“Oh Christ,” said Speck, dull horror in his voice.
The sheer hopelessness of the situation made Kellor hesitate for a moment, a second. In that second he knew how they had felt, all those opponents, in their moment of defeat. And in that second the dreadnought wrenched the Samurai from orbit, killing most of its crew with the massive acceleration. The flattened and distorted ship left a trail of fire across space, then rode a light-speed gravity wave towards the sun, where the antimatter in the CTDs would make not a wit of difference. The nine minutes of that journey were the longest of Kellor’s life as his shattered body lay hard against the deck. With the ship inside the gravity wave he did not feel any more acceleration. What held him down was a fluke of broken computers and distorted conduits that had re-established artificial gravity at six gees. He couldn’t even scream.
Diana was still boiling. Vacillation and bloody incompetence and when there came the inevitable enquiry she knew they’d manage to make the shit stick to her. If she’d had her own way she’d have gone straight in and they wouldn’t have had a chance to use nukes. She looked at the screen showing the blasted ground the shuttle overflew.
“How far?” she asked.
“Ten kilometres. We should be there in a few minutes, Captain,” said the pilot, obviously a little nervous. Diana snorted. Well perhaps they could salvage something from this mess. She glanced at Alexion, who had remained curiously reticent after witnessing the destruction of the mercenary ship. People took their first taste of war in different ways. His reaction to the ground blast had been a look of extreme pain. His precious Jain, gone.
The shore soon came into view and the pilot brought the shuttle down by the ATV parked there. Troops were standing by the ATV dressed in full environment and radiation suits. Diana pulled down the visor on her gear and headed for the lock. Alexion meekly followed.
“Where is it?” she asked the commander, before he had a chance to salute. The man pointed down the beach. “Okay, let’s have a look.” Diana walked down the ash-covered sand to the figure sat upon a rock.
“Which one are you?” she asked.
Its soft outer covering had been burned away and what remained was a seared metal skeleton containing the sealed mechanisms of its existence. It regarded her with brown lidless eyes set in its blackened skull. Its white teeth were stained, and because its lips were gone it seemed to be grinning.
“I am Judd,” it rasped at her, black flakes shooting from its mouth.
“What happened to them, Judd? The other Golem, Chapra and Abaron?”
“Died. All died.”
“Chapra and Abaron are dead?”
“No.”
“You said they died.”
“Yes.”
Obviously screwed, thought Diana. They might get something from its memory.
“What about the Jain? We know it wasn’t killed in the ship.” As she said this Diana surveyed the devastation and focused on the bloated creatures floating in the shallows. The neutron bursts had almost certainly done for the alien. It was now as much part of history as the rest of its kind. Perhaps Smith could excavate it. She returned her attention to Judd as the Golem raised a hand missing three fingers and pointed with the remaining one out to sea.
“Here. Soon.”
Diana stared down at the sea. Abruptly she stood. Movement out there. She glanced at her soldiers as they nervously fingered their weapons. Something was coming out of the sea.
“Let’s not have any more incidents,” she said loudly.
It was red, whatever it was, and huge. It broke the surface like the back of a whale and ploughed in to the shore. A giant red worm, thought Diana, then remembered the description of the Jain machine.
“No shooting!” She turned on Alexion. “What the hell is that?” It heaved up onto the beach, sending a wave of sea water that washed to Diana’s boots. The mouth was three metres wide, speckled at the lips and iridescent white inside. The mouth of a long and impossible shell. The water drained away and Diana could see nothing deep inside but a gradual thickening of shadow.
“Christ knows,” said Alexion.
Movement. Two shapes walking out — human shapes. Chapra and Abaron strode out of the Jain machine, the remains of their environment suits hanging on them in tatters, visors discarded, hoods pulled back. But were they Chapra and Abaron? How could they be alive? They were standing in temperatures that should take off their skins.
“You’d best come to the shuttle,” said Diana, watching them intently. Chapra stood before Diana. “We are human. He repaired us, rebuilt us.” Abaron said, “I guess he found it easier to alter us to survive here than to repair our suits.” Chapra turned to Alexion. “Alex, it’s good to see you.” She smiled and Diana saw Smith’s strange look of yearning.
“It’s good to see you. New body?”
A weak joke.
“I’m me,” she said, that smile still there. “The Jain is very good at what it does. If anything I’ve been improved. So much is clear now. And this body… ”
“What have you learnt?”
“A fraction. Some figure after the point. There’s so much… I cannot explain… ”
“Try.”
“It will take time. Have you a century or so free?”
Alexion stepped forward, impulsively Diana thought. She caught his shoulder and halted him. He turned to her. “I have to do this. In my research the questions always outnumber the answers. Always. You can’t stop me. I’m not security.”
“Come along,” said Diana. “I should think you want to get home.”
“No.”
She released her hold. His choice. Alexion went to stand with Chapra and Abaron. Chapra grinned at him then returned her attention to Diana.
“We’re staying here. There’s so much to learn. You understand?” Diana felt she might.
“Here, a gift.” Chapra held out her fist to Diana.
With reluctance Diana held out the flat of her gloved hand. Chapra dropped something into it then turned back to the tunnel. Alexion followed, eagerly. As the three of them walked into the Jain machine, Diana saw through a tear in Abaron’s suit a triangle at the base of his spine. She shuddered, and just stood there until they were gone. Eventually the tube filled with sea water and drew back into the sea. She opened her hand to look at the small red shell Chapra had given her. It was shaped like a worm cast; a small coral of convolute tubes. She’d seen recordings; she knew what it was — knew it was the future. There was not much Diana feared. She feared this.
SNAIRLS
The other passengers went to their cabins and cowered there like the limp city dwellers they were. The cabins were shell-walled dead stuff, braced by shock-absorbing muscle, and internally free of slime. Janer was no city man and there was so much more he wanted to see and experience. He had yet to walk Upper Shell and look from the Spire, and it was not in his nature to give up so easily. Besides, now might be his only chance before his freedom of movement was once again curtailed.
“It means a storm is coming or we are coming to a storm,” the CG told him before casually stripping off his uniform and sealing it in a plastic bag. Embarrassed by the man’s nakedness Janer looked around the CG’s cabin. The walls glistened. When he glanced back, the CG was watching him analytically. Janer tried to keep his eyes level with the man’s. Crew were different, he had known that, but seeing one naked was… disconcerting. On the front of the CG’s body was a diamond of white flesh extending from his white genitalia to the base of his throat. It was segmented like the body of some worm, each segment a couple of inches wide, and there were other differences he tried not to observe too closely.