Mary squeezed Keeley's hand. "I should let you sleep," she said. She rose from the bed and Keeley opened her eyes. "Will you go back to be with the girls?" she asked.
"I promised I'd guard them," Mary replied. She smiled down at Keeley. "You do look better," she said.
"I hope that means I get out of here soon," said Keeley. "Will you get some sleep?"
Mary leaned over and kissed Keeley on the forehead through her mask, then turned and walked toward the door. Halfway there she turned back. "I think maybe Linda is walking into a trap," she said.
Keeley nodded. "I know," she said. "I'm worried too."
18.4
Danny and the Bastard could not believe their good fortune. The Families were just hours away from the Giant Leap and the two of them had been invited to join these people on their great adventure. This just after Danny's seemingly miraculous last-minute rescue on Squirrel Island from a fierce storm that had killed the rest of his comrades. Somebody "up there" clearly liked him. Whether that was just Director Sinclair, or somebody else in The Families, or some of the alien beings The Families worked with, didn't matter right now. What mattered was that he and the Bastard, Gina, had been given bunk space in the tech crew section of a huge Colony Wok known informally, as far as they could tell, as the Kill 'Em All.
Not that either Danny or Gina felt particularly disgusted with their fellow humans. They'd grown up in what they knew some in The Families referred to as "the sleeping world." They knew that their friends and families were just stuck in a culture that had them behave in unsustainable and self-destructive ways. They'd been stuck in that culture themselves. But they also knew how very screwed up things had become, and how severe the repercussions of the culture's collective behavior were likely to get, and how soon. They were glad to have found good work with corporations that had turned out to be Family-owned and operated, to have worked themselves up into positions of low-level but not insignificant power and influence, and to have been, very slowly, brought into some of what was really going on behind the scenes. They felt lucky. Gina had done deep data-analysis work at BlackBay and had a keen ear for picking up clues to what The Families' long-term plans might be. She'd begun to collect data on something called the Giant Leap a few years ago, and began to hear rumors of a place called Urbem Orsus, and she and Danny had speculated as to how things must be.
This is what Urbem Orsus was: a vast, underground hangar deck at least ten miles square, in which sat perhaps twenty huge woks, larger than any he'd ever seen in human use, and as large as some of the Overwoks the Life used for deep space exploration. It was hundreds of thousands of people converging on this one spot, to board these colony woks with little more than the clothes they were wearing: Family members, world leaders, captains of industry and commerce and banking, scientists and engineers and technicians, builders and designers. It was everything needed to populate, fuel, and outfit a dozen colonies, already partially or fully constructed, on moons and planets found in distant corners of the Universe. It was hope and need and intention made manifest, plans put into motion over a century ago, people stepping away from the world that had given them birth and setting out to fulfill their destiny. It was seeds being flung out into the spaces between the stars by the winds of great change. And Danny and Gina got to be a part of that. They were elated.
Not that it would be easy, but they had it easier than most. Danny would be leaving his sister behind, but Mary and he hadn't ever been very close, really. And she had no need of him now, what with that Keeley woman she had as a partner. And Gina would be leaving her mother, but that nasty old woman was in a home, her mind lost to dementia. Their biggest hardship was the psychological disorientation of having their entire futures change tracks so completely so quickly. Jobs. Apartments. Debts. Bills. Relationships. Plans. Dreams. All of it had to be tossed out the window and replaced with something they could hardly begin to imagine. And they'd thrown in together now as well, something neither of them had seen coming. Years of low-level flirting. The occasional overnighter when they were both in the same town at the same time. But they'd never seriously considered that they had a relationship in any normal sense of the word. And now here they were, bunkmates, newbies, meeting these changes together and acting, for all intents and purposes, like a couple.
It was weird. It was fun. It was exciting. And it was frightening as hell. Latest word had them leaping in just a few hours. Into space. Leaving the Earth forever. Traveling to far-flung colonies on strange new planets. Making new lives. Starting over. Hand in hand, with the clothes on their backs, the knowledge and skills in their heads and hearts and hands, and the thanks and patronage of Jason Carrington Parker Sinclair, a member of the Directorate.
