Perhaps it had already begun and Lord was just too close to see it.
The shuttle Grissom arrived on schedule, and Dr. May entered the hatch first. While Lord stood at the viewport waiting for the hatches to open, it was odd to see the cargo sledge standing upright behind the craft, the cargo tucked beneath a mesh constructed of carbon nanotubes. The nets were first used in 2023 to collect space debris and deorbit, burning up upon reentry. Over a quarter million pieces of space junk were cleared in the two-year Project SOS—Sterilize Orbital Space—without which the Empyrean and its solar sail would have been constantly at risk.
The hatches rolled open and Dr. May entered first. As Lord boarded, floating, his old fighter pilot instincts were on high alert. There was nothing specific; just the active sixth sense of a combat veteran who, as he weightlessly took his seat with the assistance of handholds, glanced out the rear viewport, saw the mesh shimmering like a dewy spiderweb in the sun, and felt very much like a fly. . . .
THIRTEEN
TECHNICALLY, IT WAS translunar space.
The course between the Earth and its moon was so well traveled that it was no longer an exceptional run, any more than a flight from New York to Paris was considered challenging. But to a pilot, heading out beyond the Empyrean was open space, just as the airspace between New York and Paris was open sea.
As soon as the Grissom uncoupled from the Empyrean and turned into its lunar trajectory, Sam Lord felt like he was truly “aloft.”
Seated in a slightly reclined seat for the three-hour, seventeen-minute, eleven-second trip, his bag secured in a small aft compartment, Lord played a little with weightlessness. He sculpted a small floating lens from the contents of his water bag, used it to magnify the instructions for an emergency pressure suit under his seat, then tossed the cap through the bubble to see if it would pierce the surface tension or stick inside.
“The absence of gravity is charming, isn’t it?” Dr. May asked from the fold-down chair across the 9.15-meter-wide fuselage.
“It is, especially if you’re a five-year-old boy at heart.” Lord smiled disarmingly as the cap dragged the lens to the breaking point then passed through.
“Like the best experiences in life, it has something for every age, for every mind,” Dr. May said, managing one of the few smiles he’d seen on her. She gazed out the small window to Lord’s left. It faced the dark side, away from the sun. “I experienced that sense of wonder too the first time. But we’ve each got our own mental gravity. It kills the joy.”
“If you let it,” Lord said.
“How do you avoid that?”
“By focusing on what matters at any given moment,” he said. “For instance, right now, top of my mind, is: I wish I had my saddle up here, the real one. Feet in the stirrups, thighs preventing me from floating off—what a ride that would be.”
“You’d be able to filter out everything else?” she asked, somewhat incredulously. “Japan, politics, your responsibilities?”
“Of course not,” he replied. “What happened today was monstrous, overwhelming. But you said it yourself—it’s about gravity. If you don’t insulate yourself somewhat, if you fail to maintain your orbit, you expend a lot of fuel preventing a crash.”
“That’s nice, in theory,” the scientist said.
“Oh no, it’s fact,” Lord replied, waving a finger and then allowing his arm to hover. “If I had been thinking only about Japan, a woman would have died today in a depressurized elevator shaft. Everyone must stay loose, but alert. Free-floating, like this hand. We must.”
Dr. May considered that as the main engine ignited, the zeta-pinch fusion jet engine pushing them down into their seats with roughly 1g of acceleration—and spoiling a little of Lord’s in-flight entertainment as his hand drooped back down to the armrest. It also put them, formally, under Grissom control and no longer under Empyrean authority. Lord was now free to use the secure IC link to the command center to notify them that he was officially off-station and that Adsila Waters was in command.
“I’ll let the EAD know,” Janet Grainger told him. “She’s taking some downtime.”
“Glad to hear it,” Lord replied. “Make sure you stand down soon as well.”
“Getting ready to put the comm on autopilot,” she replied. There was no need to ask Lord where he was going: there had only been one departure and it was headed for the moon. “Have a safe journey, sir.”
He thanked her, signed off, and watched out the window as the Empyrean quickly shrank to the size of a snowflake and then, in a moment, was too small to see.
“Ziv Levy is neither a fool nor a one-night stand. I have relationships, if you take my meaning.”
The words stayed in Adsila’s head as if the IC were set on an endless feed. Their meaning was clear. Whether Adsila wanted it or not, Ziv believed they were now connected, somehow. What he did not understand was the means.
How.
He stood unsteadily in the small room, waiting for the sensations Ziv had impressed on him to pass. But he had been forceful and Adsila’s body was stubborn. They lingered, like the ache of a long run across the plains.
Adsila moved haltingly to the bed. He tried to walk steadily, strongly, but his legs were not yet having it. And it wasn’t the can he had inhaled. He wished it were.
The young man sat on the edge of the white blanket and found himself reaching for the one end table. In it he found a small, light tan, leather medicine bag—a bequest from his grandfather. In it was a feather, a shell from the Isle of Palms beach, and small, clear packets of cedar, sage, and sweet grass. Keepsakes from home and family, a way to cleanse the spirit.
Adsila resumed his female form.
