The Farthest City

by Daniel P Swenson

  It felt strange and more than a little sad to be discussing Chronicler’s death, even if it was only an incomplete one. Another thought occurred to him. “Did you find Abby?”

  “She managed to catch a hold far above, then worked her way back down, looking for us. When she found me in my damaged state, she helped transfer my consciousness to Kinetic’s some, but then went back to investigate a structure she’d seen. She thought it might be the trigger.”

  Where is she now? Kellen knew he should go look for her. He tried to sit up but couldn’t muster enough energy.

  “What do you think happened?” he whispered. “When I triggered the orbital? Everything’s dark now.”

  “I don’t know. We must wait.”

  The dark seemed to deepen and stretch out before his eyes to infinity.

  “Chronicler?” He tapped the chine. Its sensors had gone dark. Chronicler was gone.

  Kellen felt very alone. Time passed and still nothing happened. He began to suspect nothing would. He felt the need to sleep. Perhaps his charge was running out at last. Small necrophages plucked at his limbs, trying to take him apart. He knew he should shrug them off, but he felt too tired and lost to even respond to the horror of it.

  Thinking back on all he’d experienced since leaving home—would any of it be enough to change his mother’s mind? It wouldn’t, he concluded. He was a freak. Nothing had changed. Had his life been worth anything at all? He couldn’t say it had. All was lost. Neither human nor chine, he lay damaged and lost in the dark.

  #

  “Kellen,” Pearl said, urging him to get up. “Kellen?”

  Cesar was in trouble. No, that wasn’t right. Pearl had left them both behind. Only then had Cesar cracked and gone to dig his way out, as he always had, only he would never come back that time, the last time, after Pearl had gone.

  Pearl is gone. Sayuri gone.

  Someone shone a light on him. “Kellen.”

  He roused himself from an inky blackness more inside himself than without. Abby looked into his face.

  “You came back,” he said, despair sloughing off like a scab.

  She pointed her light at an opening across the hub. “We have to go.”

  “Chronicler’s dead. And Kinetic.”

  “I know.”

  “I failed, Abby. Nothing happened. This was all for nothing.”

  He recognized a spark of something deep in her eyes. Tenacity? Hope?

  “Something happened, all right. Whatever you did, it knocked out the entire orbital and every chine on it. Everything rebooted. When I woke up, necrophages were drifting all over. Even the melters. And then they woke just like I did. I saw two patrolling on my way here, but they left. I think they’re gone for good.”

  “Gone where?”

  “I don’t know, but we’ve got to get back to Ship as fast as we can.”

  “Ship? The transport?”

  “No, the Precautionists were all over that. I mean a different ship—Ship. I felt its beacon after you triggered the orbital. It told me where to find you. It knows us. It was built for us. By First.”

  “For us?”

  “Yes.” Abby took his hands and pulled him after her, up through an opening to the towers.

  She pushed off the outer hub and they drifted up between the towers. It seemed to take forever, but it was such a graceful motion he didn’t mind at all. No melters appeared to attack them, not even any scouts or necrophages. With only a few contacts to adjust their trajectory, Abby sent them out of the orbital condenser, following a power conduit to where it branched toward several of the triangular receivers.

  In that vast field of shining white isosceles, a gap in the pattern stood out like a missing tooth. Abby tapped him on the shoulder. Kellen looked up as the stray triangle loomed overhead, big as the sky, slowly turning on an invisible axis. A cable snaked out to them with hand-holds and harness. Kellen fumbled with the gear. His hands wouldn’t obey. His energy gone, something else began to bother him. A growing morbidity lurked inside as if he were sick or dying or cursed. Abby buckled him in, and the cable reeled him up into a place without shadows. For that, at least, he was grateful.

  #

  Kellen emerged from a sweet sleep, feeling strong and full of energy. Some of his malaise had fled. He glanced down and around at the inside of a mechanical cocoon. The unexpected restraint triggered a surge of claustrophobia, but before he could call out, the cocoon unfolded. He sat up and swung his legs down. The machine shop was quiet and dimly lit.

  Abby walked in and patted his arm. “Ship repaired you. It said you’d suffered radiation damage.” A fragile smile formed on her face. “You were dying.”

