by Barry Kirwan
“Do you take me for a fool, Commander?”
He stood up to see Shakirvasta flourish the pistol Antonia had put there an hour earlier. Blake’s own pistol. Good, he thought, now the odds are even. He took a step closer, so the military pulse pistol’s sensors could lock onto their target. He hoped there was enough light for the facial pattern recognisers to work. Zack – due to the implant theory – had re-programmed it months ago to overload in the event someone tried to fire it at its owner.
Blake spat onto the dust. “Let’s get this over with, shall we? You can say you wrestled my gun from me and killed me with it. A certain symmetry from your point of view.”
Shakirvasta narrowed his eyes. “Yes, I could. But you seem a little eager, all of a sudden.” He lowered Blake’s weapon and held up his own. “Sometimes it’s best to stick to the original plan.”
Blake judged the distance: he’d never make it. Shakirvasta would fire on him before he could get half-way. Nevertheless, he lowered his body weight a fraction, loosening his knees.
“Sanjay.” Jen’s voice cut through the air behind Blake.
Shakirvasta did a double-take, glancing from her to Blake. “What … what is this? You told me she was dead!”
“No, you told me she was dead, and that I’d killed her. I never admitted anything.”
Shakirvasta shifted from one foot to the other. Both pistols were raised now, facing Blake, but occasionally drifting towards Jen. “But … this is marvellous!”
Jen walked straight towards her former lover.
He frowned. “Wait, Jennifer,” he said. “Just wait there. Please.”
She carried on walking. ‘What’s the matter. Don’t you…” She stopped as Blake’s pistol shifted resolutely in her direction.
Blake bit his lip. Damn, switch hands!
“Please, Jennifer,” Shakirvasta said, a little flustered, “this is not good timing. Please just wait a moment, this man is a criminal, sentenced to death, and judgement needs to be passed.”
Jen stood level with Blake. “For my murder. But I’m alive.”
“Nevertheless,” Shakirvasta was clearly trying to find a rationale, but then gave up. “He has to die, my love, he stands in the way of everything we’ve planned.”
Blake noticed she’d brought no weapon, not even the nanosword. Surely she wasn’t that naïve? He wondered if he could get to Shakirvasta while Jen distracted him. He doubted it.
“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about, Sanjay. Our premises were wrong. While this was just about us on a barren planet versus the Alicians and the Q’Roth, the strategy made sense. But I’ve seen fields of spider eggs, and Dimitri says they will hatch in the next few years. And that’s not all. There’s an ocean underground, and inside it a ship, millions of years old. The creature inside is waking, slowly but surely.”
Her eyes glowed, evangelical. Blake had never seen her like this.
“Dimitri and I tried to contact it via the Hohash, and for one brief instant, through my node, I glimpsed a small part of its mind.” She took a half step towards him.
Shakirvasta’s pistol pushed out further as he took a step backwards. “What is this nonsense? What have they done to you?” A look of revulsion crawled across his face.
Jen’s voice was calm, resolute. “It’s a sublime creature, Sanjay, purity of thought beyond words. It made me think about things, about everything. There’s a great war coming to the galaxy. Our petty rivalry with the Alicians is like old, defunct stock, it doesn’t matter anymore. We need soldiers – and the best one on the planet is right in front of you. And farmers, obviously. But we need scientists, researchers, free thinkers, or else we’ll remain small and of no consequence, wrapped up in our own little world.”
Shakirvasta stopped shifting. That worried Blake. It meant he had decided, and Blake reckoned Shakirvasta had way too much to lose to turn back now.
“I don’t know what they’ve done to you, Jennifer – brainwashed you in some way. If you could hear yourself! Do you know who you sound like? Antonia! I was right, they did kill my Jennifer.”
She didn’t rise to the bait. The first shafts of the sun broke across the courtyard, straight into Sanjay’s eyes. He lifted Blake’s pistol to block the glare.
People would be waking, now. Blake knew that Shakirvasta had to act very soon, one way or the other.
“Sanjay, please. It’s not too late. Free Blake, reconvene the Council – the real one, and disband the militia. You can control people by freedom, you once taught that, years ago.”
