Gravity of a Distant Sun

by R. E. Stearns

  Pel twisted his head to peer at the wound and groaned. “Ah, ow. Yeah, sure, let’s wait for them.”

  Outside, Gavran shouted something Adda’s translator couldn’t interpret. Noor was yelling, “Out of the way, now! I have to talk to Casey.”

  “Oh gods.” Pel clutched at Adda’s arm with his good hand.

  “It’s okay,” Adda lied.

  “Is not,” Pel said, apparently by reflex.

  So much for making him feel better. “You ass, it’ll be okay. Press on this.” Adda put his hand on the sodden shirt and stood.

  She didn’t know how she was acting this calm when Pel was bleeding so much and Casey had influenced Noor. Her heart pounded so hard she felt it in her ribs.

  Iri, where are you? There was no answer. Adda hoped that meant that Iridian and Rio were helping Gavran and Wiley stop Noor from reaching one of the temple drones, or a workspace generator.

  Adda got the first aid kit from the Mayhem’s bathroom and hurried back to Pel. According to the directions on the kit’s case, she should use the sterilizing pad and then wrap the wound in the sterile bandage before getting Pel to a hospital. The case didn’t say anything about what to do when armed, influenced allies betrayed you to an intelligence determined to influence you too. That would’ve been a lot to expect of a first aid kit.

  “Is that for me, or what?” asked Pel. “And are there any painkillers in there? Because, ow.”

  “Sorry.” Adda traded the blood-soaked spare shirt for the sterilizing pad and threw the shirt into the ship’s recycler. “I’m going to check the passthrough. Maybe they’ve got Noor calmed down.” Although that seemed unlikely, considering how upset he’d been. She wished the station’s orbit would let the Mayhem’s cams work. It would’ve been safer to look outside without opening the passthrough.

  “Yeah, just leave me here to take care of my giant, painful, bleeding, probably infected stab wound by myself,” Pel grumbled, turning his head at an awkward angle to look at his shoulder again. “Ow.”

  “If you wipe it off with that pad I just gave you, it won’t get infected,” Adda called over her shoulder while she opened the interior passthrough door.

  Gavran wobbled down the Mayhem’s passthrough toward the ship, bent almost double, with one hand on the wall. His legs took fast, tiny steps in all directions to keep him upright according to their internal gyroscopes, tapping on the passthrough floor. The exterior door was still open and Rio stood braced in its doorway. Each of her heavy breaths showed in the heave of her armored shoulders and back. On the floor in front of her lay Wiley, bleeding from where Noor had embedded Pel’s knife in his thigh. He was pulling himself away from a crowd of Yăo residents by using his arms to lift his hips. The injured leg dragged behind him. Iridian and Noor were nowhere in view.

  By the time Adda had taken all that in, Gavran had stumbled past her into the main cabin. He fumbled at the controls beside the passthrough door, still clutching his stomach with his free hand. The interior door slid shut.

  “Damn,” said Pel from his position on the floor, “what happened to you?”

  “Noor Beck and your—” Gavran snarled something in cant. Adda’s translator only caught a word for “knife.” “Beck fucking stabbed me with your knife, that’s what.”

  Pel pushed himself to his hands and knees, and then his feet while Adda crossed to the passthrough. “I’m going to look for Iridian,” she said. “Tell me if anything else goes wrong.”

  “Yeah, sure,” he said. “What else could?”

  The answer was too long to bother with at the moment. Adda pressed the door controls and her fingers came away sticky with Gavran’s blood. The passthrough’s interior door slid up and open. Rio crouched in the exterior passthrough doorway and Wiley sat in front of her. When Adda got close enough to see over Rio’s shoulder, the knife sticking out of Wiley’s thigh froze Adda’s questions about Iridian in her throat.

  Wiley met her eyes. “I don’t think it’s as bad as it looks.” The pain in his voice was obvious even to Adda.

  “We got here as fast as we could, but Noor’s gone.” Rio’s armored fist thumped the passthrough on her last word, and the whole structure rattled. “The little guys are always too quick for me. Nassir’s chasing him down.”

  “Pel and Gavran are hurt too, but Pel can walk there,” said Adda. “Wiley, can you get to the clinic without Rio’s help?”

