Catch the Lightning

by Catherine Asaro

  You have four minutes to reach me, the Jag thought.

  We passed under an arch—and an alarm screamed. As the arch turned an all too familiar red, Althor swore, then grabbed my arm and tried to run. We made little headway, barely managing to reach the next arch, and its alarm went off as well, adding its clangor to the noise. People surged around us, order threatening to explode into panic.

  An officer was trying to reach us, shouting in Eubian, and another appeared at the mouth of a cross-passage only a few yards away. The crowd grew more agitated and dragged us with them, back toward the terminal, taking away what little ground we had gained. If it hadn’t been for Althor’s holding me up, I would have fallen and been trampled. Officers were converging on the area, shoving their way through the turbulent throng.

  You have three minutes left, the Jag thought.

  The loudspeaker kept talking, trying to calm the people. Then the disembodied voice changed, its tone firm, carefully calculated, like a wronged friend seeking help from loyal companions. A familiar string jumped out of the harsh words: Althor Vyan Selei Skolia.

  I stiffened. Althor, what is it saying?

  His face paled. A description of me.

  A woman shouted and pointed toward us. Another person took up the cry, then a third and a fourth. The crowd surged, shoving us against the wall. It was terrifying, like being trampled against a wall rather than underfoot.

  Suddenly, they drew away, leaving us in a pocket circled by a wall of people. And they stood, staring at us, the prospect of seeing a captive Rhon heir overcoming even the razor edge of mass panic.

  That calm lasted only a moment. The crowd surged toward the terminal again, and a gaunt woman stumbled into the open space around us. She laid her hand against Althor’s chest, as if to verify he was real. Then the crowd caught her and swept her away.

  You have two minutes, the Jag thought.

  More people pressed in on us. No one offered help. Not a single person. They all wanted to touch Althor, put their hands on him, feel him as if he were a talisman, but no one even tried to help. He struggled to shove them away, his efforts growing more and more disjointed. Even if his biomech hadn’t been failing, he couldn’t have pushed them all off; hundreds of people filled the corridor now, with even more shoving from behind.

  Then I saw it: a line of four waroids was making its way forward with the crowd, a moving wall of mirrored armor stretched across the passage. They were coming from the direction Althor and I needed to go to reach the Jag.

  You have one minute, the Jag thought.

  Jag, we can’t! I thought. We can’t get through.

  With dizzying speed, my perspective changed: I was above the corridor, looking down on the scene. I saw Althor and myself shoved against the wall while people moved past us. It looked like I had passed out; Althor was struggling to hold me up and stay on his own feet as well.

  Odd mechanical thoughts came into my mind. Humans come in frangible casings. The Pilot and his Mate. Vulnerable. Fragile. Easily disrupted configurations. Difficult to repair. Erratic. Emotional.

  Priceless.

  Jag? I thought. Is that you?

  I’m running your brain on my web, it answered. Right now you’re in an observation unit above the corridor.

  Below, the line of waroids reached us. They formed a break against the crowd, protecting us in a hollow, like a bay sheltered from the ocean. Althor sagged to his knees, his arms wrapped around my body. He pulled me into his lap and sat on his heels, bending his body over me with his head bowed. At the terminal platform, a phalanx of officers jutted into the corridor, like a boat pushing through a sea so viscous it could barely make headway. They were pointed at us, slowly advancing against the tide of humanity. In the corridor, both Althor and I were unconscious now, slumped on the floor.

  How can I be seeing this? I asked.

  Since we first linked, back at Earth, the Jag thought, I have been mapping your brain cells and replicating theirjunction andfiring patterns in one of my simulation moods. I just now used the Kyle Afferent Body in your brain to upload your consciousness into that simulator.

  Why?

  I will transfer you into Althor’s web. It needs a conscious mind to direct it. If I load myself into it, that will worsen his brain damage. You are human and already part of him. You also have a sympathetic resonance with the neurological mappings of his brain activity.

  I didn’t understand that last one, I thought.

  The two of you have compatible personalities. Then: Transfer initiated.

