She spread her thumb and forefinger, and the image zoomed out.
“So if you just follow this route here—”
But Syl didn’t hear what Lista said. Instead she stared at the card, overcome with longing. Why, it was a map, a map to the entire Marque! She had to have it. She watched Lista closely as the girl babbled on.
I am like you. We are the same.
“Lista, dearest, please may I borrow it? Just for a bit. I’m dreadfully late, and I’ll be in terrible trouble if I get lost again. I’m all panicked, you see . . .”
Lista hesitated.
“But you know it’s not allowed.”
Syl stared at her, smiling what she hoped was reassuringly while she manipulated Lista’s thoughts. The girl looked at the card for a few moments, then shrugged.
“Well, if you promise you’ll get it back to me as soon as you’re finished with it.”
“Of course I will. Thank you, Lista.”
“Please, don’t forget. I’m in the Eighth, remember.”
She handed over the cartograph.
“Good luck,” Lista said. “See you later, Tanit.”
Syl froze, then realized Lista was talking to her.
“Yes, of course. See you later,” she managed.
• • •
In the privacy of a small side tunnel, Syl studied the cartograph. The blue light in the middle clearly showed the whereabouts of the card itself, for the shining dot remained static while the lines moved around it depending on which direction she faced. She could zoom in or zoom out, showing either greater or lesser detail accordingly. As Illyri technology went, it was quite primitive, but also rather effective, like much of the electronics on the Marque.
Very soon, Syl had figured out where she was, for she was surprisingly close to the pathway she’d intended taking earlier. She’d gone through what appeared to be the old Third Realm, after veering briefly into the Second—the tumbledown section where she’d seen the garniad the previous day—and she’d walked across the Fifteenth, where the laundries were housed, to end up here, in the Ninth. The route she’d followed curved back around on itself, but without the cartograph she’d never have guessed it. It was like those stories of explorers lost in the desert, walking in never-ending circles only minutes from an oasis until they fell down and died.
Only now, thought Syl as she headed back toward the Twelfth Realm, she was an explorer who had a map.
CHAPTER 47
Steven had killed the thrusters, so the ship remained stationary before the phenomenon. The wormhole appeared as a slightly elongated area of distortion, a fractured lens. The sight of a wormhole always made Paul nervous. He’d been through enough of them by now for the novelty to have worn off, but not the fear. He wondered if it was similar to claustrophobia, that reluctance to be trapped in an enclosed space, especially one with the potential for collapse. Illyri research into wormholes had concluded that they degraded over time, becoming less stable as they grew older. Unfortunately, while the wormhole map detailed the location of each one, it did not offer an estimate of age or stability. They could only conclude that, if a wormhole was included on the map, it was because it was safe to use.
Alis magnified a section of the cockpit display.
“This is our route,” she said as a series of wormholes were illuminated in red. “Once we’re through this one, the next is just a few hours away. As long as we don’t encounter any problems, it should take us six boosts to get to the Archaeon system.”
“How long altogether?” asked Paul.
“Arrival approximately seventy-eight hours since our departure from Torma.”
Paul, who had been leaning against the bulkhead, instinctively found himself running the fingers of his right hand along the interior of the Nomad, as though reassuring himself of its strength.
Will the ship be able to take six boosts? he wondered.
Even the strongest vessels in the Illyri fleet rarely made more than two boosts in succession without running a full system and maintenance diagnostic afterwards, and the Nomad had already made a least one boost to get to Torma. But there was no choice.
“Check all hatches and storage,” said Paul. “I want everything tied down and sealed away.”
They were all used to the procedures: nobody wanted to have a limb broken or a skull fractured by a falling piece of equipment during a difficult jump. When Paul was satisfied that all was secure, he ordered everyone to take position, and finally strapped himself into the lead chair directly behind Steven and Alis.
“Okay,” he said, and his voice quavered ever so slightly. “Take us in.”
After all the preparations and precautions, it was one of the easiest boosts that Paul could recall. He had a vague sense of stars elongating, creating lines of light in which spectrums danced; of an intense pressure against his temples that felt as though his eyeballs were being squeezed from his skull; and of a tingling at his fingertips and toes that verged on, but did not quite become, pain.
“Emerging,” said Steven. “Boost complete.”
“Starting emergence procedures,” said Alis.
The most dangerous aspect of boosting was not moving through the wormhole itself, although that could be risky enough. No, it was in leaving the wormhole that the greatest threats often lay. Regularly trafficked wormholes had automated monitoring stations installed at their mouths, so that in the event of a problem—asteroids, for example—a warning drone could be sent through to advise against boosts until the danger had passed. But the last thing they wanted was for news of an unscheduled boost to reach the Illyri, so Steven and Alis had made adjustments to their route in order to avoid any such stations.
The trick in emerging from an unmonitored wormhole was to halt the ship at the very periphery of its mouth, and then slip back into the hole if any obstacle was present, a solution that was far from foolproof. Paul gritted his teeth and dug his fingers into the armrest of his chair, only relaxing when Alis gave the all-clear moments later. And then it was over, and they emerged into an area of space that looked not entirely dissimilar to the one they had just left.
