Further: Beyond the Threshold (37 page)

Radon sighed and started toward the door. Before he reached it, he looked back over his shoulder. “I am truly sorry for you, you know. If I could somehow make you see the truth, I would do it in an instant.”

He paused at the hatchway, a sad expression on his face, and then closed the hatch behind him.

::OK,:: said the voice of Amelia, sounding closer than ever, ::I think we’re in business.::

While I’d been trussed up, beaten, and lectured by a proselytizing zealot, Jida Shuliang had been going through a crisis of her own.

I don’t think I realized how difficult it was for her, being cut off from the rest of her being. It’s impossible for someone who lives only in one brain to imagine what it must be like to be part of a distributed consciousness but isolated from the rest of your mind. It must be something like being lobotomized, but rather than being spared the pain of all you’ve lost through the expediency of imbecility, you’d be completely aware of everything you could no longer touch, think, and feel.

It must have been difficult when the Jida emissary first came on board the
Further
. I’d never given it a second thought. Jida was a charming, even effervescent, fixture of Entelechy life, and the trio of Jida Shuliang bodies that boarded the
Further
above the Ouroboros shipyards seemed every bit the same woman as the one who I’d met at the
Further
fundraiser only days before. Except she wasn’t. Not really. She was
part
of the same woman. A subset that shared the same general features of the whole, that seemed identical at a distance, but on closer examination, she lacked detail, like a fragment of a broken hologram, a reflection of the whole at a lower degree of resolution.

It was harder still, then, for a single body of the Jida emissary to come down to the pulsar planet with me, cut off from the rest of her mind back on the
Further
. She knew it would only be for eighty minutes at a time and must have thought it a small price to pay to set foot on a virgin world. But that was before we knew about the Iron Mass and what would come after.

So Jida, the five-millennia-old memories of her last death at the hands of the Iron Mass still fresh in her mind, sat alone in her jail cell with Bin-Ney and her memories, disoriented to be alone in her head for so long a time.

Then Amelia gained control of the security systems, and with the communication systems at her command, she’d created our own encrypted interlink network, connecting me in my torture chamber to Jida and Bin-Ney in their cell. And then Amelia told us where our weapons and mantles were being kept. And then Amelia opened the door to the cell.

::All right, then.:: The voice of Jida in my head sounded like a fist of iron gloved in velvet. ::We’re getting our gear. Then we’re coming to get you, RJ. And then we’re getting the hell out of here.::

:: W-what about the guards?:: I heard Bin-Ney ask.

::What about them?:: Jida asked, fire beneath her words. ::These sons of bitches aren’t killing me again.::

Suddenly, Jida didn’t seem so disoriented anymore.

Shackled to the wall, I felt more helpless and anxious than I had in all the time I’d hung there, knowing that Jida and Bin-Ney were free, sneaking through the cramped corridors of the habitat dome, trying to avoid running into any Iron Mass—at least until they retrieved our weapons and defenses. So close to freedom, the thought that I’d not live to see it was suddenly inescapable.

So when the hatch started to move, accompanied by the squeal of metal on metal, I breathed a sigh of relief.

::It’s about time you showed up, Jida,:: I subvocalized, smiling slightly. ::I was beginning to worry.::

The hatch started to swing open.

::Um, RJ?:: came Jida’s reply. ::We just reached the stores where our gear’s being held. We’re not
there
yet.::

The hatch swung all the way open on its hinges, and a pair of Iron Mass stood on the far side, a man and a women, each armed with their long-bladed weapons, the handles collapsed.

“The commander-of-the-faithful regrets that he has not been able to lead you onto the path of destiny,” said the woman, stepping into the center of the room, the lines of her skull marked out by lines of thin scarlet horns. I recognized her as the leader of the group that had captured us in the cairn forest and brought us to the mining platform.

“He has conferred with the Temple and has been instructed to abandon the attempt,” the man beside her said, his blue eyes narrowed.

The pair of Iron Mass drew closer and shifted their weapons in their hands. At some unseen signal from them, some hidden motion, the handles extended so that they now resembled long-bladed spears instead of swords,
naginata
instead of scimitars.

“Look,” I said, trying to sound as calm as possible, “there’s no need to give up hope yet, is there? I still could be made to see reason.”

The pair lifted their weapons, pointing the blades’ tips toward my chest.

“Would that it were true,” the woman said sadly.

A faint humming filled the air, and their weapons began to glow faintly, the light emanating from the place where the blade met the haft.