  Suddenly I was kneeling in the corridor. It was disorienting to look at what I perceived as my own body and see Althor’s bulky form. My real body lay in his arms, eyes closed, black hair streaming over the floor. I saw everything through the gold sheen of his inner eyelids. As I stood, holding my/Tina’s limp body, the waroids turned their helmets. Their surprise at seeing me get up made sparks in the air.

  Tina, the Jag thought. I’m going to cut the corridor with a laser.

  No! You’ll start a panic. We’ll be trampled.

  Panic, yes, the Jag answered. Trampled, no. We’re close enough to the inner hull for the laser to breach it. The passage you’re in won’t lose enough air to cause suffocation, but the resulting chaos will aid your escape.

  You better be right, Jag.

  I didn’t see the beams, but I heard the screams, both of people and alarms. The stampede started back in the corridor. Within seconds it reached us, the crowd bursting forward in a tidal wave of humanity. In that instant a brilliant flash made me clamp my eyes closed. I opened them to see three of the four waroids who had been guarding us fused to each other and the deck, their armor melted into mirrored pools that were already solidifying. I swallowed, struggling against a sudden nausea. The fourth waroid backed away, its arm fused off at the elbow, and the panicked crowd swept it down the hall. The only reason the two of us weren’t trampled was because the fused remains of the other waroids made a break'against the tide of humans.

  Run, the Jag thought. Run to me.

  The shot had blown out the wall in a ragged hole. Holding my/Tina’s body, I stepped through it into a small corridor. Jag, what weapons do you have left?

  Lasers and Annihilators are exhausted, Impactors are destroyed, and I’ve used my store of small missiles. I have four tau missiles, but I can’t launch them inside the Cylinder. You must make it the rest of the way on your own.

  I ran. It was easy carrying my body; it hardly weighed anything. The sheer physical power of Althor’s body was exhilarating. How could he take it for granted?

  The schematic of the Cylinder, which I could see even more clearly now, highlighted the path to the Jag in blue. Follow, I thought. The biomech web took over, directing my legs. The few people we passed were running in the opposite direction, some holding masks over their faces. We followed a twisting route through side passages—and came out into a large octagonal chamber fed by passages from seven directions. The eighth side consisted of two large doors with 412-Qwritten in bold print.

  Jag! I ran to the doors. We’re here! Open up!

  I cannot, the Jag thought.

  I laughed and was startled to hear Althor’s voice instead of my own. We made it! Open the doors.

  I cannot. The Cylinder has reestablished control over this section.

  I stopped smiling. What?

  I’ve been purged from the Cylinder web.

  Then how do we open these doors?

  With explosives or lasers.

  But you don’t have any more.

  This is correct. Its thought sounded subdued.

  A man ran out of a cross-passage—and froze. His emotions were a battering ram; he recognized Althor. He slapped his hand against a band on his wrist and spoke into it, words I neither understood nor knew how to translate.

  Jag, I thought. We have to get in that docking bay.

  I’m trying to override the Cylinder protocols.

  A voice came out of the man’s
wristband, cold and harsh, either asking questions or giving orders.

  Jag! We can’t go back to Iquar. You know what he’ll do to us. Open those doors!

  I cannot. Then, quietly: I have four tau missiles remaining.

  My hope leapt. Can you use them?

  Tina, one tau missile could destroy half the station.

  For a second I couldn’t absorb what it was saying. Then I understood: it offered us suicide. And vengeance.

  A woman, ran into the area, a Trader officer with a sedative gun. She nodded to the man, then spoke into her wristband, her attention fixed on me. I watched from across the octagon, my feet planted wide, my/Tina’s body limp in my arms.

  If we destroy the Cylinder, the Jag thought, the Traders will no longer have access to a Jag or Jagernaut. They will no longer have a Key. Kryx Iquar will die. It paused. But we will also kill the only known Rhon woman with no genetic tie to the Ruby Dynasty.

  I don’t want us to die.

  The Jag’s thought was calm. As long as the two of you live, the chance exists that you might someday escape again. And as long as you live, Tina, so does the hope that Althor’s family won’t become extinct.