It was all as cool as shit.
18.5
The meet-up in Kiev, and the rescue of his daughter, had ended up taking him longer than he'd expected, which meant that Jay Sinclair's little last-minute side trip had, indeed, drawn the attention of the Senior Directorate. When he got back to his room to find Dierdre gone again, there was a message on his comm summoning him to the Master's office. It was all cordial curiosity and just-checking-in and is-there-some-way-I-can-help, but Sinclair knew that the Master was more than a little peeved at having one of his inner circle act so capriciously so close to the Giant Leap. Sinclair explained how his trip had resulted in the successful rescue of a Family member, who could now accompany them to the stars. The Master had little choice but to celebrate the occasion.
Back in his room, Sinclair grabbed his briefcase and his regulation travel bag - all that any of them would be allowed. Packed over a week ago, the bags felt surprisingly light in his hands. Sinclair smiled. Weight and storage room were only parts of the equation. By limiting what people could bring with them, they were also creating a clear break in identification from the Earth. From now on, what they had, what they needed, what they used, would all come from the colonies themselves. Soon, Sinclair planned to discard even the few things he brought with him for the trip itself. Even his clothes would go into the incinerator, as colony-made clothing was made available to him. He did not want any ties back to this dying planet.
He checked himself in the mirror, then headed out of the room. He thought about checking in on his two new recruits, but decided against it. He didn't know which wok they were on, and he wanted to see how well they adapted to the situation on their own. So it seemed the thing to do was to go find Dierdre. Since the computers said she'd already checked onto their colony wok - the smaller craft called Leader One which was reserved for members of the Directorate, their immediate families, and their personal assistants - he would no doubt find her in the ship's lounge. That was probably good. Might as well get it over with and board the wok himself.
But first he had to grab one last piece of luggage. This one weighed considerably more than the bags in his hands. It was a shiny, silver, capsule-shaped cylinder about six feet long and two feet across, made from a portion of the hull material from the wok he'd taken to Kiev. It was, in effect, a makeshift nullspace container that the wok had produced at his instructions while he'd made the flight from Kiev to London.
Inside the container was Gabrielle.
18.6
Mr. Bluebird, a tall, thin, pale man with a bald head and bushy eyebrows, spoke on his phone in what Linda assumed was Ukrainian. He sat in the corner of the limousine's spacious interior right behind the driver, with Linda and her fellow travelers arrayed around him in a circle, sipping glasses of the white wine the driver had poured for them. The conversation sounded animated and sometimes angry, and Mr. Bluebird looked at Linda and the others as he spoke, flashing his eyebrows and smiling and winking, as though he wished to include them in the call. After a rather loud and pointed response from whomever was on the other end, Mr. Bluebird said "Da" and clicked off his phone. He lifted his own glass of wine and took a sip.
"They've found a second plane," said Mr. Bluebird. His accent was more British than Ukrainian, a
s he'd been living in London since he was a teenager. He'd introduced himself as an "art dealer," but Linda understood that he dealt in all sorts of things, some of which she should probably not ask about.
"So how long of a wait does that mean for us?" asked Cole.
Mr. Bluebird smiled at Cole's question. "The plane comes here from Gatwick, Mr. Thomas," he said. "Not Kiev. It should be here very soon."
Cole nodded and sighed.
Linda gestured toward the burning planes in the distance, amazed that they had not yet been surrounded by fire trucks and emergency crews. Mr. Bluebird, his driver, and she and her companions seemed to be the only people in the entire airfield. "What about those planes?" she asked. "And the... the bodies?" Mr. Bluebird's chauffeur had already determined that all four of the pilots were quite dead.
Mr. Bluebird raised his shoulders in indifference. "We have people who will clean this up," he said.
"And the pilots' families will be notified?" asked Linda.
