Crossing the Line

by Karen Traviss

  “Sunray this is Labros Two, over,” said Qureshi’s voice in her ear.

  “Uh…this is Sunray, over,” said Lindsay.

  “Just checking Sunray, out.”

  “I’m here too,” said Rayat, but nobody responded.

  “Sunray, focus on the planet until suit rotation,” said Qureshi. “Not long to go, out.”

  Time seemed to pass in fits and starts. Two hundred kilometers was a bloody long way, and a bloody long time. She felt the sudden push as the suit detached from the tether and switched to its internal navigation: 150 kay. One moment she was looking at the one suit she could actually see—whose?—and the next Bezer’ej was filling her field of view and there wasn’t much black left.

  Then the suit flipped her over on her back.

  That was good, because she now had the black heat-shield deployed where it was meant to be, but it was also bad, because she was staring back into a void and she couldn’t see any reference point. She started to count. They were at fifty thousand meters, more or less.

  “Sunray, this is Sunray Minor, here comes the tough bit, out,” said Bennett, and Lindsay started feeling…warm. It might have been her imagination.

  In the thin layer of elastomerics and softglass a matter of inches from her spine and vital organs, the core temperature was reaching 100C. On the surface the suit was meteor-hot. Don’t think about it. She was prepared to nuke herself to destroy Shan Frankland, but the thought of burning up on reentry was one step too far. It was slow.

  She couldn’t touch the ERD or the bot stowed in her suit because the foam had embraced them as closely as it had her.

  “Sunray Minor, this is Sunray,” she said shakily. The vibration and g of reentry was beginning to become unbearable. She didn’t care if they knew she was scared. The only people who wouldn’t have been bricking it then were either mad or Shan Frankland. “I—I’m having telemetry issues here. How’s the approach, over?”

  “Sunray, this is Sunray Minor, we’re on the nose, out,” said Bennett, and she would never have guessed that he had once reached Mach 1 with just foam and liquid glass between him and incineration. “Not long now.”

  Lindsay had stopped looking out of her limited faceplate view and shut her eyes. She had contemplated death in her shuttered coffin of a bunk and now she was trying another shroud on for size. She wasn’t thirty yet. It wasn’t fair.

  She was just thinking that Shan Frankland would have told her that there was nothing about life that was fucking fair, so she should buck up and get on with it, when she was jerked so hard that her teeth threatened to shatter. It was the chute deploying at ten thousand meters. She blinked. There were clouds. There were flashes of iridescence. God, please let the landing zone be right, I don’t fancy falling into the quicksand….

  In a minute or so she would be—

  The wind was punched out of her lungs. She rolled, not because she had remembered her ejection training but because she hadn’t been expecting to hit the ground right then. She struggled to breathe. It was solid ground, and the head-up display in her helmet said she was one kay from Constantine. As she rolled she felt a lot lighter. The heat-shield had detached.

  “Sunray at target, over,” she called at last.

  “Sunray Minor at target, over.”

  “Sunray Minor, what’s your location, over?” She couldn’t look at her palm display until she was free of the suit.

  “Sunray Minor, two south from target, no visuals yet, out.”

  “Labros Two, three south-south-west of Constantine, out,” said Qureshi’s voice.

  “Labros Three, south-south-west of target also, I have visual of Labros Two, out,” said Chahal.

  There was a pause, more puffing, and then Barencoin’s voice. “Labros Four at target, no visual of Sunray Minor. Wait one…Sunray, I’m right next to you, over.”

  “Labros Five, this is Sunray—where are you, Rayat? Over.”

  “Oh shit…”It was his voice all right, for all the shaking in it. So much for Webster’s emulator. He wasn’t near Qureshi at all.

  “Sunray Minor, I have Labros Five, out,” said Bennett’s voice.

  Then she lost him. There was a lull. There was a clamor of exertion in her earpiece, and Qureshi’s voice. “Oh bollocks,” she said, abandoning voice procedure. “Shit.”

  Then the puffing stopped dead as if the mike had been cut. Lindsay waited.

