by Neal Asher
"It's causally connected," she said thickly.
"Pardon?" Lanier asked, glancing at the others and cupping her elbow in his hand. She opened her eyes wide and stared at him.
"If the Axis City travels at near light-speed down the Way, this is what will happen—even before the journey begins. The Way lies essentially outside time and has to accommodate any event within its length. This is what will happen—especially if the Thistledown end is sealed off."
"Yes? Please continue..." Yates urged.
"She's right," Korzenowski said. "It's perfectly obvious. And you have somebody—not humans, not Jarts, not even of our universe—taking advantage of the adaptation."
Ry Oyu smiled broadly. "I'm afraid it isn't obvious to us. Please go on."
Patricia looked at the Engineer,and felt a stir of recognition. Herself ... Something about herself. Korzenowski nodded to her. "You're doing fine," he said.
"We're looking at the results, carried along superspace vectors, of what is about to happen in the Way," she said. "I was thinking about this before we left for Timbl, after the rogue came to my quarters. If the Axis City travels faster than one-third light-speed, it will twist the Way and create a space-time shock wave that will exceed light-speed, moving ahead of it. The shock wave will operate outside of time, arriving before its cause. The shock wave has already passed this point—perhaps centuries ago, perhaps even before the Way was opened. Something traveling at near light-speed on the singularity, the flaw, will strain it beyond its endurance. It will convert virtual particles into energy—radiate, 'evaporate." " She took a deep breath and closed her eyes, seeing the mathematics being done even as she spoke. "The Way has been forced to expand to a stable configuration. The flaw has vanished."
Olmy said nothing, calmly listening to Korzenowski and Patricia. He's proud, Lanier thought.
"For several light-years, until the Way expands and the city's shock wave dissipates, everything will be sterilized ahead of the city. Nothing will exist in these segments but the city. All features will be wiped out, all gates fused shut." She pointed to the structures. "Obviously, the Way has expanded here, and relativistic objects along its length won't bother it quite as much."
Lanier tried to puzzle out the flaw's vanishing even before the construction of the object that would force its "evaporation." He quickly lost himself in contradictions, but the contradictions didn't seem to bother Korzenowski or the gate openers.
"When we've prepared the documentation—you can do that, can't you, soon?—" he asked Patricia.
She agreed. "With Ser Korzenowski's help."
"—Then we will know most of what we need to know," Ry Oyu said. "We can present our report to the President. His faction can do with it what they please." He smiled. "What, apparently, they must."
Bright red picts appeared before the defense monitor, signaling an urgent message. Olmy went to receive them. When he returned, his expression was jubilant—paradoxically so, considering what he said next. "The Jarts have opened their gate. It's a remote, at about one point five ex nine. They've cut off the last defense station. There's a plug of plasma reaching top velocity—it's about seven hours from us. We have to leave now."
Prescient Oyu looked to her father. "The Geshels will refuse to let the Jarts push them out," she said.
"Then the President has no choice now, does he?" Ry Oyu said. "The Way writes his destiny, and so do the Jarts. He must take his precincts, and we must take ours, and follow our separate paths."
*63*
Mirsky and the three other "defectors" had been given small spherical quarters in the Central City Wald. Three Geshel
homorphs—two females and one of uncertain sex—had been assigned to host them and guide their short-term education and accustomization.
Mirsky sat within his sphere, tuned to various channels of picted information—some translated for them by pedagog partials of their hosts. He and Rodzhensky had accepted temporary implants to help speed tutoring and interpretation. They watched and listened and said little. Rodzhensky stayed close to him, while Rimskaya—the American with the feminine name—kept aloof. The others he paid little attention to. They were very small ciphers in a huge mystery.
The hosts came to them, incarnate to minimize alarm, and taught brief, high density classes while their guests absorbed as much as they could.
The sense of urgency was thick in the air; except for their hosts, the Geshels paid little attention to the defectors. The Wald was almost deserted, most of its occupants taking new work positions to ready,the precincts for whatever might come.
The reports from the farthest-flung defense stations had reached the now-divided Axis City. The Jarts had opened a remote gate and allowed the deep interior plasma of a star to enter the Way.
It would take about seventy hours for the destruction to reach the end of the Way, but the occupants of the Geshel precincts of the Axis City had to decide their course of action quickly. If they wished to remain in the Way, and not give it over to the Jarts, they had to have their precincts up to at least one-third light-speed before encountering the
plasma front.
With the entry of the star's material into the Way, the plasma temperature would drop considerably below the level required for fusing, but would still remain in the neighborhood of nine hundred thousand degrees. The passage of the Geshel precincts would change that, however.
