“You may not deal with another dominion.”
“I do not wish our association to end in threats, Quantook-LOU. Please find the information for me. Surely an alliance with another dominion is a small price to pay for the freedom of all Mosdva.”
“There is a place on Tojolt-HI,” Quantook-LOU said. “The information you want might still be stored there.”
“Excellent. Then plug in, and make the deal. Anthi-CL has obtained enough new technology from us to buy another dominion.”
“This place has no link to the dominions any more. We expelled it long ago.”
“All right, time to say hello again. We’ll go there and access the files direct.”
“I cannot take you beyond our borders. I no longer know which of our allies remain trustworthy. Our train may not be allowed to pass.”
“You forget. I’ve already invited you to visit my starship. We’ll fly. It’s quicker.”
Valisk continued to fall through the dark continuum. The ebony nebula outside flickered with faint bolts of phosphorescence, illuminating the giant habitat’s exterior with a feeble glimmer of luminescence as it passed through. Had there been anyone out there who cared, they would have been saddened by how dilapidated it had become. The girders and panels of the counter-rotating spaceport appeared to be fraying with age; around the port’s periphery solid matter was decaying into sluggish liquids. Large dank droplets dripped away from the eroded, tapering ends of titanium support struts, gusting away into the depths of the nebula.
Intense cold was punishing the polyp shell badly, devouring the internal heat faster than it could be replenished. Slim cracks were opening up everywhere across the surface, some of them deep enough to reach the outer mitosis layer. Thick tar-like liquids bubbled up through them in places, staining the outer surface an insalubrious sable. Occasionally a chip of polyp would flake away from the edge of a new fissure, drifting away listlessly, as though velocity too was subject to increased entropy.
Worst of all, twelve jets of air were fountaining undiminished out of broken starscraper windows, spraying the icy gas in long wavering arcs.
They’d been there for days, acting like a beacon for any new Orgathé who glided out of the nebula’s labyrinthine nucleus. The big creatures would squirm their way through to the interior, blocking the blast for a few seconds as they crammed in through the empty rim.
Erentz and her relatives all knew about the shrinking atmosphere, but there was nothing they could do to halt it. The darkling habitat cavern belonged to the Orgathé and all the other creatures they’d brought with them. In theory the humans could have made their way to the starscrapers via the tube lines and water ducts. But even if they managed to seal up some of the breaches, the arriving Orgathé would simply smash through new windows.
Five caverns deep in the northern endcap had become the last refuge of the surviving humans, chosen because each one had only a couple of entrances. The defenders had adopted a Horatius strategy. A few people armed with flame throwers and incendiary torpedo launchers stood shoulder to shoulder and saturated the passageway with fire whenever one of the creatures tried to get through. Human ghosts hung back during each battle, waiting until the creature retreated before they scampered forward to absorb the sticky fluid it had shed, giving themselves substance again. They formed a strange alliance with the living humans, warning them when one of the dark-continuum creatures was approaching.
Though none of them could be persuaded to do anything else.
“Can’t say I blame them,” Dariat told Tolton. “We’re as much a target to the creatures as anybody else.” He was one of the very few solid ghosts allowed in the refuge caverns. And even he preferred to skulk about in the small chamber Dr Patan and his team used rather than face the ailing, strung-out bulk of the population.
The habitat personality along with Rubra’s remaining relatives had consolidated their survival policy around the single goal of protecting the physics team. A cry for help to the Confederation was their only hope now. And given the state of the habitat, time was short.
Tolton had become afraid to ask for progress reports. The answer was always the same. So he hung around with Dariat, unrolling his sleeping bag in the corridor outside the physicists’ chamber, as close to their last chance as he could be without actually getting in the way. The personality or Erentz would give him the odd task to do, where he had to go out into the big cavern again. Usually it was moving some bulky piece of equipment about, or assisting with their small stock of rations. He also stripped and cleaned torpedo launchers ready for the defenders, surprised by how good he was at something so mechanical. At the same time, it meant he knew how low their ammunition was.
“Not that it matters,” he complained to Dariat as he flopped down on his sleeping bag after a session cleaning the weaponry. “We’ll suffocate long before then.”
“The pressure is down by nearly twenty per cent now. If we could just find some way of sealing the starscrapers, we’d stand a better chance.”
Tolton took a deep breath, exhaling slowly. “I don’t know if I can tell yet, or if I’m just imagining the air’s thinner because I know that’s what I should be feeling. Mind you, with that smell coming from next door, who knows.”
“Smell is one sense I haven’t regained.”
