The Promise of the Child (54 page)

The dream he'd had in the Utopia was to be the last of their strange meetings, he felt sure of it, even though the offer still went unanswered. In the darkness that came with each blink, Sotiris saw the cathedral-space with its blood-red walls, the snow melting as it drifted inside from the strange, timeless night. Now he could feel Aaron waiting for him just beyond those mountains: a presence almost as tangible as if they were walking side by side. He thought of Tussilago, the Melius servant who'd rowed him across the small, buoyant sea, and his warning that Sotiris might not return.

Sotiris pulled off his helmet and dropped it in the weeds by the roadside. Bilocation was not possible this far from the Old World's magnetic poles, and attempting it might well ruin his mind before its time. He would have to settle for a fast stroll, perhaps climbing aboard a moving convoy should any take his road. As he walked, he tried to come up with something he could whistle to buoy his spirits on the walk ahead of him, but couldn't think of a single song. His mind was blank for a moment, totally empty, even his name a passing mystery.

As the emptiness left him, he reflected it was not the first time that had happened today.

Zeliolopos

By the time they'd realised that the fleet of ships wasn't after them at all, the
Wilemo Maril
had already dived right through them, dispatching hundreds of the Prism vessels in silent sparkles among the hanging blooms of mines. The thousands of unknown ships were running scared like Old World schools of fish evading a predator, the storm of glinting, swirling craft parting around the
Wilemo Maril
to form a glittering metallic tunnel five hundred feet across for the privateer as it spun. It was impossible to work out what class or manufacture of Voidships they were, let alone who owned them in the handful of seconds it took for them all to pass by; Maril could only glimpse flashes of whirling light through the reopened porthole shields, two thousand twinkling shards of glass falling past them in a silent blizzard. The privateer banked sharply away from the sun as it found itself in open vacuum again, light filling the tipping windows, the master-at-arms now upside down and trying to clip himself in the wrong way round as the ship's gyroscopes feebly found their gravity. He managed at last to regain his seat, offi-ciously brushing himself down and checking his holstered pistol self-consciously as a few stragglers in the shoal of unknown craft blinked across their path in chrome flashes.

Maril listened carefully to the damage reports still coming in as the rolling decreased. Substantial loss of hull plating, a few broken bones among the crew and an antique cabinet in the scullery lifted and smashed to splinters by the temporary loss of gravity; he tapped the master-at-arms on the shoulder to listen in—that cabinet had been Jospor's pride and joy, hefted aboard during a raid and varnished once a month thereafter.

The captain closed his eyes, breathing the fish-scented darkness inside the nested shells of cockpit and padded helmet, considering what precious few choices they had. The last of the mysterious fleet of ships blipped one last time on the radar and disappeared, heading out of the system and back into the Firmament. It would still take the
Wilemo Maril
five hours to pass the remaining planets of Tau Ceti; five hours of slowed manoeuvring, constant readings and range reports. Lifting above the forest of Zelioceti Kingdoms would lengthen the journey as well as instantly expose them to whatever was on their tail, an encounter he knew they could not survive in open space, and yet negotiating his way through might prove equally perilous. He sat back, thoughtful, ignoring the high-pitched queries on the communications. Encountering that fleeing shoal of ships had been infinitesimally unlikely considering the enormity of the blackness around them, like meeting your best friend in a crowd of trillions. He could only assume, however much he might not wish to, that there were many more shoals like them rushing away from Tau Ceti.

Away from the Investiture and into the Firmament
, he thought, his gloved fingers intertwining.

The privateer curved on Maril's command towards the shadow of the system's first ruddy gas giant, Zeliomoltus, passing its largest moon Anti Zelio-Formis. The hazy magenta globe rose to starboard and grew swiftly in the lateral windows, its pink atmosphere thrown into contrast by the dark brown churning thunder of its parent world's nightside. He took in the brushed swirl of cloud-tops wrapping the luminous moon for an instant, attempting to recall which Zelioceti Kingdom owned it, before returning his attention to a mewling chime and the whitish-grey sweep of the long-range wave projection.

