Authors: Jaine Fenn
‘And they want us dead. What do you think the Gatekeeper wants?’
‘I’m afraid I have no idea.’
‘I did wonder if someone here might try to steal my ship, given they don’t have the means to get back to human-space. They don’t, do they?’
Ain said, ‘I do not believe so – but even if they did, they would be able only to send representatives. An avatar out of contact with its patron becomes unstable.’
Just like Vy had. Jarek also suspected the males might not approve of human shiftships, given the nature of the transit-kernels that powered them. ‘So they’re happy to carry on living out here, while humanity’s still being secretly fucked over by the females.’
‘They have no choice.’
‘I guess not. To be honest, given how many of them there are, I was a bit surprised they just upped sticks and ran. What little info we have from that far back suggests the males were killed off slowly, over many generations.’ He didn’t feel the need to add that Nual had been told the same thing by her people, before she rebelled.
‘What to do you mean?’ asked Ain.
‘Twenty thousand males – more originally, before some of them died getting to Aleph – would have been a force to be reckoned with, so why didn’t they stay and fight?’
‘Do you not know about the A-S Plague?’
‘The A-S—? No, I don’t. What is it?’
‘It isn’t something the patrons talk about much, but it’s the reason they came here in the first place. The females created a viral agent that targeted Sidhe males.’
‘Aha. And what did this virus do?’ Jarek knew all about the Sidhe’s tailored pathogens; he’d nearly died from one on Serenein.
‘The A-S Plague was double-tasked. Firstly, it damaged the males’ ability to freeshift – until then, the free males had expanded beyond the systems held by the females and returned to launch attacks on the females’ territory. Once infected, they could no longer strike out for new star-systems; they could only use previously established transit-paths. Encoded males were more resilient to the virus than those who remained in the flesh, but it still eroded – and in some cases completely destroyed – their ability to transit.’
Jarek suspected that the Three Cities had succumbed to this virus; it would explain why they’d stayed behind. He wondered how it felt for natural starfarers like that to be stuck in one place. ‘And the second effect?’
‘The second part of the virus affected only non-encoded males, but it infected all of them, and it spread very quickly. It reduced the intellect of any infected male to that of a self-absorbed child.’
Or as they called them on Serenein, skyfools,
thought Jarek.
Her expression dark, Ain concluded, ‘And that’s why they called it the Anti-Sentience Plague.’
‘So the males ran away to avoid getting infected, and now they can’t go back?’
‘Even if they could, they wouldn’t want to. The A-S virus is harmless to humans or female Sidhe, but they can carry it, and it is likely the pathogen is still live and endemic in human-space.’
Hence the extra-thorough decon they’d been through on arrival. ‘Nasty,’ Jarek muttered.
And typical of the Sidhe.
‘Do you mind if I rest now? I think the last few hours are beginning to catch up with me.’
Jarek realised she looked exhausted, and said quickly, ‘Of course. You can have my cabin.’
‘If you are sure this will not inconvenience you?’
‘Not at all,’ he told her with a smile. ‘I’m quite used to sleeping on the bridge. Give me a few minutes to tidy things up in there and the room’s all yours.’
No one tried to com them while Jarek napped on his control couch, though he suspected plenty of locals were watching his ship pull away from the densely populated disc. He dreamt about Serenein again: this time he was arguing with Kerin, who was trying to persuade him to give her people Angel implants so they could fly to Heaven and find out the truth for themselves. His months on her world remained startlingly vivid, often flooding up from his subconscious when he relaxed, while his life before was veiled by a strange haziness. Serenein was where he’d got his stolen memory back, and he suspected the place would always haunt him.
He had combined Ain’s info with his own to plot the best course. They needed to come back down into the main planetary disc at a steep angle, but not so precipitous that they couldn’t make adjustments once they’d located the Egg. The ship was just about to start its programmed descent when Nual came up onto the bridge.
