Eternity's End

by Jeffrey Carver

  Fre'geel was there with Palagren. "We're going to get underway today," Fre'geel told him, looking up from the captain's console.

  "So soon?" Legroeder asked in surprise.

  "We can't keep drifting. We've pulled enough nav data from their library to get us going in the right general direction. How are you doing at persuading our prisoner to help us?"

  Legroeder hesitated. "I've started to get to know him a little. He's not eager to go back, that's for sure. And I can't promise he won't betray us if we do make it to their base. And yet..."

  "What, Rigger Legroeder?"

  He scratched his jaw thoughtfully. "Well, he has no love of the Kyber, that's for sure. I believe he might actually have some sympathy for our cause."

  Fre'geel's eyes gleamed. "Did he tell you this?"

  Legroeder shook his head. "Not in so many words. It's something I sensed. A feeling."

  "A feeling," Fre'geel echoed. He studied Legroeder for a few dozen heartbeats. "Very well, Rigger. Today we will fly with our own crew and see how we do. But afterward, you will continue in your efforts to secure Deutsch's cooperation." Fre'geel made a burring sound. "And you will report to me on your progress."

  Legroeder nodded. "He was a free man taken prisoner, same as me. I think we can talk."

  "Let us hope so." Fre'geel turned to the other waiting riggers. "Take your stations, then."

  * * *

  The two ships parted in silence, in the Flux. H'zzarrelik fell astern of the captured pirate ship, drifting in the gently flowing current. Soon the Narseil ship looked like a toy model behind them, small and silver in the orange mists.

  The Narseil ship, piloted by her secondary crew, would follow Flechette for a time. Later, as they drew closer to the raider base, H'zzarrelik would vanish into hiding in the mists of the Flux, monitoring Flechette's progress as best they could with long-range instruments. If Flechette got into trouble, there was little the Narseil ship could do to help. H'zzarrelik's mission was to await Fre'geel's team's return—or a transmission of data—and to safeguard the information already captured. Efforts to contact the nearest Narseil Navy ship for a transfer of prisoners had proved unsuccessful, so the return of H'zzarrelik was crucial. If Flechette failed to make contact or reappear, H'zzarrelik would slip away like a spirit in the night and carry the existing data and prisoners back to the Narseil authorities.

  To say that Flechette and her Narseil crew were expendable would have been an extraordinary understatement.

  Legroeder tried not to dwell on that, as they flew deeper into Golen Space, and farther from any possible help. Palagren was humming in the net before him, seemingly unconcerned with danger. In the keel, Ker'sell muttered darkly to himself. Neither of them had said a word to Legroeder about their thoughts on trusting Deutsch. But Legroeder could guess what they were thinking.

  They flew through streamers of cloud that morphed slowly from something out of a bright, sunny afternoon to a sky full of scattered thunderstorms. They cautiously skirted the dark weather. They were still learning the ways of this ship, and didn't want to push too hard, too fast.

  Still, Legroeder was relieved when they set the stabilizers and left the net to the backup crew of Narseil riggers for station-keeping.

  * * *

  According to the guard at the door, Deutsch had not emerged from his cabin since Legroeder had left. "Unless he snuck out through the ventilation system," the Narseil commando said huskily, with an unreadable expression. Humor? Legroeder wondered.

  He signaled at the door. When there was no answer, he pressed the handle. The door slid open and he stepped in, blinking in the gloom. The room smelled like a sauna. "Freem'n?" The only light came from the ruby crystal in the hands of the Kyber rigger. Deutsch was sitting exactly where Legroeder had left him; he seemed not to have moved a muscle. But the crystal in his hands was glowing far more brightly than before, casting a blood-red glow over Deutsch's half-metal face.

  "Freem'n?"

  There was a long pause. Finally he saw a shift in the pirate rigger's gaze—not the main eyes, but the two peripheral-vision eyes atop his cheekbones. Just behind them, the augments on his temples were flickering erratically.

  The voice-speakers crackled, "Rigger Legroeder."

  "Yes. Are you all right?"

  "No," said Deutsch, with a series of clicks.

