Waybound (22 page)

“And why would I do that?”

“Because if you don't, we'll be going in circles forever.”

“Not forever, honey. Just until my friends find us.”

“The Foundry isn't coming for you,” Phoebe said quietly.

Gabriella considered this as she chewed.

“You destroyed the TRS sensor,” the woman said, more of a statement than a question.

Phoebe offered another bite.

“Figured as much,” Gabriella sighed. “Otherwise, they would have located our signal hours ago.” She took the mouthful.

“The Foundry is going to lose,” Phoebe said firmly. “You know that, right? We will win.”

“Who is we?”

“The Covenant.”

Phoebe expected her to laugh, but she didn't. Instead Gabriella just studied her, chewing thoughtfully.

“Do you think they're going to save you?” she asked.

“No,” Phoebe said honestly. “I don't need saving.”

“What
do
you need?”

“I can't say.”

“Then where are you trying to go?”

Phoebe extended another bite but said nothing.

“And yet I'm supposed to help you? What if I refuse?”

“I'll find another way.” She surprised herself by adding, “Makina will guide me.”

Gabriella looked at her in disbelief. After a pause, she smiled and said, “You're a strange bird, you know that?”

Phoebe couldn't help but smile.

The boat swerved abruptly and Phoebe clung to the door. She had to fight her stomach back into place.

“Seasick,” Gabriella diagnosed.

Phoebe shook her head. “No…I just…”

“Check behind the coolant distributor,” the woman said, motioning with her head. “That box with the hoses sticking out.”

Phoebe rose unsteadily and obeyed. Attached to the wall behind the equipment was a steel case labeled
MED-I-PAK
.

“Open it,” the woman said. “There's a vial marked PZ.”

The box was a fully stocked first-aid kit, complete with sterile bandages, antibacterial ointment, medications, and other necessities. Phoebe located the tube in question.

“Panzamine helps nausea,” Gabriella said. “Better take two.”

Phoebe eyed the woman suspiciously, wondering if this was a trick—was this a sleeping pill or poison or something? Gabriella cocked an eyebrow as if reading her mind.

Phoebe popped open the water bottle, took a gulp, and swallowed two pills. “Thank you, Gabriella.”

“My friends call me Gabby.”

“Is that what we are?” Phoebe asked.

Gabby shrugged and offered a kindly smile. “We could be.”

They considered each other for a moment.

“Plumm!” Micah screamed from top of the ladder. “Topside—NOW!” His flushed face vanished.

Phoebe rolled her eyes. “Gotta go,” she said, closing up the Med-i-Pak and SCM case. She was about to barricade the lavatory door shut again, when Gabby stopped her.

“Wait a sec,” she said.

“What?” asked Phoebe.

“Got a tip for you,” Gabby said. “Might come in handy…”

When Phoebe climbed onto the deck a minute later, Micah slammed the engine room hatch closed with a bang.

“What the hell you think you're doin'?” he demanded.

“Getting this,” she said calmly, showing him the first-aid kit. “And information. Now go to the wheel, and I'll explain.”

“I said no talkin' to Foundry. Not without my say-so.”

“I don't need your permission,” she asserted. “And I just—”

“Shut up for a second!” he snapped.

Her mouth fell open. Micah was heaving like a rabid dog.

“You're makin' it real tough to protect you, you know that? Damn near impossible.”

“Is that what you call this? Protecting me?” she asked. “You stole a Foundry boat that you don't know anything about, and now you've stranded us out in the middle of nowhere.”

“You think you can do better? Be my guest!”

He kicked a box of fuses across the cabin.

“Why are you being such a jackass?” she shot at him.

“'Cause you're bein' an idiot!” he screamed. “What about ‘no talkin' to Foundry' don't you understand? You never listen!”

“I don't listen?” she laughed. “That's funny. Because every time I try to tell you anything you just—”

“You think I like cleaning up your crap? You think I wanted this?” He was pacing, pounding his hand into his fist. “I told you, I ain't your servant anymore. I told you I quit, and I meant it!”

“What are you talking about?” she said softly, taken aback. “It's not like that anymore. Micah, I'm trying to—”

He rushed at her, his face warped with fury.

“Then quit tellin' me what to do!” he roared.

Instinctively, she shoved him back, but he barely budged.

“Stop it!” she screamed.

He was right up in her face, mouth flecked with spit.

“OR WHAT?”

Her hand went to the Multi-Edge strapped around her waist.

Micah let out a nasty laugh. “You gonna cut me?” he sneered. “Well, praise the gears! What a brave little Loaii—pfff.”

“Don't…say that,” she muttered, wincing.

“I'm done with all your Makina crap, so just drop the act, okay? The only one you're foolin' is yourself.”

“Why are you doing this?”

“You're a phony. Just like your dear ol' daddy.”

It felt like he had taken the blade from her hip and plunged it into her chest. Something within Phoebe withered before Micah's eyes, and he knew he had gone too far.

She drifted away from him. He watched her walk to the console at the helm, not knowing quite what to do.

“Phoebe…I…”

Then he saw her press the compass orb and rotate it. Two red buttons lit up on either side of the compass. She held the buttons down until they chimed and went green.

She looked back—tears flowed freely down her cheeks.

“Just had to calibrate it,” she whispered, breezing past.

Micah bit his lip. He needed to figure out something to say, needed to fix this. He turned to face Phoebe, but it was too late.

The hatch to the engine room eased shut with a click.

D
ollop wanted to know everything about Amalgam, but they rarely answered his questions. They weren't being evasive—they just couldn't comprehend what he was asking. Their worlds were so different that they often just stared at one another in wonder.