  Wiley frowned at the knife in his leg. “Yeah. It’ll suck, though. What are you going to do?”

  “Find Iridian and Noor.” Ideally, before anybody else got hurt. “Rio, could you come with me?”

  “Yeah.” In her helmet’s projection of her face, Rio turned her head and drank from her suit’s water tank. “Noor’d better appreciate that none of us stuck a knife in his addled little head when he comes out of this.”

  Iri, Adda subvocalized, Where are you?

  Iridian’s whispered voice said, Thirty ticks, I think. Still on the first floor.

  Adda put 30 ticks into her map to find that location in relation to the port mod. The center dock served as station north, also listed as 0 ticks on the map. Adda started walking in the direction in which the marked segments on the map counted up toward 30. Heavy footsteps confirmed that Rio had joined her. Adda ran for a few meters, then walked again when breathing got too hard.

  Rio let her set the pace. “Any idea where Nassir is?”

  “The only workspace generator I know of is the one we found while we were looking for the drones. That’s where Noor would go.” Adda liked Rio, but she didn’t want to tell anyone about her and Iridian’s comms if she didn’t have to. If nobody knew about them, nobody would shut them off or listen in.

  Over the slightly raised connector between the port mod and the rest of the station, Adda and Rio entered a hallway with lots of doors, all of which were shut. Some had messages scratched into them or projected on them in flickering colors. One doorway was open, with the torn remains of the door still hanging above it. The pieces curved toward the room within, where a rough male voice said, “What’s funny to an NEU terrorist like you?”

  That wasn’t Noor. Adda crept closer, breathing shallowly and hoping that made her approach quieter. Rio’s heavy footfalls turned to softer thumps as she took Adda’s cue and slowed down.

  “Imagining my cum dripping down your throat after I rip off your head and fuck your fucking spine.” Iridian’s voice was weak, and it wasn’t coming through her helmet speakers. Adda had never heard her say anything that nasty, at least in the languages her implant translated.

  I’m right outside, Adda subvocalized to Iridian.

  Shit. Stay put and stay quiet.

  A thud drew a groan that was still half a laugh from Iridian. Adda stood in the shadow of another doorway and stared at her comp display, trying to think of a way to help. She had a knife, and that was all.

  Noor had said that he hadn’t accepted Mairie’s demands to supervise it, which meant Mairie still wanted a supervisor. The Marsat ID Noor had made for Adda would let her accept that role. If Adda were supervising Mairie, she’d ask it to cut power or air to the mod, or even bring the Odin Razum here to chase off the person hurting Iridian. Supervising Mairie meant she’d gain control of the station itself, as the intelligence had reminded her when it influenced her before. If she were ever going to accept the intelligence’s invitation to supervise it, now would be the time. She’d use it to protect everyone she cared about, like she had on Barbary and Vesta.

  But Mairie would influence her again. Adda didn’t have to prove her expertise to anyone, and she didn’t have to do everything herself when she had human allies. “Rio,” she said in a voice that her powerlessness rendered stiff and painful, even though, for once, her weakness was by her own choice. “Please get Iridian out of there.”

  Rio drew a knife so huge that Adda would’ve called it a short sword, if Rio had ever expressed any interest in fantasy stories. The anger on her face made Adda step away from her. “Y
eah, I can do that.”

  Rio stood to her full height and strode through the doorway, letting her armored boots make all the noise they usually did when she walked. “What the hell?” the male voice said.

  “Leave her the fuck alone,” Rio growled.

  “Oh shit, she’s ZV Group,” said a second voice. He must’ve recognized Rio’s armor. Both men ran past Adda on the way to the port module.

  Adda had trusted Rio, and Rio had come through without asking Adda for anything. That was more than Mairie was capable of doing. A few months ago, Adda would never have asked a human to do something this important when an intelligence was available to do it instead. She’d been overestimating her ability to resist what the intelligences “wanted” from her in return. That’d almost cost her everything. Letting Rio handle Iridian’s attackers hadn’t been as certain a victory as enlisting Mairie’s help would’ve been, but it’d only cost Adda her prospective control of the situation. Really, that was a small price.

