“Look, as far as I see it,” Tobler said, her voice emotionally detached from her words, “you just took our world away from us. He could have gotten us home, lady. All we wanted was to get home.” Tobler’s words were suddenly shaky. Tears coursed down her cheeks.
“We’re not interested in your wars, Neskat,” Lewis said, her voice thick with emotion. “We don’t understand this universe that we suddenly find ourselves a part of. We come from a backwater world, as you so cruelly put it, and we know it. Why is your heart so cold? Why can’t you feel the pain we feel?”
Merinda gazed at Tobler. The woman had collapsed into one of the command chairs and was openly sobbing into the map table now. Merinda moved silently around the table. Lewis and Ellerby watched her every move.
Slowly, Merinda stopped behind Tobler and reached down with her gloved hand. Then she stopped, withdrew her hand hastily and removed the glove, before reaching out once more with her long, delicate bare hand. With a deliberate, careful motion she touched Tobler’s hair. The woman turned at once to face the Vestis, her face a tear-streaked mess. Merinda knelt down slowly, her eyes round and watery, locked with Tobler’s own. Again Merinda reached out, delicately touching the astronaut’s cheek.
“I am sorry, Marilyn,” Merinda whispered, her own tears falling like brilliant jewels down her cheek. “Truly sorry—and I promise you that I will get you home. I had … forgotten … how important this was to you. And how desperate you must be feeling. I’ll save Griffiths for us both. And he will take us all home.”
Ellerby was suddenly embarrased by the raw emotion being displayed. He looked away to the floor.
Lewis narrowed her eyes skeptically.
Merinda took in a long, shuddering breath. “I’m fighting for us all now,” she said, looking up at Lewis. “I’ve been concentrating on the enormous implications of what is happening here. I’ve been thinking of it in terms of cosmic significance and politics and supremacy. Tobler’s just reminded me that it comes down to uncounted billions of individual lives. Each of their pains. Each of their losses. Each of their vanished dreams.”
Merinda reached up with her bare hand and touched a tear with wonder. She smiled suddenly with the warmth of true feeling. “You know, I think I had forgotten how to feel much of anything.”
“I don’t trust you,” Lewis said without commitment.
“I know.”
“Then why should we listen to you?”
“Perhaps,” Merinda said with more conviction, “because I believe the people of your world are in danger as well.”
Merinda looked about the consoles of the control chamber. She quickly located what she was looking for and pointed down at a set of raised symbols around the outside perimeter of the console. “Can you read that?”
Lewis glanced over at the symbols. “Of course. It says Force Distribution. There’s an almost identical one over on the Phoenix …”
“I can’t.”
“You can’t what?”
“I can’t read it,” Merinda said. “I recognize it as symbols but I can’t read it.”
“But it’s clearly legible,” Lewis said, unfolding her arms and crossing the platform to the indicated panel. “Ellerby, you can read this, can’t you?”
“Sure,” the big man replied, “It’s Force Distribution. That one over there is Motive Force; that one’s Defensive Barriers. They’re all clear. What’s the point?”
“The point is,” Merinda said quietly, “that I can’t read them. Neither can Flynn nor Targ nor Zanfib nor anyone else that didn’t come from your world, so far as I can tell.”
“But Targ was with us all this time,” Lewis argued. “He never mentioned anything about not reading the signs in the Phoenix.”
“Perhaps,” Merinda responded. “But did he ever once touch any of the controls? He’s an expert pilot, you know, and should easily have been able to fly your saucer here all on his own. Why did he need you to pilot for him … unless he simply couldn’t read which system was which?”
Lewis shook her head. “But that doesn’t make sense. Those translation devices you stuck in our heads when we first met are supposed to translate anything for anyone.”
“That’s right.” Merinda nodded. “The only thing they haven’t been able to translate—or won’t translate—is the language of the Lost Empire. At least, until you Earth-people came along.”
“Why would the translation device care where we came from?” Ellerby asked.
