What he did know was that there was a perilously dark and wide gulf in the floor ahead of him, and getting closer very fast.
Only now did he hear the gentle slopping of the water, and realize what it was. He nearly went sprawling headlong as he came
to a confounded halt a metre from the edge, arms flapping eccentrically for balance. He turned to see everyone rushing en
masse towards him, because they’d thought he knew what he was doing, and there hadn’t been time to ask questions. Behind them,
Baranovich’s possessed were mustering on the walkway, garish costumes agleam in the rainy dusk.
Alkad was running with her head ducked down, forcing her game leg along. Gelai and Ngong were on either side of her, holding
her tight. A bubble of air around the three of them swirled with tiny glimmers of silver light.
Baranovich’s laughter poured out into the vast enclosed space of the central high bay. He pointed, and Joshua could do nothing
but stare dumbly as the bolt of white fire streaked across the intervening space straight at him.
Dick Keaton was leading the pack of desperadoes on the floor of the high bay, running hard. He was less than four metres from
an aghast Joshua when Baranovich’s fire bolt hit the data security expert clean between his shoulder blades. It burst open
in a spectacular cloud of dancing twisters that drained away into the drizzle. And Dick Keaton was completely unharmed.“Close
one,” he jeered happily. His arms wrapped around Joshua, momentum carrying the pair of them over the edge of the central basin
just as the mutilated framework collapsed. Fractured girders were tossed out of the crumpling wreckage in all directions,
clanging loudly as they hit the floor. A huge split tore up the wall like a lightning bolt in reverse. It was a hundred and
seventy metres high when it finally stopped. The framework structure settled into an uneasy silence.
The black water in the ironberg basin was freezing. Joshua yelled out as it closed around him, seeing bubbles bumble past
his face. The cold shock was intense enough to make his heart jump—frightening him badly. Salt water rushed into his open
mouth. And—Jesus,
thank you
—his neural nanonics came back on-line.
Nerve impulse overrides squeezed his throat muscles tight, preventing any water flooding his lungs. Analysis of his spinning
inner ears revealed his exact orientation. His thrashing became purposeful, shunting him straight up.
He broke surface to draw down a huge desperate gulp of air. People in flexible armour suits were flying through the air above
him; human lemmings landing in the basin with a tremendous splash. He saw Mzu, her small figure unmistakable in its prim business
suit.
Keaton shook his head dog-fashion, blowing his cheeks out. “Hell, it’s cold.”
“Who the fuck are you?” Joshua demanded. “They hit you dead on, and it never even blistered you.”
“Right question, sir, but unfortunately the wrong pronoun. As I once said to Oscar Wilde. Stumped him completely; he wasn’t
quite as hot on the riposte as legend says.”
All Joshua could do was cough. The cold was crippling. His neural nanonics were battling hard to prevent his muscles from
cramping. And they were going to lose.
White fire smashed against the basin rim five metres above him. Radiant dribbles of magma ran down the basin wall.
“What in God’s name did you bring us here for?” Monica shouted.
“I didn’t fucking bring you!”
Her hand grabbed the front of his ship-suit. “How do we get out?”
“Jesus, I don’t know.”
She let go, her arm shaking badly. Another strike of white fire lashed above them. The rim was outlined like a dawn horizon
from orbit.
“They can’t hit us here,” Samuel said, his long face was dreadfully strained.
“God, so what,” Monica answered. “They’ve only got to walk over here and we’ll be dead.”
“We won’t last that long. Hypothermia will get us before then.”
Monica glared at Joshua. “Can anyone see some steps?”
“Dick,” Joshua said. “Are your neural nanonics working?”
“Yes.”
“Access the shed’s management computer. Find us a way out. Now!”
This is a last-ditch madness, I know,
Samuel called to the
Hoya
.
But is there anything you can do?
Nothing. I am so sorry. You’re too far away, we cannot provide fire support.
We’re retreating,
Niveu told him, his tone full of savage regret.
It’s this diabolical antimatter. We’ve fired every combat wasp in defence, and they’re still coming through. The nations have
gone insane, every SD platform went offensive.
