The Starkahn of Rhada

by Robert Cham Gilman

  We were all together in that compartment: Erit, Ariane, Marissa, and I. And the laser cut steadily through the metal, a tiny bubbling trail of bright slag that formed globules and floated free in zero-gravity each time the massive vessel changed direction.

  The heat was making the paintwork smolder when the valve was free at last. I computed the distance from the surface of the sea and the speed of my fall. There was barely time. I jetted through the jagged opening and up the now blazing-hot shaft.

  When I neared the opening, I was in flames. The heat was burbling through the opening, blue-green. I caught a glimpse of the sea through the fire. The hatchway was pointed down. I went through without hesitation, out into the blazing, streaming open air. The noise was deafening, and the impact of the air was like the crash of a hundred hammers. I felt my armor twist and scorch, and I fell free, trailing the metal drogues, watching them flutter and snap and finally bum away.

  Below me there was a cataclysmic tower of steam and flaming fragments as the disintegrating starship struck the sea. The superheated water erupted into a mushroom-shaped flower as the shock wave hit it; then the sea parted into an immense watery crater to swallow the Death in one single, convulsive gulp, and in the next instant the sea rushed in again to rise into another tower of steam and fire even greater than before. I was on the edges of it, and I was born aloft, tumbled like a leaf in a wind, and all around me black storm clouds formed instantly as the tortured air tried to cool the violence of the explosion.

  Then I was falling again, riding my crippled thrusters, spinning back toward the ocean that was suddenly dark, almost black, with the churned-up debris of a bottom five kilometers below the sunlighted surface.

  I struck the sea and arrowed into the murky depths. I could feel the heat of the water through the armor. I went deeper and deeper still, tumbled by turbulent currents, and gradually the violent movements of the water around me became calmer, for even the mightiest violence of man cannot perturb the seas of the universe for long.

  At long last I was floating in clear, dark blue water. The weight of my useless armor was carrying me down, down.

  I remembered (or was it one of the others of me who remembered?) the implant still in my chest: the gill put there when I was a pleasure-seeker of Zodiac Bay. I opened my space armor and let the warm waters of the sea float me free. It was peaceful in the depths, dark and peaceful as the night of space between the galaxies. I could remember that, too, for I was Marissa as well as the others.

  Then with a deep draft of cooling water in my gill, I started upward toward the light, toward the sparkling surface where I could see, even at this distance, the lovely winged shape of Ariane waiting for me to return.

  Epilogue

  The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament showeth his handiwork.

  Psalm, attributed to David,

  period unknown

  This manuscript, done in the ancient style of my human forebears, is being dispatched on our last drone. We are far from Rhada, far from the Rim. The last star king has left the land of my fathers.

  It is possible the Galacton would not voluntarily have given us permission to depart on this search, for he is, above all else, a practical man, and he sees no immediate advantage to this journey. We used our developing mental powers on him, and he agreed. It is best that we go, for we are no longer simply a man, a woman, a Vulk, and a cyborg. We are one entity that is all four, with capabilities that we can only imagine now, for we are still young. But though we love our fellow creatures, there is no longer a place for us among the worlds of men.

  At this moment we are traveling at four kilolights, and even at this speed our journey will be very long. But with the strength and speed of Ariane, with the wisdom and long life of Vulk Erit, and the love and community of the Cloud-woman our common property--what else were we to do?

  Ahead of us lies the Cloud. And beyond?

  We--shall--see.