“Plus five? Interrogative plus five.”
“Affirmative, Eye Cee. That is affirmative.”
“. . . what that thing riding . . .”
“Please restrict transmissions to target net.”
“Hotshot two, this is Eye Cee. Interrogative target acquisition. Interrogative target acquisition.”
“Acquisition negative. No EDI tracks. Optical distortion scanners down. Down as reported two days previous.”
Gerswin smiled as the deceleration load lifted. The bitterness in Hotshot two’s transmission told more than the words used in the transmission.
He recalculated. From his plot, Hotshot four would not be in intercept position, except for less than a ten-second window, and two had no way to track him, provided he did not remain on a steady course.
With that self-reminder, Gerswin tapped in a series of random length zigzag course changes to position the Caroljoy erratically over the next several minutes.
Finally, he fed it into the Al.
“Suggest changes as noted on the data screen,” the AI commented.
Gerswin studied the changes and nodded, then incorporated them into the reentry codes. While he would have liked to make the final descent personally, the timing was too tight. So the AI would have to handle it, until the Caroljoy was well within the atmospheric envelope.
“Hotshot two, this is three. Data indicates target will be zero one zero relative to you at point three emkay in one minute from mark. Fire spread delta . . . MARK!”
“Damn him . . . too damned good,” muttered Gerswin as he changed course again and keyed in twenty seconds of acceleration at half max.
Wheeeeeee . . .
Before the acceleration ended, the ship staggered, and the cockpit dropped into the red gloom of the emergency lighting system.
Thud . . . thud . . .
The two jerks of an EMP shock wave slammed Gerswin against his harness.
The status board was half-red. As Gerswin focused his attention on the systems, ignoring the ringing in his ears and the throbbing in his head, some of the lights turned green. A good ten shifted to amber, and five remained in the red.
“Damage and status!”
“Secondary screen generator omega. Primary and secondary power buffer systems omega. Grav systems delta. EDI omega . . .”
Gerswin ignored the rest of the damages. The Caroljoy was sound enough to make it down, provided nothing else was thrown at him.
He shook his head slowly, afraid to move suddenly.
“Eye Cee, this is two. Fired on mark from Hotshot three. Detonation, but no instrumentation.”
“Eye Cee, three here. Impact at less than point zero zero five emkay. Target screens held to plus seven.”
“. . . holy Istvenn . . .”
Gerswin ignored the Imperial byplay, since neither corvette could fire again without risking planetside damage, and strapped himself more tightly than before.
“Eye Cee, this is Hotshot four. Have target acquisition, but unable to deploy without possible damage orbit control.”
“Stet, four. Hold until able to fire.”
“Three here. Four cannot hold. By the time orbit control is clear, target will be in reentry.”
Gerswin smiled reluctantly under the gee force at the captain of Hotshot three. He never seemed to give up.
“Four, continue to hold until you can deploy without damage to Old Home or orbit control.”
“Four, holding.”
Gerswin looked at the controls as the gee force went from half maximum to more than seven gees, jamming him back into the couch.
“Commencing reentry program.”
“Eye Cee, this is Hotshot three. Target commencing reentry on max-gee curve through main magfield taps.”
“. . . said scout wasn’t human . . .”
“. . . one squadron not enough . . .”
eeeeeeeeEFFFEFFEFEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!
Gerswin winced at the high-frequency static pouring from the speakers, the noise created by his own unique reentry path.
For the following five to ten minutes, most atmospheric communications in the northern hemisphere of Old Earth were going to be difficult, if not impossible.
Instead of fighting the sound, he shifted his attention to the readouts, ready to override the AI if necessary.
The pressure across his chest began to ease, as did the screeching on the comm bands, replaced with a deeper and less intense growling that began to fade as he caught scattered fragments of the Imperials’ communications.
“. . . unique reentry . . .”
“. . . alert Eye Cee . . . possible planetside follow-up . . .”
“. . . nothing like . . .”
“. . . orbit control . . . track . . . interrogative track . . .”
“. . . negative . . . this time . . .”
“. . . lunar relay . . . position inaccurate . . .”
The transmissions became fainter and fainter.
“Reentry complete,” announced the AI.
Gerswin sat forward and checked the coordinates against those for the Euron retreat, nodding at the relatively short distance remaining. His head ached, and his ears still rang.
Then he tapped in the last courses, monitoring both the course line and the far screens as the scout edged toward the hidden bunker that had waited so long. The bunker from which the Caroljoy could never rise.
“Time to touchdown?”
“Estimate five plus.”
He watched the waves beneath on the screen, and then the blotched land that alternated between golden grass, scattered trees, and purple clay and its matching scraggly purple grass.
“Homer is on.”
“Descent path clear.”
Gerswin mumbled the landing points to himself, slowly easing the black scout through the concealed bunker door and down the tunnel and into the hangar. Scarcely a fitting grave for the scout.
“Gates closed.”
He sighed, letting his muscles relax for a moment before releasing the harness.
“What now?”