Mr. Bluebird looked Linda in the eye. "We will do what must be done," he said. Something in his voice told Linda not to push it any further. She nodded once, then turned to her companions. Doobie and Marionette looked exhausted and demoralized. The abduction of Gabrielle and the destruction of the planes had destroyed any hope they might have had that this mission would go smoothly and without cost. They could have been in one of those planes. And they could have been beamed into an enemy wok as well. Or they could have all been incinerated right there on the tarmac. Annabelle regarded Linda with her usual, fierce, defiant gaze, which Linda had decided was indicative of deep, protective feelings on her part, though why Annabelle thought Cole needed protecting from her, Linda was unsure.
Cole cleared his throat. "I could have used my light to stop them," he said, his voice tired and raspy. He looked at his companions, then Linda. "Before they took Gabrielle."
Linda nodded. "You could certainly have tried," she said gently. "Why didn't you?"
Cole inhaled sharply. He shook his head from side to side and shrugged. "There wasn't time," he said.
Linda took his hand. "No," she said. "There wasn't." She turned to Mr. Bluebird. "So do we just sit here in this limo?" she asked. "I mean... it's comfy, and we certainly appreciate your hospitality, but I feel a bit exposed." She motioned toward the sky with her hand.
Mr. Bluebird leaned over to glance out the window. "Will they come back, do you think?" he asked. He looked at Linda. "You have made powerful enemies, Madam President," he said. He turned to converse with his driver in Ukrainian, then spoke to Linda and the travelers. "Mr. Fox will take us to a hangar while we wait," he said.
Before the driver could start the limousine, however, the air was filled with the roar of an approaching plane. Mr. Bluebird opened his door to stand beside the limo and watch as another small jet made a quick, sharp landing that brought it to a stop well short of the burning mass of the first plane. Linda and Cole and the others also got out to watch. The new jet, this one smaller than their intended ride, taxied closer to them but stayed on the air strip. Linda reached into the limo to grab her backpack but Mr. Bluebird stopped her with a shake of his head. "Please, Madam President," he said. "Get back inside. We will drive you there."
18.7
Mary returned to the nullspace to find Alice sleeping on one of the sofas in the sunken area of the common room. The young hybrid, apparently the leader of the newly declared race called the Middle Children, sat with her legs crossed, her back straight, and her eyes closed. Mary stepped into the room and studied Alice for a while, noting the delicacy of her slow breathing and the radiant glow of her skin in the soft, dim light of the room. She tried again to view Alice's field, but saw nothing but the faint, light blue haze she'd seen in other hybrids, as if the fierce light that burned inside of them was leaking around the edges of their attempt to hold themselves together. Mary bowed slightly and stepped quietly across the room, to the door to her own bedroom, hoping to get inside without waking the young woman.
"She was your friend, was she not, Ms. Mary?" asked Alice, breaking the silence with her clear, soft voice.
Mary turned. Alice's eyes were open and her head was cocked to one side. She walked to the sofa opposite Alice and sat down. "You mean your mother, don't you Alice?" she asked.
Alice nodded once. "You called her Bob. Her full name was Roberta Olivia Reese. She worked as a Traveler and Assassin for The People under the direction of Agent Theodore Spencer Rice. She'd volunteered for the Breeding Program and was paired with the Inter-Life male known to humans as Spud. Their mating yielded one surviving offspring. Myself. My mother was taken away to a healing place by the Elder Zacharael shortly before the implosion of the Lodge under the American capitol." The Middle Child's rote recitation and even voice did not match the quiver in her lower lip as she spoke.
Mary sat forward on the sofa so she could speak more intimately. "Yes," she said. "Bob was my friend."
Alice cocked her head to the other side. "And yet she had threatened harm to Mrs. Linda and Mr. Cole, whom you now serve," she said. "And her methods had become harsh and unpredictable."
