“Explain?” Gavin said. “We’ve barely said hello.”
Despite the lack of translation, the chine seemed to grasp the situation and wedged itself into a corner.
Gavin looked at Sheemi, who shrugged. She couldn’t think of anywhere better the chine could be.
“I’ll stay,” Gavin said. “The rest of you go to the bus.”
“No way, Gavin,” Xin said, “You can’t stay. If something goes wrong, you wouldn’t survive.”
“She’s right,” Omeri said. “We should get to the bus now.”
Gavin nodded, and they set off. The command chatter continued as they made their way along the ring.
“Can we initiate?” Go asked.
“Not yet,” Jimmy said, his voice anxious.
Sheemi scrambled to don her vac suit and strap in with the others. She tried to picture what was happening out there. The Hexi arriving in force. Chines being destroyed. And them caught in the middle. A knot of worry formed in her gut.
“She’s ready, Colonel,” Jimmy shouted.
“Get us out of here, Alvares,” Go said.
“Initiating IFD sequence.”
“I’m picking up an eight hundred exajoule discharge,” Janik said, awe in her voice. “That’s orders of magnitude higher than any explosion on record. N-layer wavefront collapsing towards our location.”
“Can we weather it?” Go asked.
“Unknown, ma’am. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“Alvares?”
“They directed it towards us, Colonel. I’m guessing this is their heavy artillery. If it hits, we won’t survive it.”
Won’t survive it, Sheemi repeated to herself. That can’t be right. After nurturing a death wish for so long, she was surprised to find she wanted to live.
“Intersect in five minutes.”
“Three minutes until parameter lock, ma’am,” Alvares said.
One of the navs counted down the final minutes, then seconds.
Dauntless shuddered, shaking Sheemi like a rag doll.
Someone said, “Jimmy—”
Chapter 15 – Iron53
Kellen burned as if he’d crawled into an oven. He struggled to move inside a dark, constricted space. Everything shook. A faint whistling grew to a shriek until something struck him.
A crack of red light dazzled his eyes. He tried to raise an arm or bend a leg and failed. His limbs, even his head, were held in place by something soft.
Wait. He found he could wiggle the fingers of his left hand. He pushed, and his arm came free. He reached out for the crack of light and gripped the hard edge of something. Pulling as hard as he could, he began to slide forward until he fell through.
Were they back on Earth? Or still in the city? He looked about for the rolled-up city, the land on its side, but they’d left all traces of chine architecture behind. He was on a planet. A swollen red sun overhead dispelled any notion of its being Earth. The sun cast its dim light across a harsh landscape. He stood on tortured rock, a lava field perhaps. His gaze shifted into the distance, where a ridgeline threw the red light back into his eyes, higher and darker ridges visible beyond it.
Kellen turned a full three hundred and sixty degrees. The ridgelines continued, wrapping around the plain or valley where he stood on three sides. Low hills and ravines led off downhill to his right. He glanced over at the object he’d exited, a blackened gumdrop, bright metal showing where it had cracked on impact. A rectangular piece lay beside it, and pieces of dense foam erupted from the opening he’d pulled himself through.
Something lit the sky for an instant before plunging landward beyond the nearest hills. As the distant thump hit his ears and the ground trembled beneath his feet, he looked again at the metal gumdrop. Events connected in his mind, and he set off across the rocks toward where he’d seen the other capsule fall.
He’d never expected himself to go off-planet, let alone make planetfall in a one-person capsule. Yet it had happened. And now others were falling from the sky. He hoped he was right and raced ahead, using both hands to steady himself as he crossed the jumbled rocks, cuts, and cliffs.
Had he gone in the wrong direction? His doubts vanished when he spied the capsule down below. It glowed cherry-red, then faded to black. He scrambled down the slope to the capsule and reached out to touch it, but the residual heat burned even an arm’s length away. He sat on a boulder to wait as the metal clicked, cooling.
After testing it a number of times, the capsule had finally cooled enough for him to grasp the hatch. There was no handle, so he wedged his fingers along the hatch’s edge and pulled. Without warning, it sprang open, and he fell over backwards.