Paul checked over his shoulder to make sure that everyone was okay. Thula slowly opened his left eye, then his right, as though unconvinced that he could still be in one piece. Thula hated jumps.
“Was it just me,” he said, “or was that not as horrible as usual?”
“It’s the ship,” said Steven. He couldn’t keep the admiration and excitement from his voice. “A wormhole could be collapsing around us, and we wouldn’t even notice.”
Paul didn’t particularly want to test that theory, but it gave him some reassurance about the boosts to come.
“All credit to the pilots too,” he said. “Well done.”
A burst of only semi-ironic applause came from Thula and Rizzo, who suggested that Paul should start awarding medals with his own face on them. Paul ignored her, and signaled to Peris that he wished to speak with him. Tiray stood to join them, but Paul was growing tired of Tiray assuming that he could automatically include himself in any conversation he chose.
“No, you can stay where you are, Councillor,” said Paul. “I’d like to speak with Peris alone.”
Tiray didn’t look happy about this, but remained in his seat. Peris followed Paul to the captain’s quarters. He said nothing, but he was increasingly impressed by Paul’s assumption of command. It was a good thing that he was no longer involved with the Resistance on Earth, for he would have become a powerful enemy. On the other hand, Peris was also aware that, while one could take the man out of the Resistance, one could not take the Resistance out of the man. Paul Kerr was still no friend to the Illyri, and the issue of the weapons in the hold remained.
“You don’t like Tiray much, do you?” said Peris.
“I don’t like or dislike him. I don’t even know him wel
l enough to care if something were to happen to him.”
“But?”
“I don’t trust him. He hasn’t told us everything that he knows.”
“He’s a politician. He probably hasn’t even told himself everything that he knows. So, what’s on your mind, Lieutenant?”
“This ship.”
“Yes?”
“Do you think it has a flight recorder? We called them black boxes back on Earth.”
“Actually, the technical human term for them is cockpit voice recorders. Ours are a little more advanced, but, yes, this ship will have one.”
“Can it be turned off?”
“I don’t know. I suppose it can. The ship’s systems have been programmed to erase all traces of its past, so the recorder might also have been deactivated. My guess, though, is that it probably wasn’t. It would be more sensible simply to secure the recorder. Everything about this ship suggests secrecy, but also a degree of complacency, such as the absence of security codes on its main operating systems, and of DNA locks on that weaponry you found. The erasing of its flight records was designed to discourage only a casual search. In reality, whoever designed this ship and sent it on its mission never anticipated that it might be boarded or, even if it was, that it wouldn’t be retaken almost immediately.”
“And the recorder would start up at what point?”
“Well, from the ship’s first activation, I should think.”
“So if we found the recorder, we could learn where it was built?”
Oh, you bright young man.
“Yes, I believe so. But, as I said, if anything on this ship is going to be properly secured, it will be the recorder, and I don’t have the kind of expertise or intelligence to get past its firewalls. And, with absolute respect, neither do you.”
“But Alis does.”
“Alis works for Tiray.”
“Actually,” said Paul, “I don’t think that’s entirely true. Alis’s true loyalties lie elsewhere.”
“With the Mechs?”
“Yes. I think I can persuade her to access the recorder without necessarily informing Tiray of what she might find.”
“And why would she do that?”
“This ship is like the Mechs: where there’s one, there can be two, and then many more than two. This kind of technology could change the course of a war.”
Peris considered what Paul had said.
“You’re suggesting that this ship, and the one we destroyed, are part of a fleet?”
“Don’t pretend that you haven’t considered the possibility. Why build just two ships when you have half the wealth of an empire to spend, and investing in a fleet might just win you the other half as well? Unless we’re all very much mistaken, forces aligned with the Diplomatic Corps created this ship. The Corps wants to rule the Empire. To do that, it needs to wipe out the Military. At the moment, the Military’s firepower outweighs the Corps’, but not by much. Enough ships like this could tip the balance.”
“But you still haven’t explained why Alis might be willing to keep secrets from Tiray.”
“It’s only a matter of time before the Corps finds out about the Mechs. Meia is the weak link. She was exposed at Dundearg, and people will be talking. Five thousand powerful, self-aware machines who know that one hundred thousand more like them were destroyed on the orders of the Diplomatic Corps won’t be allowed to survive once the Corps takes over the Illyri Empire.
“You told me yourself: Tiray is a politician. Right now, the Corps is after him because they know he’s curious about Archaeon, but the fact that they didn’t just blow his ship to pieces means they don’t necessarily regard him as an enemy, not yet. Suppose Tiray gets to Archaeon, discovers whatever the Corps and its allies may be hiding there, and decides that it might be in his best interests, and those of the Civilians, to side with them against the Military? All politicians have one aim: to survive. I’m pretty sure Alis is well aware of that. She’s not just working with Tiray. She’s watching him.”