“Take my word for it, in this case that’s a blessing. Ten thousand sick people who haven’t had a bath for a month. I’m amazed the Orgathé don’t turn tail and run screaming.”
“They won’t.”
“Is there any way we can fight back?”
Dariat squatted down. “The personality has considered pumping the light tube.”
“Pumping?”
“Divert every last watt of electricity into heating the plasma, then switch off the confinement field. We did it before on a small scale. In theory, it should vaporise every fluid-formed creature in the habitat cavern.”
“Then do it,” Tolton hissed back.
“Firstly, there’s not much power left. Secondly, we’re worried about the cold.”
“Cold?”
“Valisk has been radiating heat out into this Thoale-cursed realm ever since we got here. The shell is becoming very brittle. Pumping the light tube is like letting off a bomb inside; it might shatter.”
“Great,” Tolton griped. “Just fucking great.” He had to pull his feet in as three people staggered past, carrying a not-so-small microfusion generator between them. “Is that for the pumping?” he asked once they’d passed.
Dariat was frowning, watching the trio. > he asked the personality.
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“They need the generator over in the armoury,” Dariat said. “Their power supply packed in.” He couldn’t look the street poet in the eyes.
Tolton grunted indifferently, and pulled the sleeping bag round his shoulders. When he breathed out, he could see his breath as a white mist.
 
; “Damn, you were right about the cold.”
> Dariat asked.
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Dariat scowled, but didn’t answer. He went into the neural strata’s administrative thought routines to examine the ships which were still docked at the spaceport. Most of the spaceport’s net had failed, leaving only seven visual sensors operational. He used them to scan round, locating four starships and seven inter-orbit vessels. Of all of them, Hainan Thunder was the most flightworthy.
> the personality said.
The sheer surprise in the thought was so unusual that all the affinity-capable stopped what they were doing to find out what had happened. They shared the image collected by the few external sensitive cells that were still alive.
Valisk had reached the end of the nebula and was slowly sliding out. Its boundary was as clearly defined as an atmospheric cloud bank. A plane of slow-shifting grainy swirls stretching away in every direction as far as the sensitive cells could discern. Slivers of pale light trickled among the dull gibbous braids, an infestation of torpid static.
There was a gap of perfectly clear space extending for about a hundred kilometres from the end of the nebula.
> a badly subdued personality asked.
Another flat plane surface ended the gap, running parallel to the nebula, and extending just as far. This one was hoary-grey and looked very solid.
Visual interpretation subroutines concentrated on the sight. The entire surface appeared to be moving, seething with tiny persistent undulations.
> Dariat said. Dread made his counterfeit body tremble as memory fragments from the creature in the lift shaft surfaced to torment him. >
> the personality ordered frantically. >
“What’s happening?” a puzzled Tolton asked. He looked along the corridor as semi-hysterical shouting broke out in the physicists’ chamber. A stack of glass tubing crashed to the ground.
“We’re in trouble,” Dariat said.
“As opposed to what we’re in now?” Tolton was trying to make light of it, but the ghost’s conspicuous fear was a strong inhibitor.
“So far our time here has been paradise. This is when the dark continuum becomes personal and eternal.”
The street poet shuddered. > Dariat pleaded. >
A fast surge of information came pouring through the affinity bond, running through his mind with painful intensity. He felt as if his own thoughts were being forced to examine every cubic centimetre of the giant habitat, stretching out to such a thinness they would surely tear. The flow stopped as fast as it began, and his attention was twinned with the personality’s. They looked at the spindle which connected the habitat to the counter-rotating spaceport. Like most of the composite and metal components of the habitat, it was decaying badly. But near the base, just above the huge magnetic bearing buried in the polyp, five emergency escape pods were nesting in their covered berths.
> the personality said.
“Follow me,” Dariat barked at Tolton. He began to jog along the passage towards the main cavern, moving as fast as his bulk would allow. Tolton never hesitated, he jumped to his feet and ran after the solid ghost.
The main cavern was in turmoil. The refugees knew something was wrong, but not what. Assuming another attack from the Orgathé, they were shuffling back as far as they could get from the two entrances.
Electrophorescent strips on the ceiling were dimming rapidly.
Dariat headed for the alcove which served as an armoury. “Get a weapon,” he said. “We might need it.”
Tolton snatched up an incendiary torpedo launcher and a belt of ammunition for it. The pair of them headed for the nearest entrance. None of the nervous defenders questioned them as they raced past. Behind them, they could hear Dr Patan’s team shouting and cursing as they ran across the cavern.
