Читать онлайн "Resonance" - Meaney John - RuLit

As their faces tighten, Greybeard adds: ‘You’ve already been paid, so nothing else matters. Check it now.’

There are glances exchanged and holovolumes opened, and nods among the hard men.

‘I don’t like threats,’ says Scarface.

‘Me neither,’ answers Greybeard. ‘But that doesn’t— Oh, look. One of the xeno bastards is here.’

A section of wall is flowing open, revealing a shining scarlet lattice-form. On the deck lies a pile of what looks like blue sand. Zajinets clothe themselves in solid material, but perhaps they act more freely in their natural form.

Pretty much everything Carl knows about Zajinets is conjecture. <<Darkness will not flee.>> <<Weak agents so we do not care.>> <<Strength in coherence.>> <<Beware the light.>>

As a Zajinet communication it is typical, perhaps clearer than the average, but useless to Carl.

‘I think you’re bluffing.’ Greybeard squeezes Xala. ‘I think you care what happens to her.’ He speaks as if he understands the Zajinet.

You know the lightning.

The words are a splinter of memory, from one of his Tangleknot instructors.

You know how fast it moves.

So often there have been misunderstandings and violence between Pilots and Zajinets, though it has never spilled over into protracted military engagements. Can they be allies here?

Xala’s scalp tattoos are writhing in response to her agitation.

Become the lightning.

Then Greybeard’s tu-ring shines, and the Zajinet’s lattice-form jumps in the air and pulses – as if receiving a shock – before returning to its normal steady shine. <<Entanglement is mutual.>> <<Beware beware beware.>> <<Agree to projection.>> <<Severance or mutual death.>>

Carl holds back, tensing with the effort. The Zajinet is somehow entangled now with Greybeard’s tu-ring. Any attack on Greybeard will injure the Zajinet also.

‘Drop me off where I tell you,’ says Greybeard. ‘And I’ll release the link and you go on your way, everyone safe and sound.’

He releases Xala. She slumps to the deck.

‘Do the honours, will you?’ Greybeard adds to Scarface. ‘Delta-bands for everyone. We’re flying onwards now.’

The Zajinet drifts out, ignoring the pile of blue sand on the deck.

‘You don’t look very scared.’

Shit.

Greybeard is addressing him.

‘I-I’m scared.’ The shake in his voice is easy to produce. ‘Believe me.’

‘Good.’

All around, Scarface is pressing people’s delta-bands, sending them back into sleep. When everyone but he, Carl and Greybeard are under, Scarface says: ‘You’ll be last to activate the band, is that it? While we’re helpless.’

‘You’ve been paid and you’re safe. If I needed to kill you, I could do it now.’

Scarface nods. ‘All right.’

Greybeard and Scarface turn to look at Carl. He has no choice but to lie back, check the delta-band is snug on his forehead, and put his finger on the activation stud; but he does not press down. He hears the two men lie down, and senses the activation of their delta-bands; then he opens his eyes.

Transition.

It is like liquid amber filling the air: spacetime as it is meant to be, the fractal freedom that exhilarates. Carl swings himself off the couch and onto his feet.

He is in his element, but so is the Zajinet crew. Through the still-open doorway he finds a short corridor and follows it, entering a round windowless chamber where three Zajinets are floating. One is blue tinged with green; another is green tinged with blue.

The last Zajinet, a deep scarlet, shifts towards Carl.

<<Greetings, Pilot.>>

‘So you did recognise me.’

<<When you awoke, we knew.>>

Carl has never heard of such clear unambiguous communication from a Zajinet. Most people would say it is impossible.

<<The darkness must not spread.>>

He has no idea how to assess the situation. The humans, Greybeard included, are helplessly asleep back in the hold; but this Zajinet is in some sense a prisoner, entangled with Greybeard’s tu-ring.

<<Wake Xala.>>

The vessel shivers into realspace. In seconds, the delta-bands will power down automatically.

‘Shit.’

Carl sprints back to the hold, leaps towards the unconscious Xala and tears the delta-band from her forehead. Kaleido-scopic colours swirl across her bare scalp before coalescing into maroon-and-silver dragons, scaled and fierce as they coil and slither.

‘Ah, my head,’ she moans. ‘The case.’

‘What?’

‘Open his—’

‘Got it.’

His tu-ring is working furiously, and the case pops open as his spyware succeeds in defeating its locks. Inside is a small, complex device about the size of Carl’s fist. He has no idea what it might be. But Greybeard’s closed eyes are shifting from side to side, moments from waking, so Carl abandons caution to reach inside, closes one hand around the device and—

What the hell?

—totally fails in his attempt to tug it upwards. It feels massive.

‘—interacting with the darkness,’ Xala is saying. ‘They told me, the Zajinets.’

‘What was that?’

He tugs, and perhaps it shifts slightly.

‘We’re just shadows. Ghosts,’ says Xala. ‘I mean because we’re baryonic matter.’

‘Yes, but that doesn’t—’

Greybeard turns his head, eyes opening. ‘Well, how about that?’

Too late.

‘Where did this come from?’ It is the most important thing for Carl to ask. ‘Who made it?’

‘No one alive,’ says Greybeard. ‘No one who’s left any trace of their work.’

‘Fuck you,’ says Carl.

Because the implication is right there: no trace means zero survivors.

‘Open up.’ Greybeard swings his feet to the deck, takes the case one handed – at his touch, it closes up around the device – and lifts it without effort. ‘I mean the hull.’

His tu-ring sparks, and Carl senses a wild pulse of energy – the Zajinet equivalent of howling in pain – from the control cabin. After a moment, a large section of inner hull grows transparent, and Xala sucks in a breath; perhaps Carl does likewise.

It is a magnificence of stars, an incandescence of a billion suns.

‘Where is this?’ whispers Xala.

‘Galactic core,’ says Carl. ‘The only place it can be.’