When they actually hit the front, their space-time shock wave would smash the superhot plasma into a thin film. The film, lining the Way after their passage, heated to temperatures far beyond those necessary for fusion, would then fill the Way with an even more powerful plasma. In effect, the precincts would convert the plasma and the Way into a
tube-shaped nova.
Mirsky, trying to keep track of the public discussions, thought their plans were deliriously, deliciously insane. Whether he died or not seemed minor; he was in the middle of a grand scheme, far more ostentatious than anything he could ever have imagined.
The Geshel politicians, given their freedom by the secessionists, made frantic plans. There had to be sufficient shielding front and rear to prevent the precincts' being flooded with hard radiation; that would place a heavy strain on the four main flaw generators left to them, which would be burdened enough with having to contact the flaw at such
high velocities. Could it be done?
Yes, the physicists decided. But just barely.
There would also have to be shielding along the flaw passage. The flaw itself would be emitting very high levels of lethal radiation. Could all the required shielding be maintained?
Yes. But with even stronger reservations.
Despite the doubts, there was a surprising consensus among the precinct's occupants. They did not wish to return to Earth; they looked to the future, not the past. And having fought Jarts for centuries, they were not about to give up the Way to them now.
Rimskaya, drifting through the woods outside his sphere, avoided hearing all the details. He prayed devoutly, not caring who saw him or what their reaction was. His principal worry was, could God hear prayers spoken outside of normal space-time? Would there come a moment when they were completely cut off from God?
His assigned host, a female homorph, kept her distance at his request, realizing there was little she could do to assure him.
For her, his questions fell into an extinct classification of knowledge, as meaningless as how many angels could dance on the head of a pin.
Waiting for the news of the final plans to reach them, Rodzhensky and Mirsky floated a few meters from each other in the greenery. A macrame pattern of light-snakes brightened a deep three-dimensional glade beyond their quarters, casting leaf shadows over them.
Mirsky studied the young corporal carefully, noting the shine of his skin, the loose excitement around his lips, the way his eyes started from his face. The future is a drug for him, Mirsky thought. Was it that way for himself, as well?
"I understand so little
," Rodzhensky confided, pulling himself along a branch closer to Mirsky's position in a crook. "But I feel I will understand—and they are so helpful! We are strange to them—don't you feel that? But they welcome us!"
"We're novelties," Mirsky said. He did not want to exhibit his own misgivings to the corporal. His own heart beat faster each time he thought of what they faced.
The female homorph assigned to the morose American tracted toward them.
"Your friend worries me," she said. "We're considering returning him to your people ... He won't admit it, but I think he's made the wrong decision."
"Give him time," Mirsky said. "We've all left a lot behind. We'll be very homesick. I'll talk to him."
"I will, too," Rodzhensky said enthusiastically.
"No," Mirsky said, holding up his hand. "Just me. We talked when I negotiated with the Americans, and we volunteered together."
Rodzhensky, abashed, agreed with a sharp nod.
Mirsky knocked on the pearl-colored translucent outer surface of the sphere. Within, Rimskaya answered, "Yes?What?" in English.
"Pavel Mirsky."
"No more talking, please."
"We don't have much time. Either you go back now, or you face up to our decision."
"Leave me alone."
"May I come in?"
The sphere's door dilated and Mirsky pulled himself inside. "They'll be leaving soon," he said. "There won't be any choice after they get started—you'll be here forever."
Rimskaya looked terrible—pale, his red hair sticking out in all directions, his face scruffy with a four-day's growth of beard. "I'm staying," he said. "I've made up my mind."
"That's what I told your hostess."
"You're speaking for me?"
"No."
"What does it matter to you? You're back from the dead. You don't give a damn about your position—your own people tried to kill you. Me, I've left ... responsibilities, loyalties."
"Why?" Mirsky asked.
"Shit, I don't know."
"Maybe I do."
Rimskaya regarded him doubtfully.
"You want to see the ultimate," Mirsky said.
Rimskaya simply stared, neither confirming nor denying.
"You, me, Rodzhensky, maybe even the woman—we're misfits. We aren't happy with just living one life. We reach out." He held up a grasping hand. "I always wanted to see the stars."
"You wanted to see stars, so you went into space to fight a war!" Rimskaya said. "We don't know what we'll see. More of this godforesaken corridor." He wrapped his face in his hands. "All my life, I've been a hard-liner. Everyone thought I was a passionless old ... asshole. Math and sociology and university. My life, held within four walls. When I was sent to the Stone—God, what an experience! And then this opportunity..."
"We know it will be interesting, far beyond what we could find on Earth."
"The others are going back to save Earth," Rimskaya said, fists curled tight against his sides.
"That makes us irresponsible? Perhaps. But no more so than all the people in this half of the city."
Rimskaya shrugged. "Look, I've made my decision, and I'm sticking with it. Don't worry about me. I'll be fine."
