Howling Dark

by Christopher Ruocchio

  Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang.

  The knocking was more insistent now. Louder.

  “Hadrian! Stand back,” Switch said, holding out his arm to bar my passage. Switch. Ever the faithful friend and lictor.

  I unclipped Olorin’s sword from my belt and held it ready, but did not activate the blade. Unwilling to waste time on pleasantries, I said, “Open the door.”

  Pallino didn’t hesitate, slammed the button to begin the airlock cycle. Switch tried to keep me from the door, but I pushed his hand gently aside, kept my eyes trained square through the door’s porthole. An alarm whined, announcing the decompression of the space beyond. Red light flooded the airlock and—silently—the doors opened.

  I leaped back, animal instinct tugging my sword arm up before me. Switch swore and made a warding gesture before bringing his stunner in line. Calm as ever, Pallino took two steps back, squared his shoulders to better cover the door. Something entered the airlock, pulling itself forward with too many hands. The doors shut behind it, and it regarded us with too many eyes. I felt cold like a knife between my shoulder blades.

  “Holy Mother Earth, keep us and protect us in Darkness and the land of strangers . . .” Switch breathed.

  From the dominion of steel, O Mother, deliver us.

  The airlock light cycled blue, and the inner doors hissed open.

  “Hold!” I cried, to myself, the creature, and my men. “Hold!”

  A walking engine of glittering metal it was, standing on arms like articulate ropes of steel, arms which supported a head—for head it seemed—bullet-shaped and large as a man’s torso. With eyes red as coals and glittering as a spider’s it watched us, unmoving.

  No one spoke. Not for a long time.

  How many arms were there? Seven? Eight? Each terminated in four jointed fingers like the petals of some grotesque flower, and each was splayed on the floor.

  “Permission to come aboard, sir?” When it spoke, it was in a curious high voice, strangely accented, lilting almost as a Jaddian’s. It sounded . . . young. Like a boy newly at his post. Somehow that made the effect more terrifying.

  I did not lower my sword.

  “What are you?” I asked, ready to squeeze the trigger on my sword at the slightest provocation. The creature’s arms looked to be of some common metal, aluminum perhaps, or steel. “What are you? Man or daimon?”

  The creature’s body jounced as it laughed. “You’re from the Empire, aren’t you?” An image formed on the blank, black metal space between the two largest of the creature’s glowing eyes. The image of a young boy—no more than twenty—brown skinned and smiling. “I’m called Nazzareno, sir. At your service.” The image smiled and flicked out. It—he?—seemed to hesitate a moment, regarding the others. “I didn’t mean to frighten you. I’m meant to ferry you into the Enigma, sir. The Enigma of Hours. I’m your pilot.”

  CHAPTER 24

  THE ENIGMA OF HOURS

  WE HAD OUR CHARON with eyes like coals, our ferryman of souls. The Exalted followed with an oddly demure politeness, clanking slow but heavy on its metal paws, body lurching with every step. Here and there it steadied itself with a claw braced on wall or on ceiling, each time causing our guards to flinch and raise stunners I thought worse than useless.

  Nazzareno’s arrival on the bridge was worse than Tanaran’s had been. Even among the Normans the fear of machines ran deep, and though they walked at times among the Extrasolarians, the creature I led onto the bridge was something else entirely. We did not even know if it was human, if somewhere deep in that carapace there lurked a heart or brain or face. For all we knew, we had admitted a machine—a daimon—onto our ship. That face that had formed on Nazzareno’s body might be only a simulacrum, and not the face of some boy that was or had been destroyed.

  I shall not linger on the tense discussion that followed, the horror even on Valka’s face. Suffice it to say that Otavia took convincing—and what captain would not?

  Nazzareno’s many arms—eight of them? Nine?—clamped onto the rail of the captain’s platform, onto the ceiling above, supporting the body as though it were an egg sac in some spider’s unholy web. From the way it moved, I guessed that Nazzareno was unused to gravity, and discomfited by it.