Ferrea
was damaged by a gamma ray pulser, and
Sinensis
had to swallow out to avoid a direct impact. There’s only the two of us left now. We can’t last much longer. Do you wish
to transfer? We can delay a few seconds more.
No. Go, warn the Consensus.
But your situation—
Doesn’t matter. Go!
“Half the shed’s processors are glitched,” Dick Keaton said. “The rest are in standby mode. It’s been mothballed.”
“What?” Joshua had to shout to make his mouth work. His kicks to tread water were difficult now.
“Mothballed. That’s why there’s no ironberg in here. The small canal leaks. They drained it for repairs.”
“Drained it? Let me have the file.”
Keaton datavised it over, and Joshua assigned it to a memory cell. Analysis programs went primary, tearing into the information.
What he wanted was a way to drain the basin, or at the very least a ladder. Which wasn’t quite what he found when the schematics
display rose into his mind. “Ione!” he shouted. “Ione.” His voice was pathetically weak. He worked his elbows, swivelling
around to face Samuel. “Call her.”
“Who?” the bewildered Edenist asked.
“Ione Saldana, the Lord of Ruin. Call her with affinity.”
“But—”
“Do it or we’re going to die in here.”
• • •
The gee force on
Lady Macbeth
’s bridge began to abate, sliding down from a tyrannical eight to an unpleasant three.
He certainly flies the same way as Joshua, Sarha thought. The few seconds she’d spared from fire control to monitor their
vector had shown her a starship which was keeping pretty close to the course which the navigation program had produced. Not
bad for a daydreamer novice.
“The
Urschel
is accelerating,” Beaulieu said. “Seven gees, they’re going for altitude. Must be a jump.”
“Good,” Sarha said firmly. “That means no more of those bloody antimatter combat wasps.”
All three of them had cheered when the
Pinzola
was struck by a fusion blast. The resulting explosion as all the frigate’s antimatter confinement chambers were destroyed
had blown half of
Lady Mac’s
sensors, and
Pinzola
had been eleven thousand kilometres away, almost below the horizon.
The orbital conflict had been played out hard and fast over the last eleven minutes. Several starships had been hit, but over
fifteen had risen to a jump altitude and escaped. There were no more SD platforms left in low orbit, although plenty of combat
wasps were still prowling. But they were all a long way from
Lady Mac
. That was Sarha’s prime concern. As Beaulieu had said, the old girl could cope with Nyvan’s geriatric weapons. They had a
couple of new scars on the hull from kinetic debris, and three radioactive hot spots from pulser shots. But the worst of it
was over now.
“Gravitonic distortion,” Beaulieu said. “Another void-hawk has left.”
“Sensible ship,” Sarha muttered. “Liol, how long until we’re over Joshua’s horizon?”
“Ninety seconds—mark.”
She datavised an order into the starship’s communications
system. The main dish slid out of its recess and swung
around, pointing at the horizon ahead.
• • •
Ione eased herself around the metal pillar to take another look into the shed’s high bay. The possessed up on the walkway
were squirting a continual stream of white fire at the rim of the basin. That must mean Joshua and the others were still alive.
Now appeared to be the optimum time to enter the fray. She had hung back ever since she’d sprinted into the shed ahead of
the agency operatives. This whole situation was so fluid, the outcome could well be decided by who had the greatest tactical
reserve. She wasn’t quite sure where that decision had come from; some tactics file her ‘original’ self and Tranquillity had
loaded into the serjeant, or internal logic. How much inventiveness she owned in this aspect she wasn’t sure of. But wherever
it had come from, it had been proved right.
She had watched the events play out from the cover of the framework, hovering on the brink of intervention. Then the police
had arrived and fouled up everything. And Joshua had fled across the high bay to the basin.
She couldn’t work that one out. It was seawater in the basin, which must be close to the freezing point. Now he was pinned
down.
If she could get a clear shot at the walkway the possessed were using, she might be able to bring them all crashing down.
But she wasn’t sure how effective even the heavy-calibre rifle would be against such a concentration of energistic power.
