Carter began his countdown. Ida readied himself, knowing this time he really did need to let those armed go first.
“One!”
Carter sprang forward, the two marines at close quarters. Ida waited, but then Zia swore and sprinted forward, the Yuri-G swinging as she ran to overtake Carter. Carter saw the movement out of the corner of his eye and sidestepped to let her pass, swearing as he did so, never once breaking his perfect combat crouch.
“Ivanhoe!”
Ida was at the door as Zia ducked ahead, crouching at the side of her crewman on the floor. He was alive, lying on his back and convulsing.
Carter signaled the marines to fan out and begin a search of the flight deck room as Ida joined Zia on the floor. Fathead rapidly paced about, his huge gun pointed skyward, checking computer readouts and flicking switches.
“Come on, baby, come on…,” whispered Zia. She’d dropped the Yuri-G and was holding her crewmate’s bald head, trying to stop him banging it against the hard decking. Her fingers came away bloody, and his eyes rolled as a white foam trickled from the corners of his mouth and into the edges of his beard.
Ida looked at Zia, then over at the discarded gun. He picked it up carefully.
“Does he have a condition? Medication?”
She shook her head. “No,” she said. “Not that I know of.”
Ida was aware of military boots dancing around the small bridge. He looked up to see the two marines slowing their frantic patrol, Carter stationary in the center of the room. Carter swept his rifle around one more time; then he lowered the gun and relaxed his posture.
“Clear,” he said. He glanced down at Ivanhoe and his two attendants. “What’s wrong with him?”
Ivanhoe’s seizure had stopped, and he now lay flat on the deck, head lolling to one side, breathing heavily and out cold.
Ida stood, hands on hips. “Don’t know. Nothing here?”
Carter shook his head. “Small bridge, only one door out. No one in here except him.”
Ida sighed, and crouched back down next to Zia. “He was fixing the nav pod, right?”
Zia stroked Ivanhoe’s forehead. “Yes. Dathan was supposed to be helping him.”
Ida nodded. Then he froze, his eyes wide. “So where’s Dathan?”
Zia’s head snapped up, and Ida blinked at his reflection. Zia looked back down to Ivanhoe and gently stroked his cheek with the back of her hand.
“Ivanhoe? Ivanhoe, where’s Dathan? Where did Day go? Can you tell me, honey?”
Ivanhoe twitched, and his eyes flickered open. He licked his lips and looked around the flight deck, but his eyes were dull and unfocused. Zia pointed somewhere across the room and clicked her fingers. She looked insistently at the nearest marine when nobody moved.
“Water, over there!”
The marine went to investigate, and after fumbling with a wall-mounted dispenser, returned with a small plastic bag of water. Zia took it, uncapped the tiny spout at the top, and offered it to Ivanhoe’s lips. He sucked greedily for a few moments, but then pulled away.
Zia leaned over him again. “Ivanhoe, where’s Day? What happened?”
Ivanhoe coughed and rolled his head around. His lips moved, mumbling something, but Zia just shook her head and continued to stroke his cheek, repeating her question.
Suddenly he jerked and grabbed her wrist. Zia cried out in surprise as Ivanhoe pulled himself up on an elbow, pushing his face to within an inch away of his employer’s. His eyes were wide, wide, wide.
“They took him, Zia, they took Dathan. They took him.”
Then he flopped back down, agitated, flexing his free hand while the other continued to grip Zia’s wrist.
Then his expression changed, and he looked … sad. Ida folded his arms and watched, uncomfortable, as the man’s face twisted into a grimace and he began to cry and shake his head.
Zia pulled his fingers off her wrist. “Who took him, Ivanhoe? What happened?”
Ivanhoe sniffed and wailed, his sobs choking any attempt to speak. Finally he took a deep breath and said it.
“They came. Zia, they came. All of them. All dead. They came and took him. They took him. They took Dathan.” He twitched and grabbed at Zia’s arms, eyes wide. “Where’s Momma? Tell me, please, where’s Momma? When can I see Momma?”
