by Jaine Fenn
‘You’re obviously a bit busy,’ said Taro, ‘but how about if I spoke to them?’
He turned to look at Taro. From the boy’s expression, he was serious. Taro continued, ‘The way I see it, if we don’t answer them, they’ll know something’s up and keep coming after us. If I say we’ve got some sort of problem, so we can’t stop and chat, maybe I can get them to back off.’ He grimaced. ‘But I guess that’d only work if there’s some way of comming them without them recognising us. Forget it, it’s a dumb idea—’
‘No, it isn’t. Go to my cabin - there’s a com in the cabinet beside the bed. Bring it up here.’
‘Right. Back in a sec.’ Taro kicked off down the steps.
The kernel-interface programme asked him to select an exit system. The most logical choice would be Mercanth, because it was a hubpoint . . . but that was what their pursuers would expect, and if they had agents there they might alert them. After a moment’s consideration he chose the least-used of the five transit-paths out of the Kama Nui system, an insular low-population democracy called Oril. Taking an indirect route to Xantier would delay getting to Bez, but right now all that mattered was losing the Court.
‘Can you put me into stasis before we make the transit?’ asked Nual.
‘Sorry, no, there’s no time. I’ll try and sort out some drugs for us before we shift.’
‘All right. Can I do anything to help?’
‘No just . . . stay out the way.’
Taro came back with the greymarket com from Kama Nui while Jarek was running a projection in the holo-cube, one eye on the readouts telling him how the initial shutdown was progressing. Even if all essential systems went offline without a hitch they’d be cutting it fine; the corvette would be only three minutes away from slipstreaming range when they shifted.
‘Here, please.’ Jarek held out a hand and Taro slapped the com into it. Jarek patched the com into the Heart of Glass’s tight-beam system with one hand at the same time as he shut down long-range sensors with the other. ‘Right, I’ve activated the scrambler so they won’t be able to see your face.’
‘Good. Got it.’ Taro took the com.
‘I’m putting them through . . . now.’
There was a small chirp, nearly lost amongst the other noises on the bridge. Taro spoke into the com. ‘Make it quick, friend.’
Jarek put the reply through the bridge speakers. The woman who answered sounded understandably taken aback at Taro’s terse greeting. ‘Why didn’t you respond to our earlier hails? And why is your signal so distorted?’
Taro replied, ‘Because we’ve got problems! Now, we’re in a bit of a hurry here, so if you don’t mind—’
‘What is the nature of your problem?’
‘No offence, but what’s it to you?’ Jarek smiled at Taro’s reply; the boy was enjoying being able to talk back to a Sidhe.
Jarek turned his attention back to his console; at times like this he wished he’d gone for the interface implants after all. The next choice was when to cut the in-system drive. The longer he left it, the more distance he’d put between them and the corvette . . . and the greater the chance shutdown wouldn’t complete cleanly before transit. Incomplete engine shutdown when they went into shiftspace was dangerous, and no working drive when they came out could be suicidal if they didn’t shake off their pursuers. After a moment’s thought, he killed the engines, then pounced on the expected array of error-indicators and started to override them. I know, I know, taking the drive offline without completing preliminary shutdown is dangerous, invalidates the warranty and insurance, yadda yadda yadda.
The next time he focused on Taro the boy was saying, ‘—haven’t been to this Rangoo-eet place, sorry.’
‘Really?’ The Sidhe’s voice was dubious. ‘And what is the nature of this engine fault you referred to?’
‘Like I said, the captain’s working on it now. But we’ve already lost AG and the drive-to-reactor interface ain’t looking so good.’
Jarek raised an eyebrow. The faults Taro described were unusual, but not impossible. And he was certainly conveying a convincing tone of panic.
The Sidhe said silkily, ‘Can we be of any assistance?’
‘Wish you could, but if I were you, I’d back off. If the drive does blow, it’s likely to take the reactor with it. If that happens, you don’t wanna be too close.’
The com went silent. Jarek’s hands kept working on the shutdown of the remaining peripheral systems but he spared the energy to hope that Taro had convinced the other ship to leave them alone. He’d still make the transit as soon as he could but if the other ship slowed, even by a few per cent, then he wouldn’t have to cut so many corners, and that would give him a far greater chance of coming out of shiftspace with his ship intact.
Finally the Sidhe said, ‘Your caution is wise. However, you appear to be decelerating. Why is that?’
Jarek looked up to see Taro looking confused. ‘Are we? I mean, so we are. Captain?’
Jarek shook his head. Taro shrugged, then flashed him a grin.
‘Oh no!’ screamed Taro into the com, ‘It’s gonna—’
He cut the connection with a flourish, then leant back against the bulkhead. ‘Oh, bollocks,’ he said.
