by Robert Reed
Miocene asked, “What’s happening, booth?”
Again the booth was dark; it had nothing to say.
Washen eyed the Submaster, feeling a chill in her hard, hungry belly. The booth’s door was sealed, and dead. But the mechanical safeties operated, and with their shoulders they managed to shove the door open. Then together, in a shared motion, they stepped out into the waystation’s lounge.
A familiar figure stood in plain view, calmly and efficiently melting the resident AI with a soldier’s laser.
It was a machine, Washen realized. The machine was wearing a drab bone-white robe and nothing else. But if it were clothed in a mirrored uniform, with the proper epaulets on its shoulders and the proper voice and vocabulary and manners, then that mechanical device would have been indistinguishable from the Master Captain.
The AI’s mind lay in a puddle on the floor, boiling and dead, while an acrid steam rose up and made Washen cough.
Miocene coughed.
Then a third person cleared his throat in a quiet, amused fashion. The captains turned in the same motion and saw a dead man staring at them. He was wearing a tourist’s clothes and a simple disguise, and Washen hadn’t seen the man for centuries. But the way he stood there with his flesh quivering on his bones, and the way his gray eyes smiled straight at her heart … there was absolutely no doubt about his name.
“Diu,” Washen whispered.
Her lover and the father of her child lifted a small kinetic stunner.
Too late and much too slowly, Washen ran.
Then she was somewhere else, and her neck had been broken, and Diu’s face was hovering against the gray sky, eyes and the smiling mouth all laughing as he spoke, every word utterly incomprehensible.
Twenty-six
WASHEN CLOSED HER eyes, and her hearing returned.
Another voice descended. “How did you find Marrow?”
Miocene’s voice.
“Remember your mission briefing,” Diu replied. “But the telltale impact occurred in the early stages of the galactic voyage. Some curious data were gathered. But there were easier explanations, and your dear Master dismissed the idea of a hollow core. The data waited for me to find it. As you recall, I began as a wealthy passenger. With means and the time, I could afford to chase the unlikely and the insane.”
“How long ago was this?”
“When I found Marrow? Not too long after the voyage began, actually.”
“You opened the access tunnel?” asked Miocene.
“Not personally. But I had drones manufactured, and they dug on my behalf, and replicated themselves, and eventually their descendants reached the chamber. Which was when I followed them down.”
A soft laugh, a reflective pause.
“I named Marrow,” Diu announced. “It was my world to study, and I watched it from above for twenty millennia. When I understood the world’s cycles, I commissioned a ship that could cross the buttresses when they were thin and weak. And I touched down first and stepped out onto the iron. Long before you ever did, Madam Miocene.”
Washen opened her eyes again, fighting to make them focus.
“Madam,” Diu sang out, “I’ve lived on that wondrous planet more than twice as long as you. And unlike you, I had all the skills and AI helpers that a wealthy man can afford to bring on his adventures.”
What looked like a gray sky became a low gray ceiling, bland and endless. Slowly, very slowly, Washen realized that she was back inside the !eech habitat—inside its two-dimensional vastness; who knew where?—and looking the length of her body, she found Diu’s face and body framed by the diffuse gray light, his kinetic weapon held in his strong right hand.
“Unlike you,” he reminded, “I didn’t have to reinvent civilization.”
Miocene was standing beside Washen, her face taut and tired but the eyes opened wide, missing nothing.
She glanced down, asking, “How are you?”
“Awful,” Washen managed. But her voice was dry and clear, and the shattered vertebrae and spinal cord were healing. She was well enough that her hands and toes were waiting for her to notice them, and her body was strong enough that she managed a breath, then lifted herself, sitting upright.
One deep gulp of stale air let her ask, “How long have we been here?”
“Moments,” Diu replied.
“Did you carry me?”
“My associate did that chore.”
