A scowl of impatience crossed the ymago’s face. “Must I summon the Proctors again?”
“Proctors.” Paulie grunted. “If Teddy was here, I know what he’d say.”
“‘That can’t be good,’” said Sofwari. He turned and looked into the distance. Things moved in the shadows.
“Wait,” said Donovan. “Peacharoo! ‘Again’? Was there another awakee?”
“The pods have been awakening people at random. There is no cause for alarm and maintenance is working on it. But the world is not ready for them, and they must be rehibernated. We are all anxious to establish the rear base, but ‘Patience is the Watchword.’ Terraformation cannot be rushed. You must trust us.”
“Where did you take her—the most recent awakee?” said Donovan. “About a year ago. Red hair, golden skin; similar to my companion.”
“I will access the record.” Again, the ymago hummed a bland tune.
Mearana tugged at his sleeve. “My earwig is starting to pick up snatches.”
“That’s how neural nets learn. Careful. The Attendant is learning Gaelactic as well.”
“You asked if it saw someone who looked like me.”
“Yes.”
Her grip tightened. “Did it? Did it?”
“Please board my extension,” the Attendant said. “And I will take you to her.”
A riding platform emerged from the Attendant’s rear. It slid from no apparent opening and with no evident telescoping or unfolding. And there was no room within the Attendant to store it. Once they had boarded, Peacharoo sped off through the three-dimensional grid. Straight ahead, then left, then down. The catwalks had their own gravity grids. Whichever way they turned, they seemed to be on the level—and the whole vast chamber seemed to rotate ninety degrees. It was too much for Paulie, who lost his lunch over the side.
Bank after bank of pods flashed by. Almost faster than the eye could see.
Almost.
“Donovan. Father. They’re empty. The pods are open, and they’re empty.”
“Peacharoo said there was room. I suppose the vacancies are where the ancestors of the Enjrunii came from.”
Now and then, they passed other Attendants, some of them inactive hulks parked in special niches between pod banks or simply standing dead on the catwalks; others were active, like Peacharoo, and fussed over the equipment that fed and maintained the inhabitants of the pods.
Or used to feed and maintain them.
Not all the pods were empty. Donovan caught brief glimpses here and there into open pods and saw grinning skulls, mummified corpses, masses of corruption.
Other pods gave at least the seeming of functionality. Lights gleamed on panels beside them, gauges displayed quantities and qualities. Peacharoo entered a sector where the pods seemed almost pristine. There, it slowed to a stop, and Donovan and the others slid gingerly off the platform. “Quite a ride,” said Paulie, huffing.
Méarana found herself face-to-face with a viewing portal. Pressed against it from the inside was a woman’s face, partly dissolved and stuck in a gluey mass to the glasslike material. Méarana bit down on a scream and buried her face in Sofwari’s shoulder.
“An awakee,” said Sofwari, “but the pod would not open. She suffocated…or she went mad and died in there.”
She pulled away from him. “Is that supposed to comfort me? What if the same thing happened to Mother? That artificial intelligence stuffed her into a pod—and who knows if it was still working?”
“There is no need to be rude,” said Peacharoo in Gaelactic.
Paulie grunted, but said nothing. Billy Chins was breathing hard and looking in all directions. “Sahbs,” he said. “We have company.”
“I guess this here’s the Proctor,” said Paulie.
The newcomer was taller, thinner, and boasted a multitude of arms. Its ymago wrapped wholly around it, so that—save for the wheels on which it rolled—it seemed almost human. Blue of skin, it resembled some ancient multiarmed deity. Žiba the Destroyer, Donovan thought.
“Here, here,” it said in Gaelactic. “What’s all this, now?”
Peacharoo said, “Officer, these colonists have refused to re-enter their stasis pods after I have repeatedly asked them to do so.”
“We can’t have that, now, can we? Sahbs, it is not safe for ye to be up and about. The planet will not be ready to sustain life for…” A pause. “…nine lakh of hours. That is one-third of a life span, and there is little for an awakee to do before Debarkation Day. Idle hands and all that, what?”
“I want to see my mother!” said Méarana. “Thousands of pods have failed. You must have noticed! I want to make certain that she is all right.”
“The request seems reasonable, Attendant.”
Peacharoo said, “I have brought her to her mother’s pod. She can see all the lights are green.”
Méarana cried, “Which is it? Show me!”
The Attendant projected a laser to highlight the next pod but two. Méarana shoved her way past Billy and Paulie and the Attendant and pressed her hands and face against the viewport of the indicated sleep-pod. Donovan stepped up behind.
“Is it her?” he asked.
“I can’t see. I can’t see. Peacharoo! Are there lights inside the pod so I can see if that is Mother?”
“Such filial devotion,” said the Proctor, “is touching in these degenerate times.”
The Attendant’s laser interfaced with something in the controls. Lights inside the pod came to life, bathing the occupant in a yellowish gloom.
Méarana began to cry. Donovan wrapped an arm around her shoulder. “I never thought,” he said. “I never thought we would actually find her.”
“Donovan,” the harper whispered in the thickest Dangchao Anglic she could muster, “wha’ button wakes her oop?”
“How d’ye ken she be ainly in hyposleep?”
“An she waken oop when I press the button. If she’s nae slaeping…An she’s deid…She willnae wake oop.”
“An she be ainly sleeping, the wrong button maun kill her.”
“Aye, but I cannae lave ‘er here. That would gae kill her. Soon or efter, the pod will fail. She would dee wi’oot e’er waking…Or she mought wake and dee trapped like that…thing…back there.”
Donovan turned to the Attendant and the Proctor. “There are certain prayers that we need to recite for her in our traditional language.”
“Art thou then the sleeper’s husband?” the Attendant asked in the Old Tongue.
Donovan hesitated a moment. “Yes,” he said. “I am.”
He had begun to bow with his arms crossed over his breast when he noticed that Méarana had touched her fingertips to her forehead, breast, and shoulders. He quickly imitated the gesture, lest he give Peacharoo an inconsistency to wonder about. “Father and Brother,” he heard her say, “dinnae let the Fudir do anything glaikit.”
It would take a stronger prayer than that, the Fudir thought. Okay, Sleuth, Pedant, this is your show. There must be a manual override to wake up this one occupant. Pedant, what are the sound-shifts on those letters?
It will be all right, said the girl in the chiton.
They will try to stop her, said the Brute, and his hand stole into a coverall pocket to grip his dazer. Inner Child watched and listened. He heard Paulie say to Billy, “They ain’t gonna stuff me in one of those sausages.”
But the part of his mind focused on the control panel found and translated what it wanted. He raised his eyes upward. “An’ there be on your side of the door a blue button set in a well?” he asked in Méarana’s dialect.
“Aye…”