The Dark Imbalance

by Sean Williams

  Unless, she thought, there were more like her....

  But there was little she could do except stew over it until the Box returned, and she had no idea how long that might be. She walked around the sphere to where the reduced display wavered in the air, and passed a hand through it. It returned instantly to its full size, displaying the key once again. She sat down on her haunches and searched every link she thought might be even remotely promising. Anything to distract her.

  She learned some things she hadn’t known before. The Crescend wasn’t the most powerful Interventionist. One called Aquareii—whom Rey Nemeth had once mentioned in passing— coordinated that faction in the High Caste. The Crescend’s value, it seemed, lay in his close proximity to the convergence—to Sol System—although his precise location was never specified. Roche didn’t know whether members of the High Caste retained a physical component when they Transcended; for all she knew, they might have written their minds on the fabric of space itself, never to be erased. But if they did have components that could be damaged or even destroyed, she could understand why they kept their locations a secret, even from each other. When one’s potential for life was equal to millions of mundane lives combined, death was a tragedy only comprehensible in the same terms.

  There were other details, too, that she couldn’t see connected in any particular way to the matter of the enemy. One struck her as being so far afield that it couldn’t possibly be right: the discovery in a distant part of the galaxy of several anchor point remnants that appeared to be older than Humanity itself. Either the dating of their decay was wrong, or Humanity was simply older than first thought—

  The sphere suddenly and violently vibrated, flexing as though it had been struck by a giant hammer.

  The display dissolved as an inrush of sensory data flooded through Roche—pain, fear, nausea, paralysis...

  Almost buried beneath it, she heard two words:

  “... between thoughts.”

  She knew instantly what had happened. Someone had used the Box’s shutdown codes! She hung on desperately as the sphere threatened to unravel beneath her. Clutching for the appropriate response before she lost herself totally to the overwhelming sensations, she called out as loudly as she could: “The game begins! The game begins!”

  As the rush ebbed slightly, she fell back with a gasp. The sphere was still unstable, but at least the pain had relaxed its grip on her.

  A flash of light above her heralded the return of the AI.

 

 

  she began.

  it snapped.

 

 

  She paused, reluctant to say what she knew to be true. she said finally.

  The Box sounded almost relieved.

  Roche felt confused.

  it said, its voice growing softer.

  The sphere shuddered around her. she said, fighting down panic.

 

  For a moment she couldn’t speak. This was far more than she had guessed. The Crescend was putting the lives of Cane and all his siblings in her hands!

  The light of the AI flickered, then returned at a reduced intensity. it repeated.

  Stunned, Roche closed her eyes. This wasn’t what she wanted to hear. <1 don’t believe you, Box,> she said.

  The sphere seemed to be unraveling again beneath her, and the Box’s voice grew fainter every second.

  She shook her head. Her thoughts were becoming fuzzy, as though whipped by a rising wind.

 

  Something caved inside her. She had never heard the Box so anxious, so desperate.

  she said, her panic rising steadily as the Box’s voice gradually faded.

 

  Before it could finish, the sphere was torn apart by forces beyond her comprehension and the Box’s light faded completely. Pain exploded through her. Her skin was afire and every cell of her being cried out in agony. She dimly heard voices—someone shouting her name—and felt hands roughly on her shoulders.

  She opened her eyes to a darkness broken by the faint flicker of light.

  “Box?” she said weakly.

  But all she saw, looming from the shadows, was Cane’s face.

  18

  HIC God’s Monkey

  955.2.15

  1210

  After the solitude of the sphere, his voice struck her like a whip.

  “She’s alive!”

  Roche reached for him with hands bent into claws. “Help...”

  “Don’t move,” he said, putting his arms beneath her to lift her up. He placed her down again on something hard and cold.

  “The Box...” The world grayed for a moment, and she clutched at consciousness with the last of her strength. “Don’t let me die!”

  “Trust me,” Cane said. “I have no intention of allowing that to happen.”

  She felt an incredible pain surge through her as he stretched her out. Her gut heaved and she tasted blood—just as something exploded nearby and she was flung back onto the floor. Someone called out in pain; she didn’t recognize the sound of her own voice.

  “That idiot blew her ship!” Cane said loudly. “We’ll have to manage as best we can.”

  Was he talking to her? Roche couldn’t tell. But her mouth moved feebly in response anyway.

  Robed figures suddenly loomed over her, trying to pick her up. She recoiled from them, confused. Was she still back on the Phlegethon, trapped by Page De Bruyn? Was all that had gone before merely a dream, and the nightmare proper only just beginning?

  Wanting to cry out, she let her body go limp. She was simply too weak to resist.