  Kellen took her hand in his. “Thanks, Abby. Thanks for getting me out of there.” He looked around. “Where are we?”

  “We’re on Ship. It was hidden among the energy receivers, just another massive triangle. But really it’s a ship made for us.”

  “This ship. What has it told you?”

  “Just that First had it built and hidden for us, for humans, if we ever needed help.”

  “So this is it? This ship? This is what we came for? What we were meant to find?” He couldn’t believe it. “Why isn’t it talking to us?”

  Abby looked nonplussed. “It will if you address it. It’s a clever AI, but I don’t think it’s sentient.”

  Kellen looked at the ceiling for want of a better option. “Ship, do you have any instructions? Any guidance for us? How can you help us?”

  “I was built as a conveyance,” Ship said. “Where do you wish to go?”

  “Home,” Abby said without hesitation. “We want to go home, to Earth.”

  “First anticipated such a need. I am enabled to fulfill it.”

  “We can’t leave yet,” Kellen said. “We have nothing that can help. No weapons, no allies.”

  “Ship, do you have any weapons?” Abby asked.

  “No. I was built as a conveyance only, not for aggression.”

  “This isn’t aggression,” Kellen said. “We have to stop a slaughter.”

  “Unfortunately, I have defensive capabilities only.”

  Kellen felt a creeping helplessness hearing this information. What good was an unarmed ship in the middle of a war?

  “We could go back to the city,” Abby said, “convince the Discoverers to return with us.”

  “No, they’re barely resisting the Precautionists as it is. And we could just as easily be caught or killed. We’re on our own.”

  “Then we go home. It’s the only thing left.”

  Kellen grasped for a counter-argument but came up empty. Happy to be whole again, frustration rose like bile nonetheless.

  “Downloading packets,” Ship said. “Updating ephemeris. I will be translocational in twenty-six minutes. Secure yourselves.”

  Abby took Kellen to an amphitheater-like room Ship called the Command Center. Rows of built-in chairs faced a panoramic image-surface. They sat and the chairs enfolded about their laps and shoulders.

  “Departing,” Ship said.

  An electrical field spiked across Kellen’s some. Space slipped. He felt the not-unpleasant rush of translocation, the butterfly kiss of other realms of reality.

  Chapter 36 – Combat

  Jerrold triggered the hatch. It slid open, and something fell with a metallic clatter. The Command-side hatch was closed, as Ciib had predicted.

  “They set that to fall,” Jerrold said. “They’ll know we’re coming.”

  Ciib nestled his cheek against the K. “Can’t be helped. Open it.”

  Jerrold triggered the second hatch, but nothing happened. He tried pulling the hatch’s manual crank handle. The hatch slid open a few centimeters, then stopped. He tried again, but the hatch just rocked in its tracks.

  “You can’t stop this, Mark,” Alvares shouted from inside Command. “Omeri already activated the weapon. You’re too late.”

  Sheemi looked at Ciib, but he shook his head. The time for dialogue was
over.

  “They jammed it from the inside,” Jerrold said.

  “Try harder,” Ciib said.

  Jerrold hauled on the crank, bringing his weight to bear. Sheemi thought it might break, but the hatch slid open all at once.

  She darted into Command, crouched low, hearing Ciib firing once, twice. The sharp cracks faded to pops as her hearing went. She faced left and backed into the corner, scanning, rifle up. She took a knee, and something zipped by her ear, a bullet or a fragment. She saw someone firing at Ciib from behind some overturned desks, someone big—Durskie. From her corner position, only one desk separated her from him. She put three rounds through the desk. He fell to the floor but kept moving. He’s got his body armor. Their eyes met, and Durskie swung his K around. Her heart hammered as she sighted on his face and squeezed the trigger. His head erupted.

  “Durskie’s down!” she yelled.

  Jerrold was through, firing from behind the desks. Sheemi moved forward until she could see down the row of offices. Janik was holed up in the farthest office, trading shots with Jerrold.

  Sheemi spotted Alvares in the nearer doorway too late. His K flashed. The bullet slammed into her arm, spinning her around. Her head glanced off the wall, and she fell to the floor.

