Reclamation (49 page)

The memory was warm and firm and a part of him, but it was still not enough to silence the fear of diving straight into nothingness.

What made it worse was that there was a way out. He’d spotted it. Between the plotting strategies Dorias had poured into him and the equipment list he had read in Cam, he knew how to get out of this android and this shell of a ship.

Cam twitched, suddenly alert on new levels. Adu fastened his attention fully on its activities. The monitors were picking up localized increases in hull temperature, pinpricks of heat. Cam didn’t understand. Adu prodded it and opened up part of its memory to remind it they were in a hostile space. Now it had it. The pinpricks were targeting lasers. The Vitae satellites had spotted them.

Adu waited, listening to the comm lines with Cam’s ears. There was nothing but unintelligible Vitae noise. The pinpricks stayed where they were, tracking the comet they had become a part of.

Did the satellites think? Were they trying to decide what to do? Had the Vitae in their ships been notified, or was this just standard operating procedure? Track every bit of junk and rock that floated into the system and wait for it to do something stupid?

Adu knew his questions were useless. There wasn’t even any way to tell if the satellites themselves were armed. The comet’s cloud of crystals and dust made too much interference for the
U-Kenai
to get a detailed picture. The ship could tell where the satellites were, but that was all.

There was nothing Adu could do. The course was laid in and plotted. Changing it under the satellites’ gazes would definitely cause an alert to be sent to the Vitae’s flesh-and-blood watchers. The
U-Kenai
was built for running away, not for fighting, and halfway buried in ice and dirt, it wasn’t going anywhere in a hurry. They were already in the trap. All of them.

Cam wanted to move, to recalibrate the monitors and make sure it was seeing what it thought it was seeing. It wanted to summon Eric Born to the bridge and alert him to the situation and get orders, even if it was just to stay on course, because the situation had changed.

Adu forced Cam to hold still. The trap’s lid wasn’t closed yet. Nothingness didn’t surround him quite yet. He could still get out.

And if he did, what would Dorias do?

Send him back to Eric Born? Impossible. Reabsorb his identity? Perhaps, but then at least he’d be part of something. He wouldn’t be alone in the middle of a silent world.

Cam was shoving at him, seeking a way to get to the circuits that ruled the android body. Adu leaned all his weight against it until it stopped struggling.

“Sar Born!” Adu called. “Strap in!”

The monitor on the common room showed the pair of them moving with admirable dispatch. Arla Stone laid herself flat in the lowest alcove and let Eric draw the webbing over her. He closed the catches while explaining how they worked. Then Eric climbed into the second bunk and fastened himself in.

Adu, giving Cam just enough room so that it could stay alert for any changes in the ship’s monitors, moved the android.

The
U-Kenai’s
emergency beacon, once retrieved from its storage hatch beneath the bridge’s deck, proved to be an old unit that had been only peripherally kept in repair. When Adu had been required to set it up in dock at ’Abassyd Station, he had siphoned its specifications from Cam. The beacon was supposed to carry warnings or distress messages from a ship. It had an extraordinary amount of redundant memory and it could travel long distances, albeit slowly. It could take him back to where there would be voices he could hear and room to stretch out. In the meantime, there would be a little spare room in there, where he could keep himself busy by building his own tools. In a year or three or five, he would be found and his box would be opened and he’d go on from there.

The pinpricks still hung on the ship’s skin. The transmissions from the satellites had picked up slightly, but they hadn’t changed direction, and the satellites themselves hadn’t moved. They watched closely, but they just watched.

So far.

Cam’s main processes huddled in the corner where Adu had left them. Adu encompassed Cam and pried into its insides. He heightened its perception of the task at hand; to get the
U-Kenai
safely down, unseen, if possible. Cam thought more slowly than Adu, and had less capacity for memory, but it knew the ship and had years of experience stored in itself. The ship could still maneuver a little, and it could still brake a little. The comet ice packed around its skin would absorb the extra heat of the accelerated re-entry and Cam could surely steer it more accurately than Adu, because it had special subroutines for flying under reduced capacity. It would all be enough, with a little added urgency. Adu had to make sure it would be enough, because there was every chance he would contact Dorias again. Dorias would know Adu had defied him, but at least he wouldn’t be able to say his child had done it carelessly.