“Inquiry imprecise. Please clarify.”
“What do I do now?”
The AI said nothing, as if it had not heard his clarification.
“About the ship, about you . . . doubt I’m coming back. May use the flitters . . . no energy left . . . not to speak of . . . nowhere to go . . .”
He wondered why he was talking as he did, but it seemed almost as if he were trying to justify what he said, what he was going to do.
“Terminate.”
Terminate? The single coolly feminine word hung in the control room. Had the AI actually said terminate?
“Please clarify.” This time, the pilot asked for the clarification.
“Energy reserves insufficient for continued full-status operation. Pilot has expressed no further need for ship and AI. Therefore, suggest full shutdown and AI termination.”
“Why?”
“No further purpose for ship. Ship cannot be lifted. Cannot be repaired.”
He swallowed hard. How could he feel sentimental about a chunk of metal and electronics? Even if he had built it? Even if it had been home, on and off, for it century?
“Request AI recommendation for optimal outcome for AI.”
“Termination optimal outcome for Al. Pilot has expressed no further need for AI. Ship cannot use AI. No remaining function for AI.”
How could he do otherwise, practically and in fairness?
“You left everyone else, didn’t you?”
Neither he nor the Al answered the question, as, hands trembling, he began the series of codes that would fulfill the only request the Al and ship had ever made. The only request.
XLVIII
TOUCHING HIS TONGUE to the side of the special tooth, the gaunt man, the rail-thin man who had carried the title of Eye for too long, sighed. Sighed again, and touching the side of the tooth with his tongue again, read the cryptic message a second time.
“Devil
kid home. Exact location unknown. Energy consumption indicates probability of lift less than five percent.”
Eye frowned. No probability involving Gerswin could be that low, not with the resources and ingenuity involved.
He tried to relax the muscles in his face, but failed.
Despite the power squandered in the deployment of three squadrons, despite the continuing use of energy such deployment required, and despite the sacrifices and efforts of the overstrained Service as a whole, Gerswin had gone home. Just as the man had done whatever else he wanted. Gone home and left a devil’s brew behind. Gone home, brushing aside the Service as an inconvenience.
Although he had left the foundation behind, the administrator was dead in a strange fire, and the records were blank, except for scraps that confirmed Eye’s worst fears. The bank records, those few that Eye could reach, only confirmed the confirmation.
The gaunt man touched the golden call button.
Unlike his predecessor, he would not wait to be called by the Emperor. He had already waited too long.
Then again, it had been too late before he had taken the reins. Calendra had known, but neither he nor the Emperor had believed Calendra.
The Earl of Selern touched the call button and began to wait.
XLIX
ONULL CROUCHED AT the base of the largest boulder between her and the demon. She shivered in the fog that had swept in off the northern sea, the fog that the doc had said would come because of the black demon that twisted eyes.
She had not seen the demon when it had flown over the huts and into the hills the day before. Devra had, and now she would not speak of what she had seen. Devra had seen and refused to come back to tend the southern flock.
That was why Onull was there, crouched into as small a ball as she could make herself, hoping that the demon would not notice.
Like the other youngsters from Wallim’s village who had been in the forest, gathering, she had smirked behind her hand at Devra’s tale, and at the visions seen by the old women who sat in the square by the well. She had even volunteered to watch the flock the next day, until Wallim decided who the new shepherd would be. Watching sheep was far easier than grubbing and gathering in the muck of the woods.
Then, just moments before, the ground had trembled beneath her feet, and she had run for the rocks, her mouth agape as the flat cliff had split in two and revealed a dark cave down to whatever depths the demon had come from.
She shivered again, waiting for the demon to come and take her, afraid to move, for fear any motion would call her to the attention of the monster.
The fog continued to swirl in from the not-too-distant sea, wrapping itself around the hillocks and dropping from the higher hills as it flowed inland.
Onull hoped its grayness, and the tattered gray garment that was her cloak, would shield her.
Click, click, click, click.
She shuddered at the metallic sounds, drawing herself closer to the boulder, wanting to look, and afraid to look.
Rurrrrr . . . clunk.
The ground vibrated under her feet, and she glanced upward.
Through the mist, she could see that the gray cliff face was smooth, totally smooth, as it had been through all her life.
She shuddered.
Who else but demons could make caves appear and disappear in solid rock?
Click.
She finally peered around the boulder.
At the base of the sheer cliff stood a figure, seemingly in black, looking out toward the sea, though it could not be seen, Onull knew, except from the very top of the hill above the cliff’, and then only on a clear day.
She darted another look, ready to duck her head behind the stone that sheltered her should that black-clad figure turn her way.
It looked like a man, a slender man with golden hair, but with demons, doe said, you could never tell.
The demon man turned toward her, and she flashed behind the stone before he could see her.
Click . . . click.
Her heart began to pound as the terrible steps moved toward her, and she wanted to run. But her feet would not move, and she curled into a ball at the base of the stone that had not sheltered her enough.
Click, click, click. Click, click.
