The Cosmic City

by Brian K. Lowe

  The only problem was, now that we were in the command center, we could no longer use our weapons.

  In the few fleeting seconds while shock might paralyze them, I took a quick head count: thirteen bridge crew, plus Lobok himself. Those nearest us instinctively moved away, abandoning their posts. I hoped they were important.

  The tableau remained frozen until Lobok slowly rose from his command chair. “I don’t know what you were thinking, but you can’t use those in here.” He moved gradually, as if afraid that we might panic and start shooting regardless. “You’d be in as much danger as anyone.” He motioned to several crew members on our left. “Don’t damage the equipment.”

  The crew unlimbered their staves and spread themselves as much as they could in that space.

  “He has a point,” I said to my companions. I handed my rifle to Maire, who tossed hers and mine out the door. Vanu’A followed suit, and I heaved the body of the dead guard out of the room, leaving the hatch to slide shut at last, all while the Nuum stood in mute amazement. Then I drew the Colt from my pocket and cradling it in both hands, aimed it straight at Lobok, who frowned.

  “What is that thing?”

  “It is called a Colt revolver,” I explained. “It fires a lead pellet at approximately 700 feet per second. It will put a hole in you I could put my fist through.” This, at least, was a lie, but Lobok had no way of knowing that. “And if you do not order your crew to stand down, I will demonstrate.”

  He stared at me for a moment and started to laugh. Then the coward ducked back around his chair and his people attacked.

  I got off one round, and that was nearly enough. I had warned Maire and Vanu’A to cover their ears when they saw the Colt, but the flash and the report had an outsized effect in that room. Even while the man I had shot was staggering backward, a red pool spreading on his tunic, the rest reeled—but that was not going to last. Unwilling to institute mass slaughter, I slipped the pistol back into my self-sealing pocket and plowed into the nearest group of Nuum with my bare hands.

  We were outnumbered almost four-to-one, but Maire and Vanu’A were trained fighters, and I—I was simply the biggest and strongest man in the room. Our greatest limitation was the layout of the command center, making it difficult to move forward against the tide of human flesh that batted at us with hard plastic-metal staves. My ribs were aching with blows I could not block, and my arms from blows that I could.

  I caught glimpses of Maire methodically chopping down crewmembers like trees, but some of them also had martial training, and two of them were trying to back her against a wall. Vanu’A kicks kept her foes at bay, but even she could not anticipate every attack from so many opponents at once. I saw her head rock back from a vicious punch—then I nearly buried by three men and I saw no more.

  I gave great bellow and heaved myself up, throwing one of my foes aside and head-butting another in the stomach. The third received my full attention long enough for me to land a fist, and he troubled me no more. Throwing away everything the Marquis of Queensbury ever taught, I kicked another into a console.

  Like a breaching whale, I surfaced, shaking the sweat from my face, and looked around for more enemies. Suddenly all was quiet. Vanu’A was panting, blood trickling from her lip, and beginning to seep from her scalp. Maire brushed back her hair, looking no more flushed than if she had just finished a rousing game of tennis.

  “I think that was all of them,” I said, surveying the carnage. “Madam, your ship is yours.”

  “It’s not all of them,” she replied grimly. “Lobok got away.”

  Vanu’A swung around. “Where? He couldn’t have gotten out the door…” Her words faded at the end and she touched her head gingerly. She found a chair and sat down, absently kicking a woman who picked that unfortunate moment to try to rise. “I’ll be all right. Give me a minute.”

  “There’s an emergency maintenance hatch down there,” Maire explained, motioning toward the far end of the room. “He’s gone outside.”

  “He went out onto the hull?”

  “There are magnetic boots at every maintenance port. He can walk on the side of the ship.” She stood for a moment, biting her lip. “I can seal the ports from here, but he has the access codes. He’s either going to try to join up with his men, or he’s going to steal a ship from one of the docking bays.” She turned a frantic face to me. “But I don’t know which one! I have to go out there. I have to follow him.”

  I shook my head. “We need you here. Neither of us knows anything about this ship—and we have a roomful of prisoners.”

  “I can take care of the prisoners,” Vanu’A said faintly. “I can keep them asleep.”

  “See?” Maire asked me. “And you don’t have to pilot the ship, just hold onto until our men get here.” She took my tunic in both hands and pulled me in. “Please. He destroyed the Celestial. I can’t let him get away.”

  The fact that she would let me stop her made me decide to let her go. I kissed her hard and pushed her toward the hatch.

  “Be careful!” I called, for all the good that it would do, but she was gone.

  I turned to Vanu’A with a wan smile on my face. She was starting to look more alert, but I resolved to inspect her scalp wound and treat it if I could. Surely they would keep a medical kit in here…

  One of the consoles began to beep with a soft but urgent tone. I began looking around for a flashing light that might tell me where it was coming from, but there were hundreds of lights, colored bands, and glowing switches to choose from.

  “What is that? What does it mean?”

  As if on cue, a soft feminine voice—my wife’s voice—announced, “There is an unscheduled departure from landing bay four. I repeat, there is an unscheduled departure from landing bay four.”

