by Diane Duane
They all looked at one another in horror.
"We've got to get everyone out of here," Gabriel said. "Now!"
"There is no way!" protested Kaiste. "There are three thousand of us! We have no ships!" "We have two," Gabriel said.
"Are you crazy?" Helm said over the handheld. "How many people can we fit in our two little ships?
What's the use of saving a few when all the rest are going to be left behind?"
"We can't just give it up. We have to save as many as we can. We can't just leave them here!" Gabriel's mind was going in furious circles. They had to have help, but there was no help. Even if he called for help right now and it agreed to come, it would take five days to get here.
Above him, the contrail from the weapon's insertion into atmosphere burned bright. The refraction effect from it was fading somewhat, but spreading. Only a few hours. He looked around him at what was about to become a graveyard for three thousand sesheyans. This desperate little colony of caves and tunnels, everything kept so tidy and neat, even the discarded shipping containers and other rubbish from Phorcys and Ino all carefully stacked and stored out of the way and out of sight, because they must not be destroyed since you could never tell when you might find a way to recycle something. Nothing was wasted. Everything used carefully, cleverly, everything- Gabriel stopped.
"A few hours," he said to himself. "It just might be time enough."
He turned and ran off in the direction of the cave where Sunshine was hidden. "Gabriel," Enda cried, "where are you going?"
"I need my imager," he shouted, "then I have a few comm-calls to make."
Chapter Eighteen
IT WAS NEARLY an hour before Gabriel was ready. He made his way through the caves and storage caverns, ignoring the frightened sesheyans as best he could while he used his little handheld portable imager-a leftover from their tourist time on Grith-to get the images he needed and then to prepare the messages that had to be stored and ready to go. At last he got back into Sunshine, got onto the Thalaassan Grid, and found the communications networks he needed. He arranged for a dual conversation-ruinously expensive though it would be- and set about getting in contact with the two people with whom he needed to speak.
It took him a long time to get connected with them. He had to start at a certain level of lackey on both Phorcys and Ino- otherwise they would just have cut him off, not knowing enough to understand what he was threatening them with-and then he had to argue with them, one after another. But he would not take no for an answer, and the work became slightly easier when Gabriel began reaching the level of lackeys who recognized him from his presence around the peace talks with Delvecchio. To each of these people, Gabriel said only one word: Rhynchus. Most of them went pale at the sound of it. Some of them blustered, some of them bluffed, some of them he had to show an image or two to get the desired result, but each of them finally passed him up a level, glad to be rid of the uncomfortable presence at the other end of the comm, the set face that seemed to promise somebody was in a world of trouble and if they acted correctly it might not be them.
Finally Gabriel had the two of them on one screen: flat-faced old Rallet, looking not a whit less dyspeptic than when Gabriel had seen him last, and ErDaishan with that mouth like a razor cut stretched tight as usual. Both were annoyed and disdainful-and both looked ever so slightly uncomfortable. They both started in on him at once. "I hope you understand the irregularity-"
"-little chance that you would have anything of import to-" "Rhynchus," Gabriel said. "Regarding the sesheyan colony here."
The two looked suitably shocked, but neither of them said a word.
"I know all about what's been going on here," Gabriel said, "and specifically, I know all about what's just happened. So will many others, shortly. I intend to inform the Concord. Lorand Kharls, the Concord Administrator in these parts, has been showing great interest in your system, as you know, subsequent to the signing of the treaty. He will be very interested to see all the physical evidence on Rhynchus of your long trade with the sesheyan colony on that world that somehow managed to go completely unmentioned while the negotiations were going on-as I know very well." Gabriel smiled nastily as something occurred to him. "That was possibly another reason for my 'not proven' verdict, wasn't it? A verdict designed to get everyone to lose interest, to go away and let you be. Either the 'guilty' or 'innocent' verdict might have produced further investigation in the system, and who knew what that might have turned up? All that used Phorcyn and Inoan hardware scattered here and there on Rhynchus, built into the caves where the sesheyans are living, all very incriminating. It could well be badly misunderstood, certainly by the Concord and possibly by others as well." Neither of the two former negotiators said anything.
