At the other end of the maggot I saw a worker leaning from a catwalk with something that looked like a chain-saw. He was carving off a huge iridescent scab from the back of Gideon.
I looked at the mottled patch on my coat.
"That's good, Ferris," Zebra said. "You mind if I ask you one final question, before we get on our way?"
He punched his answer into the chair. "Yes?"
"Did you prophesy this?"
Then she took out her gun and shot him.
On the way back up I thought about what Ferris had shown me and what I had learned from Sky's memories.
The grubs had observed a massive release of energy in the vicinity of the Earth system: five sparks of fire which bore the signature of matter-antimatter annihilation. Five void warrens being pushed up to a speed which would cause no indignation to the Jumper Clowns: a mere eight per cent of light. It was, nonetheless, quite an achievement considering that the primates had still been bashing each other around with bones only a million years earlier.
By the time the five human ships were noticed, the grubs had suffered terrible losses themselves. Their once mighty void warrens had been smashed and shattered by skirmishes with the enemy. In a period which the long-lived grubs looked back upon with sorrow, the warrens had been sundered; split into tinier, nimbler sub-warrens. The large grubs were social creatures and the sundering caused them immense pain, even though they were able to stay in limited contact with their siblings using the Jumper Clown's superluminal signalling system.
Eventually, one of the sub-warrens latched onto the five human ships. The sub-warren reshaped itself to match one of the ships it was following.
Statistical analysis of ten million years of encounters had shown that the tactic benefited the grubs in the long run, even though it could be disastrous in any single meeting.
Travelling Fearlessly's plan was simple enough in grub terms. He would study the humans and decide what must be done about them. If they showed signs of expanding massively into this volume of space, creating the kind of disturbance which the eaters would find it hard to miss, then it might prove necessary to cull them. Amongst the surviving species, there were some which had taken it upon themselves to perform such painful-but-necessary cullings.
Travelling Fearlessly hoped that it would not come to that. He hoped that the humans would remain a low-level nuisance that did not require immediate culling. If all they planned to do was settle one or two immediate solar systems, they could probably be left alone for now. Culling was itself an act which ran the risk of attracting eaters, so it was never to be performed unless there was excellent reason. As decades passed and the humans made no move, hostile or otherwise, Travelling Fearlessly moved the void warren closer and closer to the cluster of human ships. Perhaps the thing to do was make his presence known; establish dialogue with the humans and explain the awkwardness of the situation. The grub had been working out how to make the first move when one of the ships had blown up.
The explosion was consistent with the complete detonation of several tonnes of antimatter. Travelling Fearlessly's void warren had caught much of the blast, damaging the ship's camouflage integument and killing many of the grubs who had been working near the skin. Their death agonies had reached Travelling Fearlessly through their secretions. He had absorbed what he could of their individual memories, even as the wounded helper grubs were dissolved back down into their organic constituents.
In pain, with half his memories lacerated, Travelling Fearlessly had moved the void warren away from the Flotilla.
But someone had noticed. Oliveira and Lago had arrived shortly afterwards, not really sure what to expect, half believing the old story of a ghost ship; a sixth original member of the Flotilla which had been expunged from history.
That, of course, was not what they had found.
Oliveira had sent Lago in first, to find the fuel they needed to get back, and Lago had quickly realised that he was not in any human ship. When the helper grubs had brought him to Travelling Fearlessly's chamber, things had gone poorly. Travelling Fearlessly had only been trying to help the creature by pointing out that he did not need to use his spacesuit; that they both breathed the same air. But perhaps the way he had done this-by having helper grubs eat the man's suit away-had, in hindsight, not been ideal. Lago had become upset and had begun to hurt the helper grubs with the cutting torch. As the fire burned the helpers, Travelling Fearlessly drank in their agonised secretions as if the pain was his own.
It was unpleasant, but he had no choice but to dismantle Lago. Lago, of course, hadn't taken to that very enthusiastically either, but by then it was too late. The helper grubs had detached most of his extremities and the more interesting components from inside Lago, learning how the various bits of him worked and fitted together, before dissolving his central nervous system into the secretion. Travelling Fearlessly had ingested as many of Lago's memories as he could make sense of. He had learned how to make the same kinds of sounds as Lago, and how to impart meaning to those sounds, and-copying Lago-he had made a mouth for himself. Other grubs had copied Lago's sensory organs, or even incorporated bits of him into themselves.
Now, having come to a greater understanding, Travelling Fearlessly understood why Lago had not taken well to his first view of the maggot-ridden chamber. He felt sorry for what he had been forced to do to Lago and tried to make amends by using as much of Lago's memory and component parts as he could.
He was sure the humans would appreciate this gesture.
"After Lago came, it was very lonely again," the mouth said. "Much lonelier than before."
"You didn't grasp loneliness until you ate him, you fucking stupid maggot."
"That is . . . possible."
"All right-listen to me carefully. You've explained to me that you feel pain. Good. I needed to know that. You presumably have a well-developed instinct for self-preservation, too, or you wouldn't have survived until now. Well, I have a harbourmaker with me. If you don't understand the concept, look it up in Lago's memory. I'm sure he knew."
