Shifting ripples of light surfaced across the inky blackness of Richard Driwell’s sleep, fragments that vibrated and shuddered with terrible force. The ripples fell across themselves, braiding into convulsing knots, knot piling upon knot, shifting and melting, rising above the surface in a shadow form. The figure turned, stretched down a hand and gathered in an upwelling in the knee deep blackness, and Richard knew it now perceived him. The figure turned and beckoned, rivulets of pale blue falling from long fingered hands as the illusion of liquid failed.
Richard shifted, aware of his dream, uncomfortable with the presence of this new creature. The creature offered no threat beyond its own strange appearance, but the menace of the now vanished black water still hung thickly. Richard grasped onto the dream, awakening himself within it, pressing his will onto his own image. The creature beckoned again, urgency flowing from its form as Richard took command of echoed senses.
They stepped and the surface fell away, leaving the darkness slashed with the ribbons and blocks of light a major city shows to those who ascend. Richard took no notice of the thousand meter drop beneath him, to hang suspended in space was nothing new. The companion creature basked in the lights, floating and rolling in the glimmerings, gaining definition as highlights lifted features from the blankness. Richard held himself in the extended waiting, floating with the creature. In a short bit they began to descend, slowly at first, then with a giddy rush.
The city filled vision to overflowing, the passage compressing time into slices and fragments. In fleeting moments the creature had conducted them through a long sequence of places, doors and halls, large rooms and small. Common to them all was the sensation of desperation ingrained in the very fabric of the space. Richard slowed his flight, dragging the images out, compelling them into a more normal time frame. The companion creature did not protest, but neither did it seem inclined to give clue as to the reason for their flight. After allowing one long look into a room of people the creature lifted and soared, and Richard soared with it. As they gained altitude the creature again began to morph, features becoming recognizable. When they had resumed the altitude of the first vision the creature was an image of Sashi worked in electric blues and silvers, the high cheekbones and feline eyes beneath the flowing mane unmistakable.
Richard reached for his friend of many years, but the image moved just beyond reach. He swam in the air, in the manner learned aboard the orbiting factory, and the image moved just beyond grasp. For a few seconds he paused, and the creature paused in its flight. An effort to speak brought immense fatigue, to the depth of nearly shattering his hold on the vision. The Sashi creature seemed to understand the intent, and approached. It extended a hand, moving slowly, as if to not frighten an animal or a child. But the expected contact did not occur. The hand paused, and gnarled, and withdrew. The face of the creature shifted, battling in its form between Sashi and a man of oriental lineage. No emotions crossed the faces as they contended for the form in Richards dream, but in the heat of their battle they began to glow in shifting colors, and they began to settle: falling ever faster into the city below. Richard released his hold on the altitude, and willed himself to descend, but even within his dream, diving in full pike into lights, the creatures outdistanced him. They splattered against a sharp hillside, the iridescent colors splashing up and over the city. For a tiny fraction of time the running colors defined a landmark, and Richard sat bolt upright in his bed, eyes that had the moment before stared at the dark approaching earth staring now at the dark wall of his chambers. “San Francisco,” he said, and wondered why.
The clock above the door of the lounge read half past four as Wayne laid the last of the card stock on the table to cool. Only Pete remained in the lounge with Wayne. “These open doors in the whole compound, or just the broadcast building?” Pete asked, twisting his beard with a slow motion, as was his habit when in thought.
Wayne shrugged. “The fellow who provided the beginnings for these had a rating high enough to enter anywhere in the compound. I don’t think he was in any shape to fabricate a lie. And anyhow, we only need access to two places right off, and he used his card to enter both as a matter of routine.”
“Then the com shack should be ours without undue difficulty. But I’d still like to know if we have a dead line trigger on the switchgear.”
“I, also. As stands I think an echo back will be our best device. My people feel very sure the system is similar to one bought in Hong Kong a few years back. It was near bulletproof to the outside, but naïve to an internal loop. Comcent didn’t think it would be hard to tie it up in total confusion.”
