Chelsea, nodding up to the floods, grimaced. "Where's that power coming from?"
Benedick gestured to the renewing vegetation, driven by determined symbionts, that curled up bulkheads still scarred from where the last growth had ripped clear. "Where's your oxygen coming from, without it?"
"Point," she ceded. "I'm just thinking we're going to have supply problems once we accelerate out of the nebula. We're still eating off the waystars. It's thin and cold out there."
"There are steps," he said. "Maintaining acceleration will help. As will enlarging the ramscoop."
Her sidelong glance appeared uncomforted, but there wasn't much more he could do. He slapped her on the vambrace, rough affection but--for their family--an extreme display, and sealed his faceplate with the other hand.
"Close your helm," he said, on speaker. With the conviction of recent experience he added, "Radiation burns hurt."
Because the nebula washed the stars away, Benedick could see the curve of the corridor, but there were no external spatial referents to tell him when the reorientation began and ended, exactly. There was a trick to moving when gravity led the inner ear to confound the eye and brain, and Benedick had it. You fixed your gaze like a pirouetting dancer, and flicked it from point of focus to point of focus. Nevertheless, Benedick tripped on a glitch in gravity and dipped one leg. His knee plowed a divot in the earth; the toolkit on his shoulder responded with a murfle of protest. Somewhere under the earth, a gravity simulator was warped or cut. They were designed to shut off automatically when damaged, to protect the superstructure, but the deadswitch must be malfunctioning, too.
"Nova," he said, pushing himself to his feet with his fingertips as Chelsea turned back to see if he needed assistance, "faulty gravity at our current location. I can't make out a sector marker in line of sight; it must be overgrown."
"Thank you," Nova said. "I have no superstructure penetration there, but when I'm done with the flora I will find it. There is still no sign of Arianrhod, but I've located something that may be an indicator of her movements. There is an expanding, mobile null spot proceeding with fair speed through a section three strata world-south of your location."
"She went EVA, if that's her," Chelsea said. "Should we follow?"
"She's with an angel," Benedick said. "She can EVA at will."
"We have armor and an angel of our own."
"Nova?" The angel had not generated an avatar, so Benedick merely tipped his head back as if addressing someone directly before him and slightly taller. "Do external conditions permit?"
"It would be extremely unsafe," the angel said. "I could allocate resources to help shield you from radiation--"
"Resources needed elsewhere." Benedick reconsidered his earlier thoughts about Nova's serenity and undeveloped personality. He wasn't sure he'd ever heard an angel sound miserably worried before. They were voices of authority, arrogance, comfort, calm--or at least, they always had been.
"We are effecting repairs as quickly as possible," Nova said, this time managing the soothing delivery Benedick associated with angels. "The Captain states that your mission is prioritized, and I am to offer assistance commensurate with your need. Other processes can wait. However, I also must tell you that now the null spot has vanished. I'm not sure if Arianrhod has ventured EVA again, or if this is a symptom of something else."
Reluctance to speak was also not a feature of angels as Benedick knew them. "Expand?"
"It's possible that Arianrhod's patron has either infiltrated my program--possibly through a back door implicit in the code we all consumed from our initial parent process--or merely that he has attained a level of sophistication such that he can make me forget his existence. In which case, the null spot disappears from my perception. Exactly as certain items or concepts might disappear from the consciousness of a human who had suffered brain damage. I've had indications that there are colonies at work in the world that I cannot even locate, let alone control. And some of them are doing damage."
Benedick would have bitten his thumb in frustration if the armor hadn't been in the way. Instead, his hands clenched inside their gel-lined gauntlets. "But she was headed in the same direction."
"Last seen progressing world-south, yes."
"If she's skipping strata, risking EVA, and headed due south--if it's not an attempt on her part to misdirect us, mislead pursuit and tempt us to squander resources while she doubles back to Rule--we're never going to equal her speed by staying to the causeways and routes. Especially given how many are still under repair."
Benedick pressed a boot into the forgiving soil under its heel. The print would scab over in a matter of minutes. A childish display of petulance, even if he and the angel were the only ones who would ever know, but it made him feel better.
"Benedick." Chelsea's voice dropped, as if she were hesitant to interrupt. "There's another option. I'm reasonably familiar with this part of the world. We're not far from a derelict commuter shaft, if it's intact. It extends dozens of strata south, all the way to the Broken Holdes."
"I know it," Benedick said. "I heard about it from a young Engineer. The flyers sneak off to the holdes to practice. This Engineer, though, she told me it was too dangerous, and they avoided it for a longer, faster route. Faster for them." He shook his head in frustration. "I never wished I was a flyer, but right now it would help."
Chelsea's helm rocked as she nodded.
"This Engineer"--a peer of Perceval's, who Benedick couldn't bring himself to name, knowing she was probably dead--"told me the gravity controls failed long ago. Is it defaulted to free fall?"
"Alas," Chelsea said. "About one and a half gravities. But we're Conns. We could climb it."
The family mantra. We're Conns. We could--Their father's influence, and Benedick was not sure even now if it had made Alasdair's children strong and willing to risk, or if it had led them to destruction.
He paused, figuring odds in his head. He must consider the possibility, far from remote, that Chelsea was in league with Arianrhod and had been in league with Ariane. If she had survived the massacre at Rule because of her affiliations, she might be here in the service of Arianrhod's plan. She might mean to decoy him to failure or to death.
Watching her face, he did not think so--but he was always too fond of his family, even when they did not deserve that fondness. So if he were wrong, it would hardly be the first time. Still, better to choose to trust and be disappointed than go the other way. As far as Benedick was concerned, cynicism was a toy for children.
"Nova?" he asked. "Obvious flaws in the plan?"
"Hazards of the climb," the angel answered. "None that appear unavoidable in the early stages, as I should be able to guide you for perhaps the first half of the descent. Then, however, you will leave my sphere of influence, and Tristen's experience with a rogue colony suggests there may be dangers. A more obvious issue is that we are uncertain of Arianrhod's actual destination, and whether this is a feint."
"And that last is a risk we have no option but to accept," Benedick said. He opened a hand past Chelsea, a gesture meant to sweep her on. "Lead me, My Lady."
Now Chelsea ran without hesitation, without stopping, without saving herself. Benedick followed after, limiting his longer stride so as not to overrun her. His armor jarred his bones. He thought of cautioning her. Her headlong rush telegraphed all her youth and incaution. She was burning energy not easily replaced on the trail for little gain, and she might be coursing heedlessly into a trap.