They walked in perfect lines like an army.
“He still owns them.” Keera frowned. “Probably didn’t want his army of slaves harmed.”
“We should steer clear of them. I’ll take us on toward Micavery.” Santi fired up the balloon, and they lifted higher in the air.
“Shouldn’t they have gotten there by now?” Matt asked, looking toward the North Pole.
“Maybe they were delayed.” Santi didn’t want to say what they were all thinking. Maybe they failed.
As they watched, the people below started moving out in teams of six, still perfectly aligned, toward the piles of rubble nearest to the town hall.
“They’re like toys to him.” Keera glared at the scene below.
“What if…?” Sean asked.
“Don’t even think that. They’ll find a way.” Santi too looked back toward the North Pole. Where are you, Eddy?
DAVIAN STARED out at the ruins of Darlith through the eyes of one of his vassals. The city had taken quite a beating. The Rhyl had flooded, washing away the buildings closest to the shore, and the winds and lightning had destroyed about half the remaining structures.
It didn’t matter. Soon, his people would have the streets cleaned, and he could set them to building a more appropriate city suited to his new rule.
He’d sacrificed a lot, giving up his corporeal form, but he’d discovered he could still enjoy the pleasures of the flesh through these puppets he now controlled. He planned to take full advantage of that, now that his enemies had been vanquished by the cleansing power of the hurricane.
And if they came back?
He smiled. It was too late to stop him. They would become more cogs in his great machine.
Life had never been sweeter for him. Even after death.
Chapter Twelve: Seedling
MARISSA PRODUCED a knife from her sack. “Will this do?”
Andy took it and looked it over. “Nicely, I think.”
Marissa stared at the breathing tubes. There were hundreds of them, running up the wall as far as she could see around the curve of the world. Each of them vibrated slightly. She tried to imagine the huge volumes of air they were capable of moving. “So we’re going to ride the air… up there?” She pointed up into the darkness.
The tubes let off a faint glow, but it wasn’t enough to illuminate the space above them for more than a few hundred meters.
Andy nodded. “Come on! The longer we wait, the more he consolidates his control.” She led them over to the row of tubes. Each was about two meters wide.
Marissa touched one of them. It was soft, like leather, but tough. “What’s to stop us from being blown out four thousand meters above the ground?”
Andy laughed. “Were you paying attention in your Ariadne anatomy course?”
“I guess not. Was there a part where we talked about flying up its air tubes?”
“It’ll be fine. Trust me.”
Marissa glanced over at Eddy. Even he looked a little green at the prospect, and he flew spacecraft. She swallowed hard.
“Okay, stand back. There’s going to be a bit of air pressure when I cut this thing open.” She made a neat slice and air gushed out in a steady, strong breeze. “Okay, Eddy, you first. Climb in, and I’ll seal it behind you. Keep your arms at your sides, but be ready to catch yourself when you reach the top.”
Eddy shook his head. “I don’t know. Are you sure about this? Ever tried it before?”
“Ridden up to the North Pole control center on a puff of air inside one of the world’s air pipes? Nope. First time.” She pointed at the gap. “Keep your arms flat at your sides and pretend you’re a superhero. Now go!”
He shrugged and forced his way inside, through the air stream. The wind pushed his hair back, but he grabbed the sides of the tube and managed to climb inside.
Andy pushed the gap closed, and it began to heal immediately.
Eddy’s shoes shot up out of sight as the gap closed. There was a slight bulge in the tube as he rose.
“Okay, your turn.” Andy pointed the knife at Marissa.
Marissa smiled, trying to cover up her fear. “You don’t have to threaten me.”
Andy hugged her. “It will be all right. I promise.” She moved to the next tube and sliced it open.
Marissa pushed her way inside, and immediately the pressure started to lift her up. As Andy sealed the tube, she ascended, and the walls of the tube passed her by at a rapid pace. She kept her hands at her sides, as instructed.
Every ten or twenty meters—it was hard to tell exactly at the speed she was moving—a dark ring constricted the tube, and she counted these as she ascended. Her fear gave way to a sense of wonder as she reached fifty, then a hundred, and then lost count altogether.
It was like flying.
She wondered if Andy and Shandra were on the way up too yet, and what they would all find at the top.
In what was probably less than ten minutes but felt like an hour, the tube walls suddenly brightened, and in seconds she was thrust up and out of the air tube and into a vast white cavern.
As she fell helplessly toward one of the walls, she windmilled her arms, trying madly to break her fall.
EDDY TRIED to stand. Gravity was weak to nonexistent up here, and the soft surface he found himself on was really difficult to navigate on foot. The irregular white wall extended in a large sphere from where he stood out around him, and it expanded and contracted steadily. With each contraction, a gust of air was pushed out through its membranes, forcing air up through his clothes.
It was a disconcerting sensation. Eddy felt like Marilyn standing over the Manhattan subway grate, an image that had endured long past the city that had fostered it.
The open space encircled a thick rock column in the center.
As he tried to stand for the third time, Marissa came flying out of one of the tubes and then soared toward him, shouting, her arms flailing.