“The biolinks are based on temporal fold processor technology,” Merinda thought aloud. “That means that they were originally reverse engineered from the discovery of the Nine on Mnemen IV We aren’t all that sure how they actually work—they’re based on Lost Empire technologies.”
“You’re saying,” Tobler said, sniffing, “that the biolinks recognize us as having come specifically from Earth?”
“Yes,” Merinda replied. “Not just as having come from Earth, but also the fact that since you come from Earth, you are allowed special access to information that the rest of the universe is not suppose to know.”
“Well, what’s so special about Earth?” Lewis asked.
“That’s what we’ve got to find out,” Merinda said. “But to do that we have to keep Griffiths alive.”
“I thought you just suggested killing him?” Lewis said with sudden suspicion.
“Well, it was a logical solution—though not one I’d carry out. I needed Targ to protect him from Flynn’s crew. My threat helped Targ to realize that Griffiths needed his protection.” Merinda flashed a suddenly embarrassed smile. “I really do like him, actually. Keeping him alive can be something of a full-time job, however.”
“So, what do you have in mind, Neskat?” Lewis said, chuckling. She had the horrible feeling that she was beginning to like this Vestis.
“First, we’ve got to get this ship to fly.”
“Fine,” Ellerby replied, “and second?”
“Second,” Merinda smiled, “I’ve borrowed a little something that I want you to read for me.”
38
Oblivion
The water was cold beneath him. His levitation belt was set to keep him just above the surface of the bay, but now and then even the gentle waves reached up and slapped him with a bracing chill. His impulse each time had been to shout, to gasp, or to curse with the sudden shock, but he knew the price if he did. Dragons were located all along the shore and any cry would have brought their attentions at once. If they were caught trying to reboard the Venture Revenge, then their own honorable status would vanish, the formal declarations would be null and void, and they all would be imprisoned at once. For him, that meant a quick trip to Tsultak, where he would be turned over to Zanfib and the rest of the Sentinels. Zanfib may have had his brains rearranged with a mix-master, but the other Sentinels certainly had not. Their efficiency and mercilessness he had already seen all too closely. They would take him apart and never bother with putting him back together again.
So, Griffiths thought as he drifted as quietly as he could across the frigid waters of the bay, I can either be used and abused by the Sentinels or I can be used and abused by Flynn and the pirates. He wondered if they would be sufficient to save his skin. Three of the Uruh snake-women slid smoothly through the water under him. They enjoyed swimming as a more natural way for them to move and were making excellent time toward the Aendorian pirate ship floating at the surface of the water before them. Behind him, Kheoghi drifted in his own belt, struggling to keep his clawed hooves out of the water—clearly not his favorite element. They were an amazing crew, but Griffiths felt that Flynn’s hold on them was tenuous at best. Besides, when they looked at him, Griffiths always felt less like a shipmate than like their lunch.
That left him with the Omnet, in the person of Targ of Gandri, as his third option for salvation. He had seen Targ far too closely to have any illusions about the man helping him. Once Griffiths gave him what he wanted, he’d either toss Griffiths aside or—and he
considered this far more likely—kill him on the spot. For all the vaunted goals of the Omnet, his experience had taught him that they were generally a ruthless bunch, barely above the cutthroat pirates he had fallen in with of late. Merinda had taught him that if nothing else.
Merinda, he thought.
Then he didn’t know what to think. The woman was an exasperation, a thorn in his side and a danger to himself and everyone around her. She had saved his life nearly at the cost of her own only to drag him halfway across creation just to threaten to kill him herself. She was undoubtedly the most cold-hearted woman he had ever met, yet there was something wickedly playful about her, with a sense of dark humor a mile deep.
The distance to the Venture Revenge had closed quickly during his reveries. Griffiths suddenly realized he was in the shadow of the ship’s hull. Gazing upward he noticed Targ and Flynn crouching behind the gunwales. He wondered at the sight for a moment, pondering what deal they must have struck, what price Flynn was being paid. Griffiths had longed for an adventure and now he certainly was in the thick of one. He had forgotten that adventures are built upon someone else’s death and someone else’s blood. Far more die than live to revel in the telling of the tale. At that moment he had few illusions as to which category he would shortly fit.
