It would be a slower departure than the most primitive chemical rocket, Antoinette had said, slower even than the glorified firework that had carried the first astronaut (she had said that his name was Neal Gagarin and Vasko had believed her) into orbit. But the Nostalgia for Infinity weighed several thousand times more than the heaviest chemical rocket. And the old chemical rockets had to reach escape velocity very quickly, because they only had enough fuel for a few minutes of thrust. The Nostalgia for Infinity could sustain thrust for years and years.
Air resistance lessened as the ship climbed. It began to accelerate a little harder, but still the shuttle had no difficulty keeping up. The escape felt leisurely and dreamlike. This, Vasko knew, was probably a dangerous misconception.
When he had satisfied himself that the ride was likely to be smooth and predictable, at least for the next few minutes, he left his niche and went forward. Scorpio and the pilot were in the control couches.
‘Any transmissions from the Infinity?’ Vasko asked.
‘Nothing,’ the pilot replied.
‘I hope Antoinette’s all right,’ he said. Then he remembered the other people — fourteen thousand by the last count — who had already been loaded into the ship.
‘She’ll cope,’ Scorpio said.
‘I guess in a few minutes we’ll find out if that message really was from Remontoire. Are you worried?’
‘No,’ Scorpio said. ‘And you know why? Because there isn’t anything you or I or anyone else can do about it. We couldn’t stop that ship going up and we can’t do anything about what’s up there waiting for it.’
‘We have a choice about whether we follow it or not,’ Vasko said.
The pig looked at him, eyes narrowed either in fatigue or disdain. ‘No, you’re wrong,’ he said. ‘We have a choice, yes — that’s me and Khouri. But you don’t. You’re just along for the ride.’
Vasko thought about going back to his seat, but decided to stick it out. Although it was night, he could clearly see the curve of Ararat’s horizon now. He was going into space. This was what he had always wanted, for much of his life. But he had never imagined it would be like this, or that the destination itself would contain such danger and uncertainty. Instead of the thrill of escape he felt a knot of tension in his stomach.
‘I’ve earned the right to be here,’ he said, quietly, but loud enough for the pig to hear. ‘I have a stake in Aura’s future.’
‘You’re keen, Malinin, but you’re way out of your depth.’
‘I’m also involved.’
‘You were embroiled. It isn’t the same thing.’
Vasko started to say something, but there was a flicker of static across all the display read-outs hovering around the pilot. He felt the shuttle lurch.
‘Picking up interference on all comms frequencies,’ the pilot reported. ‘We’ve lost all surface transponder contacts and all links to First Camp. There’s a lot of EM noise out here — more than we’re used to. There’s stuff the sensors can’t even interpret. Avionics are responding sluggishly. I think we’re entering some kind of jamming zone.’
‘Can you keep us close to the Infinity?’ Scorpio asked.
‘I’m more or less flying this thing manually. I guess if I still have the ship as a reference, we’re not going to get lost. But I’m not making any promises.’
‘Altitude?’
‘One hundred and twenty klicks. We must be entering the lower sphere of battle about now.’
Above, the view had not changed dramatically since the departure of the ship. The scratches of light had faded, perhaps because Remontoire was aware that the message had been received and acted upon. There were still flashes of light, expanding spheres and arcs, and the occasional searing passage of an atmosphere-skimming object, but other than the darkness becoming a more intense, deeper shade of black, there was no real difference compared to the surface view.
Khouri came through to join them. ‘I’m hearing Aura,’ she said. ‘She’s awake now.’
‘Good,’ Scorpio began.
‘There’s more. I’m seeing things. So’s Aura. I think it must be the same kind of thing Clavain and I saw before things got really serious — leakage from the war. It’s getting through again.’
‘We must be close,’ Vasko said. ‘I guess the wolves blocked those signals when they could, to stop Remontoire sending a message through that easily. Now that we’re getting so close they can’t stop all of them.’
From somewhere, Vasko heard a noise he didn’t recognise. It was shrill, ragged, pained. It was muffled by plastic. He realised it was Aura, crying.
‘She doesn’t like it,’ Khouri said. ‘It’s painful.’
‘Contacts,’ the pilot announced. ‘Radar returns, incoming. Fifty klicks and closing. They weren’t there a moment ago.’
The shuttle lurched violently, throwing Vasko and Khouri to one side. The walls deformed to soften the impact, but Vasko still felt the wind knocked out of him. ‘What’s happening?’ he asked, breathless.
‘The Infinity is making evasive manoeuvres. She’s seen the same radar echoes. I’m just trying to keep up.’ The pilot glanced at a read-out again. ‘Thirty klicks. Twenty and slowing. Jamming is getting worse. This isn’t good, folks.’
‘Do your best,’ Scorpio said. ‘Everyone else — secure yourselves. It’s going to get rough.’
Vasko and Khouri went back to where Valensin and his machines were continuing their vigil over Aura. She was still moving, but had at least stopped crying. Vasko wished that there was something he could do to help her, some way to temper the voices screaming into her head. He could not imagine what it must be like for her. By rights she should not even have been born yet; should barely have had any sense of her own individuality or the wider world in which she existed. Aura was not an ordinary baby, that much was clear — she already had the language skills of a two- or three-year-old child, in Vasko’s estimation — but it was also unlikely that all parts of her mind were developing at the same accelerated rate. There was only room in that tiny wrinkled head for a certain amount of complexity; she must still have had an infant’s view of many things. When he had been two years older than Aura, Vasko’s own grasp of the world had barely reached further than the handful of rooms that made up his home. Everything else had been hazy, unimportant, subject to comic misapprehension.
The Nostalgia for Infinity was now further away from the shuttle than it had been: tens of kilometres distant, easily. The shuttle’s hull had still not turned fully transparent again, but in the light from its engines he caught the reflections of things moving closer. Not just moving, but fluttering, swirling, splintering and reforming, retreating and advancing in pulsing waves.