by Sarah Zettel
From where Keale was, the rescue balls were as big as medicine balls, and he could make out the doll-sized Humans inside them. There were still more being tossed out the airlock. A few people had worked their hands into the ball's gloves and had managed to hang on to each other, turning the individual bubbles into strings like model molecules.
The Graves's pilots were done hurrying. The shuttle moved at a steady, leisurely pace. They steered carefully into the nearest group of rescue balls. Some of the bubbles’ occupants spotted the ship and tried to scramble around to get a better view, sending their containers rolling gently over.
“Okay, airlocks,” came Anderson's voice across Keale's suit intercom. “It's up to you.”
“Let's go,” said Keale to Ashe.
He let go of the handle and gave himself a small shove out into the blackness. His tether played out behind him. He turned his head and focused his attention on the nearest rescue ball.
“Guide to target,” he murmured to his implant. The suit's jet pack squirted once, veering him off at a sharp angle. He stretched his hands out. The transparent rescue bad filled his view. There was a teak-skinned man inside with an expression of relief on his face so intense it was almost painful.
Keale's hands collided with the bad and found two of the multiple handles that covered the outside.
“Back,” he ordered. The suit spoke to the tether, which began reeling Keale and the man back toward the shuttle.
Ashe was already back in the airlock with her first rescue. Keale guided his man's rescue ball inside, and Vera cycled the outer door shut.
There's two. Keale looked out at the clusters of floating bubbles. Hold an out there. We're on our way.
Four and a half hours and six hundred people later, Keale sat in the shuttle's main compartment with a tired and grim Esmaraude next to him. She had both hands wrapped around a soft beaker of coffee. He was sucking down water. His shoulders ached, and his arms felt like rubber hoses.
“They got the engineering word, but they didn't get mine,” said Esmo. “I've got no idea about gravity. Has anybody found Rudu King?”
Keale nodded. “He's in sick bay, but they had to knock him out.” Pain creased Esmo's face. “He'll be all right, they said. Just going to need his leg jump-grown.”
“We were too slow.” Esmo scowled at her hands holding the coffee bulb. “Stood around like sheep, going ‘What the heck is that, boyo?’”
“Excuse me,” interrupted a man's soft voice.
Keale looked up to see Dr. David Zelotes. The man looked haggard, but not shattered like some people they'd pulled in.
“Yes, Doctor?” said Esmo.
Zelotes was looking directly at Keale, and Keale knew what was coming next. “I was wondering if there'd been any word about Lynn Nussbaumer.”
“There wasn't when I left,” said Keale as kindly as he could. “But I'll reel a thread out to Base. Something may have come in since.”
“Thank you.” Zelotes tried to straighten himself up. “There're a lot of contusions and broken bones and shock among the evacuees, Captain, but everyone's in decent shape.” It was as if he was trying to be useful as an apology for interrupting.
“Thank you, Doctor,” said Esmo briskly. “Let us know if there's anything you need.” She spoke as if she were still aboard her fully stocked ship, not aboard an underequipped shuttle retreating to its base.
“I will.” Zelotes turned around and headed back for the hold.
Esmo shook her head and whispered, “Poor bastard.”
“We've all done everything we can,” said Keale softly. “What we've got to decide is what to do next. Assume the Dedelphi have two command words, what can they do?”
Esmo swallowed a little more coffee. “Not a whole lot that's immediately useful. The AI's gone. I shut down the engines, sealed up everything I could think of from my station. They'll need the captain's word to get that undone.”
Keale drummed his fingers on his thigh. “So they can't even move the thing until they decrypt the command codes.”