Behind him, Ida heard two guns being released from their safeties. Turning around, he saw the indicator on the side of Fathead’s absurd cannon light up as he began sweeping it back and forth into the dark corners of the bridge. Carter had raised his rifle again, but not to eye level. The marine stood, face bleached of all color. When he met Ida’s gaze, his jaw was slack.
“The fuck is going on?” the marine asked.
Ida shook his head. That was a very good question.
30
They carried Ivanhoe to the infirmary and hooked him up to a monitor, one of the marines, Ashworth, volunteering to keep an eye on the otherwise automated systems as the others returned to their stations. Ida went back to his cabin to get dressed; while there, he tried to raise Izanami on the station’s comms, thinking she should really go take a look at Zia’s crewman. But there was no response, just more interference. When Ida returned to the infirmary he found Fathead and Zia by Ivanhoe’s bedside, Ashworth still by the monitor. Fathead held his cannonlike weapon in both hands, the lights on the barrel an angry, dangerous red.
Zia watched her crewman sleep for a few minutes, then turned and left the infirmary at practically a run. Ida glanced at Fathead, but the man didn’t seem to notice his boss’s departure.
Ida quickly ducked out and found Zia farther along the corridor, marching with some determination. She looked back at him as he approached but said nothing. Ida didn’t know what to say either, so he kept his mouth shut. She was going to see the marshal, that much was clear; standing in the elevator, Zia waited impatiently as Ida realized she needed him to punch the access code to the bridge.
Her meeting was brief. Provost Marshal King sat alone in the middle of the ready room, computer pad on his lap. Marines guarded the door on the outside, but not within. Ida thought maybe they should be.
The marshal looked at his computer pad but his eyes were unfocused. He looked ill to Ida. So did everybody else left on the Coast City.
Zia stood and shivered. The room was cold and her face was white and shiny. The famous pout was gone, her once ruby red lips dull and dry.
King glanced up at her, flexed his fingers, then looked back to the computer pad.
“I’m sorry for the loss of your crew member, Ms. Hollywood.” His voice was low, quiet, not a whisper but close enough. “All attempts will be made to locate him. For the moment, I’m assigning you a Fleet security detail—”
Then she spoke. She said: “We’re leaving,” and then turned on her heel and walked out.
King didn’t reply, his gaze fixed somewhere beyond the computer pad. He flexed his fingers again. It was an odd, mechanical motion, beginning with the little finger and ending with the thumb. Ida hadn’t noticed King do it before.
Dumbfounded, Ida turned and watched, through the still-open door of the ready room, Zia stride across the bridge, toward the elevator.
“What just—?”
“Thank you, Captain. Dismissed.”
Ida stared at the marshal for a second. Then he went to follow Zia. But when he stepped out onto the bridge, she was already gone.
* * *
As the door to the ready room closed, the marshal twitched in his chair, eyes flicking to his left, toward a shadowed corner of the ready room. But it was a movement driven purely by his autonomic nervous system. If Ida had been able to look him in the eye before he walked out, he would have seen the marshal’s pupils contracted to pinpricks, his eyes glazed, unfocused.
Out of the shadows stepped Izanami. As she moved, the shadows seemed to kick up around her like dust.
She laid a hand on King’s shoulder, and the marshal twitched again, flexed the fingers of his empty hand,
and stared at his knees.
Izanami smiled. In the dark her eyes burned blue as she bent down, her lips almost touching his ear.
“You can’t keep him from me forever, my dear Roberto. Not now that I took your book away, your precious book of secrets and codes. Did your commandant really think that would be enough, that if he wrote it all down in cipher like a child, that someone like you would be able to understand it? Would be able to carry on, as if the secrets in the book were enough? Perhaps he did.” She laughed. “The Fleet is indeed full of the weak and the foolish.”
King’s eyelids flickered, but he did not respond. Izanami straightened and watched the main door. She stroked King’s head with her hand, her smile widening.
