Sehtrek’s panel flashed: a prominent new source of emissions — thermal, radioactive, photonic — had just been detected. He glanced at the coordinates, and then at the viewscreen.
In the spinward trojan point of the first orbit, exactly where the small red marker was placed, a tiny white star winked briefly into existence, just off the orange-yellow shoulder of BD +02 4076. The pinprick sized star was gone as quickly as it had flared.
In the holosphere, the marker designating the Slaasriithi’s automated fuel base faded away.
It was Sehtrek’s duty to report the obvious to the suddenly still bridge. “The Slaasriithi base is gone.”
Idrem nodded, no emotion in his face or voice: “Of course.”
“How?” Tegrese asked.
Nezdeh suppressed a sigh. “The Slaasriithi no doubt had remote system commands that allowed them to terminate the flow of power to the magnetic bottles in which the stocks of antimatter were stored. The resulting annihilation would be absolute.”
Idrem checked the mission clock over the central viewscreen. “Judging from the time delay, if the shift carrier sent such a command when she started withdrawing, it would have arrived at the station just in time for us to see its results now.”
Tegrese’s voice was gruff, grim. “This makes things much more difficult.”
“Which was the enemy’s intent, obviously.” Nezdeh turned back to Sehtrek. “We must now follow your plan. However uncertain it is, however close a pursuit it may entail, it is our only remaining option. Arbitrage and the tug will return to the gas giant, and as they go, they will commence converting their current fuel load into antimatter.”
Sehtrek’s shrug looked more like a wince. “It is a slow process, Srina.”
“All the more important that we commence now, even as we shape our new plan.”
“Our new plan?” echoed Tegrese.
“Of course. Before the Arbitrage departs for the gas giant, she must furnish us with sufficient assets to complete the elimination of the Aboriginals. This will mean fighting past the cannonballs, then locating and exterminating our targets on the surface of the planet. Happily, we have an agent in place among the survivors.”
“How do you know?”
“I know,” Nezdeh answered, accepting that it was now essential that she reveal herself to be Awakened. To make sure of her claim, she extended her awareness — and immediately sensed the saboteurs’ sole remaining Devolysite dwindling along with the insignificant thickening of time and space that was the planet behind them.
She nodded slowly at the faces ringing her. “Yes. I know.”
Chapter Thirty-Two. SOUTHERN EXTENTS OF THE THIRD SILVER TOWER BD +02 4076 TWO (“DISPARITY”)
The battered TOCIO shuttle started down through the bank of clouds that threatened to obscure the coastal river valley toward which they had been descending. The cottony whiteness that swallowed them quickly became an ugly gray. “Heavy weather,” Raskolnikov muttered.
Caine gripped the edge of his seat as a cross current buffeted them, caught a glimpse of the instrument board. Three new orange lights had appeared among the ones monitoring the port side fuselage. “Have we lost airframe integrity?”
“Not yet,” Qin Lijuan said calmly. “However, stress alerts are increasing. No matter how high I keep the nose, those portside breaches are catching air, increasing drag. It does not help that some of the largest debris went in the variable-thruster intake.”
“Hard to keep her flying straight?”
“Yes, but the larger problem is that we are no longer capable of making a vertical landing. Also, the heat shielding there is no longer uniform. Even though the damage is on the dorsal surface, and even though we leveled out into a slow reentry slalom once we descended through the thirty-kilometer mark, there is no way to stop the drag from widening the breaches.”
“My esteemed colleague is saying that our shuttle wants to shake apart and she is not letting it do so.” Raskolnikov punctuated his sardonic synopsis with a wide grin.
Caine mustered a smile. “Thanks: I got that. Any idea how far down this cloud cover goes?”
Raskolnikov, all business again, shook his head. “No. It may go right down — what is your expression? — to the deck. Variable wave sensing suggests it begins to thin out at eight hundred meters, but beyond that, who knows? It might be fog, mist, mixed, raining, or clear.”
“Eight hundred meters?” Caine’s stomach tightened and descended. “That doesn’t give you a lot of time to find a good landing zone.”
“You are right, Captain: it does not. But the river beneath us had many straight stretches.”
“So: a water landing.”
Raskolnikov grinned that crazy grin again. “If we are lucky. Now, Captain, you must return to seat.” He paused. “One at midsection, please.”
Caine nodded. “I’ll make sure the others get out. I’ve memorized the emergency exits, in case the hatches are jammed.”
“Horosho,” Raskolnikov smiled. He glanced over at Qin Lijuan. “Perhaps I shall take it from here, yes?”
Egoless, Lijuan ceded him the controls. Nodding to the two of them, Caine cycled through the iris valve and moved quickly to the midsection of the craft.
He passed Ben Hwang, who opened his mouth to speak—
Caine shook his head, got into a couch across the aisle from Gaspard, who seemed to be concentrating on a deep-breathing exercise, his eyes closed.
As the three jammed windows in the passenger section darkened even more and rain began hammering down on the shuttle, Caine finished belting in — and started when Gaspard’s voice announced, so calm as to be eerie: “For the record, Captain Riordan, I consider this crisis to be the province of security management. I shall not gainsay your orders.”
Caine glanced over at Gaspard. Other than his reclosing lips, the ambassador was completely motionless, as if in a meditative state. “Thank you, Ambassador.” If Gaspard responded, Caine missed it.
His collarcom buzzed. “Riordan here.”
“Captain, this is Qin. You are strapped in?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Please push your seat’s paging button.” Riordan did. “I am activating your seat’s data link. Please put on the viewing monocle you will find in the seat pouch.” Riordan had the small video-display device settled over his ear and in front of his left eye before she had finished the sentence. The small eyepiece flickered, then showed him the ground rushing up swiftly: a jungle cut in two by a meandering ribbon of rain-speckled river. “We will make our final descent soon.”
But in the meantime, you’re trying to preemptively kill me with terror? But Caine understood the real reason the pilots were showing him the view from the nose of the shuttle: “I’ll call out the steps back here.”
“And keep watch for the best way to exit the shuttle. If we are fortunate, there will be an option other than the dorsal hatch.”
“Understood. There are three window covers jammed half-open back here. Can you unfreeze them?”
“We tried several times when we undocked. We have tried at least once a minute since then. We suspect that the sabotage created a power surge which disabled those circuits. However, those windows would only shatter if hit directly. I advise you not to worry about them.” Which was a nice way of saying: if that glass breaks, it will be the very least of your problems. “We will be down within the minute. Please prepare the passengers.”