"That's all I wanted to hear," Mirsky said.
"Are you wearing the implant they gave you?" Rimskaya asked.
Mirsky pulled his right ear forward and turned his head to show he was.
"I still have mine," Rimskaya said. He opened one fist to reveal the peanut-sized device.
"You'll need it," Mirsky said. He fingered a moment longer, and the American slowly raised the implant to his head and positioned it behind his ear.
*64*
"We leave each other now," Ry Oyu told his daughter and Yates. He held out his hand, and the Senator grasped it between hers. Olmy, Patricia, Lanier and Korzenowski waited for them beside the disk.
"What's he planning?" Patricia asked.
"He's going through the gate," Olmy said. "The Talsit will accompany him; one of the Frants, as well. All the rest are coming with us."
"He can't survive," Lanier said. "They can't possibly take enough food, oxygen—there isn't time to prepare—"
"He's not going incarnate," Olmy explained. "None of them are. They'll transfer personality to a long-term gate worker. They can research as much as they wish—open other gates, wait for the Axis City if it reaches that distance. They have millions of years of energy."
Prescient Oyu shook her head slowly, watching her father's face. "You've done well with me," she said. "It won't be easy, not being able to speak with you ... ever."
"Come with the Geshel precincts," Ry Oyu said. "We might meet again, far down the Way. Who knows what their plans will be, if they succeed? And besides, somebody can always reopen this gate, find us again..."
"No one will ever find this gate again," she countered. "Only you could find it and open it."
"She's right," Yates said. "It was your skill."
Ry Oyu nodded in Patricia's direction. "Korzenoski, or the Earth woman. They could ... but then, Korzenowski's returning to Earth, and she goes hunting for something even more elusive. Well, at any rate, nothing is final."
"This is," Prescient Oyu said. "I'm going back to Earth. It's what we've been working for." She let go of his hand.
The gate opener picted a symbol to her: Earth, blue and green and brown, clouds vivid and alive, and surrounding it, a loop of DNA; and around that, the simplified equation that Korzenowski had taken from one of the elder Vasquez's papers.
The Talsit in its cold bubble and a Frant in a white coat of permanent parting—unpacked just moments before—stood behind Ry Oyu. Prescient Oyu reached across and kissed him, then turned to join the rest at the disk.
The gate opener and his companions moved toward the workshop and the tumulus around the new gate.
"He fulfills his pledge to the Hexamon," Prescient Oyu said as the disk closed around them. "He'll guide the Axis City if it comes his way." She reached out to Patricia, whose eyes were again moist and touched the Earth woman's cheek. Removing a tear, Prescient Oyu placed it on her own cheek.
Olmy instructed the disk to take them out of the terminal, and up to the waiting flawships.
Both of the flawships, the gate opener's staff vessel and the defense craft they had arrived in, had removed themselves from the flaw and hung tethered by traction fields, a precaution in case evacuating defense ships came from the north. Olmy chose quickly; they needed speed, and the smaller defense craft was the faster.
They had to meet the accelerating precincts before they had reached one-third light-speed. There were two options then: the precincts could briefly pull in their generators and flaw grips, and allow the defense flawship to move through the passage; or the defense ship would have to disengage, hug the wall, and weather the pressure wave of
particles and atoms pushed before the city.
But before they encountered the precincts, he had to fulfill his promise to Patricia.
In the barren sectors where she was likely to find the geometry stacks she needed, she would be sent with a clavicle to the surface of the Way. She would have very little time to accomplish her work; the plasma front would be right behind them.
Yates took Patricia to an isolated section of the ship and gave her final instructions on the use of the clavicle. "Remember," he told her when he was finished, "you have the instinct, and the desire, but not much skill. You have the knowledge, but not the experience. You must not be rash, you must be deliberate and careful." He took her by the shoulders and faced her directly. "Do you know your chances of success?"
She nodded. "Not very good."
"And you'll still take the risk?" She nodded again, without hesitation. Yates let her go and produced the small box from his pocket. "When I press the clavicle into your hands and transfer its services to you, it will grow to its active size. It will work for you only; if you die, it will crumble to dust. So long as you live, it will serve you—though what use it wi
ll be if you succeed, I don't know. It will open new gates only from within the Way, not from without. It will recognize the existence of prior gates, even should they be closed..."
Yates removed the clavicle, now little more than twelve centimeters long, and pressed it into her left hand. "Take both grips," he instructed. She held both between the thumb and forefinger of each hand. The clavicle picted a steady stream of red symbols at Yates.
"It doesn't recognize you now," he said. "It's asking for instructions from its last master. I will reactivate it." He instructed the clavicle in picted code.
The device slowly enlarged in Patricia's hands, until it was the same size as the clavicle used by Ry Oyu.
