On the surface of the sphere, ten thousand hostile ships were waiting for her, weapons charged and ready.
Red swallowed hard and began tapping at the board, bringing up an indicator icon that showed Fury's position. A yellow symbol began to blink near the edge of the sphere. At this range, any use of the drives would be duly noted by the Iconoclasts out there, although a fortnight later and without any clue as to who was triggering them.
No, the only way the shadow web could be used effectively was with the ship on silent running, with no course corrections at all, and starting off outside of the Bastion's detailed detection range. Red thought about that for a while, and ran a simulation or two to prove to herself that it wouldn't work. She set a virtual version of Fury off from the centre of the Gulf, with as much of an acceleration burn as the power core could stand. Sure enough, the simulated ship got through the Bastion without incident, but only five years after setting off.
She slumped in the throne, watching the holographic Gulf rotate slowly in front of her and listening to the faint chatter of relays under the simulation board. How could the machine generate a sophisticated three-dimensional image like that, she wondered sourly, and yet rely on mechanical relays to do its calculations? More proof, if any were needed, that she had woken into an insane universe.
Mentally griping at the Accord's wildly varying tech-levels wasn't going to get her out of the Gulf. She sighed and leaned back to the simulation board, tapping in more command chains while the relays clattered and squeaked.
From a standing start, Fury could get up to about one twentieth the speed of light in a single burn, before the fusion core overloaded. More burns could be made later, but doing so would write a dotted line of plasma across the Gulf, giving the Bastion a very clear idea of what they were up to. There was no way, using conventional thrust, that the ship could make the trip safely and in any reasonable time-scale.
"In which case," Red muttered to herself, "you'd better start getting unconventional, hadn't you?"
She had never been one for plans, but she was beginning to form one now. All she needed to do was find the right place to start.
Omega Fury reached the Easach system two standard days later, exiting a jump point close to the largest of three gas-giant planets. Easach had seven worlds, only one of which, Gerizim, lay within the star's biozone.
"There was a colony here once," Godolkin said, as the light-drive throttled back. "Four million souls."
"That must have been two hundred years ago, Godolkin," Harrow replied. "Is your knowledge of human history so encyclopaedic?"
The Iconoclast threw him a glance. "In the case of catastrophes such as this, yes. Besides, the Gerizimi were worthy of note. They were renowned for their piety."
Red knew that, too. She had learned it during her research. Unfortunately for the holy inhabitants of Gerizim, their world was very close to Kentyris Secundus, the centre of the Gulf and the site of the Manticore's first appearance. Brite's war machine had slaughtered the Gerizimi just hours after the Kentyris system had fallen.
Red had taken over the sensor station for this journey, leaving Harrow to operate the weapons board. That wasn't something she minded - he knew his way around a fusion lance. The likelihood of an attack here was vanishingly small and there were things she needed to see that only full access to the sensorium would show her.
She sipped at the beaker of coffee she had brought in from the refectory. It was the strongest brew she could force the galley to produce; foul-tasting stuff, but livid with stimulants. She felt almost guilty that Harrow had ended up hooked on the stuff too. She would much rather have been drinking something else, obviously, but that would have to wait. She needed her companions alert and ready, not woozy from loss of blood.
Godolkin was breakfasting too, using his customary beaker of water to wash down a mouthful of Iconoclast mealstick. "Piety aside," he continued, "this world lies at the heart of the Gulf. If there is a place less likely to harbour survivors I am unable to name it."
"Don't strain yourself trying," Red told him. "That's not why we're here."
Harrow was frowning at her. "Then why are we here?"
"Because this is the only place we can start from, if we're going to leave the Gulf in one piece."
There was a choking sound from Harrow. Godolkin turned his great head slowly round to glare at her, his mismatched eyes narrowed. "Leave the Gulf? When did you come to this decision?"
"I've been mulling it over." She began bringing up additional holoscreens, and slaving them to the other two boards. "Let's face it, boys, you were right. We're not going to find anything here except more horror stories. It's time to get out while we can."