“No,” he said, his voice tombstone cold. His arm flexed toward Jennifer. “You are no longer Jennifer. My Jennifer would never have come here alone, without any weapon. You haven’t learned anything from me, after all this time. This religious enlightenment on the road to Damascus, it has weakened you, it’s pathetic.” He took a step to the side, so the sun was no longer in his eyes. He hefted the gun in his left hand. “This is Blake’s pistol, Jennifer. You escaped imprisonment, held by Rashid and Dimitri, and you returned here to be by my side, only to be cut down by Blake as he escaped. In a fit of lover’s rage I killed Blake myself, and I will grieve, and my grief will be real. Goodbye, my love.”
Blake had heard the graveyard edge in a killing voice often enough to know that Shakirvasta was ready to fire. He leapt towards Shakirvasta as the fizz of a pulse pistol charged the air and he smelt ozone. In mid-air he raised his arm to smash down on Shakirvasta’s clavicle so that he couldn’t fire on Jen, but before he met his target, Shakirvasta’s body jerked backwards and hit the ground. Blake landed roughly on all fours next to him, watching the tell-tale electric blue wisps of lightning skittering across his corpse, illuminating the look of surprise on the dead man’s face. Shakirvasta had aimed Blake’s weapon at Jen, but as Blake had attacked, the man’s defensive instincts had taken over and he’d fired the weapon at Blake, electrocuting himself in the process.
Jen walked over and crouched next to Shakirvasta, and brushed a lock of lank hair from his staring eye. “Such a waste,” she said. “He was a good leader.”
Blake loosened his still-warm pistol from Shakirvasta’s grip. “So, it wasn’t all an act, then?”
“I’m not religious, Commander, don’t worry. It’s just that I always thought the only way to survive at the top was to be ruthless. Like Sanjay,” she said, glancing down. “But the creature in the ship… It’s immensely strong, yet compassionate.” She shrugged. “I need to wake it, but couldn’t reach it on the last two attempts; it’s very deep. I need some more gear, and I know where Sanjay had all the mil-tech equipment stashed.”
“Jen, you were lovers. How can you just walk away?”
She addressed the corpse. “We were like snakes coiling around each other, using each other. We were fascinated by finding kindred spirits, that’s all. But he was right about one thing, Commander – that Jennifer is dead. I fought for years in the ruins of Dublin during the War, did unspeakable things to survive and wound the enemy. After the War it stayed with me, in my head. When I arrived here, it over-loaded, like a snake biting itself, gorging on its own venom.” She met his eyes. “That Jennifer is lying there, next to him, dead on the ground.”
She started walking away, then paused. “Oh, by the way, Commander, Rashid contacted us an hour ago. He and Vasquez are flying in with some troops.”
“Jen, are you sure waking this creature is a good idea?”
“Absolutely. No time to waste.”
Blake listened to the roar of a sling-jet arriving and landing nearby. As it powered down, he heard the sound of running bare feet coming from the other direction. Sonja burst into the courtyard, Zack’s old pistol at her side. She came over to him, then fired three times at Shakirvasta’s corpse, the body recoiling each time. She dropped the pistol to the ground. “A little late, I know.”
He looked up at her. “It’s never too late, Sonja.”
She held out her hand. ‘Come, I’ll take you to Glenda; she doesn’t have m
uch time.”
They ran all the way.
Chapter 28
Kalarash
“Just like old times,” Jen said, her voice only partly muffled by the squirt of cold air into the rebreather’s full-face mask.
“Except you are alone. Last time we were underwater together, and I am exceedingly anxious for you. How deep are you now?”
She glanced to the right and checked through the green digits short-focused onto her visor. “A kilometre. Hey, my daddy would be proud!” She tried to hide her ragged breathing. She’d been free-falling for twenty minutes in the roiling dark ocean, buffeted by undersea currents. She stared downwards into a cone of light from her torch that only served to emphasise the blackness beneath her.
“You’re the bravest soul I know, my dear Jen.”
