by Robert Reed
Perri nodded and weakly sat up.
“Whatever it was … you thought it might have climbed up that wall, into one of the Old Caves …”
“It hadn’t,” he replied. Then with a sad shake of the head, Perri added, “It was a spurious trace. My machine’s fault, and mine.”
“I don’t trust machines myself.” Something about that statement was terribly humorous. The old boy threw down his shovel and laughed for a long while, stopping only when Perri had recovered enough to stand on his own.
“The Sword’s already gone past,” Perri observed.
“While you were coming out of the Caves, yes.”
“Is that what started the avalanche?”
“Hardly.”
Off in the remote distance, the cavern came to an abrupt end. A strong glassy wall stood where there should be nothing but bright air and white clouds. The Sword’s fantastic motion and the wild energies had created an alloy of molten hyperfiber and gaseous rock. What remained could be kilometers thick, chaotic and impermeable and very tough. The new wall looked cold and rigid, but distances were misleading. Perri assumed that the Sword was now slicing into Marrow, reaching for whatever lay at its core, that irresistible marriage of purpose and fire carving out the heart of the ship.
“How long ago?” he asked.
“Did that machine pass?”
“A few minutes?”
Another laugh filled the air. “No, no. It’s been ages longer than that. You were dead ten different ways, and I found you and unburied you, and now I’ve been watching your goo turn back to fake flesh—”
“How long?”
“Thirty hours, nearly.”
Perri didn’t know what to say.
But his savior could guess the next questions. With a nod and a yellowy grin, he explained, “Someone managed to turn the Sword at the last moment. The captains, or somebody convinced that damned machine to twist sideways and miss the core, cutting its way out the trailing hemisphere and off into space somewhere. To die, we can hope.”
Washen had done it, thought Perri. Against very long odds, she had managed to save the Great Ship.
He said as much, almost cheering.
The luddite preferred amused silence.
For the first time, Perri tried to walk.
His savior watched him and smiled, and after Perri’s first careful steps, he asked, “Anything feel a little odd?”
“Everything does,” Perri replied.
Then he hesitated. “What am I supposed to feel?”
“‘Every man is as heavy as his burdens,’” the man sang out, quoting some old luddite text.
“What do you mean? My weight?” Perri bent his new knees and then stood again. Then he stared at jumbled rocks and the raw, exposed hillside, and with a building astonishment, he asked, “What triggered the avalanche?”
“The ship.”
“How?”
“Well, the whole great gal was moving.” The old face broke into a wild, raucous laugh. “Like never before, the ship shook and twisted, and quite a bit more than that, too …”
Perri considered the words.
“‘Every man is as heavy as his burdens,’” the man repeated. “After the shaking stopped, something about this world felt different, and I wanted to know what. may be a primitive man, but I’m not stupid. It only took me a full day and a hundred tests to decipher—”
“What’s changed?”
“Everything has grown heavier,” the luddite proclaimed “I’ve checked my conclusion on three scales, testing my own body as well as known masses. Over the course of the last thirty hours, I have become more robust by a little less than half a kilogram.”
“What do you mean?” Perri sputtered.
Then, “I don’t believe you.”
The luddite took no offense. With a shrug and a big wink, he simply said, “But that makes perfect sense. If this ship of ours is accelerating now.”
Accelerating how? The engines were dead, and the ship was sliced into two pieces, and Perri hadn’t heard so much as a hum out of any of his waiting nexuses since he came back to the living—
Oh, shit.
He dropped to his knees, as if struck in the belly.
“I’m not the oldest fellow in the world,” his companion admitted “And I’m not the brightest by a long ways. But judging by the evidence, I’d say … and with a certain amount of confidence … that after a very long sleep, the Great Ship has found her true engines, and she is once again, at long last, under way … !”
O’Layle sought her out, and with a mixture of astonishment and giddy pleasure, he reported, “The guards are talking about leaving. And they might leave the doors open for us, unless they do not. In either case, I think we can slip out before long.”
Mere nodded.
“You look well,” he lied.
She still had only a mortal body repaired in haste, and she remained far from healthy Rebuilding her immortal genes would take patience and talent, neither of which she had at her disposal just now.
“What’s wrong?” her companion inquired.
Mere stared at him with huge wise eyes.
“We weren’t obliterated by the polypond,” O’Layle reminded her. “We beat the creature in the end—”
“And she is sitting on our hull still.”
“And here we are, still completely alive. Which is why I don’t see the need for gloom.”
“The ship is accelerating,” she replied.
“Slowly” he countered.
But at a considerably faster rate than anything known before. Mere could have told him that much, and she could have spoken for days about the consequences of this one unexpected event. Even at their best, the Great Ship’s engines were weaklings next to this kind of energy production. But then again, maybe what they had always considered to be the engines were nothing more than maneuvering rockets. Had anyone ever bothered to wonder—?
