Eternity's End

by Jeffrey Carver

  "Rigger Legroeder," said Ho'Sung, "We will be entering the Flux shortly. I thought you might like to observe."

  Legroeder felt a twinge of excitement in his fingertips. He had not been in a real net in the real Flux since his escape from the pirates, which seemed a very long time ago. "Where would you like me to stand?"

  Ho'Sung made a burring sound. "Stand, indeed? I would like you in rigger-station number four, over there." He gestured with both hands, the sleeves of his robe billowing like a priest's.

  Legroeder felt an involuntary smile spread across his face. He hurried to climb into the clamshell rigger-station. He sank back, watched the shell close over him, and sighed with pleasure as his senses flowed out into the living matrix of the net.

  * * *

  The Narseil riggers greeted him with quiet salutations. Welcome, said Palagren. First time lucky, we always say. You may take the top position.

  Legroeder moved into the spot at the top center of the net, where he felt like a rifleman atop an ancient horse-drawn stagecoach, in classic holos. After he'd settled in a bit, that image gave way to a feeling of being top lookout in the bubble of a fishing sub, as the three Narseil riggers crafted a starting image for the voyage: a misty, copper-green sea beneath them, with long, smooth waves rolling in toward their bow. The rigger-crew was preparing to dive.

  Will you let me stay in my bubble here for a while, or am I expected to sprout gills to keep up with you fish people? Legroeder felt better than he had in a long time. The net was a powerful euphoric drug.

  For our poor, nonaquatic human friend? Palagren answered. Of course we will allow you your hull filled with air. Perhaps we can even tow it on our backs. Are you ready, crew?

  Voco at the stern and Ker'sell on the keel echoed their assent. The captain, his voice whispering from the outside com, said, Riggers, you may take to the Flux.

  The Narseil riggers responded with a hiss of approval. An emerald light welled up from the sea below. Legroeder felt a familiar rush of adrenaline, and a less familiar tingling from his implants, as the three Narseil took the ship down. The watery mists of the Flux closed over their heads, and Legroeder put out his hands, sighing with pleasure at the movement of the current through his fingers.

  The sea and the mist were at once real and imagined; everything around him was a blend of mind and reality—his imagination, and the Narseil's imagination, and the actual multidimensional energy-flows that would carry them across the light-years. He knew that the images would change many times in the coming days, as they passed out of the realm of the Narseil and the Centrist Worlds, and made their way toward the no man's land of Golen Space. He knew that his skills would be tested, and his courage, and that of the Narseil, as well.

  But for now, Legroeder was content simply to be sailing on the streams of space, even if they were making their way toward danger, even if they were heading back toward the seas of mist where none but pirates ruled.

  PART TWO

  In what ethereal dances

  By what eternal streams...

  —Edgar Allan Poe

  Like glimpses of forgotten dreams.

  —Alfred, Lord Tennyson

  Prologue

  Pirate Patrol: Freem'n Deutsch

  Riggers, take her down.

  The voice of the raider captain crackled through the net with cold authority. The lead rigger obeyed with a tilt of his head and a flash of input from Augment Foxtrot. The acknowledgment of his two flank riggers came silently through the net, augment to augment, and with a swift coordinated kick they sent the raider ship Flechette down into the Flux like a spinning bullet.

  The start of the patrol began as it always did—with a sideways dance through the maze of Flux currents that isolated raider Outpost Ivan from those who might come spying.

  Lead rigger Freem'n Deutsch had been on more pirate patrols than he could count, but still he began each patrol with an almost inexpressible dread. He felt it as keenly now as he had from the very first, when he had been forced to fly missions as a captive of the raider colony. It was a dread compounded of rage and fear, of a desire not to attack the innocent, and—perhaps if he looked deeply enough—also of a secret delight in the fear and smoke and mayhem that usually followed. The dread was always there. But having been offered the choice of flying for the pirates or dying at their hands, Deutsch had learned to approach his duties with a certain resignation—managing his emotions with the assistance of the augments, and keeping them isolated from the other riggers in the net.