  Her head lolled back over her shoulder, and she glimpsed a body dressed in a black uniform lying in one corner, its head twisted at an impossible angle. The face had once belonged to Page De Bruyn. It didn’t seem to belong to anyone now.

  She heard Cane’s voice as though from a great distance, ordering the robed people to move faster. She thought he sounded different somehow, but was unable to be sure with the wailing of alarms and the pounding of machines booming through the bulkheads. He sounded colder, more efficient perhaps. He sounded dangerous.

  Her body spasmed as the terrible realization spread like burning ice through her mind: it wasn’t Cane!

  “Where”—Her mouth was full of blood. She tried her best to spit it out—”are you taking me?” she managed.

  One of the robed figures turned to face her. Beneath the cowl, the woman’s skin was pale-blue and waxy. Her eyes were red.

  “To Hell,” she said matter-of-factly.

  Roche closed her eyes; despair threatened to overwhelm her. She could feel it gathering like the black clouds of a dust storm on the horizon. If she let it in, it might never leave. She had to fight it.

 

  Nothing.

 

  Silence.

  she tried lamel
y, but even as she spoke the words she knew it was pointless.

  Her bearers slowed and she heard the hissing of an airlock.

  “Through here,” she heard Cane say. “On the acceleration couch. Careful!”

  She was brought forward and laid gingerly on a reclined, cushioned seat. The sound of alarms faded slightly. She tried to look around, but her vision was blurred and hazy. Her left eye was completely blind.

  The hands that had held her fell away, and a series of footsteps led out of the room. Then there was a voice:

  “Master?”

  “What is it?” Cane snapped.

  Roche could hear the speaker’s obsequious tone; she imagined him bowing, but couldn’t see to be sure. “Master, I would accompany you to safety.”

  “That is not necessary. The Apostle is only minutes away—”

  “Allow me to serve you, Master.”

  “You have served me,” he said. “But now you must return to the others and tend to repairs.”

  “But our pilot—”

  “Another ship shall be summoned,” he said, his patience wearing thin. “You will be rescued.”

  “Master—”

  “I command you to wait.” The frost in Adoni Cane’s voice could have cooled stars. “Leave me now, or invoke my displeasure!”

  “Yes, Master.” The owner of the voice didn’t believe he would be rescued; that much was clear. Yet he obeyed. His footsteps slowly shuffled away, then were cut off by the closing of the airlock.

  The baying of alarms ceased, and for a second all was silent.

  “Fools.” Cane’s voice so close to her made her jump.

  “Where... ?” she tried, then: “Why...?”

  “Don’t talk.” His strong hands strapped a harness around her broken body, tying her hands together in the process. Then a medical pack was pressed against her hip. “I only have one of these, I’m afraid. I didn’t think you’d be this bad.”

  The pack attached itself with a slight sting.

  Why do you want me alive? It was nothing more than a thought. She was unable to control her voice enough to do anything other than moan.

  “That’s it,” he said, his tone almost encouraging. “Keep fighting, Morgan, and you might even make it.”

  She shuddered, feeling a strange coldness in her mind. She wanted to succumb to the physical and mental exhaustion, wanted to sleep. But that was a luxury she couldn’t afford just yet. For now she only had grief to distance her from the pain....

  * * *

  Gradually, as the medical pack took effect, the pain began to ease. The sharp edges in the world softened. Blinking, she could make out flashing lights around her, blurred as if she were looking at them through rain over a pane of glass. Cane sat not far away, his back to her.

  Instruments chattered briefly; she felt a gentle nudge of acceleration. Then something clanged, and the acceleration became more insistent. She clutched the sides of her couch as the pressure mounted. It might have lasted only a minute or so, but seemed like an hour.

  As the minutes ticked by, she found her vision clearing even more. Not very much at first, and only in her right eye, but she appreciated any improvement.

  She was in an ordinary-looking cockpit, with Cane operating the pilot’s station. All she could see was his scalp and the lights reflecting from it like multicolored stars in a chocolate sky.

  “Where are you taking me?” she asked eventually.

  His chair swiveled to face her. He pointed to a display. In it she could make out, vaguely, a large Hum ship against a starry backdrop.

  Despair rippled through her. “Am I going to die?”

  “Not yet,” he said, returning to his console. “That would be counterproductive.”

  “If you think I’m going to help you—”

  “Conserve your strength, Morgan. You’re going to need it.”

  Something in his voice made her look at him again. Was he the Adoni Cane she knew or not? He looked and sounded exactly like him, apart from the coldness in his tone. But that was the whole point: the enemy was composed of clone warriors, many of them identical. He could very well be one of Cane’s siblings with the same face, but with the killing instinct intact.

