Eternity's End

by Jeffrey Carver

  As they moved inward toward the surreal column-structures, a few tiny blips of traffic became visible in the distance. Deutsch steered them toward the extreme left opening between dark pillars. Legroeder's augments were abuzz, seething with interpretations of what he was seeing. As their destination grew before them like some glowing, mythical gateway, he finally realized that those columns were not just channel markers; they were physical foundations of the outpost, anchored right in the Flux.

  We are docking in the Flux, he whispered.

  I told you that.

  Yes, but... He hadn't quite believed it. Is the whole damn city embedded in the Flux?

  It was one thing to have vessels floating in the Flux, but he couldn't imagine the power it would take, and the coordination of riggers, to maintain a city in the Flux. It was inconceivable.

  Now you understand, said Deutsch.

  I don't understand anything, Legroeder said. How—?

  There are maintainers who keep it anchored. Like riggers... but... don't worry, they won't notice us. Deutsch banked farther to the left. Time to send the second set of codes.

  Cantha reported the codes sent.

  Legroeder saw the glint of other ships moving past the strange structures. He worried for a moment about being seen—but they were flying a raider ship, with a pirate rigger in the lead. There were still plenty of ways for them to die; but probably they would be okay on the approach, if the codes passed muster. (Are you following all this?) he asked his implants.

  // We are recording. We are also initializing routines for contact and impersonation, for when we get there.//

  (Thinking ahead. Good.)

  The structure grew until it displayed a hundred entry points to a strange, fabulous city, each entry point marked by a set of pillars glowing a pumpkin orange. At the left edge, the pattern was more distended, with wider dark patches in between. The orange gates there were disconnected from the larger structure. That was where captured ships, and damaged ships, came in—ships that might, for example, explode without warning. Deutsch pointed to the last gate on the left. That's where we're going. He hesitated visibly, then glanced back at his rigger-mates. Gentlemen, if you haven't heard yet from your underground, this might be a good time for your commander to set his alternate plans in motion.

  Legroeder swallowed hard as Palagren passed the word.

  The entire Flux seemed to vibrate around the net as they approached the fiery pillars marking the last dock. Deutsch called for one last set of codes to be sent—and then made a com-call directly from the net. This is Freem'n Deutsch, lead rigger and acting commander of Flechette, requesting clearance to dock.

  Legroeder held his breath.

  The pillar of light somehow softened, and opened; and within it, Legroeder could see a tunnel of indeterminate dimensions, and... a docking cradle. I don't believe it, he whispered. He and the Narseil silently withdrew to the innermost part of the net, making themselves as inconspicuous as possible.

  The ship was soon surrounded by a hazy orange glow, as if they had floated into the interior of a wood-burning stove. Deutsch guided them smoothly into the docking cradle, peering one way and another as snakelike arms of the cradle emerged to grapple the ship. Finally he said softly, Time to shut down the net.

  Palagren spoke to the commander, and the order came.

  The net darkened, and Legroeder rubbed his eyes as he climbed out of the rigger-station.` He gazed around the bridge, his heart pounding so loudly he could scarcely hear what was being said around him. They were now squarely in the grip of the pirate empire, and the next few minutes could determine whether they would succeed or fail.

  The Narseil commandos were already on the move.

  Chapter 20

  Raid!

  The riggers stayed on the bridge, watching on monitors as two commando groups deployed, in full armor. The first group marshaled in the regular airlock, to confront the Kyber docking crew. The second team was already outside the hull of the ship, splitting up to make their way to the station's fore and aft emergency access ports.

  Deutsch had his implants connected to the bridge console and was doing something that none of them could follow—including Legroeder, who was connected right beside him. Deutsch was linking somehow to the intelnet on the station, but all Legroeder could pick up was flashes of input—a flicker of bitter-red and sour-orange, then a quick, sweet taste of lemon. He didn't know what it meant and didn't dare interrupt Deutsch to ask.

