Forever Shores

by Peter McNamara

  ‘Tom,’ John Coyote said, ‘you should see this.’

  ‘What is it, John?’

  ‘I’m not sure. Best you come and see.’

  The three of them adjusted their masks again and stepped out into the brilliance. Tom instinctively looked down to where the hot coins of the lakes fell astern, but John pointed west.

  ‘There,’ he said. ‘Coming at us.’

  Tom unclipped his portable scan and looked. His eyes focused but couldn’t resolve what he saw. There was a scratch on the sky, a needle line of silver dividing the world almost vertically, or trying to, with a weight, an anchor, a glinting door shape—something—at the end of it, but closing on the earth.

  No, that wasn’t it. Like John had said: it was coming at them.

  ‘It’s a tether!’ Tom cried.

  John had his scan raised as well. ‘From a sub-orbital!’

  ‘And down there! Look!’ Tom lowered his scan to see Dusein pointing across the rail. ‘To the north!’

  There was a dust cloud, a large one, the rooster tails of a fleet of charvolants, five, ten, possibly more. Tom raised his scan again.

  ‘Your Captains?’ Dusein asked even as he found focus.

  ‘Not with those signatures,’ Tom said. ‘Red wheel on black.’

  ‘Haldanian Order!’ she cried.

  John confirmed it. ‘Madhouse ships! Nine signatures, nine ships. They’re following. Trying for intercept.’

  Tom swung his scan to the west, thumbed auto-lock.

  The gondola on its tether seemed to be walking on the sky, sliding along some invisible track at precisely the kite’s altitude. Tom found its thread, traced the line of quicksilver upwards, down again, thumbed more zoom, saw stabilisation vanes deployed, the tiny flash of rectifiers.

  ‘Going to board, you think?’ John asked, as if any of them could know. This was outside all their experience.

  ‘Or attach something. Force us down.’ It seemed likely.

  ‘They may try system overrides,’ Dusein said, closest thing to an aviator they had. ‘But I’d say rupture a gas cell more likely. They’ll have schematics. Know exactly what to hit.’

  ‘Why not laser?’ Tom asked.

  ‘Too many variables,’ she said. ‘This is simpler. Get a barb in. Make a tear larger than systems can repair.’

  John had his scan up again. ‘That thing’s occupied, you think?’

  ‘Who knows?’ Dusein said. ‘It’s large enough. But there are no records of deck fighting in the sky, so I’d say automated. They’ll try to cripple us.’

  Tom was watching the fleet again. ‘With those ships for retrieval.’

  ‘Likely, Tom. They’re closing.’

  John saw it first. ‘No, they’re turning! Look at their trail!’

  He was right. The fleet was making a long slow curve. But it was Dusein who understood the significance of what they were seeing.

  ‘They’re turning because we are!’

  ‘You’re sure?’ John asked.

  Tom had noticed the direction shift, had thought it was one of Dusein’s programmed rectifications.

  ‘Azira is due east,’ she said. ‘We’re turning north-east, at least five degrees and increasing. The fleet is compensating.’

  He turned to her. ‘They’ve commandeered flight control.’

  ‘Seems like it. You and John watch the tether. I’ll try to override.’ She hurried off to the salon, leaving John Coyote and Tom at their scans.

  Precious minutes passed. The direction shift became even more pronounced—the sun over their left shoulders instead of at their backs. The kite moved in the cold white-noise silence of the upper air-flow, while below the fleet swung in its long arc, and out there the gondola came creeping across the sky.

  ‘Ten minutes at most,’ Tom told the young shaman.

  ‘What do we do? Use laser batons? There are some in the lockers.’

  ‘It might come to that.’

  Then Dusein was back with them again. ‘Controls are locked. We should have expected this.’

  John was frowning. ‘Then why use the tether? If they can lock our controls, they can bring us down whenever they like.’

  ‘Maybe it’s a precaution,’ Dusein said. ‘Contingency.’

  Tom wasn’t convinced. ‘Or something else. We can’t know.’

  Dusein was frowning too, her lovely eyes drawn down above the edge of her breather mask. ‘It can’t be factions. The Order is too strong.’

