“It’s not that easy,” said Moira.
“The hell it isn’t,” shouted Harman.
The young woman went on as if Harman had not spoken. “First of all, you know from the turin and from what Prospero told you that all of the planet’s faxnodes and fax pavilions have been shut off.”
“By whom?” said Harman, turning back to look at the crystal cabinet again. The golden fluid was swirling to within a foot of the top, but it had stopped filling. Moira had opened a panel on the top—one of the multifaceted glass faces—and he could see the short metal rungs that would allow him to climb up to that opening.
“By Setebos or his allies,” said Moira.
“What allies? Who are they? Just tell me what I need to know.”
Moira shook her head. “My young Prometheus, you’ve been told things for the better part of a year now. Hearing things means nothing unless you have the context in which to place the information. It is time for you to gain that context.”
“Why do you keep calling me Prometheus?” he barked at her. “Everyone seems to have ten names around here… Prometheus, I don’t know that name. Why do you call me that?”
Moira smiled. “I guarantee that you will understand that at least, after the crystal cabinet.”
Harman took a deep breath. One more smug smile out of this woman, he realized, and he might hit her in the face. “Prospero said that this thing could kill me,” he said. He looked at the cabinet rather than the post-human thing in Savi’s human form.
Moira nodded. “It could. I do not believe it will.”
“What are my chances?” said Harman. His voice sounded plaintive and weak to his own ears.
“I don’t know. Very good, I think, or I would not suggest you go through this… unpleasantness.”
“Have you done it?”
“Undergone the crystal cabinet transfer?” said Moira. “No. I had no reason to.”
“Who has?” demanded Harman. “How many lived? How many died?”
“All of the Chief Librarians have experienced the crystal cabinet transfer,” said Moira. “All the many generations of the Keepers of the Taj. All the linear descendents of the original Khan Ho Tep.”
“Including your beloved Ferdinand Mark Alonzo?”
“Yes.”
“And how many of these Keepers of the Taj survived the cabinet transfer?” asked Harman. He was still wearing the thermskin, but his exposed hands and face felt the terrible chill in the air up there near the top of the dome. He concentrated on not shivering.
Harman was afraid that if Moira merely shrugged, he’d just walk away forever. And he didn’t want to do that—not yet. Not until he knew more. This awkward crystal cabinet with its glowing gold liquid might kill him… but it might also return him to Ada sooner.
Moira did not shrug. She looked him in the eye—she had Savi’s eyes—and said, “I don’t know how many died. Sometimes the flow of information is simply too much—for lesser minds. I do not believe you have a lesser mind, Prometheus.”
“Don’t call me that again.” Harman’s freezing hands were tightened into fists.
“All right.”
“How long does it take?” he asked.
“The transfer itself? Less than an hour.”
“That long?” said Harman. “The eiffelbahn car leaves in forty-five minutes.”
“We’ll make it,” said Moira. Harman hesitated.
“The medium fluid is warm,” said Moira as if reading his mind. It was more likely, he realized, she was reading his shivers and shaking.
That may have decided the issue for Harman. He had peeled off the thermskin, embarrassed to be naked in front of this stranger with whom he had had a strange sort of sex less than two hours earlier. And it was cold.
He had quickly clambered up the side of the dodecahedron, using the short rungs for hand and footholds, feeling how cold the metal was against the bare soles of his feet.
It had been a relief when he lowered himself through the open panel and actually dropped into the golden liquid. As she’d promised, the fluid was warm. It had no scent and the few drops that landed on his lips had no taste.
And then Ariel had levitated from the shadows and closed and locked the panel above Harman’s head.
And then Moira had touched some control on the vertical and virtual control panel where she stood.
And then a pump chugged to life again somewhere in the base of the crystal cabinet and more fluid began to fill the closed container.
Harman had screamed at them then—screamed at them to let him out—and then, when both post-human and biosphere non-human ignored him, Harman had pounded and kicked, trying to open the panel, trying to shatter the crystal. The fluid continued to rise. For some seconds Harman found the last inch of air at the top facet of the dodecahedron and he breathed it in deeply, still pounding on the overhead panels. And then the fluid rose until there was no more inch of air, no more air bubbles except those escaping from Harman’s lips and nose.
He held his breath for as long as he could. He wished that his last thought could have been of Ada and his love for Ada—and his sorrow for having betrayed Ada—but although he thought of her, his last thoughts while holding his breath until his lungs were afire were a confused jumble of terror and fury and regret.
And then he could hold his breath no more and—still pounding on the unyielding crystal panel above him—he exhaled, coughed, gagged, cursed, gagged more, breathed in the thickening fluid, felt darkness flowing over his mind even as overwhelming panic continued to fill his body with useless adrenaline, and then his lungs held no air at all, but Harman did not know this. Heavier without air in his lungs, his body no longer kicking, moving, or breathing, Harman sank to the center of the dodecahedron.
61
There had been a flurry of activity and tightbeamed conversation on the bridge of the Queen Mab as another masered message came in from the Voice on the asteroid city on polar Earth orbit, but it was only a repeat of the previous rendezvous coordinates and after five minutes confirming this and with no other message following, the principal moravecs met back at the chart table.
“Where were we?” said Orphu of Io.
“You were about to present your Theory of Everything,” said Prime Integrator Asteague/Che.
“And you said you knew who the Voice is,” said Cho Li. “Who or what is it?”
“I don’t know who the Voice is,” answered Orphu, vocalizing in soft rumbles rather than tightbeaming or transmitting on the standard in-ship comm channels. “But I have a pretty good guess.”
“Tell us,” said General Beh bin Adee. The Belt moravec’s tone did not suggest a polite request so much as a direct order.
“I’d rather explain my entire… Theory of Everything… first and then tell you about the Voice,” said Orphu. “It’ll make more sense in context.”
“Proceed,” said Prime Integrator Asteague/Che.
Mahnmut heard his friend take in a full breath of O-two, even though the Ionian had weeks or months of reserve in his tanks. He wanted to tightbeam his friend the question—Are you sure you want to go ahead with this explanation?—but since Mahnmut himself had no clue as to what Orphu was going to say, he remained silent. But he was nervous for his friend.
“First of all,” said Orphu of Io, “you haven’t released the information yet, but I’m pretty sure you’ve identified most of the million or so satellites that make up Earth’s polar and equatorial rings that we’re so quickly approaching… and I bet that most of the objects aren’t asteroids or habitations.”
“That is correct,” said Asteague/Che.
“Some of them we know to be early post-human attempts at creating and corralling black holes,” continued Orphu. “Huge devices like the wormhole accumulator that you showed us crashing into that other orbital asteroid city nine months ago. But how many of those are there? A few thousand?”