“The ship still functions,” O’Layle continued. “We have good air and clean water, which is a testament to the machine’s capacity to endure.” Then he threw out his chest, adding, “We both know something about enduring, I think.”
Mere was weak. When she stood up, as she did now, she could feel the slight but insistent tug that was trying to pull her sideways. It occurred to her that this was as much acceleration as the ship could endure without disrupting lives and the flow of vital fluids. Gravity still dominated, but those inside the leading face would feel heavier than before. Those under the trailing face would feel lighter. And those like her, standing near one of the ports, would feel a delicate hand always shoving them sideways.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
O’Layle laughed at her.
“But there is a better question,” he warned.
Mere looked down. In her hand, slick and a little heavy, was the timepiece that Washen had slipped to her. Just a few days ago, it happened. Yet the event seemed very distant now, while a million other, far better days felt as if they had ended just half a moment ago.
“Who is in charge now?” she asked.
“Precisely” he gushed.
Mere looked up. She breathed in and held the breath, and after a long moment, she asked, “Have you seen any captains?”
“Not one.”
“Who then?”
“No one. Myself, I have only seen our guards.”
“Tell me.”
He had to smile, enjoying the suspense. Then with a little tip of the head, O’Layle told her, “They are being spotted, here and there. Back from extinction, and looking the place over, I’d imagine. Now that they’re the ones in charge—”
“Who?”
“They haven’t given a name yet,” he admitted. “But then, the !eech were never the most outspoken of souls.”
Mere absorbed the news.
“But isn’t that the best news?” O’Layle had to ask. “You and I … we know this species, and we have worked well with them, in the past … and pro
bably in the future too, I would think …”
A narrow finger opened the silver lid of the timepiece, great brown eyes staring at the moving arms and silent numbers. Then after another little while, Mere put on a smile, and she lifted her gaze, and quietly she said, “So tell me. How exactly can we slip out and away?”
“Contingencies,” Pamir said. Then with a rumbling tone, he added, “Two centuries of making ready modeling and planning, and we still didn’t imagine anything quite like this.”
His companion refused to respond.
No matter. He led her down the hallway, on foot, watching the back of one of Osmium’s favorite sons. It was only the three of them slipping into Port Alpha. The rest of the security team were elsewhere, making their presence obvious. At a juncture with another hallway, they paused. No one else was visible. Two sealed doors and a hundred meters of open floor were all that remained between him and his goal now.
“Twice,” the woman muttered.
“I know.”
“I have lost the ship two times now.”
Pamir showed her the barest hint of compassion, then swept it away with a glare. “We lost it for you, this time. Washen did. I did. But if you think any of us could have predicted this mess …”
The mess remained too enormous to measure. But clearly the Great Ship had survived the polypond. Others had taken hold of the helm, and by incomprehensible means, they had twisted the ship slightly. Feeling an irresistible pressure, the damaged Sword was warped, and with twenty Earth masses bearing down on its cutting edge, its blade had slipped sideways. In the end, it cut the Great Ship into two unequal pieces, doing untold damage in the process. But the core and Marrow were spared And in any other scenario, that would be a good enough reason to celebrate.
But in the midst of one attack, another enemy had risen. And with an ease that terrified every captain, the nexuses were disabled, while the reactors and pumps, and the waste disposal and environmental controls, were each being stolen away by quick hands that still refused to show themselves.
Reaching the first door, Pamir paused. Using a simple radio transmitter, he said, “Status?”
“We still have control,” Aasleen said through a clutter of static.
“I need a door opened.”
“Isn’t it?”
Pamir turned to the harum-scarum. “Burn it open!”
“We’ll expose ourselves,” the Master warned.
“We’re pretty damned exposed as it is,” he countered Then to the soldier, he said, “Burn it, and anything or anyone that gets in our way.”
That door and the door standing behind it were obliterated Running through the smoldering mess, Pamir led them out onto the floor of one of Port Alpha’s secure berths. The vessel looming over them was a strange contraption, resembling a submarine more than a starship—a heavily armored machine ready to burrow its way through long stretches of dangerous water. Only after it passed through the polypond would it shuck off that exterior. Inside was a streakship, fully fueled and in perfect repair, with a small picked crew and an AI pilot that Pamir knew well. The Al spoke across a shielded radio channel, telling his old friend, “Hello. Welcome. Another journey, is it?”
“Not today,” Pamir replied.
The Master walked heavily her significant bulk not only useless but taxing. Yet despite her own anguish, she began to run, broad legs swishing, almost matching Pamir’s near sprint.
“I’m staying behind” he told the pilot.
“But why?”
“I’ll do more here.”
The AI accepted that judgment without comment. “Then what is my mission?” it inquired.
“Someone has stolen our ship,” he replied “It is human property by law and rights, and my species needs to be warned. Who else should deliver that news but the unseated Master?”
There was a pause—an eternity for an AI.