  Deutsch turned to Fre'geel. "There are thirty-seven crewmen stationed on the docks. I have informed the intelnet that Flechette has battle damage, and only a part of its crew is intact. I have advised we are having difficulty with the airlock and require assistance. That may give you the diversion you need. I will now attempt to interrupt the comlink to the main outpost."

  "Very well," said Fre'geel. He waited until Deutsch nodded again, then transmitted the go-ahead to the number-two commando group. In the outside monitors, the Narseil warriors were barely visible, moving along the outer pressure hull of the docking bay in camouflage armor. In the Flux they appeared as little more than momentary, shimmering distortions in the hazy glow. With luck, any Kyber watching from inside the station would miss their movement altogether.

  In another monitor, the first group was gathered around the airlock hatch. Presumably, the docking crew working to open the hatch were expecting Flechette's raider crew, injured and weakened—not Narseil commandos.

  Fre'geel waited until group two reported ready to begin their breach of the portals. He asked Cantha one last time if there was any signal from the underground. When Cantha answered in the negative, Fre'geel called to the commando groups: "Go."

  The main airlock ballooned open. Group one moved like lightning, overpowering the surprised docking crew. The first puffs of neural gas left the Kyber crumpled outside the airlock, before any alarm could be sounded. Group one flew into the station in all directions, neural gas billowing ahead of them. By this time, group two had entered the station at both emergency portals and were fanning out, pouring gas into other compartments.

  Legroeder's stomach knotted as he waited. Once the commando teams were in the station, direct transmissions were cut off. Would they be able to subdue the entire raider crew before a cry for help went out?

  Legroeder glanced at Deutsch, who was immersed in the comlink. Some part of Deutsch was aware of his glance, because he gestured urgently to Legroeder to join him in the link. Complying, Legroeder found himself at the outer fringes of the docking station's local net. He waited while Deutsch connected to security monitors inside the station. Seconds later, the interior view blossomed around him.

  At first glance, it was chaos. Narseil commandos raced through the corridors past the crumpled figures of unconscious Kyber crewmen. A handful of Kyber, more cyborg than human, were still on their feet, fleeing or hiding. Several were shooting back. They were soon brought down by gas or neutraser fire—but not before a Narseil went down.

  The commandos moved swiftly to secure the com stations. Within the intelnet, Deutsch was working to keep communications with the main outpost cut off. Because an abrupt failure was as likely to attract attention as an alarm, Deutsch was trying to make it appear a momentary glitch, an accidental triggering of safety firewalls. Legroeder's job was to make sure Deutsch did his—as if he could do anything about it, anyway.

  By the time Deutsch verified that the com "glitch" was working as intended, the commando action was over. One Narseil was wounded, two pirates were dead and two wounded, and the rest were unconscious. Legroeder dropped out of the comlink to report to Fre'geel, just as word was coming back through the airlock: The docking station is ours.

  Fre'geel's face was a study in piercing concentration, his dark Narseil features taut, his vertical eyes flicking this way and that, the gills under his neck pulsing rapidly. He voiced the question everyone was thinking. "Any sign we were detected from beyond the station?"

  "I don't bel
ieve so," answered Deutsch. "It all looked isolated from here."

  "How long do we have?"

  "Impossible to be sure. Minutes? An hour or two, maybe? Probably no more."

  Fre'geel bobbed his head. "And in your estimation, can you run your intelnet search from here?" His glance included Legroeder in the question, but they all knew who was going to answer.

  Deutsch's luminous glass gaze seemed to sweep the bridge. "Better bandwidth from on board the station. And from there, we can use the sweeping tools and storage nodes."

  "Go, then. Both of you. At once!"

  Legroeder and Deutsch hurried from the bridge.

