Skye Object 3270a

by Linda Nagata

  It might have been a few seconds. It might have been minutes. She had no way of knowing. She was too scared to keep track of time. But at last the pressure eased. She gasped for breath and filled her lungs over and over again. She could hear somebody jabbering over the radio, but she could not make out the words. Her eyes were watering. She blinked several times and shook her head. Then she looked again.

  The first white ring lay just ahead of her. It looked immense … bigger around than any building in Silk. She could make out an odd, circular grain in the white metal, so she knew it was close, maybe only a few hundred meters away. Strung through its center was the chain of colorful ingots she had seen before. Only now it was easy to see that each “bead” of refined matter was the size of a small house.

  The ingots and the great ring hung in the dark, unmoving. Not receding. Not approaching – which meant she was moving at the same speed as the construction zoo.

  She put out a cautious hand and touched the cord. It was taut. She could feel it sliding into the cassette. So. She was moving, but slowly. Very slowly. It had to be that way. If the cord hauled her in too quickly, she would be slammed against the ring and crushed.

  She reached behind her back, feeling for the link that tied her to Devi. She found it and tugged gently, twisting so that she could look over her shoulder.

  Devi trailed behind her, a few hundred meters away. Zia drifted beyond him, and Buyu was a tiny figure at the end of the line. The cords that tied them all together were too thin to see, so they seemed to float unattached, just like the ingots of refined matter that were part of the zoo.

  The zoo.

  They were inside it. Immense rings that would become the hull of the great ship hung in a long line behind them. It was like looking down the body of a toy snake, the kind made of hoop-segments linked together by magnetic forces, except here the chain of ingots hung within the rings. Far down the line, Skye could see the cache of unused ingots. Devi had said it was midway along the line of rings. It looked like a fleet of tiny, colorful bubbles frozen in place, as if they’d been captured in glass. The lifeboat would be there, somewhere, though they were still too far away to see it. Beyond the cache, more rings stretched away into the dark distance.

  Motion caught Skye’s eye. Her gaze shifted back, to discover an immense lydra perched on the rim of the nearest ring. It looked like an orange sun, with tentacles that were great solar flares. As she watched, it reached out to a purple lydra riding on an ingot. They hooked tentacles, and slowly the purple one was drawn across the gap and onto the ring, leaving the ingot behind.

  Skye looked again toward the distant end of the zoo. Beyond the last of the white rings, she could just make out the illuminated wheel of the workers’ habitat. She squinted, looking for motion, for some sign that someone might be outside. Had they been discovered?

  She saw no suited workers. The only movement came from the lydras, and from the faraway flash of Spindrift’s red and green lights.

  Suddenly, Skye was aware of someone talking to her. She shook her head again, and looked around.

  “Skye,” Zia was saying. “Skye, answer me. Skye! Are you okay?”

  “Oh, I, uh, sooth,” she stuttered, flushing in embarrassment. How many times had Zia called her name? “I’m okay. Zia, how about you?”

  “Battered but breathing,” Zia answered.

  “Me too,” Devi said.

  Buyu did not sound quite so confident. “My suit DI says I’ll live,” he groaned. “I’m not so sure.”

  Skye looked again at the ring ahead of them. It was a lot closer. Several more rings lay beyond it. She frowned. “I thought we were anchored to the first ring.”

  “We are,” Devi said.

  “Then the cord—”

  “Is passing around all those other rings ahead of us.”

  Skye felt a new sweat break out across her sticky skin.

  Zia, too, must have understood what might have happened, because she voiced Skye’s concerns exactly: “We could have collided with any one of these rings.”

  Devi said, “The DI adjusted the length of the cord so that wouldn’t happen.”

  “You’ve got a lot of faith in DIs,” Buyu told him.

  Devi chuckled drily. “Everything we’re doing out here is coordinated by DIs. We don’t have any choice but to trust them.”

  Skye kept her gaze fixed on the slowly approaching ring. “It could take hours for the cord to wind all the way in. We can’t wait that long. And besides the ingot cache is in the other direction. So I say we anchor on the first ring we touch.”

