
"There's no dock, you silly boy." Venera stretched luxuriously. When he didn't move she sighed and said, "All right, I'm coming. But fetch me some food, will you? I'm tired from all this excitement."
He backed away. Antaea hid a grin as Venera began to climb out of the blister.
Five minutes later, with none of the preamble or pomp and ceremony she had expected, she found herself hanging in the stifling air outside the sloop. Venera had planted both feet against the smooth pale wall of a gigantic cube, and had done something with a white wand that Nicolas Remoran had given her.
As the door to Candesce's control room slid silently open, Venera turned, pouting, and held out the key.
"Really, you didn't need me," she said. "A child could have done it."
25
THE PAIN WAS intense. It took Jacoby back to crystalline memories of his youth, and the training he and the other children of the great houses of Sacrus had been put through. At the time they'd called it "endurance exercise"; later, they'd admitted it was torture, systematically applied to toughen up the candidates. Some broke under the strain. Others, like Inshiri Ferance, responded by developing an avid fascination with others' agony.
The "training" hadn't helped him much after she took his finger; he didn't think it was going to help now.
"Get your hands off me," he snarled at the airman who was trying to boost him through the sloop's hatch. Inshiri was outside watching Venera open Candesce's magic door; she shot Jacoby an approving look.
Thunder grumbled irregularly above and below them. Distant flashes revealed something of the intense battle that was surrounding them now. Their two escort ships were standing off, guns swiveling, but both had numerous breaks in their hulls as well as the same peppering of bullet holes that covered the Thistle. If any of the enemy broke through, they wouldn't last very long.
Venera had seen where he was looking, and she sent him one of her less pleasant smiles. "We'd better hope none of those thousands of missiles up there hits any part of Candesce," she said loudly. "I'd hate to see what the sun of suns would do if you stung it."
"Shut up and get inside," Inshiri told her.
Antaea was climbing out of the sloop. Jacoby did a quick head count of the assembled group. Perfect.
"One second," he said, putting out his good arm to stop Antaea. Quickly, he murmured, "If it comes to it, who are you with? Inshiri? Or me?"
To her credit, she didn't even give a sign that she'd heard him, merely mouthing, You.
"I need you to get me something," he said, more loudly.
"What? Now?" She was staring with almost feverish anxiety at the entrance, where cool electric light now glowed.
"Yes, you'll know it when you see it," he said, looking in her eyes as he emphasized those words. "It's in the first of the water tanks."
She cocked her head, puzzled, then retreated into the ship.
Satisfied that he was at least doing something to try to control the situation, Jacoby stepped gingerly across the air and entered the bizarre spaces of Candesce's control center.
Venera had described the place in detail, but it was still impressive to see. Once beyond the cubic foyer, the place was filled with chambers whose walls and floors did not quite touch. You could slip under or around any of them, moving by ducking and turning sideways through a kind of corridorless maze. This was a common enough design for freefall houses, but in this case, Venera had said, there was nothing visible holding the walls and screens in place. She was right, which would have fascinated Jacoby at another time; but with his arm in a sling and spasms of pain radiating from his shoulder, it was hard for him to maneuver here. At least it was cooler.
He caught up to Inshiri's party in a large space with a blank black rectangle, like a picture frame, on one of its surfaces. "Hurry up, we don't have much time," Remoran was telling Venera.
"Actually, I think we do," she said. She pointed. "Do you see those little dots on the wall there? Bloodstains, from," she smiled at Inshiri, "the last person I killed here."
"You're really in no position to be bragging," retorted Inshiri.
"My point is that it's cool in here. And, that those bloodstains are still here after thousands of days. The first time I was here, I suspected that this blockhouse might be immune to Candesce's heat and radiation. This proves it."
"Which means--?"
"That we could hold out here for months, maybe even years, if we had to. All we'd need to do is close the door. This place has supplies and machinery to feed hundreds. It even has medical facilities. It--"
"Stop stalling!" Inshiri drew an intricately etched pistol from inside her jacket.
Venera examined her nails. "Fine line between stalling and outright rebellion, isn't it?"
"Enough of this petty sniping," snapped Remoran. "Mrs. Fanning, we need your cooperation because under our agreement, it will be natives of Virga who make any changes to Candesce's defensive field. Our guests," he nodded at Holon and his party, "are here to observe. However, if you should prove uncooperative, we may have to enlist one of them to operate the machinery instead of you. They all know how to do it. Would you prefer we take that route?"