She could hear it coming around the boulder, as if it knew she were there, searching her out.
Click. Click.
The footsteps paused, and she could feel the burning gaze of the demon as it penetrated her thin and ragged cloak. But she did not move.
“So much fear. So much. Best not . . .”
Then its voice deepened.
“If you wish to live beyond the instant, promise yourself you will not speak of this moment and this meeting.”
Though the words sounded strange, she understood. She shuddered, but said nothing. Knowing she would never, could never mention what she had seen, even if the demon had not bound her.
Click, click. Click. Click.
The awful steps died into the fog, echoing ever more faintly through the stony hillside, until at last the demon was gone.
Onull scraped herself into a sitting position, shivering, wondering if she would ever feel warm again, and wrapped her cloak more tightly about her as she stumbled back to the village.
L
THE MAN WHISTLED as lie walked south along the dusty trail above the river, pausing at times to stop and to listen, but always resuming his steps toward the southern mountains.
The patches of lifeless ground were fewer in the higher reaches, as were the twisted trees and stunted bushes. Occasionally, as he viewed an area where louse trees flourished or where the ecological recovery seemed well along, he nodded.
Before him, the trail veered left abruptly, away from the river. He stopped.
The reason for the path’s change of direction was clear enough from the purpled ground, the scraggly growths, and the tumbled bricks and stone. He peered over the low rock and rail barricade at the desolation.
After completing his cursory study, He paused again, letting his ears and senses take in the environment around him, alert for any sounds or indicatioms of movement. The waist-high undergrowth that surrounded the path was silent, and front the forest that began a good hundred meters up the hill, he could hear only the distant sounds of a single jay. Farther away, there was the intermittent caw of a croven.
The dust of the path showed day-old scuffs of a wide-tired wagon. the kind pulled by the traveling peddlers who brought Imperial and Noram goods into the back reaches of the continent.
His right hand on one rock post, he vaulted the tail barrier and landed lightly on the purpled moss. In a dozen quick steps he was down the hillside and in the shadowed hollows of what he assumed had been some sort of factory or commercial establishment. Farther downslope he could see the cracked pavement of the old highway, the sterile strip that hugged the eastern bank of the river, without even the traces of that scruffy, purple grass that struggled up in all but worst polluted areas.
Off came the backpack, and from it two thin canisters.
Picking spots with shelter and soil, no matter how contaminated, he planted two minute seedlings. Next came the pouch with the capsules.
He lifted his head and estimated the area. Three capsules, one of the spores and two of the virus. He pricked the first, the catalytic virus. and scattered the contents with a practised motion. Within seeks the improvement would be dramatic.
After repacking and reshouldering the black backpack. he took another dozen long steps and scattered the contents of the second capsule, the spores. On the far end of the sundered complex, he released the contents of the third and last capsule.
Although his journey was more survey, more for personal satisfaction and knowledge, while his supplies lasted, He would try to provide an additional boost to the most blighted spots.
As he had suspected, once he crossed the factory site, the path returned to its previous course paralleling the river. Again, he vaulted the makeshift r
ock and rail barrier to continue his southward trek.
“Just a regular jonseeder,” he murmured as he stepped up his pace.
In time, the slender man in the dark olive singlesuit reached a junction where a larger trail, nearly a road, emerged from the forest and met the river path to form what appeared to he a major route southward.
He wondered if he should have donned his black cloak as he caught sight of another traveler. A heavyset than, who had appeared from a shadowed section of the wider trail shadowed by the overarching trees, waddled down the gentle slope toward the river and the man in olive.
“Yo!”
The waddling man. who resembled the extinct walrus in his brown leathers and flowing mustache, hailed the man with the pack.
The slender traveler waited.
“Yo!” hailed the bigger man again.
The slender than who waited returned the greeting with a wave vaguely akin to a salute, but said nothing until the other was within a few meters.
“Beg your pardon, but I speak the local tongue poorly.”
“No problem,” exclaimed the overflowing man. “No problem. Panglais, then?”
“That would be better,” returned the other in Panglais, “if you do not mind.”
“Fine! Fine! All the same to me. Language is language, I say.” He shivered and looked at the faint sun, strong enough to cast shadows. but struggling nonetheless to disperse the high gray haze.
“Would that words could warm as well as the sun should. And you, a peddler of some sort, I bet. That or a pilgrim, heading south and over the deadly mountains to the fabled southern shrines.”
“No. Just a traveler, seeing what I can see.” His ears had picked up the rustles in the underbrush. He gestured generally as he spoke and placed his hands so that his thumbs rested on the wide equipment belt.
The walrus man gestured in turn. “Werner D’Vlere, at your service. Minor magician, basso profundo, and bon vivant.” He carried but a small satchel of scuffed brown leather that, in general terms, matched his jacket and trousers.
The traveler inclined his head. “Magician?”
“A bit of sleight of hand, a few jokes. Enough to guarantee a meal or two from the small clumps of cots that call themselves towns.”
The Endless Twilight Page 20