  The Traders watched us, waiting for reinforcements, knowing they were soon to reap the glory of making the capture. They stared as if we were beautiful animals escaped from a zoo arid then trapped, waiting to be caged.

  Tina, the Jag thought. You must decide.

  I can’t. I felt as if I were shaking, even though my body— Althor’s body—was rock solid. I don’t want to die. I don’t want Althor to die. But God, Jag, to be Iquar’s providers—that’s worse than death.

  You must make the decision.

  I can’t.

  And then I went insane. That’s the only way I can describe it; I lost rationality. In times of crisis, the human body can exhibit strength far beyond its normal capability: a man holds up the roof of a collapsing mine shaft, a woman lifts a truck off her child, a mountain climber holds back a boulder many times his weight. I blasted Althor’s biomech web past the known upper limits of its capabilities.

  Spinning around, I kicked my leg above my waist and slammed my boot into the doors, again and again, with teeth-jarring force, like a high-speed drill, so fast that the motion blurred. Again, again, again. The force of the impacts slammed through Althor’s body, vibrating to his bones. The web’s timer said a mere fraction of a second had passed.

  I heard a gun fire, felt the shots hit my chest, knew sedatives flooded my blood. It made* no difference; Althor had already been knocked out. His body was operating on pure biomech now. I kept at the doors—and with a screeching groan of metal they buckled, the huge serrations where the two sides joined crumpling inward. My foot slammed through the opening, up to my thigh, ripping Althor’s uniform. With enhanced speed, I pushed my/Tina’s body through the opening and squeezed through after it. More shots hit my side and legs, and shouts sounded behind me, echoing eerily in my boosted state.

  Then we were in the bay, a small one located on the torus rather than the fluted tube where most ships docked. The Jag already had its airlock open. The outer doors of the bay were also open—wide open. We were running full tilt into the vacuum of space.

  Even as I swore out loud, I saw the shimmer of a molecular airlock in the open doors. I ran to the Jag and shoved my/Tina’s body inside, then scrambled in and fell across the deck. The airlock sucked closed behind us.

  Download, the Jag thought. The rumble of engines vibrated in the deck.

  Download, the Jag repeated.

  I lifted my head, still in Althor’s body.

  Tina, get out of his web! the Jag thought.

  Download, I thought.

  Then I was in my own body again, sliding along the deck as the Jag accelerated out of the bay. A huge metal arm unfolded from a bulkhead in the cabin, gathering up Althor’s now unconscious body. I felt metal against my own skin, too, and the warmth of a membrane, as a second arm lifted me off the deck. A familiar cloying mist blew against my face.

  Preparing taus, the Jag thought.

  Jag, NO! I fought to stay conscious. Millions of people live on the Cylinder!

  Cannons primed.

  NOOooo… I tried to shout it, but sleep closed around me like a moth folding its wings.

  Just before I passed out, the Jag’s thought whispered through my mind: Taus fired.

  Darkness and warmth.

  Gradually, I registered sounds, the noises of a ship in flight.

  Jag? I thought.

  Attending.

  Where are we?

  Traveling in inversion.

  How is Althor?

  I am attempting repairs.

  Will he be okay?

  Pause. He will function again.

  But?

  His web needs reprogramming. His degraded memory files must be restored. He may have lost some forever. His structural components must be repaired. Some must be regrown. He will need surgery. A sense of sorrow came from the ship. I didn’t know any other way to describe what it communicated to me. He also needs treatment to heal his emotions. I cannot give that.

  Can you make him forget?

  This would require erasing extensive sections of memory. Much more would go than his memory of Iquar. More gently: Deleting parts of himself is no good, Tina. He needs to heal if he is to pe whole again.

  I just don’t want him to hurt.

  The Jag’s answer had a sense of softness. Nor do I. Neither of you.

  Jug…

  Sleep, Tina. Mist curled around my face.

  No. Wait. I fought the drowsiness. What did you mean on the Cylinder about my being Rhon?

