“This is remarkable,” Ravindra said. “Your warriors die, you just make some new ones.”
The Yogin beckoned, one long finger waggling at them. They followed it along a line of cylinders containing embryos at different stages of growth. Some looked empty, the content still invisible to the naked eye. Morgan zoomed in and for a moment watched the cells divide. Others held the familiar curved fish-like form and yet others looked like normal human babies.
They walked on, into another section where the bodies in the cylinders looked complete, or almost. A gash here, a missing limb there.
“Those which are not so badly damaged are placed into cylinders to repair their injuries.”
So a hospital of sorts. “How do you fit the processor?”
“It is done at a next to final stage. The skull is opened, the true brain is put in place and then the warrior is returned to a vat to enable the tissue to heal and knit. Look at that cylinder. You will see where the tissue is healing just above the eyes.”
A narrow red line circumscribed the bald head. The creature floated, motionless, its eyes closed. The true brain, huh? Something to run the body and a black processor that could be manipulated from afar.
“Do you recycle everything?”
“Yes. We collect all damaged material if we can; the fragments from fighters and assault ships damaged in combat.”
“But that’s not always possible. And even so, it couldn’t be enough, could it? Is that why you’ve taken ships in transit?”
“Enemy ships are always legitimate targets. You must understand. When I came here I began to test the worlds for suitable planets for Makers. I encountered ships before I found habitable planets. When I tested, I found they were primitives so I destroyed them. I realized I had work to do here and appropriated their resources for my own use.”
Work to do. Kill on sight.
“Do you have weapons systems?” Ravindra asked.
“I have my warriors and they have their ships.”
“But weapons here? Missiles? Energy weapons? How could you rearm? Do you build your own armaments?” he said.
“My warriors build their own ships and their own weapons. I have no need of missiles or weapons. This ship was never built as a warship. I am an emissary, sent to pave the way. But I can defend myself.”
The soft voice changed. Alert, menacing. “What is this? A war fleet approaches.”
Morgan saw through Artemis’s sensors. Vidhvansaka with four frigates.
“The primitives have come to try to destroy me. You have lied to me.”
Shrieking, screaming pain seared through Morgan’s senses. She jammed her hands to her ears but the pain battered her implants, drilling through her nerves. She sank to her knees, sobbing.
“Stop. Please stop.”
Chapter Forty-Six
“What is it?” Ravindra had lifted her. “What can she do? Fight it, Morgan, you can fight it.”
She heard his voice, a deeper sound through a piercing red fog. He was right. It was just noise. She concentrated, fighting the pain. Sound, it’s just sound vibrations. She adjusted her sense of hearing, decreasing the band width. The pain receded enough for her to function properly.
“Okay,” she said, panting. “I’m okay.”
“Time to go.” He put his hands on her shoulders. “Can you drive this thing?”
She swallowed, forcing down her heart rate and examined the driver’s position. “Yes. The seat slides back.”
“You know where to go?”
“Yes.”
He swung a long leg into the back of the cart and hunched down inside. “Let’s go.”
She drove out of the door and swung left along the corridor toward the elevator. Artemis seemed to be busy elsewhere, her presence in Morgan’s mind less concentrated. One more turn.
Yogina warriors advanced, weapons pointed.
She stopped the first three. They halted, frozen in mid-stride, obstructing the ones behind them.
“Get me a weapon, Morgan.” Ravindra had ducked below the rim of the cart.
Teeth gritted, she blocked two more warriors as she snatched two weapons. Others crowded up behind.
Ravindra grabbed one gun from her while she tucked the other into her belt.
“Keep to one side.”
He popped up over the top of the vehicle and sprayed the energy beams. The warriors fell like nine-pins, ten destroyed in a moment. He picked up a couple more of their guns and tossed them to Morgan. “We might need these.”
“You will not escape me, primitive. You will die. Your weapons cannot touch me.”
“I will not allow you to kill him, Artemis. You’ll have to kill me first.”