  It would all change, once they were genuinely on the prowl. But for now, there was only the dread, like a weight in his belly—and the discipline to keep it concealed.

  Though far from the largest or most powerful raider in the fleet, Flechette was a formidable threat to any ship. She bristled with flux torpedoes, beam weapons, and flux-distortion antennas to deceive and confuse any enemy. She carried a boarding party of twenty-four pirate commandos, of varying degrees of biohumanity. Her captain, Te'Gunderlach, was himself more cyborg than human, and was known for never retreating once a battle was joined—a trait that made him a fearsome warrior. Deutsch sometimes imagined that it might also make for a disastrous failure if one day Flechette met her match.

  Today Deutsch flew with, if anything, a greater-than-usual sense of unease. A premonition? He couldn't say. He'd felt a premonition of trouble on the day, nine years ago, when his Elacian freighter was attacked by pirates—and by the end of that day, his life had changed forever. But he'd also felt his share of premonitions that had come to nothing.

  Lead rigger, we seem to be going a little fast here. Is there anything I should know before we hit the chute?

  Deutsch brought himself back to the present, carefully concealing his surprise at the speed with which the ship was moving toward the exit point, where they would leave the clouds that kept the fortress concealed in the Flux. He sent a signal to the other riggers to reduce speed, then answered the captain with a breezy, No difficulty, sir. We are simply eager for the hunt.

  Very well, said Te'Gunderlach. That is good. I feel that this will be a fruitful voyage.

  Indeed, replied Deutsch.

  Take us away, then.

  Aye, sir.

  The ship roared left, then right, and leaped into the chute. It was like the first big hill of a v'rticoaster—screaming hurtling down a streamer of energy that crackled as they dove—and finally, with a great gout of fire, spat them out into the freedom of the open Flux.

  * * *

  The early part of Flechette's voyage was routine, a passage through a little-traveled no man's land where the currents tended to be weak and unpredictable. It was a challenging enough region to rig through in its own right, requiring a thorough knowledge of the terrain; but the main reason few outsiders came this way was that these currents didn't really go anywhere, in terms of normal-space destinations. That, of course, was what made it a perfect place for hiding a pirates' fortress. Few would come looking, and if anyone did, the chances were excellent that they would lose their way. Golen Space in general was a risky place for the unwary rigger; this particular pocket of Golen Space was avoided even by raiders from other outposts.

  Rigger Deutsch led his crew through an atmosphere of oddly swirled clouds, seemingly frozen against the sky. The clouds appeared unmoving; and yet within their coiled vortices were narrow ribbons of movement, and it was along those ribbons that Flechette's riggers threaded their way. Gradually, the clouds thickened and became more solidly sculpted, and the strength and visibility of the currents picked up. They were beginning to move out of the no man's land of secret places, toward regions where starship traffic might be found.

  Deutsch was not privy to the exact nature of their mission; the captain was as tight-lipped as ever. But rumors had been whispered that their orders were somehow different this time, that they were going after an unusual prey... that they were searching for a particular prey, and they might allow others to pass unimpeded. If so, th
is was a significant change from the norm. On the other hand, it was possible that the rumor was nothing but wind and vapor.

  They would just have to wait and see what the captain revealed, at the moment of contact.

  * * *

  Droom. Droom.

  The low rumble quivered through the net, and fire began to flicker around the edges of Deutsch's vision.

  The morale programs.

  Deutsch hated them, but there was no escape, for him or anyone else. He could resist their effects for a time; but in the end, they were a foolproof system. They were channeled through both the augments and the net itself, and if the augments found insufficient effect, the morale input was increased automatically. As program images emerged in the net, they came to seem a part of the natural landscape, part of the larger vision, and the riggers formed and shaped them as they banked through the energy streams of the Flux.

  Fire. Flames coloring the energy streams.

  Droom. Droom.

