Legroeder reacted with annoyance. Why not? Does anyone else see a problem?
Not here, said Deutsch.
Palagren glanced backward, gesturing in the negative.
Then what was Ker’sell alarmed at?
(What do you see?) Legroeder asked his augments.
// Analyzing… the activity below is very regular and rhythmic, as if all activities balance other activities. No net gain… //
Activity in the Sargasso… balancing and canceling…?
(Can you filter it, let me see the component movements?)
// Attempting… //
The augment matrix began to blur through its analyzing and filtering routines. At the same time, he felt the image begin to shift; one of the other riggers was changing it. Leave it a moment!
It’s making me dizzy, Ker’sell complained, continuing to change the image.
Legroeder reached to stop him. Why are you afraid? I need to know what’s happening. Then, a little too sternly: I’m in command here! Freem’n, help me!
Deutsch reacted in some unseen way, meshing his augmentation with the Kyber net to block the change.
No! Ker’sell protested. We can’t!
What are you afraid of? Legroeder shouted, his annoyance growing. Don’t keep trying to change it! Tell me!
The Narseil’s fear was palpable, radiating throughout the net. There are things down there—things out of time—past, future—all mixed up! I can’t see…
What things? Legroeder tried to probe the image, but it was all entangled with the Narseil’s fear. You’ve got to—
NO! Cracks in time! Splinters! Things moving—!
Ker’sell, said Palagren suddenly. Pull out of the tessa’chron! You’re losing objectivity!
Instead of answering, Ker’sell made a desperate attempt to bypass Deutsch’s blocks. The net quaked from his efforts.
This was becoming dangerous. You are relieved! Legroeder commanded. Ker’sell—leave the net.
What—? squawked the Narseil.
Get out of the net! At once!
For an instant, no one moved. Then Palagren said to his fellow Narseil, Follow his instructions.
Ker’sell abruptly vanished from the net.
Legroeder’s heart was pounding. He tried to concentrate on the landscape below, the virtual cyberimage of a world. All right. He gulped. Let’s all calm down. He took three deep breaths, focusing on the flickering movements. Palagren—get on the com and talk to Ker’sell. Find out what he saw, why he was so alarmed.
As Palagren obeyed, Cantha called from the bridge. We’re picking up a lot of strange quantum effects. I can’t quite follow it. And Ker’sell is quite upset. Captain wants to know, are things under control?
Legroeder was breathlessly trying to assess that very question. What had Ker’sell seen that the others could not? Was he just hallucinating, or were there really—?
Legroeder’s heart nearly stopped as he saw a shape begin to form among the threads of light below. What was that—and why did he feel alarmed by it, even before he knew what it was?
Legroeder, are you doing something? Deutsch asked worriedly.
Not intentionally. I’ve got my implants trying to sort out energy flows that are canceling each other…
Well, yeah—so am I, Deutsch said. But I’m not getting anywh—
His words broke off as the new image suddenly came to life. An enormous, spiderlike thing rose up out of the crisscrossing threads of light. Its body was an illuminated shape of transparent glass. It was moving across the landscape with a slow, undulating movement. Streaming out from it were faint wavelets in the Flux, moving backward like the wake of a boat.
What is that? Palagren whispered in fascination. Is it alive?
Legroeder shrugged, watching it with a creeping horror. He struggled to control his emotions; he didn’t know where they were coming from. Look at the wake moving back from it. Is that canceling its energy?
Let’s find out, Deutsch said darkly, as if disapproving of this strange manifestation.
Legroeder nodded uneasily. Was he wrong to have sent Ker’sell away? Had Ker’sell been the first to see a real danger? Palagren was beginning to steer the ship away from the spider thing. Wait, Palagren. I think we need to investigate this, Legroeder said, feeling afraid even as he said it.
If we could probe the thing’s wake, Deutsch muttered. He seemed charged with a dark kind of excitement. If we could reach down… As he spoke, he stretched a long arm down from the keel of the ship, trolling it in the wavelets far below.
The ship suddenly began to descend.
Alarmed, Legroeder said, That may not be a good idea. Pull your arm out.
I can’t!
Look, Palagren said. The spider thing had turned and begun to stretch out toward them, as though it were a living thing. The wake streaming out from it was becoming more energetic.
Do you hear that? Palagren asked.
Legroeder’s heart was pounding. What?
Voices. Below us.
Legroeder strained. At first, nothing; but as the glassy spider loomed toward them, he felt a sudden shiver. Something was happening to the spider; it was melting into a ghostly haze of light. Faces were forming in the haze, faces of light. Human, or nearly human, faces. Ghost faces…
That’s what I heard. Their voices, Palagren whispered.
Legroeder’s stomach knotted. The ghostly faces, drawn thin as though with desolation and anguish, were peering up at him, rising from the auroral glow to meet the ship. Were they images from his subconscious, or from Deutsch’s?
The voices grew louder. Cries, and groans of distress.
Jesu, Legroeder whispered. He felt from Deutsch a horror like his own. They were only images, weren’t they? But why here, why now?
Something strange is happening in the tessa’chron, Palagren whispered. It’s slipping away from me…
The ghosts veered away just before reaching the ship. Their passage sent shock waves through the net.
What the hell was going on? Legroeder tried to focus…
His implants spoke. // Freem’n is remembering… we glimpsed it in his matrix… faces of death. //
Faces of death? But from where?
More ghost-faces rose on shimmering waves. One flew so close its cry sent a poker through Legroeder’s heart. He thought he recognized the voice. But how could that—? Freem’n! Was it Deutsch’s memory of people he had watched die on starships, victims of piracy? Freem’n!
Legroeder, are you all right?
That was Palagren, nearly drowned out by the wail of the specters whirling around the ship.
Legroeder?
I’m not… sure, he whispered. Holy MOTHER OF—