The false Master stood nearby, its white hair brushing against the low ceiling as it turned and turned, watching everything, a dead expression centered on glassy eyes, the stubby emerald-and-teakwood laser bolted to one of its thick forearms.
For as far as Washen could see, twin planes of perfect gray reached into infinity—an assuring endlessness, if you were a !eech.
She turned her healing neck. The habitat’s wall and a long window were behind her, and aging pillows were strewn about the gray floor. Knowing the answer, she asked Diu, “Why here?”
“I want to explain myself,” he replied. “And we have privacy here, as well as a certain symbolism.”
An old memory surfaced. Washen saw herself standing before a !eech window, looking at the captains’ reflections while Miocene spoke fondly about ambition and its sweet, intoxicating stink.
In an angry low voice, Miocene asked, “Who knows that you’re alive?”
“Except for you, nobody.”
Washen stared at the man, trying to recall why she ever loved him.
“The Waywards saw you die,” said the Submaster.
“They watched my body being consumed by the molten iron. Or at least seemed to be.” He shook his head, boasting, “When I first came to Marrow, I brought huge stockpiles of raw materials and machinery. I stowed everything in hyperfiber vaults that float inside the liquid iron. When I need them, they surface. When I need to vanish, I can live inside the vaults. Underground.”
Miocene seemed to stare at him. But while Washen glanced at her—just for a slippery instant—the walnut eyes focused on the infinite, their gaze intense and unreadable, a subtle hope lurking somewhere inside them.
Washen said, “Ambition.”
“Pardon?” asked Diu.
“That’s what all of this is about,” she offered. “Am I right?”
He regarded them with an easy contempt. Then he shook his head, remarking, “Captains don’t understand ambition. I mean real ambition. Rank and tiny honors are nothing compared to what is possible.”
“What is possible?” Miocene barked.
“The ship,” said Washen. Quietly, with certainty.
Diu said nothing.
On clumsy legs, Washen tried to stand, pausing with her knees still bent and breathing with deep gasps. Then Miocene offered her hand, yanking her upright, and the two women embraced like clumsy dancers fighting to keep their balance.
“Diu wants the ship,” Washen muttered. “He gathered up the most talented captains, then made certain that we were trapped on Marrow when the Event came. He knew we would be marooned. He guessed that we’d have to build a civilization in order to escape. And everything since has been orchestrated by him…”
“The Waywards,” Miocene barked. “Did you create them, Diu?”
“Naturally,” he replied with a wide, smug grin.
“A nation of fanatics being readied for a holy war.” Washen looked at the Submaster, adding, “With your son as their nominal leader.”
Miocene stiffened, releasing her grip on Washen’s arm.
“You fed him those ridiculous visions,” she remarked, eyes peering at the infinite. “It’s always been you, hasn’t it?”
“But really,” the grinning man replied. “If you honestly think about it, aren’t you mostly to blame for driving him away?”
A cold, suffocating silence descended.
Washen found the strength to take a step, and with both hands, she massaged the new bone and flesh inside her neck.
Miocene said nothing.
“The Builders,�
�� said Washen.
Diu winked and asked, “What about them?”
“Were they real? And did they fight the Bleak?”
Diu drank in the suspense, smiling at both of them before admitting, “How the fuck should I know?”
“The artifacts—” Miocene began.
“Six thousand years old,” Diu boasted. “Designed and constructed by one of our alien passengers … a creative soul who believed that he was making a puzzle intended for the ship’s entertainment industry…”
“Everything’s a lie,” said Washen.
Diu glanced over his shoulder at the false Master. Then he looked back at them, his smile darkening as he explained, “That elaborate holo you saw? With the Bleak fighting the Builders? It began as a dream. I was the only person on Marrow, and I saw the battle in my sleep. There’s always the chance that it was a genuine vision, although, honestly, it felt like nothing but a good vivid dream. Evil pitted against Good. Why not? I thought. A simple faith could be intoxicating for the children to come…!”
“But why pretend to die?” Washen asked.