The lower hatch was open before him. Kheoghi had followed him closely—to make sure that Griffiths didn’t “lose his way” to the ship. Griffiths grabbed the rope railings of the hatch and looked back toward the shore one last time.
Merinda, he thought. We started this together. The least you could do is be here when it ends.
Lewis sat in the command chair, her feet comfortably—if irreverently—propped up on the map table. The vast command chamber lay all about her. Tobler and Ellerby leaned back against the command consoles. Both were far less relaxed than their commander.
“How much longer?” Tobler said nervously.
Lewis looked at her Pulsar watch. She was suddenly struck by it and flipped the release on the band. Holding it close to her face, she examined it carefully. It was an overly complex example of a chronograph that her father had given her prior to the launch. “Something,” he had said, “to check up on that Einstein fellow.” Then he showed her a duplicate of the watch that she wore, perfectly synchronized with hers. They had both laughed. Lewis smiled at the thought again. What a story I have to tell you, Daddy, she thought. You’ll never have guessed where this watch has been.
“Lewis? How much longer.”
“Oh, sorry, Tobler. Three minutes.”
“This place gives me the creeps,” Ellerby said, shivering slightly. “The ventilation in this place sounds like it’s haunted.”
Lewis flipped the watch back onto her wrist and fastened the latch. “Actually, according to Neskat, it isn’t the ventilation.”
Ellerby blinked. “Well, then, what is it?”
“She says the place really is haunted,” Lewis said, leaning back in her chair and stretching.
“That’s not funny, Elizabeth!” Tobler grumbled.
“Hey, it’s what I heard,” Lewis shrugged with a wicked little smile. “But I wouldn’t put too much effort into worrying about it, Tobler. We’ve got plenty of other concerns to occupy our time.”
“Such as?” Ellerby asked absently.
“Such as whether that Neskat woman is telling us the truth or not. Such as whether her plan is going to work at all. Such as whether this three-thousand-year-old ship is actually going to get off the ground or not,” Lewis said. Her feet suddenly came down from the table. The lieutenant stood up and stretched, then tugged her flight suit back into its proper position. “Well, at least we can answer that last worry now. To your stations, one and all; it’s time to make this heap of metal fly.”
Tobler and Ellerby glanced at each other for a moment, then turned back toward the consoles all about them.
“Tobler.” Lewis had adopted her command voice. “Activate the central power initiators.”
Tobler pressed her hands against the panel. The central icon suddenly appeared with spidery light filaments darting from it across the smooth surface. Additional icons sprang into view.
“Initiators on-line, Lieutenant,” Tobler responded. “One unit is not responding, however—its load has been transferred to the remaining seven units. Total output by this board appears nominal.”
Ellerby’s voice followed at once. “Systems overview shows the current mode as Passive/Defensive Landing. Shield strength reads approximately twenty-eight percent. That’s only two percent below the indicated nominal level.”
“Very well, Mister Ellerby.” Lewis was suddenly struck with how ingrained their military training had become. Here they were, so far from their own home world that the light around them wouldn’t even reach their planet for several millennia and they were still clinging to tradition. Well, she thought suddenly, whatever works. “Mister Ellerby, is there something like an active launch mode accessible from that panel?”
“One moment, Commander.” Both Ellerby and Tobler had taken to calling her commander when they were in flight. It seemed more appropriate than captain—which was more a function of rank than position—and the term suited her better anyway. “I have a cascade of general command options. Let me just sort through … got it! Cycle to Command Standby mode then branch to Launch Prep mode.”
“Proceed, Mister Ellerby. Let me know when I have release of system command functions from the landing mode.”
“They are available now, Commander.”
“Thank you. Tobler, I’m bringing the main power distribution grid on-line … now.”
