Antaea couldn't speak. He had finally admitted that it was his people who'd destroyed Telen. When she didn't reply, Holon, apparently disappointed that she didn't want to talk, turned back to the command mirror. "It's done," he said. "Candesce's protection is gone.
"Thank you," he said to her, "for all your help. And that of your sister. I'm sure she would be proud."
I was wrong. This was the last coherent thought Antaea had before the red in her eyes was joined by black. She was losing track--of where she was, who was talking to her, and what she'd been doing that was so important ...
* * *
SCRY SUDDENLY FILLED Keir's visual field with update windows and helpful directional gridlines. He stiffened and almost let go of the cable he'd been holding.
"It's happened," he said.
Griffin and Leal looked at one another. "Are you sure?" asked the sun lighter.
"See for yourself." Keir nodded in the direction of Candesce.
When night came here, the hot expanded air around the sun of suns cooled and contracted. Breezes blew up from the principalities and carried the accumulated grit and flotsam of the day into the exclusion zone. Such a breeze was blowing now, and it had carried enough of the smoke from the Battle of the Gardens away that the other battle--the one still raging around Candesce itself--was clearly visible.
That battle had been a little flickering galaxy, a coruscating cloud of brief orange dots that signaled the explosion of missiles. A few larger, more long-lasting dots would be burning ships. Now, though, the nature of the light was changing. Orange was being replaced by blue, and the blue flashes were not appearing as pinprick points, but as fuzzy lozenges.
Griffin's brow furrowed as he watched this change. "What..."
"Lasers," said Keir. "And plasma guns, rail guns ... who knows what else. Whatever the virtuals gave Inshiri Ferance. They probably packed her ships with weapons, and she may not even have known about it. They could have been disguised as anything--food supplies, even water. They'd be rigged to self-assemble the instant Candesce's field shut off. I'm betting there's not much left of the ships that brought them here."
Griffin swore. "We have to fire this thing up." He turned his attention to the black ball he was clinging to. "I know how to start a polywell fusion generator, of course; hell, I built this one. But why are we using it to power your device? Couldn't you have built some A.N. battery like they did?" He nodded at the rainbow colors of the battle. "--Some miraculous energy source that would kick in when Candesce's field shut down?"
"Sure," said Keir. "But whatever I used would have to keep working after I turned my machine on ... The suppressor field would shut down its own generator if that used A.N. technology."
"Right ... right." Griffin shook his head.
Sudden blinding light stabbed Keir's eyes. For a second he thought somebody had set off a fission nuke near Candesce, but then an amplified voice said, "You on the mine! Come away!"
He shielded his eyes with his hand, and found that they were pinned in the beam of a floodlight. He heard the grumble of idling jets.
Hayden Griffin squinted into the glare. "Who're you?"
"This is the Last Line army engineers. Come away from the explosive device."
"They think this is a mine," said Leal.
"Well, it looks like one," admitted Griffin.
"What are we going to do? They'll shoot us if we touch anything."
In the sudden bright light, he and Leal looked very much like refugees; none of them, Keir realized, was wearing a uniform. Leal in particular was wide-eyed, her hair a frizz of tangles and mats. Smudges of soot on her face had given her a mask of fear, though he knew she was relatively calm. That gave him an idea.
When he saw Griffin start to cautiously reach for his sidearm, he said, "Let me handle this."
"What are you going to do?"
He grimaced and shrugged. "Leal."
"Yes?"
"Have you ever done any acting?"
* * *
JACOBY SARTO STARED at a world transformed. The night sky was filled with flickering lines of blue and green light. Ships were on fire everywhere he looked. It wasn't just the alliance fleet that had been destroyed; those ships that were emitting the strange bright lines were also breaking up. They, though, were not exploding. Instead, they were disgorging gigantic, many-limbed metal things into the air, and some of those things were turning back and eating the ships that had birthed them.
This would be just a taste of what was happening at the walls of Virga. Leal Maspeth had spoken of an alien armada waiting in silence there, a fleet so vast that it surrounded the entire world. Even now, those ships, and whatever creatures accompanied them, must be bursting through Virga's iceberg-choked skin, preparing to wreak havoc on everything within.
Leal had been right. Jacoby had suspected she was, which was one reason he'd decided to put himself right at the heart of the action. There, he could make a command decision at the critical moment; and he had. It just hadn't been enough.
Closer by, the Thistle drifted, uncrewed. The badly cut bodies of its pilot and mates hung near it like grotesque angels. Near them were the bodies of the two Home Guard soldiers who'd been set to guard the door.
Jacoby leaned out cautiously. The dagger-ball he'd planted in the Thistle could be anywhere. With any luck it wasn't actually in the sloop. He should be able to dive out to it and get it under way before the monster found its way back to him.
It had been a nice trick, keeping that thing in reserve. He'd been sure Antaea would figure it out: if the dagger-ball came to life, then Candesce had been dialed down too far. The monster was like a mine--set to go off if things in the control room went too far.
It had worked to clear the blockhouse's entrance--for all the good that was going to do. Antaea still stood little chance against Holon and his horrible companions.
One of the soldier's carbines was sailing by with stately slowness. Jacoby eyed it.
He could be out of Candesce in ten minutes. There was an open patch of sky down beneath his feet, and if he avoided those damned lights, he stood a good chance of getting out of this alive. Surely the virtuals wouldn't kill every human being in Virga. They had no need to, and it would be a lot of work. No, Virga would probably survive, just under new management.
He watched himself reach out and pluck the carbine from the air. Then, just in case the dagger-ball was nearby, he sealed the door shut before reentering the maze of the control center.
* * *
"HERE THEY COME," Holon was saying. Antaea realized where she was, and tried to scramble out of the way--any direction, anywhere but here. She couldn't move; something was holding her.
"They'll have it apart in a few hours," said Holon. She realized he was talking about something in the command mirror. Scraping clotted blood out of her eyes, she peered at it. Big metal things, like gigantic crabs, had encircled a black oval. Surrounding this tableau were six dormant suns, and, as backdrop, a sky full of laser light and flame.
"I've told Candesce not to come on at dawn," Holon continued. "No day today. We have all the time in the world. But I expect that by the time your current body gives out, we'll have figured out Candesce's secret. The question then will be, can we afford to ever resurrect you? The plan, after all, is to erase Candesce, Virga, and any hint that this place was ever here."
"Why?" she croaked.
His eyeless head turned her way. "This foolish movement toward embodiment must be stopped," he said. "Mind is all that matters. Your people have made themselves enemies of unbounded consciousness. That's evil."
He came closer to her, and she could see the dry, writhing branches that made up his features rearrange themselves in a smile. "Candesce is an abomination. It's a machine for erasing consciousness--for suppressing it. Dumb matter reigns in Virga, except for your brief little sparks. And you'd export this horror to the rest of the universe?