by John Meaney
Suddenly, Roger understood the unspoken elements of his briefing, the reason for their choosing him specifically, what Ro McNamara had hinted at – and why this really was an intelligence operation. As far as the Admiralty was concerned, Jed’s freedom was secondary; what they wanted to know was simple: could the Haxigoji sense the darkness?
‘We have a question,’ came from Nectarblossom’s torc, ‘regarding the defendant’s targeting the abomination. How did he determine its nature?’
Everyone looked at Jed. He took control of the holo, and replayed an audio portion at high volume: ‘My name. Is. Rick. Mbuli from. Ful gor.’
‘I remembered my friend Roger’ – Jed gestured – ‘telling me about his time on Fulgor, and that name, Mbuli, rang a bell. And I knew Roger had searched the refugee lists: he wasn’t a known survivor.’
Acid Tang’s nostrils widened then closed almost fully. It was a reaction that Roger did not know how to read. Then his attention was drawn by Khan, who asked him to confirm Jed’s statement, which he did. Everything proceeded step by step, until Khan finally declared: ‘I believe Pilot Goran’s actions to be neither homicide nor manslaughter, given that the deceased was not a coherent entity, but a tiny component of the Anomaly engaged in a terrorist action against the station. Dr Mbaka, do you agree?’
It sounded like a memorised speech.
‘I do.’ She looked at Jed. ‘And I would like to thank Pilot Goran for his heroism. His fast thinking and swift action saved not just this orbital, but the entire planet of Vijaya from total catastrophe.’ Then, dropping her formal tone, she added: ‘You were fantastic. Thank you so much.’
Jed grinned, muscles playing in his face.
Roger felt himself relax.
Good. It’s over.
The Haxigoji leaned close to each other, Nectarblossom angling her head to avoid Acid Tang’s dipping antler, then straightened up.
‘We would like to call one more witness,’ said Nectarblossom, ‘before concluding this examination.’
Al-Khalid looked surprised but said: ‘Of course. Please do.’
Everything changed in an instant.
A bulkhead pulled open. Four huge Haxigoji dragged a bound human into the chamber—
No!
—and Roger was on his feet because the darkness was swirling around the man, in fact a Pilot. But it was the darkness itself that Roger had reacted to.
The Pilot hung, semi-conscious, from the grip of massive double-thumbed hands.
‘This,’ announced Nectarblossom via her torc, ‘is Pilot Holland.’
So they had not prevented him leaving his ship: they had caught him in the corridor. Which meant his ship must be waiting nearby in congruent mu-space, waiting for the chance to free Holland without risking his life.
Kill him . . .
Roger’s tu-ring was blazing with scarlet fire, though he could not remember arming it.
Control.
He looked into Nectarblossom’s amber, horizontally slitted eyes.
‘The darkness,’ he said. ‘It’s strong. This man is fully corrupted.’
‘Yes.’
Acid Tang said: ‘So there are humans who are not blind. This is powerful news.’
‘An heroic day.’ Nectarblossom rose to her feet, taller than any human, her presence magnificent. ‘We will share the message.’
The implications and the mutual recognition rebounded in Roger’s mind, distracting him and the Haxigoji alike, but he was supposed to be a professional and you had to remain alert when—
Yellow fire exploded.
Amid deadly danger, an element of slapstick intruded: Jed leapt at Holland – like Roger, he was unaffected by the blaze of energy – but his electromag bracelets and anklets snapped together, immobilising him and dropping him in Roger’s path, which gave Holland the second he needed.
The Haxigoji guards had staggered back, blinded, as Holland took the opportunity to stumble back through the hatch he had entered by, and cause it to slam shut.
From the floor, Jed said: ‘They’ll be OK. The bastard’s weak.’ But his voice was slurred, and blood was pouring from his forehead. ‘Go get him.’
‘Wait.’ Roger went to Vilok Khan, who appeared to be panicking the least, and used a gentle thumb to draw up an eyelid. ‘Jed’s right,’ he told everyone. ‘The flash wasn’t full strength. You’ll recover.’
Nectarblossom appeared to have closed her eyes in time, because she looked at Roger now, and said: ‘You do not need to stay and bear witness. We will spread the word.’
So she understood: their new mutual understanding was the most important outcome.
‘You’re sure?’
‘Yes. Good luck, Pilot.’
Jed was out of it, and Draper was Shipless, but Ibrahim al-Khalid was a Pilot too. Roger turned to him, expecting an offer of help, but saw only an expression of devastated emptiness, tears running down al-Khalid’s face.
Find out later.
It was time to give chase.
No place in Vachss Station was far from an outer hull, and emergency evacuation points abounded. By the time Roger obliterated the hatch that Holland had escaped through, turning it into powder, an exterior-view holo was showing a teardrop shape, originating here, in the act of making rendezvous with a dark-green and purple ship that had, just seconds ago, blazed into realspace.
Well, good.
A strong enemy meant a decent challenge, and while Holland might still be weak, his ship was anything but. Quickglass was already spreading across Roger’s skin as he commanded an exit to become permeable; then he took a moment to judge the trajectory – there, a spar was rotating past, and he would have to be careful to miss it – before launching himself through the liquefied wall and popping out into vacuum.