“Abby?” he shouted. “Iz?”
When no one answered, he pulled chunks of the foam away. He uncovered someone’s arm. Whoever it was pushed against the foam, and Kellen eagerly pulled out more. Izmit looked out, his face contorted, neck straining. He struggled to escape, his eyes popping, wild with fear.
“It’s all right,” Kellen said, “you’re safe now.”
A few more seconds and he managed to pull him out.
Izmit stumbled and almost fell. “What happened?”
Kellen related his observations since exiting his capsule. When he’d finished, they both looked up at the sky. It wasn’t long before they were rewarded with another capsule falling from the sky. They found it and extricated Abby. She looked around, then sat on the rocky ground, frowning.
Kellen had to admit these latest events weren’t very hopeful.
A fourth capsule streaked overhead.
“Who?” Kellen said.
“Chronicler,” Izmit said. “Must be. He got himself exiled along with us. Let’s go give him a hand.”
Abby seemed reluctant but followed. It took them longer to find the capsule this time. The hatch had already opened, and Chronicler was trying to pull itself out. They grabbed ahold of it and pulled.
“Ah, I’ve retained function,” it said, standing outside the capsule on its four wheels. It turned about, taking in their surroundings. “The temperature isn’t problematic, but energy will be scarce. Also, don’t forget the atmosphere. It’s mildly corrosive, but we should be able to—”
Chronicler slumped in on itself, its limbs dangling, the light of its eyes gone.
“Is it dead?” Kellen asked.
Izmit seemed at a loss.
Abby stepped closer and touched the chine’s some. Nothing. She pushed its manipulators, and its limbs swung back and forth.
“It’s either dead or dormant,” she said.
Chronicler resembled a discarded puppet. Had it hurt when it died? Kellen didn’t think so. It had happened so fast. One moment conscious, the next gone. Had Sayuri died the same way?
“I can’t believe it’s dead,” Izmit said. “The only chine to help us and it dies.”
Kellen had no response. It was just one more aspect of a deepening nightmare.
“Now what?” Abby asked.
“Now we explore,” Izmit said. “If we’re going to live here, we need to find resources. Food and water and shelter to begin with.”
“No.” Kellen had had enough of scrambling to react to one strange experience after another. He wanted answers at long last. Even if the sun exploded overhead, he wanted answers. “Now you tell us why.”
“Why what?”
“Why you betrayed us.”
Izmit looked at the ground. The bloody sun fell toward the horizon, casting ominous shadows.
“Kel,” he said, “I’m sorry.”
Kellen clenched his hands into fists over and over. He was done pretending he’d forgotten. “I thought we were friends. I trusted you. I didn’t want to. I knew it wasn’t safe, but you convinced me we were special. That you were my friend. But you lied to us the whole time.”
“We are friends,” Izmit said.
Kellen’s eyes teared up like they did whenever emotions roiled up out of control. A weakness he’d always been ashamed of. He rubbed th
em, fury chasing hurt around in circles deep in his stomach.
“Wrong, Iz,” he said. “Friends don’t tell lies. Friends don’t betray the people who trust them. And they don’t do it for fucking Hexi.”
Abby sat head down, arms wrapped about herself, as if she could hide and all the sad things would go away.
“I never knew about the Hexi,” Izmit said. “I’m as angry as you are.”
“Is that right?” Kellen’s voice dripped with skepticism.
“Yes, it is. I had to work with those people. We Four, we’re imperfect. Teams of Four have come together before us, but they couldn’t do the job on their own. Those people helped me when I’d all but given up. They got us back on track, helped us find the right symbols. And look what happened—we made it. I’m sorry about the Hexi being involved, but we made it. We found the chines.”
For a moment, Kellen wanted to believe him, wanted the explanation to be true. There was something interfering, though. Something that cut through everything else, undeniable. “What about Sayuri?”
“I never meant for her to die.”
“You gave her drugs. You made her go down there.”
“I’m sorry. Really sorry. Please believe me.”
Kellen waited for pity to come to him, but none arrived. Izmit should hurt like Sayuri had been hurt. “That’s not good enough for me. Is that good enough for you, Abby?”
