Rachel looked to Zhao, as if to say, What do I tell her?
“Yes,” Zhao said, firmly. His position was always Work from the facts. “Do you remember anything of dying?”
“White light. Burning. Falling. Drowning. Falling some more. If I believed in hell, I’d think that’s where I was. There’s something I have to show you. It’s important. That’s all I know, that and the feeling that once we’re there, some of the noise in my head will stop.”
And they resumed their journey.
Zhao had not been a popular child, not with his brother or playmates. One of the reasons was the fact that he was a brother: every other boy in the neighborhood (and there were only a few girls) was a single child, an honored son...and saw Zhao as an unfair ally in sports and war games.
The other reason? Zhao never believed any of the stories the other boys told, not about Chang Liu’s father being a taikonaut or Du Jincheng’s DVD of Halo III and especially not Mrs. Yang showing her breasts to Mang Senlin—even once, much less twice.
His constant refrain? “Show me.”
This personality trait—which he defined as healthy skepticism—had served him in his intelligence work.
He wasn’t sure it was serving him on Keanu. Start with the vastly improbable scooping of Bangalore humans by a giant alien space bubble, to use terms that would have come out of Chang Liu’s mouth in 1998.
Then the arrival on the NEO, the discovery of the highly unusual events of the Destiny and Brahma missions (Zhao had known that there had been a Close Encounter, but few of the details), and the astonishing business of Megan Stewart’s resurrection two years after her death, followed by, apparently, astronaut Pogo Downey’s return from a more recent fatal accident.
What had driven Downey, anyway? Some twist in his personality? Zhao’s research pegged the astronaut as extremely religious, suggesting that his death and resurrection might have unhinged him. Or was it a more rational desire to protect Earth from infection by the dangerous entities aboard Keanu—?
Zhao could sympathize with both motives. He was still emotionally numb from the wonders and terrors of his experiences since leaving the habitat, which, looking back, now seemed like a haven of sanity and logic. Being trapped in mysterious tunnels! Swimming in a stream of plasmlike goo!
Then falling to what surely should have been his death, only to survive...and find himself in the company of resurrected astronaut Yvonne Hall!
The only truly logical conclusion was that he had actually been killed when a kinetic-energy weapon struck Bangalore. Perhaps, as Yvonne suggested, this was some kind of hell. Certainly he had been shown a great many things...he just didn’t know what they all meant—
They were skirting another lake, this one filled with churning bluish fluid, when the dog suddenly began barking, and not the friendly sounds even Zhao recognized.
Warning sounds, complete with growls.
With a clap of thunder so loud the sound flattened them, the lake exploded. Thrown flat on his back, Zhao could only watch in amazement as a gusher of blue fluid shot toward the roof of the habitat...to disappear into a rooftop portal.
It was over within seconds, the only evidence of the massive eruption being the empty lake...and a misty rain.
“God, that tastes awful!” Rachel said, wiping her mouth.
“Don’t drink it!” Pav said, but it was difficult, since they had been coated with the fluid.
“Will it hurt us?” Zhao asked Yvonne. “And what was it?”
“Good questions,” she said. “I’m putting them both in the queue. Meanwhile, we’re here.”
Zhao immediately classed the structure—four stories tall, and twice as wide, looking much like the Temple in the human habitat—as a public building of some kind. It just had a more majestic aspect, like British colonial centers in India.
Except that whereas those would face a broad avenue or a public square, or even this bizarre exploding lake, this rested at an odd angle to those next to it. At least two “alleys” simply dead-ended here, as if this building had been dropped into the neighborhood long after the others.
Yvonne stopped in the front, with Pav, Rachel, Zhao, and Cowboy looking the place over...and waiting. “Okay,” Rachel said. “We’re here. Now what?”
“We go in.”
The building not only wasn’t barred or locked...it wasn’t even closed in; an entire side was open to the elements, such as they were. Or visiting strangers, in their case.