  "Do you need help?"

  For a long moment, Deutsch sat utterly still. Legroeder was wondering whether to call for medical aid when Deutsch spoke again. "How sure are you that you want to do this thing, going back to our base?"

  Legroeder turned up his hands. "There are no if's about it. That's why we came."

  Though Deutsch's eyes were inexpressive, something in the shape of his mouth conveyed pain. "I do not wish to go back to that life," he said finally.

  "Neither do I," said Legroeder. "That's why we're going. To take some action against it."

  "And... you hope to learn something about that ship, yes? Impris?"

  "Yes." Legroeder hesitated. "And we have reason to believe there are people at your outpost sympathetic to our cause."

  Deutsch's lips pursed. "Your commander spoke of an underground movement."

  "Which we hope to contact. But regardless, we'll continue our mission." Legroeder cleared his throat. "I have to know what to tell the commander. Will you cooperate?"

  Deutsch sighed. When he spoke, his voice was ponderous, as though he were deep in thought. "It's the strangest thing. I feel as though... for reasons I don't entirely understand... I may be meant to do this thing with you. I don't know why. Or how. But the feeling... comes from deep within."

  Legroeder blinked in surprise.

  "I've been giving the matter considerable thought," Deutsch continued. "And I've reached a decision."

  "And that would be?"

  Deutsch's breath came in a strained sigh, even as his voice reverberated from the speakers. "I hope it's not a foolish one. But I will help you get to the outpost. And after that, I'll... well, I'm not sure, exactly. Perhaps I can help you gain your information."

  Legroeder stared at him in amazement. "What made you change your mind?"

  "Don't ask."

  Legroeder raised his eyebrows.

  "Don't ask," repeated the rigger, his temples pulsing with light.

  "I have to ask. We have to know that we can trust you."

  Deutsch breathed in and out a few times. "Let's just say... I think it is intended. And besides—" his facial muscles twitched "—I don't want to be returned as a prisoner. If you win, I want to be on your side. And if you don't—I'd just as soon get it over with. They can smoke us all."

  Legroeder scowled as he inclined his head in acknowledgment.

  * * *

  Legroeder and the Narseil kept a close eye on Deutsch in the following days. Legroeder knew that if anyone was going to notice any deceptiveness or backsliding, it had better be him. Deutsch's support seemed genuine, as he guided the riggers in the net—not enthusiastic, perhaps, but determined. While Legroeder wondered at the inner forces that had caused Deutsch to agree to cooperate, the result seemed to be decisive.

  In the ensuing days, Legroeder spent considerable time in conversation with the pirate rigger, and began to feel that he was gaining some sense of the man. Deutsch was somber, almost fatalistic in his determination to lead the ship back to port; he somehow looked as if his years of captivity were a leaden weight on his shoulders. Nevertheless, Legroeder had the oddest feeling that Deutsch was a man who, under other circumstances, would probably laugh a good deal. Legroeder found himself wanting to hear Deutsch laugh.

  With input from Deutsch on what to expect when they reached Outpost Ivan, the Narseil commander and crew began to refine the plans for their arrival. According to Deutsch, one thing in their favor—if their goal was to get in, get information, and get out—was the modular design of the Kyber docks. It was at least theoretically possible to take control of an isolated docking center and hold it—if
they were lucky, without tripping system-wide alarms—while they did their spying and tried to contact the Kyber underground. The hope was for a nonviolent contact, but it was a modest hope. The Narseil commando teams were already in full-scale rehearsal for a docking-port capture, which was how they would proceed if they hadn't made friendly contact prior to docking. Contingency plans were also being shaped up for Legroeder's role in the event the Narseil were captured.

  In the net, the riggers continued flying in formation with H'zzarrelik. At times, the clouds turned an eerie green, like a sky ripe for tornadoes. Though no whirlwinds actually appeared, Legroeder was constantly aware that this region of the Flux could contain many surprises. When the image changed to a nighttime scene, as it did from time to time, he could just discern the ghostly Wall of the Barrier Nebula towering over them. They were venturing ever deeper into the forbidden realms of Golen Space, farther than he had ever gone in this direction.