She shook her head. “I never wanted to come here.”
“We’re leaving, Iz,” Kellen said. “Don’t follow us.”
#
It felt as if he and Abby had been walking forever. The volcanic landscape had hardened as it flowed into waves of dark and porous rock. Kellen imagined glowing torrents of lava pouring over the land, cooling until frozen, full of sharp edges and gaping holes. Tunnels and crevices opened onto dark spaces and precipitous drops. Mounds of tumbled boulders lay where vents had risen up on their own castings. He glanced back from time to time to make sure Abby was okay. The larger holes threatened to swallow them at the least misstep.
As he looked back for Abby once more, his eye traced a ridgeline behind them that sloped up smoothly to its crest, where a queer shape protruded into the sky like a deformed snowman—just the silhouette of a misshapen rock formation caught by the setting sun. Kellen sank down onto the ground. He felt fatigued for the first time since leaving Earth. He must have been on an adrenaline high, and now his body was paying the price.
Something drew his gaze back up to the ridgeline. Two silhouettes were clearly visible. The single rock formation had become two.
“Abby,” he whispered and pointed as she caught up.
She turned to look, and a third silhouette appeared, then a fourth, larger than the others. Then even more. Each newcomer took its place and became still, only betrayed by the sun sinking behind the ridge. Darkness settled over the land. The shapes seemed to be waiting. As the sun dipped out of sight, its last rays dazzling Kellen’s eyes, the line of shapes came down off the ridge as one, into the dark he and Abby shared in the unknown valley.
“Let’s go, Kellen,” she said. “I don’t like them, whatever they are.”
“What about Iz?” he asked.
“It’s too late to go back.”
He nodded.
They’d been working their way forward through a particularly treacherous boulder field when the first bleeps and chirps reached their ears. The ding of metal on stone followed. The sounds echoed eerily among the rocks.
They crept along, afraid of who or what might find them. The way grew more difficult as they descended, leaping across small crevices, avoiding larger ones. Kellen kept his eyes on the black voids in the rock face where tunnels had formed in the lava. They made him nervous.
Tick, tick.
“Did you hear that?” Abby asked.
“Yeah.”
Tick.
“Look,” she said pointing to a tiny red light blinking on and off within a nearby tunnel.
An electronic shriek sounded back the way they’d come, then a tone so deep and intense the ground seemed to shake. If Kellen had had any question before, he doubted no longer. They were being followed.
Chapter 16 – Five
Sheemi heard screaming. She opened her eyes and puked in her suit for the second time. She sat unmoving, trying to inventory her various aches and pains. Every joint hurt. Her stomach convulsed with dry heaves. Thinking was difficult.
The screams diminished, but someone still cried out from time to time. Someone needs help. Getting up was harder than expected. Every movement brought pain. She managed to get upright. Her suit had cleaned itself enough so she could read her displays again. The bus had air, so that was alright. They hadn’t decomp’d.
No one else was moving. A shock went through her. They’re worse off than I am. She swallowed, then leaned over to check the person beside her. Neecie. And Fu next to her.
“Neecie, can you hear me?” Sheemi bent down until their helmet visors touched. Was she dead? Sheemi’s training kicked in. Check for breathing. She unlocked her own helmet and dropped it, then did the same for Neecie. She put a finger under her nose and the barest puff brushed across her skin. Sheemi laughed, almost cried.
“Neecie…Neecie,” she said. “Wake up.”
Neecie’s eyes fluttered. “What happened?” Neecie whispered. “I hurt so much.”
“Sit tight. I’ll be back,” Sheemi said, squeezing past her to Fu.
His big body made it difficult for her to reach his helmet. She managed to unlock it and heard him moaning.
“Fu,” she said, and he looked up. He seemed okay.
“This is Captain Ciib. Something went wrong with our last IFD. If you can move, help your teammates. Major Veillon, we need you in Command now.”
Sheemi looked around. People were moving, getting up and checking others. She crossed the aisle, peered inside a helmet, and saw Ash’s face. He was still unconscious. As she unlocked his helmet and drew it off, his head lolled forward.