  More firing, faint pops. It was so hard to pull herself back up again. Her arm hurt, but she shrugged it off and charged Alvares’ position, firing as she went. Her rounds stitched up past his chest plate and caught him in the neck. His K rattled off rounds as his body fell back in a spray of blood and tissue fragments.

  She turned her head. Omeri edged out of the office Janik had occupied, hands held high, face ashen. Meszaros followed.

  “On the floor now!” Jerrold screamed at them. “Hands on your head!”

  Omeri stepped past Janik’s body and lowered himself onto the floor. Meszaros came forward, something cupped in his hands.

  “You must not interfere,” Meszaros said. “Our chine fathers must determine our fate.”

  “Come on through, sir,” Sheemi said eyeing the chine cultist. Crazy old man. “We’ve got the situation—”

  The blast blew her into the wall. She hurt all over. The smoke cleared as she picked herself up. Omeri and what remained of the cultist lay unmoving, sprawled across the blood-slicked floor. Jerrold’s body lay twisted, bleeding from more places than she could count. Part of his forehead was missing.

  Ciib and Trediakovsky came up beside her.

  “He had a grenade,” Trediakovsky said as the decomp alarm wailed. “I’ll look for something to patch the leaks. We’ll need Jimmy, too.” She pointed. The explosion had shattered the nav interface.

  “Sheemi,” Ciib said. “Sheemi!”

  Dazed, she pulled her gaze off Jerrold’s body and followed Ciib’s gaze. Her arm was red. Flesh hung in tatters. She could see bone through the gouge the bullet had made. It was hard to think clearly.

  Ciib pulled a med kit off the wall. “Sit down. After I patch you up, I’ll get Jimmy. He’s the only one who can fix this.”

  Sheemi remembered Ciib’s broken ribs. He’s too banged up, too slow. He can’t do it. “You need to work on the nav, sir. I should go.”

  “You’ve done enough, Sheemi.”

  Ciib pulled out a painkiller, but she stopped him. The pain in her arm deafened her with an animal’s roar, but she had to think clear. No drugs. “Just tie it off, sir. Then I’ll go get Jimmy.”

  He looked at her doubtfully.

  “Tie it off,” she repeated.

  Ciib nodded and applied a tourniquet. It clamped down high up on her arm. Sheemi gritted her teeth, but the pain had become bearable, a steady wave trying to beat her down. She could deal with that.

  Ciib hunkered down to examine the wrecked nav interface. “I’ll pull off the casing while you’re gone.”

  Sheemi ran as best she could, fighting dizziness with every step. The alarm wailed. How much time did they have left? In the bus, Xin was helping Jimmy into a suit when the decomp alarm shut off. Everyone turned to look at her, eyes wide.

  “What the hell happened?” Mertik asked.

  “No time,” she said. “I need you, Jimmy. Nav interface is damaged. Captain Ciib needs you to fix it.”

  “All right,” Jimmy said, his voice barely above a whisper. He seemed more lethargic than ever. “Can’t walk too well, though.”

  “I can carry him,” Sargsyan said.

  Sheemi thought past the throbbing pain in her arm. With Sargsyan’s blindness, it would take him too long to get Jimmy to Command. Xin wasn’t strong enough to carry someone fast, and Veillon had to stay with the wounded. That left herself. “None of you would get there in time. I have to carry him. Now.”

  “Tools,” Jimmy muttered. “I need tools.”

  “I’ll come with you,” Xin said.

  Sheemi pulled Jimmy onto her back using her good arm, and they made their way to the fab.

  “What do you need?” Xin asked.

  She grabbed the things he pointed at. Two tool bags, a welding kit, more electrical equipment.

  “Should do it,” Jimmy said.

  They moved as quickly as they could through the ring to Command. Sheemi set Jimmy down. Xin laid the tools next to him as he dug into the interface’s guts.

  “I’ve got visual,” he said. “I’ll throw it on the wall.”

  The wall vid showed a violet-clouded planet in the background. Jimmy switched the feed from one of Dauntless’ external cams to another until the ship’s belly appeared. A sphere of overlapping greaves, like a metal flower, was in the process of unfurling.

