She watched the tumbling snow, enrapt, and the sound seemed to swirl around her and pick her up and then with a jolt Rue was gone. There was only the peaks and the avalanche and where she had been there was a great clap of sound that raced from peak to peak.
The sound stood up over the mountains and felt their shapes, their ancient solidity, in the standing waves of echo that crashed between them. Each peak proclaimed its millennial sovereignty to the others.
She rose, trembling, to touch the lower clouds. The reality of this place, this moment, was so overwhelming it erased any doubt. A million years these peaks had stood and in a million more they would still be here. Years nor light-years could erase them.
And way down there, all the parts of the mountains were as reaclass="underline" the tumbled rocks, the straggling trees, the lichen, and, on a jut of stone halfway up one peak, a standing woman— a woman as real as the mountains and as much a part of them as the stone and ice. They, as much a part of her.
The sound broke and fell back to sleep in the stones and snow. Rue blinked, felt herself spinning and then she was sitting in the sub again.
The echoes went on and on in her head. She reached out a trembling hand and touched the cold wall of the sub. It was hard to say what was her and what was outside her. For a few seconds, Rue had the hallucinatory sense that she was both herself and the ocean around her. The distinction between the two had been shattered.
The sensation faded gradually, but Rue sat still, in shock, for a long time. Then, half in fear and half in eagerness, she summoned up the menu again.
None of the other names on the menu were familiar, so she chose one at random.
She tapped the word Dis and blackness and stars bloomed around her.
MICHAEL AWOKE FEELING groggy. Somewhere nearby, he heard Herat talking. He opened his eyes; metal pipes formed a bizarre ceiling above his head.
Rolling over, he found there was no more bed under him suddenly and he crashed to the floor— to the deck, rather, for he was still in the submarine. Remembering that brought everything else back to him.
"Rue?" He stood up, rubbing his shoulder. She sat facing away from him in one of the two chairs at the front of the sub. The marine, Barendts, sat next to her and Herat was leaning over his seat and pointing out into the dark water.
Michael went to crouch next to Rue's chair. She looked up and smiled wanly. Putting her hand on his, she turned away again. She was turning her little medallion over and over in her fingers, touching it and examining it as though it held some secret.
Keeping hold of her hand, Michael turned to the others. "But why would they grow so long?" Barendts was asking.
Herat shrugged. "A very long organism might be able to trap the electrical current that Colossus pumps through this planet. Maybe that's their alternative to photosynthesis."
"What's happening?" asked Michael. There was nothing visible below them except darkness. Above, ice moved past at what looked like a walking pace. Some of the long threadlike things he'd seen earlier were passing by; they seemed to be undulating under their own power.
"We're caught in a current," said Herat. "It's probably one of the thermals that circulates between the exposed ocean and the far side of the planet. The sub's working fine and has plenty of power and life support left. We just don't have control."
"So we're headed for the coldest spot on Oculus," said Michael.
"It's not as bad as it seems," said Herat. The laser burn on his arm seemed to be healing; he was alert and in no apparent pain. "Remember, there are cities down here. At places where the glacial ice is thinner— higher above us— there's giant caverns, much bigger than the autotroph compound. With luck we'll drift past one of those."
"And then what?"
Barendts laughed. "Professor Herat spotted something we'd overlooked." He pointed through the diamond window.
Michael could dimly make out some of the sub's manipulator arms. They were mostly out of sight below his feet and were silhouetted by the floodlamps in front of them. One arm appeared to be holding something.
"See it?" asked Herat. "No? Well, it took us a while to figure it out ourselves, but one of those arms snagged the strap of Barendts's laser rifle after he dropped it jumping onto the sub. See it now?"
Now that he knew what he was looking for, Michael could plainly see the shape of the weapon, dangling from one of the larger arms. "What good does that do us?" he asked.
"I'm not sure, but no doubt an opportunity will present itself."
He was too tired to indulge Herat's usual optimism, so he turned back to Rue. "How are you doing?" he asked her gently.
She looked down at him again; she seemed very far away. "I'm good," she said, almost inaudibly.
"You don't look good," he said. She seemed stunned. "Did you take something from the medkit?"
Rue smiled sadly. "No." She stood up, a bit stiffly. Michael had to stand and back up to give her space. "Professor, do sit down," she said.
"Thanks." He plonked himself into the seat she'd vacated and Rue stretched, then went to sit on the edge of one of the cots. Michael sat opposite her.
"I've been thinking," she said listlessly. "I've been very stupid."
"What do you mean? You can't blame yourself for Max's death," he said, reaching out to take her hand.
"It's not that— I mean, I was, I was blaming myself. It's so awful, what happened." She wiped tears away from her eyes with a fist, then opened her fingers to reveal the pendant. "And I was blaming myself. Until… Mike, I met your kami. They told me to stop blaming myself."
Met the kami? The statement was so totally unexpected that for a moment Michael couldn't make sense of it. "How… how did you…"
Rue looked down, seemingly embarrassed. "I went to the local NeoShinto… temple, or whatever, before we met at the docks. They gave me a headset and, uh, while you were sleeping, I borrowed your datapack."
She shrugged awkwardly. "I needed to do something, to take my mind off Max. And I was hurting so much. But I met the kami and I feel… different, now."
He held her hand tightly and fixed his eyes on hers. "Which kami?" he demanded.
"All of them," she said, "but especially the ones from Dis."
Michael felt like someone had punched him in the stomach. He sagged back against the cold wall of the sub. He should have erased that kami long ago. Just thinking about it brought back the sense of hollow emptiness to him. "Oh, Rue," he said. "I'm so sorry."
She chewed on her lip, absently brushing her hair back from her eyes. "Yes, well, I know you would never have pushed me to meet them. You were good that way."
To have lost her cousin and then to have faced the soul-destroying kami of Dis… He was amazed Rue could still function. "I'm sorry," he croaked again.
Now she looked puzzled. "What? Why? I was falling apart, Mike. I miss Max so much and I was blaming myself for his death. Everything looked so dark and pointless, I could have died. Your kami saved me."
"What?"
She nodded. "I saw Dis. It's such a cold and lonely place. But when the kami appeared, I–I disappeared! I became the universe itself, staring down at this one little place in the cosmos. I turned away and Dis disappeared, Rue was gone, and there was only the stars. And, at that moment, I was ancient, so ancient, Mike! Older than humanity, or even this little fellow." She smiled fondly at the galaxy-shaped ediacaran. "All the cares and responsibilities of Rue Cassels seemed infinitely small. And Max… well, he was a part of me then. Max was a part of the universe, a part I loved. I'll mourn and always miss him, but it would just be so self-absorbed of me to blame myself."