Further: Beyond the Threshold (33 page)

“That’s…” Bin-Ney began, struggling to find the words. “That’s…I studied the Iron Mass, but only in popular dramas. I didn’t know about…”

Jida’s glare was so hot and intense I was surprised it didn’t bore a hole through him, like poor Zaslow.

Bin-Ney averted his eyes and said, his voice low, “I just found their aesthetics appealing, is all.”

Jida ignored him. “The Consensus needed little time to deliberate. Once the Iron Mass were forced back through the threshold to their home world, the threshold was permanently closed, the stabilizing arch dismantled, and the juncture allowed to evaporate. That was the last recorded contact anyone had with the Iron Mass.”

Jida’s hands had drifted back to her neck, her fingers wrapped around her throat on either side, almost like she was trying to choke herself. Or hold something in.

“Jida,” I said softly, carefully, “what happened to you when the Iron Mass attacked the Entelechy? How were you hurt?”

She looked at me, her eyes wide, as though she were seeing past the millennia, as though it were happening again, right in front of her.

“I was….
she
was…” Jida paused and straightened her shoulders before continuing. “One of my bodies was there when the door to the Iron Mass home world was opened. I was curious to see what would happen. I was…”

She trailed off for a moment, seeming out of breath.

“It’s OK, Jida,” I said. “It was a long, long time ago.”

Jida nodded slowly, but her expression looked unconvinced.

“My interlink was active when it happened, of course. So what happened to my body in front of the Iron Mass threshold was experienced by the entire legion. The Iron Mass had these hooks and these knives, and they…”

Her hands were wrapped so tightly around her neck now that her voice sounded choked off, her air passages constricted. I leaned forward and gently pried her fingers away from her neck, having to labor to lower her strong arms to her sides.

“They gutted me,” Jida gaped, wide eyed, teeth bared. “They ripped out my throat when I started to scream, and then opened me up with their knives, and then…” She squeezed shut her eyes, misted with tears. “I wanted to shut that body out, close down the interlink to the rest of the legion, but I couldn’t look away, couldn’t leave her alone…couldn’t leave
me
alone like that. I’ve lost countless bodies to accidents, to age, to misadventure, but that was the first and only time I’d lost one to pure, unreasoning hatred. I couldn’t leave that part of me to look into those unfeeling eyes alone. So that part of Jida Shuliang died with my words of comfort in her mind. And I’ve lived all the days of my life since with her screams of horror and pain in mine.”

I’d long since lost track of time, but the voice of Zel i’Cirea meant that eighty minutes must have passed.

::Captain Stone, can you hear me?::

::Loud and clear,:: I subvocalized, on the chance that the Iron Mass might be listening in—and in the hopes that they hadn’t detected the interlink communication frequencies. Anyone looking in would see three people sitting quietly, their expressions carefully blank and affectless.

::We’ve sighted a ship that we believe, based on its markings, to be from the lost culture of the Iron Mass.:: ::We’ve done more than
sight
them down here, I’m afraid.:: ::What is your condition, then?::

::Jida, Bin-Ney, and I have been taken prisoner. Zaslow’s been murdered.:: ::And Maruti and Xerxes?:: Zel asked.

::We’re right here, sirs,:: came the voice of Maruti.

::Perhaps if you defined ‘here’ it might be more informative, mmm?:: added Xerxes.

::We’re still investigating the cave systems. We tried to interlink you a short while ago but just assumed that we were out of range. We didn’t even know you folks were missing.:: ::Well, we
were
,:: put in Jida.

::All right, settle down,:: I said. ::We’ve got a lot of people on the line. I’m guessing that the
Further
being in orbit is acting as a relay so that we can communicate on the ground, even if we can’t interlink point to point.:: ::So it would seem,:: Zel answered.

::Which means we’ve got just a few minutes before we all lose contact again, and a long while before contact is reestablished. Let’s make it count. Zel, you say you’ve sighted a ship. What’s it doing?:: ::After first sighting, it began to adjust its orbit and is now nearly alongside us. So far, though, they’ve not responded to any communications, whether radio, or pulsed light, or any other mechanism we have available to us.:: ::But they haven’t made any overtly hostile gestures.::

::No.::

::Captain,:: cut in Maruti, ::we just
have
to tell you about this remarkable discovery we’ve made.:: ::It’ll have to wait a moment, Maruti,:: I said. ::I’m afraid we’re a little preoccupied at the moment.:: ::Should we send down reinforcements, Captain?::

::Thanks for the offer, Zel, but I’m not sure it would do much good. These guys are pretty well entrenched. And since the Iron Mass ship in orbit is obviously watching you, any move to rescue us could force their hand, which could end badly for us down here.:: ::To say the least,:: Jida said humorlessly.

::I prefer to keep our options open, for the moment, and watch for any opening.:: ::Sir, about our findings…:: Maruti began.

::Not yet,:: I said. ::
Further
?:: ::Yes, Captain Stone?:: came the voice of the avatar in my ears.