Clean myself of what? she asked. What was this impulse to get him off her?
She had been with bad men before, with men who lusted and left. At times, she—as he—had been one of those herself. What had Ziv done, besides rip through her limits like a comet?
She saw the flashing signal that AEAD Grainger was calling her. Adsila could barely find the energy for a virtual gesture in response.
“Yes?” she said. Adsila was startled when Grainger responded with a surprised laugh.
“Wow,” Janet reacted, taken aback herself. “I only reserved one can for you. How many did you end up getting?”
Adsila reversed the image, looked at her own face. It reminded her of a totem, all stiff contours and shadows, drained of any human color.
“There was . . . a guest,” Adsila admitted. “I guess I . . . I overindulged.”
“Well, don’t push yourself,” Grainger said. “Director Lord is off-site and put you in charge. We were about to shut down human ops—with your approval.”
“Who’s on call?”
“Agent Abernathy.”
“Very well,” Adsila said. “SimAIs on, close up.”
Grainger might have said something else; she might not have. Adsila’s brain still felt electrified and Ziv’s words were still in her ears.
“EAD—are you sure you’re all right?” Grainger asked.
Adsila didn’t immediately answer. She was overcome by the sudden urge to change sexes, as if that would rid her of the remains of Ziv.
“I’m all right,” Adsila assured her.
“May I look at your biometrics?” Grainger inquired.
Access to a person’s mental and physical state through their IC was allowed only by permission of the individual or by their designated next-in-line. In Adsila’s case, her next-in-line was not a colleague but her father.
“Not necessary,” Adsila said. “I just need to sleep this off.”
“Very well. Good night.”
“Good night.”
Adsila put her right hand against the IC and swiped the drop-down clean. In her left hand she still clutched the medicine bag. The bag had been with her since her vision qu
est, the week she had spent in the wild as a rite of passage. The contents had connected her with nature, with the past and future, with the cosmos. It was her touchstone, her material soul, and its energies flowed through her heart-side hand, her intake hand.
Flowed like a creek, not a river.
There is something wrong, she told herself. Something that was a matter of body, not will. Something she might not have noticed if her male component were not suddenly struggling so hard to emerge.
She allowed it to happen. At once, a sharp pain, deep in his gut, dropped him to his knees on the floor. It felt like embers of a campfire sizzling below his navel.
Adsila replaced the bag in the end table and, with both hands, gripped the polyplastic edge to support himself as he rose.
“Dr. Carter,” he said, using his eyes to access his IC.
It took a moment for the doctor to respond. In that moment, Adsila felt the pain grow dull but more widespread.
“Yes, EAD Waters?”
“Where are you?”
“MediLab,” he replied.
That was the research lab attached to the Zero-G medbay.
“I’m on my way,” Adsila said.
“Do you need emergency assistance?” he asked.
“No,” Adsila shuffled toward the door. “But if I’m not there in five minutes—yes.”
Five minutes had been optimistic.
The trip to the smaller of the two medbays was not far: a walk along the residential radial arm to the elevator, then a short ride to the bottom of the Empyrean. But it seemed to Adsila as though he were crossing the Ozark Plateau and back again.
“Is everything all right?” Dr. Carter asked when the deadline had come and gone.
“I’m almost there,” Adsila replied.
“No you’re not,” Carter said. “You’re twenty floors away. What’s wrong?”
Adsila wasn’t sure how to answer that. “I had a sudden flourish of hedonism a little while ago,” he replied. “It took a while, but my mind and body are objecting.”
“What exactly did you do?”
“I’m not sure,” Adsila replied.
“Stay where you are,” he ordered and signed off.
Adsila gratefully turned and leaned against a potted ficus. The leaves shook off a musty smell that gave him something to think about other than his condition . . . and the fact that he had agreed to let someone help him. That was new. It was also unwelcome.
Dr. Carter, dressed in a lab coat, was there within two minutes. He moved forward quickly, taking Adsila by the forearm and elbow at the same time. The fingers on his wrist checked Adsila’s pulse.
As they entered the small room, Adsila saw a woman asleep on one of the cots; that would be Kristine Cavanaugh. Carter lay him on the other.
Almost at once there was a soft clicking from a petri dish on a table in the laboratory space. Simultaneously, Adsila felt tickling movement low in his belly and a faint sound mimicking the other echoing from under his skin. Carter turned toward the lab slowly, a look of concern on his face.
“Those bastards,” he said.
“Who?” Adsila asked. He craned his neck and followed his gaze toward the dark room. “What is it, Doctor? Sounds like you have crickets in there.”
“The bio-nanites . . . they’ve gone into a pattern-seeking mode,” Carter said. He looked back at his patient. “They’re trying to turn themselves into relay stations for a signal.”
“Coming from—?”
Carter said, “Somewhere inside you.”
It took Adsila a moment to process the information. “Inside me?” he said. “What kind of signal?”
“They are most likely coming from a separate set of nanites, reading and sending out all your EEG patterns, even when you’re not intentionally transmitting via the IC. You had intercourse?”
“Yes, but I don’t see how that’s—”
“With—?”
“Ziv Levy,” Adsila answered.
