‘Shol.’
Well, he couldn’t contact her; even the bits that weren’t fried had no power. He just had to wait. He sat down again and began counting twitches.
He had never bothered working out how many times a Bug had to extend and grab and pull to haul itself up this far. Now he did, and came to around five thousand.
It was definitely getting cold. A Bug in motion was heated by the waste energy from the crude hydraulics of the arms. Now the only source of heat was Zeb. Not enough. He wrapped his arms around himself and went on counting.
The first thousand seemed to take a very long time. At fifteen hundred he began to count out loud, and the words came out on curls of mist, but by three thousand his throat was sore and he seemed to have trouble getting enough breath to push the long strings of syllables out.
‘Three thousand, one hundred … and … twenty … three …’
He made himself count aloud as far as four thousand. Then he gave up. There wasn’t enough air (and the bit of him that was still thinking clearly said no, that wasn’t right, it wasn’t air, it was the other thing and there was too much of it, not not enough) and he was shivering too much to form the words.
And then he lost count, and it didn’t seem to matter.
He hoped Shol would be there soon …
His eyes snapped open. There was a clang and the Bug jumped sharply.
She was here.
Something was bothering him. What did you do, now? There was something. If his head would just stop aching for a minute he could think. He shuffled his hands along the floor to prop himself up, and one of them found something hard. It was the broken-off piece of control board.
Ah, yes. That was it.
He picked up the board, selected a spot and whacked it, corner downwards, against the floor. And again.
The noise rang round his skull. He waited for it to subside, and listened.
Bong.
Yes; an answer. Shol knew he was in here and alive. Now it was over to her to do whatever she was going to do.
He hoped she would be quick.
His hope was justified. Even as he propped himself against the wall to wait, he realized that the air didn’t seem quite so cold as before. He swirled the palm of his hand around in widening circles on the metal above him; then, at the limit of his reach, yanked it away sharply with an exclamation.
That patch was too hot to touch. As he watched, a circle a bit smaller than the palm of his hand began to glow.
Fuck, she was burning her way through. He backed as far away from the spot as he could, his heart clattering against his ribs, as the circle brightened to a vivid yellow. There was a sputtering noise. Then the incandescent metal bulged upwards and outwards in the middle and disappeared.
For a second, air roared out through the hole. Then there was a hollow, echoing pop and the roaring stopped.
His ears hurt. And his throat. And, still, his head. But breathing seemed easier. He shuffled over to the hole and called through it.
‘Shol?’
There was a pause. Then a voice said, ‘No. Sorry. I’m not Shol.’
The voice sounded as if it was talking through a gulp.
It couldn’t be … Zeb swallowed. ‘Iverrs?’
‘Yes.’ Another gulp. ‘Sorry. Shol said you were up here but then she went somewhere and I couldn’t find her and everyone was busy because the power was draining. So I came. I thought you would know what to do. Zeb? I think something really bad has happened.’
Zeb shut his eyes for a moment. The boy was right about everything except for the bit about has happened. It was still happening – and now he had another responsibility.
He took a deep breath of the air that Iverrs had brought with him, not daring to think about how long it might last, and said, ‘What about Aish?’
‘She went to talk to Orbital Joule. No one knows when she’ll be back. I was worried. Sorry.’
‘Okay.’ Another breath. ‘Iverrs? First thing. I’m really glad you’re here, so you can stop saying sorry. Yes?’
‘Yes. Sorry.’
‘That was a start. Now, we have to get back down.’ Translation – I have to get both of us back down. ‘How much power have you got?’
‘I can link with your system, then you’ll see—’
‘No!’ He balled his fists. He had shouted. He mustn’t shout, and also he mustn’t do anything to worry Iverrs. He chose his words carefully. ‘My turn to say sorry – but don’t try to link. My system had … a failure. It could compromise yours.’
‘Okay. I won’t.’
Zeb waited for the sorry. It didn’t come, and he nodded slowly. ‘Fine. Now, how’s your power? The three lights on the top of the board. Can you see them?’