The sonic waves in her head went away completely, replaced by a touch that was almost a caress.
“Stay, Morgan. I am sorry I hurt you. You are a Maker. Do not leave me.”
“You’re wrong about them. They’re not primitive, they’re just fallible people. Like your Makers. Talk to them. Listen.”
The entity howled its rage. “I am Artemis. I cannot be wrong. They fire their puny weapons and I throw their power back at them. I am invincible. Go then. Die with them.”
Morgan let out a breath. The presence in her mind had almost gone, now just a lingering menace, like smoke from a smoldering fire. Too early to be over-confident. And yet they’d been given a chance.
“Looks like we’re being ignored.”
The ship started to vibrate, almost humming at a low frequency that set her teeth on edge, pulsed in her muscles.
Ravindra felt it, too. He glanced around him, tense and nervous. “What’s happening?”
“I don’t know,” she said, negotiating around the fallen Yogina to get to the elevator. The doors stood open. “She seems distracted. Vidhvansaka’s out there with four frigates. She showed me two frigates on their way in attack formation.”
He hissed in a breath. “Morgan, if this is the blue lightning, we must try to do something. She’ll destroy the fleet.”
“I’ll try and find it.” The hum came from somewhere not too far away. “This way.”
She drove down one corridor and then another, following the sound. This was the right direction, but they were too high. She found an elevator and pressed to call a car. Morgan selected the next floor down, climbed out of the cart and waited while the doors opened. Still too high. One more, then. She punched the button for the next level down and darted back into the elevator.
“This way.” She drove the cart down the corridor to the right, the noise rising to a crescendo as they approached. The passage ended at a platform overlooking a vast pit where a colossal black cylinder hung suspended. She’d seen it on one of the screens in the control room.
They left the cart and walked out to the middle of a movable gantry spanning the pit. Controls, simple levers, were set into the railing. She pushed down on a lever. A hook suspended on a cable under the gantry began to lower. Wrong lever. She tried the second lever and the gantry moved. Fine, that was simple enough, left to go left, right to go right, push harder to go faster. She drove above the left end of the cylinder. Looking down on the device, she enhanced her vision to pick up the details.
Hundreds of red filaments like tree roots extended from the ends of the pit and combined and thickened until the network converged into a point in the center of the shorter end of the cylinder. The very air throbbed, the gantry vibrated to the rhythm. The red filaments glowed, positively pulsing with energy.
“What’s at the other end?” Ravindra said. “Is that going to be blue?”
She stared at him. Wow. The blue tendrils that could stop a ship. If he was right, red went in, blue went out and the process happened in the middle.
“Let’s go see.”
This time he drove, manipulating the levers with precision until they were above the other end of the cylinder. A single blue pipe came out of the center, then branched into four.
“I think it’s an energy sink,” s
he said, raising her voice above the deep hum. “The ship absorbs whatever energy is thrown at it and stores it here. And then it can generate a shield or…” Her gaze traveled over the blue pipes. “Or power the ship or send out energy to destroy.”
Yes, it made sense, a way to recycle energy. Perhaps this was the ship’s shield generator, too. Somehow she didn’t think Artemis’s makers had ever intended this device for the use the ship made of it.
The hum stopped suddenly. Morgan exchanged a glance with Ravindra in the unexpected silence. The black cylinder hadn’t moved, hadn’t altered. Sound, a different, distant sound like a whooshing hiss, filled Morgan’s head. She turned to Ravindra but he stared around him, as puzzled as she.
As suddenly as it started the noise stopped.
“They cannot defeat me.” Smug. “They are primitives with nothing to match me.”
Morgan saw through Artemis’s sensors again. Two ships destroyed. So that’s what they had just experienced. Two ships.
“She’s just blown away the two frigates.”
Ravindra bared his teeth. “We have to destroy this thing.” He stared down at her. “Is there nothing you can do? Reprogram the ship?”
