Further: Beyond the Threshold (39 page)

Blinded, I reached in Jida’s direction, grabbed hold of the first thing that met my hand, and leaped down the far side of the ridge, sliding headfirst down the rocky slope.

::Jida?:: I instructed my mantle to go transparent and turned to see that Jida’s left arm was completely gone below the elbow, ending in a charred stump.

Jida’s faceplate went transparent, and I saw her tortured expression beneath. She was still conscious but didn’t seem able to concentrate enough to form words.

::Come on,:: I said, helping her to her feet with an arm around her back. ::They won’t be far behind us now.:: In the end, I had to more or less drag Jida bodily across the floor of the canyon, taking an eternity to cover a distance of only a few steps. Finally, we reached the
Compass Rose
, and I keyed the airlock to cycle open.

::Hang on, Jida,:: I told her. ::We’re getting out of here.::

As the airlock cycled shut, I heard a familiar voice in my head.

::Captain Stone?::

::First Zel i’Cirea,:: I answered, in mock formality. ::Please tell me you’re calling with good news.:: ::That depends entirely on your definition of ‘good,’ Captain, but I doubt your standards are low enough for it to make a difference.:: The airlock cycled, filling with air and pressurizing, and finally, Jida and I stumbled into the shuttle’s interior.

“
Compass Rose
, prepare for takeoff,” I said out loud as my mantle retreated below my neck, addressing the shuttle’s subsentient governing intelligence. Then I helped Jida into a chair and fit her with restraints to keep her immobilized. Fortunately, she’d at last lost consciousness, and I only hoped that by the time she woke again—assuming we lived long enough for her to do so—her medichines would have gone to work damping down the pain her severed arm must be causing her.

::Go ahead, Zel,:: I said, sliding into the ship’s command chair and bringing up a control display on the wall before me. ::What’s happening up there?:: ::I take it from your apparent position that your plan worked and that you and the others have escaped?:: ::Yes, but only Jida and I made it back to the ship. Bin-Ney didn’t make it, I’m afraid.:: ::I’d instruct the
Further
to begin fabricating a new body for him to be restored into, but I’m afraid we have other, more pressing uses for the power at the moment. Evidently, as a consequence of your escape, a short time ago the Iron Mass ship initiated an attack on the
Further
.:: ::
Further
, what’s your condition?::

::The damage is nontrivial,:: answered the voice of the ship’s avatar, ::but so far, I’ve been able to maintain hull integrity, and there’s been no loss of vital systems.:: ::You’ve returned fire, I take it?::

::I’ve employed both launchers and emitters, to varying effect.::

::They’ve taken damage,:: Zel said, ::but so far, they’re in much better shape than us.:: The
Compass Rose
was almost ready to take off, its drives nearly ready to create the tiny bubble of distorted space that would break the bonds of gravity holding it to the surface.

::How much longer until the metric engineering drives are charged enough to leave?:: ::More than half a standard day, I’m afraid, Captain,:: answered the
Further
.

::If we last that long,:: Zel said.

::OK, keep at it, guys,:: I said. ::I’m rounding up the rest of the party and we’ll be with you shortly.:: “
Compass Rose
,” I said, “let’s go.”

As the
Compass Rose
lifted off, an even more familiar voice rang from the ship’s speakers.

“RJ? Are you reading me?”

It was a radio-frequency signal, picked up by the shuttle’s transceiver. I tapped on the smart matter of the display and drew up a communication interface.

“Amelia?”

Her face appeared on the display, as big as life. She appeared to be floating in a featureless white void, positioned right in front of the “camera.”

“I’ve just managed to take control of the platform’s communication array.”

“Are you OK?” I asked, even as I realized that I had no notion what an appropriate answer might be for a digital incarnation infecting a strange computer network.

The image of Amelia smiled slyly and gave a slight shrug. “Ah, you know me, RJ. Always looking for a bit of excitement.” She averted her eyes momentarily, as though looking at something off-screen. “I’m monitoring the Iron Mass communications, and it looks like they’re almost on top of you. Did you and Jida make it there OK?”

I glanced over at Jida, strapped to the chair beside me, short an arm. “We made it, at least. Bin-Ney got shot just—”

“I know,” she said, nodding. “I’ve been reviewing their communications logs. That’s too bad, he seemed like a nice guy.”

“No, he didn’t,” I said. “He seemed like kind of a pillock, if you ask me. But he was under my command, and I let him die.”

“Maruti can bring him back, I’m sure.”

I nodded slightly as the
Compass Rose
angled over the valley and rose over the crest of the ridge. “Maybe. But if Maruti doesn’t make it either, who’s going to bring
him
back?”

“Look,” she said, her tone growing more serious. “Take this.”

The display threw up a symbol, indicating that it had just received a considerable amount of data.

“What’s this?” I asked.

“That’s me,” Amelia said simply. “My memories, at any rate. Assuming you get back to the ship and the ship makes it out of here in one piece, you should be able to restore my consciousness from backup. Then it’ll be like nothing ever happened.”

I looked at her image on the screen, my eyes narrowed. “Except it
will
have happened, won’t it? You’ll have died. Again.”

Amelia looked away, refusing to meet my eyes. “Look, RJ, don’t make this harder than it has to be. I’m sure it’s just our parochial, primitive mindsets that make it difficult for us to accept the idea of death and resurrection, right? Even when we’ve experienced it ourselves.”