::Jida?:: I subvocalized.

“Those who don’t serve the purpose of the Divine Ideal hinder its coming,” the man said. “And obstacles must be cleared aside.”

The humming escalated, swelling in pitch and volume, and the glow from the weapons grew brighter.

::Guys?::

There was no answer on the interlink. Had something gone wrong? Had the others run into opposition?

“Your blind faith has made murderers of you all,” I said hotly, abandoning any attempt to sway them. It went against the precepts of Interdiction Negotiation, but they’d served me not at all the last few hours, so there was little reason to continue backing a losing horse. “Will you just keep on killing and destroying until there’s nothing left of the galaxy but you lunatics?”

The woman scowled, and the man’s mouth drew into a tight line.

The thrumming hum of the weapons grew to a fever pitch, and the glow was almost blinding. Whatever they were about to do, they would do soon.

“I pity you,” the woman said, bitter but sincere. “Your life, and death, will have no meaning.”

“That depends entirely on your perspective,” came the voice of Jida from the doorway.

Toroids of plasma leapt from the projector cuff on Jida’s wrist, slamming into the back of the male Iron Mass, and a split-second later, Bin-Ney fired a stream that caught the woman in the back of the head.

The Iron Mass collapsed, plasma wounds blossoming on their backs as they spun around, and their weapons suddenly discharged, torrents of white light gouting out. One struck the ceiling, harmlessly, but the other intersected the wall only centimeters from my left hand. I could feel the singeing heat of the blast on my skin, and the small hairs on my forearm and the back of my hand were burned away in an eyeblink.

Stepping over the lifeless bodies of the Iron Mass, Jida hefted a mantle belt, a projector cuff, and my holstered cap gun. She and Bin-Ney wore their mantles completely covering their bodies from head to toe, entirely opaque except for a transparent faceplate.

“Well,” Jida said, “what are you hanging around for, RJ? Let’s get out of here.”

When they’d got me down from the wall and I stood on my own feet for the first time in what seemed an eternity, it took me a moment to recover my equilibrium.

“Are you going to be able to travel, sir?” Bin-Ney asked, reaching out a hand to steady me.

“Well, I don’t see that we have much choice, do you?” I said, trying to sound good natured.

“Here,” Jida said, reaching out and wrapping the mantle around my waist. “You get suited up, and then we’ll go.” I signaled to the mantle with my interlink, and it began to flow up and down, covering my body. “These two were the first Iron Mass we’ve run into, so there’s a chance they don’t yet know we’re free.”

Jida snapped the projector cuff onto my left forearm, and then I strapped my cap gun’s holster around my waist. Unbuckling the strap securing it into place, I slid the cap gun out, the weight of it reassuring in my grip.

“With any luck, then,” I said, “we’ll be able to make it out of the platform without running into any interference. Then we make for the
Compass Rose
, pick up the chimp and robot, and get out of here. But first, we need to get Amelia back out of the network.”

::What do you mean you aren’t coming?:: I subvocalized as we hustled through the corridors heading toward the dome’s center, trying to make as little noise as possible.

My plan was to find a computer interface on the way to the central elevator, yank Amelia out of the network, then hop the lift down to the surface. I had a stitch in my side, and my legs were already aching, but I plowed ahead, knowing that I’d have time to rest and recover if we managed to make it off the pulsar planet alive.

::I’m the only thing keeping the Iron Mass off your back at the moment,:: Amelia answered. ::I’m futzing with their security monitoring systems and suppressing some automated alarm systems. If I left the network, the entire mining complex would be at your throats in a matter of moments.::

::So we’ll just take you out right before we get to the lift, and then we hightail it out of here.::

::No good, mate,:: Amelia answered, her tone resolute. ::The security systems will shut down the lift as soon as the alarms hit, and you won’t be able to get down. Besides, with me here running interference, I’ll be able to keep the platform from using its stationary weapons systems against you while you’re heading for the ship. Otherwise, they’d just pick you off with a couple of well-placed particle beams.::

I kept hustling through the corridors, but my heart had sunk in my chest and my legs felt like they were made of lead.

::But…:: I began. ::I can’t just
leave
you.::

::RJ, you big sook,:: she said, using the tone of voice she employed only when she thought I was being particularly oblivious. ::I’m a digital incarnation of a woman who’s been dead and revived once already.:: She paused, and then added in a voice that was not as brave as I knew she’d hoped, ::What’s the worst that can happen to me?::