Besides, Adu carried copies of everything Eric had learned from the Vitae datastores. Dorias wanted them back.

That is my real purpose. Not sending myself into emptiness.

Cam did not try to duck out as Adu laid the new orders in. Accepting orders was part of what Cam was carefully designed to do. When Adu was satisfied that the first thing Cam would do when left to its own devices was launch the beacon, he let it retreat to its corner.

The beacon would trail along behind the ship in the “comet’s” tail as just another piece of junk until the final descent began. Then it would break free and fly off on its own, like at least two dozen other pieces of rock would be doing at that point.

The monitors registered a rise in temperature from three of the pinpricks. Adu froze. The temperature leveled off. Maybe it was only a fluctuation. Maybe some tensing had been caused by the ice coating the ship’s side. There was no way to tell.

Adu opened a hatch on the beacon. Then he flicked back the cover for the hardwire jack on the android’s wrist. He plugged the biggest unused cable on the bridge between the two sockets. He made the android glance at the monitor again. Eric and Arla lay in their alcoves with their gazes fastened on the view wall, trying to see what was happening, and doubtlessly wondering how long it would be before they landed.

Cam will get them down,
Adu told himself as he reached down the new opening that the cable provided.
It will. They don’t need me. Not down there in the emptiness.

Carefully, he eased himself into the beacon.

Arla knew the ship was performing a delicate dance, skirting around the edge of the Servant’s Eyes, but it felt like nothing at all. To her, the
U-Kenai
was standing still while the universe churned around it. Light bent into bows and knots. It was like watching fireworks recorded through a distorting lens. It was silent, and beautiful, and utterly strange. Arla wanted to touch the backs of her hands in salute to the Nameless and the Servant, but the webbing held her hands down. She just hoped her thoughts would count and that there was somebody watching closely enough to acknowledge them.

All at once the morass of color and darkness was gone. The bare back of the Realm filled the screen.

“Too low,” gasped Eric. “Adu! Too low!”

Arla forced herself to keep her eyes open.
If I’m going to die, I’m at least going to see it coming.

Rock filled the screen, silver and black, pitted, gouged, bare. Bells and chimes, mechanical shrieks filled the air and the light flashed wildly.

It’s the World’s Wall. Nameless Powers Preserve me. We’re going to hit the World’s Wall!

The ship rolled sideways and a scream cut loose from Arla’s throat. They were upright in the next breath, she had time to be embarrassed, then to realize that she was alive to be embarrassed, and then to realize she hadn’t made the only noise.

Outside the ship blurred beige, brown, and green. Total darkness hit. Dim light returned and the screen flickered back to life. Green chaos swallowed up everything else and a sharp jolt bounced her up and down until the webbing creaked in protest.

They stopped and stayed still, doing nothing but breathe.

After a while, Arla was able to notice that the room was crooked. She lay with her knees pointed toward the ceiling and her left ear pressed against the side of the alcove. A single alarm bell rang tiredly for a few more seconds before it hushed itself from exhaustion.

“We’re here,” said Eric in a hollow voice.

“We’re home.” Arla fumbled with the catches and shoved the webbing aside. She planted her feet carefully on the tilted floor, resting her hand against the wall for balance. The dim lights threw a half dozen hazy shadows of her across the room.

Eric was on his feet a split second after her, trudging up the slope toward the bridge.

“Adu!” he called. “Are you all right?”

There was no answer.

“Adu?” Eric stumbled forward before his feet found purchase on the sloping floor. Arla followed Eric onto the bridge. They entered the cabin, but Adu didn’t even look up.

“Adu?” said Eric again. The android stayed motionless, hands on the control boards, seemingly oblivious to the drunken angle of its chair.

Then Eric said “Cam?”

The android turned its head. “Yes, Sar?”

Eric swallowed hard. “What’s happened to Adu?”

“He’s left us,” Arla said. “Run away.”