I glanced over at Jida, who had clutched at her throat whenever she remembered what the Iron Mass had done to her in the past and who fought tooth and nail to make sure they wouldn’t be able to do it again.

“I don’t know, Amelia. These future folks seem pretty concerned about the idea, too.”

“Look…” she said, but then her words were cut off with a loud, penetrating squeal.

A new face filled the screen. Jet black, a wicked scar down the left side of the face, the right ear missing the lobe, long horns sticking out from the dome of the hairless skull.

It was Commander-of-the-Faithful Nine Precession Radon.

“Ah, unbeliever,” Radon said, with snarling satisfaction. “Our network defenses have finally detected your little intrusion and are in the process of isolating the perversion of consciousness you’ve set loose in our system.”

“You leave her alone!” I shouted, rising up out of my chair.

“Calm yourself,” Radon said, eyes glinting. “You’ll soon have more to worry about than one digital ghost. Your ship in orbit, for instance?”

“My ship’s been taking everything you people have been throwing at it and returning fire in kind. I wouldn’t be so quick to claim victory, Radon.”

The Iron Mass nodded, miming an expression of thoughtfulness.

“Perhaps,” he said serenely. “But that will all change. Even now, my men are preparing to blow your ship out of the sky.”

I maneuvered the
Compass Rose
over the ridge and out over the cairn forest.

Radon kept ranting over the radio frequency, but I killed the audio and concentrated on the task at hand.

::Maruti. Xerxes. You guys ready to go?:: I subvocalized.

::Oh, Captain Stone,:: Maruti effused, ::we’ve actually been able to record the data contained within the organic network, storing the gestalt consciousness in a repurposed part of Xerxes’s own body. It’s left him not entirely communicative, but—::

::I take it that’s a yes?:: I cut in.

From a short distance away, our Iron Mass pursuers began firing energy bursts from their spears, which deflected harmlessly off the
Compass Rose
’s bubble of distorted space. Even the larger white-light cannon, which had ripped through Zaslow and Bin-Ney, and tore Jida’s arm off at the elbow, rebounded without effect off the bubble. But the failure of their weapons to make an impression didn’t seem to deter them from continuing the effort.

The
Compass Rose
glided out over the forest of cairns, homing in on Maruti’s interlink signal.

::Oh, we see you, Captain!:: called Maruti’s voice.

::Great,:: I said, with little enthusiasm.

I brought the shuttle to a halt just over their position and configured a display to give me a view straight down. I could see the chimp looking up, the robot beside him standing impassively.

::Erm, how are we to…That is, how do we get from here to…?::

::Just hang on, Maruti.::

I wasn’t sure this was going to work. But Arluq had mentioned that it was a feature of the metric engineering drives that hadn’t been much explored.

::
Compass Rose
,:: I said, addressing the shuttle’s intelligence, ::distend the gravity field downward to the surface of the planet below us.::

The shuttle indicated that it would comply, and I felt a shifting in my stomach, as though I were in an elevator that suddenly began to descend at great speed.

::Hold onto yourselves, guys,:: I said, calling down to the surface. ::This might be a little rough.::

::What do you mean? Oh no!::

On the display, I watched as the pair of them suddenly fell
up
toward the underside of the shuttle, accelerating at full standard gravity. With the ship’s gravitational field extended to include them, their relative “down” had suddenly shifted from the ground beneath them to the center plane of the shuttle high overhead.

Xerxes hit the hull with a resounding clang, Maruti with a sickening thud.

::Oh dear…:: Maruti said.

::Look,:: I called out, ::there isn’t time to cycle the airlock, so you guys will have to ride back outside. Just key your mantles for full protection and instruct them to adhere to the hull, and you should be fine.::

::But—: Maruti began.

::No time,:: I said, regretting my snappish tone but having no choice.

The
Compass Rose
began to rise up, lifting higher above the surface.

::Zel, do you read me?::

::Yes,:: came the voice of the first.

::You’re about to get hit—and hard—by the Iron Mass, so it’s time to hit them first.
Further
, what was the name of that big gun of yours, the one that has a devastating impact but that you can use only once?::

::The field inverter?:: the ship’s avatar asked.

::That’s the one. It redirects the ship’s bubble of altered space outward, correct? And can change the characteristics of space in a targeted region? Like near-infinite gravity, or slower time, or such like?::

::Yes, but it’s a tremendous drain on the ship’s stores of energy.::

::I know, I know. And you’ve only got a half charge in the drives. But is there any chance you can pull power from other systems and give us one big shot?::

::If I cut life support on all but a few areas of the ship, I suppose it would be possible. But I don’t know how long I can maintain—::

::Good. Evacuate those parts of the ship.::

::Already done,:: Zel put in. ::We moved everyone into the center of the ship, into the Atrium and adjoining sections, when we came under attack.::

::Great. The ship’ll be a sitting duck after you take this shot, but if you don’t, it sounds like you’ll just be roasted instead.::

::Sir?:: the ship’s avatar asked, confused.

::Never mind. Radon might be bluffing, but I don’t want to risk it. Charge up the big gun and fire on the ship.::

A long moment passed in anxious silence as the
Compass Rose
drifted higher and higher above the surface of the planet below.

::We’re ready, Captain,:: the
Further
said. ::I can pipe you a visual feed from my hull, if you like.::