Come to me.
His own beauty, black and powerful, webbed with scarlet and gold, crashed into realspace existence, so very close to Vachss Station. Proximity alarms would be sounding aboard the orbital, but there was no risk because she was a genius, taking him into her control cabin—
We hunt?
Oh, yes, my love.
Good.
—and diving sideways, away from everything, getting a clear angle on Holland’s ship except it was too late because white light accompanied a skilful transition into mu-space—
On home ground, then.
Exactly.
—which would not be enough to save them because Roger-and-ship were equally adept, probably more, and within a subjective second, golden splendour was shining all around them.
Mu-space, and a quarry to kill.
Call it their life purpose.
It was a long and tricky chase, following the faintest of spoors through mu-space void, close to black fractal stars and through the heart of a scale-free fern-like nebula; but just as ship-and-Roger were about to open fire, Holland-and-ship shone white and disappeared, transiting back to realspace.
Ambush?
Conscious that the insertion point was far from the galactic core and therefore the renegade base, they took the risk and followed, bursting through into realspace at maximum speed – planet! – and tumbling into orbit of a greenish, cloudy world – I see it – but the dark-green and purple ship was already a tiny dot diving deep into atmosphere.
Where are we?
Must be Siganth.
It was not a human world. Various indigenous species, if that was the correct term for classifying entities that seemed scarcely organic, were both sentient and vicious, metallic and ferocious. Neither Pilots nor the human xeno-contact teams they brought here had achieved much by way of communication.
And we follow?
Yes.
There was no way to tell whether they were under observation as they descended through a sequence of cloud layers and came out over a sharpedged mountain range, following the fugitive’s trace.
There.
It led into a vast cavernous opening. Ship-and-Roger descended to the ground outside the entrance,
every weapon filled with energy, standing waves building up in resonance cavities, aching to be cut loose. After a few seconds, great bronze-and-black metallic forms clanked their way out into the open: native Siganthians, whose carapaces concealed intricate body-mechanisms, cables and pumps for sinews and muscles, some with heavy metal wings, looking incapable of flight, launching themselves nevertheless into the air.
Sparks of sapphire light shone among their multitudinous eye-sockets – Anomaly! – and ship and Roger let loose a single burst of weapons fire – we need to bug out – then ploughed all energy into thrusting flight, hauling upwards at maximum acceleration – we won’t make orbit – ignoring the heat – I know – before embracing the moment of risk.
Transit now.
They burst through.
Yes.
Golden void, scarlet nebulae in the distance, and the knowledge that they had achieved transition under the most dangerous of circumstances. They scanned for renegades, but the region was clear, and Holland was no doubt among his own kind on the realspace planet, among the inhumans.
So Siganth is a hellworld.
And collaborating with renegades, although Holland must be desperate to take the chance.
Looks that way.
This was news that had to reach the Admiralty.
So much for his planned journey of victory, flying home from Vachss Station with Jed’s ship alongside, taking their time. When Roger reached Labyrinth, he left his beloved ship in one of the clandestine docking hangars – having entered un-observed as always – and requested immediate debriefing. One of the two officers who responded was a familiar face: Havelock, who had interviewed him on his first day in Tangle-knot. The other Pilot was also someone he recognised, though it had taken a few seconds to work out, and the conclusion was a shock.
Dad. Did you really want me to know this?
Her name was Lianna Kaufmann, and he remembered being smitten with her at the Academy . . . except that he, Roger Blackstone, had never attended the Academy. Those were Dad’s memories.
In his mind Lianna was the same age that he was now; but in reality, the woman sitting across from him in the interview chamber had greying hair, and her face showed the lines of hard decisions made. It made him think of Leeja, now living on Vachss Station: he had not even tried to contact her. But events had moved quickly.
‘This is important news,’ said Lianna as Roger concluded his report. ‘You’ve done well.’
‘Thank you.’
He was careful not to use her first name, this being their first meeting in reality.
Havelock seemed thoughtful. ‘I agree, it was good work. You understand why it was decided to send you in particular.’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Roger, wondering what the issue was.
‘The Vachss Station judicial hearing was not public.’ Lianna was frowning. ‘But some important events took place there. Even if the recordings don’t go public – I’m afraid your name is destined to become well known on Vijaya.’
‘Crap,’ said Roger.
‘Well, precisely,’ said Havelock. ‘You said previously your success would depend on remaining unknown, but this time it’s worked out differently. Not an entirely secret victory.’
So much for subterfuge and infiltration.
‘Since the Göthewelt raid,’ Havelock went on, ‘there have been seven more Zajinet attacks in realspace. With Labyrinth on a war footing, you and your classmates are likely to be operational immediately on completion of training. The nature of those operations is . . . malleable.’
Meaning not what they had been trained for.
‘Understood, sir.’
But it was Lianna’s words, at the conclusion of the meeting, that would stay with him.
‘Your father would be proud,’ she told him. ‘Very proud.’