Pete glanced off, whistled a few notes through his teeth. “I hope your people have it right. I’d hate to just get sat down when the posse arrived.”
“In this case the subels should work in our favor. By dawn the barrage they’re laying will have everyone who’s not inoculated down to shell thought. The telephones are still civilian, the proctors won’t be inclined to trust them very far.”
“We’ll have a go at it here in a little while, one way or another,” Pete said, and then shifted uncomfortably. He cleared his throat softly, bringing Wayne more alert than his appearance would have given clue to.
After a few seconds of uncomfortable silence Wayne moved to where his pack leaned against the wall. “Now’s as good a time as any,” he said without turning from the task of adding the portable to the tight loaded combat gear.
“Well, between you and I, the Skipper still doesn’t feel quite right. Something is gnawing on her, but I’ll be damned if I can put a finger on it.”
“I’d not worry too much,” Wayne replied without any overt drive to the comment. “She’ll get the job done.”
Pete made no verbal reply, just a look and a nod that coded three levels of concern. He shouldered his pack and walked by the table, lifting the card that carried his photo by the edges. “Never thought I’d carry another one of these,” he said as he buttoned a shirt pocket over the plastic.
*** *** ***
The drop board had taken on the characteristic throb of pre launch, counting a steady rhythm in triples. Bravo company was in harness, the para-sails they would ride down deployed in the tall overhead of the transport, wings folded bat fashion, outriggers tucked tightly between the drop rails. Mongoose was twitching in line, trying to ignore the itch that always tormented him while waiting to fly. From behind him he heard Jim-jim softly whistling an old folk song. Jim-jim had a genuine talent: his whistling lacked little on a flute. No one had ever mentioned the whistling, it had simply become part of the pre drop ritual.
At the front of the line Harland shifted his weight, testing the cinch. The visor of his helmet fell to a shake of his head, the view lighting as the shield clicked into place. For a moment only the display remained dark before gentle green luminescence’s painted the terrain passing below onto his sight. He lifted his head and the helmet interpreted his motion, setting the magnification to maximum. As he’d expected the glowing orange line of the drop zone was flickering on the horizon.
The orange line floated for a moment with the Dutchman’s flight, then settled into a steady glow. As the line opened into a foreshortened rectangle the drop board stopped throbbing, lighting now with the steady amber of standby. The rectangle was showing distinct borders as the board went blank, and the mechanical voice of the Dutchman counted out the final seconds: Doors in five-four-three-two-one, and the clamshells fell open front and rear. For a second Bravo company stood in the hundred click breeze before the captain of the Dutchman ten meters above called out “Godspeed, Bravo” and released the locking clamps on the launch rails. The slipstream whistling through the launch bay peeled the wings away, rear to front, depositing Bravo on the wind.
The departing Dutchman blocked sight of the sky, a huge bulk blacker than the darkness above, a shadow wheeling away to the East. Harland shifted in the harness, his weight pulling the tips of the outriggers around setting the wing into a sweeping turn, a check around the full perimeter of the horizon. Last launched he rode highest of the flight, top cover for those below . Unlike the other wings Harland flew solo, his wing loaded with small but sophisticated missiles designed to do battle with enemy armor or helo’s. A heavy assault rifle hung beneath the center spar, the output of its scope fed to Harland’s visor. The scope tracked a wider frequency than the flight sensors, and Harland smiled at the blankness of the display. The desert below showed no sign of human occupation. The Dutchman had let them off at 500 meters, high enough to establish formation and pick out the best landing, low enough to fall off the bottom of any radar only seconds after launch. The silence of the ECM receiver testified to the success of their launch. Harland released the wing from the tightening spiral, pleased with the blackness around them. Beneath him Bravo was forming up, wings sliding into the spread Vs of squad flight. Harland nosed his wing down and gained speed, slicing across the back of the formation to take position on the left flank.