  ‘Then what?’ John asked. ‘We’re turning and the tether can’t compensate.’

  ‘No, we’re descending,’ Dusein said.

  Again it was the trickery of flight. What had seemed to be the gondola lifting away, the tether retracting, was indeed the kite’s own gradual loss of altitude. Now Tom saw that the airlerons along the kite’s edges were angled for descent.

  ‘Dusein, do we have para-sails, para-foils—what are they called?’

  ‘Parachutes? Of course. They’re standard equipment. But we don’t need to evacuate.’

  ‘Listen, both of you. The Order rarely acts this openly. They command enormous resources and they’re determined. They brought down a tether. What we’re protecting here is the viability of your cell. If I evacuate, you can radio the fleet, give visual ident, show I’ve left the kite. You and John can return to Cervantes.’

  ‘No, Tom!’

  ‘No!’ John cried.

  ‘Think it through. There’s nothing else you can do for me now. We still need you. Still need the cell. We all do. If they bring us down, there’s a good chance they’ll separate us and do a close interrogation. Use mind-scan. Dusein, you are wife of a Prince. It is your kite. Once I’ve left, you invoke sovereignty, demand to return to Lostnest after your ordeal. Threaten Convocation if they won’t allow it. John is safe. You are safe. The cell goes on.’

  ‘But, Tom—’

  ‘Dusein, once they ground us, they will make us disappear. This is the Haldane Order. They’ll claim extraordinary powers, like Bolo May once did. The sovereignty issue is still clear cut, but only while you are in the sky. You mustn’t lose that.’

  They accepted what Tom said, saw it was the only thing to do. There was silence for a time as the kite slowly settled, though it soon became too much for John.

  ‘But you, Tom!’ he said. ‘What about you?’

  ‘There’s enough wind, John. I’ll have jumped before you radio in, before their ships can turn, find Roads to take them.’

  It hadn’t been what he meant of course. ‘But what about you—your story?’

  Tom smiled, knowing what this intense, gifted young man was really asking. ‘You think you will miss the ending?’

  John smiled behind his mask too, but there was strong emotion in his dark eyes. ‘This is one I’d like to have.’

  ‘John, Dusein, there are factors at work here that may not be as they seem. I’m gambling on something.’

  ‘Tell us,’ John said.

  ‘Just a feeling. Like you said, John, they send a fleet to intercept. So why go to the time and expense of sending down a tether if they can override our controls, bring us down whenever they want?’

  Dusein nodded. ‘But you said it can’t be factions.’

  ‘Not with this, no.’

  John Coyote struck the rail. ‘Not the Captains!’

  ‘John, I don’t see how it could be. They wouldn’t risk it. Couldn’t manage it. Not now. They’re too closely watched.’

  ‘Then what, Tom?’

  ‘What indeed? The thing is, we’ll never reach Azira like this. You need to be safe. Show me how to use the evacuation equipment.’

  The device was called a parachute, and it was as old as Leonardo da Vinci, as old as weighted toys dropped off the walls of ziggurats along the Euphrates, probably as old as seed cases first noticed spiralling in the wind. Still trying to find objections, Dusein brought one from the lockers and helped Tom into the elaborate harness. While he secured his sword and ancient gun, she explaine
d the automated release, showed him the manual back-ups, the guide straps and release toggles, heard him repeat her careful instructions back to her.

  Tom had once ridden a storm-driven charvi kite leaving doomed Tyger. This would be similar, but so much easier. It was the other part of the leaving that made it hard. There had been too many leavings, too much making do when leave-taking was done.

  ‘We’ll see each other again,’ he said. And without another word, without embraces or gestures that might be interpreted by distant watchers using scan, he went to the tail of the kite, to where the spinal walk met those at port and starboard and the debarkation ladder was locked away, to where there were no aerodynamic surfaces to snare trailing lines.

  He didn’t look back. There was this to do. Only this. One more unreality in the fairground sim unreality of flight, of having the world from above; one more thing after everything that had been.

  Tom stepped into the sky.

