The last Zajinet, a deep scarlet, shifts towards Carl.
<<Greetings, Pilot.>>
<<Greetings, Pilot.>>
<<Greetings, Pilot.>>
<<Greetings, Pilot.>>
‘So you did recognise me.’
<<When you awoke, we knew.>>
<<When you awoke, we knew.>>
<<When you awoke, we knew.>>
<<When you awoke, we knew.>>
Carl has never heard of such clear unambiguous communication from a Zajinet. Most people would say it is impossible.
<<The darkness must not spread.>>
<<The darkness must not spread.>>
<<The darkness must not spread.>>
<<The darkness must not spread.>>
He has no idea how to assess the situation. The humans, Greybeard included, are helplessly asleep back in the hold; but this Zajinet is in some sense a prisoner, entangled with Greybeard’s tu-ring.
<<Wake Xala.>>
<<Wake Xala.>>
<<Wake Xala.>>
<<Wake Xala.>>
The vessel shivers into realspace. In seconds, the delta-bands will power down automatically.
‘Shit.’
Carl sprints back to the hold, leaps towards the unconscious Xala and tears the delta-band from her forehead. Kaleido-scopic colours swirl across her bare scalp before coalescing into maroon-and-silver dragons, scaled and fierce as they coil and slither.
‘Ah, my head,’ she moans. ‘The case.’
‘What?’
‘Open his—’
‘Got it.’
His tu-ring is working furiously, and the case pops open as his spyware succeeds in defeating its locks. Inside is a small, complex device about the size of Carl’s fist. He has no idea what it might be. But Greybeard’s closed eyes are shifting from side to side, moments from waking, so Carl abandons caution to reach inside, closes one hand around the device and—
What the hell?
—totally fails in his attempt to tug it upwards. It feels massive.
‘—interacting with the darkness,’ Xala is saying. ‘They told me, the Zajinets.’
‘What was that?’
He tugs, and perhaps it shifts slightly.
‘We’re just shadows. Ghosts,’ says Xala. ‘I mean because we’re baryonic matter.’
‘Yes, but that doesn’t—’
Greybeard turns his head, eyes opening. ‘Well, how about that?’
Too late.
‘Where did this come from?’ It is the most important thing for Carl to ask. ‘Who made it?’
‘No one alive,’ says Greybeard. ‘No one who’s left any trace of their work.’
‘Fuck you,’ says Carl.
Because the implication is right there: no trace means zero survivors.
‘Open up.’ Greybeard swings his feet to the deck, takes the case one handed – at his touch, it closes up around the device – and lifts it without effort. ‘I mean the hull.’
His tu-ring sparks, and Carl senses a wild pulse of energy – the Zajinet equivalent of howling in pain – from the control cabin. After a moment, a large section of inner hull grows transparent, and Xala sucks in a breath; perhaps Carl does likewise.
It is a magnificence of stars, an incandescence of a billion suns.
‘Where is this?’ whispers Xala.
‘Galactic core,’ says Carl. ‘The only place it can be.’
Greybeard’s smartmiasma glitters deliberately, reminding them of the threat. Then he looks at the inner bulkhead to address the Zajinets, and raises his fist, emphasising the tu-ring.
‘Detonation in thirty seconds.’
‘No!’ shouts Carl.
Greybeard turns and runs at the transparent hull which, liquefying, allows him to pass through and tumble into space. There is only one chance for Carl and that is to follow, sprinting hard before the hull can harden, throwing himself through – wetness sliding across his skin – and then stars are whirling as he tumbles over and over, trying to sight Greybeard – there – but the bastard is out of sight again because Carl’s tumbling is chaotic, so hard to orient himself to—
A blaze of light marks the Zajinets’ exit from realspace. The ship is gone.
Oh, you stupid bastards.
Thinking they could break the quantum entanglement by entering mu-space while Greybeard’s tu-ring remains in this continuum.
Haven’t you heard of a deadman switch?
Whatever Greybeard rigged up, it will have detonated the instant the Zajinet vessel entered mu-space.
Issue the command.
It is the voice of panic inside his head.
No. Too soon.
Panic because he cannot breathe and soon his blood will boil. His eyes are already bleeding, hence his stinging vision while the most magnificent sight of his life in realspace shies everywhere: the centre of the galaxy, where a billion suns are gathered.
There it is, the thing that had to be here: some kind of craft taking the figure of Greybeard aboard.
Wait.
Such an ache in his desperate lungs.
Can’t—
Just wait.
Tumbling still.
Going?
It is hard to tell, with his smeared vision, whether the vessel is moving away.
Yes.
A flare and a spurt of motion, and it accelerates away, leaving him.
In the void, tumbling and dying.
Now?
It is a vast relief.
Yes, now.
He presses his tu-ring and it commands the quickglass, in emergency mode, to spread fast across his body. From the band around his waist, inside his clothes, it extends across everything, including his eyes – he has to fight against reflex to keep them open – and into his open mouth, forcing its way down into his lungs, painful and hard, or at least it feels that way – shit – and the pain increases – shit shit shit – before something wonderful happens and suddenly he feels euphoric.
Oxygen entering his bloodstream.
Fantastic.
Soon the hypoxia fades, but the euphoria remains, because he is floating in magnificence.
How many have seen what I’m seeing?
Well, more than one might expect, given that Greybeard had allies here: allies possessed of at least one ship and probably more, perhaps even permanent stations, and you had to wonder how they got here without assistance from Pilots. Were Zajinets involved?
Given their reaction to Greybeard, maybe not.
Pilots, then.
Helping . . . whatever it was that manipulated Greybeard.
Tumbling still, but breathing and surviving.
Help me.
He understood the artificial link that Greybeard formed between his tu-ring and the Zajinet: that understanding had been immediate because of that other link, the one that Pilots did not talk about (other than perhaps the Shipless, who knew only theory, never the reality), the bond between Pilot and ship. They never discussed it because they did not need to. They knew how beautifully lucky they were.
Come now.
Knowing she has heard him.
Come to me, my love.
And is even now, black and scarlet-edged and powerful, soaring through golden space to reach him.
I love you.
Twenty-five thousand lightyears and transition between universes are not enough to keep them apart, and never will be.
Oh, my love.
Soon enough, she will come for him.
And they will be together, as they are meant to be.
As they will always be.
]]]
When Roger disengaged from the memory sequence, his face was chill, with cold tracks down his cheekbones left by evap-orating tears.
I’ll do my best, Dad.
To be half the man his father was: still his only real ambition, more than enough for a lifetime’s work. Now, though, he was in realspace, with more immediate tasks to attend to.