Fifty-one
The injection airlocks hit the wall with a soft, sudden thump, shaped nukes piercing the hyperfiber, the roar muted by the wild keening of the pumps. Then came the abrupt purple-white flash of lasers, absolutely soundless, and Pamir hunkered down, shouting at the harum-scarum, shouting, “Shoot the car…!”
But the little car braked suddenly, slipping behind one of the empty troopships, letting the ship’s lasers intercept the spray of baby nukes while its bug-shaped body absorbed the furies of every retrofitted laser and microwave shout that the harum-scarum could aim. Steel turned to slag, and the slag exploded into a fierce white-hot rain… and the car accelerated again, dashing past the pumping station… gone…
The harum-scarum said nothing about his lousy aim. Pamir growled, “Shit,” and turned to his companion, finding no one. Where the alien should have been standing, a cloud of incandescent gas and ash drifted with a deceptive peacefulness. The gangway had melted. A random blast from below, or they would have killed him, too. Pamir wheeled and sprinted for the nearest lift-tube, his laser panning for him, his most secure nexus awakened, his quick command wrapped deep in code and squirted to every team and every AI. “Flood the bastards,” Pamir roared.
Then he leaped inside the tube, and a lift-glove grabbed him and accelerated him upward, moving too fast for him to keep his feet under him. As if suffering from a savage beating, Pamir dropped to his knees, then his aching belly, and as he lay motionless against the padded floor, it occurred to him that the pumps’ keening had changed. A deep, powerful throb rose up to him as liquid hydrogen passed through the greedy mouths, gaining a terrific velocity, a swift river born in an instant, vaster than any Amazon and fabulously, righteously furious.
A TEAM of harum-scarums had closed the giant valve.
A column of frigid, pressurized hydrogen struck the valve, and the enormous fuel line shuddered, shivered and held.
Hydrogen pooled and swirled, and half a hundred hammerwings—manned and empty—were swept down in the maelstrom. Slammed against the walls and valve, the abrupt cold shattered their alloyed hulls, splinters and anonymous gore swirling, then slowing as the pool grew deeper, settling on the bottom as a thin, uncomplaining sediment.
At the waystation, duty threw a yoke on the panic. The ranking officer—the same officer who had allowed Washen to pass—called to Till. To Miocene. Both were below somewhere, at risk. He estimated flow rates and offered computer simulations of the impending flood, and with a dry, scared, sorry voice, he mentioned, “Maybe sir, madam, you should close the tunnel. Save Marrow.” Preset charges would crack the new hyperfiber walls, and the collapse would seal everything. Would save the Waywards for another day…
At first, Miocene didn’t reply.
Till did. With a calm, almost indifferent voice, he told everyone in his command,’The tunnel remains open. Now, and always.”
“Now, but not always,” the officer grumbled.
“If you can,” Till advised, “save yourself. And if you cannot, I will kiss your soul when you are reborn again…!”
The officer straightened his back, and unable to imagine any solution, he stood beside the nearest window, and waited.
A falling hammerwing appeared.
It was the same ship that had attacked the enemy stronghold, airlocks deployed, then shattered, its gray carapace thrown against the opposite wall and plunging into one of the waystation’s buildings. There was a momentary vibration, then a high-pitched crash. Surprised, the officer realized that an atmosphere had formed outside, hydrogen fuel evaporating, forming a thick sudden wind that he could almost feel, one hand now pressed against the diamond window as the wind rose into a hurricane, then something much worse.
“But if nobody closes the tunnel,” he whispered to himself, “and if this flood reaches my house…”
Obviously, Till didn’t understand the problem.
On a different channel, the man called to Miocene. And hoping that she was listening, he explained everything again, letting the panic creep into his voice.
Outside, the torrent was worsening. The hydrogen had filled the fuel line level to the waystation, the first fingers of liquid racing between the buildings, then quickly rising into a wall that swept over and down, tugging and wrenching at the armored structures and at the scared little souls inside.
To himself, staring out into that roaring blackness, the officer said, “Shit.”
He said, it’s not supposed to be this way.”
Then another voice joined him, close and familiar. Respected, if not loved. The voice asked, “What are you doing?”
“Miocene?” the man whispered. Then he explained, “Nothing. I am waiting.”
i don’t understand… what…!”
He said, “Madam,” and turned, confused enough to think that perhaps the Master was standing beside him. But she wasn’t there. It was just a familiar voice on his nexus, angrier than he had ever heard it before.
Miocene screamed, “What, what, what are you doing!”
“Nothing at all,” the man promised.
And again, he touched the window, feeling the brutal chill slipping through it… and there was a soft, almost inconsequential creak from somewhere close… and the man’s last act was to pull his eyes shut, something in that very simple, very ancient reflex lending him the strength to keep standing his ground…
Fifty-two
“What, what, what are you doing?!”
The question roared out of every one of Miocene’s mouths and through every nexus, and it exploded from the flesh and spit and ceramic-toothed mouth inside the Great Temple. Her words were carried up the newly made Spine, then amplified, passengers and crew listening in a horrified amazement as the ship’s new Master seemed to be asking each of the cowering fools to explain what they were doing.
Billions answered.
In whispers, grunts, and farts, songs and violent shouts, they told the Master that they were scared and sick of feeling this way, and when would she get the shields to work again, and when could their lives be their own again…?
Miocene heard none of them.
Wild dark eyes stared at the watchful captains, and at Washen, and at Washen’s betrayer son. But the only face Miocene could see was streaking down the access tunnel, approaching the bridge now. That pretty face was smug, then hopelessly distracted, then it was enraged by something that it saw in the distance, then smug again when the problem resolved itself. And finally, with a strange, almost embarrassed smile, Till met his mother’s stare, looking up at one of the car’s security eyes, remarking to his companion, “I think she understands… finally, finally…”
Virtue shrank as if expecting to be beaten. Then with a low, desperate squawk, he said, “I had no choice, madam. My love. No choice, ever—”
Miocene fled the falling car.
Returning to the Temple, rejoining the captains, her oldest mouth took a deep, useless breath before declaring, “I’ve been an idiot.”
Washen nearly spoke, then seemed to think better of it.
Aasleen tried to comfort the Master. “We couldn’t have imagined it, much less believed it,” she remarked, thin black fingers caressing her own astonished mouth. “Assuming that there really is such a thing as the Bleak, and the ship’s its prison…”
Miocene put her arms around herself and squeezed hard, and sobbing, said, “No. No, I don’t believe this. No.”
How long had tears been running on her face?
Washen looked at the other captains, and quietly, with a comforting matter-of-factness, she explained, “This was a trap. Maybe there is a Bleak under us, and maybe not. But there are creatures called Waywards, and they’ve taken charge of my ship, and I want that to end. Now.”