  “Sunray here, I’ve lost voice—Labros Two, Labros Three, this is Sunray, respond, over.”

  Nothing. Chahal was gone too.

  But at least they were all down. They were in one piece, more or less. The elation was so great that she tried to leap to her feet, but the remains of the suit wouldn’t let her, and there was the small matter that she and Barencoin were several kilometers from the rest of them.

  It wasn’t far under the circumstances, but time mattered. It would slow them a little, and the more time they spent on the radio, the greater their chance of being picked up.

  It took a while to peel out of a Once-Only. It was like unpacking electronics: the foam was reluctant to part. Lindsay cracked the seal on her helmet and pushed up the visor to breathe Bezer’ej’s thin air. She was still easing open the suit when she heard Barencoin, somewhere outside her field of vision, say, “Oh.”

  Oh wasn’t a very marine-like word. But she understood why he said it. She was trying to get her other arm free through the horse-collar-shaped opening when the bright Bezer’ej sky was obscured by Josh Garrod.

  He was aiming a very, very old rifle straight into her face. Firearms warranted respect regardless of antiquity.

  Now she had a good idea of what Qureshi had decided was bollocks.

  “Get up, Commander,” he said. “I’m fully prepared to break the Sixth Commandment.”

  17

  URGENT.

  FIRE CONTROL PARTY MEET AT THE MAIN PUMPING STATION IMMEDIATELY. CRAFT INTERCEPTED IN EXCLUSION ZONE. IF ISENJ CAN BREACH DEFNET, SO MAY OTHERS. COLLECT ARMS AND PATROL ISLAND. DO NOT INFORM ARAS OF PATROL INTENTION. REPEAT, DO NOT INFORM. HE SHOULD NOT BE EXPOSED TO RISK.

  JOSH GARROD to council members,

  via pager

  It was an old rifle but it was very clean, and that meant it probably worked.

  Lindsay could see that just fine. Josh jerked the barrel in a gesture to hurry up and she scrambled out of the Once-Only.

  No. It doesn’t end like this. Her plan had been defeated by farm-hands. No, we’ve come too far.

  “Okay, Josh,” she said. “Take it easy.”

  Barencoin had a museum-piece rifle trained on him too. It had to be a humbling experience for a commando of his caliber. But paratroops had always been vulnerable in descent; and they could get their arms free fast, unlike the detachment, who were effectively shrink-wrapped. The Once-Only was designed to save your life, not to be shed easily in combat situations.

  Barencoin struggled out of the suffocating suit and stood looking remarkably resigned. It took him several minutes.

  “How the hell did you land in those?” Josh asked. “And what have you come for?”

  Martin Tyndale, a man Lindsay had always associated with fretting about broad bean crops, was rummaging through one charred, crumpled suit casing, making the foam crackle and squeak. There were small wisps of smoke rising from what looked like shiny puddles of black oil. What remained of the detached portions of the heat-shields were still shedding heat.

  “Lots of metal stuff in here that I don’t feel too confident about,” he called.

  “Arms?”

  Lindsay took her helmet off very slowly. She hadn’t survived free-fall from space to get her head blown off by an antique, and she still might salvage the mission. Martin was fumbling with the retrieval bot.

  “Don’t,” Lindsay said. “It might go off.” The chances of his finding the right manual detonation sequence were remote but she had a feeling that bad luck was going to be the order of the day. “It’s explosive.”

  “H
ave you come for Shan?” Josh asked.

  “Yes,” said Lindsay.

  “You won’t take her, or the parasite.”

  Lindsay gambled. Eddie had always said the truth had enormous shock value. “I haven’t come to take her, I’ve come to destroy her and c’naatat so that it never gets into the human population.”

  Barencoin was a little behind her, so she didn’t see his expression, but she knew that he would be concealing his opinion rather well. They’d all been suckered into her private mission. Succeeding didn’t make her feel good.

  Josh simply looked at her, without hatred and without fear.

  “The organism’s on Christopher, isn’t it?” she said.

  “Doesn’t matter. You’re not having it. It’s an abomination. We should have destroyed it. We considered burning the island.”