"I see." Godolkin's voice was flat, but there was a gleam in those strange eyes that Red couldn't quite place, "And the Bastion?"
"They won't even know we've slipped past them. We'll have the shadow web engaged, and all the drives shut right down." She could see the way they were both looking at her, and took a steadying gulp of coffee. "Yech. Look, I didn't tell you before because I was still working it all out, okay? But this is going to bloody work. We start off here, out of detection range, get up to speed and then shut the drives down. We coast all the way. It'll take a while-"
"Years," Godolkin interrupted. "The fusion core is already operating beyond its capacity. The maximum velocity we could achieve without risking death would have us in range of the Bastion's flayer missiles in five years, maybe six."
Red put her hands up. "Yes, it would take five years if we started from anywhere but here. This system's special. It's got something that's going to help us out."
Godolkin opened his mouth to speak, closed it again, and slowly shut his eyes. He knew about the system, so he must have known what Red was going to say.
She showed them both anyway, on the slaved holoscreens. "There," she said.
It was hard to see, but she had always known it would be. The visual screens showed nothing but a faint distortion, a place where the stars were smeared around into a ring. The graviton detector, on the other hand, was lit up like a beacon.
"A black hole," Harrow murmured. "How can this be?"
"It's a wanderer," Red replied, "probably thrown off course by a bigger one millions of years ago. It's not moving all that fast, and it isn't even very big. Must have lost a lot of mass when it went walkies but it'll do for us."
"Gravity," said Godolkin. "Blasphemy, what you are planning is madness!"
"I'm not suggesting anything that hasn't been done before. We used to do this all the time back in my day." That was an exaggeration, if not an outright lie, but she needed all the leverage she could get. "We start off here, and make a full-thrust burn right for Easach - it's a big star, and we can double our speed by swinging around under it."
Harrow's eyebrows were somewhere up near his hairline. "Under?"
"Okay, in a south-polar orbit. The black hole's above the north pole, roughly. We make another burn on the way there, once the core's cooled down a bit, then skim right around the event horizon and let it fling us towards the Bastion."
Godolkin still had his eyes closed. "Your simulations showed this would be successful?"
Red nodded. "Most of them. We can reach as much as half lightspeed if we do it right."
"Assuming the stress does not open microfractures in the hull, or the black hole's magnetic field degausses the fusion core, or a gravitational fluctuation causes us to contact the event horizon, such a velocity could be attained." Godolkin opened his eyes and sat back, shaking his head slowly. "I would put our chances of survival at maybe six per cent."
She threw her empty beaker at him. "Killjoy."
"At point-five cee," Harrow said, tapping at keys on the weapons board, "we could make the rim in ninety days."
"That's what I thought," Red grinned. "Except at that kind of speed, Einstein starts to kick in. We'd experience less than eighty days. I mean, that's doable, right?"
Harrow sat back,
his eyes still fixed on the weapons board. "Eighty days..."
"Look on it as a chance to catch up on your sleep."
"There would be systems we could power down," Godolkin said, steepling his fingers. "Weapons, manoeuvring, external comms. Go to silent running, reduce emissions to almost zero."
"The speed!" Harrow gasped suddenly. "Holy one, if we struck anything-"
She spread her hands. "Come on Jude, if we hit a paper tissue at half lightspeed we'd go up like an atom bomb. I know that as well as anyone but the only other alternative is to stay wandering around the gulf until we starve to death. We've got enough supplies on board to keep you two alive for three months, and I can get by on blood serum, just about. As long as I can supplement my diet with the good stuff now and then."
A look of disgust flickered across Godolkin's face, but he said nothing. Red carried on quickly.
"What are the chances of the Bastion disbanding and going home in our lifetimes?"
"Less than six per cent, I'd say." Harrow took a deep breath and then nodded vigorously. "Holy one, I'm tired of mealsticks and dead worlds. I'm with you."
"Godolkin?"
"Faced with two deaths, I choose the swifter."