“That’s insane,” snapped Eric. “Dorias would never have …”

Arla laid her hand against the threshold for balance. “That … person was not Dorias, and he was scared to death of coming here. Even more scared than you, I think.” She eyed the blank monitors. “I also think, Eric, we had better get out of here and see where we are.”

But Eric was not moving. “Cam,” he said again, “what is the disposition of the process Adudorias?”

“Adudorias transferred to
U-Kenai
emergency beacon. The beacon was launched fifteen-four-ten, ship’s time.”

For a moment, Arla thought Eric was going to fall over.
He was counting on that creature,
she realized.
As long as Adu was around there was a touchstone to the outside, a tangible chance he might find a way out again. Now he’s as stuck as …
A new beeping piped up from the control boards, and another joined it as the alarms began to recover from their own shock.
As this ship of his.

“If I may presume.” She laid her hand on his forearm. “I think we are not safe in here.”

Eric looked at her for a moment like he didn’t understand what she said. Then he lurched towards the airlock. “Cam. Come outside.”

The android got up and obediently teetered after its master. Eric palmed the reader on the airlock, and nothing happened. He cursed through clenched teeth and undid a latch beside the door. A small compartment came open and he pulled a lever down. “Cam. Manual release procedures. Go.”

The android gripped a pair of handles on the airlock’s inner door and pulled. Reluctantly, the door gave way and Cam dragged it up the slope of the floor and latched it into place. A draft of warm air caressed Arla.

Eric and Cam repeated their actions for the outer door. His hands seemed inordinately clumsy as he worked the controls. Arla felt her patience strain.

Try to remember, it’s been ten years for him,
Arla told herself,
and he never wanted to come back.

The outer door opened and air rushed in, warm, rich, thick air.

Acrid, black, smoke and a billow of heat came with it. Arla coughed harshly. She couldn’t see anything except a curving wall of smoking ash. She undid her head cloth and pressed a strip of material over her mouth before she started out the door.

“Wait …” started Eric.

She ignored him. She felt as though she had walked into a furnace. Coughing despite her makeshift face mask, Arla waded up the ashy slope, waving her free hand both to keep her balance and to keep her bare hand from touching the burned ground.

Finally, she scrambled onto a patch of unburned, white sand. Forgetting pride altogether, Arla dropped onto her knees. A fresh wind caught her right cheek and Arla breathed deeply. When her lungs cleared of the stinging smoke, she stood up and looked around to see what part of the world they had come to rest in. Joints and head seemed to sigh with relief. The world wrapped around her like a blanket.

They’d come down on the shore of the Dead Sea. Whitened sand crunched under the sole of Arla’s boots and the distinctive tang of salt filled the air. Shading her eyes with her hand, she squinted toward the waterline. Fingers of steam rose from the surface. A gust of wind blew hard, sending a long, shimmering ripple across the mineral green surface of the water. No waves broke. Aside from the lichens clinging to the rocks, nothing grew. The lifeless water sprawled out a good eight or nine miles to either side, where it reached the bases of cliffs so white with salt rime that they showed even through the mists. Arla tilted her gaze to the tops but couldn’t make out any buildings.

Well, that’s something anyway. If we’d come down on the First City shore, we’d probably be dead.

Arla turned her attention inland. The white sand beach turned to stone-peppered dunes about ten yards away from them. She scanned the distant walls, searching for familiar shapes. The salty wind was free of rain and the clouds were solid overhead. That was something else. The last thing they needed right now was rough weather, but she had no idea when sunshowing had been or which wall the light was slanting over. Her orientation was gone. Without a prominent mark, they were solidly lost.

There was the Pinnacle, though, marking Red Walls. She gauged its size compared to the lower walls. They were close to the lowlands, then. She turned. The closest wall to her left glinted gold in the light. Broken Canyon. There was the gentle ripple of ground rising toward the cleft of Narroways road.

Arla felt herself smile. All they had to do was follow the shoreline to the Eel Back River. The river would lead them into the Lif marsh. Once inside the Lif, help and, maybe, family couldn’t be more than a few hours away.

“Whoever landed us had excellent aim,” she said, bringing her gaze back down to Eric.