Ammonite Stars (Omnibus): Ammonite Galaxy #4-5 (60 page)

They were both suddenly aware of Arcan. He was in their heads, and they could sense his impotence as he tried to extricate them from the proximity of the gravity well. It was as if they were inside his brain now, inside his mind as he fought to free them all.

Arcan was struggling against the natural forces which were preventing him from transporting cleanly. And the orthogel entity was furious. His anger filtered down to them as a sort of boiling, fierce background of noise, of pressure on them.

“There are frame dragging vortices!” Arcan’s voice was distorted, ravaged by the tidal forces and the mixture of fear and rage as he felt himself being caught up by the enormous gravity. “I am caught in one!”

They opened their mouths to ask him to explain, but the pressures around them were so strong that no words could possibly come out. However, it seemed that Arcan could still reach inside their heads, for the anger redoubled, and the very air around the four of them turned black. They choked, and Six grabbed at Diva through the dark, trying to pull her towards him, trying vainly to shelter her from all the maelstrom of thunder and light that was tearing them all to pieces.

Arcan could still scream into their minds. “What did this to me? What entities decided to risk my whole existence to save their own skins?” It was a rhetorical question, for he could see the answer shining in all of their minds.

“C-c-can-n w-we h-h-e-lp?” Diva’s jaw was shuddering so much that it cost her an immense effort just to get the words out. “A-arcan-n?”

The answer came back tersely. “Of course you can’t. You are flimsies. What do you think you can do?”

So they clutched at each other helplessly, and waited for the end. Around them, the whole ship was rattling, was, it seemed, disintegrating around them. Six spotted one of the doors shudder so violently that it detached from its hinges, and fell to join the metal plating on the floor with a terrific crash. They gazed on, powerless to offer Arcan any help, only able to devote all their own energies to staying upright. It proved a difficult task.

The air around them was still dark, and it seemed to be spinning slightly, as if forming a thin whirlpool. Suddenly the twins were there too, having transported free of the pouches where they had been safely stowed. Their small shapes leapt into the air, seeming to spit fire as they battled to bring their own puny weight to bear with Arcan’s.

They appeared to meld with the translucent shape of the orthogel entity, but they, too, seemed to find the forces pitched against them too much. Their small energies made no difference at all.

Then Six thought that he could feel the canths. The air around them lightened slightly, and he was aware of a distant diamond, somehow percolating through his mind. It was a shining guide to them, a corridor which was beckoning them home. His own heart gave an involuntary leap in that direction, trying frantically to bring the rest of his body with it.

Six heard Diva give a cry of triumph as she felt the diamond shape too, and then both the trimorphs and Arcan let their very essence fall towards the small hole in the swirling sink of pure weight which surrounded all of them.

Time seemed to stop. They were suspended above a terrifying whirlpool, one which siphoned off their very life force into its absolutely impassive gullet, swirling them around and around like the winding-up process of a sycophant knife-slinger.

The silence around Six and the sensation of wooliness in his ears told him that his life was ebbing away. He stared into the soul of the one woman he had ever loved and was happy to be dying with her. He could think of nothing worse than surviving her death, nothing worse than having an existence without her.

He smiled at her. As the end of both their lives hung suspended by a thread in front of them, they grinned at each other across the metre of air that separated them. Six reached out, struggling to touch her hand with his own. Finally his fingers just brushed against hers. He felt a bolt of awareness travel right through his whole body, and then a rush of joy ripple up from inside his stomach, leaving him euphoric. Love, it seemed, could obliterate even the fear of death.

The moment stretched on, and on, and on. As he looked into Diva’s eyes time elongated and then slowed even more, and then seemed about to stop altogether. Neither of them could breathe. They had been pinned to the spot by the corkscrew of light, unable to move, to blink, to inhale. Six felt his lungs straining to find air, and then a familiar blackness took hold of his brain. He waited to slump into unconsciousness, but that didn’t happen. Instead, he was aware of the tight band of pain across his chest easing, releasing him, and found that he was able to take that much-needed deep gasp of air.

Beside him, Diva was sucking in air too, almost doubled over from the length of time they had been in that icy embrace of the brilliant light. But she shook her head when he turned to her, and motioned him to go on, to do whatever was necessary to get them out of their predicament.

Six shook his head slightly, to clear it, and then examined his surroundings. They were still hanging in the same position, yet the white light had moved outwards, to surround the whole of the hull in a dazzling halo.

The intercommunicator buzzed. Bennel and Tallen were trying to get hold of them, wanting to know what was going on. At first neither Six nor Diva was able to make their muscles obey them, but then Six found some degree of autonomy again, and moved to the controls. He was amazed to see that they were now traveling away from the singularity. Arcan was accomplishing it in small hops, rather than one smooth transfer, but they were distancing themselves from the danger. Even as he watched, the trader made another hop, this time one of 100 light years.

Diva had managed to haul her way across to the intercommunicators on the wall.

“We are all right,” she croaked, sounding anything but. “Arcan has managed to pull us out.”

She heard the sound of harsh breathing coming from the hold. “And Arcan?” asked Bennel. “Is he all right?”

Diva looked around. There was no sign of the orthogel entity. A spark of worry shot through her.