  Althor suspected it almost as soon as he met you.

  Back at Earth, you said you didn’t know my rating.

  I said I couldn’t determine a numerical value. The Rhon have ratings too high to quantify.

  Why didn’t Althor tell me?

  He felt you would be incapable of hiding that knowledge were you put into a situation such as the one that occurred.

  He was right.

  At Epsilani, I linked your Kyle centers to my El, the Jag thought. When the mercenaries shut me down, they also damped your Kyle fields.

  You should have protected Althor.

  I couldn’t do you both. It would have strained my resources too far. Its next thought came with a sense of pain. I had to choose.

  Why me?

  You needed it more. And they already knew what he was.

  Jag—

  Tina, sleep.

  Mist wafted over my face. Jag, wait. The taus…

  Sleep, it thought.

  I slept.

  18

  The Abaj Tacalique

  The Raylicon sky glowered red above the horizon, its streamered clouds lined with fluorescent pink. Directly above us the sky calmed into gray and at the opposite horizon it deepened into black.

  Althor and I stood alone, surrounded by desert. Low red hills rolled out in every direction as far as we could see. In the distance, claws of rock stretched like skeletal fingers up to the angry sky. The horizon was closer than on Earth and the gravity weaker. Although it looked like how I imagined Mars, Raylicon is actually a darker red than Earth’s neighbor and has a more complex biosphere. Her atmosphere is oxygen rich and dense, giving the daytime sky a pale blue color.

  Althor still wore the pants and boots of his dress uniform, with a black knit pullover. He had given me his flight jacket, and it hung down over my dress to my hips. Made from the same insulating material as his regular uniform, it even carried its own web system.

  We stood staring at the sky. The receding spark that had been the Jag was gone now. “Do you think it can make it back without a pilot?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” Althor said.

  I wanted to offer comfort, to take away his haunted look. But in the few minutes since the Jag had revived us, Althor had remained distant and closed.

  “The Jag was right,” I said. �
�We’re safer here. Both of us.”

  “It needs a pilot.” He looked no more accepting now of its decision than he had when it first told him it was going solo.

  A rumbling finally registered on my mind. As I became aware of it, I realized it had been in the ground for a while, growing stronger. With it came the memory of that morning so many years ago in Chiapas, when an earthquake shook the ground until fissures opened. After it was over, my aunt and uncle had been dead, our home destroyed, our sheep lost, and our crops gone.

  The rumbling grew stronger, shaking the desert, stirring dust. Thunder in the ground. I moved closer to Althor, but when I touched his arm he stiffened. So I dropped my hand. He wouldn’t look at me, just stood staring at the horizon.

  They came silhouetted against the crimson sky, hundreds of them, sweeping over the curve of the world like phantasms created from the burning horizon. In wave after wave, a horde of riders thundered out of the sunset.

  “Go away,” I whispered. “No more.”

  “These are friends,” Althor said. “Abaj.”

  “Your ancient bodyguards?”

  He nodded, his attention on the riders. The force of their coming raised clouds of dust.

  “If these are bodyguards,” I said, “why weren’t they here when the Jag set us down?”

  He continued to stare out at the riders. “The Abaj Tacalique control the ground-based, orbital-based, and interplanetary defenses for this system. They’ve one of the most extensive defense matrices in settled space.” Dust swirled around his feet, agitated by the rumbling ground. “It makes no difference where we are on the planet. They have been guarding us since we entered the system.” He motioned at the riders. “This is ceremony.”

  They came on, resolving out of the gathering shadows, tall forms on mounts. Long strips of cloth trailed behind their heads, snapping in the wind.

  From a distance, their mounts resembled Tyrannosaurus rex, but differences became clear as they neared. About nine feet tall at the shoulder, the animals ran leaning forward, back legs thrusting against the ground like pistons. Their scaled forearms were longer than on a tyrannosaurus, enough so that every now and then one dropped into a four-legged gallop, a loping stride with front legs skimming the ground. Refracted light from the fading sunset made their hides scintillate with gold, blue, and glass-green glints.