  He found himself thinking of Maris, and wondering if she was still alive. Had either one of them, in the end, really escaped? It was a sobering thought, and he flew for hours after that in a very dark frame of mind.

  * * *

  The Narseil commander paced back and forth in the briefing room as Palagren and Cantha reported privately on their progress so far. Fre'geel was burning to hear what his own people thought of the work of the two humans together. He trusted Legroeder—mostly, anyway—but had a suspicion that the human might be prone, when in doubt, to presenting an overly optimistic view of his own work. And there had to be some doubt about Deutsch, no matter how cooperative he appeared.

  Palagren expressed cautious optimism about the performance of the joint rigger crew.

  "Nothing to suggest that Deutsch is hiding anything from you?" Fre'geel asked.

  "Well, he's not shown us the whole of the route to the outpost. But that would be difficult to do, anyway. He seems to be feeling his way through." Palagren stroked the side of his head with a long fingertip. "I believe him when he says that the Flux is highly changeable throughout the area, and the way in is a little different each time."

  Fre'geel blew air through his gills. He resisted an urge to scratch the neck-sail behind his head. Recently out of the gel bandage, his neck-sail was still healing, and it itched ferociously. The makeshift mist-chambers they'd set up on the pirate ship were no substitute for proper Narseil pools. Fre'geel envied the crew still aboard H'zzarrelik. He turned to Cantha. "What's your view?"

  Cantha, as a rigger-science researcher who was not himself a rigger, had a more objective if less intimate view of what was going on in the net and the Flux, and of what they might expect as they approached their perilous destination. "It appears to me," Cantha said, "that Rigger Deutsch is performing well with our crew. The question is whether he's doing so because he's really decided to join us, or because he's hoping to earn a bonus for turning us all in the moment we arrive."

  Which of course was precisely what worried Fre'geel. How could they know whether to trust this man? There were myriad justifications for believing him—he was a captive like Legroeder, he hated the pirates, there could be a link between his augments and the underground, and so on—but what it really came down to in the end was deciding whether or not to trust him. Fre'geel turned back to Palagren. "Could he hide it from you in the net, if he were planning to betray us in the end?"

  Palagren answered carefully. "If he were like Legroeder, I would say no. Legroeder has a clearly defined personality, which as far as I can tell has not been greatly altered by his augments. But with Deutsch—who knows? He's been augmented for a long time. His augments may be able to conceal what his natural personality could not."

  "That sounds more like blind trust than I care to risk our mission on," Fre'geel said, with some edge in his voice. He turned to see Ker'sell joining them. "What do you think about it?"

  Ker'sell didn't surprise him. "I think that he's a human on a Narseil mission, and we can trust him to act like a human." The blandness in Ker'sell's voice belied the distrust they knew he felt—even toward Legroeder, whom he'd had plenty of time to get to know.

  "Meaning what?" said Fre'geel.

  "Meaning, as far as I'm concerned, there's no telling what he'll do," answered the dour rigger.

  Palagren's narrow eyes winked shut momentarily. "I see no choice, really. We have to trust Legroeder to be attuned to the possibility of betrayal by Deutsch. If he doesn't detect it, we probably won't, either."

  "And that's the real question, isn't it?" Fre'geel asked. "Can we trust Legroeder to observe accurately?"

  "Aren't we already trusting him with more than that?" asked Cantha. "If things go wrong, we're practically counting on him to take over the mission for us. I'm sure he's not eager for that to happen. But he accurately spotted the Kyber attack coming before any of us had a clue. And his instincts got us out of trouble in the fight. So shouldn't we trust him to think clearly now?"

  Fre'geel puffed his gills and stared off into space for a long time, leaving the question unanswered.

  * * *

  When Deutsch reported that they were nearing the general region of the outpost, they signaled farewell to H'zzarrelik and watched the Narseil ship slip out of sight behind them. H'zzarrelik had sophisticated Narseil tracking equipment, so there was some chance that her crew would know where Flechette was, long after the converse was no longer true. While Flechette approached the raider outpost, H'zzarrelik would be listening—silently, like a sub at the bottom of the sea.

