As the conference broke up, Sam Raymonds was the first to leave the war room, saying abruptly that he was going to double-check on Sprint preparations. A gentle breeze followed his rapid departure. He shook his head defiantly as he exited.
“When this is over with,” Rand whispered to Adam, “I'm going to have a talk with Sam.”
“Agreed. We must sort out this new demeanor of his.”
Rand looked across his old friend's shoulder and studied Janise with both trepidation and envy. He, too, had served a brief stint in the military, having left college with the ambition to make a lifetime commitment to the U.S. Air Force. And even though he had only lasted two years in the service before he found a new calling with ASTROcom, Rand could see himself as a man 55 years younger, ready and ever-so-willing to fly an H-4 Hawk fighter into the heart of battle, and later regretting – at least to a degree – that he had never faced such an opportunity.
“I'll be in the command pod,” he whispered to Adam. “You'll have a few words for everyone before the launch?”
“Yes.” He winked. “Make certain George and Stephen stay on schedule. I just need ... a few moments.”
“Understood.” Rand shook Janise's hand. “Godspeed.”
She did not thank him, only nodded, because she knew that was sufficient for a moment such as this. When the door slipped shut behind Rand, and there were only two people left in the war room, Adam turned to Janise and locked onto her brown eyes.
There were awkward seconds of silence, where years of memories, mountains of emotions and litters of regrets stifled their thoughts and quieted their words.
Janise was first to break the hush, with a “Hmmph!” followed by a hearty laugh.
“You remember the first time I got into a fistfight because I was going totally stir-crazy inside this damn mountain?” She asked, and Adam joined in with a gentler laugh.
“Yes. I decided you needed a fresh approach to the finer points of living underground.”
“So you forced me on a 10-kilometer hike outside. In Dakota. In the dead of January.”
“It was a success, as I recall. There were no more fistfights, for which I'm certain Greg Mickelsby was quite grateful.”
“Well, he certainly never held it against me. And considering that he'll be piloting my Sprint tonight, I suppose that's a good thing, eh?”
Through the levity, Adam lost his smile. “I wish we had more time, Janise. You haven't been here for almost two months, and I was so sure we'd have more prep time than this ...”
“Hey, when this is done, it's more than likely I'll be spending a lot more time around this old place. If I were to go back to the AFD, it probably wouldn't be long before they'd zero in on me. So we'll have ample opportunity to ... to remember where we've been together. And how is Ari? I wish I had time to say goodbye to her, but ...”
He sighed. “She goes through swings, nothing more or less different than it's ever been. But she does ask about you almost every day. The time you always gave to her was as much as any actual sister could have. I think that even when she's at the height of her delirium, you're still a vivid part of her thoughts. As much as I have tried, you have done something for her that ... it's kept her from crossing over. Sometimes, she has been so close to leaving me forever.”
His voice cracked, and he resisted the urge to allow water to flow from his eyes.
“But she won't leave,” Janise insisted. “And I still believe a day will come when her condition will be reversed.”
“So much optimism,” Adam observed. “And I remember when there was so much anger and cynicism. Hold on to that every second. Oh! Dear Lord, it's too soon for us to be talking like this.”
“No,” Janise said softly and caressed her mentor's gently wrinkled face. “The time is right. We always knew that if Second Sunrise was to have any kind of real success, then a confrontation with the PAC was inevitable. The first confrontation in any war has to be sorted out by the soldiers. And I am a soldier. The biggest part of my soul. The time is right, for all of us.”
Adam took her hand and led her to the table. “Sit for a minute,” he said. “I know the clock is ticking, but I want to tell you something. Should have years ago.”
“Yes?”
The wrinkles receded amid his sudden, peaceful smile. “I told you how I met Marte, didn’t I? Along the Seine, during the Colonial Congress sessions. Under a streetlight. It was remarkable. She took my heart in an instant. But I never told you how it ended.” And then the smile vanished. “Rand was there. So was Ari. But she was only 9 at the time, and I couldn’t have her see her mother like that. Arvas was a vicious killer. Once contracted, you died within 12 hours. We never recovered enough of the nanoagents to use for research.”