  * * *

  Legroeder's heart was thumping like a drum as he raced through the station, his breath rasping steamily in his facemask. The air was probably clear of gas now, but no one was taking chances. All around them Narseil commandos were busy pulling unconscious and semi-conscious pirate captives out of the corridors. Deutsch led him to a maintenance control center, where a half-circle of consoles sat glowing. Deutsch floated before them, studying the controls. "I think this will do it," he said in a metallic whisper. "It should enable access to the intelnet. If we can keep from tripping any alarms..."

  Legroeder slid into a seat on Deutsch's right. Glancing at an external monitor, he saw a startling image: a great, luminous city stretched out into darkness, into the Flux—with crossmembers and pillars reaching both down and up, and fading away where they appeared to extend out of this layer of the Flux altogether. He felt the implants buzzing with interest as a dozen questions leaped into his thoughts; but there was no time now.

  "Yah," Deutsch grunted. He unfolded a pair of shiny extensions from the console and jacked them into metal plates on his chest. "Let's go," he said, his amplified voice turned down to a mutter. "If you can't use these arms, see what else there is."

  Legroeder found a headset and adjusted it, as Deutsch was setting up a channel to Cantha, back on Flechette. Cantha would be recording everything.

  Legroeder took a deep breath and focused his thoughts downward into the link. He entered the station's local data matrix, a dark place full of yelling voices and colored, smoky lighting. The voices were not other users, he realized after a moment, but helper-engines within the system. Banks of flickering strobes pulsed through the steaming murk, churning up a stink of oil and plastic and ozone. They were somewhere in the data sections used by station maintenance. All around him were vague mechanical shapes, connections full of repair specs and technical detail.

  (Still receiving?) Legroeder murmured back to Cantha, and received a single-bit acknowledgment in reply.

  He wondered if there would be anything useful here in the local section. Up one level, he heard music: a thrumming bass rhythm. Enviro controls? Yes—and what else?

  They needed to get their bearings quickly, and move into more useful areas of the intelnet. There was still hope that they could discover a link to the underground; but failing that, their job was to gather strategically meaningful information and get the hell out.

  Legroeder sensed Deutsch moving through the matrix like a monkey through a set of climbing bars, graceful and quick, never lingering. With practiced speed and the power of his augmentation, Deutsch was conducting a search of the local node, far more efficiently than Legroeder could have. He didn't linger long; apparently he didn't regard much of it as relevant to their goals. Legroeder followed him into what appeared to be a technical library connection, filled with datastores like tiny, spinning whirlwinds. There was no time to comprehend the material; but as they passed, Legroeder tried to judge by smell and feel, and spun copies of some of them down the line to Cantha, in case there was something useful buried in them.

  But where was the important stuff? It wasn't as if data on the defenses of the raider outpost, or on Impris, or anything that might lead them to an underground movement, would be laid out for casual perusal.

  (We're not finding the tactical and strategic info that Fre'geel wants,) Deutsch said. (We should get out of here and make the jump to the main intelnet.)

  (All right,) Legroeder answered. He whispered their intentions back to Cantha.

  Deutsch was already analyzing the severed links to the city, trying to figure out which might safely be restored. (Legroeder, you stick out like a sore thumb. Until you can find a way to blend in, you'd better let me handle the approaches.)

  Blend in? Legroeder thought. Fat chance of that.

  // We are preparing your camouflage now,// the implants informed him, holding up his false-ID information with a quick flicker for his approval.

  He glanced at it and waved it away. (Fine, fine... )

  Deutsch was unraveling some of the knots he had tied in the links to the main outpost. He tested carefully, leaving as much of the "glitch" in place as he could. Finally he opened a single channel, under the cloak of technical maintenance. They were going to try to slip into the main intelnet using the technical library connection as a gateway. Legroeder felt a sudden movement, like a swiftly flowing current.

  (We're passing through the comlink now. Stay close... )

  Deutsch was following the link like an underground spring, delving toward its roots. It was like slipping down a silver thread into an utterly different world...