  “Sooth,” Devi said. “Let’s do it.”

  So Skye spoke to her suit DI, giving it careful instructions as the ring loomed in front of her. The ring was a circular rib of smart steel, bright white, part of the structural skeleton of the great ship that would someday take shape here. Hundreds of small lydras crawled on its surface. Wherever they passed, there appeared shimmering patches of newly laid matter. Day by day, the ring of smart steel grew thicker.

  Skye spread her arms, preparing for impact. She hoped she would wind up embracing steel, not lydra. She was close enough now, that she could see the cord bending down and around the ring. It had sliced through a green lydra, cutting off two of the creature’s tentacles. Skye saw them adrift, not far away. She shivered. Blue fluid had frozen in massive crystal patches at the site of the wounds.

  The ring grew closer. It was huge – big enough to encircle several elevator cars. Big enough to encircle the tower Devi had lived in. It was the size of a great ship.

  The last few seconds blurred together as Skye plunged toward impact. The cord bent around the ring, but she was set to slam against its face. She braced herself. Then, just before she hit, a stranger’s voice spoke over her suit radio. “Skye Object 3270a! How in the name of wonder did you get out here?”

  Chapter 21

  Before Skye could figure out who was speaking or what to say, she slammed against the ring of white steel. “Oof!” Her breath whistled out of her lungs again, but the hot zones on her gloves and on her shins knit to the steel, securing her in place. At the same time her cassette stopped reeling in cord. “I’m set!” she whispered, as soon as she could get a breath. A small lydra squirmed only a hand-span away from her face. “Devi, who … ?”

  She turned around to look for the source of the voice, but she saw Devi instead, only a few meters away and coming in fast. She reached out to catch his arm but missed. He slammed against her. A moment later his hot zones had knit, nailing them both to the ring.

  “And Divine Hand,” the unknown voice said. “You need to work on your zero gravity technique.”

  “Tannasen,” Devi panted. “I know his voice. He must have gotten our IDs from our skin suits.”

  This brought a good-humored chuckle from Tannasen. “Devi. Quick as ever, I see.”

  Skye’s eyes went wide. The suit transmissions should be coded for privacy. “How can he hear us?” she blurted.

  Tannasen answered that. “I’ve overridden your privacy option. City authority was a bit surprised when I reported your presence here.”

  Devi reached out to catch Zia before she hit the ring. “We’re out of time, ados,” Zia whispered as her gloves bonded. “Where’s the lifeboat anyway?”

  “Shh!” Skye didn’t want Tannasen to know what they were after. She had hoped they would have a few hours to work their way back to the ingot cache and find the lifeboat. Now it seemed they would have only minutes. She craned her neck, looking for Spindrift, but the ship had disappeared behind the rings.

  Buyu made his landing next. He caught himself on hands and feet, far more gracefully than the rest of them. Here in freefall his bulk didn’t matter so much. “I saw it,” he said.

  The lifeboat? Skye scrambled to his side. “You did? Where?”

  Tannasen was speaking at the same time, sounding a bit distracted, as if he were talking to someone else. “What was that? Say again? … why wasn’t I informed?�
��

  Buyu gestured back the way they had come. “Near the center of the ingot cache. I saw it eclipse a reddish nodule.”

  “You’re sure you didn’t see a carbon ingot?” Devi asked. “Some of them are black, just like the lifeboat.”

  “Sure I’m sure,” Buyu answered, sounding insulted. “The object I saw was smooth. It had the right shape, and it was a lot smaller than the ingots.”

  “… and maybe you should have listened to them!” Tannasen snapped. After a moment he snorted. “Policy!” Then, in a dispirited voice he added, “Sooth. It sounds like they’re after the lifeboat. I’ll let them know. Yes. I’ll bring them in.”

  Skye met Devi’s gaze. She could just see his eyes through the curve of his visor. They glinted with determination. Looking down, she grasped the cassette at her waist. She didn’t need it anymore. So she set it to rewind, then she let it go. It went speeding off into the void, winding up the extra cord. Let the lydras find it! Let them transform it into the bones of the great ship.