“This isn’t necessary, Adam.”
“Yes, it is. You see, I have an eidetic memory. To some degree, anyway. But always for significant moments in my life. When Marte knew she was almost out of time, she said something that has carried me for almost 20 years. She said, ‘Don't quit! You make them face what they've done! And you make Ari understand what has happened! We'll never have what we lost unless somebody fights them. This isn't about us. It's not about space. They're taking away more than that. They want to rob us of who we are. And they're winning. Every day. They're winning. You promise me, Adam. You promise that you will fuck them over just like they did us!’ Those were her last words.”
Even as his eyes remained mournfully turned down, Adam regained something of a smile. “There was a book on her side table. Discours de la méthode by Descartes. I have read it perhaps 50 times. And one day, if … when Arilynn comes back to us, I’ll pass it down to her.”
“She’ll value it as much as I did when you made me read it,” Janise laughed. “I won’t forget. Not Marte’s words, not Descartes’, not yours.”
She raised herself off the back of her feet and gave Adam a tender kiss on his lips, and then she started slowly toward the war room door. But before she hit the printlock, Janise turned back.
“Tell Ari ...” she started, rolled her eyes and grinned. “Tell Ari that her big sister loves her.”
Adam froze the image of this woman deep in his mind: Cherry cheeks and tiny, soft pink lips; thin, piercing eyes between long sweeps of lashes. He saw the playful, ever-optimistic little girl who could still appreciate the wonders of life, even if the warrior within her was resigned to a destiny that might only end in pain. And before he could grasp what final words to say – because “goodbye” was not going to be among them – Janise was gone.
He took a few quick steps, then was determined to catch her before she reached the lift that would take her to the transport level. But when Adam stepped into the narrow corridor within eyeshot of the command pod, every fiber of common sense told him that pursuit would lead only to the very thing neither Janise nor he wanted: tears. He had known Janise in fits of rage, bouts of depression and moments of intense joy, but he never witnessed a tear fall down her face. Perhaps she shed her last tears after the passing of her parents, or perhaps she would not allow herself to display vulnerability until a moment far more profound. Either way, Adam understood that she parted in a manner bearable to her ... for now. He chose to respect that.
And then a male voice circulated throughout Second Sunrise.
“Countdown to Sprint launch at 25 minutes.”
21
A
s her fear deepened, Lara Singer’s heart pounded. “Daniel,” she whispered.
“We'll be there in a couple of minutes,” Miguel told her. “We’ll get to him. The emergency stop program should end in seconds. Mifuro, do you still have a vid-link with the chamber?"
“No. The explosion ... was enormous.”
Immediately, the Tube began to move, but without great acceleration, and the computer announced: “TUBENET EVALUATION COMPLETE. EMERGENCY STATUS INTACT. DO YOU WISH TO MAINTAIN CURRENT DESTINATION OR ALTER ROUTE?”
“Alter. Biolab, SEC 1.”
“UNABLE TO COMPLY. STRUCTURAL DAMAGE TO TUBENET REPORTED IN GRID F-2. PLEASE REFER TO SCHEMATIC PRESENTATION.”
Miguel only needed a couple of seconds to study the tracker and determine an alternate course. “Agripod, SEC 1.”
As the Tube accelerated, Miguel turned to Lara, and he raised a gentle hand, placed it upon her shoulder. “The explosion must have misaligned the Tube where it comes out next to the stasis chamber. This will put us close enough.”
Lara saw his lips move, but understanding the words was another issue. Already, the force of reality was sinking in, telling her what they surely would find. And then the SlipTube door opened.
Explosion. Strong enough to disrupt the SlipTube entry.
“Maybe he finished the repairs,” she told herself, then rushed behind Miguel down a pair of short corridors. She tried to close her eyes to the emergency flashers that lined the walls or her ears to the klaxons that echoed through Andorran.