Supertech magic. She almost smiled. “No, Ashkar. I don’t have time to work out the structures and in some respects this entity is more powerful than I am. We’ll have to think of something else, something physical.”
Something physical. Pipes to allow energy flows.
“Valves. It must have valves to direct the energy to where it’s needed. There would have to be an overflow, too. If we can close the valves, weld them shut…”
His teeth showed white in an evil grin. “Excellent. There have to be tools somewhere. Look for a store room or something.”
She drove the gantry back to the corridor.
He leapt off and searched, examining the walls. He pulled open a door on the platform and beamed at her. “Tools. What do you need?”
Tools, some familiar, some not, hung neatly in their appointed places. How long had it been since anyone had used these? Artemis wouldn’t need them. Maybe they’d hung here for thousands of years. She shoved a recognizable spanner, a hammer, a ring holding four pieces of oddly shaped material that might be keys, into her belt and the pockets of her suit. She’d have to work it out down there.
Ravindra drove the gantry and stopped over the blue pipes. She peered over the side. The pipes must have been every bit of fifty meters below where she stood. And from there down to the deep-shadowed bottom of the compartment was another fifty meters.
She swallowed, her heart beating a little faster. “You’ll have to lower me down with that crane.”
He frowned. “No. I’ll go.”
“Why? Because I’m a woman? Get over it. I’m a Supertech.”
He scowled. “Because I’m stronger, faster and taller than you. You just tell me what to do.”
Morgan, you idiot. She pushed down the silly, reflex anger and raised a placatory hand. “I’m sorry. I can’t tell you without at least looking. I guess we all of us have to do what we were designed for. And this one’s mine.”
His eyes still glittered. “Get it done, then.”
Heart in mouth, she climbed over the railing. The pit yawned beneath her. One slip and she’d bounce off the pipe if she was lucky. Grasping the railing, she reached out with her foot. The hook swung just beyond her reach. A little bit more.
“Let me lower you.” He lay down on the gantry and grabbed her arms in an iron grip. She gazed up at him, met his eyes and concentrated on her foot. He lowered her. Her foot hit the cable. Just a little more and the hook took her weight.
“Okay,” she said, panting. “Let the hook down.”
He stood and pushed the lever. She sank between the walls, hands tight on the cable. But she wouldn’t be able to do that when she arrived. How would the Yogina have done this? The clang as the hook struck the thick pipe echoed.
“All right?” Ravindra’s voice sounded a long way away.
“Yes.”
The pipe fanned out into four. One of them must be, had to be, an overflow. She pulled out the spanner. The head matched a hexagonal shape on each pipe. On one pipe, the shape was raised. The only one open? She wished she could be certain. How did you keep them closed? Surely there had to be a locking mechanism for safety. Each hexagonal head had a strange-shaped hole at the center. She snagged the key ring thing out of her pocket. They would fit, one for each pipe. Would they lock the valves down? She hoped so. One hand on the cable, Morgan reached out a leg. Too far away. She’d have to jump. Maybe she should let him do it. What, and admit I was scared? Not a chance. This one’s mine, she’d said.
She swallowed, steadied herself, let go of the cable and leapt for the pipe.
The hook swung. Her foot slipped on the pipe’s curved surface. Fear raced down her spine as, arms flailing, she tried to regain her balance. The Yogin weapon she’d tucked into her belt flipped out and fell for far too long until it clanked onto the distant bottom of the cylinder housing. Something swung within reach of her desperate hands. The cable. She grabbed at it with shaking hands and missed. Her foot slipped and she slid over the blue metal, fingers scrabbling for a hand hold. She heard Ravindra shout her name. Something caught her hand. She grabbed hold of the key pattern in the valve. She was going to die. She would fall down there and die.
“Hold on, Morgan. I’m coming.” Ravindra’s baritone voice floated through the panic.
Her fingers were going numb. But if she shifted her hand she would slip.
“Hold on.”