Entering its shadowy interior, Zhao was struck by the sheer size, the darkness, and what appeared to be illustrations along the walls.
“It’s like a museum or something,” Rachel said. Actually, to Zhao it was a planetarium; the exhibits were star fields. As they approached the first one, a solar system emerged from the stars...one more step and a giant green planet grew prominent.
There was no actual lighting, but the exhibits—there was no better word—provided their own light. “I count a dozen of them,” Yvonne said.
“You counted, or the voices in your head?” Zhao said.
“The voices are quiet right now, thank God.”
“Whoa!” Pav said. “Check this out!”
He had gone closer to the first planet exhibit. “What happened?” Rachel said.
He simply took her by the hand and pulled her with him. “Oh!” she said.
The planets disappeared, replaced by a landscape—and several alien beings. They were two-legged, but with three appendages. Their world, judging by the illustration, was heavily industrialized and densely populated.
“Okay,” Rachel said, “we’re being shown different worlds, and the beings who live there, right?”
“I have no better suggestion,” Zhao said. He had shifted to the next one, which showed a ringed world and several moons. The landscape on display was mountainous, covered with patchy ice, and drenched in a dark rain. The inhabitants were squat, flat creatures...alien centipedes.
A third world, a banded gas giant like Jupiter, showed no surface landscape at all, but rather a sea of clouds and floating islands of vegetation...and beings that reminded Zhao of jellyfish.
The fourth...brilliantly scarlet desert, and an alien whose head looked like the bleached skull of a long-dead steer, wearing a monk’s habit.
Rachel was already two exhibits ahead of him, in front of the first Earth-like world Zhao had yet seen...though this one looked to be ninety percent ocean. “This creature looks like the Sentry my father talked about.”
Before Zhao could go closer, Pav said, “You know what these guys have in common?” Without waiting for an answer, he said, “Clothing.” It was true; even the alien jellyfish wore delicate armor of some kind.
“What did you expect?” Rachel said. “They’d be naked?”
“In all the sci-fi I used to watch, aliens usually were naked.”
“Maybe they’ve all eaten from the Tree of Knowledge of Life and Death,” Yvonne said. Zhao knew what she meant, but Rachel and Pav looked at her as if she were gibbering. “The Garden of Eden,” she explained. “Adam and Eve were running around, happily naked, until Eve took a bite of the apple and got Adam to do it, too. Next thing you know...loincloths. Don’t know why I remembered that. I haven’t looked at a Bible since I was twelve.”
“Maybe the voices in your head are Christians,” Zhao said. “Speaking of the voices, we’re hungry and thirsty and I think we need to know what’s going on.”
“In a minute,” Yvonne said. “It’s not as though they just shut up...it’s just that the volume dropped. It’s like I have ringing in my ears, only all through my head.”
“Well, what would we be learning?” Rachel said.
“You’re eager for more unfounded speculation?” Zhao said, remembering the talk in the tunnel.
“Sure!”
“I assume,” Zhao said, “that these are races the Architects know.” He waved farther down the row of exhibits. “It may be that we’re looking at the Architects themselves.”
“I don’t think so,” Rachel said. “My dad told me a little about the ones he’d met, and these don’t look right.”
“Here’s a question,” Pav said, gesturing to Yvonne. “Why did your voices guide us here? So we know all these aliens if we run into them? It’s not like we can talk to them—”
“It’s more than that,” Yvonne said abruptly. “There is something these races all have in common—”
“Hey, what about this one?” Rachel said.
Zhao realized that Rachel had separated herself from the group. She was standing in front of a being far off to the side.
All of the half-dozen aliens Zhao had seen could be classified as strange, but this one was strange in a unique way. It looked a bit like a human-sized anteater, all legs and snout and spindly arms...but either wearing a garment composed of fractal elements, or—
That was the unusual thing: This alien was naked! Zhao also realized that, approaching it, he saw no related planetary display.