Two hundred meters below Harland Mongoose was intent on his task: picking out a parcel of terrain suited to landing the heavily laden wings. Payload landed the outriggers would make the wings hard to handle on the ground. The outriggers could flip a wing in the slightest breeze, throwing men many meters in the process. More than one flier had stepped off his landing only to have a puff of breeze treat him to a much rougher impact. Half their altitude had shifted from below to above when he spotted the smooth wash at the outlet of a ravine sheltered by scrub trees on either side. The wash was close, nearly directly below. Mongoose let the wash pass behind for a ten count before dropping off his port outrigger, spinning the wing in little more than its length, wasting altitude in the reversal. Behind him wing after wing matched his maneuver, transforming the formations rapidly into a line astern as the ground rushed up at them.
The wash proved a fine landing field: Bravo finished without so much as a crinkle in a spar. The wings were separated by ten meters, hidden from the surrounding terrain by the line of trees. Working by visor Bravo set about unloading, and destroying, the wings. The fabric covers were crunched into the bags sewn sewed to the trailing edges. A sharp stomp, and the tailored bacteria would swarm over the corn based fibers, reducing them to a powder for the wind in little more than an hour. The spars would take a bit longer, but they also would be dust before the dawn, the composite fibers unraveling to the solvent released into the hollow tubes. Perhaps a slight discoloration of the dirt would remain at dawn to mark where Bravo set down.
*** *** ***
It had to be coincidence, Sashi thought, but a very convenient one. There was a seat for everyone on the bus. The puppies number, reduced by two, matched the broadcast crew to the man. One empty seat, for Bonzo who was waiting to secure the bay door and outer gate. Wayne was at the wheel, wearing the cap they had found in the map pouch. The puppies were seated in route order, Pete at the rear by the emergency exit. Sashi herself rode at the front, her back to the door side, where she could see Wayne as he began the process of bringing the bus to life.
Several test leads protruded from under the dash, hooked to a device lifted from a drawer in the office. “Better theirs than mine,” Wayne had quipped, “just in case these two are on a first name basis.” The dog eared manual was folded open to the proper pages, wedged into the steering wheel to be convenient. The first of his actions had brought a pair of amber lights to the surface of the smoked glass dash, blinking gently as Wayne tapped in code sequences. Sashi jumped at one point as the lights changed to brilliant red, then faded to orange. A muffled whine echoed briefly with the change in the lights.
“And…contact,” Wayne said, sitting back in his seat. The dash came to life before him, the displays igniting bottom to top in an illusion of a panel sliding away. Sashi recalled the nature of the lock being bypassed, and smiled at the tachometer readout steady in the center of the idle zone, at fuel pressure gauges stable in their indicated ranges. Air began to move about the cabin as climate controls engaged. Soft lights sprang from the overhead, lighting the cabin in a diffused blue glow. With the appearance of cabin lights Bonzo set the bay door to climbing.
Sashi glanced once the length of the cabin, the passage of her eyes both salute and challenge, and motioned forward.
Wayne slid the pitch lever into auto, and stepped gently on the throttle. The bus inched forward, tachometer and output sweeps climbing into working ranges with the motion. Thirty seconds later they were waiting in the road for Bonzo to board, the door and gate secured behind them with locks which would no longer open to the original keys.
Wayne made no haste for the station, holding the bus to sixty kph, pacing their progress to the rising of the sun. To reach the gates at half past five was his objective, and there remained twenty minutes. The lights of the town settled into a glow along the horizon and then faded, leaving them on the unmarked road by little more than starlight.
The cabin lights were set to a dull red glow, letting eyes dilate for the darkness. Sashi’s thoughts ran forward, pinning in imagination each step, each target to be acquired. The gate first, of course. The stop to drop the trailing squad just past the inner ring of sensors. The remaining hundred meters of road to where the bus would come to a halt against the wall of the radio shack, home of the telephone system. Fifteen meters from the radio shack to the door of the broadcast building, thirty on either side to the barracks and the mess hall. With luck they would catch the cooks busy fixing breakfast, and those they prepared to feed sleeping or newly risen. Twenty versus perhaps fifty. Surprise an advantage, terrain to the enemy. And above all, the overriding need to secure the com shack without alarm. The trailing squad to engage the guard barracks on signal, the lead squad filtering back after having secured the com shack and dorms. Assuming intelligence had the bivouac assignments right.