There was a pause while the maggot shifted uncomfortably; red fluid sloshing around like seawater under a beached whale. Harbourmakers were nuclear warheads; equipment carried by the Flotilla to assist in the development of Journey's End.
"I understand."
"Good. Perhaps you can use that gravity trick to stop it from working, but I'm willing to bet that you can't generate arbitrarily strong fields that easily, or you'd have used something similar to immobilise Lago when he started giving you difficulties."
"I told you too much."
"Yes, you probably did. But I still want to know more. About this ship, mainly. You were engaged in a war, weren't you? You may not have been winning it, but my guess is you wouldn't have survived until now without weapons of some description."
"We don't have weapons." The grub's mouth looked affronted. "Only armouring skein."
"Armouring skein?" Sky thought about it for a few moments, trying to get his head into the grub's mode of thinking. "Some kind of projected force technology, is that it? You can put up some kind of field around this ship?"
"We could, once. But the necessary parts were damaged when the fifth void warren was destroyed. Now only a partial skein can be created. It's no use at all against an adept enemy like the grub eaters. They see the holes."
"All right, listen to me. Do you sense the two small machines approaching us?"
"Yes. Are they also friends of Lago?"
"Not quite." Well, the shuttle crews might be, he thought-but they were very unlikely to be friends of Sky Haussmann, and that was all that really mattered. "I want you to use your skein against those machines-or I use the harbourmaker against you . Is that clear?"
The grub seemed to understand. "You want me to destroy them?"
"Yes. Or I'll destroy you."
"You wouldn't do that. It would kill you."
"You don't understand," Sky said amicably. "I'm not Lago; I don't th
ink like him, and I certainly don't act like him."
He selected one of the nearer grubs and unloaded part of the machine-gun's clip into the creature. The slugs punched thumb-sized holes in the creature's pale-pink integument. He watched the red stuff drain out and then heard an awful shrill cry come from some part of the creature. Except he was wrong about that, now that he paid attention. The shrill cry was coming from the large grub; not the one that he had shot.
He watched the injured one collapse down into the sea of red, until only part of it was showing. Several other helper grubs undulated towards it and began to prod it with their feelers.
Gradually, the keening sound of anguish died down to a low moan.
"You hurt me."
"I was just making a point," Sky said. "When Lago hurt you, he hurt you indiscriminately because he was scared. I'm not scared. I hurt you because I want you to know exactly what I'm capable of."
A couple of helper grubs were thrashing their way ashore only metres from where Sky and Norquinco were standing.
"No," Sky said. "Don't come any closer or I'll shoot another one-and don't try any funny tricks with gravity, or I'll make the harbourmaker go off."
The grubs halted, their fronds waving hysterically.
The yellow light-the light that bathed the whole chamber-died for a second. Sky was not expecting darkness. For an instant the terror of it was total. He had forgotten that the grubs controlled the light. In darkness, they could do almost anything. He imagined them emerging from the red lake, dragging him into it by his heels. He imagined being eaten by them, the way Lago had been. There might come a point where he could no longer tell the harbourmaker to go off; could no longer erase his own agony.
Perhaps he should do it now.
But the yellow light returned.
"I did as you asked," Travelling Fearlessly said. "It was hard. It took all our power to push the skein out to that distance."
"Did it work?"
"There are two more out there-smaller void warrens."
The shuttles. "Yes. But they won't be here for a little while. Then you can do the same trick again." He called Gomez. "What happened?"
"The probes just blew up, Sky-like they'd hit something."
"Nuclear?"
"No. They weren't carrying harbourmakers."
"Good. Stay where you are."
"Sky-what the hell is going on inside there?"
"You don't want to know, Gomez-you really don't want to know."
He had to strain to pick out the next question. "Did you find-what was his name? Lago?"
"Oh yes, we found Lago. Didn't we, Lago?"
Now Norquinco was speaking. "Sky. Listen. We should go now. We don't have to kill the other people. We don't want to start a war between the ships." He raised his voice, his helmet speaker booming out across the red lake. "You can protect us in other ways, can't you? You could move us; move this whole ship-this whole void warren, to safety? Out of the range of the shuttles?"
"No," Sky said. "I want those shuttles destroyed. If they want a war between the ships, they'll get one. We'll see how long they last."
"For God's sake, Sky." Norquinco reached out to him, as if to grasp him. Sky stepped away and lost his footing on the chamber's hard and slick surface. Suddenly he was toppling over; falling backwards into the red brine. He landed on his backpack, half submerged in the shallows. The red liquid sloshed across his faceplate with strange eagerness, as if seeking a way into his suit. Out of the corner of his eye he saw two helper grubs undulating towards him. Sky thrashed, but he could not get a grip on any surface to lift himself out, let alone stand up.
"Norquinco. Get me out."
Norquinco moved cautiously to the edge of the red lake. "Maybe I should leave you there, Sky. Maybe that would be the best thing for all of us."
"Get me out, you bastard."
"I didn't come here to do any evil, Sky. I came here to help the Santiago -and maybe the rest of the Flotilla."
"I have the harbourmaker."
"But I don't think you have the courage to let it off."