  They were the flames of the hunter on the prowl, the flames of the corsair. Soon the flames would spread, and would reach out into the nets of other ships; they would strike fear into the heart of the prey. Already, Deutsch could feel his own adrenaline starting to pump. There was no ignoring the beat; it was like a military march, an orchestration driving the blood lust of a hunt. It was primal and inescapable, tapping somewhere into the reptilian brain. After the first few minutes, Deutsch and his fellow riggers no longer wanted to stave it off. Resistance, revulsion, and fear gave way to inexorable desire.

  The flames would soon lick higher still. Higher, and fiercer, and hotter. But not yet. Not until Flechette had found her prey. Then and only then would they burn their true burn.

  Chapter 14

  Pirate Search

  Did you hear something back there? Legroeder glanced behind them through the eerie undersea passage. They had been gliding through an endless, watery corridor, irregular and enigmatic, like an abandoned structure from some lost civilization.

  Voco, the phlegmatic stern-rigger, answered, Just an echo. Always echoes in places like this.

  Oh, said Legroeder, straining to peer back through the mists.

  If the Narseil mission plan still made him uneasy, their riggers had nonetheless impressed him with their prowess in the Flux. They seemed to have an uncannily clear sense of where they were going, so clear that it left Legroeder a little breathless. They were prowling like rangers on a patrol through a wilderness. They seemed to notice signs in the Flux that Legroeder could not begin to fathom, subtle changes in current patterns that his implants translated for him as "smell" and "feel," but only after the Narseil had pointed them out.

  Lacking any specific knowledge of where to look for pirate ships, they were trying to find their quarry by acting like prey. The plan was to shadow the shipping lanes that grazed the boundaries of Golen Space, lanes where the risk of pirate attack had lately been on the increase. It was a region where few ships would ever have ventured, were it not for an accident of astrography that put Golen Space squarely between two long arms of more civilized and heavily traveled space. Shippers journeying between the two arms faced a choice of a dangerous passage skirting Golen Space, or a much longer way around, as the Flux currents went. Many, indeed, took the long way. But there were always shippers—and passengers—who deemed the risks worth taking, in exchange for shorter travel times. Some even went through Golen Space for the fastest trips; but the majority chose pathways just outside the boundaries, which offered at least the illusion of greater safety, combined with speed. It was in such a passage that Ciudad de los Angeles had been attacked.

  H'zzarrelik, however, was well to the galactic south of where that attack had occurred. The Narseil hoped to attract the attention of a different band of pirates, by seeming to have lost their way along the edge of Golen Space. They had, for a time, kept H'zzarrelik on a flight path such as an ordinary liner might have taken; but a few days ago, seven days into the journey, they had slipped off into the borderland, where ships losing their way might blunder. And where, presumably, raiders might lurk. They hardly needed to pretend. One mistaken twist in a current could easily send them off course. It had taken no great effort for Legroeder to imagine them actually lost.

  A couple of days after their passage into the edge of Golen Space, they had entered a region that seemed particularly murky and mysterious. The undersea imagery was a natural, almost inevitable, choice. The submarine image had given way to a sleek forcefield that flowed back from the lead rigger, and up and over Legroeder's head, so that he could sit in a cross-legged yoga pose, facing the oncoming stream. It was purely an illusion—his real body was reclining, motionless, in the clamshell rigger-station—but it felt as real as flesh to him. His main job, just now, was to be alert for features that the Narseil, with their alien perceptions, might miss.

  They continued gliding through the olive-oil-green seafloor structure, the ship stretched out behind them in a sinuous ribbon of silver. It seemed to Legroeder that the foreboding eeriness emanated not just from the surroundings, but also from Ker'sell, in the keel station. Ker'sell was the one Narseil rigger who seemed suspicious of Legroeder, and seemed drawn in general to darkly moody images—a trait with which Legroeder, ironically, could empathize. Legroeder couldn't do anything about Ker'sell's moods, so he concentrated on smoothing out their movement as they glided down channels and corridors and tunnels, like ghostly miners pursuing memories in a flooded coal mine, or archaeologists pursuing the past.