There was a pause. ‘I know where they are. Two greens, one amber.’
‘Good. That’s good.’ It was good, but it could change. Would change, unavoidably, because those reserves were now trying to heat and recycle air in two Bugs not one, and would be doing even more double duty soon.
In other words, get on with it.
‘There’s no way to get me into your Bug, so we need to think of something else. Is your mobility okay?’
‘Yes.’
‘Right. I’ve got no power, Iverrs. Nothing – so if anything’s going to happen it’s going to be through you.’ Something occurred to him. ‘Ah, how many times have you worked one of these things?’
‘This is my first time. The others would never let me.’
‘Yeah. That’s what I thought.’ Zeb stared out and down over the Skylid. Expertise wasn’t on offer, then.
‘Zeb? I can help. They wouldn’t let me really do it but I studied. I remember the whole manual. It’s easy.’
‘Oh good.’
‘No, sorry, I mean it.’
Zeb shook himself. He was tired, that was all. ‘Okay, Iverrs. I’ve got an idea. With your knowledge, we’ll give it a go.’
A couple of hours ago he had been certain he was dead. Now he was just nearly certain, which shouldn’t have felt worse but did.
Of course, the trouble was that he was nearly certain Iverrs was dead, too.
That felt lousy.
An hour later they were ready to try. Either way, it would be the first and last attempt.
‘How’s your power now?’
‘Three amber lights. According to the manual that means half-reserve.’
‘Good.’ It wasn’t, particularly, but the boy’s voice was brisk with tension and Zeb really, really needed him not to panic.
He cleared his throat. ‘So, let’s go.’ And held on tight.
‘Yes.’
Nothing for a moment, and then the pod gave a tiny lurch to one side. Zeb braced himself for more, but that seemed to be it. He slowly unclenched his hands. ‘That felt fine from here. Okay down there?’
‘Yes.’ Still terse – but phase one had worked. Iverrs’s pod had inched upwards far enough to lift Zeb’s slightly, so the strain was off the one claw Zeb was hanging by. Now he had to rely on the boy’s photographic knowledge of the instruction manual. He had been right so far – under his guidance Zeb had already levered off a cover plate near where the arms sprouted from the outside of the pod. The arms were hydraulic, a technology even older than the fullerene ropes they clasped, and behind the cover was a knot of curling pipes and squat little valve things.
Zeb had located the flat stud that bled off pressure from the claw circuit. In his mind he had pressed it a dozen times – as briefly as possible, Iverrs had said. Enough to loosen the claw, without opening it so far that it lost its hold on the guy.
Now he steeled himself. ‘Okay, Iverrs. Here we go.’
And pushed his finger against the stud.
At first it didn’t move, and he pushed harder. Then it gave suddenly, and he jerked his hand back from it in a panic.
Nothing seemed to have changed. He swallowed. ‘I did it. Not sure if anything happened. Can you tell?’
‘No. Sorry.
’
‘That’s what I thought.’
‘Zeb? One red light.’
Zeb shook his head. They were out of choices. ‘Okay, then. Time to go, I think. Iverrs? Nice and slowly, please.’
He held his breath. For a few very long seconds, there was nothing. Then the pod lurched a little to one side – and dropped smoothly through a metre or so before coming to a halt with a metallic clang.
It had worked. Zeb’s pod was resting on the one below it, steadied by a loosely sliding claw on the guy above it. He realized he had expected any one of several possible sorts of failure, but not success.
He let out the breath. ‘Okay, we’re in business. Down we go.’ And, with a flash of shame that it was an afterthought, ‘Well done. I think you saved both of us. Now we’d better get back down and save everyone else. Did you read any other instruction manuals?’
‘No. Sorry.’
‘Well, we’ll work it out when we get there.’ He thought for a second and added, ‘Trust me.’
‘Of course.’
Of course. Zeb nodded. Iverrs had run out of people to trust down there. That’s why he had come looking. It wasn’t a good thought.