The grubs had reached him now-two and then a third he had not seen approaching. They were poking and prodding him with differently shaped clusters of appendages, exploring his suit. He thrashed, but the red fluid seemed to be thickening, conspiring to hold him prisoner.
"Get me out, Norquinco. That's your last warning . . ."
Norquinco still stood over him, but he had not come any closer to the edge. "You're sick, Sky. I've always suspected it, but I never saw it until now. I really don't know what you're capable of."
Then something he had not been expecting happened. He had stopped thrashing because it was almost too much effort, and now he was being lifted out of the red fluid, the fluid itself seeming to elevate him, while the grubs pushed him gently. Shivering with fear, he found himself on the shore. The last traces of the red fluid raced off him.
For a moment, wordlessly, he stared at Travelling Fearlessly, knowing that the grub sensed his attention.
"You believe me, don't you. You won't kill me. You know what it would mean."
"I don't want to kill you," Travelling Fearlessly said. "Because then I'd be lonely again, like I was before you came."
He understood, and the understanding itself was vile. It still cherished his company even after he had inflicted pain on it; even after he had murdered part of it. The thing was so desperately lonely that it even desired the presence of its torturer. He thought of a small child screaming in absolute darkness, betrayed by a friend that had never properly existed, and-while at the same time hating it absolutely for its weakness-did at least understand.
And that made his hatred all the more intense.
He had to kill another grub before he persuaded Travelling Fearlessly to destroy the two approaching shuttles, and this time it was not just the murder of the grub that agonised the creature. Generating the skein seemed to pain it as well, as if the grub could sense the ship's damage.
But by then it was over. He could have stayed; could have kept torturing the grub until it told him all it knew. He could have forced the grub to show him how the ship moved, and found out whether it was capable of taking them to Journey's End quicker than the Santiago . He could even have considered bringing some of the Santiago 's crew here, aboard the void warren-living in its endless tunnels, forcing the grubs to adjust the air mix and temperature until it suited human tastes. How many could the alien ship have supported-dozens, or hundreds? Perhaps even the momios , if they were woken? Maybe some of them would have had to be fed to the helper grubs to keep them happy, but he could have lived with that.
But he decided, instead, to destroy the ship.
It was simpler by far; it freed him from negotiating with the grub; freed him from the sense of revulsion he felt when he recognised its loneliness. It also freed him from running the risk of the void warren ever falling into the hands of the other Flotilla vessels.
"Let us leave," he told Travelling Fearlessly. "Clear a route right to the surface, near where we came in."
He heard sonorous clangs as passageways were rerouted; airlocks opening and shutting. A breeze caressed the red water.
"You can leave now," the grub told him. "I'm sorry that we had a disagreement. Will you come back soon?"
"Count on it," Sky said.
Later, they pulled away in the shuttle. Gomez still had no idea what had happened; no idea why the approaching forces had simply blown up.
"What did you find in there?" he asked. "Did anything that Oliveira said make sense, or was he just insane?"
"I think he was insane," Sky said. Norquinco made no comment; they had barely spoken at all since the incident by the lake. Perhaps Norquinco thought it would slip from his memory if it was not remarked upon-an understandable lapse of nerve in a tense situation. But Sky kept replaying the fall in his mind; remembering the red tide fingering his faceplate; wondering how many molecules of it had actually slipped through.
&n
bsp; "What about the medical supplies-did you find anything? And did you get any idea what happened to her hull?"
"We found out a few things," Sky said. "Just get us away from here, will you? Max thrust."
"But what about the propulsion section? I need to look at the containment; need to see if we can get that antimatter . . ."
"Just do it, Gomez." He offered a comforting lie. "We'll come back for the antimatter another time. She isn't going anywhere."
The void warren pulled away from them. Gomez looped them around to her intact side, then kicked in the shuttle's thrusters. Once they had moved two or three hundred metres from her, it was impossible to tell that she was anything other than what she seemed to be. For a fleeting instant Sky thought of her again as the Caleuche : the ghost ship. They had been so wrong; so utterly wrong. But no one could blame them for that-the truth, after all, had been far stranger.
There would be trouble, of course, when they returned to the Flotilla. One of the other ships had sent their own shuttles here, which meant that Sky would probably face recrimination; perhaps even some kind of tribunal. But he had planned for that, knowing that, with shrewdness, he could use the moment to his advantage. The trail of evidence he had created with Norquinco's help would, when revealed, point to Ramirez as having orchestrated the expedition to the Caleuche , with Constanza part of the conspiracy. Sky would be revealed as none other than an unwitting stooge of his Captain's megalomaniac schemes. Ramirez would be removed from the Captaincy; perhaps even executed. Constanza would certainly be punished. There would, needless to say, be very little doubt in anyone's minds as to who should succeed Ramirez in the Captaincy.
Sky waited another minute or so, not daring to leave it longer than that in case Travelling Fearlessly suspected what was going to happen and tried to prevent it in some way. Then he made the harbourmaker go off. The nuclear flash was bright and clean and holy, and when the sphere of plasma had spread itself thin, like a flower whose bloom turned from blue-white to interstellar black, there was nothing left at all.
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