by Ian McDonald
The board lit green.
“Close your eyes!” Everett shouted. “Cover your face! Turn your back! Do not look at the light!”
He hit the jump button. A jump gate opened twenty meters above the Queen's Tower. The other side of the gate opened in the heart of a sun. The lock, the override, the place those who tried to jump into or out of Earth 1 were sent to dance for a single, searing moment in destroying light. It worked both ways. Everett could find it and turn it into a weapon.
He saw a flash more brilliant that anything he had ever seen before. Then he threw himself to the deck, hands clapped over his face. He could see the bones in his hands. He could smell skin and hair burning. Then Everett rolled his back to the great window.
Everett had punched a hundred-meter-diameter circle into the heart of the sun. Five million degrees of heat and light blasted down on Imperial University and the Nahn that that had engulfed the university's buildings. Imperial didn't explode. It was flashed into a ball of plasma. It ceased to exist. Nothing can survive even one second in the heart of the sun. For five seconds Everett Singh blasted sun stuff on South Kensington, then the Heisenberg Gate closed. The light went out. There was no Queen's Tower, no lawn, and no faculty buildings. There was a circular pit of glowing lava. Of the Nahn, not an atom. Museums, concert halls, monuments, all the grand Victorian architecture of South Kensington had shattered and flown to pieces under the blast. Dead cars were scattered like leaves. The Natural History, the Victoria and Albert, the science museums were smoking shells. The Royal Albert Hall was a broken skull. Firestorms raged out from the sun strike. A mushroom cloud of superheated gas and smoke boiled upward from the blast zone, insane with lightning. Two thousand, three thousand, four thousand meters. Then the shockwave picked Everness up like a toy and slung it across the sky. Everett rolled across the deck, hooked an arm around a control desk. Sharkey gripped the arms of his seat with white knuckles. Brigadier and Agister went reeling. Lieutenant Kastinidis's power armor kept her upright with the last of its energy reserves. Sen clawed her way across the bucking floor to her post, hauled herself up to the controls. Felled trees, snowy Hyde Park, the wall of fire now spreading across South Kensington, spinning past the great window. Sen's hands hesitated over the levers. Too heavy a touch would tear the impeller pods from their mountings, but she had to keep Everness from flipping nose over tail. The ship's nanocarbon skeleton was strong, but a one-hundred-and-eighty degree somersault would snap her spine and spill her crew into the winter air.
“I don't know what to do!”
Captain Anastasia picked herself up from the floor and dived for the piloting station. She swung herself into the controls. Everness creaked and shrieked in her every strut and spar.
“We have to run with this!” Captain Anastasia shouted. “I'm going to turn her tail in.”
“She'll tumble!” Sen cried. Mighty buffets hit the ship like fists.
“Trust me!” Captain Anastasia yelled back over the sound of her dying airship. “On my word, full power to the impellers. I'm waiting for a lull in the wind.”
Everness screamed like a living thing, but Captain Anastasia clung to the desk, listening to the wind, feeling the vibration of the sun storm across the hull, sensing in three dimensions. Her sky sense reached out. And in the heart of the hurricane, it touched something.
“Starboard impellers, forward!” Captain Anastasia ordered. “Port, set to reverse. Full power. Now!” Sen slammed one set of thrust levers to the full length of their travel, pulled the others back. Engines sobbed. Vibrations shook Everett to the roots of his teeth. Captain Anastasia heaved the steering yoke. Everett felt the deck tilt beneath him as Everness went side-on to the blast wave. The deck tilted: twenty degrees, thirty degrees. Could the ship survive a three-sixty roll? Everness rolled, Everness yawed, but the huge ship turned on her axis. “Come on my lover!” The tendons strained in Captain Anastasia's neck, her eyes bulging as she wrestled the steering yoke. Then the storm caught the edge of Everness's steering surfaces and spun her around, tail into the gale, and she ran sweet and straight and true before the wind from hell. Behind her Knightsbridge and South Kensington blazed, the flames leaping a hundred meters into the sky. Hyde Park was scorched bare; the snow vaporized; the fallen, smoking trees pointing to the center of the blast. The mushroom cloud had topped out into a layer of dark cloud, still flickering with electrical discharges. Sooty rain fell from the cloud layer, freezing into black snow.
