by Patty Jansen
All right, she had worked as an agent for Ezhya, I already suspected that, but had she been part of a task force spying on the zeyshi?
She climbed further up the ladder until she reached the hatch in the ceiling. The handle creaked when she turned it. With a soft pop, the hatch opened. The humming grew louder, now accompanied by soft beeps and hisses.
Thayu stopped at the top of the ladder to detach the gun from its bracket and then climbed out of the hole. She vanished from sight. Through the gap, I could see small lights in a bluish glow.
“You can come up,” she called.
As I climbed up, the air became colder and drier.
At the top of the ladder, I came out into a large hall lit by a blue glow. To one side, there were pipes and banks of machinery and control screens, to the other . . .
I recognised the gleaming shapes of drones, dark and lifeless, neatly parked in a grid pattern.
I stiffened. “No, not those things again.”
As I said that, one of the nearby machines blinked into life. It whirled around, showing me the red window.
I yanked my gun from its arm bracket.
Thayu shouted a command. The thing turned to her, approaching slowly. The lights on its head blinked. The blue beam scanned her. It stood blinking for a while and then it scanned her again.
I said, “You have to give it a number.” What was it again? I rummaged for my comm. Dratted helmet. I couldn’t see my pockets.
The drone jerked aside, facing me once more.
“Shhh,” Thayu said. She stretched out her hands and the drone concentrated on her again. It came even closer and used one of its pincer claws to taste her skin. The light flashed yellow.
“All right, this one is mine. Who’s next? Cory?”
“I would prefer not to go anywhere near those things.”
“You have experience?”
“When I went into the hub with Sheydu and Veyada. They told me the code, but the drone wouldn’t recognise my voice and it was going to shoot me, so I shot it. Then Veyada and Sheydu had to shoot a couple more.”
Thayu cursed. “Damn, these things have collective memories. You’ll be in there somewhere.”
“I can’t remember the code.” I found my comm, but my gloved hands were too clumsy to operate it.
“You don’t need it. These are not the same type of drone that crawls over the walls at the Inner Circle. These are much smarter than that.”
“Great.” Why did I have the feeling that was not a good thing?
“We’re not going to tame them. We’re going to ride them.”
What?
“Don’t look like that. You use a feeder.”
“But there is no Exchange capability.”
“Not under the ground, no, because the rock layer prevents reception and zeyshi jam the frequency wherever they can, but above-ground, we can use it. That function returned a while back.”
That was good news at least. I wondered how far they were away from restoring off-world capability.
Thayu dug in the pocket of her suit and handed me a black spindly thing. A feeder.
“I got these from Veyada.” Her expression was serious.
I thought I knew why. “These are Ezhya’s feeders, aren’t they?” Capable of tapping straight into the command hub.
“They are.”
Damn. “Are you trying to kill me?”
“You are the only one who is safe from the network backlash.”
I thought of the flood of images that had overwhelmed me at the hub. That was only a fraction of full functionality.
“Come on, it’s your turn to pick a drone.”
I hesitated. Did I want to know this much about Ezhya’s private life?
Nothing for it. I lifted the feeder. It climbed into my hair, found the skin at the base of the skull and settled down. A strong burst of power went through me. I gasped.
In my mind, coloured images flew past at too great a speed for me to follow.
“Stop!” I brought my hands to my head.
The images vanished. I stood there, panting.
“You all right?” Nicha said. He’d been doing something on his comm.
“He sees the stream,” Raanu said.
Nicha and Thayu frowned at each other.
Something connected in my mind.
An orange desert.
A glass and metal building.
Brilliant blue sky.
One sun.
“He’s at Kedras,” I said.
“What?” Nicha frowned at me.
“Ezhya. At Kedras.” Margarethe’s face drifted into vision. She sat in the front seat of an aircraft. “I think they just restored the Exchange.”
“Daddy?” Raanu said.
“He’s coming.” I only needed to defend the hub until he came back. As long as we got there in time, that shouldn’t be too hard.
“Really? Is Daddy coming?”
“Shhh.” Nicha drew her close to him, shielding her from any attention from the drones.
Thayu went on, “Cory, cut the external feed. Use it as a regular feeder to the local network. You need to connect to the machine so that you can control it.” She pulled my arm.
“Huh?” I shook my head, trying to dispel the images.
“Keep your mind on the job. Please.”
Yes, sure. Let myself be killed by one of those monster machines. After having a chat with one of them. Awesome.
But I managed to close the channel so that my thoughts were mine again.
“Stand here. Attract its attention.” Thayu pushed me towards the parked inactive drones and retreated a few steps.
One of the drones lit up. It lifted itself off the ground, exposing its wheels. These machines were much bigger than the wall-crawling ones. Their bodies consisted of a cylinder-shaped piece of metal with oddly curved plates. They had far fewer feelers and bristles than the other ones, and looked much more sleek and modern, but the sleek exterior gave away nothing about the machine’s function. For all I knew it was a rocket, with its smooth shape.