  “Lobok?” I asked Vanu’A. She shook her head, then groaned softly and held her had to the side of her skull.

  “No… I don’t think he’s had time. Somebody else is leaving.” She broke off and we stared at each other, a cold realization arising in our hearts.

  “Farren…” we said together.

  My greatest enemy was fleeing the ship for parts unknown, and I was powerless to do anything about it.

  Chapter 55

  Battle on the Surface of the Sky

  Maire

  For as long as I’ve known him, my husband has been the king of the foolhardy chance. And yet every time, he had won out against all reason and all odds. So when the opportunity to match him came up, who was I to say no?

  I forgot the “foolhardy” part.

  The first thing I noticed was that those magnetic boots were heavy. Lifting my feet out of the hatch and onto the hull was hard work, although after I got out there, it was easier. They were designed to slide across the hull so that you never had to hang by one foot. The wisdom of this design made itself very clear when I noticed the second thing: that I was suddenly standing at a forty-five degree angle at an altitude of at least eight thousand feet and those boots were the only things that kept me from taking a very long dive. It was like standing on the surface of the sky.

  The third thing I noticed was two-fold: it was cold out here, and hard to breathe. The Procyon was moving and the wind of its passage blew dust in my eyes. I was suddenly dizzy and I rocked back and forth waving my arms crazily for a few seconds before I was able to focus on the hull and put both hands down to steady myself.

  Yes, both hands, because it was only now that I remembered how we had thrown all of our weapons out the control room hatch, and I had lost my fighting-stick in the control room. At that moment, the urge to surrender to common sense and climb back into the Procyon almost overwhelmed me. After all, what if something did happen and they needed a pilot? I might be the only one who could keep the Procyon from crashing and killing everyone on board.

  And that stopped me. The thing I was most afraid of was the very thing that Lobok had done to the Celestial. My ship. My friends.

  I straightened up, and scan
ned the surface of the ship until I saw him, skating to save his life. It wasn’t going to do him any good. I knew in my heart that, cold, panting, and bare-handed, I was going to kill that son of a bitch.

  The hull was pockmarked with depressions from sensor suites, weapons, and communications dishes. It was a forest of handholds designed to aid the maintenance crews, taking the strain off their legs as they dangled and providing safety if a boot were lost or malfunctioned. Skating through this obstacle course required attention and hours of practice.

  I didn’t care. I just took off.

  The cold helped; when I clipped a handhold, I barely felt it. And I was so focused on breathing I forgot to be scared, even though what I was doing was completely insane. I was going too fast. If I hit something head on, or didn’t see a hole coming, the boots could lose their grip and there wouldn’t be time to grab a handhold. But Lobok was getting closer. In fact, he was close enough now that he’d hear me if I shouted. But I didn’t have the air to shout and I kept my mental shields locked down tight until I was right behind him, and then I screamed in his ear with every ounce of rage I could muster.

  It almost ended right then. He jumped nearly out of his skin, so hard his boots actually lost contact with the surface for a split second, but he had already reached a hatchway and he had one hand on a metal rail, and that saved him.

  He tried to turn around, but I was pummeling him right and left, back, shoulders, neck, and head. That worked to his advantage. He hunkered down like a turtle until all I could reach was his back and shoulders. I couldn’t kick him because my feet were stuck to the hull, and he was big, not like Keryl, but bigger than me, and I wasn’t hurting him.

  Lobok used his leverage on the railing to spin around and away from me, and he hit me with his free arm, knocking me backward. I kept my knees bent and only slid a little, but it gave him a chance to confront me.

  Under normal circumstances, I would have bet I could take him. I could see he didn’t have the stance of an unarmed fighter, but he outweighed me and had a longer reach—and I couldn’t use my feet, which would have compensated. On the other hand, he needed more oxygen than I did, and he’d been out here longer. I was already exhausted; how did he feel? Was it going to come down to an endurance test? Gods only knew how that would turn out.

  His eyes shifted from me to the hatch and back to me. He didn’t need to kill me, or even stop me, just fend me off long enough to get into that hatch. He could probably scramble it from the inside, and even if I reached another one, it would be too late to catch him. On the other hand, I was out for blood, and he was smart enough to know it.

  Did he want the same, or would he settle for escape?

  He slammed his free hand down on the hull and began to press his fingers in a pattern. The hatch was starting to open when I reached him and he lunged at the last moment, catching me with his body to fling me back again.

  But this time I was having none of it. I wrapped my arms around him and rammed my forehead into his nose. His head shot back, blood spraying in the wind, and he grabbed my arms with a grunt and cast me aside. I spun in mid-air, then hit with a jolt as my boots clanged on contact with the hull. The force bent me backward, but the boots held and Lobok was too busy wiping blood from his eyes to follow on.

  I pushed forward but he retreated down the hull, miraculously evading obstacles until he was able to right himself and pick up speed. We were nearly moving vertically now. I could see now he was faster than I was, his legs longer. My legs would barely cooperate when I ordered them after him, and I thought I could hear my heartbeat pounding over the wind.

  Lobok suddenly changed course until he was directly below me, and halted, stooping again. He’d found another hatch already. I could not skate fast enough to stop him this time.

  What would Keryl do?

