I was still laughing when I got back to the controls, ready for lift.
I got an attack of pathological fear about five minutes before take-off, but it was nothing to do with the Caradoc ships. I had to face the distortion field again. Last time, it had broken me. Could I beat it this time?
We can take the ship out, the wind assured me.
You can bloody keep out of it. She’s my ship and I’ll take her out.
You needed my help to get in.
I was too unconscious to refuse it.
And suppose you black out again? You don’t have to be ashamed of accepting help. I didn’t do anything that you couldn’t have done. You didn’t fail. I used your body, your skill, your speed. You don’t understand me at all. I’m not a threat to you. I’m not trying to take over from you. I am a new part of you. An extra faculty. A new talent.
I don’t need you.
So what? I know you don’t need me. I never said you did. Of course you don’t need me. But you’ve got me. How long is it going to take you to reconcile yourself to that fact? You—Grainger the lone wolf—are not alone any more. You never will be again. Not ever, no matter how hard you try. We have to live with one another, you and I. It isn’t a horrible curse. You aren’t possessed by devils. I’m not going to feed on your brain, rob you of your body. I am here. We are here. Can’t you accept what that means?
I don’t like it, I said, and it’s as simple as that.
And it was.
They quote Confucius as having said that if rape is inevitable, lie back and enjoy it. Well, lie back by all means, if you can’t do anything else. But you can’t and won’t enjoy it, if rape is what it is. That’s the beginning and the end of it.
Grainger, said the whisper ominously, a lifetime is a long time.
Never mind, I told him, it’ll soon pass.
Meanwhile, back in the real world....
The distortion field had drained slightly, knocking a hundred thousand miles or so off the shortest way out. But I wasn’t sure if I should take that. Caradoc’s missiles, if they really meant what they said, would surely take the shortest way in, and there was no point in taking needless chances, no matter how futile their threats might be. But which was I more afraid of: the proximity of Caradoc’s missiles or a few extra seconds in the lesion?
After feeling the field from a sitting position—something I’d been unable to do on the way in—I decided that in all probability the shortest way out wouldn’t be the easiest anyhow. I had to make maximum use of the field’s energy to supplement our own. I plotted a rough arc about four million miles long—more than twice the minimum distance. This arc had the added advantage of pointing us away from the Caradoc ships instead of at them.
To dispel the clammy fingers of fear, I made Rothgar start the countdown early. As the count went down, the workings of my brain phased in on the ticking of the clock and I lost my shakes.
We blasted our cannons and lifted, and I raised her on the air, feeling for the pressure of the warp and whispering, “Once more into the breach, dear friends.”
There was one second, two, three, and four while we climbed and accelerated out of atmosphere and into the crooked void, and then Caradoc let loose.
All four ships let go at once, and I stopped wondering whether they really meant business. It suddenly burst upon my tired brain exactly what they’d meant by “falling prey to the Drift.” I’d made a mistake. I’d been wrong. All hell was on its way.
I judged the velocity of the missiles to be thirty thou or so. The possibility of a hit was negligible, and not worth considering. What was well worth considering was what they’d do to the contortive domain. They’d rip holes in space the size of stars. Core power would vomit out of the holes and the entire system would bleed energy and timespin and the foul fiend would walk the sky, gathering souls for his unearthly kingdom...
With a savage adherence to their purpose, which company headquarters would no doubt find admirable, they fired everything they had as fast as they could, seeding the contortive domain. They didn’t even bother to aim at poor little us.
“Load the flux,” I yelled at Rothgar. “Load her every ounce she’ll take and then some. If we transfer it’ll be in no time flat, and we might never come down again. Damn the safety factors and give me everything.”
Rothgar didn’t even bother to reply. If I made transfer in this field we’d be ninety percent certain to blow up, and he knew it. Maybe more, carrying excess load in the flux. But I had to have the power. If I was caught short, we’d be one hundred percent dead.
In fours, the fours coming less than a second apart, the missiles ploughed up the domain. I could feel the patterns of the field recoiling in horror at the shock. The whole warp bubbled up like a volcano getting set. I could feel the sun stretching her muscles as she woke up, preparing to yank open the floodgates and let all the power in the Drift flow into her cloak of screwed-up space.