Images were a luxuriant expense. The privateer possessed only one optisocket, its ten inch viewing hole cracked and taped. Maril leaned forward in his seat to study the tiny image. A black swirl like a miniature hurricane had pierced the haze in a torrent of eddying sonar read-outs and was closing directly on their position. A mournful cry like wind in a gully preceded it, the rear antennas mapping the shape as best they could while it screamed towards the privateer.

“Is that—?” He leaned backwards, trying to take it in.

“Schooner class, Captain,” said the master-at-arms. “Thirteen lengths, tetraluminal, by the looks of it.”

Maril stared at the dark swirl as it descended upon them, parting the solar winds like spray. “Violent, please, Ribio,” he said to the pilot.

The
Wilemo Maril
swung a harsh, engine-crumpling about-turn above the moon, flipping the privateer in a haze of frozen soot and firing off at an angle, the ferocity of the conflicting forces grinding the captain into his seat. As they swung away, a snap of whitish silver burst like a bullet across the horizon; a schooner—as the master-at-arms had predicted—long and cruelly pointed, though some miles off, swooping on where it thought it would find them. The speck of their attacker dwindled in an instant, but the echoing trace of its fabulously rare tetralu-minal motors remained repeated and augmented inside the darkness of Maril's heated helmet. After a moment, the communications reported in, relaying information Maril had already guessed. It was the Lacaille Nomad they'd encountered on Steerilden's Land. It had found them by some means after a month of erratic flight and was closing again on their position.

He slapped the Vulgar-Wulm pilot's shoulder. “Zeliolopos, Ribio.” Ribio nodded his unusual crossbreed face, banking the controls while the other pilot unfurled the sun chart on his lap. The sand grain colours of thousands of visible stars began to blend to chrome, moonlit silver as the privateer picked up speed again, edging into the superluminal.

Maril unbuckled the master-at-arms' belt. “Jospor, with me.”

The captain waited for his second to follow, grabbing at the handholds on the side of the cockpit to pull himself out. He took the nearest ladder to the forward battery compartment, already able to feel the heat from the recently fired heavy cannon radiating through his thin—and probably useless—Voidsuit, which he had not yet tested in open space. Once inside the dark compartment, he paused, watching the gaggle of small, naked Vulgar steadily pouring ladles of water over the sizzling guns. They noticed him and paused in their work, one knocking over his vat in a fit of clumsiness.

“They're cooled enough—be ready to fire all batteries,” he announced, stepping to one side of the gushing water and turning back to the gangway, reaffirming his reputation among the crew as a captain of few words. The master-at-arms, bumblingly resplendent as he fitted his stolen Quetterel helmet, caught up with him at last. They approached the ladder together through the fog of steam.

“We'll be overtaken,” Maril said to him as they climbed down past huge wooden lockers piled with tins and supplies. “Fall back the moment we are.”

“What if they aren't interested in boarding?” his second-in-command squeaked in reply.

“We'd all be dead by now if they weren't—”

Just at that moment, the lockers flew open under a heavy jolt, scattering their cargo down the shaft. Maril and the master-at-arms ducked as barrels and cans and heavy sacks thudded past and knocked them from the ladder. They fell together to the bottom of the shaft, Maril striking his helmet against the scullery hatchway with a crack. Gallons of water, presumably from the vats in the forward battery, came pouring down the ladder shaft after them, splashing the banded iron and wood of the floors and running in a river into the scullery. Helped by Jospor, the captain climbed blearily to his feet, the crude internal systems inside his helmet apparently dead or frozen, and stumbled through the water into the scullery. The walls and floor were trembling as frying pans and pots fell rattling into the torrent. Maril was struck again on the side of the helm, but waved the master-at-arms away and continued on. An oaken dresser shed its load of iron plates as the ship received another battering, each blow to the hull rippling through Maril's body with the adrenalin of a real, tangible slap. The water was coursing into forward operations, and by the groaning of the hull Maril could already tell that his privateer had taken a crippling shot. He grabbed Jospor once more and sent the master-at-arms back the way they had come, dragging his boots through the water as he tried to run to operations and swearing softly inside his battered helmet.