It crept towards me. The dull red window lit up. My legs told me to run, but that would be silly because it would only shoot me more quickly.
The thing ambled over to me. I didn’t dare breathe.
“Let it touch you,” Thayu said.
I held out my hands, trying and failing to stop them trembling. The pincer came closer. It blew a puff of air over my skin without touching me.
That was all?
“Relax,” Thayu said.
“That’s easy for you to say. The last one of these machines I came face to face with tried to kill me.”
The blue beam tracked over my body. I held my breath, watching that red window. Next thing it would ask me for the code that I didn’t have, or if I found it in time, it wouldn’t understand when I read it out.
The window remained empty, emitting a dull red glow. Then two yellow lights started blinking.
“You’ve done it,” Thayu said.
Done what? I lifted my hand to my head. I’d done nothing. I couldn’t feel any way of controlling the drone.
“Doesn’t work?” Thayu asked.
“I’m not feeling how I could control this thing.”
“Hmmm.” She dug in her pocket, taking out another feeder. “Maybe try this one.”
The drone shifted position, now focusing on the feeder dangling from Thayu’s fingers.
Yes, that looked more promising.
I took it from her and the moment it contacted my skin, I could feel the command channel.<
br />
This was also one of the feeders Veyada had collected and with it came another damned string of Ezhya’s image feeds, mostly of people in corridors and offices. Taysha, Risha, Raanu. Natanu wearing what? Damn, I really didn’t want to see this. I pushed the stream away, stubborn as it was, almost lost contact with the drone. No, Natanu, that dress reveals way too much skin. No, don’t do that.
Damn it, stop!
“Cory?” Thayu frowned at me.
“Just having a little difficulty separating useful feeds from . . .” personal raunchy videos “. . . less useful ones.”
Behind her, Nicha faced a different drone, while Raanu stood further back covering her face with her hands. The blue beams scanned Nicha’s suit. The light blinked yellow.
Thayu walked backwards, and her drone followed her like a little doggie.
“Come, Raanu.”
“But they will kill us.” Raanu’s eyes were so wide that the whites showed on all sides. Living in the Inner Circle, she would know how dangerous these things could be. Maybe she would have grown up fearing these drones as Earth children feared monsters under the bed.
Thayu held out a hand. “It’s safe now. Come quickly, we’re going to see your Daddy.”
Raanu ran across the hall and slammed into Thayu’s back, out of view of the drone.
Thayu almost fell. “There’s no reason to be so afraid. We’ll use them to get back to the Inner Circle.”
The drone had stopped an arm’s length from her. She untangled herself from Raanu’s grip. She jammed the tip of her boot in one of the gaps between the drone’s body plates and heaved herself up onto the silver back.
Raanu gasped.
Thayu held out her hands.
“Noooo.” Raanu ran to me.
A string of images assaulted me. Raanu sat up in a bed with yellow sheets, her hair mussed up. Her huge black eyes looked at me. I flooded with feelings of warmth for her and held her in my arms, except my arms weren’t my real arms, but Ezhya’s arms.
In reality, I lifted Raanu and handed her to Thayu. I had expected her to struggle, but it was as if she felt that I was using her father’s feeder. It occurred to me that no one had checked her hair to see if she had any more feeders apart from the ones that Veyada had taken off her.
Thayu met my eyes. “Come on, get on yours, quickly. Use the belt of your suit to keep yourself in place. Anchor it behind this plate and around here.” She pointed to a couple of protuberances on the drone’s back.
I went back to my drone and climbed onto the metallic surface which was very smooth and cool under my hands. I loosened my belt until it, like Thayu’s, hooked behind a protuberance on the drone’s back.
“Lift your feet up, like this.” She showed a ridge on the drone’s side. “You can use your knees to hang on.”
Like a horse. How did she know I was crap at horse riding?
This thing was slippery but did offer a rail over the back that was perfect for holding on.
The drone’s feed projected a ready and wait status to me.
Thayu steered her drone out of the hall, and told us to follow. Looking at the back of her drone, I started worrying about the “interesting” part of the trip again. If her definition of “interesting” was not that boat ride, then I wasn’t sure if I wanted to do this. The drones did have a kind of rocket shape, and as far as I understood, we were fairly far away from the Inner Circle.
Where were we going?
We rolled through a corridor devoid of all furnishings except for some markings on the ground in orange paint. This seemed some sort of service tunnel to wherever—
Was I imagining it or were these things speeding up?
No, I wasn’t. I could feel the flow of air between my suit and helmet. Thayu’s drone blocked my view of whatever was at the end of this passage.