  “We jump from one ring to the next,” she said softly. She slapped the second cassette at her back. “We’re still tied together, so if anyone misses, we can reel them in.”

  “Skye Object,” Tannasen said. “Devi.” He hesitated, as if he were checking a list. “Buyu Mkolu, and uh, Zia … Adovna. Listen to me. City authority thinks you’re after the lifeboat. True?”

  No one answered. Skye held her hands up to the others, gesturing at them to wait. Then she crouched against the ring. Taking careful aim at the next ring in the line, she launched herself across the gap.

  “Skye—!” Tannasen barked. “Dammit, Skye Object, listen to me. The lifeboat isn’t here. It’s been moved to a different orbit.”

  “What?” she cried. She couldn’t believe it.

  “It’s what they’re telling me,” Tannasen insisted.

  She was halfway across the gap between the two rings, and suddenly she felt helpless, unable to turn or change direction. If the lifeboat wasn’t there, then everything they had gone through was for nothing.

  Buyu spoke, in a low, dangerous voice she had never heard before. “City authority is lying. I saw the lifeboat in the cache.”

  Of course.

  Skye stared down the tunnel of rings. She could see the colorful ingots of the central cache, fixed in place like frozen bubbles, but she could not see Spindrift. Where was the ship now? She hadn’t glimpsed it for several minutes.

  “I don’t see the lifeboat,” Tannasen said.

  Devi answered, “It’s hard to see.”

  “Sooth.” Now Tannasen sounded truly puzzled. “What’s going on? Why are you all out here?”

  That was easy to answer. “Because I’m not the only one,” Skye growled. Anger had replaced her sense of helplessness. City authority was lying. Were they so afraid of something new? “There are other lifeboats out there, Tannasen. And I think I know how to contact them.”

  The next ring was coming up fast … and abruptly Skye realized she was going to miss it. Instead of hitting its rim, she would pass right through its open center … and maybe through the centers of the next two rings.

  She grinned. Which only meant she would get to the ingot cache sooner.

  She felt the cord tug against her back as it stretched, slowing her down. “No!” she shouted. She reached back and yanked on it, hard. “Don’t stop me.” Her protest drowned out whatever Tannasen was saying.

  “Skye … ?” Devi asked uncertainly.

  “Are you slowing me down?” she demanded.

  “Sooth, I—”

  “Don’t. I’m going to shoot all the way through to the ingot cache.”

  He hesitated a second, then, “Okay. You’re on a good line for it. Better than me. I’ll try not to drag.”

  She smiled. Devi knew what counted.

  Tannasen was saying something, but she wasn’t listening. Her attention had been stolen by the architecture around her. She swept through the ring, just missing its inside rim. Far overhead, a rust-colored lydra was unwrapping itself from an ingot in the long chain that passed through the ring’s center. As she watched, its tentacles convulsed. It popped off the ingot, shooting straight for her. “Skye, look out!” Devi shouted.

  “I see it!” She cringed, but already her motion had carried her past the lydra … while Devi was shooting straight toward it.

  Skye reached back and grabbed the cord, twisting around so she could see him. Zeme dust. Devi and the lydra were about to collide.

  She did the only thing she could. She put both hands on the cord and pulled hard. The jerk slowed her forward momentum while Devi sped up. The lydra’s tentacles brushed his shoulders as he slipped past. “Devi! Are you—”

  “I’m fine!”

  Oh no.

  Skye’s eyes widened as she watched the lydra hit the segment of cord behind Devi, the one that linked him to Zia. Its tentacles wrapped around the thin line, one of them following it forward toward Devi, and another snaking back toward Zia. “Pop the cord off!” Skye screamed. “Now! Zia!”

  Devi’s end of the cord snapped free. He came speeding toward her as she swept through the next ring—but what had happened to Zia? Skye couldn’t see her. She had disappeared behind the lydra’s bulk.

  “Zia!”

  “Skye, I’m going to hit it! Buyu, pull me back. Quick!”

  Buyu had just reached the second ring. Skye watched him kick the inside rim with both feet. His boots bonded and he yanked to a stop with his fists curled around the line. At least Skye assumed he held onto the line. She was too far away to see it, so it looked like he was performing a pantomime as he yanked back hard.