‘Actually,’ said Jarek, ‘that was pretty impressive bullshitting. You know more shiftship jargon than I’d expect for a boy born in a floating city.’
‘Yeah, well, you got a good games library on board. I had a go at playing trader when you left me by myself.’
‘Right.’ He’d shut down the holo-plate but the numbers on his flatscreen showed the corvette still accelerating. Things were looking worse by the second. ‘Thanks for trying, but our options are narrowing.’
Taro took the hint and shut up.
Most of the nominalisation subroutines had completed. A little manual intervention now might speed up shutdown on certain core processes—
‘Are we going to make the transit in time?’ asked Nual tersely.
‘Don’t know. Sorry, I need to concentrate now.’
‘I must know: will you be able to initiate transit before they are too close?’
‘Nual, for fuck’s sake, I just said I don’t know!’
The transit-kernel came fully online. Good. Now he just needed to get his ship ready to face the shift. Maybe he could shave off some more time by bypassing a few failsafes . . . but he needed to make sure they were the right ones. The moment the core systems were nominal, he’d force a shift.
His instinct, when the alarm chimed, was to override it. But when he saw what the problem was he snatched his hand back from the console. Reactor lockdown had failed. The containment system was already performing an automatic reset, thank Christos; another five seconds and Taro’s lie to the Sidhe would’ve come true, and all that would be left of the Heart of Glass would be a rapidly expanding cloud of hot atoms.
But until the reactor was safely locked down, most of the other subroutines would just hang. They were going to run out of time.
He didn’t realise he’d said anything until Nual called out cautiously, ‘What is it?’
Perhaps he hadn’t spoken out loud, perhaps she’d just picked up on the mental gurgle of the last shreds of hope disappearing down the pan.
‘We’re screwed,’ he said. ‘There was a problem with the reactor. If we’re lucky then it should only take a few minutes to fix, but there’s a shitload of other systems waiting on it. By the time those are offline the Court’ll be on our arses.’
‘Shit,’ said Taro.
Nual said something Jarek didn’t catch to Taro. Then she said distinctly, ‘There may be another way.’
He spared a glance in their direction to see her disappearing down the hatch, Taro following close behind. Maybe they’d decided to get themselves dosed up for transit anyway . . . It wasn’t his problem any more.
For the moment, there was nothing he could do but wait for the reactor, hoping and praying for a fast, clean lockdown. He could feel sweat r
unning down between his eyebrows and pooling in his armpits. He found himself mentally cajoling the numbers on the flatscreen in front of him, the only remaining active display on the bridge. Come on, come on.
The display changed: Reactor stable and nominal. ‘Yes!’ Lockdown had completed in record time. The other readouts sprang back into life as the remaining systems’ shutdowns restarted.
The comp warned him that it would go into safe mode in one minute. He requested an estimate for shutdown completion on the last few systems. One minute fifteen. At which point he’d punch it and they’d be gone. He glanced at the other countdown, the one in red at the bottom on the screen.
Unless something happened to stop the Sidhe corvette, in fifty-three seconds it would be close enough to slipstream them when they went into the shift.
‘Fuck it!’ The oath escaped before he could stop it. It wasn’t fair. He’d given it everything he had, and they weren’t going to make—
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
‘I’m not sure what you mean.’ Taro had seen Nual like this before. She was considering something risky. He didn’t want that, not when he’d only just got her back.
She looked around the rec-room, like she expected the answer to be there, then said quietly, ‘Do you know why Jarek originally rescued me?’
Confused at the irrelevant question, Taro shook his head.
‘Because I called to him. Through shiftspace.’
‘Yeah, he said something about that. But don’t you go crazy in the shift?’
‘I did, yes. The initial contact I had with Jarek’s ship was only momentary, and it was . . . painful. Afterwards, when we were running away’ - she turned her head to look at the cylinder of the drive-column - ‘in the shift all I could sense was the insane mind in there, forcing the ship through the shift. I could not help but be drawn into unity. Because that’s how it works, for us . . .’ her voice trailed away.
‘Listen, if we’re about to go into the shift, why aren’t you preparing yourself? At least sort some drugs—’
‘I am.’
‘What?’
‘I am preparing myself. I am explaining to you what must be done. Because I will need your help, your strength.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Back then I was a child. I was uncertain and in pain. I did not have full control of my abilities. And I did not have you. With your help - if you will give it – I can influence what happens in shiftspace.’
‘That’s . . . heavy.’
‘But necessary. We must act now, before it’s too late. Will you help me?’
This was crazy: he wasn’t even sure what she was asking, let alone whether he’d be able to do it. But he trusted her. ‘What do I have to do?’