She slammed into the white surface, and the shouting stopped.
“Hey there… you okay?”
“I… think so?” She sat up. “What is this?” She looked around.
“The top of the lungs, I think. So… the throat?” It seemed as good an analogy as any.
Shandra came flying out, but she took it like a pro, pivoting end over end to land easily a short distance away. “So this is what the top of the world looks like, huh?”
Eddy grinned. Then he remembered what was going on outside. How many of his friends were injured? “Where’s Andy?”
As if in response, she flew out of another tube and landed close by. “Everyone okay?” She got up and dusted herself off.
“Yeah, I think so?” Marissa looked around. “This is… so strange.”
“Kinda Journey to the Center of the Earth.”
“Huh?” Marissa looked confused.
“Before your time.” Eddy laughed. “So?”
“Now we go up there.” Andy pointed to the rock cylinder above. She started climbing, pulling her way up hand over hand across the material of the lungs.
Eddy and the others followed.
AS SHE climbed, Andy’s heart beat faster. It was all coming to a head—soon it would be over.
If all went to plan.
She had to admire the simple beauty of Lanya’s idea and the poetic justice of it.
Shandra had been frightened at first, but she’d come around.
Andy glanced back at her. Shandra gave her a reassuring smile. Her expression said it has to be done.
The lungs beneath Andy contracted and expanded, reminding her of the great life-form she lived inside. Compared to its massive scale, she was just a gnat crawling on an elephant’s back.
They approached the rock column that housed the control center and the world mind. The roughly cylindrical chunk of black rock was pierced in numerous places by thick nerve cables that connected the mind to the rest of its systems and sank down into the material of the throat and lungs.
Andy arrived at
the closest of them and reached out to grab it. Here it really was zero gee, and she was able to pull herself along it with ease.
The others followed.
She approached the rock face. A bundle of nerves came together ahead of her, and there was enough room to crawl through the space between them.
She reached the narrow entrance and turned around to face the others. “Marissa, can you make us a null space?”
Marissa nodded. She closed her eyes and concentrated.
The world around Andy went dull.
She gritted her teeth at the annoying sensation and started into the narrow tunnel.
JAYSON AND Aaron reached the top of the stairs. They had diverged from the shaft about fifty steps before, and the stairway had ended on a landing. Now they were at the entrance to the Far Hold, and he stopped to catch his breath.
What would they find on the other side of the door?
Nothing good.
“Ready?” He looked over at Aaron.
Aaron grasped his arm. Their eyes met. “Whatever happens.”
Jayson nodded. “Whatever happens.”
He took one last deep breath and opened the door.
MARISSA CRAWLED out of the end of the tunnel after Andy, letting go of the null space she had created. The time for secrecy had passed.
She stood up and looked around the wide-open space. It was maybe a hundred meters tall, and the walls were beautifully sculpted in a dizzying array of swirls and fanciful lines that shone with a golden glow as they wound up toward the ceiling.
And high above…
The world mind hung over them, the bundles of nerves running up to find their termination there.
Andy and Eddy stood beside her, staring up at the wonder that had kept their world humming along for half a century and that now threatened everything they had built.
The room shimmered and changed.
“I was wondering what had happened to you all.”
Marissa turned to find Davian, dressed all in black and seated on a throne made of skulls.
“Very theatrical.” Andy laughed harshly. “I would have expected more from you, though. No heads on spikes?”
He climbed down from the throne, crunching bone underfoot on the way. “How did you get here? I have to admit, you three managed to surprise me.”
“You left your back door open.”
“Well, thank you for that. I’ll have to close that little loophole.”
He reached out and touched Andy’s face, and electricity raced through his arm. Andy stiffened, her face tightening into a rictus of pain.
“Let her go.” Marissa was done with being intimidated by this man. He’d stolen her childhood. He’d attacked her and her family twice.
Davian turned to look at her, still holding on to Andy.
Andy’s eyes were bulging now.
“I remember you. You’ve really grown into quite the young woman.” He let go of Andy, and she collapsed on the ground, gasping and holding her throat. “I gave up a lot to become mankind’s savior.” He shrugged, looking her up and down. “The pleasures of the flesh, for instance.”
Marissa snarled. “We don’t need your help.”
He smiled, an expression that set her teeth on edge. “It’s for the greater good. Who else could guide us to our new home and ensure we don’t all kill ourselves before we get there?”
“We were doing just fine without you.”
“For now, maybe. But look what men did to Earth.” He took her hand. “You have to admit they made quite a mess of things.”
He had a point.
She shook her head, casting out his words. He was working his charm on her. “It’s not—”
He reached out and caressed her cheek, and his virtual touch sent a shiver through her very real body. “There are ways for me to still enjoy the flesh. You could join me. We could run this world together.”
She recoiled from him. He meant he would use some poor soul’s body. “There’s not a chance in hell I’d ever be with you.” She pushed him, and he fell backward, crashing into his throne of skulls and shattering it into dust.