“Yeah, well, somebody’s got to do it.” And this is scaring the crap out of me! “How close do you reckon?”
“My sensor says you’re almost on top of it, but it is not precise.”
She yawned her eyes wide open to exercise them – all this staring into a bubble of light, nothing to focus on, was giving her a headache, not to mention vertigo. She tried not to think about getting back. On the way down the thrusters and gyros in her suit could track their target and nudge her back onto course every ten seconds. But going up would require deploying two small balloons. At this depth she wasn’t sure they’d inflate enough to lift her, and if they did, she could drift miles off course, even assuming the thrusters’ fuel cell didn’t run out. She reminded herself she was supposed to be not thinking about it.
“Jen, it’s back again.”
Dimitri sounded worried. Something kept hovering near her every now and again. Dimitri couldn’t determine its shape or size, but she could tell he was trying to play it down.
“Jen. Jen! I want you to take manual control of your thrusters.”
“What is it?” She fumbled for the control panel on her left wrist, flipped open the cover.
“Please do as I say. When I say ‘now’ you must go hard to port.”
“Dimitri, what the hell –”
“NOW!”
She hit the button and went starboard. “Shit!” she said, locking down the other button ricocheting her to port. A huge set of pearl-toothed jaws missed her by centimetres as it shot up past her, its albino smooth body bumping her, somersaulting her. When she stopped in the featureless black she felt dazed, no longer sure which way was up. Look at the bubbles, she remembered her father telling her during her first scuba lesson. She looked for the tiny trail of bubbles emitted from the rebreather, and checked which way they were headed. Good, I’m upright. “Is it gone?”
“It is circling above you.”
“This is taking too long!” She pivoted so that she was head down, and pressed the button which controlled her heel thrusters, and torpedoed downwards, arms stretched out before her.
“What are you doing?”
A blinding pressure headache erupted, as if her forehead was in a vice.
“Jen, it’s turning, it’s diving down towards you!”
She realised she’d made a tactical error. At this angle and speed, the thrusters on her shoulders – her only brakes – would have marginal effect. Her one hope was to reach the ship, probably ramming it with her head. “Come on,” she said aloud, “where the hell are you?” A proximity sensor beeped, signalling that it was fifty metres below.
“Jen, it’s gaining on you!”
She stretched her body to minimise her drag in the water, and ramped up the thrusters to maximum. The beeps accelerated: thirty metres, twenty-five, twenty…”
She felt a yawning suction behind her, and imagined the creature’s jaws opening wide.
Ten metres. The top of the ship snapped into view, like a giant turtle’s head. A wave of turbulence washing against her legs told her the creature had broken off its chase, no doubt not wanting to ram the ship itself. Instinctively she hit the drag-balloon actuation button to slow her down. The harness tore at her shoulders, whipping her around as her metal boots hit the top of the ship hard with a deafening clang. Her legs buckled, sending her sprawling and scraping across the metallic surface. The current caught the balloons and dragged her sideways. She clutched for anything to anchor herself down, but the convex hull was smooth. The balloons started to lift her from the ship. “No!” she screamed. “Fuck, fuck, FUCK!” She hit the balloon harness-release button, and clattered back down onto the ship’s crown. She slowed down and stopped. She stayed where she was, breath shaky, as the full enormity of her situation hit her. “Dimitri,” she said, “promise you won’t be angry.”
She’d been shallow-breathing for the last forty-five minutes, trying to squeeze as much oxygen from the rebreather as possible. The creature hadn’t returned, evidently preferring not to venture too close to the ship.
The air was getting hot to the point it singed her lungs, making her cough, which wasted precious oxygen. She’d been on the ship’s skull for four hours, seeking a way in, but there was nothing except smooth metal.
Dimitri had suggested a range of outlandish rescue options, but she knew she was going nowhere. Her family had been submariners for three generations. She guessed they’d be interested in her story, and if there was any after-life, they’d be hearing it first-hand pretty soon. She and Dimitri had gone through the emotional ringer, but she’d asked him to stop – she didn’t want to die morose, and now there was little else to say. They were both waiting for her to die.
“My dear Jen,” he began, again.