  “The weapon,” Ciib said. “It’s almost ready to deploy. We’ve got to turn it off, Jimmy. Talk to me.”

  “I can’t shut it down. It’s just the one input, and it’s not responsive. I can’t even get a voltage from it.”

  “It’s going to launch soon,” Trediakovsky said.

  “There’s nothing I can do,” Jimmy insisted. “It won’t talk to me.”

  “Cut the power, then.”

  “I can’t. Power is hardwired to the weapon. There’s no control.”

  “What about nav? Can you get me nav at least?”

  “I think I can fix it.”

  “Do it,” Ciib said. “How long to run a program, Alina?”

  The nav controls came up on the wall. Trediakovsky’s fingers flew over the makeshift interface. “Ten, maybe fifteen minutes, to find a biocompatible universe, sir.”

  “We don’t have enough time for that. What if we cut the life model? Pick the first match that comes up?”

  “No one would survive.”

  Sheemi remembered their corrupted IFD. This sounded much worse.

  “Program it,” Ciib said. “Into the Jupiter-class, center of mass.”

  “That’s suicide,” Jimmy said. “Why not send the weapon out-system?”

  “We don’t know its range,” Ciib said. “I have to destroy it.”

  “Sir?” Trediakovsky asked.

  “Do it, Alina,” Ciib said.

  Trediakovsky nodded and ran the program. “Done. Six minutes.”

  “Everyone get to the bus, now. I can handle it from here.”

  “No, sir,” Trediakovsky said. “You need me to validate the program.” Her voice shook, but she looked at Ciib as if challenging him to say anything different. His eyes hardened, then his face relaxed and he smiled.

  “Sheemi, get Xin and Jimmy back to the bus. Have everyone strapped in and shut the hatches. I’m going to eject the bus as soon as you’re in.”

  Sheemi hesitated. She’d thought they’d won. They would all survive.

  “Go!” he shouted. “Now!”

  She picked up Jimmy.

  “Good luck,” Ciib said. “Stay safe, stay alive.”

  Sheemi’s lungs heaved as she hauled Jimmy back to the bus. The pain in her arm throbbed without mercy. She stumbled through the hatch and dropped him onto a couch. She fell onto the floor, but someone got her up and strapped in as Xin and Veil
lon shut the hatch. She heard Ciib talking over the comm.

  “Ready to see the inside of a planet, Alina?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Let’s go, then.”

  The bus jerked, and Sheemi’s head snapped back. The world went weird, then unweird. Dauntless had gone.

  Chapter 37 – Destroyer

  Space normalized. They’d arrived.

  “I want to see,” Kellen said. “Outside.”

  He wouldn’t believe they’d come home until he saw it for himself. Ship displayed visuals from its external sensors, and there it was, the shocking, heart-rending blueness of it, horizon like a bow, the first rays of the sun just coming over.

  “I thought I’d never see it again.” Abby’s voice quavered.

  “It’s Earth.” Kellen wrapped his arms about her, lifted her up, and spun her around. “It’s Earth. It’s Earth!”

  He laughed, and so did she.

  “Two vessels detected in low Earth orbit over the northern Pacific Ocean,” Ship said. “Altitude five hundred sixty-three kilometers.”

  Sobered, Kellen put Abby down. “Show us.”

  At first, they were no more than two bright specks. New imagery posted as resolution improved. The two ships hung in orbit like fat, long-tailed tadpoles. The view blurred.

  “What’s happening?” Kellen asked.

  “Spatial distortions detected,” Ship said.

  New ships materialized in twos and threes until twenty-one newcomers formed a cloud about the original two. Three rivaled Ship in size, each a long, curved structure like a trough, as if a cylinder had been halved lengthwise, one end housing a fat, globular spheroid, its terminal surface bristling with rods. The rest were much smaller and of varying designs. Some resembled a bell that had half-swallowed a sphere. Others were more dart-like, a central sphere nestled within a belt of parallel, rectangular structures, a long beam extending out along their axis.

  “I don’t think those are human ships,” Abby said.

  “How can you tell?”

  “They don’t look like something humans built. I can’t explain why. The shapes are just wrong. They’ve got to be Hexi.”