  The inspiration and the action came so close together that I finally understood how he managed it: Act before you think. In an instant, I had loosened my boots—

  —and in another I was free-falling down the side of the Procyon directly at Lobok.

  Chapter 56

  Air Pursuit

  “You have to go after him.”

  Vanu’A was putting up a brave face, but I had to wonder how long it could last.

  “No. An officer’s obligation is to his men, not personal vengeance.” When in doubt, hide it behind a façade of duty. “Let me look at that cut on your head.”

  She twisted away from my questing fingers. “Are you crazy? That’s Farren. The man who killed my father. I can’t go after him, I know that, but you can.” She waved at the unconscious crew around us. “They won’t wake up until I tell them.”

  I sighed in frustration. I wanted to go—by God, I wanted to go. And she would be safe behind the fortified door…

  “Even if I could leave you, there could a hundred Nuum outside with laser rifles. I—”

  “Admiral? This is Lieutenant Lecaudia. Can you hear me, sir?”

  I hit the door controls so fast I could hardly remember moving. The hatch slid aside to reveal my aide backed by a full troop of sailors, some of them sporting burned uniforms and scratched faces, but alive and armed. And smiling.

  “We did it, sir! The ship is ours!”

  “Great!” I slapped him on the shoulder and pushed into the crowd. “Get a medical team in there. And get out of my way!” I started to run, then faltered, turning back to him. “Lecaudia! Seal all the docking doors!” And I was off again before he could acknowledge me.

  Although the ship was technically mine, I had never had time to learn how to get around it, especially at a full sprint. Without the Librarian, I would have been lost, but he directed me to the nearest hangar bay, four sleek, gleaming craft lined up for my own use. These were not shuttles; they could only be fighters. I had no idea we even had them. I boarded the first in line and snapped the Library into the control console’s universal socket. The Librarian materialized immediately.

  “After all this time, the systems remain the same,” he murmured. “Departure permission granted.” The ship floated into the air and the great doors cycled open. With computer precision, the Librarian piloted us out with so little clearance I could have sworn we left paint behind. “Data relayed from the Procyon shows a shuttle bearing forty-three degrees from true north. Adjusting for intercept course.” The distant clouds outside the viewport shifted suddenly and I fancied I could feel the push of increased acceleration, although I knew it was only an illusion. I tried to get a glimpse of the Procyon, to see if I could spy Maire, but we were moving too fast.

  “Can you tell where Farren is headed?”

  “His present course will take him to Xattaña. If that is his destination, we should catch him south of the city.”

  “Xattaña?” I echoed. “I thought you said we were heading north. Where are we?”

  “The Procyon was en route to Dure when you teleported onto her. We would have arrived later today.”

  Of course. It made sense. With so much of the crew locked down, Farren would have needed reinforcements, and where else was he to get them?

  Apparently, he thought he might also obtain assistance in Xattaña. I thought about his smug assurance that he could exert so much influence over the Council of Nobles because of what he knew about them. Holding the secret of the horrors of the river plain would have suited his purposes admirably.

  My only hope now was to overtake him before he could reach the city. With the Librarian coaxing every bit of speed and slicing off every inch of distance that he could, I might do it. But if I failed, what then? I could hardly storm the city alone…

  The Librarian’s soft voice interrupted my thoughts. “You have been very good for them, you know.”

  I knit my eyebrows. “Who?”

  “The Nuum. And the Thorans, obviously, but especially the Nuum.”

  “Me? I started a revolution, invaded their city, and tried to turn their civilization upside- down. And that was only the first time I
was here. Since then I started wars with the klurath and now the Utopians. At least half the Council of Nobles wants to kill me.”

  He smiled indulgently. “You are too hard on yourself. The klurath had already started their war when you found them, and the Utopians have been planning for three hundred years. Going to war with the Nuum—or the humans, in the kluraths’ case—was their entire reason for living. And despite what you think, half the Council does not want you dead.” He winked. “They all want you dead. You are an unknown, an instability.”

  “Unstable,” I mused. “Yes, that about sums it up.”

  “They needed you, all of them. Why do you think the Utopians’ technology surpasses the Nuum? The Nuum have hardly had an original thought since they landed here.”

  “All right, I can see what you are saying. The Utopians’ technology comes from what the Thorans had when the Nuum landed. Before that, the Thorans were highly advanced. I can see where I might have helped them.”

  “Can you? As you said, the Thorans were well-equipped technologically when the Nuum arrived. You have seen their weapons, and they outnumbered the invaders by orders of magnitude.”

  “So why did they lose?” I steepled my fingers as I thought. “Were the Nuum right all along? Did the Thorans just roll over?”

  “I was there when it happened, of course. History did unfold the way Lady Maire was taught, although the story has been edited. Three hundred years ago, the Thorans had the wherewithal to fight off the Nuum, but they had gotten lazy. They had lost any interest in exploration or travel, and most of their interest in each other. They were selfish and fragmented. Does this sound familiar to you?”

  It did, and now history was about to repeat itself, as the Nuum returned again.

  “Charles,” the Librarian said, his tone shifting abruptly, “please do not be alarmed. We are being telepathically scanned.”