“I have the con, Miss Sixsmyth.” Captain Anastasia pulled down a palari-pipe. “Status, Mr. Mchynlyth.”
“We're still airship-shape,” Mchynlyth said. “By all that's high and holy, we shouldnae be, but we are, thank the Dear. Tell Mr. Singh he's burned out every single forward-facing camera and we've lost most of the paintjob from the nose. But we are here, and them unholy beasties aren't, so overall, it's a result. Oh, and I wouldnae hang around too long in the neighborhood. We took a pretty hefty dose of radiation there—those of you still have plans for your gonads.”
“Bona speed for Oxford,” Captain Anastasia said, equalizing the thrust levers. “Miss Sixsmyth, attend to Mr. Singh.”
Everett stood with his fist clenched. His breath was tight in his chest. His head was very light. Everything, everyone was a distance from him. He felt loosely connected to reality. He had called down the sun. He had destroyed the Nahn. A line from the Bhagavad Gita, the great Hindu holy manuscript, came to his lips. “Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.” Oppenheimer, the creator of the atom bomb, had spoken those words when the first test bomb exploded. Everett had called on forces smaller and more powerful than fissioning atoms—the quantum nature of reality itself—and he'd used them to open a gateway into the heart of the sun in another universe. A second image from the Gita: Krishna, in his universal form, shining with the light of a thousand suns.
Sen ran to him. Everett turned his face from her, lifted his fist.
“Sen. Leave him.” It was Sharkey who spoke.
“Dad,” Everett whispered.
“Impressive, Mr. Singh, but unfortunately this changes everything,” the Brigadier said. “I'll take the Infundibulum. Now, boy.”
“Is it ever over?” Everett shouted. “Can't you ever stop wanting something from me? Just stop needing?”
“Lieutenant Kastinidis, secure the Infundibulum.” The lieutenant raised her right arm. Weaponry unfolded from her fist, but her face was featureless. She looked like a woman obeying orders, only orders. Everness's crewmembers were on their feet.
“We had a deal!” Captain Anastasia thundered.
“You are traders, we are soldiers,” the Brigadier said. “There are no deals in war. The Infundibulum.”
Everett snatched Dr. Quantum from its stand to his chest.
“Come and take it.”
“Lieutenant, as he says.”
“Everett, don't be stupid,” Lieutenant Kastinidis said. “I have a weapon.”
“So do I,” Everett answered. His fingers danced across Dr. Quantum's screen. “Oxford.”
“You don't have the power,” the Brigadier said. “Take it from him. Break as many fingers as you need to.”
“Want to bet on that?” Everett said. “Do you really want to bet on that?”
“Everett Singh, no,” Sen said. “Everett Singh, if you do it, he wins. Him, the other you. The Anti-Everett. You becomes him. Your enemy.”
Everett hesitated in a moment of self-doubt. The Brigadier lunged. With a firm grasp and a fast twist, the Brigadier wrenched Everett's arm. Everett cried out in pain and Dr. Quantum fell from his fingers into the Brigadier's grasp. “You're not trained in these things, sonny.” He looked at Dr. Quantum. “Well look at that. You really did have Oxford lined up. You little shit.” Fast and hard, he slammed a fist into Everett's stomach. Everett gasped and went straight down. Sen gave a small, piercing cry and fell on her knees beside him. Everett retched, fought heaving pain and shock. Hit. He had been hit. “Well, let's get rid of
that.” The Brigadier swiped his fingers across the face of Dr. Quantum, erasing the code.
“If you's hurt him, I tear your heart out!” Sen screamed.
“Oh, for God's sake,” the Brigadier muttered.
Elena Kastinidis's aim had not dropped.
“Lieutenant?” the Brigadier asked, his voice full of amazement.
“So were you planning on taking other ranks with you, or is it officers and bosses only?”
“Lieutenant…”
“Your escape plan. A way past the quarantine, right out of the Plenitude altogether. A brave new world, all yours. Planning on sharing it with anyone?”
“Lieutenant Kastinidis, where did you get this from?”