“Tell me about Santorini,” she cut in. While she listened, she tried to make her breathing sound normal, though her chest muscles were exhausted, and the over-used air was getting hotter. Her throat ached, feeling as if strips of flesh had been peeled off like wallpaper. She knew she only had minutes of consciousness left. She tried to drift on his words, like a seagull soaring above the Greek cliffs, over an azure sea that no longer existed. But the pain kept intruding, destroying the illusory scene in her mind as easily as tearing rice paper.
She heard muffled voices. Dimitri must have had his hand over the mike, she guessed. She recognised the second voice: Rashid and Dimitri were arguing. “What’s going on, guys?”
“Jennifer – Jen, it’s Rashid here. I have an idea, if Dimitri will let me.”
There was a grumbling noise in the background. “I’ll let you, Rashid. Tell me.”
“Do you have the nanosword with you?”
Jen had almost forgotten about it. She reached down to where it was strapped to her right calf. She’d already tried it on the hull, but it couldn’t penetrate it. “What did you have in mind?”
“It is a long shot, but I want you to carve the infinity symbol on the hull, and place two dots, one in each half. You know the symbol?”
Of course she knew it – an elongated hourglass. Putting the dots in each section would make it a bit like an unpacked yin-yang symbol. She retrieved the sword and activated it. It glowed a soft purple in the darkness, miniscule bubbles fizzing outwards from its blade. “Why, Rashid?” She began drawing the symbol, tracing the arc. It scored the hull, leaving a dull red glow in its wake, quickly quenched by the ice-cold water, as she sculpted the blade around.
“The symbol is known to my people. Legend has it that it was on the Ranger’s ship and his uniform when he crash-landed on Earth nine hundred years ago.”
She finished. She lifted the blade and drove it down point-first into one of the segments. “Maybe I should carve my name instead,” she said, trying not to cough. “You know, Jen was here, for example.” She tried to laugh but couldn’t. She barely heard Dimitri remonstrating with Rashid far up above her. She felt dizzy, her sight growing blotchy. She raised the blade one more time, and felt the tug on her lungs which told her she was out of time. She sank to her knees as she drove the blade down into the second segment, fully convinced that nothing at all would happen.
She fell straight through the hull.
“Jen, come in.” Dimitri’s bulk dwarfed the small radio set. He flicked the switch again. “Jen, come in.” He glanced at his wristcom. It had been fifty-one minutes since he’d lost contact. She was dead. But he could think of nothing else to do. “Jen, come in, Jen.”
“She’s gone, Dimitri,” Rashid said, as patient as if it was the first time he’d said it.
Dimitri hunched his shoulders, not even deigning to turn around. “Come in, Jen. Jen, come in.”
“Dimitri?”
He toppled from the chair, then struggled to grab the radio set again, kneeling at the table. “Jen, Jen is that you? How can that be?” He heard her laugh.
“Take a look at your sonar.”
He rushed to another table and spun the sonar screen to face him. “Jen, I don’t see anything, I…” But then he did see it. It was barely noticeable at first, but he confirmed it, and sat back, his hands disappearing into his mounds of hair. Rashid’s dolphin couldn’t read the two-dimensional screen, so he stared down through the floor instead, to the ocean below, and saw it too. The ship was rising toward the surface.
* * *
It reminded her of an Escher sketch. She stood firm, feet spread for balance, on a smooth glass ball the diameter of a football field, filled with swirling red gas. She could see Dimitri on a neighbouring one, a grisly green affair connected to hers by a porcelain white pathway, crouching down on its underside. Further afield, she watched Rashid stroll across a sea blue sphere, his form sticking out sideways at a logically impossible angle. Her mind told her both of them should fall off and tumble into the boiling violet lake five kilometres below, toward the base of the ship.
It was like the giant molecular holo-models she’d read about, used to teach chemistry in virtual immersion-classes back on Earth. But she’d studied the laws of physics well enough to know that these globes couldn’t possibly have enough mass to create such a short-range gravity field without affecting each other. The only explanation, as far as she could see, was that the ship’s occupant could control gravity.
