"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.
He still couldn't believe where he was, and what was about to happen. All these months, he'd believed Rue wanted him to abandon the chase, settle down on Oculus as she appeared to be doing. He'd thought she must not be the person he'd thought she was, since she had seemed to ask him to follow her, forgetting his obligations to his own people. Michael had been angry at her, and hurt that she never called after their rescue from the depths of Oculus's ocean.
And then to find out that she had been unable to call, prevented by her own obligations! To discover what secret she had been sworn to protect: a secret that dovetailed perfectly with Michael's own needs, had he only known. Every time he thought about the months of time he'd wasted in anger and solitary work on Oculus, he felt sick. He still blamed Rue for all of that, however he might know intellectually that it wasn't her fault.
He reached out to touch the solid hull of the interceptor. But he was really here! And, miraculously, they were on their way to the Twins to preempt Crisler. No matter how confused Michael's feelings, he couldn't suppress the excitement he felt at what was to come.
Rue was in another ship, which was something of a relief. Each of these interceptors could hold six people, no more. Michael and Dr. Herat were together again, ironically. It had not been by his or Rue's choice; Rue rode with Barendts as well as a master tactician from the Compact's military academy, a man whose weapons and systems were at her command. Michael and Professor Herat had to play escort to a member of the expedition that was Michael's proud addition: a thing from the autotrophs.
Michael's plan to communicate with the autotrophs had been simple: He talked with the bees he'd stolen from the abandoned settlement, repeating over and over the message he wanted them to take back. Then he'd returned to the subsurface caves, located some of the autotroph garbage-dropping things, and simply let his bees go. They had joined the existing swarm seamlessly, and after that all they had to do was wait.
The answer— delivered with reluctance by the green men— was too alien to communicate with directly, but Michael nonetheless thought of it as an ally.
Every now and then he turned to check the high-heat bubble at the back of the cabin. Inside, visible through a small square window, was a strange coiling thing and a swarm of autotroph bees. This little swarm, though dull in most respects, seemed able to translate Lasa and Chicxulub, and that was all he really cared about right now. It had come with a message, of sorts, from the autotrophs: Humanity threatened to unleash the Chicxulub weapon. Humanity must stop that weapon from being unleashed.
He couldn't see Herat through the cabin's liquid and impeding buttresses, but he could hear him in inscape, humming. The professor was delighted to be traveling again— and delighted to have Michael along as well. Although Herat had also kept silent about the secret of the interceptors all these months, Michael found it impossible to feel anger at his former employer. He wasn't sure why that was; but his loyalty to Herat had survived through everything that happened over the years.