A vast pseudo-sea of boundless cloud was blanketing their view of the sea now, as they dropped lower and lower, plummeting through the sapphire upper air. Soon… soon they would break the cloud surface, soon she would see their destination, the long unbroken line of the western continental coast where Ngenet’s plantation lay — and Carbuncle.
“…Ratio is up one and a — Silky! We’re in the spotlight! Shift power to rear shields, there’s lightning com—”
A blaze of blue-white light put out the sky ahead, sent daggers into Moon’s eyes; the metal pod shuddered around herA jarring her teeth. No, no; it can’t be!
“Oh, gods!” Elsevier cried out, in something that was closer to anger than despair. “They’ve tracked us down! We’re locked in, we’ll never get—”
Another explosion burst around them… a stretch of silence followed. It was broken as the radio abruptly came to life on its own. “…Surrender now or be destroyed. We have you in our beam. You will not escape.”
“Losing—” The third explosion tore away the name of what had been lost, and Moon’s own questioning cry. The fourth gave them no more time; the instrument panel sparked and shrilled abuse, overloading their dazzled senses…
“Cutting power!” She heard Elsevier’s voice break; the words barely penetrated her ringing ears. “…only hope… think we’re j already dead—” The cabin went black with the suddenness of death, :] but Moon’s blinking eyes recaptured the light of the outer air; saw the limitless blue, white, and golden fantasy fields of heaven obliterate as they broke into the surface of the clouds. She clung to the edge of her seat, counting every beat of her heart; realizing with each reaffirmation of her own life that there had not been another explosion yet — the one that, utterly defenseless now, they would never even see.
They fell out of the clouds again, as abruptly as they had fallen into them. She saw the sea at last, rolling beneath them, an ocean of molten pewter. Raindrops spattered and blurred across the wide window, smearing the view of sea and sky like tears. And they were still alive. The LB dropped through a flattening arc, like a sling stone skimming an infinite pond. Elsevier and Silky worked in silence at the controls. Moon kept silence with them, her voice cowering in her throat, making the only contribution she could.
“Now, Silky; emergency systems on—”
The smoke-gray cone above Moon’s seat dropped unexpectedly over her, cutting off Elsevier’s voice beginning a distress call, and her last view of the rising sea surface, ice-white and iron-gray. She was immobilized against her seat by a cushion of expanding air, lay unresisting — unable to resist — as her helplessness became total. After an eternity of anticipation, the coming together of metal sphere and iron-gray sea rang dimly through her, like a blow falling on someone else, in astounding anticlimax.
And after another brief eternity the cushion shrivelled away from her, the smoky pod lifted. She threw off the restraining straps and pulled herself forward out of her seat to stand between the pilots’ couches. The gray shield was still rising above Silky’s seat; he shook his head in a very human gesture of befuddlement. Before her the sea butted against the port with furious indignation; droplets of icy water seeped through the shatter-frost that impact had etched over the reinforced transparent wall. The very structure of the LB heaved under her feet, and the crash of the angry water was loud around them.
The hood hung firmly in place above Elsevier’s seat; as though it had never-Moon looked down suddenly at Elsevier’s face, afraid to see, unable to look away.
A track of red traced the ebony of Elsevier’s upper lip, but she looked up, resting her head against the seat back. “It’s nothing, my dear… only a nosebleed… I had to finish my message. Ngenet’s coming.” She shut her eyes, gasping shallowly, as though gravity’s heavy hand still crushed her… had already crushed her. She sat motionless, making no effort even to raise a finger; like a woman who had all the time in the world.
Moon swallowed, choking on a smile, touched her shoulder with frightened tenderness. “We’re down, Elsie. You saved us. Everything’s all right now! It’s over.”
“Yes.” A strange surprise filled the violet-blue eyes; Elsevier looked out in astonishment at something beyond their view. “I’m so cold.” A spasm worked the muscles of her face.
And as suddenly the eyes were empty.
“Elsie. Elsie?” Moon’s hand tightened over her shoulder, shook her… released her, when there was no response. “Silky—” half turning, not willing to turn away, “she’s not… Elsie!” pleading.
Silky shouldered her aside in the cramped space between the seats. He reached out with the cold snake-fingers of his gray-green arm to touch the warm flesh of Elsevier’s face, her throat… But she did not flinch under his touch, only went on gazing at something beyond view, until the flat strips of gray passed over her eyes, closing them forever. “Dead.”
The LB heaved and settled, throwing them off-balance; Moon looked down distraughtly as her feet did not respond. Water lapped the legs of her pressure suit, sea water, rolling into the cabin. “Dead?” She shook her head. “No, she’s not. She isn’t dead. Elsie.
Elsie, we’re flooding! Wake up!” shaking the limp, un responding body. Tentacles wrapped her arms, jerked her away unceremoniously.
“Dead!” Silky’s eyes were the clearest, the deepest she had ever seen them. He pressed a sequence of buttons on the panel, repeated it. “Hatch sprung. Sink. Out, go—” He shoved her toward the lock; she staggered as a new, knee-deep surge met her halfway in the aisle.
“No! She isn’t dead. She can’t be!” furiously. “We can’t leave her now.” Moon clung to a seat back.
“Go!” Silky struck at her, driving her away, back toward the lock. She stumbled and fell, another surge covered her and brought her up gasping with salt fire burning her eyes. She struggled on to the lock entrance, caught hold of the doorway, turning to look back once more: to see Silky kneel in the swirling water by Elsevier’s side and bow his head, rest it briefly against her shoulder in tribute and farewell.
He climbed to his feet again, waded down the aisle to Moon’s side. “Out!” The tentacles wrapped her arm again as he dragged her on into the lock.
She let go of the door frame, unable to resist, and plunged after him. She saw the hatchway agape, swallowing the sea, like a helpless dr owner… “My helmet! I’ll drown—” She turned back to the inner cabin, but the waist-deep surge wrapped its own arms around her, dragged her off her feet. Icy water doused her again; she struggled upright, half swimming, gasping as the frigid runoff sluiced in around the neck of her suit. The LB tilted with the heaving of the sea swells, canted the floodwaters back toward the hatch, sweeping her with them. She slammed into the edge of the hatch opening, cracking her head on the metal, before the LB spewed them both out into the open ocean.
Moon’s cry extinguished like a flame as the sea closed over her head. She kicked her way to the surface, broke out into the air, where wind-driven sleeting rain beat her back against the water surface. Fingers of blinding hot and cold mauled her inside her clumsy suit. “Silky!” She screamed his name, and it was torn away by the wind, as lost and desolate as a mer’s cry.
But then as suddenly, Silky’s spume-splashed face and torso were beside her; supporting her as she fought to keep herself afloat, dragged down by the waterlogged pressure suit. He had shed his own suit, swimming freely, in his element. She felt him jerk at the seals of her suit front, trying to strip it from her.