"The sesheyans on Rhynchus are now in danger of their lives," Gabriel continued. "If things go the way they're going at the moment, you're going to be parties to a genocidal attack. I think once the investigations start, it'll take very little time for the investigators to turn up all kinds of proof. However, there's another way out of this that is much better for you. You don't want the sesheyans here any more? Fine. We can help you with that. They'll be more than welcome on Grith, eventually, but right now their planet is losing what little atmosphere it has. The sesheyans must leave, but they have no ships, and we only have two. So here's the plan. You send us enough ships to move them all to somewhere quiet on one of your planets-just for a few days-and after that we can arrange clandestine transfer out of the system for them so that VoidCorp won't be in any position to blame you."
"What guarantee have we that they'll leave again?" "Do you think they want to stay in this system?" Gabriel shouted. "Are you crazy? After the way you've treated them in the past? After the way you were willing to let VoidCorp 'erase' your little problem for you now?"
"Young man, you will not address me in that tone!" Gabriel wished he had Delvecchio's cane. He would not have simply banged it on the table, either. It would have come right down on Rallet's head. "You can both stuff my tone right up-" Gabriel began. Both Rallet and ErDaishan paled with genuine shock. "Never mind. I'll start speaking to you like responsible statesmen when you start acting like them and not like cowards or thugs. The minute you earn my respect, you'll be addressed with respect. Meanwhile, I have a message ready for the Concord Administrator right now, and there are people down here gasping for breath. It's not going to go on that way for a moment more. You will give me an answer. Now."
There was silence at the other end. Then Rallet slowly said, "As Minister of State for Defense, this lies most easily in my remit. I will detach a small complement of ships-"
"I need transport for three thousand sesheyans as well as medical relief and food and drink for them," Gabriel said. "I need it in an hour. Before we break this communication, I need relay and comms information for the relieving ships, and when I contact their commanding officers in a few minutes, they had better confirm your orders to them. Otherwise Lorand Kharls gets this," he held up a data solid, "immediately, with no further communications from me to you. Granted there will be a delay in him receiving the message, but it won't matter. If anything happens to these people because of your inaction, he will come down on you anyway. But if you save them, you'll be heroes, and all will be forgiven." "I can persuade our emergency services to send ships out," said ErDaishan. "Much better equipped for an evacuation than theirs."
Gabriel could have laughed out loud to see the good old Phorcyn/Inoan hostility coming out here of all times, but he was too angry for laughter now. "Good. Send them. Send them now. I want their commcodes and the their captains' names. Now."
He got them. Within ten minutes Enda had contacted the commanders of seven different ships and was preparing hails for eight others. "One more thing," Gabriel said, as he finished sorting them out and went back to his connection to the negotiators. "How many of the ships are drive-capable?" There was some bemusement at that. "Maybe half," said the Phorcyn negotiator. "All of ours."
"We'll be loading them first," Gabriel said. "I'll advise them." "But you said you were bringing them to Phorcys-"
"I like to be prepared for accidents," Gabriel interrupted. "There have been too many of those lately. Get them out here. Now." And he held up the data solid one more time. "And when they arrive-?"
"When the sesheyans are safe," Gabriel said, "I will praise your statesmanlike response to the skies and to Lorand Kharls. You will look like heroes, shining examples of the newfound cooperation between Phorcys and Ino, a new era of peace and reconciliation, blah, blah, blah. I hope one or the other of you has an election scheduled sometime soon, because you'll do very well."
He saw the slightly gloating looks cross both their faces. They both have elections. Oh my.
"That's all for now," said Gabriel and reached out to cut the comm connection. "I'll speak to you later."
"You might at least say 'thank you,' " grumbled the Inoan negotiator.
"When I've seen the ships," Gabriel said as he waved the data solid at her and cut the link.