  There was the rush, chill and total, the panic, five, perhaps ten seconds of a wholly new knowing, then the chute’s deployment, wrenching the world, pinning him to the sky again. In that sudden suspension he searched for referents. Above and behind his strange mushroom canopy sat the arrowhead, the blade, the fragile blown-leaf shape of the Gerias Kite dwindling, turning away, and the barest hint of the tether, still making its knife edge on the world.

  It may have been ten, fifteen seconds more when the fleet started its turn. Two of the nine ships held their original course, looked like continuing, tracking the kite. But new decisions were made in those precious seconds, confirmations received, because then they too started to swing about, sweeping wide on the flat red terrain as if to complete their part in some stately cipher, a sandpainting made by wheels and travel platforms in answer to the skypaintings at Cervantes. All coming for him, Tom realised.

  He saw why when he next looked up. The Gerias Kite had begun to turn, was banking even as he watched, its upper surface catching the sun. Safe. Hopefully safe.

  Tom found the fleet again, marvelling anew at what it meant. Nine ships! Sent to fetch one of their own, yes, but so many. What was really happening? Had they been overheard outside Cervantes after all? Allowed their imposture as a way of getting Dusein and John Coyote this far from Lostnest? Again Tom located the kite where it sat on the sky, expecting it to burst into flame at any moment. But it stayed. For now it stayed, making its long way home.

  That’s how it was: fleet and kite, fleet and kite, then fleet, kite and landing site, until there was no more time. The desert was right there, Dusein’s words suddenly real. Legs together and roll. Pull on the side toggles to lose the harness.

  There was time for a glance at the cloud of dust building on the horizon, then the strike.

  Tom stood in an old familiar silence, the utter silence of the hot still day, then found the growing edge of thunder—the sound of travel platforms off-Road, churning the gibber and saltpan as they made their hard run.

  There were hills close by, the smoothed rock-forms chosen from above by Dusein. Not an optimum site by any means, too low, too worn, but with kite controls overridden, it had been the best choice available.

  Tom bundled up the chute and ran for that meagre shelter. The approaching ships had full crews and surveillance tech. They had deck lasers and batons to use. They would have him soon enough, one way or the other.

  At least the kite was still on its way west, he saw, control restored. The Order had relented; there was that to be thankful for. Or perhaps there were other things at play. He could only hope.

  Tom reached the first boulders, was barely there, barely concealed when the vanguard of the fleet arrived—no, not the vanguard, not yet, not a Red Wheel ship at all! This wasn’t one of the gracile, bronze-plated hulls used by the Order, but a battered old ninety-footer with plates missing from its resin sides and fifteen scrappy kites aloft. They trailed and swooped now as the vessel careened and slowed, rolled to a stop and was swallowed by the dust cloud of its approach. The name Sycorax was lettered in faded red at the bow.

  ‘You there!’ a figure called from the rail. ‘Hurry, man! There are bogies on our tail!’

  It was an easy trap if that, Tom knew as he ran for the old vessel. One ship to save the hunting out, the risk of harming valuable quarry. A decoy to earn his gratitude, lull him, then take him on to the next part of a carefully planned intercept.

  Or not. For Tom had seen the fleet turn with the kite. Had seen the ships compensating. Perhaps they hadn’t been the ones who had commandeered flight control. Perhaps it had been others. Allies like this. Battered old Sycorax.

  Tom scrambled to the deck, found footing even as the vessel surged forward, as kites punched out on helium lifts and snatched at the sky again.

  ‘Who are you?’ he managed, breathless.

  ‘Friends!’ a crewman called, that word and no more as he ran for the cable boss. These weren’t fully automated systems. Hands were needed at the winches and booms, and Tom hurried to help.

  ‘We read nine!’ the crewman said.

  ‘Nine it is!’ Tom confirmed, working the cranks with five others. They were lofting new lines, guiding more patched, part-strength photonics through the canopy spread, trying for as much of a breakneck run as they could get. Nothing like Rynosseros this, few of the automatics, precious few antimagnetics to help with the separations. This was aeropleuristics at its most basic.

  Sycorax found the Road again, gathered speed and settled to her run. Her kitemaster added a brace of suncatchers to the spread, more frantic adjustments for Tom and the others, then a sorry-looking Chinese Hawk, probably all he had. When two suncatchers fouled, the lines were freed altogether, their kitemaster judging the gamble worth the loss. The pick-up had cost precious time but, everything considered, ship and crew had done well.