The pod twitched, and then again. Iverrs had started them heading downwards. He didn’t seem to need to talk, which was just as well because Zeb needed not to. If he’d had any comms he would have had another go at raising the Wall, but the comms was as dead as the rest of the pod, and he didn’t want to ask Iverrs. So instead he stared out over the pearly mist of the Skylid, and listened with his muscle-memory to the half-new, half-familiar bumping of his pod against the one below, and worried. At least the Skylid looked serene. He wondered why the Switchers hadn’t interfered with that instead.
The movement was almost relaxing, and he was beyond tired.
‘Zeb?’
He levered his eyes open. He must have slept – the Skylid was above them instead of below.
‘Zeb? Are you okay?’
The voice sounded sharp, like someone keeping a lid on panic. The sound hot-wired Zeb to alertness. ‘Yes. I’m here, I’m fine. What’s the matter?’
‘I can see something.’
‘Where?’
‘Outside. Towards the Skylid. I don’t know what it is.’
He blinked, and tried to focus but the featureless surface of the Lid was hard to fix on. Then his eyes did the job for him and he realized that the thing Iverrs had seen was nearer – much nearer. Without looking away from it he called out.
‘Iverrs? Like a fat black line?’
‘Yes. I saw it first as we passed the Skylid.’
Zeb glanced upwards. That must have been a while ago. He chewed his lip. ‘Has it done anything?’
‘Not at first. Now I think it’s getting bigger.’
Zeb watched the thing. ‘So do I.’
‘Do you know what it is?’
‘No.’ Uncertainty was probably not a good idea. Quickly he added, ‘How are the batteries?’
‘One amber. Two red.’
‘Uh-huh.’ The thing was definitely getting closer, but not close enough to resolve detail. Then it dropped below the background of the Skylid, and suddenly what had looked like a black line against the light background morphed into a chain of dots, silver in the Lid-light, growing larger. Then it – they – tipped forwards and became three featureless discs. They were closing fast.
‘Do you know what it is now?’
The voice sounded flat.
Zeb shook his head. ‘No, I still don’t.’ He watched the things for a moment. Whatever they were, they didn’t look friendly.
He fought to sound calm. ‘Listen, you’ve still got power enough to disengage, right?’
‘Yes, but you’ll fall if I do—’
‘I’d be okay. Look, be ready just in case?’
The discs were losing height as they got closer. They were heading underneath the pods, and the thought crystallized in Zeb’s mind.
Three discs. Three ropes.
They dropped out of sight, and the words were out before Zeb had time to think about them.
‘Iverrs? Disengage. Now!’
‘But—’
‘Now!’ He searched desperately for something to make it happen. ‘I don’t want you! Go away!’
There was something like a sob, and then the slap of a hand on a control, magnified by the echo of the metal pod. Zeb squeezed his eyes shut and waited for the jolt and the fall. He hoped Iverrs’s chute was working.
And there was the jolt – but not the fall. Instead, the pod slewed into a violent launch upwards that threw him back against the side wall, then crushed him to the floor. And then, a sickening, spinning free-fall.
He flailed both hands and felt his fingers closing around the base of the console. Then he opened his eyes.
Motion. Black sky, and then a gently turning Skylid, and then the thin silver-grey curl of a severed cable, and then something he couldn’t make out. It was like a shell, a scooped-out hemisphere, spinning towards him. There was something in it …
Then it tumbled past him and he saw. It wasn’t a shell. It was half a pod, and the something was Iverrs. He had been cleanly sliced in two.
It must have been the cable. And the last thing he had heard would have been Zeb, telling him to go away.
The half-pod whirled away, and now he was falling faster. He didn’t care.
Time to go away.
The impact was an instant, timeless white explosion behind his eyes. Then nothing.