  The talons at the end of one of its paws moved, rearranging themselves into fingers. These worked the controls with deft familiarity, as if it had piloted the Mistral every day of its life.

  “Captain.” One of Nazzareno’s eyes swiveled full round so that it could look at Otavia straight from the back of its own head, “With your permission, I would like to route control for your ship directly through my chassis.”

  “And give you access to our datasphere?” Otavia took a step forward. “Small chance.”

  “Respectfully, captain.” The Exalted bobbed its whole body in some weird approximation of a bow. “I have had access to your datasphere since before I was brought on board, as is only proper in my capacity as customs officer. Please rest assured, your safety and conduct are guaranteed by Captain Eidhin and our contract with Brevon Imports.” When Otavia said nothing, Nazzareno repeated its question. “May I assume control of your ship?”

  For a moment, I thought Otavia would balk. But she had not so much as blinked when Tanaran appeared on her bridge, and she was not going to back down now. She thrust out her chin. “See it done.”

  Nazzareno’s one eye rolled back to the front of its outsized head and it resumed its work, one jointed steel hand fidgeting with the controls. A series of red indicator lights flickered along its right side, and all around it the diagnostic panels and holographs flickered and went dead.

  “What are you doing?” demanded Bastien Durand.

  In answer, the drone of ion drives reverberated through the Mistral’s superstructure. Nazzareno did not swivel its attention, but said, “T-minus six minutes to rendezvous.”

  “Six minutes?” the ensign in charge of the sensors asked. “There’s nothing out there.”

  I had to applaud the young officer for bravery. Not anyone would have the courage to look something like the Exalted in the eyes and call it a liar.

  “Bring our instruments back online,” Otavia said.

  “Respectfully, captain, I have put a freeze on your instruments until you are safely aboard the Enigma. I have a duty to protect my ship and my employer’s privacy.”

  Looking back, the situation was absurd. A demon out of mother’s operas—with tentacles and glowing eyes—speaking of privacy and with the manners of a Forum courtier. Still, I found I could not look at the Exalted for long. The ordinary human motions of its one steel hand contrasted with the supreme inhumanity of its construction chilled me, and I moved again toward the window to clear my head.

  It was the same window I’d looked out not two hours before, the same stars wheeling in the same deep Dark. The same rosy accretion disk orbiting the same distant, blue-giant star. I could still make out the distant, violet flare of fusion torches against that blackness . . . the mineral trawlers at their work so far and far away. Where had Nazzareno come from? Surely it had insinuated itself into the Mistral’s datasphere. That was how it had concealed its presence from our sensors, and not through any camouflage. I glanced at Valka. Had not the Tavrosi woman done the same thing on Emesh, concealing our conversations from the watchful eye of Mataro security and from the Holy Terran Chantry?

  I shuddered, eyes skating over the machine creature where it nested among the controls. The bridge crew all looked on helplessly, unable to do aught but watch their ship piloted into darkness.

  Into darkness.

  A shadow fell across the stars, and—falling—cast a quiet deeper still. Deep gloom filled the space around us, turning the red glare of holograph plates and viewscreens to the glow of hellish embers in a threatening night. I looked out the window, and could not find the stars. The accretion disk was gone, and the trawlers
with it. All we beheld was Dark. Never had I seen such blackness, unless it was in the dark beneath Calagah, in the temple-hushed gloom beneath the surface of the world. It was not that we were at warp: the whine of ion drives still carried through the Mistral’s yawning superstructure. It was as if we had flown into the mouth of some cave vast as moons.

  “What’s going on?” Bastien demanded of Nazzareno. When no answer came, he said, “What have you done to us?”