  * * *

  Deutsch felt himself driven by an increasing sense of urgency. (Keep moving, Legroeder!) He wondered if he was losing his mind, even to be attempting this. Something more than just practical expediency was driving him onward, some sense that this was what he was supposed to be doing. But why? To aid Legroeder and the Narseil in some quixotic blow for freedom? Partly that, perhaps. But there were also those jangling echoes of voices at work in his mind, almost inseparable from his own subconscious. They made him feel as if he were, somehow, connected to the Kyber underground.

  Ridiculous. But he couldn't deny wishing that such a thing could be.

  He cast the thought aside. He needed full alertness to get through what lay ahead.

  They were in the intelnet of the main outpost now, somewhere deep in the technical libraries. The stream was carrying them through musty-smelling caverns of data, where Legroeder would certainly have gotten lost on his own, and even Deutsch could easily enough have done so. He'd caught Legroeder's mental image of a subterranean stream, exploring the roots of a mountain range, and it was true enough. They were flowing through deep passageways, sniffing and tasting the waters as they went. Deutsch wasn't quite sure where they were going, but he trusted his instincts as he took them from the technical library into the general stacks.

  They were no longer alone in the network; others were moving through the datastores on business of their own. None took note of them, and Deutsch did his best to veer quietly away from any that drew too close. He scanned the branch indices: ... maintenance, personnel, planning, production, shipping... But what about the ones they really wanted, such as armament, fleet operations, chains of command...?

  But were those the ones he really wanted?

  Move on, move on. Somewhere in here, he felt sure, he would find better information, maybe even a thread leading to the rumored Kyber underground...

  * * *

  Legroeder struggled to cope with the massive flow of information.

  // We are sorting... categorizing... setting priorities... //

  Yes, but what about his own control? They were flying past vast tracts of information, and he was caught between the risk of detection and the danger of missing data useful to the Narseil.

  Deutsch seemed to be steering them upward through the layers, moving through one library after another. Legroeder felt a sudden fear that Deutsch was leading him straight into the hands of the enemy, or at least taking him in so deep he could never hope to get out by himself.

  As if sensing his unease, Deutsch spoke, softly. (Are you getting a look here? Some of this might be worth a scan.)

  Legroeder moved in for a closer inspection. Deutsch had found stacks of archived planning sess
ions; Legroeder paused for a microsecond, perusing them. (Look at all this talk about expanding the settlement.) He thumbed and riffled a moment. (More like building a goddamn empire.)

  (True enough... )

  Legroeder zipped up a packet and sent it downlink to Cantha.

  (Let's keep moving,) said Deutsch.

  The earlier image persisted: they were moving upward through the roots of the mountains, searching for sunlight. Shadowy shapes were all around, the repositories of data. But far above were splinters of light that suggested change. Maybe more than change, maybe access to the indices that would let Deutsch run his sweeps. Legroeder held his breath, trying to remain inconspicuous.

  There was a sudden flash of light—and then a series of light beams fanning past. Before he could react, Legroeder felt a breathless rush, as though he'd taken a deep lungful of oxygen. He realized dizzily that he had just absorbed a burst of data; his augments were madly trying to interpret.

  (Sweep working... we're getting somewhere now,) Deutsch said.

  More and more splinters of light were breaking through the ceiling. Deutsch's sweep was darting among them. But Legroeder's own implants were signaling for his attention: a sharp aroma of peppermint stung his senses until he allowed a window to open...

  // Tracking a thread... multiple references to Impris found... //

  (Impris?) Legroeder echoed. (Freem'n, wait—!)

  * * *

  Deutsch was a beat behind Legroeder in recognizing the reference. He turned in surprise. (What's that about Impris?) He caught the data streaming from Legroeder's implants. (Yes, I see it now. How did I miss that?)

  He quickly ran his sweeps up the splinter of light that Legroeder had found, and saw a thread that electrified him. (Take a look at this, Legroeder! It's not just Impris. Do you remember asking me about a Kyber underground? Here it is! In the same stream!)