“Death offers freedom.” A boy was lurking behind the smile. “Being a disembodied soul, I see more. Being deceased, I can disguise myself and walk wherever I want. And sleep where I wish. And I can make babies with a thousand women, including quite a few in the Loyalist camp.”
Silence.
Then a slight whisper, as if a breath of wind were coming.
Miocene took a half-step, then admitted, “We spoke to the Master.”
“She knows everything,” Washen added. “We told her—”
“Nothing,” Diu snapped. “That’s exactly what you told her. I know.”
“You’re certain?” Washen asked.
“Absolutely.”
“But by now she knows we were at the waystation,” Miocene threatened, “and she’ll hunt for us. With all of her energies.”
“She’s been on that same hunt for better than four thousand years.” Diu kept smiling. He almost danced. Then with a hint of confession, he admitted, “You did surprise me in one way, Miocene. Darling. I knew you were building that little cannonball vehicle, but I didn’t think you’d try this soon. If I’d known today was the day, I would have arranged some little accident to keep you on Marrow.” Then he shrugged, adding, “I didn’t want to come chasing after you. But I did. And in a much superior version of your cannonball, I should add.”
Silence.
Then Washen admitted, “The Master hasn’t found us. Not yet. But this time she has a starting point. Someone will eventually come here, and who knows what they’ll find…?”
“A salient, obvious point. Thank you.” He passed his weapon from hand to hand, explaining, “Because of you, I will close the access tunnel from below. And keep it closed forever, perhaps. A series of antimatter charges will obliterate every trace of its existence. And even if the Master guesses right, which is doubtful, it would take centuries to dig to Marrow again.”
“With you trapped down there,” Washen offered.
Diu shrugged again. “How does that old story play? It’s better to rule in one realm than serve in another—?”
There was an abrupt, soft squeal.
The false Master had stopping moving, eyes staring back toward the center of the habitat, something seen and the machine repeating the squeal again. Louder this time, and more focused.
If there was an echo, Washen couldn’t hear it.
Irritated, Diu asked, “What is it?”
Then he turned and stepped toward the robot, asking, “Is something wrong?”
With the Master’s voice, it said, “Motion.”
“From the entranceway?”
“Along that line, yes.”
“What about now?”
“Nothing.”
“Watch,” was Diu’s advice. Then he faced his prisoners, and with an odd little smile, focused on Miocene. “You’ve done something else surprising,” he decided. “Am I right? You’ve fooled me in another way. Haven’t you, darling?”
“I didn’t build one escape pod,” Miocene confessed. “There are two pods. Both serviceable.”
The man took a breath, then held it. Then he said, “So,” with a low, contemptuous voice. “Two more captains have followed you up here. So what?”
He turned to the false Master.
“Shoot—” he began to order.
“No,” Miocene interrupted, taking a step and lifting both hands. “I didn’t invite any captains. And believe me, you don’t want to open fire on them.”
The false Master was aiming at a target too distant for human eyes.
Diu growled, “Wait.”
He turned back to the women, his expression merely surprised. He seemed to be just a little angry. Then he lifted his kinetic weapon, fingers to the trigger as he said, “Who, then? Tell me.”
“My son,” said Miocene.
The false Master was still as a statue, waiting for the correct word.
“Till,” Miocene whispered. “I hoped he’d be curious enough. Through his spies, I sent a message. Virtue was under orders to launch Till to the bridge. I gave him the codes to awaken a second cap-car. I just wanted him to have this chance to see the Great Ship for himself.”
“Well,” Diu said softly, defiantly. Then he looked off into the distance, contemplating that narrow infinity, and after a few moments of hard thought, he told his machine, “Kill them. I don’t care who they are. Kill them.”
The laser gave a sharp, sudden crack.
Miocene ran, screaming now, hands reaching as Diu turned and calmly shot her in the chest, a fat explosive charge burrowing through bone and the wildly beating heart, then detonating with a wet pop.