“I am all right, Diva.” His rumbling voice sounded inside her head. “I am resting for a moment. As soon as I feel more myself, I will transport you all back to the binary system.”

“What happened, Arcan? What was that sort of twirling light?”

“I was concentrating on pulling you away from the singularity, and it just happened. My sensation is that the canths were in some way able to join with me momentarily, and help to pull us out.”

BACK IN THE cargo hold, things were not going so well. The initial heavy vibration during the push to escape the Great Magnet had shaken free one of the partitions which were holding the canths firmly, and it had taken the combined weight of the three men to keep the animal which had been depending on it safe. The man who spoke to canths had been the first to unfasten his belt and leap across the hold, but Bennel and Tallen had been only seconds behind. Their quick reflexes had saved Diva’s seal brown, but it had come at a cost. The man who spoke to canths was now lying helplessly on the metal deck plating, his eyes full of pain, and the tip of one of his bones showing white through the skin his left leg. He had been caught by a savage kick from the equine, which had been so terrified that it had become totally unaware of its surroundings.

Bennel checked to make sure Tallen could keep the canth still, now that the New Independence was no longer shaking, and then moved closer to the canth keeper. He went quickly back to the intercommunicator.

“
Valhai
Diva? We need a doctor, with some urgency.” He explained the situation, and could hear the Coriolan girl relaying it to Arcan. There was a long pause, and then Diva came back to them.

“Arcan says Grace is with Vion, on Valhai. He is taking us there, and will transport the canth keeper to the medical skyrise.”

Six frowned. “I wonder what Grace is doing with Vion. I like him, but if I were Ledin I wouldn’t trust him with my wife.”

“Oh, wouldn’t you?” Diva’s hands were on her hips and she was regarding him with a very unfriendly expression.

“Hang it all, Diva! I didn’t mean to suggest ...” He gave a sigh. “You know I don’t think Grace ... It was just a comment, is all.”

“Sometimes you should keep your comments to yourself. Vion is our friend.”

“Well, of course he is. In fact, that is precisely what I meant ... Oh, forget it, it doesn’t matter.”

“Just so as you know, I will see whoever I want to see, married or not.”

“Anyone you like,” he said hastily. “—As long as it isn’t Tartalus, of course.”

“My cousin Tartalus is the least of our problems.”

“Yes, but are you sure he knows that? Only I rather get the impression ...” He stopped. “But you are right. He is no match for you.”

Her neck stretched regally. “He isn’t. And he is an exception. You know very well that not all meritocrats are like him.”

Six stared at her.

“At least, I know they still encase people alive in rexelene, and throw other people to the Tattula cats, but ... oh, hang it, Six, why do you always have to be right!”

“It comes naturally.” He preened, and then ducked hastily as she aimed a blow at his head. “Here! Be careful, you nearly decapitated me.”

“What an exaggeration! I was only going to brush a speck of ash out of your hair.”

“You were trying to scalp me.” Six rubbed his head and assumed a pained expression.

“Yes. And don’t turn all wide-eyed on me, either. It isn’t going to work.”

She punched him in the arm, which led to retaliation. They were still warily circling each other when Tallen and Bennel came back to the bridge, carrying the canth keeper on one of the first aid stretchers.

Tallen stared at them. “What is going on?”

Diva giggled, and then found herself forced to bend over, as a stitch took hold of her. “I shouldn’t have tried to do so much,” she gasped, as she caught her breath. “Six, you would try the patience of a saint!”

“I do my best.”

The canth keeper looked for a moment between the two of them, and then his face became wreathed in smiles, despite the pain he was feeling.

“Congratulations.”

Bennel and Tallen seemed confused. “On their colours,” explained the canth keeper. “Their colours have become nearly the same. Their journey of colour is over.”

There was a shimmer as the whole of the space trader was caught up at last by the orthogel entity, and then they all gazed at the visor as the black hole winked out and they found themselves contemplating the familiar stars of the binary system.

Arcan deposited the New Independence in orbit around Valhai and then appeared in front of them all, on the bridge. He looked very indignant and was much darker than usual. They could feel the latent anger buried behind his words.

“I will leave you here,” he said. “I need to go back to the lake for a short while to recuperate from the struggle to get you away from the gravity well. I will take the canth keeper over to the medical skyrise at the same time, although the rest of you will have to make your own way down to the planet, I’m afraid. I will come to see you as soon as I can.”

They nodded their understanding, but the canth keeper cleared his throat painfully. “Do you have enough strength to take the canths back to the canth farm, on Xiantha, first?” he asked the orthogel entity, a worried frown creasing his face. “I am still most concerned about the canths that visited Kintara. They need tending to.”

The shape shimmered. “I will take the canths back,” Arcan agreed. “But then I must rest.”

Six nodded. “We won’t bother you about anything, Arcan, I promise. Get all the rest you need.”

The canth keeper looked at Bennel, who nodded immediately. “I will go with them and look after them until you are able to return, Canth keeper. You can rely on me.”

A second later there were only three of them left on board the space trader, and Six brought her into one of the docking spaces of the Valhai Orbital Space Station, with great care not to damage the ship.

The hatches finally slid open, and they were greeted back to the binary system by the hostile glances of several Sellites. Diva and Six stared.