“You’re very cynical for one so young,” said Peris.
“You may be rubbing off on me.”
Peris acknowledged the gibe with a laugh.
“And where do you fit into all this?” he asked.
“Personally, I’d be quite happy to see the Illyri Empire tear itself apart in another civil war,” Paul replied. “If you’re killing one another, then you’re doing humanity a favor, and saving us the trouble of killing you instead. But if the Corps were to win, an already bad situation for humanity would become much worse.”
“You’re talking about that thing found in Gradus’s head, and the experiments Meia saw?”
Paul nodded. “None of it suggests the Corps’ plans for humankind are gentle,” he said. “I’ve also been wondering if that organism might be linked to the technology used to build this ship?”
“In what way? By imparting knowledge?”
“Or enhancing brain functions, maybe. It’s all just guesswork and speculation, but it makes a kind of sense.”
“So the Corps provides hosts for these life-forms, whatever they might be, and in return the Diplomats get smarter,” said Peris. “But what’s in it for the organism?”
Bodies split open like bags of fertilizer. Host animals on Earth torn apart in the process of failed implantations.
Paul made the final leaps before replying. An advanced species is found—humanity—that is potentially capable of acting as host for the organism, just as the Illyri were, but for some reason the implantation doesn’t take, like a body rejecting a transplant organ. Humans are just different enough from the Illyri to make them unsuitable as hosts. And if human beings are no good as hosts, then what other function can they usefully serve?
Bodies split open. Fertilizer.
“Humanity,” said Paul, and his mouth dried up on the word. “The Corps is going to give them the earth.”
CHAPTER 48
Alis needed little persuading to seek out the flight recorder and try to recover its data. She didn’t even object when Paul suggested that she keep her task secret from Tiray, which confirmed all that he believed about the nature of their relationship. The only difficulty lay in ensuring that Tiray’s suspicions were not aroused. It was left to Peris to spin a tale for the politician, which he did by wrapping the lie in a kind of truth: Alis, Tiray was told, was looking for the recorder in order to disable it, because if they did somehow manage to investigate the Archaeon system and escape undetected, it might be politic—and Peris used the word quite deliberately—to leave as little trace as possible of their presence. Tiray appeared to swallow the story, but Paul quietly assigned Rizzo to keep a close eye on him, just in case he took it into his head to do some snooping.
In fact, it was Steven who seemed most upset by Alis’s new role. Perhaps inspired in part by Thula’s earlier knowing grins, he had decided that Paul was attracted to Alis, and now he might have a rival for her affections in the form of his own brother. Back on Earth, Paul thought that his brother might have had a crush on Syl’s friend Ani, but it appeared to have passed. His feelings for Alis, though, seemed destined to make his life very complicated.
“You have to tell him,” Paul informed Alis, although he was forced to inform her lower body only, as her upper half was lost somewhere below floor level.
“Found it!” she cried, and emerged holding a silver block.
“Well done,” said Paul. “You still have to tell him.”
“Tell who what?” said Alis. It was clear that she had tuned out Paul entirely while she was engaged in her search, leading Paul to doubt that her programming extended to multitasking, however sophisticated it might be in other ways.
“You have to tell my brother that you’re a Mech.”
Her joy at finding the recorder disappeared.
“Why?”
“Because he’s shooting daggers at me while staring dog-eyed at you.”
“I don’t understand anything of what you’ve just said. Do you mean that you’re brother has been throwing knives at you?”
Paul permitted himself a deep sigh. He was certain that Napoleon Bonaparte, or Alexander the Great, or any other great military commander in history, had never found himself having this sort of conversation. Being in charge wasn’t all that it was cracked up to be.
“No, it means that he’s sending hostile looks in my direction while at the same time gazing at you in a lovesick manner. There: is that clear enough?”
Alis looked at the block in her hand as though she wanted to use it on someone’s head, but wasn’t sure whose head should be first.
“But why is he angry with you?”
“He thinks that I’m attracted to you.”
“Are you?” Alis asked, uncertainly.
“No, of course not.”
Paul knew that he was in trouble as soon as he heard the words leave his mouth. They had sounded so much more reasonable, and so much less hurtful, in his head. If he could have laid his hands on the Illyri responsible for programming Alis, he would happily have throttled him. Or her.
Yet Alis did not respond with anger but with a kind of confused sadness.
“Am I so repellent?” she asked.
“No.”
“Is it because I am—”
Paul interrupted her.
“A Mech? No, absolutely not.”
But even as he said it, he wondered if he might not be lying, at least a little.
“It’s because,” he continued, “there’s someone else.”
“A human?”
Paul sank back against the hull.
“No, as it happens. An Illyri.”
If possible, Alis looked even more confused.
“But you’re human!”
“Hang on a minute, you just implied that I might not be attracted to you because you’re a Mech. It never even crossed your mind that it might be because you look like an Illyri.”