"Good lad." Red settled back into the sensor throne, and rubbed her hands together. "Okay, set a course for Easach, as close as the forcewalls can handle. Let's go get a tan!"
3. NIGHT SNOW
A star fell on the night that Anton Trewpeny met the dragon.
He saw the flicker of light it made, faint and swift, and glanced up to see it scratch a line of fire across the nightwinter sky. The sight of it stopped him in his tracks, his boot soles slipping on the frozen cobbles. Reflexively, he put a hand to the nearest wall to steady himself.
He had forgotten that Slafot was so close behind him. The man stumbled right into Trewpeny's arm, almost sending them both down onto the pavement. There was a brief, silent scuffle, as both men desperately tried to keep their balance without crying out. A shout of any kind, on the street after curfew, could only bring trouble.
After a second or two Trewpeny got his back against the wall, and his boots planted more firmly. He held himself still, breath puffing white in the frozen air, straining to hear past Slafot's gasps.
"What is it?" the man hissed, panic in his voice. "Marshals?"
Trewpeny shook his head. "It's nothing," he whispered. "Just try to keep quiet."
He squinted down the street. The night air was clear, with only distant hints of gathering cloud, but the road was dimly lit. Of the lanterns he could see, several had burned low or gone out altogether, and deep shadows pooled at the gutter of every wall. Neither of Purity's moons were in the sky.
If the marshals were close by, Trewpeny reasoned, he would have heard them by now. Even with Slafot's clumsiness threatening their mission, it looked very much as though the city's guards hadn't spotted them yet.
After a minute or so had passed, he let himself relax. "It's all right, Jon. No one heard us."
Slafot was still breathing hard, his head turning left and right to scan both ends of the street. Beneath his woollen cap and the scarf covering his mouth, his eyes gleamed round and black with fright.
"What did you see, Anton? You stopped so suddenly..."
"Oh, that." Trewpeny rubbed the back of his neck, slightly embarrassed. He wore no scarf, preferring a long-tailed hat tugged down over his ears, but his shoatskin jacket itched him continually. "I saw a star fall, over towards the Farmer's Gate. Not seen the like before, that's all."
"A falling star?" Slafot's eyes narrowed. "You should have said."
"Why?"
"Bad omen, that."
Trewpeny suppressed a sigh. Jon Slafot was full of omens, so stuffed to the gills with ill-luck that Trewpeny wondered if he was really the right sort to join Daedalus at all. Not that Slafot had any sympathies towards the Endura or their ilk - Trewpeny had seen those dark eyes glaze with tears when the finds of the last purge were publicly burned - but he seemed reluctant to shed the old ways.
Then again, who could say who was right for Daedalus and who wasn't? That would be for greater men than Anton Trewpeny to decide. Even if he completed his mission, there was no guarantee. There could be other nights like this, and more skulking about the streets after curfew, before judgement was made one way or the other.
Trewpeny had realised some time ago, he was far more likely to end up dead or in a watchtower cell than he ever was to become part of Daedalus.
The thought, familiar though it was, made his hands grow clammy with sweat. He clenched them uncomfortably inside his gloves.
"Come away, Jon. It'll be a worse omen if the angelus bell rings before we're back, that's for sure. We'd better be off."
Slafot seemed to hesitate and then nodded. "Aye, but if you see any more stars fall..."
"God's truth, Jon Slafot! If I see any more come down I'll be home before you!"
The further Trewpeny went into the lower city, the darker and more frightening a place it became. Even during waking hours he would have hesitated before crossing beyond the southern markets, or venturing into the dockside district. It was a rough area, well known for trouble. Not lawless - no part of Igantia was ever that - but there were few watchtowers there, and fewer patrols than in other parts of the city.
Trewpeny, who had grown up in the city's affluent northern suburbs, was certainly finding the lower city threatening. Had the streets not been deserted, though, it would have been even worse.