*** *** ***
Moonbow found Richard sitting on the edge of the back deck by the tendril of tobacco smoke rising from his pipe. The moon was long gone behind the mountain, and the first glimmers of dawn were still badly overmatched against the shadows of the mountain, leaving the deck in darkness. Moonbow scraped his foot on the rough edges of the deck boards, and waited a moment before crossing to take a seat perhaps two meters from his friend. Silence held between them for several minutes.
It was Richard who spoke first, in matter of fact tones. “She has changed. I do not see her in our future beyond the rising sun. She will be gone.”
Moonbow contemplated for a full minute, counting out the time by the beats of his heart, letting his thoughts have time to make a full circle for his inspection before making a reply. There was no need to ask: she, of course, was Sashi, the balance opposite, the one who encompassed the feminine side of the species, the crystal plane that defined level through the whirling madness of Richard’s dreamwanderings in the shattering clatter of mankind. In Moonbow’s thought it seemed as if the dream images he had brought Richard drove this pain, and he entertained a short regret.
“Do not mistake the echo of fear for fact. She has a calling to master, and what will be beyond is not yet inscribed on mun’ayalla. Time will have to pass before we will know what fate will follow.”
Richard blew a smoke ring, catching Venus in the loop. “Fate is not yet written, but her heart has changed. The thing which hid in her is hidden no more, and she is changed with the knowledge. Grown, grown a great deal. I reach for her, and what I find is beyond easy grasping. She will not be back, not as she was before. I dreamed her face last night, and I know her path in the next days, but I do not know why.”
“And this path, it leads to somewhere or someone?” Moonbow asked softly.
“Both. It leads to San Francisco, but more, it leads to a man. This man is her enemy. And her pursuit of this enemy is become to my thought a hinge upon which the history of our grandchildren may swing. And I am struggling to understand why I was shown these things, on this of all nights.”
“This night is different from yesterday?”
Richard drew a deep breath, gave it up in a sigh. “Last night was the last night of the world we were born to. A week from now our world will be changed beyond recognition.”
“And there is cause to fear this change?” Moonbow prompted after several seconds had passed.
“Perhaps. Perhaps not. It will depend on how well things go this morning.”
Moonbow considered, called to mind the years he had known this man, and pressed on in a manner both softer and more insistent than was his habit. “Does a large hound figure prominently in this dawn?”
Richard chuckled. “Thought you might ask. Yes, indeed. The hound and the fire and the towers are now known. Only the satellite remains to be explained.”
“Known to you. Will you, can you now explain them to me, with the light of a new world upon us?”
Richard hesitated before putting words to the story. When he spoke his words were short, concise, giving only the facts as he knew them. Moonbow listened intently, arranging what he was told to be in keeping with his own knowledge of the world. When Richard delineated the attack on the uplink station, and the particulars of Wayne’s part Moonbow began to perceive the scope of Richard’s story. When the story came to a halt Moonbow tapped his hand on the decking.
“I have not heard such a tale in all my days. This is today?”
“Today. With the rising of the sun Sashi will lead the puppies into the station. Even now Texan special forces are moving to set up a defense around the station. And many, very many of their companions are on the east face of the Sangre de Cristo preparing to deny the roads across the mountains to the Japanese army. And with them are the greater portion of my forces, those which did not go west to damage the interstate and the rail lines. This day is the dawning of war, my friend. Very soon the ICC will not be able to hide what is happening, and they will acknowledge the declaration of war from the Republic.”
Moonbow hesitated with thought, and when he spoke it was with the quiet conviction that marked absolutes. “Then I say this war is justified, and if I may aid this cause I shall. Time has been long since the thought of justice has been known to this land.”
