by Hugh Howey
Before he could, he saw something strange in the snow. One of his gloves was inside a boot print. Cole lifted his hand and looked down at the impression, feeling even more turned around. He looked over his shoulder, back at the bare metal of the Firehawk’s belly, and saw his tracks through the snow—the parallel furrows created by his knees as straight as the wire trailing through them.
How did I make that impression? Cole thought.
When he looked forward again, the mystery resolved itself: out of a thick flurry of snow, he saw a boot a few meters away. Looking up, he saw there was a furry leg inside that boot—and a twin next to it. Together, they supported a humanoid wrapped in scraps of fur to the top of its head. Black goggles poked out of the mottled strips; the figure seemed to be staring down at him.
Cole reached one arm to the man. “Mortimor?” he shouted inside his helmet. He couldn’t believe it. He felt giddy with the thought of not just finding living beings out there, but possibly the very person he thought he’d heard during the crash, the last person he thought he’d ever meet in person.
The figure nodded his head as if he’d heard Cole.
But the gesture must’ve been a signal to whoever had crept behind him, because that’s where the blow to his neck came from.
Cole collapsed, his helmet striking the metal hull through a few inches of snow. The impact popped his visor open, letting in the searing light and the biting cold. Cole squeezed his eyes shut and tried to bring his hands up to close his helmet, but someone knelt on his back, bending his arms high in a direction they didn’t normally go. Cole felt the emergency kit being ripped off him.
Whoever it was barked out orders to someone else. He spoke English, but with a strange accent: “Check for more crew. Grab everything you can, fusion fuel first.”
“Why we still raiding?” someone else yelled. “Ain’t we getting outta here soon?”
“And leave this lovely weather? Hell, no. Now get moving. You’ll be buried in an hour.”
Several pairs of boots stomped away; Cole could feel the vibrations coming up through the fuselage and into his helmet. He yelled out to warn Riggs, but the person on his back twisted his arm up until his shouts turned into gasps. As Cole fell silent, fighting to breathe past the pain, he heard more sounds: the crunch of snow as someone approached from the other direction, stomping up the drift. Cole tried to peer ahead, to see who it was, but his visor was open too wide to hazard even a glance.
“Take this one to the sled. I’ll help Saul.”
The person on Cole’s back released him. Before he could move to close his visor, a new set of powerful hands—more than one pair—seized his arms. Cole was dragged forward; he dug his toes into the snow in protest. He tried to snap his visor shut by whipping his neck, but it had already frozen in place.
The men on either side had no problem handling his weight as they crunched down the bank of snow. They marched for what seemed a hundred meters or so. Cole heard more voices ahead; he kept his head down and his eyes tight, conserving his energy.
When they stopped walking, one of his escorts let go of his left arm. Cole didn’t hesitate; he spun in that direction, back around the guy holding his right arm and lashed out with one knee. It connected with something soft, causing his other arm to come free. He reached up and slammed his visor shut so he could see what he was fighting.
The blow to his stomach came just as he was blinking the world into focus. He doubled over. Something slammed into his right knee, buckling him. Cole fell to the snow as several people crashed down on his back, beating him unconscious.
5
Anlyn screamed. She ran out of the command center and down the hallway, the glass tube providing an anguishing and perfect view of the fiery destruction beyond.
The corridor beneath her feet trembled as Edison raced to her side, reaching for her as she collapsed to her knees.
“Nooo,” she whimpered. She covered her face with her hands so she wouldn’t have to see, but the flashing lights and warning alarms from the command room echoed off the glass around her, sliding through the cracks in her fingers and hammering home the reality of the loss—of the so many lives destroyed.
“It came from the Rift,” someone in the command center yelled.
Anlyn could hear Bishar screaming orders, demanding updates, and scrambling a regiment. She felt like the great paradox of burning ice—the frozen heart of the depressed wrapped in a flame of vengeance.
That didn’t come from the rift, she told herself. She knew. Bodi, her ex-fiancée, was responsible. It was an act of sabotage, designed to spare only her. It stunk of him. Immediate. Remorseless. Savage. The cowardice of asking lackeys to sacrifice their lives.
Anlyn looked at her palms. Below—past the grav panels and through the transparent visisteel—she could see ships darting out from their stations. She watched them as they roared toward the expanding cloud of debris.
Edison wrapped his arms around her as she fought valiantly to not break down. She felt like a Wadi canyon with its base eroded by the wind. Her shoulders shivered as if they threatened to topple off her body. Outside, all her hopes were scattering in a billion pieces. So many noble, valiant believers had been reduced to dust. Thinking of them—of the many faces, smiling and bowing in the corridors—it made the ridiculousness of her mission hit home. It made her feel lonely and young. A little princess, spoiled and spouting prophecy, journeying to the Great Rift because of some old words handed down through time.
The shame she felt—the guilt—they shattered floodgates already weakened by despondency. Anlyn sobbed into Edison’s fur. She heard his lance drop, felt him scoop her up into his lap.
Over his arm and through the tears, she watched a pointless fleet of emergency response ships circle the new nebula, looking for clues. The only good they did was to whip what remained into whorls and eddies of nothingness.