31
Serra had been sleeping when Carter returned. It was real, uninterrupted sleep; a rare thing, sleep to be treasured, free of shadows and purple light and the voice of her grandmother and from the other thing, the noise, the roaring of the ocean that filled her head—the sound of the Spiderbaby sleeping in Zia Hollywood’s hybrid ship. It was a sound Serra was familiar with from dozens of sorties where she had to infiltrate and disrupt Spider networks with her mind. But out here it was different. Spiders were never alone, and they never slept. And this one … this one was dreaming. And this close, the Spiderbaby within touching distance, Serra could see into those machine dreams and hear the sound of—
She rocked on the bed as Carter jogged her shoulder. She tried to ignore it until Carter did it again.
And then he said, “I saw her,” and Serra was bolt upright in a second, as alert and ready for action as when the gunnery sergeant blew the trumpet to announce incoming Spiders.
Carter paced the small cabin. Serra watched as the sweat glistened on his forearms as he walked under the fluorescent strips. He moved his hands as he paced, like he was sculpting the description out of thin air. But Serra already had a fair idea of what he was talking about.
“On their ship?”
Carter nodded vigorously but didn’t stop walking. “It was there, on the bridge. Back in the corner, against the wall. The shadows hid it—” He moved his hands as though kneading dough. “—like smoke, or dust.”
Serra swung her feet to the decking and pulled the sheets over her lap. “Why the fuck didn’t you challenge, or tell the others?”
Carter stopped and looked at her. He was pale and his eyes were wide, his brow creased as he struggled with what she’d just said. “What do you mean?”
“You found the intruders, why didn’t you challenge them?”
Carter’s mouth twisted into what might have been a smile. Serra didn’t like it.
“No, no,” he said quickly. “They weren’t there. That’s the whole fucking point. Nobody else could see them, only me, because they weren’t there.”
He stopped, and Serra saw that he was shaking. His bottom lip began to quiver; he looked like a lost child.
Serra stood and took his cheek in her hand. “What is it, baby? Tell me.”
Carter took her hand in his, and she winced, just a little, as he squeezed too hard. He looked into her eyes, and she saw them wet with tears. “She said I could see them again.”
Serra blinked. “She? The intruder spoke to you?”
Carter nodded. “It’s a woman. She’s from far away. She said I could see them again.”
The final barrier came crashing down, and Carter sobbed into Serra’s shoulder. She brushed his hair and pulled him backwards toward the bed. He was leaning on her, and he was very big and very heavy but he moved without resistance when she pushed him to one side to sit on the bed next to her. His sobbing died but the lost look on his face remained. Serra was frightened and her thoughts were being drowned out by the white noise of the Spiderbaby dreaming. She focused, trying to cut the sound out before it gave her another migraine.
“Who is she, and what did she say?”
Carter sniffed loudly and wiped his nose with his hand.
“She’s from far away. But she can bring them back.” Carter turned and looked at Serra. She winced again at his too-strong grip.
“For fuck’s sake,” she said. “Who?”
“My parents. I can see them again, speak to them. She’ll bring them here.”
Serra’s heart rate went up by half in less than a second. She shook her head and ran her hands over Carter’s regulation crew cut. “Nene, you’ve had a shock. Ever since the security breach. You shouldn’t have gone back to duty so quickly.”
Carter snarled and yanked his head away. Serra wasn’t surprised at the reaction and let her hands fall into her lap.
“She can bring them back,” he said. He stabbed a finger down toward the floor, like his parents could materialize right in their cabin, right now.
But they couldn’t. They couldn’t.
Serra shushed her lover but he flinched, so she got to the point. “They can’t come back, baby. They’re dead. You know that.”
Carter nodded, the snarl replaced with a smile. He sniffed again. “Yes, yes, they’re dead. They’re all dead, all of them. But they can come back. She can bring them back.”
Serra shook her head. Carter had snapped. Spooked by the shadows and the environment failures and the general what-the-fuckery that had gone on for the last two months.
Serra reached down to pick up her discarded clothing. As she moved, Carter hopped from the bed and grabbed her arm. He squeezed and pulled her to her feet, the bedding falling away. Serra snarled at him. “What the fuck are you talking about, Charlie? Your parents are dead. You know that. They’re dead.”