“Ash.” She couldn’t tell if he was breathing or not. “Ash, Ash!” She felt for a pulse in his neck. She hauled him off the couch and onto the floor. She had to get him out of the suit, resuscitate him. When the suit wouldn’t unseal itself, she disassembled it manually. She compressed his chest and gave breaths, as she’d been trained, but no answering breaths arrived. She felt a hand on her shoulder.
“Sheems,” Fu said.
“I know.” She wiped her eyes. “I know.”
#
Captain Ciib’s first order as commander was to suspend duties for two days so everyone could recover from the corrupted IFD. Two days to heal inside and out. It wasn’t enough. All the survivors had joint pain, and some could barely walk. Sargsyan had gone blind, and she felt sick about Gavin. They were lucky compared to the dead.
Veillon did another checkup. Somehow, her baby was fine. Relief surged through her. How could she care so much for someone she’d never met?
When the two days were up, they held a funeral, everyone crammed into Command on either side of the lock as they committed the dead to space.
“We’ve lost good people,” Ciib said. “Colonel Minako Go, Master Sergeant Asher Quid, Mister Donald Euell, Captain Hagen MacAteer, and Doctor Ceryl Abbot. They gave the highest service possible. May they rest in peace.”
Five, Sheemi thought, five people gone forever, including one good friend. Did some part of them cling to the ship, their only home in the vast dark between the stars, so many countless light years from Earth? Memories of the dead heaped one on another, a mountain of the dead, a monument to her hate for the Hexi. She’d seen too many die back on Earth, now more in space. Too many to count. She’d managed to forget her hate for the past few weeks, but now it burst into flame stronger than ever. Only now, the desire to kill was held in check by something new. She couldn’t just deal death and recklessly gamble her life to do it. Things had changed. She’d changed. She had a higher duty.
With five lost—
six actually, she corrected herself, counting Enzo, only twenty-one left. One tech, four scientists, sixteen soldiers. She hoped they’d be enough. We have to be.
“We will honor them,” Ciib said, “by completing this mission. By bringing back the help we came for. One way or another, we will do it. Don’t forget—we found the chines. They’re on Dauntless right now.”
“And what good are they going to be, sir?” Tilner asked. “They got slaughtered back there.”
Murmurs of assent erupted in the room.
“Why don’t you ask them yourself?” Gavin moved up beside Ciib in the makeshift wheelchair they’d made for him. He pointed to one end of the Command mod. The chine stepped through the hatch.
“I’d like to introduce Contemplator, domain representative, 263rd citizen of the fifth planet’s moon, a partial consciousness of its parent self,” Gavin said. “It was brought here by another chine, Translocator, 6,126th citizen of the fifth planet’s moon, which we mistook for a simple ship. They’ve lost their own in that attack, certainly many more than our own dead here on Dauntless. I suggest we listen to what they have to say.”
“Yes, we were slaughtered, as you say,” Contemplator said.
Sheemi couldn’t tell how it was speaking, but its voice rang out clear and crisp.
“I had Translocator bring me out to meet you. We were curious and unafraid. We were a peaceful people, never having devoted ourselves to the infliction of violence on others—we thought we’d left that behind. It is clear now we were mistaken.”
The chine punctuated its admission by punching the floor with one of its legs. The talon-like point scratched the metal deck. She got the distinct impression it felt anger over what had happened. Even if the Hexi had managed to destroy Contemplator’s fellow chines, it still seemed a formidable creature. She made a note not to offend it.
“I thank you for allowing us to escape,” it said. “We share your loss. I assume my people are now destroyed or in bondage. Our home is no more, just as you fear for your own home, Earth, the birthplace we share.”
“Over the last two days, I’ve been speaking with our guests,” Gavin said. “Their colony was part of the chine exodus from Earth over a thousand years ago, but it was not the endpoint of that exodus. While their group made the decision to settle at BLG-400L, the great migration continued on toward the galactic core. Our guests have described a vast city spanning many stars, a gathering of chines far beyond anything ever seen on Earth, where they have molded space and gathered unprecedented knowledge and power. They call it the Array.”
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