  Twice now he'd thought he had heard sounds in the passageway, sounds not from their own ship. In all likelihood the Narseil's explanation was correct: he was probably hearing disturbances of their own passage, altered and reflected as echoes in the net. Still, he felt a nagging unease, wondering if something might be out there, shadowing them. If so, it was concealing itself well.

  H'zzarrelik slowed and, rocking slightly, slipped around a corner in the tunnel. Another drop lay ahead; the tunnel had been descending in a long series of steps, each drop affording only limited visibility ahead. Do we have any idea where this will end? Legroeder asked.

  Not really, said Palagren, his head turning from side to side as he scanned the edges of the tunnel. I've never been able to hold such a structured image so long before. I'd guess that the hard-edged form will end of its own accord before much longer. It must be associated with a dense nebula or some such thing.

  The ship slipped downward over a sharper step, then another. Pinga-ping. There was another faint sound—like a distant, clanging buoy. The current seemed to be speeding up. Legroeder felt a sudden chill of fear, as he imagined a submarine shadowing them through this labyrinth, torpedoes ready to fire.

  Don't let your imagination run away with you, he cautioned himself. Still... Was that our own echo I just heard?

  Voco answered from the stern, I heard it, too. I think it was our own, yes.

  And I think, said Palagren, that I see the end of this tunnel.

  Legroeder peered ahead, past the Narseil, where he glimpsed a shifting of light. Yes, now he could see the labyrinth opening. What's that up ahead? he murmured. Before anyone could answer, the ship picked up speed and shot out of the tunnel like a bird out of a chute.

  The undersea image evaporated, and the ship sprouted long, slender wings as it flew into a cloud-filled sky. Legroeder could feel the craftsmanship of Palagren and the others at work on the image, but really they were just refining what was here: a skyscape of great, sculpted clouds, and currents slipping among them like dancing breezes. The clouds looked like top-heavy savanna trees leaning with the wind; sunlight glowed on their tops, and great caverns of open air yawned in their shadows, where complex and convoluted Flux currents wound among the cloud bases.

  While the Narseil riggers conferred on a direction, Legroeder stretched his arms out in the net and felt the wind whisper through his fingers. He rocked the wings a bit. Off to the left, and a little behind, he glimpsed a flicker of lightning
among the clouds.

  What is it, Legroeder? Anything wrong? asked Palagren.

  I guess not—just a flash of something back there. Just some weather, probably.

  The other riggers seemed puzzled.

  Didn't you see it?

  No, I didn't— began Palagren, but was interrupted by a distant rumble of thunder. The sound seemed to echo among the clouds for a few moments, then faded away.

  You may be right about the weather, Voco said from the stern. I see a thunderhead moving off to the port side. We'd better keep a watch on it.

  Palagren began a wide turn away from it. Wait, Legroeder said. Do you mind if I do this for a moment? he asked, nudging them back toward the left.

  I sense a difficult passage in that direction, Palagren said cautiously.

  I just want to check something, Legroeder said, banking the ship a little more sharply. He thought he saw something dark among the shadows under the clouds; something darker than the shadows... I'm not sure... hold on a sec'...

  What is it?

  Legroeder thought he heard a faint booming sound. Maybe it was just a reverberation of thunder, but he felt a little shiver of apprehension; he wasn't sure why. But the view had changed now and he saw nothing. Shrugging, he returned the ship to the right bank that Palagren had initiated, and gave control back to the Narseil.

  He remained unsatisfied, though. Closing his eyes, he searched back in his memory, analyzing the sound and feel of the thunder. His stirring of apprehension turned into genuine fear as some connection clicked into place, some pattern in the sound. Opening his eyes, he said softly, Don't be alarmed, but we need to change the image and see if we can get a clearer view under those clouds. He hesitated. Palagren, I think you should inform the captain and the commander.