An hour later the ships began to drop into the Rhynchan atmosphere. There was already markedly less of it than there had been-less that was breathable, anyway. The sky was getting more pallid, a side effect of the clathrating nitrogen, Enda told Gabriel. When it reached its palest, all the oxygen would be inaccessible. Gabriel did not plan to be here that long.
The problem now was that the capacity of the ships that the Phorcyns and Inoans had sent was not terribly large. "It'll have to be two runs," Gabriel said to the captain of Orniol, one of the first ships to load-a drive-capable Phorcyn emergency vessel usually used for medical transport. "They told us only one," said Orniol's captain, a short stocky woman with what seemed a perpetually mournful look. "Out here and straight back to Phorcys."
"I hate to break this to you," Gabriel said, "but that will still leave something like fifteen hundred people down here while the rest of the atmosphere goes bad. It's not acceptable. I'll get on to your upper-ups again if I have to, but I tell you, if I have to do that I won't like it, and they won't like it. And I promise you, neither will you."
Gabriel turned and stomped off to supervise the loading of another of the ships, Glatha, which appeared from the condition of its cargo bays to have been doing garbage hauling. Beggars can't choose, Gabriel thought as sesheyans with small bundles of their personal belongings started to pile into it. Dear stars, when I think about what Hal had to go through putting fancy toilet seats in the shuttles for the Phorcyn and Inoan delegations. He tried to calm himself. It was not easy.
The loading seemed to take forever, and a couple of the ships were still not here. One more landed while he watched. Gabriel kept looking up at the sky, and finally there came a moment when it seemed to be getting no paler. What was that flicker? he wondered. "I think night is coming," Enda said softly from behind him.
Gabriel shivered. Something worse was coming. "Get them in," he said. "Hurry! We have to leave." "What? Gabriel-"
He could only look at her and run for Sunshine.
That was when the plasma fire began raining down around them.
Screams and roars of fear broke out. The sesheyans caught in the open dove for the caves. Those nearest the ships crowded into them, and the ships sealed up. Engines began to heat-the ships' captains had no desire to be on the ground for a second longer. Ships began lifting. Gabriel pelted toward Sunshine with Enda hard behind him.
As he ran, he yelled into his handheld, "Helm, heads up! The body snatchers are here!" "What?"
"Ball bearing-shaped ships! Fire on them! Hit everything you can, and for all sakes don't let any of them hit you! Then follow us. We've got to get out of here!"
"Where?"
It's going to have to be drivespace, Gabriel thought, horrified. We're not ready, but there's nowhere else to go. "Grith!" he yelled. "Make for Grith! But we need cover!"
"Can do," Helm said, very calmly. "Boy, Delde Sola's gonna owe me for this one when we're done." Gabriel and Enda dove into Sunshine, strapped in, and closed her up. In the back areas were several frightened sesheyans, all of them rather young, who had been sightseeing while the loading was going on. Now they were locked in for good or ill.
"Hang onto things, kids," Gabriel yelled as he fastened the final strap, "and whatever you do, don't let go!" He had to stop. Sunshine's lifters were shaking him all over the place.
"All ships, all ships, drivespace as soon as you're out!" Gabriel yelled into the public comms as Enda flung them upward into the atmosphere. "Make for the homeworld! Make for the sesheyan sanctuary!" He could only hope they understood. He was not going to mention names or coordinates over public comms at this point.
A scream and babble of answers came back, terrified, confused. "Affirmative, understood." "-can't do it, we don't have stardrive!" "-no supplies, we're-" "-stay and fight-"
"Just go!" Gabriel shouted. "We'll lead! Those of you that can't follow, make for Phorcys, full speed! Don't let them get you out in the dark. Make them do it in the sunlight where people can see! Go on, run for it! The rest of you with stardrive, follow us!"