::What’s the state of the drive? Could you get away if you needed to?:: ::Sadly not, sir,:: the
Further
answered. ::We drained the reaction drives in moving into orbit around this planet, and we won’t be able to use the metric engineering drives for another point-nine-two standard days.:: ::OK. So there’s no rush, but if you get charged and ready, and there’s still no sign of us getting free, I want you to fire up the metric engineering drives and get back to Entelechy space. If nothing else, we need to warn anyone else away from this rock and let everyone know that the Iron Mass don’t appear to have been sitting on their hands the last few thousand years. They’ve been mining this planet for years, it looks like, but mining what, and what they’ve been doing with it, I haven’t got a clue. As for the Iron Mass ship in orbit, so long as it doesn’t make any aggressive moves, just keep your distance.:: ::And if it
does
make any aggressive moves?:: Zel asked.

::In that case,:: I answered, ::I trust you to do whatever’s necessary to safeguard the ship and her crew.:: ::Captain Stone, I must insist…:: Maruti said.

::Maruti, you and Xerxes continue your investigations. If you happen to find anything that’s going to get Jida, Bin-Ney, and me out of this fix, and all of us back on the ship, you let me know. Otherwise, keep out of sight, for the time being.:: ::But what about—::

And then the connection was broken, the
Further
rotating once more out of range.

The most profound silence I ever experienced was drifting in cislunar space inside the belly of an empty cargo tank. It’s a long story, but the short version is that I was in a shuttle mishap, without a functioning pressure suit, and had to eat a vacuum to get from the damaged control module to the cargo bay, where luckily one of the tanks was intended to transport livestock and so was pressurized and heated. With the engines offline and the radio out, there was nothing to do but sit and wait—a few thousand cubic meters of air and me, surrounded by reinforced ceramic and steel. At least inside a pressure suit I’d have my own breath and heartbeat sounding in my ears, but the vast empty space in the tank ate up any sounds echoing back from the far walls, so it was just me and silence.

Until
Cutter 972
had appeared on the scene like the proverbial cavalry and saved my hide, I’d thought for sure that was it for me.

The aching sensation of helplessness in my gut was much the same, sitting in the dimly lit cell on the Iron Mass mining platform, but the difference was that there was nothing like silence here: the constant rumble of the drill down below, moving back and forth on an arm spinning slowly around in circles, the drill describing an ever-increasing spiral, the source of the grooves on the canyon floor and walls; the rumble of life-support systems, clanking fans somewhere far off in the walls, echoing through the air vents; and the occasional heavy tread of Iron Mass moving back and forth outside our windowless door. The air in the room was hot and close, and in the dim light, we could barely see one another, but we didn’t have to look to know what expressions we all carried—uncertainty, dread, and fear.

Time moved at a snail’s pace as we sat, unmoving, on the floor of our cell.

Finally, there came a shuffling sound on the far side of the door, and with a deafening clang, the hatch swung open.

An imposing figure stood in the doorway, horns longer than those on any of the Iron Mass we’d seen so far, a wicked scar down the left side of his face, his right ear missing its lobe. He was no taller or broader than the rest, on reflection, but something about his posture, about his bearing, suggested a much larger man. He glared down at us, his ice-blue cat’s eyes narrowed to slits, and something like a smile curled his lip.

“Before you stands Commander-of-the-Faithful Nine Precession Radon, House of the Ideal’s Pure Expression, leader of these men. You will dine with me.”

Having heard Jida’s story of the Iron Mass and what had happened the last time anyone from the Entelechy had laid eyes on them, I wasn’t sure what to expect next. But whatever possibilities might have crossed my mind, being on the receiving end of an attempted conversion was not one of them.

“Our creed requires us to give every organic a chance to embrace their destiny and join us in working toward the birth of the Divine Ideal.”

We were seated on thin cushions around a low table, the man called Nine Precession Radon at the head and me at the other end, Jida and Bin-Ney on either side. Small cups of some strong spirit were in front of us, but so far, only Radon had taken a sip, the rest of us watching warily.

“I remember the last time the Iron Mass spread their creed,” Jida said, eyes half-lidded, teeth clenched, “and you got yourselves exiled from civilization in the bargain.”

“
Civilization
?” Radon laughed, a startling, barking sound. “Exiled, do you say? Ha! It was the greatest blessing ever to befall my people that we were excised from your so-called
Human
Entelechy. We should never have submitted ourselves to be ruled by a consortium of mechanical miscengenists and disembodied digital ghosts.”

::I hope he doesn’t mean
me
,:: chimed a voice in my ear.

I struggled not to react, but to keep my expression neutral.

::Amelia?:: I subvocalized.

::Sorry I’ve been gone, but I got distracted catching up with old movies and lost track of time. Did you know they made holographic adaptations of
The Chronicles of Zenna
in the twenty-third century?::

::Amelia, we’re a little busy here at the moment…::

::I know, RJ, I’m just kidding. I seem to have missed a lot of the plot, huh? Who’s the fruit bat?::