Brendan's face brightened. "Good. This is what we've been waiting for." He leaped down into the common room, reached out, grabbed a handful of leads, and, walking over to the nearby gang-tap, plugged into Shipnet, whole once again.
The voices started. . . .
Brendan?
It was a soft, gentle whisper, the old voice made real once more, calling to him out of a gray and misty sea.
Demogorgon? Are you all right?
Yes, my friend. I've never been better. I wanted to thank you for all that you've given me, at last. . . . I'm glad you like it. What're you up to?
A lot of things. You'd be surprised.
I'm sure I would. What are you planning? That's what I meant.
I called to tell you about it. I've got to do a number of things to get the ship back on its original mission. There's a great deal to be done. . . . I'm going to dive Iris to within about five million kilometers of the chromosphere, burn off as much of this garbage as I can, and see if I can explode off all the rest. I'll use a phase boost and head for a globular cluster about six thousand parsecs from here. XGC5152, it's called.
Why there?
Pieces of the Centrum records indicate that's where the last functioning Seedee colony was emplaced. I want to see if there's anything left, maybe learn from what has developed over the course of a couple of billion years. From little acorns
. . . Maybe I could pick up another crew. I could use a few physical hands. Sounds like a good idea to me. Listen, what's going to happen to the moons? Things're getting pretty hot up here.
That brought a ghostly chuckle.
I wondered if you'd ask. You'll like this one: this ship has some pretty sophisticated technology; things like the old SF tractor beams are available, working from a limited sort of gravity control that the Starseeders worked out when they discovered QTD, way back when. It's useless for spacecraft propulsion, but it can be used to do a lot of work when you've got a really big planet to use for a fulcrum. As soon as you get out of the way I'm going to bounce the moons. You'd better move quickly, though; there's not much time left.
I know. Where are you sending them?
There was a girlish giggle.
I've worked it all out: I'm going to send those cocksuckers billiarding through the Solar System! Once around Jupiter and through the belt, splitting them apart. I'm going to interact Aello with Phobos and drop her into a loose elliptical orbit around Mars. Instant economy. Then I'm going to let Podarge smash right into Venus. Instant Earth. Like it?
Yeah. There's only a small contingent of scientists on Venus, so it shouldn't be a big problem. How fast'll it hit?
18 kps . No big explosion. Podarge'll break up before impact and come down as an asteroid shower. Lots of steam. Earth will have a lot of work to do, still, but if they act quickly, get the preliminaries done in under a generation, people could be living on the exposed surface in less than two centuries. Maybe less, if they hurry.
What about Ocypete ?
That's yours, pal, I'm going to drop it into a "Toro" orbit, right where it'll do the most good. I think you and John could find some use for a trillion ceus ' worth of inner-system water. . . . John and I?
Think about it. The others don't need you. I saw what was going to happen, back when I took the survivors through Bright Illimit that last time. You did a good job with that GAM. They won't need either of you, but you may need each other. Promise me you'll at least consider the idea.
I already have. You could be right.
I know I am. You'll be feeling like your old self again in a few days, I think. The shock must be wearing off pretty quickly.
Yes. I wish I had you back, though.
Hey, that's nice to hear. If I were still alive, you'd have me blubbering all over you. Listen, I've got one last little present to give you. Latch this data . . .
It squealed suddenly into his head at nearly a million-kbaudrate. Brendan Sealock convulsed and fell to the floor, hemorrhaging from his nose and ears, body beginning to twitch into the opening phases of a grand mal seizure.
Formis Fusionhad been dropping along a swift hyperbola toward Iris when the photon drive lit off. The new planet had been only a few days away and now . . . this. The crew and the scientists they had brought watched, thunderstruck, as the planet began to move. How could such a thing possibly happen?
They called back to USEC headquarters on Ganymede, looking for directives, fearfully awaiting new orders. The command came back swiftly: Proceed with the mission. Go in there and take over. Now. They accelerated into Iris' path, entering into an interaction that they did not understand. The planet swelled before them, a boiling, flaming demon, no longer the gentle water carrier. They looked for her harpies and were horrified to discover that their positions were so far from the predicted place. What was happening? They looked at the glowing exhaust plume, at the dirigible infrastar , and consulted the capabilities of their spacecraft. A converted high-energy freighter, the ship had five-g legs. They fired up the engines, hoping that it was not too late. . . .
An hour and more passed and Brendan was sitting up in his bed, recovering, sipping a cup of camomile tea heavily laced with sugar. John sat in a chair beside him, watching him drink. "How are you feeling?" he asked.
"Better, I think. I've got a real skull-pounder of a fucking awful headache, though."
"Do you want anything else?"
"No, thanks."
"What happened?"
"One of Demo's brighter little ideas. He popped me with a massive data flow and sent it in at a machine-style flow rate. I'm surprised that the GAM let it happen. He must be running some kind of override to make it cooperate with the inflight procedures that are outside its danger parameters."
"Was he trying to kill you?"
Brendan smiled wanly. "No. He just doesn't understand, yet, the full meaning of what's happened to him. A data flow rate like that one wouldn't faze him a bit. . . ." John nodded slowly. "When are we leaving?"
"In a little bit. Listen, I've got some things I wanted to talk to you about. . . ." Krzakwa popped into the room, gliding across the floor with a puzzled, concerned expression on his face. " Bren? We're picking up some kind of modulated radio signal from the space near Iris' outer atmosphere. . . ."
"Something from Demo?" Sealock was rising to his feet, staring wistfully at the planet, squinting into the glare of its bright exhaust.
"No. I don't know what it is. It's on the standard distress frequency, but the static from the drive is overwhelming it almost completely."
"Standard distress frequency?" He thought about that and then was horrified. "Holy Fuck!" He located a tap and inserted it. "You don't suppose . . ." The flash overloaded his visual cortex. Outside, the others cried out and, when he opened his mind again to dancing shadows, he could see the billowing ball of a thermonuclear explosion blossoming out from Iris. At least in the fifty-megaton range, it left a great crimson pockmark in the planet's gaseous outer integument as it faded.
"Sweet Jesus," murmured Temujin Krzakwa.
"Yeah," said Sealock, his mouth dry. "Say good-bye to our friends from USEC."
"Stupid bastards," said Cornwell, and was surprised at himself. Sealock turned to grin in his direction. "Yeah? There's a lot of that going around lately. . . . Come on, we've got to get this shit can on the road."
They went below, calling the others to action.
Deepstarsquatted for a while in the ground-hugging mists of Ocypete , and it began. Opaque wisps of mist were drifting about, slowly rising toward the level of the CM. A view of the bottom part of the craft showed that the struts and nozzle mounting were hidden by the stuff. And the sky was slowly brightening, a twilight that masked the dimmest stars. Ocypete was breathing, outgassing the atmosphere that had once been hers, and more. She would soon have a substantial atmosphere instead of this thin muck. Dissolution would happen rapidly as methane, ammonia, and finally carbon dioxide evaporated. The pressure would rise over two, then three, bar, and the features on its face would be wiped out by clouds and haze. As it was, and would be, the little world could never again be the same. Already the stars were going out.