No, I could see past her, and it ended in a solid metal door. We were heading for it at full speed. Did Thayu know how to open that door—
Hey! It slid aside in front of Thayu, giving me a view of a desert landscape with, in the distance, the buildings of Athyl, a wide vista spreading in front of me—
—without anything in front.
Thayu’s drone dropped over the edge. A squeal from Raanu faded from hearing.
I twisted around to look at Nicha, but I couldn’t see him anymore. My drone had reached the end of the corridor and plunged off the edge.
We were falling, tumbling through the blue pre-dawn sky.
I screamed, but the sound reflected back at me inside the helmet. I grabbed onto the railing on the drone’s back.
But I was hanging upside down and fast losing the grip on the thing with my knees. My hands were slipping, too, with sweat.
Blackness returned to the corners of my vision.
There was a sharp click in the drone’s back. Something unfolded from the sides under my feet. The surface under me vibrated with the hum of an engine. The drone righted itself and pulled up.
We glided over the desert landscape on huge metallic wings. And I wasn’t going to fall because the metal surface had become rough and kind of sticky.
What the hell?
Chapter 22
* * *
MY TERROR turned to amazement. Hanging on with one hand, I pushed up the visor of the helmet. Warm air streamed over my face.
“Steer it with your feeder!” Nicha called behind me. His drone had already caught up with mine, the early morning light reflecting off the surface of the wings.
I concentrated on the feeder input, which showed me the basic drone commands. It also showed me the position of Nicha and Thayu’s drones. She was ahead of us, flying over the edges of the city, silhouetted against the lightening sky on the horizon.
Damn, I loved her.
I know, she said.
You’re crazy. Now I’m even more curious what you did before you came to Barresh.
Because she knew all these things, she had done this before, right?
She laughed. You have no idea.
The drones soared over the outer edges of the city. Nicha’s and mine followed Thayu and Raanu. In the distance, light glinted off the roof of the Inner Circle. The flower-like structure of the airport rose from the surrounding buildings.
Several of the platforms were lit and a shuttle was approaching one of them.
Ezhya?
I opened the stream from my first feeder a sliver. My head exploded with voices, all talking in business-like manner. Someone said This one has top priority.
Thayu reminded me, Cory, concentrate.
My drone had veered away from both hers and Nicha’s.
But Ezhya is on his way back.
How long did it take to get from Kedras to here? I couldn’t allow Taysha to win at the very last minute.
We were closer to the Inner Circle now, giving us a magnificent view over all the complex’s domes and towers. Daylight was much stronger now and growing brighter quickly.
The first of the suns crested the horizon not much later. The entire sky turned baby-pink with a tinge of rust brown on the western horizon. The dust that always hung over the city reflected the light with a soft orange glow which cast the buildings in sepia tones. Arched walkways, elaborate towers, sleek metal and glass designs, the cacophony of intricate Athyl architecture woke up with the same pink and orange tones. Overhead, wisps of clouds were edged with yellow and orange. The sky itself turned orange-purple. The colour of the sky on Asto had been deepening over the last couple of years, I had read, because the more frequent rain settled the dust.
I’d seen the wonders of Earth, of Damarq and Kedras, but I had never seen anything like this
.
Thayu had told me that there were hills and rooftops in Athyl where people gathered every sunrise and sunset to watch this spectacle. The most beautiful sunrises and sunsets in all of the settled worlds. I’d seen pictures, but those were not a blip on the real thing. A serene feeling of calmness came over me. If I died here, at least I would have seen this.
Thayu commented, Hang on, you’re not going to die.
I hope not, but it’s amazing.
Told you.
People wondered why Coldi lived on Asto. It was a scarred, dusty, hot and harsh world, but it was theirs, and the climate was starting to turn a softer cheek. But most of all, Asto was incredibly beautiful.
Sunrise also didn’t last very long and we needed to be inside when the heat came.
Thayu steered her drone to the highest dome in the building. I was glad she knew the way, because I would not have recognised the tower that held the hub. The complex was massive.
If I wasn’t mistaken, down there was the bridge where I’d run in the rain with Veyada and Sheydu.
We flew around a corner and up again. Oh yes, this was the wall with the ledge where I’d shot the drone. There was still a black mark on the roof.
Nicha flew past me and turned to the window where we had climbed in with Sheydu and Veyada. My drone kept flying straight ahead. I told it to follow Nicha, but it remained unresponsive.
Hang on, stupid thing. I searched the feeder inputs. I swear there had been an option to manually control the steering other than follow the others, but I couldn’t find it anymore.
The damn thing wasn’t going to bail out on me right now, was it?
What are you doing? Thayu wanted to know. She was too far behind me to see.
I have no idea.
I tried to activate the commands. Shouted at it. “Come on, stupid thing!” As if that would help. It’s frozen. Won’t respond to anything I do.
The drone’s engine was also slowing and as a result, I was rapidly losing height.
Do these things run out of fuel?