  Lindsay saw the options flash up in front of her like numbered cards. “I think I can help with that.”

  “How?”

  “We have a device that will destroy all life on the island in a controlled burn. At temperatures you can’t create.”

  Josh’s aim didn’t waver. Lindsay wondered if he was hoping to shoot her anyway for being a sinner, a fornicator, a paid killer. “You brought weapons here?”

  “Frankland’s a tough bitch to kill. You might have noticed.”

  “You hate her that much. God forgive you.”

  “I hate her, but this is about neutralizing a biohazard.”

  “Sounds like vengeance to me,” said Josh. “And that’s not for man to dispense.”

  “Sounds like a clean job. As long as she lives, someone will be after what she’s got. They’ll never risk chasing Aras, but they’ll keep taking a crack at her, and they won’t stay away from here forever.”

  Lindsay wondered how long Josh could hold that rifle steady. The barrel hadn’t moved a hair. He looked as if he was physically digesting her words.

  “And you, a soldier, want to destroy c’naatat even though you would have so many military uses for it,” he said at last.

  I’m not a soldier. I’m a naval officer. It was a silly thing to care about right then. “I know exactly how it’ll be used, thanks. That’s why I want all sources eradicated. And I know you have some regard for Frankland, but she doesn’t want it getting loose any more than we do.”

  Barencoin cut in. “Those weren’t our orders, ma’am. We’re supposed to detain her alive.”

  “Shut up,” she said without turning. “Josh, if you can get us to Christopher, we’ll carry out a burn of the island. I’ve got three marines in the field anyway. You got lucky catching us, but you’ll never take them, and you know it. This way we all get what we want. What’s it to be?”

  Josh had very unsettling pale eyes. He looked like a man who had a temper that he controlled with care, and his gaze reminded her all too much of Shan’s. “You have one marine left, then, because we captured two a little way from here. Those suits really are a liability, aren’t they?”

  “Ah.” She was running out of bargaining chips. “You’re not as bucolic as you look, are you?”

  “And you want Superintendent Frankland.”

  They stood absolutely still, absolutely silent. Don’t blink. Don’t speak first. Lindsay tried to play Eddie and Shan, praying their respective professional tactics would work for her. It was a bad time to discover prayer.

  “These weapons of yours,” said Josh. “These bombs. Are you certain they’ll only burn the island?”

  “They’re enhanced radiation devices. I know that sounds shocking, but the radiation is the short-lived kind. The detonation will be confined to the island.”

  Josh stood unblinking but not focusing on her. He was taking his time.

  “It’s just one island against the future of many worlds,” he said at last. “And it is only on Christopher, Commander, nowhere else. But it’s all sinful destruction in the end.” He let out a long breath. “I’ll take you to Christopher. And I’ll bring you back. How you retrieve Shan Frankland is a matter for you.”

  “Is she in Constantine?”

  “No. Temporary City. Our transport is being organized from there.”

  “Thank you, Josh.”

  “I shall pay for this. I should have told Aras, but he would do something foolish, and I don’t want his safety put at risk.”

  Barencoin was suddenly right on Lindsay’s shoulder, and she realized she had never really noticed what a big man he was. “Ma’am, I want to remind you our orders were to detain her, nothing else,” he said quietly.

  “Marine, this is a direct order,” she said. She wasn’t at all sure he’d follow it. “You will rendezvous with Sergeant Bennett’s party at the preagreed point, retrieve the remaining devices from Rayat, give them to me, and then you will capture and detain Superintendent Frankland.”

  “And then?”

  “You let me worry about that.”

  She could do it herself. She could make sure Rayat set the damn ERDs himself and then she would do what was needed with Shan. There was no point asking any of the marines to go beyond their rules of engagement.

  Because you know they’ll defy you. No, it was the right thing to do. If anyone was going to breach the regs, it would be her. It was an officer’s responsibility.

  Liar. They won’t follow you and you know it.

  “If you use your radios beyond this island, they might detect you,” Josh said.

  Barencoin was tapping his finger against his hand, eyes fixed on a point just past Lindsay. Then he looked intently at his palm. “Got Ade,” he said. “He’ll leave the devices for you at these coordinates in twenty minutes.”