  Sharing the First Officer’s disquiet but not his fire, I squinted out the window. Almost I imagined it was not space I looked upon, but the pelagic dark of the sea. I half-expected the blur of some fin or tentacle to pass my window, or to hear the cry of some leviathan or the song of whale. But the abyss stood lifeless, silent, and so screamed. Darkness filled me, and filled me with a sense of foreboding such as the old Florentine must have felt standing at the gunwale of Charon’s ship as they crossed the Acheron. Almost I felt the boards groan beneath my feet. I found myself thinking of Demetri and his crew—the Jaddian merchanters who had meant to take me to Teukros when I left home—and of the untold billions lost in that endless Dark. Perhaps the ancient spacefarers were right—perhaps the Chantry was right—perhaps hell was in the deep of space. Perhaps it was not sea life I might see out my window, but the faces of the dead looking back me. Not just Demetri and his crew, but Uvanari, Gilliam . . . Cat. Even Gibson with his slitted nose.

  Light.

  There was light, running in the darkness as sparks run from flame. From another window another voice rang out, “I see something!” The more curious joined us at windows, and I was jostled by a lieutenant whose name I no longer recall. Like the lights of stars they were, and yet unlike, coming from a great depth, as though it were from the bottom of some trench. Several trenches. They spidered across that blackness, and as I watched my understanding shifted. They were not sparks flying in the night, but orderly candles lighted in deep alcoves, flickering. Lighting great rings around us and above us and below, as if someone had taken all the dimmest stars of heaven and ordered them to march rank and file.

  They were not stars, for they vanished or were hid as we moved. And they moved, flashed or flickered or danced, changing color in accordance with patterns I could not decipher. I gasped, and was the first to say, “It’s a city.”

  Smaller than March Station it must have been, but grander because we could see it all at a glance. The candle flames were the lights of buildings, obscured by the height of those structures built around them. For how many miles it stretched I could not say.

  “’Tis a ship,” Valka corrected.

  The lights above us grew closer, and pressing two fingers to the glass I tried again to magnify the image as I had before. It wouldn’t work. The glowing chasms whence the faint light shone took on dimension: the surrounding darkness reaching down to meet us like so many black hands. They were towers, and the lines of colored light were streets. I could just make out the movement of what looked like groundcars or trams in those deep places. Overcome suddenly by the sense of vertigo, I shut my eyes and turned away.

  A ship.

  Given what I’d seen, I guessed the ship was like the great spinships of the sort the Mandari used, though on a scale that dwarfed any the Consortium and its ilk had. The Enigma of Hours was cigar-shaped, perhaps a hundred miles from end to end, perhaps longer, and perhaps a tenth that across. I never saw much of it, but deduced from those parts I did see that her front end was open to vacuum. The crew section and drive cores were in the aft, separated from the docks and the city by a vast bulkhead that sealed the back end as surely as the front was open.

  “We are now on final approach.” Nazzareno’s lilting voice filled the silence disquietingly. There was something artificial about how natural the chimera sounded. The Exalted swiveled its bulk to look at Captain Corvo, but even as it did so several of its secondary eyes turned to look at different people: at Bastien Durand, standing nearby with his jaw set; at Valka, listening raptly by the window; at myself. “On behalf of Captain Eidhin and the rest of the Enigma’s crew, I am instructed to remind you that for the duration of your stay with us you will be expected to abide by the ship’s rules. Passengers are to remain in the visitor’s port and are not to attempt entry into any of the restricted zones, or to carry weapons in the visitor’s port. Any passengers found in violation of these policies will be subject to summary disembarkation. Similarly, all passengers will remain aboard their ships until such time as the Enigma is at warp. Anyone found attempting to interfere with the Enigma’s physical or datum-plane integrity will be subject to summary disembarkation . . .” The list went on. About halfway through it I had the uncomfortable realization that the Exalted wasn’t speaking to us, not exactly. Its words were canned, pre-recorded, so that instead of having worn out the tired speech, it simply repeated statements it had made before, played back in bored bemusement.

  When it was done, Bastien Durand stepped forward and asked, “To be clear: what is ‘summary disembarkation’?”

  All of Nazzareno’s eyes twitched forward to refocus their attentions on the Norman in his fake spectacles. “Your ship will be ejected from the Enigma’s central hold without warning or review, without regard for your fuel reserves.”

  The First Officer made a small hmm noise, but offered no other commentary.