  Once the men’s footsteps faded, Adda hurried into the room. Iridian sat propped against a wall beside a cracked and empty pseudo-organic tank. Her helmet lay a meter away with the faceplate shattered. The rest of her suit looked dented but intact. Her face was bloody and her new shield lay discarded in a corner of the room, but she still grinned tiredly when she rocked her head back to look at Adda. “Hey, babe.”

  “Oh gods,” Adda whispered. “Are you . . . ?” Of course she wasn’t all right.

  “Noor got me good in the face.” Iridian gestured toward a swollen bruise on her cheek. “Strong, for a nerd, or that helmet’s even worse than I thought.”

  “I blame the helmet.” Rio still looked furious. She took a few steps toward the door like she was going to follow the men out, but she stopped in the doorway. “Noor swung at me, too, and mine held up fine.”

  On the floor, Iridian pushed herself into a more upright position against the wall and grimaced. “He said something about—” A gasp of pain interrupted her, and she shut her eyes while she finished, “Having to tell the AIs we’re leaving for Ceres.”

  Rio swore. Without the certificate needed for Kanti to fix Adda’s implant’s vulnerability, she was still as vulnerable to the intelligences as she had been on Vesta. Now Casey might be waiting for them outside Jupiter’s magnetic field, knowing exactly where to find them when they left Yăo.

  “Next thing I knew, I was chatting with those fans who saw all that trial coverage on the news.” Iridian touched her jaw and head gingerly, though what she’d feel through her armored gloves Adda couldn’t guess. When she reached out, Adda caught her arm gently with both of hers. “Help me out of here?” Iridian asked. “I’ve seen enough of them for today.” Rio and Adda pulled Iridian to her feet. “I didn’t want . . . I’m sorry, babe.”

  “Oh gods, I don’t care.” Adda retrieved Iridian’s new shield. It was heavier than the original, but it collapsed into its carrying configuration the same way the old one had. After she affixed it to the belt on Iridian’s suit, Rio slid an arm behind Iridian’s back, holding Iridian upright against her side. “I don’t even care what you’re apologizing for.”

  “Get the helmet, too,” Iridian said.

  “It’s garbage,” said Rio.

  “We can replace the faceplate,” said Iridian. “Cheaper that way.”

  Adda picked up the helmet while Rio eased Iridian through the doorway and into the hall. Iridian grabbed the doorframe and stopped them before they’d made much progress toward the port module. “We still have to find him. He knows we’re going after the certificate,” Iridian said. “Maybe the AIs do too, now.”

  “And Biometallic, and the ITA,” said Adda. If Casey wanted to stop her from fixing the security flaw in her implant’s software, then getting Biometallic to remove the backdoor Noor had put in their system and increase their station’s security would be an effective way to do that. Telling the ITA they were returning to Ceres would meet the same objective, because they had to be physically near the library they wanted to access.

  “Or maybe he didn’t tell them everything,” Rio said. “He hates to explain how his tricks work.”

  Iridian’s nod was more of an uncomfortable-looking roll of her head. “If they don’t know the whole story yet—”

  “Then it’s worth stopping him to maintain what elements of surprise we can,” Adda said.

  She turned away from the port module. “Rio, can you carry Iridian all the way to the water treatment plant? I’m pretty sure he’s in the workspace generator there.” They were passing more locked doors, projecting laboratory numbers that’d been irrelevant for years.

  “This little lady?” Rio lifted Iridian several centimeters off the floor, still pressed against her side. “Yeah, I’ll manage.”

  “No squeezing!” Iridian wheezed.

  “Sorry.”

  Adda consulted the map on her comp. “If we follow this module far enough, it intersects with the . . . Well, it’s called a physics lab on here, but it’s where people set up the bars Pel likes.”

  “Probably where my fans came from.” Iridian grunted as she stumbled, and Rio caught her. “I took a few hits to the head. How would I know if my implants were fucking up my brain right now?”

  Knowing Iridian, she’d been trying to ignore that fear since her first head injury of the day. Her speech sounded fine and her face looked normal, with no spasming, stiffness, or sagging. “Does anything feel weak, tingly, paralyzed, or numb?” Adda asked her.

  “I wish I was numb right now,” Iridian said. “But no, none of that’s happening.”