Brasedl Space, ex-Mandate, Sphere
WITHOUT REALLY KNOWING why, Skarbo had expected the wreckage to thin out as they approached the edge of the Sphere, but if anything there seemed to be more of the stuff. It was smaller, too, and increasingly densely packed together so they had to nose through, using the bubble-field to push things out of the way, which made the craft wobble uneasily. But for the field he could have reached out and grabbed pieces of debris from the hollow sphere of junk that was closing in around them.
He turned to the machine. ‘Why is it so thick? We can hardly get through it.’
‘Exactly.’
He waited, but it didn’t seem inclined to say more. He looked down at The Bird, which was perching on a bit of metal that stuck out a little more than the rest. It was staring forwards, its eyes fixed. Then it snapped its beak. ‘There. Thought so!’
‘Thought what?’ Skarbo looked up, following its gaze. ‘Oh …’
The dense mass of junk in front of them had parted and they were in clear, black space – a bubble with walls of close-packed debris. He turned round to look at the section where they had just burst through; a dim back-scatter of light from their craft showed pieces slotting themselves back into place until there was no sign of a hole.
He looked at the machine. ‘Very clever. What do you keep here?’
‘Keep, that’s not quite the right word. Curate, perhaps. Or tend. How good are your eyes? Can you see anything yet?’
‘My eyes are eight lifetimes old, machine. They’re nearly dead.’
‘But they started from a high baseline, I believe. Much better than human.’
The Bird laughed. ‘Little thing’s been checking you out, old insect. Nothing to hide now.’
Skarbo gazed at it for a moment. In the dim light all he could see was a tiny glint, reflected off a round, black eye. ‘What would it find if it checked you out, bird?’
‘Ha. Not a bird. Nothing to check. Feathers and wings and fuck all else. You going to do any looking?’
‘Yes.’ He gazed forwards, and then to the sides, but he didn’t know what he was looking for. Then, at the limit of his vision, the darkness began to resolve into shapes, and he saw it.
The darkness in front of them and above them and below them and to both sides wasn’t empty darkness. It was full of ships.
He watched the grey shapes slide past. They weren’t all the same, but they had certain things in common: blocky, brutal designs with no ornamentation, no concessi
on to grace. Some were like cones joined back to back, and others misshapen cuboids. One was an elaborate cluster of different-sized spheres, each a very slightly different shade in the faint light. They were closer together than the hulks outside had been, and many of them were elaborately scarred and streaked with what he assumed was weapons damage – but they all looked whole.
There was something about them that made him feel uneasy. He turned to the machine. ‘How many are there?’
It didn’t answer immediately. Then it just said, ‘Many.’
‘And they are?’
‘What you can see.’
He nodded. Many ships. He was still feeling uneasy. He had felt unease out in the main sphere, among the wrecks, but that was the unease of being amongst death and silence, if vacuum could be silent. Here was silence, yes, but not death. He searched for the word.
Yes: watchfulness. And he thought, They’re not dead.
‘Machine?’ he said. ‘Where did these all come from?’
‘All over the place. This is one of the oldest Spheres. It’s been around for a very long time, and it’s lived through dozens of wars in dozens of sectors. Do you know how many ships it has processed, in those thousands of years?’
He shook his head.
‘Nor do I. But hundreds of thousands, at least. Most of them didn’t amount to anything, but once in a while the Sphere would find something … interesting. It has a most unusual mind-set, for a Sphere. It kept them. One day it found something really interesting.’
The Bird wagged its head from side to side. ‘Interesting? Kept? Certainly unusual for a Sphere. Had help, did it?’
The machine laughed. ‘It does now.’
‘You?’
‘Peripherally. We’re nearly there.’
Skarbo stared forwards. It looked as if there was a kind of clearing in the ships – a larger black space between the grey masses. Then he realized it wasn’t empty, not quite. In the middle was something … odd.
It was another ship, much smaller than the massive warships around it. It was longer and slimmer than they were, almost streamlined, like something that had once been meant to skim atmospheres, and there was something – he searched for a word – baroque about it: it had too many external features, too many pods and deck lines and antennae. At one end were two splayed cylinders that looked like prehistoric engine nacelles.
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