••••
“We caught something on vid,” Bishar said softly.
Anlyn tore her eyes away from the debris field. She had no idea how long she’d been staring, transfixed, into the blossoming cloud. She wiped her face and looked up at Bishar, then pushed herself from Edison’s lap. She took a few steps away from them both, trying to look less like the child she suddenly felt.
“It looks like a solid beam of light,” Bishar said. “It’s only there for a single frame, right before the explosion. We’ve never seen anything like it from the Rift. It’s—there’s nothing we could’ve—”
“It wasn’t your fault,” Anlyn told her cousin. “And it wasn’t the Rift’s. I know who did this, and I know why.”
“Cousin, I know you’re upset. We all are. Several among your volunteers had family here at the Keep. There will be a great cooling for all—”
Anlyn turned to face Bishar, her face as stern and serious as she could muster. “There will be a great burning, Bishar Nooo, that’s what there’ll be. And I do not doubt the Rift’s involvement out of some superstitious fancy—I know the work of my former suitor. Check your vid again, and tell me which direction that beam of light was going.”
“But Cousin, I already told you it was on a single frame. How do you suppose we determine the direction if we can’t see it moving?”
“I don’t expect we will. You have your bias and I have mine. They just point in opposite directions.”
Bishar rose to his feet and looked through the visisteel. “If what you say is correct, I’ll file the charges myself. There’ll be an investigation. The Circle will look into this—I’ll demand it.”
“The Circle is aflame,” Anlyn said, “and Bodi’s the torch. My mission here was our only chance at snuffing it.” She looked down the passage-way toward the control center. “I’ll not be surprised if the flash of light you saw was a message to the Bern, or that the reduced break attempts are no coincidence ahead of my coming—”
“Preposterous! I’ll hear your theories of jilted lovers and such barbarisms as this,” Bishar waved a hand a
t the scene beyond the glass, “but not of treason against the Empire. Not from the Circle, nor from any Drenard for that matter.”
“I wouldn’t put it past him,” she muttered.
Edison picked up his lance from the floor and rose, taking his place by Anlyn’s side.
“I detest supposition,” he said, looking out at the ships encircling the cloud. “All theories are testable, or they are not truly theories.”
“I don’t follow,” Bishar said. “Is he speaking English?”
Anlyn turned to Edison. “I think he’s saying we should go and see for ourselves. Is that right?”
Edison nodded.
Anlyn rested her head against his side and reveled in his warmth. She looked out at the swirling loss, at the stars of her galaxy beyond. Reflected in the glass, she could see the confusion on Bishar’s face.
“He means,” she told her cousin, “we need to enter the rift to know.”
Bishar gaped at Anlyn. “I hated the idea of you hanging out here with a full complement of peacekeepers while you waited on some insane prophecy to come true. What makes you think I’ll go along with this plan?”
Anlyn looked over at him; she noted the way his hands clenched the sash across his tunics.
“Because,” she said, “I asked the former as is my right and duty as a member of the Circle, a right you were prepared to deny. I ask you now as my cousin—”
“A cousin I hardly know!” Bishar shook his head. “I’m sorry, but what you need now is some rest while my men investigate. You can burn away your woe in peace and think with a cooler head come morrow.”
“Come morrow, I will be on the other side of that rift or I’ll be dead by your hands,” Anlyn said. “For that’s what you’ll have to do to stop me.”
Bishar laughed, but eyed Edison warily. “Nonsense, Cousin. To stop you, I’ll just have to stop you. Come, my men are on the alert, and my best experts will go over the evidence. We’ll travel to Keep Central and get you more cloaks and a warm meal. While you rest, I’ll prepare my report for the Circle and request transport for your safe return to Drenard. It does no respect to the dead for you to add to their number.”
Anlyn reached over and took hold of Edison’s lance; he relinquished it willingly. Bishar made a sudden move forward, but Anlyn backed away, and Edison shoved her cousin so hard he nearly fell.
“Not a move!” she told him as he staggered backward.
In the command center, several heads watched the scene intently, hands reaching for warning devices—and worse.
“In case legend of this lance has not yet arrived to this corner of the galaxy,” Anlyn yelled beyond Bishar, “I will tell you that what you saw beyond this glass is easily reproducible right here! I’ll take an entire corner of the Keep with me, by the twins of Hori.”
“Anlyn.” Bishar held out his hands, pleading. “I understand your rage, but you must cool yourself.”
“I am cool, Cousin. Cool as ice. And I take it from the quiver in your voice that you know of this lance.”
It was a bluff, the lance a mere pyrotechnic toy, but in Anlyn’s experience, rumors rarely dwindled in their retelling.
“I’ve heard stories,” he said, a false smile creeping across his face.
“You’ve heard whispers from shadows carried on a Drenard wind compared to what this device is capable of. What I am capable of. Here’s what you’ll do. Before you write your security report, you’ll craft a letter to every family from that ship expressing my—expressing our deepest grief. Then you’ll swear by Hori it was sabotage and open an investigation. But first, call your best pilot and have him bring the swiftest Bern ship you have in impound and lock it to the end of this corridor. Make sure there’s plenty of fuel and supplies. One pilot. He’ll be free to go.”