Sharkey tipped the brim of his hat.
“From me, sir.”
Everett could move now, but every muscle, every bone ached. He had been hurt in football matches—goalkeeping was pretty physical, with its dives and rolls and collisions with fast-moving strikers—but this was the first time Everett had ever been hurt by personal violence. It was more than hurt. There was violation in it.
“‘And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free,’” Sharkey said.
“This is mutiny, Lieutenant Kastinidis.”
“It's not mutiny where she is only following orders.” The Agister spoke now. “Brigadier, return the device to its rightful owner.”
“You have no authority to issue orders. We are still subject to Defense Protocol 4,” the Brigadier said.
“Is anyone here aware that we are under a defense protocol?”
Elena Kastinidis held her unwavering aim on the Brigadier.
“You quisling!” the Brigadier snapped at the Agister. “You were there too. You agreed with me, every single word.”
“I said what I said, and it can't be unsaid. Yes, Lieutenant Kastinidis, I made a deal with the crew to obtain the device in return for safe passage off this world. But at least I have the courage to change my mind.”
“Courage? Treachery,” the Brigadier said.
“It's the only courage, Brigadier: to step back from what's wrong.”
“You do not accuse me of cowardice. Ever!” The Brigadier's rage was as sudden and hot as the heart of the sun.
“This is my world and my home and I would rather fight than run. If we had a chance of being able to win,” the Agister said. “We have that chance now. We have a weapon. The boy showed us. Everything is different. A few small modifications to our existing Heisenberg Gate technology, and we can carry the war to the Nahn. We can destroy the major nodes. Return the device to the boy. We don't need this deal, we have a better one.”
For a long moment of absolute silence and stillness, the Brigadier stood. Tension crackled like electricity on the bridge. He locked eyes with Lieutenant Kastinidis. Hers did not waver from his.
“Yes, I believe you would, lieutenant.”
He briskly gave Dr. Quantum to Everett. Sen bared her teeth at him and hissed. He slipped his sidearm out of its holster carefully by the barrel and surrendered it to Lieutenant Kastinidis. She dropped her aim. Her weaponry retracted.
“Captain, do you have secure accommodation on your ship?” the Agister asked.
“My latty would be the nearest thing, ma’am,” Captain Anastasia said. “No locks on airships, of course. It's not so.”
“With your permission, Captain,” the Agister said. Captain Anastasia nodded. “Lieutenant, please escort the Brigadier to the cabin.”
The lieutenant stepped behind the Brigadier but gave him a respectful distance. The Brigadier gave a small bow to the Agister but did not say a word as he walked from the bridge, head high, back straight, holding on to his last threads of dignity.
“Captain Sixsmyth, we'll not be taking that deal,” the Agister said from the foot of the stair. She turned to address Everett. “I wish you every success with your search for your father, but believe me when I say: the Panoply of worlds is a very big place.”
Captain Anastasia straightened her belt and cuffs. Mchynlyth's voice crackled on the palari-pipe. “Would someone tell me what the hot hell happened there?”
“We won,” the captain said, “Rather, we didn't lose.” She clicked off the microphone. “Posts everyone. Mr. Singh, if you wish, you may retire to your latty.”
“No ma’am.” Everett's stomach ached where the Brigadier had hit him, hit him hard, adult to adult. He still burned with shame. Another human had used violence on him. He had never known that before. But I beat you, Everett thought. I beat you the smart way.
“Very good, Mr. Singh. The con is yours, Miss Sixsmyth. Bona speed, out of this terrible place. Mr. Singh, any chance of a bite to eat?”
They were dancing on the Moon, Charlotte Villiers and Charles, her alter. The room was another featureless Thryn white space, but in the low gravity they soared and swooped around it like angels. He wore a formal white tie and tails; she wore opera gloves, jewels, and a long ball gown of black and white chiffon that flew up like butterfly wings as she glided and floated across the whiteness. It was proper old-time ballroom dancing, choreographed for the Moon, to some old-time crooner tune. It was one of the most beautiful—and at the same time one of the most wrong—things Everett M had ever seen.