She heard him spring onto the pipe.
“Give me your hand. The other hand.”
She twisted, lifting her arm. He gripped, sure and strong, around her wrist and pulled her up against his body, balancing easily on the pipe. His arms held her tightly, his cheek against her hair. She could feel the pounding of his heart. She felt terrible, feverish. And foolish.
“Are you all right?” he said.
“Yes. Thank you.” She risked a glance up at him. “How did you get down?”
“Down the cable.” He pushed her away so he could see her face, still with his arms around her waist. “Do not, on any account, do something like that to me ever again.” His voice was rough. “I thought I’d lost you.”
She’d thought so, too. “I’m sorry.”
“Now, do you know what must happen?”
“Yes.”
“Tell me what I must do.”
He was right. She’d always been taught to use the correct tool for a job. This time it was him. Besides, she was still shaking. She showed him the spanner. “Each pipe has something that fits this. Make sure all of them are down. Then make sure they stay down. Fit one of these into each.”
“Hold onto the cable while I get this done.”
Morgan did as she was told. Ravindra walked sure-footed along each branch. First, shut down the raised valve. Find the right key. Fit it. He’d fixed three when the one he hadn’t fixed began to lift. He took out the spanner, forced the valve down, and fitted the key. Then he put the key ring onto his belt.
“How do we get back?” she said.
“You stay here. Keep hold of the hook. Better still, hook your belt.”
He pulled himself back up the cable, hand over hand. His strength and athleticism, after all they’d endured, was amazing. When he reached the platform he had to edge himself along to one of the rail supports to swing himself up. He slipped, swinging down again onto his hands. Morgan held her breath. Come on, Ashkar. He’d endured so much because of her.
He rolled onto the platform. She sagged, legs turned to jelly.
“Stand in the hook, Morgan.”
She took a deep breath and placed her foot onto the curved metal, hands tight on the cable. The motor whirred and the hook rose.
He was waiting, lying on the gantry to pull her up. She scrambled over the railing and sat knees bent, wiping sweat from her face.
He crouch
ed in front of her and pushed her hair back with gentle fingers. “When the ship realizes, there will be trouble, I fear. We must escape, quickly. Can you find the hatch back to the Starliner?”
“Yes.” Morgan consulted the mental map she’d drawn as they traveled. “We’ll have to go up two levels and then across. Let’s hope she’s still so distracted she’s forgotten about us.”
He helped her up and into the cart. She drove back up the corridor to the transit system, into the waiting car and pressed for two levels up.
“I’m surprised there are so few Yogina about,” he said.
She shrugged. “Artemis doesn’t need much help. She runs the whole ship. The Yogina that are not warriors would only need to tend the warriors, the food supply, that sort of thing. I suppose the warriors are on their way to Krystor.”
They eased out of the transit car, looking right and left into another empty corridor. Not far now. Still nothing from Artemis. Maybe they’d got it all wrong. Maybe they’d done nothing. She still felt the entity’s presence, like the brooding heaviness in the atmosphere before a storm. Her skin prickled with foreboding. She felt hot.
At last. The hatch. Ravindra recognized where they were, jumped off the cart and went first, loping along easily while she labored.
Artemis chuckled. In a way it was worse than anger. “You cannot escape. You cannot defeat me. My helpers will remove the locks. Foolish, foolish.”
He reached the hatch to the airlock. “Mala.”
Morgan pushed past him. The equalizer gauge showed red. The bridge to the Starliner was gone.
Chapter Forty-Seven
“Can you open this?” Ravindra said, pointing at the airlock.
“No.” Morgan’s heart beat too fast. “I’m not going to be able to shift it with a vacuum on the other side.”
“Is the Starliner still there?”
The Starliner. She felt with her mind. “Yes. It hasn’t moved relative to Artemis.”
“Well then. We’ll have to find another way. Where does Artemis launch her ships? It has to be nearby.” He turned and went back to the corridor they’d come from.
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