Richard lifted his hand, and a tiny green light shone from his palm. “I am awaiting a signal from Sashi even now. She will contact me if there is even a hint of problem. In such a case I shall signal others to act in such a manner the ICC will be dealing with more than one station having technical difficulties. I just hope they will assume it a remote assault from the Republic and not realize Shiprock as the focus.”
“Ah, you will have the satellite deny its master,” Moonbow said.
Richard started with Moonbow’s words. “What did you say?” he demanded.
Moonbow answered without letting any of Richard’s intensity reflect in his voice. “I said I thought you were going to cause the Japanese satellite to deny its masters in order to confuse the enemy. Did I speak ill?”
“No, God no. But you have triggered a memory, one nearly lost to me, one which might, it just might…” Richard squirmed, and then jumped to his feet. “Moon, follow me, I need you. I must recover a tiny thing from my youth.”
Moonbow rose, and shuffled behind his friend into the house. It came as no surprise to him that Richard led him into the room of technology, the place where Richard stored the power of his youth among the great complexities crafted in glass and lights. He waited as Richard seated himself before one of the screens. After several seconds of conversing with his machine Richard sat back, and motioned to the chair beside him. Moonbow fit himself to the chair slowly, hesitant even in the company of his friend of many years to come so close to the powerful, alien feeling forces trapped in the machinery. When he was seated Richard tapped gently on the glass.
“It is possible that in my memory is a key to release the shackles of more than our state alone,” he said as the quad of monitors imbedded beneath the glass synchronized into a single display. “Wayne will acquire the lock, if I can but recall for him the key. Will you help me?”
“If I am able. But Richard, how might I help you master such as these?” Moonbow answered, the sweep of his hand encompassing the complex display before them.
“Not these, my friend. Not these. I am master of these beyond doubt. But I must cross the barrier back to a day in my youth, when I worked in orbit. And I fear the passage. Will you travel with me?”
*** *** ***
The road passed between rises that for a short passage blocked the view of the surrounding terrain. Wayne let the bus come to a halt on the shallow rise climbing out of the dip. “I would prefer someone else be driving when we approach the gate,” he said.
Sashi nodded to Greg. It took ten seconds to effect the change and get back underway. When Greg had the bus back to speed Sashi locked eyes with Wayne across the table. …Why?
… I didn’t want to be pinned behind the wheel … I, we, may be busy at the gate… I would rather perpetrate a deception on these men than take them out of the shack by force…
… of course… far less chance of alarm… how can I help?
…sing a Wednesday song, move your internal clock forward four days…
…hump day it is…
Wayne settled back, composing images for the encounter at the gate. The guards would see the same vehicle they greeted two dozen times a year, perhaps at a strange time of day, but still, the proper vehicle. He would echo their expectations back in displaced time, let them see what they had seen before, what they would expect to see, setting a self sustaining loop to carry them through the routine of opening the inner gate and suspending the weapons array. The cloaked windows intended to shelter the broadcast crew from the passing terrain would deny the guards visual contact with any save the driver, and with Sashi’s aid holding an illusion over one face would not be an extreme challenge. The driver first…
The final klicks passed quietly, the horizon acquiring a pink glow, broken in the center by the looming mass of the mesa rising from desert floor. Wayne and Sashi seemed lost in the same thought. Pete noted the glance across the table that seemed to lock and glow, blinked twice, but said nothing. Perhaps the shimmer distorting their faces was simply his own fatigue. In any case, it was far too late to question, his part of the day would begin very soon. Reflex dropped his hands across the controls of the rifle, setting the burst patterns.
