Mardina listened to a fresh message. ‘Höd is still on its way. The centurion is ordering us back to the surface. Pickup in half an hour.’ She folded up the farspeaker. ‘We need to go.’
‘No,’ Earthshine said. ‘There is another way.’
‘What other way? There’s no other ship—’
‘I told you, I can save you.’
Penny glared at him. Then she beckoned Mardina and Chu. ‘You two. Help me.’ She gestured at them impatiently, until they came to her. She held up one arm for each of them, and they grabbed her and lifted, Chu being careful of the ColU pack on his back. ‘Now get me over there,’ Penny said, flapping one hand at the roped-off area. ‘I need to know what he’s found.’
The ColU said, ‘I have a feeling we both know already, Penny Kalinski.’
‘I want to see with my own ruined eyes …’
What lay within the roped-off area didn’t seem special to Mardina when they got there at the pace of Penny’s hobble. It clearly wasn’t natural, however. It was a sheet of some grey metal-like substance, with a fine circular seam a few paces across.
But Penny laughed.
‘Show me, Chu,’ the ColU murmured. ‘Show me …’
Penny snapped, ‘This isn’t one of your damn virtual illusions, Earthshine?’
‘Of course not.’
Mardina said, ‘I don’t understand.’
‘A Hatch,’ Penny said, her tremulous voice full of wonder. ‘He’s only found a Hatch. Here on Mars.’
‘You still don’t understand,’ Earthshine said. ‘You never did listen, Penny Kalinski. You or that sister of yours. I didn’t find this. It wasn’t here when I established my base here on Mars. They gave it to me. Believe me, this chamber did not exist, but as Ceres approached this world – I suppose as my own intention became clear – there it was, an anomaly showing up in my deep scans, and when I had a shaft sunk down to it, here was the Hatch. They gave this to me.’
Mardina shook her head. ‘Who? Who gave it to you?’
‘The noostratum,’ Penny said. ‘The dreaming bugs in the rocks? Is that what you would have us believe? Is this what all this has been about, for you, Earthshine? With Ceres you are striking a blow, not at Mars – not at any humans on Mars – but at the bugs in the deep rocks?’
‘Well, it certainly takes a mighty blow to do that, doesn’t it? I threatened them with destruction, and I got their attention. Here! Here in the floor – here is your proof.’
Beth said, ‘So now what? I’ve been through Hatches before. They take you far away. To another world, even another star. But which star, Earthshine?’
He smiled. ‘I don’t know. That’s the beauty of it. But wherever it is, whatever I find, I will have been invited there. Think of that! Oh, yes, I certainly got their attention. But this is not for me alone. Together, today – now, before the asteroid falls – we will go through this impossible doorway, and we will find out. Your intuition was right, you see – you were right to come here, all of you. I can save you. You, my granddaughter, my great-granddaughter – all of you, if you wish. You can see I have my own processor unit ready to go …’ He pointed to the bulky cylindrical unit.
The ColU said, ‘This is wrong. What you have done here is wrong, Earthshine. You meddle with powers that could destroy us all – destroy the potentialities of mankind.’
Earthshine just laughed. ‘Whatever you say I won’t allow you through the Hatch, you – toy. So you can be a witness to the exercise of those powers, can’t you?’
The ColU paused, a long and terrible silence that must have been an age for such a high-speed artificial mind. Then it said, ‘If I may not follow you through that Hatch – be sure, Earthshine, that I will not forget you, I will not give up the quest to find you, wherever you go, whatever you do. No matter how many generations of friends I have to outlive to do it.’
Chu was visibly agitated by this cold announcement. ‘Master, please. I am grateful to be your servant. Yet I have served you well, have I not? But I don’t want to die, not today, not now.’
‘You won’t die, Chu Yuen,’ the ColU said gently. ‘Remember, the centurion is coming to pick us up. We need only return to the surface.’
‘I, too, will go no further than this,’ Penny said with an expression of disgust. ‘Never mind tinkering with history – these damn Hatch builders have wrecked my own life, and my sister’s. I’ll go no further. And as for the rest – Chu, take hold of Ari Guthfrithson.’
‘Madam?’
‘Just grab him.’
‘Do as she says, Chu,’ the ColU said.
Chu hesitated for one heartbeat. Then he took long strides around the Hatch emplacement, and grabbed both Ari’s arms, gripping them firmly above the elbows.
Ari struggled, but couldn’t free himself. ‘Why is this animal holding me?’
Penny said, ‘Whatever all this mystery is about, I want you to go no further with it, Ari. You are a manipulative, scheming chancer. And the ambition you have expressed scares me, frankly. Well, this is one thing I can fix. This is the end of the story for you, as it is for me. You’re coming back with us to the surface.’
‘I will not. Beth – Mardina, my daughter—’
‘Chu, shut him up.’
The slave pushed Ari against one wall, pinning him with his left arm, while he clamped his right hand across Ari’s mouth.
Earthshine turned away, indifferent, and spoke to Beth and Mardina. ‘What these others choose is irrelevant. We are the core; we are family. If only Yuri Eden had survived … I never met him, you know, after his emergence from cryo. Never saw him again after I closed that heavy lid over his sleeping face. But he lives on in you. Come with me now.’
Mardina recoiled, her head swimming. ‘I don’t understand any of this. I don’t want any of it. What can there be for me on the other side of this – door in the ground? Up there, Terra – that’s my world, that’s my home, my career, my life. As far as I can see, all these Hatches have brought any of you is destruction and disruption and distress.’ She looked at Beth. ‘Mother? You’ll stay with me, won’t you?’
But Beth was hesitating.
Earthshine said, ‘Maybe we can find a way home for you, granddaughter.’
‘Home? Back to Per Ardua?’
‘Yes. Back to Per Ardua.’
Beth looked at Mardina, her face anguished. ‘Mardina, you must come with me—’
‘No! I don’t care about Per Ardua, about Before. You’re doing to me now what you always complained about your own mother doing to you. Ripping you out of your old world and stranding you on another.’
‘I know. You’re right. But even so …’ She looked again at the Hatch. ‘I can’t miss this chance, my only chance to go home.’
Penny said gently to Mardina, ‘It’s all right, my dear. Come with us. We’ll return to the surface, and get out of here before the hammer falls. And your fool of a father, at least you’ll still have him!’
The ColU said, ‘Don’t be afraid, Beth Eden Jones. If I must stay here I will care for Mardina, as once I cared for you.’
Mardina protested, ‘I don’t need anybody—’
But Penny touched her hand to hush her.
‘I’ll come back for you some day,’ Beth said gently.
‘Or I’ll come for you,’ Mardina said on impulse. ‘Though I’ve no idea how.’
‘Yes.’ Beth forced a smile. ‘Let’s make that pledge. When we have both found whatever it is we’re looking for …’
Mardina shook her head. ‘So what happens now? How will you get this Hatch of yours open anyhow?’
Beth smiled now, stepped forward, and pointed at the emplacement. ‘The Hatch knows when we’re ready. They always do.’
Mardina looked down. That central expanse of floor, surrounded by the circular seam, was no longer pristine. It had changed. Now it contained two complex indentations, like small craters with five rays – two pits shaped to accept the pressing of a pair of human hands.