  Zia popped into sight, so far away now she looked like a doll as she rose above the lydra. “Ha!” she shouted. “You missed me, you overgrown nightmare.”

  Sooth. The lydra was falling away from Zia, but now Zia and Buyu were far behind.

  “That lydra was aimed at us!” Devi shouted. He sounded furious. “They were using it to stop us!”

  “What? Who?” Skye looked around at him. He had almost caught up with her. In a few seconds he would glide past her, only three meters away.

  “City authority,” he said grimly. “It wasn’t chance that sent that lydra jumping after us. Someone guided it. They wanted to snap the cord, separate us.”

  Guided it? Were lydras guidable? Sooth. They had to be. How else could they do the construction work? No wonder she had seen no human workers in the zoo. The engineers were cozy inside their habitat, guiding lydras through remote control.

  She glanced over her shoulder. The ingot cache was only a few hundred meters away. From a distance, the ingots had looked like colorful bubbles caught in glass. This close, they looked like little planets, the kind in fantasy stories, where it was possible to walk all the way around the world in only a few seconds.

  Motion drew her gaze overhead, in time to see another lydra pop off the ingot train. It shot toward them. “Zeme dust. Devi look.” She pointed. “Another one.”

  This one was small, hardly a meter across. As it plunged toward them the glands of its underbelly could be seen shimmering in the crosshatch of light and shadow. Skye writhed to get out of the way, but instead of landing on her shoulders, the lydra dropped onto the cord. It clung there for only a second—slicing through the cord? Dissolving it? Whatever it did, the cord snapped. The lydra fell away. And Devi slipped past her, through the last ring and into the 3-D maze of the ingot cache.

  In the shadow of an orange ingot, she could just make out the silhouette of a human figure waiting to meet him.

  Chapter 22

  “Devi!”

  “I see h—”

  Devi’s transmission was cut off as a new voice interrupted, speaking in a harsh, masculine timbre. This was definitely not Tannasen. “I don’t know how you kids made it up here, but it’s dangerous. More dangerous than you know. Come in to the habitat. We’ll talk things over … and arrange your transport home.”

  Skye c
ouldn’t tell if it was the figure in the shadows speaking, but now that person stirred, moving into the light, revealing himself to be a man, tall and slender, in an orange skin suit. He straddled a sled. Its cylindrical surface was covered with tiny nozzles. Working in concert, the little jets could send him in any direction. Now he was moving to intercept Devi.

  Devi was less than two meters away from a blue ingot the size of large room. If he could reach it, he could kick off, and dodge his pursuer. But he wasn’t going to reach it. His trajectory would take him past it. Devi had no sled and the cord was broken, so there was no way he could stop, change direction, or run away … unless someone gave him a nudge.

  Quickly, Skye wriggled out of her backpack, working the straps past Ord’s frozen tentacles. With a pang, she wondered if Ord was still alive. And if it was, how long could it survive in vacuum? There was nothing she could do to help it now.

  She got the backpack off just as she passed through the last great ring. Then she unplugged the nutrient line. Now she would have only a few hours before the suit used up its energy reserves. Given the circumstances though, that would be more than enough time to succeed … or to fail.

  Holding the pack by a strap, she took careful aim. Then she slung it at Devi. “Heads up!” she shouted.

  It almost missed.

  But Devi had been alerted by her warning. He saw the pack and grasped at it, catching it on his fingertips. It was only a nudge, but it pulled him around, changing his trajectory so that now he angled across the face of the ingot, drawing gradually closer. He waited three seconds, four, then five. The man on the sled sped toward him, gesturing frantically, shouting something that Skye could not understand because she was shouting too. “Hurry Devi! Jump now! Go, go, go!”

  He kicked out hard. Both feet hit the wall of the blue ingot, and he shot away, past the man on the sled. Skye smiled. His new trajectory was aimed to intercept her own path. “Catch my hands,” he shouted. “Push off me, toward the red ingot. You have to get to the lifeboat, Skye. You’re the only one who matters.”