Within the shimmer Wayne stretched out beyond the moment, reaching for the first point of awareness to perceive the approaching vehicle. In the first instant the required patterns would be undiluted by thought and suspicion, and he would harvest the grease paint of his illusion. The fellows in the shack had been there all night, for many nights. Dawn would be their time for relief, the signal that the long night watch was ending. The bus would simply be a confirmation greeted with gladness not to be disturbed by hard thought. Since the bus was here it must be Wednesday morning, time to stand down from the night watches for a month, a happy moment easily stretched into a ongoing lapse of continuity…
They were spotted two hundred meters from the gate. The image from the guard arrived several microseconds in front of the first whisper of his curiosity, curiosity which faded immediately beneath the combined projections. The image of the driver’s wrinkled face beneath the polished bill of the cap, the face which Greg would wear to the outer world for the next five minutes, broke free almost of its own accord. The wrinkled face exactly even with the window of the shack, which always rewarded the duty guard with a warming smile as the gates swung open…
In the rear of the bus Pete tapped the table softly, the one-two, one-three rhythm of the second squad, bringing weapons to the ready, the sound of magazines being locked in synch with the last of the taps. Soft scraping sounds echoed forward as the platoon left the seats, crouching by the back door.
In the front of the bus Greg was off the throttle coasting in, easing them to a halt beside the shack. At the line he looked into the shack, and smiled to an impulse he would only question hours later. The Japanese guard returned his smile, and started out of the shack, walking towards the front of the bus as the gate began to swing. Greg waited for the expected indication they should move forward, but the guard stopped, and moving as if slightly confused motioned not to the bus but to his comrade in the shack.
The issue hung in doubt for an agonizingly long second. Wayne watched, his projection nudging at the thresholds of perception before the second figure began to move. He exited the shack, looking once over his shoulder as if some function called to him, before striding rapidly to join the other, who was focused on the face which was returning his glance.
“Go,” Sashi said softly. Pete opened the rear door, and Otis rolled through, the silencer on his pistol longer than the barrel. Wayne held his thought for a second longer, and then shifted suddenly, jolting Sashi’s attention to the interior, to the immediate. The withdrawal of the projection left the two guards only enough to time to share a confused glance before crumpling silently.
“And Two and Three,” Pete said as if launching weapons. Bonzo and Gates swung out the door. Five fast strides and they had hauled even with Otis, each taking a firm grip on some portion of a corpse, the three of them dragging the dead back into the shack. Greg needed no instruction: as the corpses fell inside the shack he idled the bus forward. The gate swung closed behind them after only a few seconds.
Pete’s squad dropped out the door every fifteen seconds as the bus maintained a steady five kph pace. Pete was the last to step off into the shadows. With the closing of the door Greg took them to a normal pace for the final hundred meters of the road, closing on the traffic loop fronting the main buildings of the compound.
The radio shack was a nondescript building, block beneath a plastic shingled roof. One window and a single door broke the front wall, the dim glow of night lighting obvious through the glass. Greg sheltered the bus close against the side of the building, parking on the grass to leave only centimeters to the wall.
“Leave it idle for now,” Wayne said to Greg, moving to clear the door for Sashi, "you'll be taking it back as soon as the perimeter is secure." The remainder of the squad was dropping out the rear door as Wayne, Sashi and Greg debarked from the front. Greg spun away to the front of the bus, posting watch on the northern flank.
Wayne hesitated a five count, allowing the squad to clear the corner first. With no sound after five seconds he followed, his Styles riding an upturned left fist. The door was open as he gained a line of sight, Sashi holding her weapon cocked above her shoulder to provide cover for the first in. Several others were converging on the mess hall, moving rapidly through the shadows on the western approaches. Sashi spared him a split second glance, and then plunged through the door. Wayne moved into the position she had vacated, swinging his weapon high over his shoulder as she had: Sashi would be crouching as she advanced, counting on his rounds to go over her head should there be need.
There was no need. Wayne more felt than heard the soft double report from Otis’s silenced weapon. Several seconds passed, and then Sashi slowly straightened, motioning him into the building. Otis met him halfway down the hall.
“Only one fellow, near asleep. Never knew I was there,” he said, sidestepping to let Wayne pass.
“Your on,” Sashi said, motioning forward.
The phone room was much less than expected: a system case and terminal, a four meter square panel covered in termination strips fanning out like willow fronds from a thick fiber bundle at the back of the case, a one meter jump bundle to the optics translator. Six indicator lamps were glowing on the board, but none over outgoing lines. As they watched four of the lights winked out.