Captain Esmaraude lowered her coffee beaker. “You don't think…”
“They are at least going to give it a good try, Captain. Whether they can or not… They've tapped our communications, they've stolen one of our ships. I'm not going to be the one who says they can't solve one of our codes.” He let out a sigh. “Until then, however, they've stolen an island.” He scowled at the city-ship sitting serenely in the middle of his portable screen. “We need to find a way to spy on their conversations, but we're working on that. By tomorrow we'll have a sat-net thrown up to keep an eye on them.” He paused. “Maybe we can get one of the engineering ships down from the asteroid belt and take the place apart around them. There might be some ways the nanotech teams could make it too uncomfortable to live in there…” He let the sentence trail off. There were possibilities. Plenty of them. He had to believe that right now, or he was no good to anybody.
“Well”—Esmo swigged some more coffee—“if it's any consolation, you were right.”
Keale snorted. “I was wrong, Esmo. I was preparing for a spontaneous attack, a mob action. I completely faded to consider an organized, carefully planned takeover by a group of people who had studied us for a long time.” He laughed once. “Never, ever trust the stats, Esmo. They lie.”
“What do you think they're going to do now?”
Keale shook his head. “I've got no idea. Try to attack the t'Therian city-ship, maybe. Take all those virus samples we've got in there and dump them over the t'Aori peninsula. Find a big rock to drop, maybe. They've done that before.”
Esmo studied her coffee. “So what are we going to do now?” she asked calmly.
“First”—Keale looked at the tiny, glowing city-ship on his screen—“we're calling the home system and getting reinforcements.” His eyes narrowed as he looked down at the city-ship again. “Then, we're going to show our guests just what kind of trouble they're in.”
Chapter XVI
The carrier crept forward another few feet. Arron shifted his weight from one buttock to the other. They'd been riding in the carrier's canvas-roofed cargo bin for the better part of an hour. Balt and Entsh had been able to take them most of the way using the security tunnels. They'd made good time, although being surrounded by the reek of gasoline and smog and the constant echo of traffic noise had not made for a comfortable trip.
They'd had to emerge onto the main streets when they reached the town of Mrant Chavat. Too many checkpoints, down below, Balt had told them. This close to the port fortifications, the cargo bin would have to be inspected.
Arron ran his hand across the stubble on his chin and his scalp. He itched. He also stank, but Lynn assured him it was all right; she did, too. Lynn sat on the opposite side of the bin from him. Res huddled under the canvas openings at the rear, where the air circulation was best. Her skin was still twitching way too much, he noticed.
None of them bad spoken since they climbed into the carrier. Lynn leaned against one of the support struts for the canvas and pretended to be asleep. He suspected her infection was taking more out of her than she wanted to admit. The skin around the bandage was swollen and cherry red, with dark streaks running through it. The liquid seeping out from under the ragged cloth had a greenish tinge that could not be good.
He'd called her his sister yesterday. It was the only Getesaph word for a close relationship. “Friend” didn't really exist. Ally was a transitory term. Those who were closest to you could only be sisters, mothers, or daughters. There were no words in Getesaph for how he had felt when he had seen her again after all these years.
God, he'd missed her. Not just for the sex. He'd had that, as needed. The Human population on the Getesaph's Earth was not that small, and it circulated fairly regularly. He'd missed her laugh, her voracious intelligence, her sharp opinions, her ways of speaking.
There had never been anybody like her, before or since. He'd wanted to rescue her. To show her this had all b
een a mistake. To explain why she was going about her project all wrong in a way she'd understand.
Then, when she'd heard about the Ur, she'd said, “David,” and he'd felt something inside him snap in two.
This is crazy. He leaned his head back against a strut and stared up at the rippling canvas ceiling. This is completely crazy. My friends, my family are committing suicide out there, and I'm sitting here being jealous of Lynn's… whoever.
Arron tried to find something else to think about. He couldn't hear any of the town noise over the rumble of the engines and the rattle of struts. Shadows of buildings and traffic passed outside the canvas. He could smell the city smells of smog and fish and garbage and spices.
A shrieking roar sat him bolt upright. The carrier jerked to a halt. Other noises joined the shriek: a distant boom and crump.
Oh, no.
“What!” exclaimed Resaime.
Lynn sat up, groggy but wide-eyed.