A fountain of light sprang up from the central map table, flowing like an impossible, inverted waterfall against the curved ceiling overhead. The light radiated outward along the ornate petals that were carved into the curved ceiling of the room. Each of them glowed when touched by the liquid light. In moments the room was alive with light.
The air began to stir.
Must be the ventilation system coming up, Lewis thought, as her eyes searched the panel in front of her. From somewhere in the distance, she could hear massive equipment spooling up, awakening from its long slumber. She had to speak louder with each passing moment to be heard. “Launch preparation sequence enabled! Five inertial suppressors have failed … field strength within tolerable limits. Landing claw retract mechanism number two reads a malfunction. I’ve bypassed the alarm. Claw is retracting. Sequence is complete!”
“Spatial motive drives transferred from off-line to standby modes,” Tobler shouted. “All motivators are go for power up, Commander.”
“Initiating launch sequence … now! Guidance to my station! Ellerby, as soon as we’ve lifted off, get us into a defensive/active mode and shunt the weapons systems over to Tobler on her …”
“Oh my God!” Ellerby cried out.
The light spread from the fountain in the center of the command console, bringing the ceiling, the room, and the ship into glorious brilliance, and illuminating the bones and dust of the dead.
The awakened dead.
Dusts covering the mammoth floor began to shift with the vibrations of the lifting motors. Even as Ellerby watched in horror, they took form in the eddies and currents of the air, taking shapes of gray clouds coalescing in twisting, writhing forms. One, two, then a dozen of the shifting, ghostly whirlwinds formed in the air, each one crying, singing, wailing as it blew into being and then collapsed out of existence once more.
“Destiny!”
Tobler yelped. “What is THAT supposed to be?”
The engines of the ancient ship thundered through the room, mixed with the groans of metal too long at rest and suddenly awakened to move once more.
“Stay at your posts!” Lewis shouted. “This monster needs a living crew, not a dead one!”
The dust clouds in the room suddenly formed into thousands of charcoal shapes, each different from the next, each reaching up with ephemeral pleading arms, their hollow mouths aga
pe and singing, keening …
“Forgiveness! Despair! Salvation!”
The shrieking of the dead pierced Lewis’s ears over the roaring of the engines, the horrible noise causing her pain. “What do you want!” she shouted.
“Home! Take us home!”
Tobler began weeping once more, whether out of pain or sympathy, Lewis could not tell.
“Ellerby!” Lewis shouted, hoping she was heard above the din. “Launch us … now!”
The scene playing out around them had transfixed the huge man.
“Ellerby!” Lewis shouted once more. “Now, Lieutenant! Fly! Damn it!” Lewis suddenly pushed her way past the big man and slammed her palm on the sequence release. “You want to go home, eh? Well, so do I! Hang onto your souls, you miserable ghosts! I’m taking us all home!”
Suddenly, the deck lurched under her. The dome above them went suddenly clear and she could see the milky thick stars of the Bonefield Narrows shift across her view.
A chorus of joy and despair roared through the hall.
“The dead shall rise again, boys,” Lewis shouted into the overwhelming sound. “This relic is gonna fly!”
* * *
“By the nine!” Targ shouted, his voice buried in the sudden avalanche of sound. He gripped the railing of the pirate starship, bracing for the worst. Behind him, chaos erupted as each of Flynn’s crew scrambled for any brace or handhold that might provide them some measure of security. Targ was only dimly aware of their movement, however. His eyes were fixed on the horizon above the shore.
A mountain of shining metal, blue and hazy with distance, rose slowly above the whipping trees. The sound was unbelievable, a deep resonance that sounded from inside one’s own bones. The very air quivered with its power, the shaking it inspired threatening to separate plank by plank, splinter by splinter, the very wood of the Aendorean pirate ship. Forests of trees on shore were being leveled under the sound. The four-mile-wide ship rose majestically into the perpetual twilight of the Bonefield Narrows, the gentle curve of its upper hull becoming apparent, its towers reaching into the sky once more.
Nightsword Page 32
