This answer was so unexpected that Michael laughed. "You let me stew in this place because you wanted me to join your crew? Are you crazy? And what crew are you talking about here, Rue? You lost the Envy, remember?"
He'd meant the words to sting, but she appeared unruffled. "Not for long," she said.
Her calm reminded him of how she'd been when he last saw her— shortly after she had inflicted the kami of Dis upon herself. The words he had been about to add died on Michael's lips.
Maybe, he thought, she was crazy. Maybe it wasn't the Rue he'd begun to fall for looking through those dark eyes— maybe it was the spirits of Dis.
Whatever. Either way, she couldn't get away with what she was doing. "Not for long? You and I both know that your ship is beyond reach." Maybe she had trumped up some reason for the local authorities to arrest him, he thought, but if so she couldn't have told them she intended to go chasing after her lost cycler. They would know she was mad, they would never agree to that. Michael sat back, crossing his arms. He would wait for her to leave, then he would tell them.
"I'd like you to listen to something," said Rue. She came and sat on the bunk next to him. He caught her scent, and it filled him with regret and anger. He leaned away from her, but she merely gestured, opening an inscape window in front of them.
The picture was hazy and runneled with lines of static. Even through the distortion, Michael instantly recognized the face of Rue's friend, Rebecca.
"This message is for the authorities at Colossus," she was saying. "My name is Rebecca France. I am the doctor on board the interstellar cycler Jentry's Envy. I have to report that the Envy has been boarded by hostile forces. Admiral Crisler of the Rights Economy, to be exact. I… huh, where do I start? After the assassination of Captain Cassels at Lux, I discovered that the admiral and some traitors from the halo were going back to the Envy. In the absence of Rue— my captain— the Compact was legally obligated to restore visiting passengers to their cycler. So they were going. I went with them, because I felt an obligation to the crew who are under my care.
"A man named Mallory has assumed command of the Envy. It is he who had Rue Cassels assassinated. He's not aware of this transmission, I'm sending it on the Compact's emergency frequency from the supply shuttle. Corinna Chandra instructed me in how to do this. She and Evan Laurel are under constant guard; apparently Crisler doesn't think Blair Genereaux or I are threats, 'cause we're not technical. So Mallory's ensconced himself with two of my people and some of Crisler's boys in the new habitat that Captain Cassels made.
"It is vital that the authorities know that Admiral Crisler and Mallory have plotted together. Crisler intends to take the Banshee and appropriate the Lasa's cycler technology at Apophis and Osiris. Mallory provided some special technology to speed up that operation. It seems Mallory's people on New Armstrong have been building a new kind of plow sail. They had built one at Colossus to try to convince the Compact to back their plan to merge with the R.E. It was small enough that they were able to bring it along with them.
"Mallory's given the plow sail to Crisler and he told Crisler something that made the admiral think the Compact might get to the Twins first. We don't know what that was— maybe there are already people at Apophis and Osiris, a new colony or something. Anyway, Crisler's going to use this new plow sail with the Banshee. He's not going to decelerate to a normal stop at the star Maenad, like he'd planned. With the new plow sail, he's going to pull some high-g slam into the corona of Maenad itself. He'll go FTL there, coast to the Twins and then emerge from FTL and decelerate in. He estimates it'll cut three months off his schedule.
"In return, Mallory gets the Envy. He's trying to turn it, he's going to take it onto a ring to serve his own world. This means it will never return to Erythrion— my home.
"Crisler wants to take us— I mean, myself, Blair Genereux, Corinna Chandra, and Evan Laurel to Apophis and Osiris. It's because we have experience with the Lasa cyclers. Mallory had argued that he needed us as crew, but the new habitat Rue made runs itself and… well, Crisler pointed out that Mallory can't trust us. We might try to mutiny— or rather, take back our ship. He's right, of course.
"So they're going to stick us in the Banshee's brig and use us as expendable explorers when we get to the Twins. Mallory will report us accidentally killed aboard the Envy and he'll arrive at New Armstrong a hero.
"It is vital that this information reach the leaders of the Compact, both at Colossus and at New Armstrong," Rebecca said. "Mallory is a traitor and must be punished. Crisler is engaged in an attack on our fundamental right to exist. If he escapes with the technology behind Jentry's Envy, the halo may have lost its last chance at survival. Please, if you get this message, forward it to the proper authorities at once." The window closed.
"This message arrived three weeks ago," said Rue. "As a result of it, we've had to push our timetable back. We need your help, Michael. We're going to beat Crisler to the Twins."
He stared at her. She seemed completely serious, and that self-assurance saddened her. "Rue," he said softly, "there is no way we can get to Apophis and Osiris before Crisler. He's got a head start, and we have no way to catch up…. If we had an FTL ship, maybe, but Colossus is too small to start an FTL drive near it."
Rue nodded. "You're right. We can't start an FTL drive anywhere near Colossus." She stood and briskly walked to the door of the cell. "Come with me." She gestured imperiously. Apprehensive, but curious, he stood to follow.
They walked, escorted by two soldiers, down long corridors empty of people and down stairway after stairway. He had the feeling they were somewhere deep in the ice. Finally Rue stopped before a great metal door that had warning signs, cameras, and autoguns around it. She turned to Michael. "Up until this moment, it's been possible for me to let you go. Once you step through that door, Mike, you're one of us— whether you want to be or not."
Now he was afraid. "What are you doing?"
"What I have to," she said. The door slowly ground open and Michael, prodded by his guards, stepped through.
He stood on a balcony high above a gigantic cavern hewn out of the ice. And on the floor of that cavern…
Bright lamps lit the blue ceiling and walls of the place and the cool light reflected from the gleaming hulls of dozens of sleek starships. Each stood twenty meters tall. They were built for gravity, judging by their strong, diamondite and fullerene construction. Michael had glimpsed shapes like these once before in the distance, the day they had been rescued from the deep ocean. Now, as he stared at them, a hitherto unsuspected possibility came to him.
He turned, and saw that Rue was grinning that mischievous grin he'd only seen once or twice before. "You were right that no FTL ship can start its drive close to a brown dwarf this size. Its mass is so small that a ship would have to be inside the dwarf's atmosphere to do it."
"These…" He turned to Rue. "They're built like reentry vehicles. You're not… you don't expect to—"
She nodded, still grinning. "We'll get to Apophis and Osiris first. And now that you've seen these ships, you can't be set free again. I'm afraid, Mike, you're coming with us."
24
MICHAEL WATCHED HIS interceptor's approach to Colossus through a nice safe inscape window; no real window was permitted in the design of these craft. The narrow cockpit he lay in was filled with cushioning liquid and crisscrossed with girders of diamond. Michael's body was strapped and enfolded by a variety of devices designed to soften the impact of a fall into the demonic gravity of a brown dwarf.