His training in espionage had sensitized him to dangerous situations. Right now, all his internal alarms were sounding—
Rachel reached for the creature. “When does the image change...? Oh!” The image didn’t change; Rachel actually touched the face of what now appeared to be some kind of lifelike statue.
“Get away from there,” Yvonne said.
“Why?” Rachel said, turning back to her. “It’s not like it’s going to—”
It moved!
“Rachel!” Pav shouted. He shot toward her, swiftly moving her out of the anteater’s immediate reach.
The alien unfolded itself, head swiveling right and left, as if recording the positions of each human. To Zhao, it seemed to be measuring their distance and threat potential.
He wished for his Glock. He wished he carried something more weaponlike than an empty water bottle.
With the others, he backed away carefully. He allowed for the possibility that the alien was not hostile...but would take no chances. “Yvonne, what is this thing?”
“I’m getting the name ‘Long Legs,’ that’s all.”
“What does it do?” Rachel said.
“Nothing good,” Yvonne said.
“What the hell does that mean?” Pav snapped.
“All these other exhibits, the voices in my head just sort of drone on. This one...it’s like an alarm went off.”
As if to demonstrate its hostile nature, the Long Legs extended its arms, showing multifingered appendages, like fingers with nasty “claws.” With more speed than Zhao would have believed, it sidled toward the opening. As it did, the Long Legs sliced through the exhibit next to it, destroying it, and not seeming to care.
Now it blocked the exit. Then it began to close on them.
Cowboy rushed forward at this point, barking savagely. The Long Legs stopped, as if to recalibrate.
“Any ideas, anyone?” Zhao said.
“Upstairs!” Yvonne said. “Uh, this way!”
She waved them toward the darkest corner of the museum. Zhao realized there was a ramp back there. “Everyone, go!”
He pushed Rachel. Pav shouted, “Cowboy, come on!” The dog held its ground right to the moment when the Long Legs swiped at it, the tip of its claw grazing his fur. Cowboy yelped and retreated.
Zhao let Rachel, Pav, and Yvonne head up the ramp first. It wasn’t chivalry, but practicality: Yvonne was the only one of the four with any idea what lay upstairs.
And Zhao wanted another look at this Long Legs. Was it trying to grab them? Touch them? Kill them?
He almost regretted it. The alien charged directly toward him, one arm extending so far its claws missed him by only half a meter.
He made it up the ramp with a speed that was surely his personal best.
The second story was dark, no windows, filled with objects that might be machines or furniture, he couldn’t tell. “Keep going!” he shouted. He could hear the Long Legs chittering up the ramp a few steps behind him.
“Next ramp’s on the far side,” Yvonne said, leading the way.
Another story. Lighter here, as if the walls were translucent. Another collection of boxlike objects, like personal possessions placed in storage.
But the Long Legs was still in pursuit.
To the top.
They emerged on the roof of the museum, but a roof unlike any Zhao had ever seen. It wasn’t flat, for one thing, but rather bowed, as if the space underneath were a flattened dome. Nor were there any pipes, vents or power lines—no obvious infrastructure.
“It’s still coming!” Rachel said. She was hugging the dog, who looked as tired and frightened as the girl.
Pav had worked his way to the edge. “Can we jump?”
“Where to?” Zhao said. “Every other structure is higher! Or too far away!”
“How about down?” Rachel said. “Gravity is lower here, right?”
“Not enough, honey,” Yvonne said. “We’d be lucky to just break our legs.”
“That doesn’t leave us any options,” Pav said.
The Long Legs emerged. It was probably his imagination, but to Zhao the creature looked bigger. It’s your senses telling you you’re going to be sliced and diced by something big and nasty.
Then it hit him. “Everyone, back up to the edge!” he said.
“What good will that do?” Yvonne said.
Zhao didn’t answer. He watched the Long Legs approach, searching for a weakness. “It’s got some of that plasm on it,” he said.