But Carter just nodded. “Yes, they’re dead. They’re all dead—DeJohn, the commandant, the marines. She can bring them all back here. The gift, you gotta use it, for me. You can help me.”
Serra searched his face for any hint of sanity, but saw nothing but eyes wide and wet and a rictus grin. She didn’t like the way he called her wild talent the “gift.” It was the word her grandmother used for her precious Carminita, a description of the raw, hereditary ability the Fleet had enhanced to a finely tuned battle sense. Serra had never called it that, not to Carter. She didn’t like the way the conversation was going.
She pulled her arm free and turned to reach for her clothing again, but Carter grabbed her a second time.
“Charlie, let go!”
He shook his head. “You can do it,” he said. “You can help me. Please, you have to help me. You can use the gift.” He tapped his own temple.
She moved to sit back on the bed, and he let her this time.
The gift? In the middle of all this, he wanted her to reach out and make contact? Even the thought of it made the static in her ears rush in, like a gate had been opened. She closed her eyes and pressed the heel of her hand against her forehead, and listened to the noise.
“Who is ‘she’?” she asked eventually.
Carter sat next to her. “She’s from far away. From the other side of space. She’s dead too.”
Serra gulped and felt faint. She opened her eyes and saw Carter looking at her.
“She’s dead, and she can help us. She can help all of us. She can help you.”
Their eyes remained locked.
Help … me? At this thought, the static swirled, like the machine was listening in on their conversation. Watching from the dark. Giving approval.
Then Serra nodded.
“Okay.”
32
The corridor swam with static, which made Ida pause, half-in, half-out of the elevator. The space radio had been off when he left his cabin, he was certain of that, and the first thought that jumped out at him was that someone was messing in his private space—again. Ida clenched his fists and his jaw and headed down the passageway.
It took Ida a few moments to realize how cold the air was and that the pain in his knee that had started back at the elevator was ramping up. He stopped mid-stride, his breath catching in a white cloud before him.
Not again.
“Ida? Ida, where
are you?”
Ludmila calling, her voice punching holes in the white noise that surged and rolled to fill the gap when she was silent.
“Ludmila?”
“Ida, I can’t stop them, I tried—”
Ida broke into a run, his artificial joint screaming. Ludmila’s voice was different: it sounded even farther away, and the hard edge of fear had returned.
Ida’s cabin was empty and dark, lit only by the half light from the passageway as he stood across the open doorway. The blue light of the space radio was piercing.
“Ludmila? What’s wrong?” Ida moved to his desk, pulled the chair in tight, and hunched over the radio set. He tried adjusting the signal, but the static just popped and crackled and settled back into its usual pattern.
“I tried to stop them, I tried to stop them, Ida, but I couldn’t, I couldn’t—”
Another noise now, a chirping or clicking. Ida frowned and closed his eyes. Then he realized what it was, distorted by the bad signal. Ludmila was crying.
“Stop who? Ludmila, tell me what happened.”
Ludmila sniffed, the sound of dry paper being torn.
“They’re coming. It’s sooner than I thought. I’ve tried to hold them back, but it’s not working. They’re getting stronger.”
“Who is?”
“Ida, you must stop them.”
Ida sighed and rubbed his face. “Who?”
“Your friend, Carter. And the others. They’re going to try to bring them in. It’s too soon, too soon.”
Ida sat up. Carter? Friend was not the first term that came to mind. But, more important, how did Ludmila know what the marine was doing? How did she know anything about what went on in the Coast City outside of Ida’s cabin?
“What’s Carter doing?”
The rush of white noise snapped like a gunshot, making Ida jerk back instinctively from the radio set. When Ludmila spoke again her voice was loud and crushed.
“Stop him! Stop them all!”
Ida hopped to his feet and looked around, searching. Then he saw it. The Yuri-G was sitting on the bed. In the confusion aboard the Bloom County, Zia hadn’t seen him pick it up. He grabbed it and checked the charge, almost telling Ludmila to wait there. He stopped, and had the oddest feeling that she really was in the room.
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