Arron scrambled to the rear of the carrier. Resaime scuttled aside. He undid one of the ties and raised the canvas.
The cloud blanket had broken to let some blue gleam through. The shriek began again and Arron saw the black wedges of warplanes streak across the sky. The crump and boom of the shore batteries split the city noises. Which meant more planes were coming.
A new shriek started, and nearby he heard a bang. His gaze jerked to a rooftop. Somebody had a rocket gun set up on a tripod. They fired it, and it went bang! with a flash and cloud of smoke, and the planes appeared overhead and a cloud of flame blossomed out of the side of one. A cheer went up, until one of the black wedges swooped back toward them.
Something dark fell from it. Reflex yanked Arron's head and shoulders back into the carrier.
“Cover!” he shouted, curling into a ball, for all the good it would do.
The explosion was a thousand separate noises: crumbling stone, screams, crackling dust, rising fire, and tearing metal. The carrier rocked sideways, hard, wheels lifting up off the ground and slamming back down again.
The noise rolled on, but didn't start over. Soon the sounds of shouting voices and running feet overwhelmed it.
One bomb, that was all. For the moment.
“What the hell?” demanded Lynn.
“Air raid.” Arron straightened up.
Lynn's face went chalk white. “Oh, God. Res, are you—”
A wailing siren cut the air. “Shhhh.” Arron waved her quiet. The initial wail was followed by the slow, measured beating of a gong.
Res and Lynn stared at him. “Call to arms.” He slumped backwards. “There's a war starting.”
“Out!” shouted Entsh from the cab.
“What?” said Lynn.
“Out! Out! We have to report for duty.”
“But we need …” began Arron.
“You need to find your own kind and get out of here,” said Balt. “We have to report, so you have to take your pet devna and go.”
Lynn opened her mouth again, but Arron laid a hand on her arm and shook his head. Not this time. Duty came first.
Arron climbed out of the carrier, followed by Lynn. Resaime, shaking ad over, climbed out after them.
“Good luck,” shouted Balt as the carrier engine's hum raised to a screaming pitch and it accelerated into the crowd, leaving them standing on the cracked pavement.
Everyone was running in different directions. Someone bumped into him, looked at him, and screamed. Arron tried to back away and collided with someone else, who shouted and shoved at him. A mother snatched a daughter out of his path. Someone shoved him sideways so hard he fed, hitting the pavement with his shoulder.
“Get away, Human!” she shouted.
He managed to look up and see Lynn. She and Res had made it into a doorway. Lynn stood over Resaime, shadowing Res with her body, so no one would see that the sister had the telltale blue tint to her skin that marked the t'Theria.
Arron got to his feet and forced a path over to Lynn and Res. He tried the handle on the door behind them. It gave, and the door opened onto a dim corridor.
No one needed any urging. Lynn and Res bundled inside.
The building was a market. Distribution stalls on one side, warehouse area on the other. Stairs ran up to the office area and quarters for the family who worked the place.
“Wait in here,” said Arron hurriedly. “Find something sturdy to get under and lie low. No one will be back until well after the attack's over. I'm going to go find help.”
Lynn nodded mutely. Res dipped her ears. Her skin sagged so badly she looked like she was ready for the Change.
Arron made himself turn around and walk out the door.
The world outside had gone insane. The streets were jammed with people. The frame cars and carriers, stuffed with sisters, most of them armed, couldn't move for the crowds, no matter how energetically the drivers shouted. The call to arms was now punctuated with general announcements. What snippets he could make out under the cacophony of the shore guns were about reporting to shelter or duty stations. He glanced up. Huge blue-and-grey multi-propped helicopters flew over the bay. He squinted toward the horizon and saw the black oblongs of distant war cruisers.
What's happening? Who's doing this? Looking at the ’copters didn't help. Straining to hear the PA announcements didn't either.
Arron stood alone on the edge of the chaos. For the first time in ten years, he felt totally cut off from the world.
Get it together, Hagopian.