Charlotte Villiers spotted Everett M and Madam Moon as Charles twirled in a series of gliding steps across the white floor. She spun effortlessly from his hold and flew across the intervening space to drift down as light as thistledown in front of Everett. There was a single bead of perspiration on her upper lip. Her hair and make-up were immaculate. The layers and veils of her dress settled slowly around her.
“Mr. Singh.”
“I did it.”
Did he see the smallest smile flicker over Charlotte Villiers's red lips?
“Excellent. You've shown yourself trustworthy. The Order will have need of your special talents again. In the meantime, relaxation and renewal are in order. You've earned it. Now, if you'll excuse me, I must change.” She flicked a look at her alter, who straightened the bottom of his tailcoat and gave a small, tight bow.
“Where are you going?”
“I have to take you back. If you recall, I am supposed to be Social Services.”
“I'm not going back home?”
“Everett, no. The cover must be maintained. As long as you are there, the family is safe from your alter. You're acclimating well. We're very pleased. Young males are such resilient little things.”
Charlotte Villiers swept away in a flurry of chiffons and net.
“What about my family?” Everett M shouted. “What about Mum, my sister, here in this world?” A dark circle opened in the whiteness. Charlotte Villiers disappeared into it. “Do they even know I'm alive?” The hole irised shut.
Charles Villiers looked Everett up and down in his stained and scarred Thryn skin suit. “Mr. Singh,” he called from across the white space. “The battle armor?”
“My aspect was destroyed,” Madam Moon said. “The Nahn was unable to overcome me. At the same time I was unable to overcome the Nahn. Self-destruction was the safest course.”
Madam Moon had been waiting with folded hands when the Heisenberg Gate picked him off the back of Everness and brought him back to the far side of the E4 Moon. There was never any emotion in those hands, on that grey face, in those grey eyes, but Everett felt looked at, looked at from the skin in, deep looking with senses other than sight. Could she see the Nahn node nestling up against his spine? Did she already know of the deal he had struck with the Nahn? All Thryn were one Thryn. Did some weird quantum-entanglement thing bind them all together, across space and across universes? Did she know and not care? White Thryn, black Nahn, was there any difference between them? And Madam Moon was grey…Once again Everett M wondered whether the sixty years humans had spent studying the Thryn had uncovered any knowledge other than what the Thryn wanted humans to know.
“Welcome back to Earth 4,” Madam Moon had said as she fell in beside Everett. “Please
, come with me. The Plenipotentiary is dancing.”
Charles Villiers carefully removed his white dancing gloves as he walked toward Everett and Madam Moon.
“Is there any danger?”
“Thryn and Nahn are incompatible,” Madam Moon said mildly.
“Good job, Everett.” Charles Villiers smacked Everett M lightly on the arm with his gloves as he passed him. “My alter will meet you at the gate.”
Tippy-tap. Scrit-scatch.
No answer.
Louder then. Rap rappety-rap-rap.
“What is it?”
There was a way Everett sounded when he was doing stuff and didn't want to be disturbed. Not omi-playing-with-yourself stuff. She knew what that sounded like. This was omi-busy stuff.
“Can I come in?”
“If you like.”
Sen slid open the door to Everett's latty. She let out a gasp.
“It's full of stars!”
Soft blue stars hung in the air, turning slowly, drifting like thistle down on a summer evening. The blue lit Everett's face and hands. He conducted the stars as if they were an orchestra, every movement sending whole constellations wheeling. Everett tapped the little box on his fold-down table and the stars were sucked into it.
“Aw, put them back. They was beautiful.”
A stroke on the lid of the device—the Panopticon, Sen remembered, why always these big mouth-jamming words?—and the soft stars once again filled the tiny cabin. Sen pulled the little wooden misericord down from behind the door and perched her skinny butt on it.
“Wow. That's like the best Christmas decorations in the universe.” She watched Everett turn the stars this way and that, dancing his hands through the light. You moves well for a ground-pounder, she thought. You don't think about. You're all there, moving the stars around. Omis looked their best when they were doing something. Omis were their best when they were doing something. All the trouble in all the worlds comes from omis with nothing to do. All the worlds, Sen thought. “So, what are they?
