Again, the woman touched him on the deadened shoulder.
Was she going to tell him the time?
But no, she only wanted to feel him. And as he massaged the last drops of energy out of the skimmer’s dying reactor, and himself, Orleans concentrated on the dim touch of her hand, treating himself to a fantasy older than their species.
Remoras existed because the hull needed constant repair.
What they did very well. But not perfectly. Speed was critical when a deep blast crater needed to be filled. Hyperfiber, particularly the better grades, was sensitive to a multitude of variables. And on occasion, mistakes were made. One layer went bad before it could cure, and already one or more new layers were on top, soft as flesh and as pliable. Freed volatiles made bubbles. Bubbles weakened the patch. But to tear out the newest work and repair the damage meant time lost, and worse, it gave the universe an opportunity to strike the comet’s grave with a second, perhaps larger comet.
“Better to let the flaw remain,” Wune had said, speaking about hulls and about other matters, too. “Build around it, and preserve it. Remember: one day’s flaw will be another day’s treasure.”
A spacious flaw lay far out on the ship’s leading face. Hidden tunnels led into a chamber large enough to hide every surviving Remora, and stockpiles of machinery and shop-made weapons had been delivered secredy over the last ten days, making a last-stand fortress out of someone’s long-ago fuck-up.
Except Orleans would never reach it. His skimmer was barely able to fight its way within four kilometers of a smaller, less secure bubble. He had found it while visiting one of the tall bone-white memorials to read the names of dead friends—centuries ago, on some look-around tour. Beside the memorial was a frozen gas vent leading into the hull, into a cramped, lightless, and not particularly deep bubble.
When the skimmer died, he shouted the obvious advice: “Run!”
Lifesuits had strength, not speed. A dreamlike slowness and a dream’s sense of utter helplessness held sway, each man and woman pounding along a smooth and gray and essentially featureless plain. If not for the memorial, they would feel lost. The white spire beckoned from the first clumsy stride, and every eye that looked up could measure their progress, the minds behind the eyes thinking, “Closer. “The mouths saying, “Not far.’Everyone lying with a desperate earnestness, whispering to each other, “Just a few more seconds. Steps. Centimeters.” The sky was purposely ignored.
The lavender fire of the shields was brightening, capturing greater and greater amounts of gas and nanoscopic dusts. The giant lasers continued pummeling hazards big as fists and men and palaces. And blotting out the usual stars was a single swollen red giant sun, ancient and dying, its mass already touching the ship, starting to pull at its trajectory.
A brighter flash of light came from behind, startling everyone.
The boys said, “Skimmer,” and nothing more.
Orleans let himself slow, looking backward long enough to see darting shapes and more bursts of light. Lasers, and in the distance, the soundless delicious flash as nuclear mines detonated themselves.
Then he was running again, falling behind everyone and thinking, “We have time,” when he knew full well they didn’t. An army of Wayward monsters were charging, and if the last timetable was right, they had barely three minutes left before…
Before.
Then he stopped his thinking and looked up, and again, quietly and confidently, he told himself, “Just a few more steps.”
The memorial was too tall and close to absorb with a look, but it was still too far away to feel imposing. Orleans looked down again. He forced the servos in his legs to drain themselves fully with each stride, and he used his own muscles to lengthen the strides, and because it made him feel better, he cursed with each ragged wet breath.
The milk-faced woman said, “Hurry.”
He looked up again, realizing that he was falling farther behind.
She said, “Faster,” and glanced back at him, one long bright arm waving clumsily.
Orleans’s suit was in desperate trouble. He knew it before its own machinery confessed to any weakness, war and bad luck having eroded the servos in both legs, both falling within three strides of each other.
“Piss away,” he cursed.
His muscles lifted his legs and dropped them again.
The suit was fantastically heavy, but their goal was finally close. Honestly, teasingly near. Orleans grunted and took another few steps, then had no choice but to stop and stand motionless, his deep perfect lungs sucking in free oxygen wrenched from his own perfect sweet piss and blood, feeding the black blood that needed a few moments to purge the muscles of toxins, bringing them back into something resembling fitness.
His people were at the spire’s base, disappearing one after another into a tiny, still invisible hole.
Again, quietly, the woman told him, “Hurry,” and turned and waved with both arms, her face just visible, something about its whiteness afraid.
Orleans staggered, stopped. And as he gasped again, he turned his head and looked back over the ground that he had covered. Armored vehicles were skittering and skidding across the grayish plain. Following some Wayward logic, each was shaped like a bug, useless wings folded back and jointed legs holding weapons, one laser firing, a blistering fight sweeping over him and slashing into the memorial, then continuing on into infinity… the white spire melting near its base, tilting with a silent majesty, then collapsing without so much as denting the hull.
A second blast melted the memorial’s raw base.
Where was the woman, and the others?
Orleans couldn’t see them, or anything but a sudden pool of melted hyperfiber. Maybe they were underground, and safe. He kept telling himself it was possible, even likely… and after a little while he realized that he was running again, legs trying to carry him away from a swift, relentless army.
He couldn’t look more pitiful.
He reached the edge of the molten goo, and because there was nothing else to do, he turned again and stared at his pursuers. They were almost on him. In the end, seeing that he was alone and defenseless, they were taking their time. Maybe he would make a valuable prisoner, the monsters were telling each other. Maybe the top monster Herself would reward them for capturing a tremendous criminal like Orleans.
He took a long exhausted step backward.
The hyperfiber was fantastically hot, and deep, and filled with bubbles of freed gases. But without an influx of energy, it was curing again. It would be sloppy, a very weak grade, and someday someone would have to wrench it off the hull and replace everything. Then build an even larger memorial, of course. But Orleans’s suit was hyperfiber, too. An excellent grade, if somewhat battered. It could withstand the heat. His flesh would blister and boil, yes. But if he could keep his diamond faceplate from bursting, then maybe… maybe…
He stepped back once more.
And stumbled.
The weight of his reactors and recyke systems helped drive him partway under the surface, and the pain was vast and relendess, then in another moment, there was no pain.
Orleans’s helmet and head were the only parts of him in view, and his face survived long enough to let his eyes stare up at that big glorious red sun, shrouded in the shields and the constant bursts of laser light… and then he was wondering if it was time, and maybe he should try to dive deeper…
Suddenly, without the smallest warning, the shields evaporated, and every one of the giant lasers quit firing at the coming hazards.