Balt and Entsh had said he should find his own kind. Right now, that wasn't a bad idea. If he remembered right, Mrant Chavat was a fair-sized port. There might be a trader or embassite down on the quays. There might even be some Bioverse personnel. Somebody with a boat, or a van.
Arron raised his collar and hunched his neck down. He pulled his sleeves over his hands and clutched the hems from the inside so the cloth covered his hands. His trousers and boots were in one piece, which was something, but there was nothing he could do about his bare, hairy face, nothing he could do about a lot of things, except move fast.
One good thing, with an invasion on, Balt and Entsh's employers probably won't have the chance to grab us again.
Arron stepped into the mainstream of foot traffic. Mothers saw him and pulled up short, yanking their children into their arms and leaving holes in the crowd for him to duck through. People scrambled to get away from him, knocking down their mothers and sisters. Arron winced but let them fall. The only favor he could do everyone right now was get out of their way.
He headed west, hugging the buildings on the edge of the crowd, dodging past doorways as fast as he could to avoid the sisters charging down the stairs with their guns, or the mothers with their children and bundles. The constant roar of the guns was making his ears go numb, but now he heard a new sound. Water splashed somewhere to his right. He saw a narrow space between two buildings with light at its end. Arron turned himself sideways and slid into the crack. Chest and back scraping against rough concrete, he shinnied sideways through garbage, decaying leaves, and guano and out into the next street.
A quick glance showed he was in a crooked street that ran along the ridge of a sandy bank. Ladders led straight down to the docks. The grey-green harbor was choked with boats trying to get to shore. Some sisters just abandoned the vessels and ran for the shore, hopping from deck to deck. Some dived into the water and swam under the hulls. Out toward the mouth of the bay, the shore guns targeted the invading ships. The shells mostly landed in the water, raising huge gouts of foam, but here and there, Arron could see them hit the invaders’ decks, raising a gout of fire instead.
While the civilians tried to get inland to report to their shelters or militia units, the uniformed soldiers were heading for the water. Low, flat, armored transports lay waiting for them in the restricted areas of the harbor. Arron knew what was coming next. The soldiers were heading out to mine the harbor and to try to attach bombs to the hulls of the invading ships. They'd be joined by the troops who wai
ted in the underwater bunkers, holed up like clams in their shells. The tunnels under the bay would be at least as busy as the docks, but probably more organized. Arms, supplies, and sisters would be shuttled to their stations.
The invaders, in turn, would send their own troops into the water to stop the troops and the mines and to destroy the bunkers.
A glint caught his eye and he saw, short and pale among the pinkish grey Dedelphi, a clean-suited Human arguing with a trio of soldiers. Ignoring the ladders, Arron half scrambled, half slid down the sandy slope. His boots hit the dock. Instantly, he was surrounded by a forest of shoulders and backs. He dodged his way through. All at once, he found himself in a still, clear spot, nose-to-nose with a familiar face.
“Cabal!”
The trader blinked, as if he was having trouble focusing. “Arron! What the hell are you still doing here?”
Got a year, Cabal? “It's a really long story. Have you got your boat?”
Cabal glowered at the soldiers. “I'm trying to find out.”
Arron looked up at the soldiers. Three ovrth, by the bands on their cuffs. “The light of day looks good on you, Sister Ovrth,” he said in his best, most formal Getesaph. “I am Scholar Arron Hagopian.”
“Scholar Arron?” The pinkest of the three held her ears up straighter. “What a delight to meet you. I wish the time permitted something other than a hasty greeting.”
Since Arron had no ears to dip, he bowed his head. “So do I. I came here to find Trader Cabal. Her boat is required to evacuate the remaining Humans from the danger area.”
Cabal gave him a startled look, but kept his mouth shut.
“The Humans have all been evacuated. Bioverse took care of that,” said Ovrth Pink.
“Not all.” Arron shook his head. “The last few need to be removed to a neutral island. Cabal has been authorized to take them out. I have come to find her.”