  The raider ship, under Deutsch's guidance, flew through a series of gray clouds—and for a time, something like rain came through the air in sleeting gusts. They emerged to find themselves winding along an ocean coastline, at the altitude of a small airplane. Deutsch flew in the lead position at the bow, threading them this way and that along the intricate filigrees of coastline, occasionally obscured by wisps of cloud. Without my old crew, the whole sense of the place is different, he said. I have to feel my way into it. But a few minutes later, he added, I think I've found it. I'm looking for an updraft now.

  To look, Legroeder thought, is to find. Soon they were rising through a skyscape of mountain-shaped clouds that gradually stretched out in flattened angles until they looked like outstretched arms of coral. When they finally topped the clouds, they entered a sky filled with streamers of white sunlight, like an artist's vision of Heaven.

  There, said Deutsch.

  Where? Where's the entrance?

  Deutsch almost managed a chuckle. Think of this as camouflage over the door. You'll see, as we go through.

  The sun bloomed into a sinking, crimson orb, as Deutsch nosed the ship down again. The sky darkened.

  We still okay? Legroeder asked.

  More than okay. We're going through the door.

  The sun gradually diffused to a burnt, reddish-orange, subterranean glow, ominous against the darkness. The change took Legroeder's breath away, and he glanced at Palagren, who was stirring with obvious unease. We are close now, said Deutsch.

  Legroeder's heart began to pound.

  They flew into the glow, with darkness above and darkness below. Legroeder found it comforting to imagine he was gazing through a thick brown beer bottle into a bright candle flame. But as he thought of the danger ahead, the vision turned to a more perilous one, the fire of a smoldering volcano.

  Very close, said Deutsch. Now. He nosed the ship into a layer of almost impenetrable darkness. Palagren muttered worriedly, and Legroeder wondered if he should intervene. But to do what? He waited breathlessly, in near darkness. Only tiny, gleaming position markers at the edges of the net interrupted the night. Almost there, said Deutsch.

  And then Legroeder saw it: the burnt-orange glow reappearing from the gloom, but as a series of vertical striations. He had trouble interpreting the perspective: one moment it was a background of dying-fire light, with black columns before it; the next it was columns of living fire, standing watch over passages of darkness; then, with a disconce
rting reversal, it was again pillars of darkness guarding passages into great depths of fire.

  Are those actual openings in the Flux? Palagren asked softly.

  Indeed, said Deutsch.

  It's very strange, whispered Legroeder. Is it a natural formation? Or is it... manmade? He'd seen navigational buoys in the Flux, but never anything as elaborate as this.

  A little of both, said Deutsch. Structure imposed on natural features. You'll see it better soon. Instruct your com operator to be ready to send the authorization code I gave him.

  Legroeder passed on the message to Cantha, with growing trepidation. They were approaching a critical moment, and Fre'geel would likely have to make a split-second decision, depending upon the response to their transmission. Would the authorization code get them the clearance they needed, or would it get them blown to kingdom come? Would the underground pick up on it? The message would contain a reference to an encounter with the Narseil navy. If the underground was monitoring arrivals, that ought to alert them. But even so, there would be little time for response.

  Freem'n, Legroeder said sharply, where exactly are we now? Have we reached the outer perimeter? In the last few moments, the structure ahead had brightened until it seemed to vibrate almost to the point of inducing vertigo.

  Reaching it now, said Deutsch. Transmit the contact and ident code.

  Fre'geel acknowledged.

  Any answer?

  Autoresponse only, reported Cantha.

  All right. I'm taking us toward one of the outer docks for damaged-ship arrivals, Deutsch said.

  I don't see any docks, said Legroeder.

  Then watch carefully, if you want to see how this works.

  Legroeder grunted. In the keel and top gun, the two Narseil were stirring anxiously. Now was the time when any reasonable scenario would have them bringing the ship out of the Flux into normal-space. Deutsch had told them it wouldn't happen that way, but hearing it described wasn't the same as experiencing it.