  “Hallucinations?”

  Iridian and Rio took a couple of steps before Iridian replied, “Not that I can tell.”

  “I think everything’s intact, then. Tell me if anything starts to feel strange.”

  “All right. There’s an elevator in between, yeah?”

  “It’s a short walk,” Rio said encouragingly to Iridian.

  Iridian groaned and increased her pace, pushing Adda to her regular walking speed. When they reached the elevator, Rio held Iridian upright while Adda called the elevator car. As the car settled on the first floor and the doors opened, a small shoe disappeared through the open hatch in the elevator ceiling. Its floor was littered with food wrappers and a disheveled toy rabbit. It smelled like rotten food. At least whoever lived here had been using the public bathrooms near the end of the mod, hideous though those were.

  Iridian was grimacing like she’d seen the shoe also, or like something in her head hurt more than it had a few minutes ago. “Hey,” she called. “Come out of there. We’re going up and we don’t want to squish you.”

  There was some shuffling on the elevator’s roof and then the sound of small feet on metal, rising. Iridian swore. “I mean it, we’re going up! Right now.” Rio guided her into the elevator. “I’m pressing the up button! You’d better be the fuck out of the way!”

  “Do it,” a child’s voice called from somewhere above them. “You can’t get us.”

  Iridian hesitated for a second, but she did pass her finger through the projected controls. The elevator doors stayed open, but the car moved upward. “I hate this place,” Iridian muttered. “Nothing works and nobody cares.”

  “The elevator works,” Rio pointed out.

  “And we’re the only ones who care.”

  An even smaller voice shouted something from somewhere around Adda’s knees, outside the moving elevator. Adda’s translator didn’t catch it, but it sounded rude. The doors on the upper level were shut, forcing Adda to grasp a biosensor. Theoretically, the Marsat ID Noor had made for her would open it.

  Nothing happened. “Damn it,” Adda said. Children’s laughter echoed up from below. “Rio, try yours. Maybe mine isn’t the right category for this area.”

  Rio’s smallest finger hung off the end of the sensor bar as she grasped it, but the elevator doors slid open. Chuckling, Rio hauled Iridian through. “I wonder what rank that makes Marsat me? Presiden
t? No, Noor would make Wiley president.”

  “Iri, switch to your Marsat ID.” Adda followed them into another hallway lit with dim white thermoplastic lights embedded in the walls. As she watched, the lights shut off and sunsim swelled from where the walls and ceiling met.

  “Did they just get out?” the smaller voice asked in obvious surprise. The older child shushed the younger one as the second-floor doors closed.

  “Remember they’re down there,” Iridian said grimly.

  * * *

  There were fewer influenced people in the pipe-lined hallways than Adda remembered from their first visit to the water treatment plant. All of them smiled, probably in response to the Marsat IDs broadcasting from Adda’s, Rio’s, and Iridian’s comps. The UV lights keeping the plants in the tops of the tanks healthy made the Odin Razum’s teeth glow slightly purple. Several Odin Razum bowed as the three of them stopped in the hallway.

  “What?” asked Iridian.

  “Mairie isn’t using Noor as its supervisor,” Adda said quietly, as if saying so too loudly would remind Mairie of that. “He must have refused to accept that, after the first time it tried to influence him. Or maybe Casey told him not to. Either way, Mairie might try that signal on me again. I’m expecting it, but still . . .”

  “Finally, a fucking break,” said Rio. She raised her voice to address the Odin Razum. “Get out of the gods-damned way so your future supervisor can get to the generator!” Rio let go of Iridian, who staggered but stayed standing, so Rio could use both arms to direct attention to Adda. This time, she was careful not to actually touch Adda. The Odin Razum scattered toward the walls, leaving a wide path into the plant.

  Adda blinked. “Thanks.”

  “Easiest thing I’ve done today.” Rio wrapped an arm around Iridian again, and the three of them entered the treatment plant.

  Iridian somehow seemed to recognize every twisting passageway from the last time they’d been here. Adda would’ve needed a map. They walked slower now, but Iridian seemed confident she knew where they were going. “Tell us if Mairie starts screwing with you,” Iridian said to Adda. “Please.”