She collapsed into a shockingly red pool of blood.
Following protocols, the robot turned, ready to defend its master. For that simple instant, Washen knew she was doomed. She ducked down, by instinct, and watched the laser’s barrel swing for her, charged again and ready to turn her water and flesh into an amorphous, lifeless gas. But when the next crack shattered the silence, the beam missed. She felt the heat pass overhead and watched in amazement as the false Master panned up and up, aiming at nothing, the golden face turning bright as it absorbed blistering, unrelenting energies.
Quietly, with an eerie grace, the face collapsed into a molten goo.
The barrel of the laser dropped and pulled sideways, then fired again, punching a hole in the wall behind Washen, holding steady until that vast body and its weapon turned to a thick liquid, the robes burning as a Marrow-like pond melted its way into the gray floor.
Diu was screaming and backing up as he fired twice.
Washen tackled him from behind.
They wrestled, and she threw a forearm into his exposed throat, and for a delicious moment she thought she could win. But her body wasn’t perfectly healed. A thousand weaknesses found her, and Diu bent her back, hard, then gave her a smooth strong shove, and when she tumbled, he aimed his weapon at her heaving chest.
“Till heard you,” she sputtered. “With these !eech acoustics—”
“So,” he replied.
She said, “He knows everything—!”
Diu hit her with one explosive round, pushing her back against the window.
“What’s changed? Nothing’s changed!” he roared. Then he shot again, and again. As if from a great distance, Washen heard him shout, “I have a million sons!” and the next round punched through one of the gaping holes in her body, cutting deep into the insulated window before detonating with a dull, almost inaudible thud.
Quietly, with the blood filling her mouth. Washen said, “Shit.”
Diu was aiming again. Aiming at her head.
Washen blinked and fell to the floor, watching with a thin interest and a genuine impatience, thinking this wasn’t how it was meant to be.
This was wrong.
Behind Diu, a running figure appeared. Legs and arms and a familiar, welcome face came sprinting out
of the grayness, a laser drill clasped in one hand.
He wasn’t whom she expected. Instead of Till, she saw her son.
Locke called out, “Father.”
Startled, Diu turned to face him.
And Locke shot him with the drill, emptying its energies into that jittery body, that old metaphor of the flesh ready to boil coming true.
In a moment, Diu evaporated.
Vanished.
Then Locke stepped toward Washen, his face torn with compassion and a wild fear. He dropped the drill and blurted, “Mother.” But she couldn’t hear his voice. Something louder, and nearer, interrupted him. Then came the sensation of motion, sudden and irresistible, and Washen felt herself being sucked through a small hole, her ravaged body spinning and freezing, and falling, the blackness everywhere, and a tiny voice inside her whispering:
“Not like this.
“Not now.
“No.”
Twenty-seven
THERE WAS A screaming wind and the harsher, nearer wailing of a lone man.
Miocene pried open her eyes and found herself miraculously sitting upright, her chest ripped open and her uniform splattered with dying blood and bone and the shredded and blackened muscle of her dead heart. Diu and the false Master had vanished. But the newcomer was running straight for her, sprinting with the roaring wind … a Wayward man, half-naked and barefoot, shorn of his hair and every dignity, his miserable voice screaming, “Mother, no…!”
Was this her child?
Miocene couldn’t place his face. But just the same, she tried to grab him, aiming for one of his legs and losing her balance as a consequence, dropping to her side and the man leaping over her helpless body, again screaming, “No…!,” with a voice as pitiful and lost as she was feeling now.
For a moment, or a year, the ancient woman shut her eyes.
The wind fell away to a whistling murmur. The !eech habitat was repairing its damage, and she realized that her miserable carcass was trapped here. The screaming man was near the wall, sobbing now. Slobbering. “I should have … done it faster … fired at him sooner…!” he was complaining to someone. Then with a massive disgust, he confessed, “But he’s my father, and my hand froze—!”