Gundhalinu caught his arm, holding him back. “Wait. Give me a minute. …” Gleaming pinholes and fist-sized windows punched through the broken walls let illumination in from somewhere, meaning they were probably close to the outer hull of the ship; but there was no exit that way. He searched the claustrophobic space, trying to collect his wits enough to superimpose the schematics of Old Empire ship design that he held in his memory over what he could actually see; trying to judge where inside the ship’s skeleton they were lost. The guts of an Old Empire freighter bore little resemblance to the insides of a Hegemonic ship. All the ships built since the Empire’s fall were small and compact, with the compressed disc shape of a coin, the only form that allowed them to survive a passage through the Black Gates. It took an entire fleet of them to carry the goods that one of these freighters could transport. This ship, like most of the Old Empire’s starships, had never been intended to pass through a Black Gate—or even to land on the surface of a world, most likely. It had been a huge angular sprawl of storage, environments, drives… . “Where’s the drive unit?”
Kullervo pointed downward at the unidentifiable excrescence of equipment below him and to the right. As that identification locked into place, Gundhalinu began to recognize the opaque surfaces that had once held data displays, once been alive with the languages of dead worlds … to spot repair accesses and broken fragments of equipment. He looked to his left, saw an opening where he needed to find one. “This way.” He gestured and kicked off, swimming toward the way out.
Kullervo followed him, so close on his heels that they were almost one person, making physical contact with him every few meters as they threaded their way back through the shifting liquid tunnels, the vast darknesses and pied convolutions of what had once been Fire Lake’s reason for existence.
“How much farther?” Kullervo’s impatient voice and hand tugged at him, as he squeezed past a buckled section of wall.
Gundhalinu blinked, as a shaft of pure, sea-green light struck him in the eye. “We’re there.” He pointed toward the gaping rent in the hull wall waiting ahead.
Kullervo’s head and arms squeezed past his hip, as if Kullervo couldn’t wait long enough for him to move aside, desperate to see the light. He laughed, or something like it. “Gundhalinu—”
Gundhalinu looked down and back as Reede’s hand clamped over his arm like a vise. He froze as he saw metal flash in Kullervo’s other, rising hand—
Kullervo jerked suddenly, convulsively, releasing Gundhalinu as his hands flew to his own throat, to the clear wall of his helmet. Gundhalinu saw the fine mist of blood from the gash on Reede’s shoulder, where a piece of twisted wreckage had ripped his flesh, and ripped loose the helmet’s seal. He saw Kullervo’s face, stricken with terror, drowning in bubbles as water forced its way in at the broken seal, forcing the air out.
Kullervo floundered, fighting to get past him, knocking him aside as he reached out to staunch the flow of escaping air. Reede’s own panicked struggles wrenched the helmet free, sent it tumbling away, carried by the capricious current down into the dark heart of the wreck. Reede lunged after it, following it down to certain death.
Gundhalinu caught him around the waist, dragging him back up toward the light, the opening, survival. Kullervo thrashed wildly; but the water slowed his motions as Gundhalinu got behind him, got an armlock around his neck and dragged him, struggling like a hooked fish, out through the gap and into the open.
Gundhalinu swam up and up through the river’s brightening depths, feeling Kullervo’s struggles grow weaker. He felt as though he had been swimming forever through the green light that seemed to fill his head like music, like an hallucination, like a dream. His lungs ached; he realized that he had been holding his breath, counting his heartbeats. He sucked in a lungful of air, only half believing that he could. Locked in his grip, Reede had stopped struggling. But somewhere up above him, inside that tunnel of light glowing brighter and brighter, was the open air—
His head broke the surface of the water, and all around him were the canyon walls, the color of the blood rushing behind his eyes. He swam to shore, towing Kullervo’s unresisting body after him. He dragged Reede onto the beach and fell to his knees, pulling off his own helmet.
Beside him Reede took a shuddering breath, and his stark blue eyes opened, staring m disbelief. Gundhalinu sat back as Kullervo struggled to roll over, coughing, and retched water onto the warm red stone. He collapsed again, his eyes empty, mirroring the sky.
“Reede …” Gundhalinu touched his shoulder tentatively.
Kullervo looked toward the sound and opened his mouth, but no words came out. He pushed himself up onto his elbows, looked down along his body at his feet, still trailing in the water. “He tried to drown me,” he mumbled.
“Who did?” Gundhalinu asked blankly.
“I’m going to kill him, that bastard!” Kullervo’s hands tightened into fists; he struggled to sit upright.
Gundhalinu put a hand on his shoulder again, holding him back. “Take it easy_ You lost your helmet. Your helmet caught on the wreckage.” He showed Kullervo the raw scrape on his shoulder, still oozing a thin film of blood.
Kullervo rubbed his eyes, looked up again. “You saved my life,” he murmured
“It was nothing—”
“Don’t say that!” Kullervo said furiously. “My life isn’t worth shit, and I don’t care if I die tomorrow—but not like that. I have dreams about dying like that. …” His eyes darkened. “I owe you.”
“It was nothing you wouldn’t have done for me,” Gundhalinu finished.
Kullervo stared at him for a long moment, frozen, and then finally he looked down. He got unsteadily to his feet. He started away along the shore toward the trail that led up, stumbling, supporting himself with one hand against the rock; not looking back or waiting for help.
Gundhalinu stood up and followed, with the Lake’s voice inside him like a madman’s laughter.
NUMBER FOUR: World’s End
“What do you think?” Gundhalinu asked, with eager impatience.
Reede stared at the displays, nodding slowly. “Looks good …” They had done minor structural repairs on the salvaged drive unit, under Gundhalinu’s guidance but at Reede’s urging, and now he had introduced their sample of the stardrive into it. Gundhalinu had wanted to wait until they returned to civilization. But he had pushed, insisted—aware that Gundhalinu’s need to know had to be as great as his own; that he could break down Gundhalinu’s knee-jerk sense of responsibility if he made the temptation irresistible enough.
He had tried, and he had been right. And now he had fed the stardrive plasma into its intended matrix. They were watching the process imaged on the displays as the plasma settled into its new home—and from what he could see, it was doing fine The piece of equipment had been in an incredible state of preservation for something buried underwater in a wreck that was gods-only-knew how ancient. But nothing obeyed the rules of the known universe in World’s End, because of the stardrive. And the stardrive had wanted this unit saved, as it had wanted itself to be saved... “I think it’s happy,” he said at last.
Gundhalinu moved closer, staring at the images on the screens. “Then so am I—” He let out a whoop of sheer elation. “Gods, I’ve never been this happy! Thank you, gods!”
“Neither have I.” Reede forced the words out, almost choking on them as elation died stillborn in his throat. He picked up a calibrator. It felt hard and heavy inside his clenched fist, like a stone. He looked back at Gundhalinu. “Because now I don’t need you anymore—” He swung, aiming for Gundhalinu’s head.