  Lindsay tried to give Josh a reassuring and knowing smile. “Morse,” she said. “Out of use for centuries. But not for us. As long as you’ve got something to make a sound or a light with, you’re in business.”

  “We’ll send a scoot to collect them,” Josh said. “We won’t attract as much attention.”

  “I need the other three devices. Six in all.”

  “Very well.”

  Lindsay paused and then cracked the remaining seals on her spacesuit and heaved herself out of it, leaving it in the scrubby blue grass of the wild sector of Constantine’s island like a shed skin. No point declining Josh’s help. As she looked at Barencoin, the only indication that he was deeply unhappy with the mission was his expression of intense concentration.

  “You sure you know what you’re doing with those ERDs, Boss?” asked Barencoin. “Let Izzy set the damn things.”

  “Of course I do,” said Lindsay. “If infantry can set them, then Rayat can too.”

  The wess’har appeared to be occupied with loading colonists and their baggage. There were none around as they made their way through the crops and the wild grass down to the cove where Josh kept a couple of RIBs, ancient shallow-draft powerboats.

  His son James stood guard with a rifle. The sight of a teenage boy with a weapon he clearly knew how to use was disturbing. Lindsay’s view of the colonists as hand-wringing, passive eccentrics had been shattered.

  “How did you know we were coming?” she asked James.

  “You looked like shooting stars,” he said. “We could see you for ages.”

  If the colonists had seen them coming, then maybe Shan had too. She hoped so.

  Josh came back on a scoot with a man she didn’t know, and one she knew too well. Rayat was balancing three meter-long cylinders on his scoot. They waded out into the shallows and piled them into the boat with the other devices. The boat settled alarmingly low in the water.

  Five for Christopher. And one for Shan Frankland.

  Lindsay looked at Rayat with as much contempt as she could muster. It wasn’t up to one of Shan’s cauterizing glances, but she felt it sincerely. They stared at each other for a moment and then scrambled to opposite ends of the vessel.

  It was a bumpy, spray-sodden and uncomfortable journey to Christopher at forty knots: it took nearly two hours. The nine-meter RIB—the ri
gid inflatable whose design hadn’t changed in three hundred years—had just enough room for the scoots, Josh, another colonist called Jonathan, Rayat, and herself. They traveled in silence.

  It was a long time to spend thinking about how she would get to Shan, or not, and whether she was now going to die at all, something she had thought was inevitable.

  What she wanted more than anything right then—apart from being dry—was to visit David’s grave and sit by the beautiful stained glass headstone that Aras had made.

  Rayat said they could set the device timers for up to twenty-four hours, but Lindsay wanted to be gone from here inside six. She wondered if she would have time to find David’s grave. It was probably out of the question if they were going to find Shan.

  But she had a feeling that Shan would come to find her when she found out what they had done.

  Shan had two messages on her wess’har comms device that morning and she almost erased one by accident. She liked the swiss better. The virin was intuitive for a wess’har, but she was still fumbling with it.

  It was like a bar of transparent glycerine soap with images that appeared both within it and on its surface. When Shan wasn’t concentrating on her hands, the lights would flicker from them and shine confusingly through the virin, triggered by her subconscious desire to communicate. Operating the device required a full hand grip with as many finger positions as a three-dimensional guitar. It was exactly what she should have expected for a culture that wrote in fish-bone diagrams rather than a linear style.

  She hated it. But it could access the wess’har archives, and the swiss could not.

  One message was from a ussissi crew, reporting scan contact with one of Actaeon’s shuttles six thousand kilometers from Bezer’ej. They’d warned it off: the pilot had claimed navigation problems, and they followed it all the way back to Actaeon just to be certain. The other was from Nevyan, wishing her well and asking how things were with Aras.

  Nevyan was a nice kid. Shan sat on a packing crate at the entrance to the Temporary City, watching the loading of Constantine’s essential impedimenta and composing a reply with difficulty. C’naatat clearly thought that skill with a virin was low on its priority upgrades list.