Wayne retrieved the portable from its battle case, taking note of brand names of the phone gear in passing. Thirty seconds of searching and the system specs of the switch gear was scrolling across the monitor. “Hang up the phone,” Wayne said, watching the telltales, fingers hovering over the keyboard. Thirty seconds later the last of the service lights went dark. “Five possible masters, none list as triggers,” he said, and started keying in passwords. The third word caused the screen to go from a green scheme to a diagram in shades of orange. With the change in the screen Wayne set the portable alongside the keyboard and began keying in commands. As he worked segments of the diagram changed into shades of blue. Ninety seconds after he began the last of the orange had been replaced.
“How secure?” Sashi asked as he sat back.
“Outgoing translator is offline, incoming forced into an endless voicemail loop. The phones will still work locally. I have the system relocked to my passwords, and I doubt the local tech has the masters. Operating, but catatonic.
“We’ll need a count on the voice drops to see who might call someone in town to go check on the phones. Surely not before midmorning Monday.”
“Tight enough,” Sashi said. “Let’s hope the broadcast room is so tidy.”
The sun had a sliver above the horizon, throwing long shadows to the west. None of the puppies were visible, and no alien sound disturbed the sounds of a desert dawn. Otis held the door for them, passing on what he had observed in the minutes while Wayne had been working the phones.
“Clean and quiet so far. The mess hall is ours, the boys are in the barracks.”
Sashi nodded an acknowledgement, blocking the door to Wayne for the moment it took her to scan the horizon, to confirm a safe exit for her payload. Every few seconds she would feel the collapsing corona of lethal encounters as the puppies moved room to room through the barracks. She shook off the sensation, forced her thoughts back to the spectrums of white light and sound where the desert morning was undisturbed. “Then let’s get to the point of this whole excursion,” she said, moving clear of the door.
*** *** ***
The first glow of dawn put tiny, pale slivers of light on the far wall of the library, hardly to be seen for the flickering light of the oil lamp centered between Richard and Moon. Moon's head bobbed in time with the litany he chanted, calling up the waking sleep as Richard lost himself in the flame which danced with Moon's breath. The light from outside grew and the house engaged its instructions, darkening filters to hold the room in deep shadow. Moon softened his chant; lifting, drawing Richard away from the present with tones the flesh remembered from rituals of youth. His voice faded almost to silence before returning in different timbre and rhythm, invoking the deep places where men might relive their pasts.
Moon's chanting was far below conscious thought for Richard as he arched through the hatch, folding his feet to follow through without hooking the seal lip around the portal. Pressure suited for an extended EVA made even a slender man feel grotesque while inside. The hatch watched his progress, sliding itself closed as Richard brought himself through the maneuver to align with the local "up" of the maintenance airlock. Tiny thrusters flared from shoulders and hips in opposition to his rotation, bringing the walls steady.
"Telemetry checks green across: Egress in ten," the speaker in his helmet said. Richard drew a calming breath waiting for the "ceiling" to slide away. No matter how often one went outside the first glimpse of infinity stretching away wrenched at an instinctual fear.
Twenty three years into Richard's future Moon watched with restrained curiosity as his friends' hands seemed to tremble against the surface of the table, rapid tapings of thumb and fingertips . Nothing in his world would connect the motions with Richard's perception of firing maneuvering thrusters by pressing control pads on the thighs of the pressure suit.
The long excursion suit lifted out of the airlock, bringing a line of sight along the outer hull of the station, the first focus an impossible compromise between the rapidly changing range to horizon and the planet seen rising at the end of the steel. Overhead the umbrella glowed momentarily, the catalysts of its construction chemically trapping the last of the escaping gasses. Twenty meters out Richard brought his motion to a halt. A five count later the ponysled rose from its berth beside the lock, homing on Richards suit beacon.