“And what will you do with this ship?” Bishar asked. He kept an eye on Edison, who had backed to Anlyn’s side. “Do you think I’ll unblock the rift for you?”
“Yes, I think you will. Feel free to tell the Circle we were on my ship when it blew, if such will protect your job. And if you think your soul is better served by blasting us out of the cosmos and living with your family’s blood on your hands—that is your decision to make. The other option is to allow us to depart and face our deaths in our own manner. Choose this, and no harm will come to your people.”
Bishar continued to show Anlyn his palms. He glanced at the lance.
“Very well,” he said. “My men will escort you to your end. We had an interior barrier patch upcoming, anyway. I’ll move it up the schedule. I’ll even use the attack on your ship as an excuse for having done so. But know this: any sign of a breach, and your ship will not prevent us from firing. Also, I will not chance discriminating between Bern craft if things get ugly.”
Bishar looked at her sternly. “One more thing,” he said. “Your mission will not pass back through here, no matter what happens. You’ll not be allowed through. Ever. Understand that I am doing this not for you, but to get you out of my tunics so I may perform my duties. You leave this galaxy never to return, because even if you did, you would not find your Empire welcoming you home as they did the last time. I’ll make sure of that, Cousin.”
6
The starship Parsona roared a dozen meters above the prairies of Lok, low enough to scatter wild game and part the tall grasses. It was nearly dawn, and the stars over the eastern horizon had disappeared as the black gradually melted into blue. With her lights off and altitude low—clinging to the cover of a slipping night—the old ship flew with a mind of not being seen. More importantly, she flew herself for just the second time.
“Feel any better?” Molly asked. She looked up from her reader to the instruments arrayed across the dash.
“It’s not quite as sluggish as before,” Parsona said through the radio speakers. “Firing the thrusters myself feels better than updating waypoints and letting the autopilot do the rest. Of course, I wouldn’t trust me in a dogfight or in a tight canyon.”
Molly laughed. “Neither would I. You know, we have a few relays left—I’m pretty sure I could interface you with the hyperdrive. It’s the same basic hook-up we did with the laser cannons, and the nav computer has a ton of electrical triggers left—”
“I’m not sure about that,” Parsona said.
“Why? It’s no different than firing the lasers or operating the thruster solenoids.”
“I know,” Parsona said. “It’s not that. It’s just that—I’m not sure I want to be in control of the hyperdrive. I don’t know that I’d trust myself.”
Molly nodded. “Okay. I understand.”
And she did. Ever since she found out her father and boyfriend were probably stuck in hyperspace, the temptation to just jump to the center of Lok had become unbearable. She felt a shiver of panic every time she considered it, followed by a pang of cowardice each time she did nothing.
“Another contact on SADAR,” her mom said, interrupting her thoughts.
“I see it,” Molly said. “Looks like one of the big models.” She watched the blip intently, having become something of an expert on recognizing the signatures of the Bern ships. The flashing indicator moved away from the rift situated over her home village and slowly worked its way toward a low-altitude orbit. Leaning forward, Molly peered up through the carboglass at the glimmer of orbiting hulls overhead. The fleet moved smoothly, like an animated constellation against the backdrop of fading stars. One of the vessels, a potato-shaped monster the size of a decent moonlet, was usually visible even during the daytime. All the ships did was shuffle around in various formations, almost as if drilling for upcoming maneuvers.
“What are they waiting on?” she asked her mom. “Why don’t they attack us or just move on to someplace else?”
“I don’t know. Maybe they’re just being methodical. Or perhaps they’re waiting on something. I know as little of the Bern as you do.”
Molly looked down at her lap; her Wadi was stretched out along her thigh, its gleami
ng scales catching the first rays of dawn. She stroked the animal’s back, right between the two nubs rising from its shoulder blades, and fretted over her mounting concerns.
“Between the Bern up there and news of the Drenard invasion, even if we do get to hyperspace, will there be any reason to come back? I mean, will there be anything left to come back to?”
“We need to plan as if there will be,” her mother said.
“And you’re sure this Cat person can help?”
“She knows the people who can. She’ll remember me.”
“You, the ship? Or the old you?”
Molly still had a difficult time separating the experiences of her mothers—the personality copied to the ship’s computer and the husk of a woman she’d met, virtually, on Dakura. Somehow, the former had become more real to her than the latter. And that was true even before she found out Walter and Cole had pulled the plug on her mom’s physical body.
“She knows of the old me, not as I am now.”
“And she was part of the group you and dad were sent to investigate? The source of the illegal fusion fuel?”
“She did some work for them, yes. It took your father and myself a long time and a spot of luck to get an introduction. Unless we go through her, it’ll take just as long if not longer to make contact again. Especially with everything else that’s going on.”
“You mean the Bern?”
“Partly. More the elections, though. Callites are tolerated seven out of eight years. Ignored, really. But come polling time, their numbers—the amount of votes they can wrangle together—it creates tension. Contacting and dealing with the Underground would be easier any other time.”