‘Any luck?’ he asked, thankful he didn’t need to spell out his question. It was painful enough without having to actually ask,
Is Taro still alive?
She gave him a wan smile. ‘He isn’t dead. I think I made contact, but it was fleeting – it might be due to distance, or maybe interference. This is a very crowded system.’
‘But you’re sure he’s out there somewhere?’
‘Yes. He is definitely alive.’
‘That’s something. Your premonition—?’ Jarek wasn’t sure what he was asking.
‘I believe that lying about our relationship saved Taro’s life. If those who kidnapped Taro had known of our link, then they would not just have
claimed
he was dead. They would have actually killed him to avoid their deception being uncovered.’
‘If he
were
dead, what would you do?’ he asked, curious. There was no point mincing words with Nual.
‘Not go on some foolish quest for vengeance, if that’s what you’re worried about. I would try to force the shift back to human-space without him. Assuming you would be willing to risk it.’
‘Well, let’s hope it doesn’t come to that, shall we?’ He checked the board; the ship had turned and they were now heading back in. ‘Right, we’ve got about ten hours before we’re back in the high-population area. Assuming we get that far in one piece, we need to decide what we’re going to say to the Consensus.’
‘I think we need to speak to Ain about that,’ Nual said after a moment.
‘She’s opened up to me a lot recently,’ Jarek said. ‘I’d say we can afford to be honest with her.’
‘That won’t stop me reading her.’
‘I’d expect nothing less.’
Jarek stayed on the bridge, watching the busy lights of the ecliptic begin to fill the monitors. After the comp had registered a couple of attempts to ping them, he called the others.
Ain sat next to Jarek on the folding stool he had used when he was training Taro to fly the ship. Nual waited silently at the back.
As they dropped towards the inner system, there were more pings, and some com calls; Jarek ignored them all. Right now he was more worried about physical interception. As space got more crowded, they’d have to slow down to manoeuvre around the local domains, each of which had a fixed radius of space they claimed as their own. Ain told them about the temporary corridors of neutral space created when orbital mechanics brought two domains too close together; it was Jarek’s job to make sure they stuck to these corridors.
‘Any sign of the Egg yet?’ he asked Ain.
Ain was monitoring the holocube. ‘I’m not sure. I am finding your tech a little confusing,’ she admitted.
‘That’s all right,’ said Jarek, trying not to get annoyed, ‘just tell me what you think you’re seeing, and I’ll tell you what I’ve got on my readouts . . .’
For the next couple of hours they deciphered the congested sensor readings together. The best tactic for picking out something in a polar orbit was to stand off a little and watch how everything moved, as they were mainly seeing domains in flat orbits round the sun, or ships under power. Even so, by the time he was sure they were closing in on their destination, four ships of various sizes and configurations were following them at a discreet distance and the coms board was lit solid. If only he could work out which messages – if any – came directly from the Consensus, he could answer them—
—he nearly missed the hazard warning. The debris cloud between the
Heart of Glass
and the Egg initially showed only as a tell-tale in one corner of the screen, but Jarek reached for the nav-shield controls as soon as the alarm went off. A moment later the holocube and screens flickered. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Ain open her mouth in surprise, but he raised his free hand and she stayed quiet.
The ship gave a series of faint jolts.
The jolts stopped. The readouts stabilised.
They were through.
‘We just flew into a debris-cloud,’ he said, a little breathlessly. ‘It was all small stuff, but that would have been enough to hole the hull of a ship with inadequate shielding going too fast – which we weren’t, obviously. Looking at it, I’d guess someone dumped it there very recently, and I think we can assume it was specifically intended to do us some damage.’
‘The Consensus will not be pleased,’ Ain said shakily.
‘I should bloody well hope not.’ He made another check on local space. ‘Right, I’m going to broadcast a wide-frequency hail. We’re near enough that everyone must have worked out where we’re heading by now, but I prefer to ask for permission to dock before I get too close—’
—especially since the Consensus’ habitat had the best weapons in the system, according to Ain – just in case any males were crazy enough to try and break the rules.