The water followed him, flowing between his legs and almost knocking him over. Maps and sun charts floated, washing past him as he stooped to enter the capsule. The squabbling Vulgar crew were busily trying to shut off the electrics in the chamber, but so far with no success. They wailed and scattered as sparks and flame erupted suddenly from some equipment they were working on.

“Voidsuits on!” he yelled, as loudly as he could so that his voice would carry from the dead helmet, and as the flapping crowd of Vulgar made their way to their bunks to find their suits, Maril glanced around, pushing on through the soggy mass of charts and scattered equipment.

Another trembling bang shook the
Wilemo Maril
as he made it through to his quarters, sending him crashing into his desk. The water had drained off into a side corridor, where it ran gurgling to the site of the damage somewhere at the rear of the privateer, possibly in the aft superluminal compartments. An unusual breeze was tugging the loose papers and maps in his chamber so he slammed the door, pulled off his helmet and searched the mess for his ceremonial sword and pistol, locating both on the rug under a pile of books and a tipped globe of the Firmament. He went to the shelf and flicked open a golden case, collecting a gloveful of shigella-poison-tipped bullets before clipping the pistol into its holster and tucking the rapier into his leather bandolier. As he did so, he caught sight of his reflection in the greasy, gilded mirror that still hung on the wall.

His gaunt, pale face was stern, eyes creased with worry, long ear-tips grizzled and bent with age. Where his weak chin sank into his neck, a few whiskers of Vulgar beard, white and bristly, had grown over the last month or so—his attempt at appearing distinguished. Now, in a rattling ship under siege, such affectation looked weak and stupid, perhaps the traits of a sightless vanity that had succeeded in getting them caught after all. Maril glanced back to the eyes of his reflection, the sword weighing heavily against his hip.
If I'm to lose this fight—if it is to be my last, then at least it'll be quick.
Such was the blessing of Voidfaring, he sometimes mused, that in death there simply wasn't time to lament one's mistakes.

He wrenched open the door against the strengthening gust that was trying to pull it shut again and stamped out into the passageway just as the whole privateer rolled at forty-five degrees. The strips of lighting wire that followed the curve of the passage had begun to dim, so as he braced himself he fumbled for his suit lights, still swearing softly and continuously under his breath while he clipped the unresponsive helmet back on.

The enormous planet they were aiming for—Maril was sufficiently experienced in the maintenance of his own Voidship to realise that they were no longer in full control any more, their progress across the system more akin to a thrown rock than anything resembling powered flight—held within its thrall a string of forty-three moons, many of them separate and ancient kingdoms in their own right. Plunging to one at random would be their only chance of survival, where with luck they could evade the attentions of the Nomad and make repairs. The captain understood—as would any of his crew possessing knowledge of the Zelioceti, the local Prism—that even if they did manage to set down on one of the moons, their troubles were far from over.

He slid the handful of bullets into the bandolier, dropping one as another slap shook the hull and watching it roll away before he could bend to catch it. Another blow dislodged the piping from the bulkhead around him and he ducked as it clattered into the passageway, spilling sewage and filthy water across his suit. Wiping at his forearms, Maril could feel his ship slowing. Vague forces from which the privateer was supposed to be protected were compressing the hull like an accordion.

He ran at a crouch, trailing his gloved hand along the corridor's wall until he got to the junction at the privateer's central passage, the walls boarded with slats that had served as beds for the extra crew he'd hired on Drolgins. Figures huddled in their worn blankets in some of the bunks stared down at him in the weak, flickering light. He thought of saying something to them, but there was no time. He steadied himself and ran on, slamming into the scullery ladder at the end of the passageway as the ship rolled again, his sword rattling against the riveted iron panels and almost getting jammed in the grille of a radiator column. He pulled his pistol free as he prepared to climb, kicking aside smashed barrels that had rolled and plunged down two levels from the larders.

By now the privateer had begun to pitch from one direction to the other, more hits hammering the fuselage and likely deforming the hull. Maril held tightly to the ladder's rungs, his small body swaying from side to side, and clawed his way up into the scullery. The cooks were trying to salvage what was left of the supplies, dodging falling crockery and waving away smoke pouring from the clogged ovens, taking no time to stop and acknowledge his presence when they saw him.