“The future,” replies Morat. Smoke’s still streaming from his neck. He gets control of the knife, smashes Marlowe back against the instrument panel—scarcely two meters to the left of where Haskell’s frantically taking the ship through another series of maneuvers, trying to prevent it from hitting HK’s towers in its headlong rush. “Nothing more. And it’s not my body that matters. It’s my mind. That’s what’s wriggled beyond the old man’s reach.”
“Sinclair should have killed you,” says Haskell. Morat’s hand snakes out from where he’s grappling with Marlowe. She dodges to her right.
“Should have killed me?” Morat laughs. “He did kill me. He destroyed my illusions. He created fertile ground for a new seed. Germinated by the events of the last decade. Brought to fruition by the Rain themselves.” He pushes the knife down while Marlowe strives desperately to hold the blade at bay.
“You make them sound like God,” says Haskell. She lunges back in toward Morat—who blocks her blow with his right hand, holds her off from where he’s killing Marlowe with his left.
“They’re far more than that,” says Morat. “God’s a parasite that preys on our brains. We’ll burn Him into ashes. We’ll replace all the gods that never existed. Henceforth humanity shall have no limits. Least of all its own humanity. And the last thing it’s going to miss is one less human.”
He presses the blade down against Marlowe’s throat. But now they’re all knocked sprawling as something impacts the ship. The walls are becoming floor. The instrument panels are going crazy. Buildings are whipping past. As the ship drops in among them, Morat leaps to the pilot’s seat, seizing Haskell with one hand, working the controls with the other. But the controls aren’t responding.
“We’ve been hit from the ground,” he says incredulously.
“Your own team,” screams Haskell, struggling against Morat’s grip. Marlowe’s at the back of the cockpit. He’s fighting the forces of acceleration to try to get to them. The fact that such acceleration is practically random is making it difficult. “They’ve figured this ship ain’t landing. They’ve figured right. They’ve written you off, Morat. All this talk and all you are is just a pawn. You’re not worth the spit that’s in my mouth.”
But Morat’s arm holds her like steel while the ship roars out of control. He hauls her against him. His knife hovers at her heart. His voice is as cold as she’s ever heard it. “It’s not like you have the strength to spit, bitch,” he snarls. “Way I see it, I’ve got five seconds to teach you manners. Not to mention reason.”
“Reason,” breathes Haskell. “You don’t know what that fucking is!”
She hits the manual release on the eject. Morat’s chair leaps through the open ceiling. His grip’s nearly strong enough to take her with him. But not quite: he catapults out of the opening, disappears without a sound. She grabs on to the now-useless instruments. The plane keeps plunging downward.
“We’re following him,” says Marlowe.
“I know,” she says.
Nor does she wait. She’s already turned, wrapping her arms around his neck, her legs around his waist. And even as she grabs him, he’s igniting his thrusters. Haskell catches a glimpse of the Janus spacecraft, smoke pouring from its engines, interceptors dying in flame in its wake. She sees cityscape shooting past.
Marlowe cuts out the flame. She feels herself falling. They drop between skyways, fall past levels. Marlowe reignites his motor, sends them roaring in among a thicket of buildings.
Ten seconds later, they alight upon a skyway. They race along it. They see no one. They hear everything. Thunder of gunfire rolls amidst the buildings like the distant roar of ocean. Flashes blot out the neon in the direction from which they’ve come. They keep running—to the edge of that skyway, onto the roof of an adjacent building. They tear a trapdoor away, race down stairs. They find an elevator. They leap into the shaft.
And descend into the city.
So at the end of Moon there’s a labyrinth. At the end of that labyrinth’s a chamber. That chamber wasn’t built by man. It’s been there since this rock cooled. It sits within the heart of mountain. It contains the most valuable thing in this world.
“Water,” says Sarmax.
He steps into the light. His armor looks pretty beat-up. It’s been burned almost black. He walks toward the ramp’s edge.
“Come again?” says the Operative.
“Water,” repeats Sarmax. “Or should I say ice.”
“Which is how you made your fortune,” says the Operative.
“My latest fortune,” replies Sarmax.
He stops just short of the edge. He gestures at the sloped walls. He looks back at the Operative. He smiles. He’s so close the Operative can see teeth through visor.
“You’re a resourceful man,” he says quietly.
“Look who’s talking,” replies the Operative.
“It’s just too bad that such resourcefulness has to compensate for such lack of planning,” continues Sarmax. “Such a goddamn shame it’s forced to rely so heavily on pure luck. You almost brought the roof down on your stupid head, Carson. It’s a wonder you didn’t get buried in those tunnels.”
“Would that have been such a terrible outcome?” asks the Operative.
“Now that,” says Sarmax, “depends on your point of view.” He gestures at the ramps and ladders stacked about him. “You see before you the industry of a new era, Carson. We live in the dawn times, old friend. Humanity is poised to boil out beyond the Earth-Moon system. The red planet will be colonized en masse within the next two decades. The prospectors are even now testing the tug of the gas giants. The Oort is surrendering her secrets to the probes. It’s all there for the taking, Carson. And it all makes me say I don’t give a fuck if you take me down. I don’t give a damn about the Rain or anybody else. Let them squabble. Let them plot. What does it matter when history itself is at last coming into focus?”
“I’m sure the Rain couldn’t say it any better,” says the Operative.
“But you and I know that all they’re really doing is playing the same old game.”
“Which is?”
“Power. They want it all, Carson. They’re using all of us to make it happen.”
“Including you, Leo?”
“I’m sure they’d like to. One more reason why I took myself out of the equation. One more reason I content myself with commerce. Leave the politics to others, Carson. Leave the games to those who would play them.”
“Is that a statement or an invitation?”
“What makes you think it’s not both?”
“Tell me about the latter.”
“You already know it. You’re the best I ever trained. You’re the man whose instincts were always closest to my own. You want to set up shop for yourself. You want it so badly you’d shut your own razor out of the picture. Hell of a move, Carson. Only you would try it. Not that it mattered in the end. You were always going to have to venture into my garden. You were always going to have to descend into what I built beneath it.”
“Not if I’d broken you upstairs,” says the Operative.
“But you didn’t,” says Sarmax. “It was almost the other way. I fully expected to pull your body out from under rubble.”
“You may yet,” says the Operative.
“The suspense is killing me.”
“Lynx knew the mine was down here, Leo. But he thought it was abandoned decades ago. He didn’t think there was any connection between it and the surface fortress. Especially not when the maps assured him of that fact.”
“Then he’s a fool, Carson. You were right to cut him loose.”
“On the contrary,” says the Operative. “I was inspired to do some research on my own. I tapped into Shackleton’s archives. I learned everything I could about this mine’s dimensions. So when I ended up in the vicinity, I knew how close the labyrinth was taking me to the main chambers. And if I’d bought the farm anyway, I figured we could always settle this in Valhalla.”