In return, he could have told her how much Dad had been in love with her when they were young, and how hurt he had been by her dismissal when she believed him to be Shipless; but some thoughts are best kept hidden for ever.
‘Thank you, ma’am,’ he said.
TWENTY-FOUR
THE WORLD, 5575 AD
When the potential for flight among the worlds was discovered, the possibility of sailing the heaven-void, they cast for more Seekers to join them, and seven came. Alongside Seeker-once-Harij and Seeker-once-captive, they should be enough to respond to flux-queries from within the vessel – or so they believed.
Zirkana’s thoughts were entirely different.
**It cannot fly.**
The excavation had completely uncovered the ancient vessel, which looked . . . younger. Newer. Vast and lustrous, dark green banded with white. It seemed capable of holding hundreds, perhaps a thousand sleeping people stacked in bunks, as the ancient legend said.
**In dreams through golden space they fled/Till xeno demons cut them dead.**
There was more to the old verse but, even among Seekers, few bothered with it; for it was clearly allegory and filled with indecipherable allusion: for one thing, space was most obviously black. In the absence of other Ideas from that period, the references made little sense today.
What had surprised the two hundred workers as they dug sand, brushed hardened clumps from the uncovered ship, and polished every part, was that the underlying metal – if it was metal: its properties were odd – had failed to deteriorate despite being buried for so long, a great many generations.
And after a time, as they had approached the end of the cleaning, the ship had begun to hum, a soft low fluxcast that lightened every heart, made every person smile and wonder. That included Zirkana; but unlike the others, she broke away to spend time worrying, because the intent had arisen among the group without discussion: if the ship could fly, the Seekers wanted to try her out. They thought of the ship as female, for no reason they could decipher.
Zirkana was afraid for Seeker-once-Harij.
**Let the others try it, if they must.**
In their alcove within the dormitory caverns, when day was beginning outside and everyone else was asleep, she would hold him very tight. But they both knew that the urge to Seek was as strong as love and that to set them in opposition could only bring pain.
On the final night before the attempt, travellers arrived, twenty in number, from a settlement within a distant mountain. What they brought was a gift, a chunk of virgin dreamlode, its crystal free of contained flux. It was both a celebration of the project’s triumph and a potential tool for the Seekers intending to fly the vessel.
Then the night came when all was ready, and there was no reason to delay, except perhaps for the breaking of one woman’s heart. With over two hundred people gathered for a noble purpose and sharing a dream, an individual’s fears were irrelevant. Zirkana kept her thoughts wrapped tightly in herself.
No one could know.
Seeker-once-Harij lost sight of Zirkana during the speeches by Starij and Kolarin, the leaders of the dig, when the combined flux of two hundred volunteer workers heterodyned into a blazing cheer. They were standing close together and the effect was awe-inspiring, so that the nine assembled Seekers could only stand at the base of the newly constructed ramp, letting the flux sink in.
Then it was time to climb to the opening that had appeared in the hull five nights before, revealing a chamber in which decay had not occurred. Emotions whirling, the Seekers entered and waited. After a moment, as they had known it would, the opening flowed shut.
Amazing! They were aboard a sky vessel on the verge of—
**Zirkana? How are you here?**
She rose from the floor where she had been curled up, holding her flux inside herself.
**The ship allowed me in.**
There was no time for Seeker-once-Harij to remonstrate with or hug her, because the other Seekers were focused on the dreamlode crystal – Seeker-once-captive was holding it against his chest – combining their thoughts to create a clean command.
Except that it would be request more than order, to such
a wondrous ship as this.
**Rise, good vessel. Please rise.**
The floor and walls shivered as the air grew warm. It came to the conjoined Seekers that the ship was very old, and they were asking a great deal. People grow feeble, so it stood to reason that a living ship would—
A massive force slammed into them.
There was time to deal with bleeding noses while the ordeal lasted, time for their skins to lose the mottling of emotion and return to polished silver equilibrium. Finally, the ship’s trembling lessened, and they felt themselves sinking.
Surely descending to the dig. There had been time for nothing more.
Finally, they felt the sensation of slowing descent, of settling in place; and everybody smiled.
The wall flowed open as before, and a strong draught swept through the chamber.
**The air feels oddly—**
Suddenly all communication with the other Seekers was gone. Only Zirkana’s and Seeker-once-Harij’s thoughts whirled together, pulsing and urgent.
**Physical contact. Keep hold. It’s as if the air is dead to flux.**
**Yes. You’re right.**
Maintaining his grasp on Zirkana’s hand, Seeker-once-Harij clasped the nearest Seeker’s shoulder; and after a momentary disorientation, that Seeker in turn grabbed two others. Soon they were communicating, panic over.
**We can breathe the air.**
**It sustains life, but not flux. How can that be?**
But of course, the answer was right outside. They just did not want to look, to process the sight of what was there.
**There are old Ideas treating those concepts as separate, but this is not the time to—**
**Stop. Just perceive.**
Together, they looked out of the vessel.
Silver sands stretched far to black mountains that were webbed with silver streams, rendering them visible against black sky.
**No place in the World has a desert like—**
**We’re not on the World.**
**That’s hardly—**
**This is Magnus.**
