With a genuine sorrow, the AI said, “I have listed the crew according to qualifications. As you can see—”
“Where’s my name?” Pamir interrupted.
“You are my captain,” it countered. “For the good of the ship, you should never place yourself in mortal danger.”
“Except that’s where we are,” he muttered. “Account for training and experience, and physical size, too. Who’s at the top of this chart?”
The AI searched hard but found no way to win the debate. Grudgingly, it set Pamir’s name first, where it belonged, and with a flourish, it made its case for what had become the second-place name.
“No,” said Pamir.
Then after a momentary pause, he announced, “I’m taking Perri.”
“Who’s only a passenger,” the AI reminded him. “A self-taught expert in other species, but hardly trained in this sort of work.”
Pamir nodded, a tight little grin surfacing.
“Did you know?” he asked. “Perri was born as a Remora. He grew up on the hull, in the dangerous old days.”
“That information isn’t in his personnel file.”
“Because the poor guy lost the faith,” Pamir remarked with a heavy shrug. “He came under the hull and found a new identity, charmed a rich woman, and got himself a
new life. But I know the man. I’d prefer a washed-up Remora beside me, if I have my choice. Which, I believe, I do.”
THE INKWELL WAS invisible, shielded from view by the hyperfiber and one of the looming fuel tanks. Yet even as he worked his way out from the airlock and through a last set of demon doors, Pamir felt the presence of the nebula. He felt a tug, a tangible gravity or some other subtle force attuned to a man’s sense of place and importance. He could feel the blackness riding next to his right shoulder. It was as if his body and the entire ship were being drawn into the frigid endless gloom, and something about that fearful illusion pleased him, making him smile behind the thick diamond of his faceplate.
Perri was drifting nearby. “You almost look happy,” he observed.
“Move,” coaxed Pamir.
“But you sound normal enough,” Perri allowed, with a teasing laugh. “Nice and pissed off.”
Together they worked their way between two of the bulky fuel tanks—hyperfiber supplying the relentless pressure to hold the hydrogen in its metallic state, and thermal demon wraps convincing the fuel that it was still cold. Except for a band of star-starved space, the universe was invisible. In the soundless vacuum, Pamir was missing the illusion of rain falling as the ship danced with oblivion. There was nothing new to worry about, but he let himself grow a little anxious. It made a clear mind clearer. Senses lifted, and with his hands, he practiced motions that would or would not save everyone.
Perri was speaking. Using a private channel, he said, “No.”
He said, “Do you think so?”
Pamir could see the face in profile, reading the delicate lips as they told his left-behind wife, “Love, and love, and love.”
They had come to the edge of great tanks.
“Focus yourself,” Pamir advised.
Perri paused, closing down every channel but one. With a deep breath, his face changed. What had been boyish and slight was washed away. What remained was a little stern, concentrating on myriad details. The determined bluster of a Remora emerged, and with a Remora’s confidence, Perri said, “Now you do it too. Focus.”
Together, they drifted off into an open volume of space, lifesuits linked to the ship by magnetic tethers, little farts of gas lending momentum, shoving them toward what looked like a thick gray rope. Then they were close, and the rope looked like a giant snake encased in waxy armored scales.
Protected by plates of hyperfiber, the limb was an elaborate assemblage of bioceramic muscles and hot superconductors, plus tubes and vessels that could be enlarged, conducting fuel and other necessities from anywhere to anywhere. On a ship with no extra mass and very little room, every machine had to serve triple duty. Depending on the disaster, the limb was designed to wrap around hull breaches and fuel tank breaches, or it could reach into open space to snag a lost crew member. In hard times, it might pull itself into a very thin, many-kilometer-long tendril that would interact with the galaxy’s own magnetic field, either steering the ship slowly or producing enough power to keep one or two bodies alive. Other crews in far worse straits than this had even yanked these kinds of limbs apart, milking the bioceramics and superconductors of their hydrogen in a desperate bid to give their engines one last little burst of fire.
Chances were, nothing that desperate would happen to them. Pamir sensed that their problems would remain relatively minor, or they would be suddenly torn apart in a blast of plasma.