Moon studied the small changes of expressions crossing Richard's face, seeking clue as to what nature of now was his for the moment. In the long years of his acquaintance with Richard the stories of his life before expulsion had been few, small illusions concerning simple pleasures or disappointments of childhood. Only in the things Richard built could one see the immense storehouse of knowledge he had carried away. The life he'd led to acquire the knowledge remained a mystery. In the minutes while Richard had made preparations he had spoken of his destination, the very shape of his speech changing with the subject. Gone the soft tones and slow formations, overwritten by unknown words spoken in a quick and clipped accent Moon could only guess belonged to the Eastern peoples. Words tumbled from him which conveyed no meaning, only the sensations common to the terrible potence restrained behind the glass in the room of technology. Moon let the strange words pass, concentrating instead on the trace of the Richard he knew as it threaded its way back into realms long abandoned in defense of sanity.
The ponysled reversed itself, showing the panoramic expanse of Earth as the main thruster broke down the velocity gained for the climb to geosych, the half gee burn comfortable after the long freeflight from the station. The sled navigated the passage without assistance from its rider, giving time for sightseeing in transit, a view of the planet few would see with their own eyes. Even across the decades the image remained powerful in Richards mind, carrying across to Moon as an even stranger transition in appearance: eyes brown from birth lightened into a swirling pattern of blue and whites, the patterns so teasingly familiar and yet not, a secret view of a thing often seen from a different angle. The illusion held only a moment and then faded, leaving Moon wondering if the thing Richard pursued could be of such supreme value as to risk the hell of recalling an addiction of such proportions. For the moment the focus of Moons' concern sat staring at his hands pressed white knuckle flat against the table.
Richard's reverie broke into a strange one sided conversation, a dialogue retrieved from the events at finger's end.
"We still have a point zero niner phase deviation in conjugate couplings… Negative. I say again, Negative. Deviation increasing to point one nine and gaining… Theta voltage confirms at seventeen, that's not our problem… "
The frustration on Richard's face left no doubt of the nature of the words. The events of that morning were not as he would have desired them. The device ministered to resisted all efforts, refusing to resume the tasks upon which so many depended.
"ConBoston, back down! Back down your signal! We have destructive feedback… well, that tears it… Four hours, plus flight time… No, ConBoston, the primary is smoked. I do mean smoked, I saw a vapor release. Very ugly… The repair is not the problem, ConBoston. Waiting a week for the part is the problem… Yes, the control amplifier is a twin, but the circuit is bridge locked… No ConBoston, if we pull the control amp you will not have remote master from which to initiate confirmation… Our window is now three hours and twenty, someone make a decision… "
Richard sat up very straight in his chair, and then slumped slightly into the posture of a man wishing his authority extended to authorize the obvious. For a very long minute he remained motionless. When he straightened again to his work there was a distinct haste to his actions. "Yes, it can be done… I wish someone would have agreed an hour ago, this will be into the safety margins at best… please clear for high boost on the return ride… "
Another minute of silence stretched to nearly two before Richard began to make small motions, eyes dropping to bore holes into the table with the fierce concentration of a man who attempts a thing accounted a master’s challenge of his craft.
"OK, ConBoston. Four phase stable at last. All I need is the confirmation code to restart the cycle and with luck this jury rigging will hold for a month or two… Yes, I know what happens if I trigger a hacker interlock… Very well, say it slowly, this channel is about as clear as a fog bank… I copy Fagan-Baker-Four-Four-Seven-Echo-Echo-Charlie-Six-Zero-Three-Niner-Niner-Five-Six-Niner-triple Zero… cross your fingers, ConBoston, if she bucks this bird won’t carry more than muzak for a month…"
Richard stiffened in his chair with a tension which filled his body, and then flung himself out the chair with the force of a convulsion. The oil lamp skidded across the table with a flare, lighting a face both wild and gray. Moon snatched up the lamp and backed away, wondering if Richard would survive. Five seconds later Richard slammed both fists against the table with enough force to bounce the heavy wood. "Numbers, Moon. Did I say numbers?"
No comments:
Post a Comment