Peter was outside the chamber, speaking into the comm-link next to the printlock. “What are you showing, Mifuro? Any chance of an outer breach?”
“Diagnostic shows stability. There are structural intrusions, but the mainframe is fully intact.”
“Fire?”
“Internal temperature is elevated, but not significantly. Atmospheric controls are offline. Attempting to correct that now.”
The redheaded systems specialist turned to Miguel and Lara. “Looks like it's safe to go in, but it might be difficult.”
“Door panel misaligned?” Miguel asked knowingly.
“That's what the link is showing.”
“Let's try it.”
Peter ran his fingers over the printlock and the door slipped open, but only by a few inches. He tried again, but without further luck.
They reacted quickly – Miguel gripped the partially open door high and Peter down low, and they pulled. The door's sliding track growled, but progress was made. By the time Olivia arrived with a medical kit, the door was halfway open.
“Do we know anything?” She asked.
“Not yet,” Peter struggled, groaning as he forced back the door.
Lara stayed out of the way, across the corridor. The odor chasing through the opening was sickeningly sweet, and although Lara could not determine it exactly, she was certain it was biological. Like rot.
That did not send chills through her, given that the stasis chamber contained dozens of samples collected on Centauri III. This is to be expected, she told herself.
She prayed hard to once again experience the essences of Daniel Loche. She knew the scent of musk that he carried after he stepped from a shower. She knew the pungent but somehow seductive aroma that he conveyed after a long, hard workout on the gyron.
“Are we ready?” She heard a voice, and Lara realized she had closed her eyes. When opened, she saw most of the crew standing in front of her, their attention focused on the chamber.
Fran, Boris, Anatoly.
“Hold on,” Olivia said, pulling at Peter's bodysuit. “There are so many specimens in there. Could contaminants have been released into the air?”
This was once a research and storage lab. Specimens collected from throughout the Centauri A system had been arranged in protective ovoid metal capsules along neatly aligned shelves. The primary stasis units – a trio banked against the chamber's rear wall – had sat like silent, patient monoliths carrying the remains of the most advanced form of life man had ever encountered.
“Not possible,” Fran said. “The only potential problem could have come from macro-bacterial samples the probe retrieved from Centauri VI and VII. But their storage pods are programmed to instantly smolder the bacteria in the event of any structural distress. They're fail-safe.”
“And really too late to matter at this point since the bloody door is half-open,” Peter said testily, then charged into the chamber.
Olivia, Miguel and Fran followed, and Lara stepped forward, but a firm hand grabbed hold of her shoulder. She turned to the Georgian, Anatoly Tryvinski.
The accused rapist stuttered at first, but his voice was calm. “Don't ... don't go in, Captain. Let the others see what has happened.”
“I have to ...”
“This is best, I believe. If Daniel is hurt, they'll help him.”
He grabbed her hand, and her initial instinct was to pull away in revulsion. But she realized she wasn't frightened of the man. She knew his concern was genuine.
“Stay. I should help Boris,” he told her, and he aided the Russian, who was trying to push the door farther open.
Lara could see little. The details of the chamber were at first hidden in a thick, smoky haze. There were shouts.
Fran cursed.
She looked past Boris and Anatoly's contorted bodies and could make out the shape of a man on one knee. His back was facing her.
Lara saw nothing familiar. The chamber was effectively decimated. The buckled shelves and fragments of specimen pods were laid in a heap in one corner of the chamber, as if crumbled and then deposited by a godlike hand. The primary units were torn from their wall couplings and now rested in the center of the chamber, two of the octagonal glass portals shattered.
The man upon one knee turned, stepped quickly to her, and Lara lost any urge to smile in hope.
Miguel Navarro emerged from the haze with water thick beneath his eyes, and he grabbed her by the shoulders. “You shouldn't be in here, Lara. You shouldn't be here.”