He spent the day with the amalgami, swimming and playing in the lagoons of their glittering cave. When Dollop grew hungry, Amalgam brought him to the shallows of a pool where a school of jelyps flitted. The critters were smooth black tubes about the size of his finger with turquoise speckles that matched their surroundings. They had a spout at each end, through which they expelled vesper, causing them to twirl through the amber fluid.

“Try one,” urged several amalgami.

Together with Dollop, they squatted by the lagoon, snatched up some of the darting jelyps, and dumped their harvest in a heap. The cavern was filled with the sound of cracking shells and slurped innards. Dollop tried one and found it to be delicious—a taste he had been craving without even knowing it.

He watched the amalgami gleefully absorbed in their feast, curiosity building within him until he could no longer resist the urge. He tiptoed up to the towering mass.

Tentatively, he reached out and touched it.

Dollop allowed his hand to separate. Like pebbles in a pond, his fingertips sank into Amalgam, then his knuckles, and at last the pieces of his palm slid apart to join the community.

The sensation crept up on him like a dream. Although he could no longer see the pieces of his own hand, he did not lose track of them. Dollop merged with Amalgam, becoming aware of a thousand other limbs as if they were his own. Through them, he could feel the entirety of the cavern, from the top of the dripping ceiling to the bottom of the deep lagoon.

Amalgam was everywhere.

Strange images flickered in his mind, multidimensional feelings of the cavern that were difficult to comprehend. He felt expansive and shapeless as vapor, conscious of every glittering fleck in the ore, all of them familiar as the faces of friends.

The images transformed, scores of eyes shifting focus. It took him a moment to realize what he was looking at. It was a diminutive figure with half-closed eyes, a stranger. He wondered who it could be—felt he should know. Couldn't quite recall…

It's me.

He was staring at himself through Amalgam's eyes.

With a yelp, Dollop pulled back from the mass. He had sunk into Amalgam up to his elbow. His parts retracted and clung together again, re-forming his arm as he tugged free.

The images and feelings vanished in a puff.

“I'm so-so-sorry,” he stuttered. “I wa-was…curious.”

“So are we,” they sang together.

“So are we.”

Dollop and Amalgam considered one another, and they burst out laughing. While the swirl of bizarre sensations had been startling, Dollop yearned to unite with the community again, to experience that feeling of magnitude—a taste of omniscience.

They played together for a while more, grazing on jelyps until exhaustion overtook them. Still giggling and singing, Amalgam led Dollop to a cozy side chamber with a crescent-shaped pool and knobby walls devoid of those pinpricks of mineral light. This was where they slumbered.

Amalgam spilled itself out to fill every corner of the space, a cushion of innumerable soft limbs. The darkness was warm and alive with a million scattered breaths as the amalgami cuddled and relaxed. Dollop settled himself in the middle of the mass, nuzzling into a nest of embracing arms.

Contentment washed over him. His life before Amalgam didn't feel like it had been his at all. His mind stumbled back through the recent horrors—the attack on the Covenant camp, the loss of his friends, the vaptoryx. He tried to focus on Amalgam's soft snores and its communal bliss, but the pain of the last few cycles was not easily banished.

Dollop pressed his hands to his dynamo and tried to turn his mind to the Way. He had recited the recharge prayer every night since he learned it all those phases ago in the Housing.

But now, try as he might, he couldn't recall how it began.

“Bless me, Ma-Makina,”
he whispered, certain that these were not the actual words of the prayer, but hoping they would suffice.
“Gu-guard me as I—I re-recharge, and…uh…sh-shield my f-friends from d-danger. Please protect…”

What was her name again? His mind drew a blank.

What was happening? How could he have forgotten?

They were his friends. He loved them.

What was it? Fee…

“Pr-protect Phoebe and Micah,”
he continued, speaking with more confidence as he overcame his momentary lapse.
“Wherever they a-are.”
He squeezed his eyes shut and concentrated.

“What are you doing, little one?”

The question was repeated, sounding from all around him.

“Pr-praying to Makina,” he said, opening his eyes to find a circle of sleepy faces studying him.

“Praying?”

“Asking Ma-Makina to watch over my, um, friends. To save them from falling to rust.”

“Friends?”

“Who is Makina?”

“Makina…” he gasped. “The Gr-Great Engineer. You—you don't know Her? She ma-made us all, Her Ch-Children of Ore.”

The faces showed no understanding.

“What is ‘falling to rust'?” one asked.

“Ru-rust,” Dollop struggled to explain. “When…when you pass and your em-ember departs your body.”

They continued to look quizzical.

“The end of your sp-span.”

“End?” they wondered.

“There is no end.”

“Only us.”

“Forever us.”

His mouth hung open. “You…you do-don't…ever?”

“Don't ever what, little one?”

“Ne-never mind,” he said in a tiny voice and settled back.

Amalgam rearranged itself, purring with sleepy sighs as it drifted off to sleep. But Dollop just lay staring into the dark.

There is no end.

The words rang in Dollop's head.

Could it be true? Did Amalgam live without rust? Without the fear of pain or loss? Dollop touched the spattering of silver scars on his chest. He thought of the terror he had felt when he resigned himself to die in the Citadel.

If he were to stay here, would he be free from rust forever?

But another question tormented him.

He wanted to merge with the amalgami in joyful eternity, but even in the clicks he had been here, he was fading, his memories were receding—his knowledge of the Way, his duty to his friends.

Could he give himself up in order to join Amalgam?

The darkness offered no answer.