Mary sighed and nodded. "There were things we were all quite confused about then, Alice," she said, searching for words that might explain what had happened. "There were people above us who saw the world in harsh, competitive terms, and whose world-views had become twisted by their wealth and power and influence. They could only see the relationships between humans and the Life in terms of more wealth and power, in terms of control and dominance and winning at all costs, in terms of technologies and weapons that would give them the edge in ruling the world. Their viewpoint shaped the group that became The People, and it shaped those of us who served with The People, leaving some of us twisted and broken as well. People like Agent Rice. And your mother." Mary closed her eyes and inhaled deeply. "I was lucky that I was able to break away and find a different path."
Alice closed her eyes for a moment, taking it all in. Then she spoke. "I have been unable to locate her," she said. She opened her eyes. "The Elders will not respond to my attempted communications."
"Are you worried about her?" asked Mary.
"I wish to learn whether she has found healing," said Alice evenly.
"And it will help you," said Mary. "To know."
Alice nodded. "I understand neither of my parents," she said, her voice growing quieter. "And so I do not know myself."
"Are you worried about yourself?" asked Mary.
Alice nodded. "Sometimes I think that they are both broken, and so I must be broken as well."
"Do you feel broken, Alice?" asked Mary.
The young hybrid woman scrunched her tiny nose in distaste. "Sometimes I wish for all the humans and the Life to die," she whispered.
18.8
Jay Sinclair found his wife in the ship's lounge. The bar was almost empty, most of those on board busy settling in before the Giant Leap. Dierdre sat alone near a viewscreen, sipping from a highball glass and staring at the real-time video feed of the Grid. As it was almost one in the afternoon, the video had been processed to show the energy lines, which could rarely be seen in the day-lit sky. In less than an hour, if all went as planned, and if Dierdre was still awake and alert, she would see the One-Two Punch blow a hole in that Grid through which The Families would make their escape.
Sinclair signaled the bartender and ordered a sparkling water, then walked across the room to join his wife. She looked up at him with reddened eyes, gave him a tight smile, then returned her attention to the viewscreen. Sinclair sat beside her and took a sip of his water. "I hate them all," muttered Dierdre, still staring at the screen.
"Whom do you hate, dear?" asked Sinclair. "The Sleepers?"
Dierdre shrugged as if it didn't matter. She downed her drink and signaled the bartender for a refill, then returned her attention to the screen. She didn't even bother to look at the server when he put her drink in her hand.
Sinclair sighed. Part of him wanted to
tell his wife about his rescue of Gabrielle, now safely stowed away in her nullspace coffin in Leader One's equipment bay. But the other part of him knew that he should just keep his mouth shut for now. The stress of leaving Earth and heading out to their Colony world, Primus, was great enough as it was. The only reason Dierdre was joining him on the Giant Leap was that she couldn't stand the thought of being left behind with all of her friends gone. There was nothing in her that wanted to leave her comfortable life and act like a pioneer. Telling her of Gabrielle would just add to the strain. Dierdre and her daughter had not been close in years, and Sinclair suspected that his wife had been secretly relieved when Gabrielle had cut and run. He hoped that, once they got settled in on Primus, he and Dierdre and Gabrielle might be able to come together again as a family. But that was for the future.
"The Life, too," said Dierdre, her voice quiet and slurred.
Sinclair nodded. She hated the aliens as well. She always had. "We're doing this on our own now," he offered. He'd said it before.
Dierdre shrugged again but said nothing.
"It promises to be quite a show," said Sinclair, hoping he was right. He actually had no idea what the video feed would show. He didn't think anyone did. First they'd target a circle of Grid points with antigrav cluster bombs. They'd follow those with a constant barrage from the scalar cannon array. A section of the Grid should disintegrate at the edges and tear away like a piece of fabric, leaving a hole through which the massive colony woks could fly. Their alien mole had promised to compromise the Life’s astral qputers, such that the hole could not self-repair so quickly. What the hole would look like from the ground in the day-lit sky nobody was sure. And since they were leaving, none of them particularly cared. Sinclair's eyes flared with excitement. He hoped they would light up the sky like a fireworks display. Give the Sleepers one last bit of theater before The Families left them to their fate.
Rumi's Field (None So Blind Book 2) Page 68