“Where?” She looked around. “Where is he?”
Miguel started to hug her, but she pulled back.
“Daniel is gone,” he said firmly.
“But where?” She whispered and then looked around some more. She realized that her voice was the only sound in the chamber, and the others were staring in dismay. “Where is he?”
“No, Lara. You should leave. Daniel is gone. He's dead.”
Nausea rose instantly, and she tried to fight it. She reached out with one hand, grabbed hold of Miguel, and her fingernails bore into his arm, pulled back and left a tear in his bodysuit.
“He's dead,” she whispered. “He had to be. I knew that. I knew that.”
Miguel was saying something else to her, but she couldn't lift her eyes to meet his, and she looked again around the chamber.
“Will you marry me when we get home?”
“Of course. It's all I can think about.”
Olivia put an arm around her. “Let's go to your quarters, Lara. You shouldn't be here.”
“I need to see him.”
“No!” Miguel said flatly, his voice raised an octave.
“Yes,” she insisted. “I should see him. I have that much right.”
Miguel was adamant. “No, Lara. He's not like you remember. Not at all.”
The words were clear, the translation convoluted. “Which means?”
Olivia stepped between them and placed a gentle hand upon Lara's face, where tears flowed freely.
“Peter said Daniel was repairing the stasis unit when the explosion occurred,” the doctor said. “The explosion originated in the stasis unit itself. Lara, he was caught in the heart of the blast. He died instantly.”
There were no more words for Lara. Her mouth hung open, but nothing came forth, and there were no discernible thoughts or emotions to drive those words. She saw images – faces, perhaps.
His face. Maybe.
Someone touched her, grabbed hold. She was going somewhere else – of that much she was fairly certain.
But she didn't care.
Not anymore.
22
S
he had been on this journey for 34 years, 51 days and 19 hours. She was 160 minutes from home.
And she lost almost all desire to live.
She could begin to understand. Yes, she encountered death before – the ghostly eyes of Michaud Pousson were a staple of her nightmares. But no one whom she ever love
d left her behind. Her parents were taken from her before she was old enough to put together a sentence. Boyfriends with possibilities were pushed aside when she became fearful of commitment. And all the others – she simply left them in her wake when she turned her ambition to Andorran.
There was no pain.
No heartache, no mental exhaustion, no sense of being. She was not hungry or sleepy, angry or sad.
And only when she found herself standing in front of the door to her personal quarters did Lara realize that she was, indeed, alive.
Olivia escorted her here, steadying Lara all the way.
“What are we doing here?” Lara asked as they stopped.
“I want you to come inside with me,” the doctor said. “I have something for you. Something you need.”
“It's not Daniel.”
“No, it's not Daniel. But it will make you feel better.”
“I don't think so,” she whispered, and her words were feeble. She looked away from the doctor.
Nevertheless, she followed Olivia's lead, sat politely upon the edge of the bed. Olivia squatted before her and tried to make contact with the captain's puffed red eyes.
“Lara, I want to give you a dose of stenazone. It's a type of sedative and will help your mind to rest. You've been through so much today. It’s all happened in a very short time. Your brain is struggling to assimilate it all. This will help you sleep. Lara?”
“Yes?” She answered without really caring who was speaking.
“Just making sure you hadn't left me. You're a little disoriented.”
For a second, Lara shifted her eyes, and they made contact with the Norwegian. “Why are you crying?” Lara asked.
The doctor was quick to remove the streamlets of water from her cheeks, then she paused to regroup. “I've been through an extremely difficult time as well, Lara. But I'll get through it. We both will. Now, I want you to lay back on the bed and let me partially unzip your bodysuit.”
Lara almost smiled, her mind dancing into a sudden, rising mist, and she obeyed, falling back upon the mattress slowly and stiffly. Olivia opened a zipper halfway down the chest of her patient's bodysuit and placed a small white pyramid directly above Lara's heart. Its digital display quickly relayed vital statistics. Olivia grimaced.
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