  ‘Who sent you?’ Tom asked when he had the breath, though clearly that was for later.

  ‘Marcham,’ the crewman said, thumb to his chest. ‘Here’s Connor, Rak, Ganness and Sackritter. Captain’s Sallander. Kitemaster’s Jell. We’ll cover this.’

  Tom took the cue, nodded and went aft to the quarterdeck, where a tall, dark-haired sandsman in scrap jacket and deck fatigues greeted him.

  ‘Welcome aboard, Captain! Pat Sallander out of Gyrie.’

  ‘Tom, Pat. And thanks.’

  Sallander tipped his head at the short Tongan next to him, busy at the boss override. ‘Jell arranged the bouquet for you.’ He nodded to the clustering canopy overhead, just now beginning to settle.

  ‘Jell first and last, Captain Tom,’ the Tongan said. ‘Just Jell. As for the bouquet, it’s pure tatterpress improvisation and you know it! Welcome aboard!’

  ‘Well judged all the same, Jell.’

  The kitemaster grinned. ‘Lost two. Rynosseros can owe.’

  ‘Gladly. But who sent you? How did you find me?’

  ‘No one sent us, Tom,’ Sallander said, eyes on his helm controls and the Road ahead. ‘We saw the kite, saw a dust cloud with nothing on scan. Figured cloaked ships. Without the tails we wouldn’t have known.’

  ‘Saw you jump,’ Jell added, his gaze never once leaving the canopy. ‘Figured we had a paranaut—whatever they’re called.’

  Sallander gave his kitemaster a quick smile. ‘Saw Red Wheels through the glass and put it together. A Gerias Kite stolen from Cervantes. The wife of a Prince kidnapped. Tom Rynosseros out to break whatever tribal rules he hasn’t yet broken.’

  Tom had to grin, though it was short-lived. ‘They’re close.’

  ‘They are,’ Sallander said. ‘Reckon forty-sixty their way on making it.’

  Tom saw another brace of suncatchers go. ‘You’re shedding.’

  ‘Trade-off. Like Jell says, Rynosseros can owe.’

  ‘Endgame for us too, Pat.’

  ‘Yeah, well. We do what we can.’

  ‘Aye.’

  Tom hurried to the commons, joined Marcham and the others at the booms, manually forcing separations w
hile Jell guided a Demi up to the break—that shifting stagger point where most of the the kites formed their mantle. Only the Hawk and the Sycorax signature ranged beyond.

  Even as Tom worked the boom, he saw that signature burst into flame, saw the Hawk go as well.

  ‘Laser!’ Marcham cried.

  The Demi went seconds later, Jell immediately freeing the lines so Sycorax was past before the wreckage could settle and maim them further. They were building on 90 k’s. They still had a chance.

  That ninety became a desperate 100, then a hard-won 110 as the last precious photonics were added. Sallander had been saving them, sacrificing his brights and what few show kites he had rather than risk his final workhorses. Two death-lamps went up with them, spinning and flashing on their lines once they were past the spread.

  No one had to be told what that meant. Endgame indeed. The Haldanian ships had to be visible through the glass at last, a clutch of glinting chalices under their flashing battle canopies, each with a red-wheel sigil at the break, all of them running on stored power and steadily gaining.

  With the crew still at the booms, Sallander and Jell worked the lamps themselves, angling them to the sun as best they could, finding whatever ranged above their own rooster tail.

  They scored hits against those mantles, but it was brief advantage. Laser struck the lamps, one, two, took the new photonics as well. Sycorax began slowing.

  ‘Give me a crew line to one of those parafoils!’ Tom said. ‘They’ll see me leave. May let you be.’

  Sallander met Tom’s gaze for a moment, just for a moment.

  ‘For it either way,’ he said. ‘Witnesses, eh?’

  ‘Aye.’ Tom knew it was so. No choice but to run.

  But he caught a quick glance between Sallander and Jell again. These men worked to a time for another reason, Tom was sure of it.

  ‘What’s ahead, Pat?’

  ‘Scraps of a plan, Tom. Buying all the time and distance we can.’