And then, under instruction from Alpha, the Supply Machine had rebuilt itself. Lura had seen waves of sparking light pass through its carcass, and a ripple of tiny adjustments, like muscles flexing under skin. Coton had told her that the machine had smaller machines inside, most too small even to see, that were intended to repair minor flaws – as the body of a human or a tree could heal its own petty injuries. Now, via the Mole, the engineers had subverted these little mechanisms and had ordered them, not to fix the Supply Machine, but to turn it into something else entirely.
Of all the changes made, Lura had understood very few – but the most obvious had been the growth of a seam along the side of the Supply Machine’s carcass, complete with thick metal hinges. Now Pesten and Otho got their fingers under the lip of this seam and lifted. The lid of the great box rose slowly, for it was very massive, but at last it flipped back and fell away. And in the interior you could clearly see a space hollowed out from the nest of components that had been crammed in there – a nest the size and shape of a human body.
Lura felt Pesten’s hand slide into hers; his palm was clammy, as if he was more afraid than she was.
Otho glared at her. ‘So you’re going to climb into this thing, and the Brother and I will close the lid on you, and some kind of little knives are going to come out and chop you up—’
‘Not knives,’ Pesten said.
‘Then what? There won’t be anything left of her. That’s what they said.’
‘It’s been turned into a quantum-level scanner . . .’ But Pesten fell silent.
Lura knew he understood little. It may as well be knives, she thought.
‘You’re afraid,’ Otho said, watching her.
‘Of course, I’m afraid,’ she snapped. ‘Wouldn’t you be? But there will be somebody on the other side of this door who knows me, and will help me.’
‘You really believe that?’
‘If it was all fake, why would Coton and his people go to all this trouble?’ She looked at him closely, the sharp, intelligent eyes, the brutalised features. ‘You helped us get this far. You could have just killed us, as Anka always seemed to want you to do. But you didn’t. You believe in what we’re doing.’
‘This machine’s old. And now it’s been fooled around with. Suppose it breaks down before the rest of us can get through?’
‘So what are you saying? That you want to go first? If so, help yourself.’
His eyes narrowed. ‘I’d rather be second, after I see it work, and I hear you call back through that Mole box.’ He moved closer, and she could feel the gravitational tug of his body, still massive and powerful despite the rationing they had all endured during the whale’s strange odyssey. ‘Or, I’ll tell you a little idea I dreamed up. Suppose I knocked you up, and then sent you through? If you made it, and even if nobody else got through, at least a little piece of me would survive in universe Alpha.’
Lura faced him. ‘You try it and I’ll rip your seed out of my body with my bare hands – in this universe or any other.’
He grinned. ‘Just a thought, tree lady. Just don’t make me regret letting you go.’
‘It’s time, it’s time,’ wheezed the Mole. ‘Lura? This is Coton. Can you hear me? It’s time . . .’
Regretfully she handed the Mole to Pesten. ‘You’d better take this.’
Pesten cradled it. ‘This little box has worked hard.’
‘Yes. Massive sensor dysfunction. Do you think it’s been suffering – cut up, and unable to do its job – for all this time, since the Ship crashed?’
‘Maybe when you’re gone, it can rest at last. I’ll take care of it.’
‘Oh, Pesten—’ Something broke, and she threw herself at him, and they embraced. ‘I’ll see you in Alpha,’ she said.
He pulled back. ‘But will I still be me, after such a strange passage? Will you be you?’ He drew back and eyed the Supply Machine, and Lura saw how terrified he was of it, for all sorts of deep reasons other than the obvious danger.
The Mole murmured, ‘Lura, please . . .’
No more time. She jumped, lifted her legs, and let herself drift down into the body-shaped cavity, where she lay with arms at her side and legs out straight. Immediately, machine components bristled over her bare flesh.
Pesten loomed over her. ‘How does it feel?’
‘Like I’m lying on rough bark. Not so bad.’
‘Lura, I—’
‘Close the lid, Brother. It’s all right.’
The lid descended. Pesten’s face and Otho’s, illuminated by the pinkish light of the Core of Cores, were the last she saw of universe Beta.
She was alone in the dark and silence.
Now the machine’s components closed in on her from above and below and to either side, rough, scratching, some jabbing hard enough to hurt. She was uncomfortably reminded of Otho’s jibe about knives. But she sensed a gathering energy, and she could smell a sharp electric scent, and the hairs on her skin stood on end.
Coton had tried to describe the process to her. This Supply Machine, designed to manufacture food and drink, was scanning her body, quantum function by quantum function. She understood little beyond the Alpha-language phrases, but she knew that before she saw the light again, the numbers that defined her would be stripped out and read off and sent through the space between the universes – and, in the end, lodged safely in the head of her friend. When she thought of that, and conjured up Coton’s face as she imagined it, she relaxed and smiled . . .
Her awareness sparkled and subsided.
And she was beyond time and space. The great quantum functions that encompassed all the universes slid past her like stars streaming from the edge of an unseen nebula, and her eyes were filled with the grey light that shone beneath reality, the light against which all phenomena are shadows.
Time wore away, unmarked.
And then—
15
Marshal Sand stood before the coffin-box, set on end in the flitter cabin, which would serve as the terminal of the transfer. An armed guard stood by.
And Coton writhed on his couch, trying to scream around the gag in his mouth. His head was swathed in a silvery helmet, and the air sparkled with Virtual read-outs. Two crew members hovered over him, evidently anxious, and they tucked a med blanket over his slight body.
Vala stood back, helpless, trying not to tremble. ‘How much longer, Croq?’
But Croq, studying Virtuals that scrolled and danced in the air before his face, had no answer.
‘I wouldn’t worry, Academician,’ Sand said calmly. ‘The alien thing in his head can be used for more transfers, even if this first experiment kills him.’
‘Have some pity, Marshal—’
Now Croq gasped. ‘It’s working! But it shouldn’t be. In the end the graviton flux just isn’t sufficient. Or it wasn’t. Something is boosting it, like an amplification. Otherwise we’d be losing the data, too much of it . . .’
‘Something,’ Sand said. ‘What something?’
‘I think I can guess,’ Vala said. ‘The gravitic creatures in the Core. What else could do this? They saw what we were trying to do. They helped! They amplified the flow—’
‘Why should they?’
‘As you may open a window to release a butterfly, Marshal. A trivial kindness.’
The door of the coffin-box creaked open, just a crack in the seal. There was a smell of smoke, Vala thought – of meat, of sweat. Croq gasped and stepped back.
But Sand held her ground. ‘Well, let us see what it is they have been kind to.’ She stepped forward, and her guard followed, weapon ready. Sand faced the coffin-box, dug the fingers of one gloved hand into the seal of the opened door, and pulled it back.