Carter shook his head slowly, bitterly. “I didn’t think Dr. Uriel’s team had gotten this far.”
“Who’s Dr. Uriel?”
“A visionary with money,” he said. “He took the ‘bio’ out of ‘bio-nanites’ and produced the smallest robots in history.”
“Which have what to do with me, exactly?”
“Of course, sorry,” he said. “The bugs with the main EEG sensors most likely got into you through Ziv Levy’s saliva—I’m betting lingual vein to internal jugular, dural venous sinuses, then up into—appropriately enough—some emissary veins.”
“Are those—?”
“Right here.” He touched the side of Adsila’s head. “Close to the action. The relay nanites rode in on bodily fluids, possibly his lower-body perspiration through your pores.”
“Possibly?” he asked. “What other way could they—?”
Dr. Carter cut him off with a look. Adsila decided not to press the matter. There was only one other possibility and it made him shiver.
“The nanites are receiving that data and sending it to an external receiver,” Carter went on.
“From the vagina—which I do not at the moment possess?”
“Higher up, now,” Carter said. “But that’s how those got in.”
Adsila stared at the dead-serious doctor. The EAD started to stand up. “I have to contact Director Lord.”
“No you don’t,” Carter replied, putting his hand on Adsila’s shoulder and pressing down lightly. “Not until we find out more about them.”
Adsila acknowledged the necessity with a nod and Carter retrieved a small hand-held device from the lab table.
“I’ll tell you this, though,” the doctor said as he thumbed the device on. “Smart as he is, Uriel didn’t count on pan-genderism. I believe the vaginally inserted nanites became trapped in your prostate.”
“You’re kidding. Do they have claws?”
“No reason to,” the doctor said. “This won’t hurt much,” he added, “but it might take a while.”
It was Chairman Sheng who gave the order to activate the Dragon’s Eye.
Hovering midway between floor and ceiling, Dr. Lung listened and watched, his eyes pointedly avoiding those of the other team members—except for Dr. Hark. Lung saw those pale eyes peripherally to his right, saw them because the scientist’s head was held back proudly, not looking down like the others. Hark was the Chinese Intelligence Service liaison who had orchestrated the Chinese end of this piracy. It had been a brilliant scheme; he was confident in his work. If there were a problem with the device, it was in the “execution” by the others. Hark had emphasized that word when he exculpated himself of any responsibility. If this failed, again, he did not intend to be held accountable.
Lung stared at the dark, shielded heart of the device as he engaged the programs, turning them on in sequence and then using his personal code to make sure they synchronized. His fingerprints would literally be on this test if it failed.
Lung received the audible “lock” signal. The process was done. There was a hum in his ears, a vibration in his flesh, and then the device was active again—
Dr. Lung’s weightless body suddenly felt as if it were undergoing a 10g push in the opposite direction. As he flew from his post, he listened dazedly to the chatter on his IC. It was coming from a debris-tracking office in Xichang. Static caused by Earth’s restless atmosphere made the signal rasp and break up, but portions stuck to his preoccupied brain:
. . . a conjunction alert, medium concern . . .
. . . we recommend a debris-avoidance maneuver, point six meters per second . . .
The voices receded into crackling noise again, then returned. When they did, the characteristic air of professional calm had eroded significantly:
. . . seeing even more returns now . . .
Then, wi
th unmistakable alarm:
Has Jade Star already moved off its orb—?
With that, the voices dissolved completely and the static ebbed as well. Lung did not yet know it, but his body—having been thrust through the inner and outer wall of the space station—had drifted out of range of the last working IC field generator aboard the Jade Star.
He saw the Chinese satellites Crane and Mantis, and the city lights answering them from Earth far below. And he thought, What a stupid thing, to operate the device here, in one of the station’s sapphire observation modules, in full view of Earth and Jade Star’s fellow satellites. Their failure would be known throughout Beijing in an instant.
He wondered where Dr. Hark was, the physicist with the pale eyes and prodigious arrogance.
Thinking of Dr. Hark, the memory of the moment of activation came back to him: the magnet coils buckling under their own Lorentz force, the cryostats erupting, and that hard gamma light of neutrino annihilation finding not the surface of distant Earth, but the bulkhead of the Jade Star itself. Then the huge magnet horns had whirled toward the void between station and moon, and the shockwave made the station whip like a dragon’s tail, shivering half a dozen modules into plumes of aerogel.
Lung realized suddenly—he knew that because he saw it.
For a flashing instant he understood that he was outside the space station, that the science module had been torn open. He was looking back through boiling tears, through the impossible cold of a vacuum. A vacuum that they had subtly altered: the blast that ripped a hole through the module had unleashed the same destructive force that had briefly been sent toward Earth just hours before.
There was at least one mercy: this time, thanks to Lung, the accident would follow an echoing angularity along the opposite end of the base of an isosceles triangle. As a safeguard, Lung had turned the Dragon’s Eye away from Earth and in the direction of the moon. According to his calculations, Earth and the American station Empyrean would be spared. Beyond that, though—
I did what I could to save countless lives yet I will still be dishonored.
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