One missile—one, out of forty or fifty—passed within a thousand miles or so of the Swan. It cut a path right past us and zoomed on, almost parallel to the way I’d wanted to go. I spared a second to hope the thing wouldn’t explode too soon, and I went after it.
The field was completely and hopelessly smashed. The storm was already flooding out of the heart of the star. The gates of hell were already yawning wide and death was coming out to eat us up. The field was hanging in that strange half-instant when nothing was happening—when the old field had died and the new fury hadn’t quite got here yet.
That half-instant was the only time I had.
As the missile hurtled through the shattering distortion field it literally ripped a hole in space—a long, hollow bullet wound in the fabric of the warp. I didn’t know what was in that hole and I didn’t care. It might be a time schism, or an undiscovered dimension. Going into it was like jumping down a well and hoping that it would be bottomless, and that I could emerge intact from another mouth. It was a tunnel to nowhere, but it was the only way out, and I wasn’t hanging around.
I dragged the Swan from one path to the other by the scruff of her neck. If the distortion pattern had retained its integrity it would have ripped us apart. But it had already gone, and we were between the cage and the death wave. Pain convulsed my brain but not my hands, I hauled us into the tunnel, and I transferred.
The ship’s gravity cut off, the lights went out, and the hood went blank. I was blind, but we flew. Practically instantaneous transition from low subcee to thirty thou. We were out of what had been danger before I had time to hope, and everything began to work again. The moment the image came back in the hood, I reacted. I couldn’t change direction or slow us down because I didn’t have the time. I raised a wing and contorted my body. I practically shaved the skin off the missile as I overtook it.
It exploded nearly a million miles behind us.
The thin distortion which ought to have been globing the outer system was completely gone. We were running inside that empty instant—the moment of transition.
At twenty-five thou I went away and sustained the velocity for three minutes or more until—well clear of the system—I hit dirt and sanity, and had to slow down again.
We were well out of harm’s way by then.
The De Lancey and her three ladies-in-waiting were not.
They blew up.
Honi soft qui mal y pense.
“Well,” I said. “I told you so,”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
And that is the end of the story. Threads of the plot, of course, are much longer than the weave of the cloth. Life goes on.
The home run, once we were out of the core, was clean and easy. I could handle anything, by that time, without breaking into a sweat. I didn’t bother to make a landfall—just kept plugging on for fifty-some hours, on shots and intravenous feeding. Medically, it wasn’t too good for me, but no matter how long the outward-bound journey takes, the homeward bounder always grates on my nerves so that I can’t wait to be rid of it.
Once we were down on Hallsthammer, I began missing events because I needed so much sleep in order to catch up.
Rothgar collected his pay and lit out for somewhere else. He’d had a bellyful.
DelArco successfully evaded Charlot’s probing about what had gone wrong with his precious monitor. I don’t think the old man ever believed our story, but he could never pick holes in it, and it held up. But the old bastard still held the whip hand, of course. I was still the pawn in his game. There’d be other jobs. He’d have his pound of flesh whether he drained me of blood or not.
A few months later, a Khormon sought me out to tell me that there was a new nova out beyond the Halcyon rim. I calculate that the light should reach Khor in about a hundred and twenty years. By then, it will be just another star in their sky. And a transient one at that.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Brian Stableford was born in Yorkshire in 1948. He taught at the University of Reading for several years, but is now a full-time writer. He has written many science-fiction and fantasy novels, including The Empire of Fear, The Werewolves of London, Year Zero, The Curse of the Coral Bride, The Stones of Camelot, and Prelude to Eternity. Collections of his short stories include a long series of Tales of the Biotech Revolution, and such idiosyncratic items as Sheena and Other Gothic Tales and The Innsmouth Heritage and Other Sequels. He has written numerous nonfiction books, including Scientific Romance in Britain, 1890-1950; Glorious Perversity: The Decline and Fall of Literary Decadence; Science Fact and Science Fiction: An Encyclopedia; and The Devil’s Party: A Brief History of Satanic Abuse. He has contributed hundreds of biographical and critical articles to reference books, and has also translated numerous novels from the French language, including books by Paul Féval, Albert Robida, Maurice Renard, and J. H. Rosny the Elder.
Hooded Swan, Book I: Halcyon Drift Page 18