His hail was answered at once, and a female voice very similar to Ain’s directed him to the main docking ring.
‘Almost there,’ he announced. ‘Time to get a proper look at our destination.’
The vector plot in the cube was replaced by their first detailed image of the Egg. From behind him he heard Nual draw a sharp breath.
‘Yeah,’ he said over his shoulder to her, ‘it is, isn’t it? We probably should have seen that one coming.’
Taro stared at the wall display. It had to be some sort of console – maybe it even controlled the ship – but he was fucked if he knew how it worked. There weren’t any screens, or sliders, or any of the shit he was used to, just the lights and traces covering the wall. And the shaking and humming were getting worse by the moment. He had to do something, but he had no idea what—
A large red light near the top of the display expanded and brightened, then began to blink slowly and compellingly. Taro stared at it, mesmerised.
Something pretty to look at while I wait to die . . .
Was he imagining it, or was the shuddering easing off? Yep, things had definitely begun to calm down. That had to be a good thing.
He looked away from the hypnotic light. The rest of the display didn’t look so frantic now, and the hum had died away. When he decided to risk standing on it, the floor just felt a bit unstable, though that could be him. Whatever the problem was, it looked like it’d sorted itself out – so maybe he wasn’t going to die after all.
He went back to check on Vy. The damaged avatar was still alive, but out of it. He sat down next to him and put a hand on the boy’s shoulder. Was that another shudder? It felt kind of distant. His eyes began to close, and he felt himself falling forward . . .
He caught himself just before he hit the floor.
Damn fucking adrenalin comedown.
He stayed where he was, collapsed beside the prone avatar, willing himself to stay alert, but nothing was happening, and nothing was boring, and boredom made him sleepy.
He should try and get up, fly, go check the place out – but what was there to check out? They weren’t dead, and the ship hadn’t crashed. So, no immediate threat. And it’d be a lot easier to work out what to do next once he’d got some rest . . .
He woke up sprawled across the floor, with no idea how long he’d been asleep. It didn’t feel like long enough, and now he was thirsty again. Something smelled a bit odd, though that could be him. He levered himself into a sitting position and looked down on Vy. The boy’s open eyes tracked him, and his mouth twitched.
‘Hey,’ murmured Taro, ‘how y’doing there?’
‘I’m dying,’ said Vy calmly.
‘Nah, you’ll be fine.’ Taro put all the conviction he could muster into his voice. ‘I’m gonna have a look around, see if I can find us a drink. You’ll feel better once you’ve had a drink.’
Vy’s mouth turned up into a dreamy smile, but he didn’t say anything.
Taro got up. He took a look at what’d been their cell from the doorway. The door was still open – or rather, missing – but he didn’t trust the fucking thing not to close again if he went inside. Anyway, the water and food from the tray was spilled all over the floor, and the mush, whatever it was, had dried to a nasty crust, which might explain the smell.
Next he tried the room he’d decided to call Device’s cabin. Device had talked about sorting human food, so maybe he’d done that in here – but none of the nodules, lumps and rough portions of wall responded to Taro’s touch. He wondered about moving Vy in here, onto the bed-thing, but when he touched the platform it wasn’t soft like the cell floor had been.
He started at a noise from outside and called, ‘Vy? You feeling better?’ He walked over to the doorway.
Vy was still lying on the floor. There were three other people in the room with him. They were even taller than Taro, and aside from some off-white things on their arms and ankles, they were naked. They all carried thin, white-tipped poles that looked suspiciously like weapons. Their skin was dark, or possibly just really dirty, and they had long tangled red-brown hair, with more stuff plaited into it. One was bending down over Device’s body. The other two stood next to Vy: one was leaning on his pole – yeah, those were definitely spears – and the other was just about to use his to prod Vy.