Before she could answer they heard Jarek’s voice from above them, swearing loudly.
‘Take my hands. Hurry.’
He did so. They felt small, warm, ordinary.
‘Close your eyes.’
‘Right.’
Nothing.
Like nothing at all, like nowhere, like losing all ties.
For a moment, freedom. A release of sensation, of self.
He feels her as part of him, knowing he is part of her. They retain enough separation to remember who is who, but there is nothing left of where and what and why. Weirdly glorious. Unity.
Then, purpose:
They must reach out together (been here before) to find a third mind.
They do, and as they connect he recalls in a rush what they’re doing, and is suddenly terrified. He tries to hold back. He can’t.
His consciousness is swamped.
Pain, the bEauTiful Pain. Bring thE beaUtifuL pain!
i aM the pAth, tHe onE Who knOwS, the One wHo suFfeRs, whO
muSt sUffer.
i aM—
The impulse comes from the part of them that is her, the part that retains control, sanity:
ThEre=
sCenT of brUisEd LoVe+scReaMing iN tHe bEtwEen+SoUnds of
tOo-briGhT LiGht+nEveRneSs oF loSs+FleSh ruBbeD rAw,
RubbEd Raw anD BleEdiNg uNtil tHere iS
NO FLeSH ...
The onslaught continues. It will overwhelm them. They’re not strong enough.
He feels the familiar sensation: her in him. She needs his strength. He gives it, without thought. She takes.
The madness is lessening. No, fading. Everything is fading. He has given everything. She is taking it, using it. All he is, and more. He is becoming nothing, lost for ever. This is as it should be, as it was fated to be. The just end—
He feels her break the connection.
KeEp lOoking - keeP looKinG, hEre in The gApS tHe aNsweR liEs
CurlEd. ThePatternisWrongAnditMustBeMadeRight—
He tries to reassert himself, to rediscover what it is to be an individual who isn’t part of the crazy nothing - and who isn’t her, either. Not part of her, but with her. And not as slave, minion or worshipper. As partner. Lover.
He will give her his strength. But not himself. Not until she asks for it. When she does choose to do that he won’t hesitate, because such sacrifice is the ultimate expression of love.
That is the only truth left now, this one incomprehensible emotion.
All else is agony and horror and the crushing void.
There was something stuck to his cheek. Something rough and hard and—
The floor. He was lying on the floor.
Jarek moved his head. Yes, lying on the floor, face pressed into carpet. It didn’t smell too good down here, but he wasn’t sure he could do anything about that, not if it involved moving. He remembered going into the shift, recalled the familiar hind-brain wallop and that sense of physical disassociation. It’d been a bad transit, bad enough that at some point his mind had given up trying to deal with the unreality and shut down. It didn’t feel like he’d damaged anything when he passed out, but he wouldn’t know for sure until he sat up. Which he really needed to do some time soon.
He got his arms under him and levered himself upright. His head swam and he felt queasy. He was on the bridge, which was good. But—Oh shit, now he remembered! They’d gone into the shift too soon!
He crawled over to the main console and heaved himself onto his couch. His hands went through the actions required to get his ship working again and almost at once the alarms started. He was getting system errors from environmentals, coms and main engines. Environmentals could wait: basic life-support was working, though they’d be a bit chilly until he got the heating back on full, and trying to take a shower at the moment would be a really bad idea. Coms just needed a manual reset. The reactor was coming up without a hitch but the grav-drive had already tried a cold-start, which would’ve done the AG unit no good at all. The journey through shiftspace had stripped the ship of its original momentum, and they’d been spat out at the beacon with a safe speed and heading relative to local spacetime. The nav-shields were working so they weren’t about to get holed by passing space-debris, but until he got the engines back online they were effectively adrift.
As his fingers moved over the controls he realised that there was one alarm he wasn’t hearing: the proximity warning. As soon as he had the immediate crises under control he fired up the sensors, to find there was nothing within several light-seconds. Thank fuck for that: the Court ship hadn’t managed to follow them. He hoped Nual and Taro had got themselves buckled down before the transit—
Coms came back up with an urgent incoming message. He hit receive and got an annoyed male voice.
‘Unknown vessel, unknown vessel, this Xantier TC. Kindly respond at once with your ID and intentions. Do you require assistance? Please acknowledge.’
The messa
ge repeated and he was about to compose a reply when he registered what he’d just heard.
This is Xantier TC . . .
Xantier? What the fuck?!
Given what a screwed-up transit that’d been he could almost believe they’d ended up in a system other than Oril, but it still had to be a system on a direct transit-path from Kama Nui. Xantier was four transits away. Coming out there simply wasn’t possible.