“Where are we going?” Tolton asked.
“The spindle. There’s some emergency escape pods left that didn’t get launched last time I left in a hurry.”
“The spindle? That’s in freefall. I always throw up in freefall.”
“Listen—”
“Yes yes, I know. Freefall is a paradise compared with what’s about to happen.”
Dariat ran straight into a group of ghosts waiting at a large oval junction in the passage. They couldn’t see the mélange, none of them were affinity capable, but they could sense it. The aether was filling with the misery and torment of the diminished souls it had claimed.
“Out of my way!” Dariat bellowed. He clamped his hand over the face of the first ghost, pulling energy out of her. She screamed and stumbled away from him. Her outline rippled, sagging downwards with a soft squelching sound. The others backed off fast, staring in wounded accusation with pale forlorn faces.
Dariat turned off down one of the junction’s side passages. Light from the overhead strips was fading rapidly now. “You got a torch?” he asked.
“Sure.” Tolton patted the lightstick hanging from his belt.
“Save it till you really need it. I should be able to help.” He held up a hand and concentrated. The palm lit up with a cold blue radiance.
They came out into a wider section of the passage. There’d been some kind of firefight here; the polyp walls were charred, the electrophorescent strip shattered and blackened with soot. Tolton felt his world constricting, and took the safety off the launcher. Dariat stood in front of a closed muscle membrane, barely his own height, that was set into the wall. He focused his thoughts and the rubbery stone parted with great reluctance, the lips puckering with trembling motions. Air whistled out, turning into a strong gust as the membrane opened further.
There was no light at all inside.
“What is this?” Dariat asked.
“Secondary air duct. It should take us right up to the hub.”
Tolton shuddered reluctantly, and stepped inside.
Valisk had cleared the nebula, its great length taking several minutes to complete the transfer into clear space. The spaceport was the last section to leave it behind. Four lights gleamed brightly around the rim of the docking bay which held the Hainan Thunder, four in a ring of at least a hundred. Nonetheless, they were extraordinarily bright in this dour environment. Their tight beams fell on the hull, revealing patches of bright silver-grey metal shining through the scabby mush of thermal protection foam that was moulting away in a glutinous drizzle.
The windows looking out onto the bay flickered with light as the desperate crew hauled themselves past the maintenance team offices; oxygen masks clamped to their face, torches shining ahead of them. A couple of minutes later, the starship began to show some signs of activity. Thin gases flooded out of nozzles around the lower quarter of the hull. One of the thermo dump panels slid out of its recess and started to glow a faint pink at the centre. The airlock tube disengaged, withdrawing several metres before lurching to a halt. Clamps around the docking cradle flicked back, releasing the hull.
Chemical thrusters around the starship’s equator fired, sending out shimmering plumes of hot yellow gas. They tore straight through the bay’s structural panels, creating a vicious blowback of atmospheric gas fro
m the life-support sections. The Hainan Thunder rose out of the bay atop a thick geyser of churning white vapour.
More powerful chemical rockets ignited, propelling the starship away from the spaceport. One of them exploded, its combustion chamber weakened by exposure to the dark continuum. The starship pitched to one side, then recovered. It began to climb steadily towards the nebula.
An Orgathé swooped out from the percolating gunge and descended on the starship. Its talons tore through the hull plates, shredding the equipment underneath. The rockets died amid a shower of sapphire sparks.
Fluids and vapour streamed out from deep clefts.
A second Orgathé joined the first, the huge creatures tugging the starship violently between them. Big chunks of metal and composite were ripped free, twirling off into the void. The creatures were eagerly clawing their way through the tanks and machinery to reach the life support capsules and the kernels of life-energy cowering inside.
There was a final spew of gas as the capsules were punctured, then the Orgathé were still as they consumed their ephemeral meal.
The habitat personality had little time for remorse, or even anger. It was watching the surface of the mélange as it grew closer. The incessant motion was becoming clearer, an agitated ocean of thick fluid. Closer, and a billion different species of xenocs were drowning in that ocean, their appendages, tentacles, and limbs writhing against each other as they strove to keep afloat. Closer still, and the bodies were actually forming themselves from the fluid and clawing madly to lift themselves into the void above, a brief existence of useless strife and wasted energy before they collapsed and dissipated back into the mélange. If they were lucky, peaks would arise as souls merged together, combining their strength as they sacrificed identity. Those at the pinnacle stretched themselves further and further, quivering to break free. Only once did the personality see an Orgathé, or something similar, sweep upwards, newborn and victorious.