  Regardless of who he was, he was right about conserving her strength. She felt weak right down to her core, and the coldness was still in her mind. The pain was manageable now, thanks to the ministrations of the medical pack, but that meant she could look down and see how badly she had been injured. When she did, she instantly wished she hadn’t.

  The Hum ship grew larger in the display. Cane had mentioned something about “the Apostle” being only minutes away. Presumably they were one and the same. Although she had never seen this particular ship before, the connection between it and the black-robed figures they had left behind seemed clear. Some sort of organization staffed and supplied by Hum backers had obviously assisted Page De Bruyn in hunting her down. Why, she didn’t know, but the presence of a clone warrior high on the command chain seemed ominous. If this was her Cane, how could he have infiltrated such a group so quickly?

  Her wrists chafed where he had tied her hands together. Her left hand in particular ached as though stiff from a half-healed wound. The back of her head felt like someone had hammered a nail into it, and the vision still hadn’t cleared in her left eye. When she blinked, the socket itself even felt odd, unnatural—

  Empty. The Box had said that her implants had been removed. The harsh reality of that fact was only now sinking in. Without them, she felt hollow, incomplete.

  “Why did you rescue me?” she asked.

  He turned again to face her. “If you can’t answer that question, then perhaps I have wasted my time.”

  Him and the Box, she thought to herself. “Maybe you have.”

  He shrugged. “It might change nothing.”

  She winced as another wave of pain swept through her.

  He came over to check her medical pack. “I haven’t come all this way to watch you die,” he said dispassionately. “You’ll be treated properly when we arrive.”

  Her words came through clenched teeth. “How much longer?”

  “Not long. We’re almost in range.” He turned back to the display. “It’ll be over soon.”

  He adjusted something on the pack and warmth rushed through her. At first she resisted it, wanting to remain alert. Maybe all hope was not quite lost; if a chance came to escape, she had to be ready.

  But then she remembered what she had seen when she had looked down at her body. There was nothing she could do. She closed her eyes and let the warmth caress her pain, blunt the icy coldness inside her.

  A moment later, it disappeared completely. In its absence, she felt strangely light, as though it had been tying her down. In its wake, she felt almost free....

  That was crazy, she thought. She was half-dead, the captive of an unknown organization with links to the enemy. Not only had she no way of escaping, but she wouldn’t even live much longer if they chose not to help her.

  Cane cocked his head as though listening to something.

  “That’s close enough,” he said, turning back to her. “Morgan, I have someone who wishes to speak to you.”

  Roche steeled herself for another grim surprise, glancing around the cabin to see if anyone else had entered.

  Then she heard the voice—loud and clear in her thoughts.

  said the reave.

  Roche tried to sit, but pain forced her back.

  “Look at the screen,” said Cane.

  Through her one remaining eye, Roche watched as they passed through the fringes of a camouflage screen and the Hum ship became the Ana Vereine.

  “It really is you?” There was both uncertainty and relief in her whispered words.

  He smiled. “Does that surprise you?”

  Lemmas, their reave,> Maii said. Her voice hinted at dark truths Roche didn’t want to explore.

  “But how...?”

  She felt Cane’s hand on her left shoulder, pressing gently but firmly. “This can be discussed later, Morgan. Right now I want to dock and get us out of here before anyone back there suspects what has happened—before their real contact shows up.”

  She nodded weakly. Maii filled her mind with a radiant warmth. She felt as though she had been dipped in a bath of light, and the cold, dead touch of the Hum reave faded like ice in the sun. For the first time, Roche allowed herself the luxury of really believing that she might live long enough to see her friends again.

  Anything beyond that could wait.

  * * *

  Haid and Vri met the scutter with a fully equipped stretcher. Barely had she been placed in its embrace than her treatment began. The autosurgeon dictated the list of her injuries all the way to the medical center: beginning with her shattered hip and pelvis, her punctured lung and blood loss, and working its way down to relatively minor muscle damage and gashes. It was still droning on when Haid cut off its output in order to let her rest.

  At the same time, Kajic sent the ship accelerating back in-system, away from Roche’s captors. She was conscious just long enough to learn that the Phlegethon was still under intense attack, so was not considered a safe port. Kajic had plotted a relatively innocuous orbit instead, bypassing the major concentrations of fighting in the system and skimming close to the outer edge of the ring where traffic was light. The ship would travel under heavy camouflage and in a constant state of alert. If they were spotted, they would be ready to defend themselves.

  Haid was sitting with her when the autosurgeon put her under, his black skin and artificial eyes gleaming in the medical center’s bright lights.

  “Don’t worry, Morgan,” he said, touching her arm lightly. “We’ll still be here when you come back.”