Sunshine leaped upward into the middle atmosphere. The swarm of enemy ships was only a few kilometers above them now. Oh, dear heaven, the other sesheyans- For there were perhaps another thousand of them fleeing back into the caves. Would they be safe there? Would the body snatchers decide there was nothing left to lose and simply wipe them out, taking them all to make soldiers? Cut their wings off, steal their souls-
Gabriel wiped his wet face and cursed. The JustWadeln software was already up, and Enda was already in it. Gabriel pulled the fighting field down over him, picked one of the small round targets that was hurtling at them, cursed it soundly, and fired. It sidestepped. He fired again-
He did not remember much of that fight afterwards. Gabriel kept hearing screams and was uncertain where they were coming from: comms on the ground, comms in space, perhaps from the other four ships that had lifted with them, and that were clustered in very loose order around Sunshine, heading into the upper atmosphere. That paling sky was stitched with plasma fire, ships were diving in all directions, and Gabriel fired and fired at small round ships that would not stay still. Then suddenly a gravelly voice said, "Sunshine, I've got one more cherry." Gabriel ungritted his teeth. "Pop it. When?"
iir-p 1 ii
Ten seconds.
"All ships," Gabriel said down comms, "cluster close on me, five seconds, then scatter. Afterwards, head for atmosphere's top and make starfall. Don't wait!"
More screaming erupted. But suddenly the view around Sunshine's cockpit had entirely too many ships in it, entirely too close. Around them, he could see ballbearings closing in. Don't let them shoot, he thought. For them, it doesn't matter if we're dead, and oh, I don't want to be dead that way. He kept firing. "Now," Gabriel said softly down comms. The other ships scattered outwards, and suddenly he was left surrounded by too many of the spherical ships. Enda held them there. Gabriel glanced briefly at her then said, Now's the time.
She wrenched them sideways. White hot beams of plasma scalded past the cockpit windows as Sunshine tumbled and dove out from under the crowd of ships. Then Enda kicked the system drive in at full power, the air screaming in protest against her skin as Sunshine fled upwards. Behind them, the world went white.
They were at nearly twenty kilometers. A squeezed nuke shouldn't do too much harm at this altitude, Gabriel thought rather desperately. Nothing that the atmosphere becoming useless in a few hours wouldn't do anyway.
To the thousand people down there that we couldn't get off before they came. A thousand people!
"Starfall," Enda said to the other ships, "now!" A thousand people.
The next five days were less easy to bear for Gabriel. They were full of fear. Aboard Sunshine, there was not that much physical discomfort. They were carrying enough supplies to feed the sesheyans who had been on board when takeoff became imperative, but there was no contact with the oth
er ships to see in what condition they had made their own starfalls, whether the people aboard them were mostly well, or how they were now. Gabriel knew for a fact that three of the four ships that had arrived had only a little food and water on board, despite his demands. Someone had messed up, or there had been no time, or ... There had been little time for explanations. They would be getting hungry over in the other ships, and thirsty. They would not know what awaited them on the far side when they made starrise at Corrivale.
Gabriel had his own fears about that. VoidCorp loomed large in them. He doubted that the body snatchers would turn up near Grith. They did seem to prefer the dark. Had there been more of them waiting to descend on Rhynchus after the escape? Even if there had not, would the other ships get there in time to remove the remaining sesheyans before the air ran out?
There were no answers. There would be none until they made starrise, and perhaps not for a good while after that. Gabriel, for the time being, could only spend as much time with the sesheyan youngsters as he could, showing them how to play the non-Grid based games on the entertainment system and trying to comfort them when they were afraid- which was fairly often. They did not know where their parents were and without that basic certainty, they would not talk about much of anything else. Gabriel came to recognize the sound of sesheyan weeping, a kind of breathy gasp. It kept him up at night. Five days, though, eventually passed. Gabriel strapped himself back in and looked somberly looked over at Enda as the digits on the clock in the tank slipped away. Despite the fact that another possible fight loomed ahead, they were both unsuited. Even if they had sufficient e-suits for everyone to wear, their models would not fit the sesheyans in size or design and it didn't seem right to ensure their own safety while leaving their passengers in danger.
"How are your hunches running?" Enda asked. Less than a minute remained on the countdown.
Gabriel shook his head. "Not a whisper. You?"
"Mine have been regrettably silent."