With Perri on his right shoulder, he drifted along the
limb, and when he was perfectly sure of his trajectory, he looked left. The universe was reddened and a little bunched together, like embers of a fire that someone was trying to save through a long night. In the middle of that redness was an invisible point, and when he stared at it, he let himself think of the ship and Washen and these endless years of relentless life.
Two forces—the Great Ship and the Inkwell—were pulling equally hard at him now.
His suit hissed, and a soft alarm sounded.
The V-elbow was not a structure so much as it was the happenstance point—that place where the limb had bent back on itself. It and some hundred meters of armored snake were exposed to the onslaught. Even when they kept to the lee side of the limb—even shielded inside the thick hyperfiber lifesuits—their bodies endured endless blows from hydrogen and carbon atoms, hydroxyls and carbon monoxides. Modern genetics could withstand worse. But there were bright flashes visible from the other side of the snakelike limb, each flash signaling the impact of something as vast as a single particle of cold smoke.
A much larger impact had crippled the elbow.
Of course the bulk of the damage was on the opposite side, almost as far out as possible. Two sets of hands were needed to effect repairs. Both sets started to work, doing everything possible from the partly shielded backside. But very little was possible. Perri had the armor peeled free, and Pamir stabbed at the limb’s odd meat, using a series of tools and curses to prove what both men already knew—they would have to attack the entire mess from the exposed side.
The limb was no more than ten meters in diameter but bent in a stiff arthritic half. The men gave each other the same hard look, then capped their diamond faceplates with thin sheets of hyperfiber, blinding and protecting them. Then using radar and mental maps, they floated
away from one another. Following separate trajectories, they came around the dead limb, and in the same instant, they could almost feel and hear the rain of high-velocity grit.
Lifesuits and their own tough bodies could withstand worse. That was something worth thinking about in those long moments.
Standing in the damage zone, they kept their backs to the rain and opened their faceplates again. Something substantial had blasted through the heart of one hyperfiber plate, and something even more massive had followed after it, obliterating enough sensors and muscle to make any arm lock up.
Both cursed with an easy rage. Then together, with hands moving a little too quickly, they set to work, injecting diagnostic tools that would tell the ship’s AI what was needed first and next, and what would have to wait for later. It was a sprint that demanded grace, and if they’d had time to rehearse, they would have been good at the work. But the AI drew up a list of absolute needs, and after nearly twenty minutes of relentless unpracticed effort, they convinced themselves they were making progress.
Pamir allowed himself to pause. Old eyes peered sideways through the rapidly degrading diamond. Tiny flicks and delicate sparkles of light showed that his retinas were flying through some kind of radioactive wash. But he didn’t blink or consider looking down again. For the first time, he stared at the Inkwell—an ocean of nothing, black and devoid of features, cold to the staring eye and frigid to the imagination, near enough, it seemed, that a determined hand could reach out and touch it.
Pamir resisted the temptation.
Perri nudged him, and when Pamir flinched, the one-time Remora said, “Welcome back.”
The delay was slight. A few seconds, at most. Then the
work seemed finished, and the AI agreed with them. “I see function,” it reported, obviously pleased.
“Out,” Pamir commanded. “Back out of here.”
But now Perri wanted to look at their destination. With his boots gripping the adjacent plate of armor, he reopened his private channel, and to Quee Lee, he said, “Look at this, darling,” as he brazenly threw back his head.
The flash came an instant later, brilliant and soundless, its blue-white glare washing away the very tiny landscape.
Nothing was left.
Pamir blinked and blinked, fighting with his watering and increasingly mutilated eyes. With a keen rage, he said, “Perri.”
He shouted, “Where are you?”
Then he said, “Fuck,” and reached into a cloud of bright plasmas, surprised to discover the hard shell of a lifesuit stopping his hand.
“That was a little close,” Perri joked.
His lifesuit was battered but whole. Life support was failing, and power, but the body inside the dying suit could still remark with an easy amazement, “Another step backward, another moment later.
“Love, love, love. Are you watching all of this?”