Ione. Ione Saldana?
Cold accompanied the affinity call, she knew exactly what it was like to be immersed in the basin.
Agent Samuel,
she acknowledged.
I have a message.
He widened his mind still further. She looked out at anguished heads bobbing in the water. Joshua was right in front of her,
hair plastered down over his forehead. His throat laboured hard to force the words out. “Ione—shoot—out—the—small—canal—lock—gate—blow—that—fucker—away—good—and—be—quick—we—can’t—last—long.”
She was already running towards the end of the shed. There was a rectangular gap in the framework structure over the small
canal. It framed the door which slid up to allow the ironberg segments through. The bottom of the door closed to within a
metre of the water itself. Below that, she could see the two lock gates which held back the water while the canal outside
was being repaired. They were solid metal, tarnished by age, and thick with fronds of sapphire-coloured seaweed.
She squatted down beside the edge of the canal and fired the heavy-calibre rifle. Trying to puncture the gates themselves
would be hopeless, they weren’t made from any modern laced-molecule alloy, but their thickness made them completely impenetrable.
Instead, the explosive-tipped shells pounded into the canal’s old carbon-concrete walls, demolishing the hinges and their
mountings.
The gates moved slightly as water squirted around the crumbling concrete. Their top hinges were almost wrecked, making them
gradually pivot downwards, a motion which prised them further apart. A V-shaped gap appeared between them, with water gushing
out horizontally. Ione fired again and again, concentrating on one wall now, mauling it to smithereens. One of the hinges
gave way.
Look out,
Samuel warned.
They have stopped attacking us. That must mean—
Ione saw the shadows shifting behind her, knowing what it meant. Then the shadows were fading away as the light grew brighter.
She switched her aim to the stubborn gate itself, using the explosions to punch it down, adding their weight to that of the
water.
White fire engulfed her.
The gates were wrenched apart, and the water plummeted into the empty canal beyond.
“Go with it,” Joshua datavised as the first stirrings of a current stroked his faltering legs. “Stay afloat.”
A waterfall roar reverberated around the shed’s high bay, and he was pulled along the basin wall. The others were twirling
around him. Quiet, unseen currents sucked them towards the end of the basin where it narrowed like a funnel into the small
canal. They started to pick up speed as they drew closer to the mouth. Then the basin was behind them. Water was surging along
the canal.
“Joshua, please acknowledge. This is Sarha, acknowledge please, Joshua.” His neural nanonics told him the signal was being
routed to his communication block via the spaceplane. Everyone, it seemed, had survived the orbital battle.
“I’m here, Sarha,” he datavised. The canal water was boiling tempestuously as it flowed under the door, dipping down sharply;
and he was racing towards it at a hazardous rate. It was becoming very hard to keep afloat, even here where the level was
sinking. He tried a few feeble side-strokes to get away from the wall where the churning was at its worst.
“Joshua, you’re entering into an emergency situation.”
Two curling vortex waves recoiled off the canal walls to converge above him as he passed under the shed door. “No shit!” The
waves closed over his head. Neural nanonics triggered a massive adrenaline secretion, enabling him to fight his way back to
the surface with recalcitrant limbs. Distorted daylight and iron-hard foam crashed around him as he floundered back into the
air.
“I’m serious, Joshua. The Organization has tampered with one of the ironbergs. They altered its aerobrake trajectory so that
it will land on the foundry yard. If they can’t get Mzu offplanet with them, they want her dead so she’ll have to join the
Organization that way. It’s timed to crash after the spaceplane pickup was scheduled, so that if anything went wrong they’d
still win.”
The canal opened up ahead of Joshua, a rigid gully stretching away to the foundry building three kilometres distant. Water
rampaged along it, a thundering white-water torrent which propelled him along helplessly. He wasn’t alone. Voi came close
enough for him to touch if the pounding water hadn’t been so strong, snatching her away again immediately.
“Jesus, Sarha, this
is
after the spaceplanes were scheduled.”
“I know. We’re tracking the ironberg, it’s going to hit you in seven minutes.”
“What? Nuke the bastard, now, Sarha.”