The road ended, meeting a wider street at right-angles. Trewpeny stopped at the corner, raising his hand silently so that Slafot wouldn't walk into him again, and then stood for a few moments while he desperately tried to remember the map. He had spent the whole lay-hour, the fallow time between the end of the compline service and the start of curfew, memorising the route, but the cold was making it hazy in his head.
Slafot leaned close. "Anton?"
"Shh. I'm trying to remember."
"What, the way? You spent ages looking at it!"
"I know that!" Trewpeny snarled. "But a drawing on a bit of parchment isn't the same as standing on the bloody street after curfew!"
Slafot blinked at him. "Don't tell me you've got us lost."
"No and I won't as long as you keep quiet and let me think, Jon." Trewpeny closed his eyes, picturing the map in his head. The Street of Sorrows led all the way back to the Corpse Gate, and ran roughly north to south. It followed the grid pattern that much of the city was built on, crossing Tanner Lane halfway to the Gate before entering the maze of nameless streets and squares that made up the lower markets.
Trewpeny's destination was further north still, and east, towards the city wall itself. Past Farmers' Gate, too, which meant keeping low and a lot more quiet than they had been so far. There were watchtowers on either side of it.
He nodded to himself, satisfied that the route was clear once more in his mind and, as he did so, something light and cold brushed his face. Startled, he opened his eyes, to see white flakes spiralling down around him.
The contrast of white snow against the flat blackness above was entrancing. Slafot had warned him about more stars falling - well, here was a galaxy of them dropping lazily onto his face.
"Pox," muttered Slafot. "That's all we need."
"Hush yourself, Jon." Trewpeny was smiling. "This is good luck - it'll mask our footfalls. You know how snow deadens the world."
"Aye, and I also know how different it makes thing look. Reckon you can find your way to the place in this?"
Trewpeny's smile died on his face. He'd not thought of that.
"Shite. We'd better get moving."
They crossed the street close together, Slafot just behind and looking everywhere, Trewpeny striding ahead with an image of the map's lines overlaying everything he saw. Tanner Lane was uncomfortably open, a wide thoroughfare of black-roofed workshops and reeking hide-stores, but in seconds the two men were into the market lanes, and once more among shadows.
The market was as silent as the rest of Igantia; the stalls were packed away for the sleeping hours, the shopfronts boarded and locked against the bitter cold. Trewpeny led Slafot quickly through the trestles, their boots crunching on scraps of frozen peel. There wasn't much litter on the ground, more for reasons of poverty than cleanliness but the little that remained had attracted rats: hardy, white-furred creatures as big as Trewpeny's hand hissed at him from the snow, not even bothering to scuttle away when he got close.
He was glad to leave the stalls, and get back amongst the taller buildings that lay nearer to the gate. The two men were soon walking between rows of narrow houses with uneven walls, some so twisted with subsidence that they leaned towards each other across the cobbled street, meeting roof to roof in places.
They were old buildings, some of the oldest in the city, and most were in total darkness. A few shone scraps of light from between the boards of their shutters, but they were the exception. The good citizens of Igantia, Trewpeny thought glumly, lay asleep in their beds.
Either that, or there was no one in the houses at all. The closer he and Slafot got to the wall, the poorer the state of the housing he saw. A few of them looked half collapsed - doors hanging awry, shutters gone, roofs sagging and shedding tiles - as though they had been abandoned for years. It seemed that what he heard at prayer each day was indeed a lie: the city was not prospering under the Eye of God, but dying slowly in the stifling heat of daysummer and the bitter, searing nightwinter cold. Daedalus was right. Igantia was shrinking within its own protective walls.
That thought, even more than the map in his head, told him that he was within minutes of his objective. The pick-up point was a ruin, just like those he could see north of Farmers' Gate.
He knew there were lanterns hung high on the Gate. He was peering over to his right, trying to see them between the houses when he felt Slafot's hand on his shoulder. Gripping hard, painful in spite of the layers of wool and shoatskin swathing him.
Trewpeny stopped, and turned slowly. Slafot nodded to his right, where the space between two walls formed a narrow alleyway.
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