Then the voice said “Agreed.”
The trio had reached the sealed vessel. A single hatch blossomed open, and feeling all of her weight, the Master Captain bent low and began to climb inside. Again, with a mournful voice, she said, “Twice I have lost this ship.”
“And twice in the past you have taken it,” Pamir replied. “For yourself, for humankind For the Milky Way.”
The golden face nodded.
Silently, the open hatch began to melt at the edges, flowing back together again.
A moment later, for no apparent reason, the lights inside the berth died away, and from the Port’s control came a sputtering, sloppy voice saying, “Hurry, hurry. They’re coming, we’ve got to launch now … !”
Near the ship’s center, a seamless night had been born.
Contingencies continued to play out, relentlessly and in every corner of the universe, and who could count how many plans were unfolding?
Washen had given up trying. What remained, for now and maybe for always, was the belief that the Great Ship had been built by wise minds, and it was meant to be an enduring, perhaps everlasting creation. And wrapped around that belief was the hope, probably innocent and flawed … but still the keen perfect hope that for all of its problems, Marrow was meant to serve as the castle’s keep. Desperate good warriors could make a final stand here, and maybe they could try to take back the sky, eventually.
Years ago, spurred by imagination and inner voices, Washen had ordered a narrow and secret tunnel to be reopened, reaching almost all the way back to Marrow. In the last few days, using equipment at the bottom of the shaft, she and a few selected companions had finished the excavation, and in another few minutes, with more luck, they would collapse everything that lay above again.
That would stop no one from following, of course. But then again, whoever was in charge of the ship had been on board for millennia, and none of them had taken so much as a stroll across the world below.
The world below.
Washen’s long legs hurried, carrying her and her pressure suit down a set of temporary stairs. The stairs had been cut into the wall of the hyperfiber tube, leading everyone to a place that Washen knew well—a place she had barely left in any fashion but physically.
Just where she had left it, an old-fashioned timepiece waited.
Robots had carved it out of the hyperfiber, leaving it only a little damaged. She picked it up and clung to it, then she turned and looked down. The world beneath was black, save for the patches of volcanic fire and burning forests and soft, colored glows that could mean nothing but human life.
A voice behind her said, “Mother.”
She forced herself to look at the others.
“There’s news,” Locke reported.
“A general broadcast,” Mere added, one tiny hand holding out a view screen linked directly to the rest of the ship. It was the same secure line that Washen had set in place here to eavesdrop on her grandchildren, and she didn’t trust it anymore, either. But for the moment, she allowed it to work.
Aasleen reported, “The new rulers are saying, ‘Hello.’”
Washen held the screen against her chest, unwilling to look just now.
Moving like smoke, Mere came up beside her and paused, looking down at the swollen odd world and the darkness. The buttresses had fallen almost entirely asleep. Yet they remained strong enough that despite the ship’s acceleration, Marrow had not moved. Plainly, the Builders had imagined this contingency too. When would Washen ever become less than amazed with these vanished souls?
“Cut the dome open,” she ordered.
With quick energies and a blunt precision, the diamond barrier beneath them was punctured in one small spot. Air began to fall downward, creating a soft little wind that was heard more than felt.
“Seal up,” she told everyone.
The suits were secured and pressurized, and heavy packs full of supplies and twin chutes were pulled against their backs.
Everyone wore a silver timepiece on his or her belt. Washen had handed them out at the end, just to these few. Each little device held direct
ions to the meeting place and a specific time, and everyone who had not come was now left behind.
Pamir?
She kept looking for him among the dark figures. And he kept on avoiding her gaze, having made his decision to remain elsewhere.
The wind continued to sing.
Finally, almost as an afterthought, Washen looked at the broadcast from the world above. A creature that was very nearly flat, armored and segmented and wearing a pair of trilobite-style eyes, was telling the surviving billions, “The captains could not save you. But we did, and we will protect you. Great things are coming, my friends. Great things!”
Mere said the alien name.
!eech.
Washen shook her head, but it was Locke who corrected her. With a soft touch against the shoulder of her suit, he said, “No, no. That’s just an invented name, we think.”
“Then what are they?” Aasleen asked.
“The Bleak,” said Locke.
Said Washen.
With that, she turned away leaping for the hole and passing through it.
Then she began to scream.
But it wasn’t a fearful scream. Not at all.
It was the full-throated, wonderstruck shriek of a girl who until now, until this moment, had forgotten just how much fun it was to fall.
NOTE: If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”
This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this novel are either fictitious or are used fictitiously.
BOOKS BY ROBERT REED
The Remarkables
Down the Bright Way
Black Milk
The Hormone Jungle
The Leeshore
* Beyond the Veil of Stars
* An Exaltation of Larks
* Beneath the Gated Sky
The Dragons of Springplace (story collection)
* Marrow
* Sister Alice
* The Well of Stars