“Yeah, that’s helpful,” Pav said.
It wasn’t—yet. Maybe never.
“Spread out!” Zhao said, “as close to the edge as you can, as far apart as possible. Rachel, you and the dog, next to me!”
He was pleased that the others followed his suggestion. In moments they were arrayed across one side of the roof...the Long Legs would be able to reach only one at a time.
Zhao was first. He had positioned himself closest. “Come on, you ugly piece of shit...” The Long Legs was within three meters.
Then he said, “Rachel, the dog!”
Rachel let Cowboy loose. It charged the Long Legs from behind.
The alien swiveled its head and whipped both arms around to deal with the attack—
—giving Zhao the opening he needed to hit it from one side.
Knocking it off the roof.
“Way to go!” Yvonne shouted.
They looked down. The Long Legs lay in three distinct pieces. “Wow,” Pav said. “I bet he felt that.”
What Zhao felt was triumph. Ever since volunteering to go in search of Rachel, he had felt lost, out of place, and useless.
No longer.
As they watched, however, tiny bits of the three segments of the shattered Long Legs began to crawl toward each other. It was like watching a time-lapse movie of a building being built.
“What the fuck?” Pav said.
“It’s reassembling itself,” Zhao said, amazed.
“Well,” Rachel said, “let’s not stick around to watch.”
They headed for the ramp going down.
ZACK
So Dash needed their help.
That was Zack’s takeaway from several hours of terrible sleep and intermittent conversation between Zack, Valya, and Dash, with a bit of help from Makali.
Quizzing Dash was the only useful activity available to them, especially as they were hampered by lack of oxygen. They had tried the Tik-Talk several times and failed to get any kind of response from the human habitat, which was no surprise. “They’re essentially walkie-talkie tech,” Scott said. “We’re way out of range, and even if we had another Tik-Talk close enough for a signal, the rocks here would probably kill it.”
“So it’s a paperweight,” Zack said.
“Until we get closer, yeah.” It was easy for Zack to get curt with Dale Scott, but in this case, his anger was triggered by worry about Rachel. Bad enough to have lost one parent for the second time...What must she be feeling, having her father
lost somewhere on Keanu, out of touch?
Then there was Harley, not only worried about what had happened to Zack and what that might mean for the Houston-Bangalore group’s survival...but just having to answer all the questions about where Zack went.
And now their new alien friend was in trouble. He had a plan, however, which reduced itself, in Zack’s mind, to several one-word steps.
“Escape” was part one. Specifically, get out of this prison cell in the Sentry Beehive annex.
“Transit” was next. Get through the Sentry habitat.
The third was “Locate,” as in find the NEO’s control center or a control center. That was followed by “Reboot.”
“Why do we need to reboot anything?” Zack had asked.
For the next fifteen minutes, Dash recounted the failures of the Keanu system over the past many cycles. “I think he means a century,” Valya had said. She had been working to convert Sentry definitions of time and measure to figures humans could use.
Zack put the question directly to Dash. “How can you tell?”
“Terminal habitat loss,” it said, which sounded terrifying in its blandness. “Random generations,” whatever that meant, though Zack suspected it had to do with resurrections and Revenants. “Equipment failures.”
That was clear enough.
It had been difficult for Zack to conceive of the technology on display in Keanu—propulsion, the creation of environments, access to an entirely unknown form of universal information, the ability to manipulate that information.
The idea that it wasn’t working properly...yikes.
It added more urgency to a situation that was already quite urgent.
So, “Reboot.”
Then, the final step, which was even more disturbing. “War.”
“You mean, armed conflict?” Zack said, not really sure the term had been correct.
“The warship is infected,” Dash had said, clearly struggling with the right terms. “It must be disinfected in order to function properly.”
“Sounds more like fumigation than a war,” Zack had said to Valya. “What or who is the enemy?”
“Pillagers,” Dash said.
Heaven's War Page 31