Andy stood and took her hand. They looked at each other, and Marissa nodded.
Their minds united. As Davian stood, they reached into vee space, seeking out Aaron and Sean and all the others.
As they connected, one by one, Marissa swelled with power.
Davian dusted himself off. He glared at her and advanced toward two of them, sparks flying from his hands.
She took her own spark and pushed it outward, creating a space around herself that he couldn’t penetrate.
Davian slammed into it hard, making it shake, but he couldn’t break through. He pushed against it, but Marissa pushed back, knocking him against the wall of the throne room once again.
He jumped up and his face darkened. His entire body turned as black as the void, and he ran forward, rage in his eyes, to batter the bubble she’d created around herself.
He slammed into it, and the shock waves sent her and Andy flying backward.
THE DOOR opened onto a small room cut out of the rock, next to the elevator doors. Flashing lights revealed streaks of blood on the walls. Jayson glanced at Aaron. His brother’s mouth was set in a grim line.
Aaron hissed. “These poor people. They didn’t deserve this.”
They followed the access tunnel up to the main control room. Jayson had been there years before, on a visit with Aaron.
The place was a slaughterhouse. The equipment, all irreplaceable from Old Earth and painstakingly cared for, was smashed to bits. But worse was the human toll. Bodies had been punctured and ripped limb from limb, some almost unrecognizable.
Jayson covered his mouth to stifle a sob.
The people hadn’t had a chance. Davian had come after them with no apparent warning, striking with surgical precision.
Someone else entered the room from another passageway.
“Shandra?” Jayson couldn’t believe his eyes.
“Jayson! Aaron!” The relief on her face was palpable. She rushed to Jayson and gave him a hug. “How… how did you two get up here?”
“I could ask you the same. Who else is here?”
“Andy, Marissa, and Eddy. Andy sent me to find something Lanya left behind.”
Aaron gave her a brief hug. “Where are they?”
“Down there, with the world mind.” She pointed down the hallway from where they had come.
Jayson nodded. “Let’s go.”
He and Aaron hurried down the tunnel, stepping over the bodies of the dead.
They came out into the vast room that held the world mind. It was curiously untouched.
Andy and Marissa stood in the middle of the room holding hands, transfixed by something.
Eddy was there too. He turned toward them, and his face broke out into a wide grin. “Oh Lordy, you guys have no idea how glad I am to see you.”
“They’re in vee?”
He nodded. “With Davian.”
Jayson took his brother’s hand. “Let’s go get him.”
He dipped—the way to the world mind was open there. They stepped through.
MARISSA SQUEEZED Andy’s hand and they leaned forward, pushing back against Davian.
He hit her shield again, his eyes blazing, and forced them back once more.
“Geez, he’s strong.” She drew on the power from her bonds and pushed back, slamming into him just as he powered forward again, into her null space shield.
The world exploded in light.
The walls of the throne room shattered outward, crashing to the ground and revealing a dark sky above.
The three of them stood facing each other across a black plain as lightning and thunder crashed in the background.
It was time to take this fight to him.
Marissa dropped her shield and let go of Andy’s hand. She no longer needed the physical contact to maintain the link. They were fully inside vee space now.
She stepped for
ward and put out her hand, and pure blue lines of force extended toward Davian, writhing like living things.
He stood and met her force with his own, his power blazing red and gold.
She drew more from her bond. The beginnings of pain flared through the connection, but she ignored it.
This was too important. They could lick their wounds when they were done.
She pushed hard, and Davian staggered back a step.
Then he dug in, pushing the virtual ground into a hill behind his feet, and pushed back with such strength that he forced her back, step by step, across the dark plain.
Now the pain burned through the link more acutely.
The Liminals were nearing their limits. It wasn’t going to be enough. Davian was too strong, too entrenched in the world mind, and they were human, whatever else they might be.
She dropped the lines of power and sought to shield herself. She cut the bond and threw Andy out of vee space, leaving herself alone to face Davian’s wrath. She threw up a zone of null space.
Davian grinned, continuing his assault, forcing her null space shield back toward her as he squeezed it smaller and smaller. She crouched, defying him.
She held on, but now the pain ripped across her own mind.
Inside her, her unborn child protested too, his mental wail seared through her mind.
It couldn’t end this way.
“WHY DON’T you pick on someone a little older?” Jayson taunted his old Master.
Davian turned his attention away from Marissa, whom he had trapped in a ball of coruscating red-and-gold energy.
Damn, he’s strong.
Davian stared at him. “I hoped you would come.” A leer stretched across his face. Then Davian’s face changed, becoming Lanya’s. “Yes, we’re all here,” the apparition said in Lanya’s voice. “I own them all now, their thoughts, their memories, their very souls.” He shifted again, this time appearing as Colin, but a twisted version of the man who’d given everything for this world. Colin had never sneered like that. “There’s no one here left to oppose me this time. I learned a little something from our last round.” His face shifted once more, and he was Davian again. “One last chance. Serve me, and I’ll let you rule this world at my side.”
The Rising Tide Page 36