  “It won’t be a problem,” said Otavia Corvo. “The minute we’re clamped in for the long haul, I’ll be reducing my active crew to a minimal complement and putting the rest into cryonic fugue for the journey.”

  The big Exalted unclasped its metal hands from the ceiling and the rail beside it, turning its whole bulk around so that it half-loomed, half-crouched before the Amazonian captain. “That will not be necessary.”

  “I’m sorry?” Otavia tilted her head, clearly confused. “How’s that?”

  “You’re for Vorgossos, yes?” The creature raised its chassis above the level of Corvo’s head, red eyes growing dim, as if hooded. “That journey won’t take but three standard weeks.”

  You could have knocked any of us over with a breath. Three weeks. There would be no point in putting anyone on the ice for so short a time.

  The Captain was a moment regaining her footing and voice. “V-Vorgossos is that close?”

  “I cannot answer that,” Nazzareno said, and began clanking its way back toward the door. “Suffice it to say the planet is several kilolights from here.”

  “Several . . .” Her voice trailed off, calculations turning over in her mind. “That’s not possible. You’re talking about speeds several thousand times light.”

  “’Tis possible,” Valka said coolly. “I did time on a Demarchy courier when I was younger that averaged three thousand c.”

  Nazzareno shook with silent laughter, pointed a claw at me. “The Empire keeps such craft as well. None could keep pace with us if they had a mind.” He was boasting, and I caught myself wondering if he really was so young as he sounded. A boy. What sort of person could put a boy in a body like the one before me? Carve a child’s flesh and pack it into cold steel?

  A resonant, metallic boom resounded throughout the ship. Another clang followed a moment after, and the lot of us looked round, muttering in confused alarm. Several of the holograph panels flickered, returned to their original states, showing ship’s diagnostics and astrogation as if nothing had happened. Several of the techs scrambled to their stations even as the gravity began to shift beneath our feet. Centripetal gravity bled over me, rising up under the constant pressure of the suppression field, dragging my innards down to their proper place. I could see from the way the others moved that they had felt it, too.

  Nazzareno bobbed its head again, eyes bright. “An inspection team will be aboard presently to assist me in making sure you’ve brought no dangerous substances onto our ship. A lock has been placed on your ship’s weapons systems for the duration of your stay.” It turned to go, gripped t
he door frame with three clawed hands to steady itself. Nazzareno caught himself and turned his turret of a head back to face us. “Welcome to the Enigma of Hours.”

  CHAPTER 25

  BECALMED IN MOTION

  “THINK THEY’LL SOUND THE all-clear soon?” Switch’s voice carried down the steps from the observatory. I was supposed to be meeting Valka there. She had gained permission to let Tanaran out of the brig for a time, to show it where we were and what we were doing. I shouldn’t have been surprised the captain was there, nor shocked to find Switch at the ready.

  Otavia answered, her voice frayed by exhaustion. “Not sure. Instruments say we’re at warp, pushing nine thousand c.”

  “Thought that squid man said we’d be let out once we were at warp?”

  I’m not sure what made me do it, but I stopped on the stairs. The well spiraled up and to the left, ascending from an access off the central hall between the rear section and the bridge, up to a semicircular chamber that looked out and down on the tapered Clovis point of the Mistral’s prow. I was alone a moment, unseen by either anyone in the hall or anyone in the room above. I might have been the only soul in a million light-years, were it not for the voice flowing down from above.

  Captain Corvo replied, “That’s what he said, William. Nothing we can do about it in any case.”

  “I don’t like it,” Switch said. “Feels like a trap.”

  “If it were a trap, why’d they drag it out like this?” I heard the thud of a glass—wondered at the early hour. “We’ve been in their power for three days.”

  Switch conceded this point quietly, but even still I did not move. The outer wall of the stair was cold beneath my fingers, and I was aware suddenly of the faint hum of the ship, and of the distant, more noisome sounds of the world beyond. “Still feels like a trap. And we got the Pale to worry about.”