Binary system, p.25
Binary System, page 25
Oma smiled. “I need to summon Jav and have him in on this.”
She closed her eyes briefly, communing with her Imp. Almost instantly, Javinder’s image flashed into life before them. He looked out, smiling. He was sitting in the shuttle’s command chair, swivelling back and forth and looking pleased with himself.
“Good news?” Oma asked.
“The shuttle’s up and running, Oma. The auxiliary’s good for a planetary jump, but the main drive’s still dysfunctional. I should be with you in about five hours.”
“Excellent,” she said. “Look, I’ll route the visuals through my viewpoint.”
Jav leaned forward, staring. “Hey, you’re in the ship!”
Oma recounted their meeting with Edward Charlton.
“You were right all along,” Javinder said to Oma, then glanced at Delia. “I hope you’re not too upset about our keeping it from you?”
“I understand,” she said. “I don’t really mind being thought neurotic and unstable, you know?”
Oma cleared her throat. “There’s still something I haven’t told Delia yet,” she said to the Indian.
Javinder opened his mouth in a silent, “Ah,” and smiled. “Well, I suggest you take us through to the smartcore nexus and we’ll see what the situation is.”
Delia stared at Oma. “What?”
The South African smiled, and said to Javinder, “You’ve accessed the Orpheus’s schematics, Jav?”
“I have them here,” Javinder said. “Take the elevator and you’ll find the smartware nexus on the level below the bridge.”
Delia followed Oma and took the elevator down to the next level, wondering what surprise might lie in store for her now.
The lift halted and the doors swished open. They stepped out and Javinder, his seated image bobbing before them, said, “Along the corridor.”
They passed down a narrow corridor so stark and functional Delia guessed that few crew members had ever come this way, even when the Orpheus had been fully operational.
“Just where are we going?”
Oma said, “As Jav said, the smartcore nexus. It’s in the nose cone of the ship.”
They came to a sliding door, waited until it opened, and stepped through.
Delia looked around in amazement. She had expected a continuation of the corridor, a stark, girdered, functional space given over to ugly information cores never meant to see the light of day.
The reality, however, was very different. It was as if she were standing at the end of a narrowing funnel spun from spars of delicate crystal. A catwalk stretched ahead, diminishing in perspective. Globules of what looked like old-fashioned gelware hung between the glittering, crystalline spars; bottle green and brown, its biological appearance contrasted with the sparkling nexus of the crystal.
Oma turned in a slow circle, giving Javinder a comprehensive view.
She waited, then said, “So, what do you think?”
“My God,” he whispered. “It looks pretty much complete to me, Oma. Of course, you’ll have to check with Charlton.”
“I’ll do that,” Oma said.
“Would you mind,” Delia said, “telling me what’s going on here?”
Oma smiled, then said to Javinder. “You or me, Jav?”
The Indian smiled and raised a hand. “Be my guest.”
“Hokay,” Oma said. She paced along the catwalk, Delia following her. “The Orpheus was an early, experimental starship, Delia. Or rather the technology it carried was experimental. Quantum lattice tech was in its early stages. The scientists back then didn’t have the knowledge to build free-floating lattices as vast as they’re able to do now – this was three hundred years ago, remember. They tried, but the webs were too flimsy for the huge amounts of energy they were required to channel: they exploded, or imploded, with spectacular results. So they decide to work on much smaller scales. The idea behind the original quantum lattices was that they’d leach energy from a nearby star sufficient to keep a wormhole open for minutes, and so allow the transit of multiple exploration ships. When this failed, they looked into opening wormholes for seconds only – ten or twenty at the very most – allowing the passage of one ship at a time.” She stared around her and smiled. “This, Delia, is what they came up with, a small-scale lattice carried and used by one starship only.”
Delia leaned against a rail, following through the implications of what Oma was telling her.
“How it worked,” Oma went on, “was that a ship, the Orpheus in this case, channelled vast amounts of energy for seconds only and this” – she gestured at the crystal funnel – “projected a wormhole portal into space a matter of kilometres before the ship which, seconds later, made the transit to its destination. It worked, though the tech was unstable – a case in point being the Orpheus, which due to a shunt anomaly ended up all the way out here.”
Delia shook her head. “So you’re saying...?”
Javinder took over. “We’re saying, Delia, that if this rig is in full working order, and if we can decouple it from the Orpheus and jerry-rig it to the front-end of the shuttle, and of course if we can cannibalise the requisite part from your life-raft at Alkellion, then we might, just might, get ourselves back to Earth.”
“But that,” Oma said, “is a lot of ifs.”
Delia felt faint. She tried not to allow herself to hope.
Javinder went on, “Unfortunately for Charlton, the Orpheus was irreparably damaged when it came down on Valinda, otherwise he might have been able to patch things up, get back into orbit and make the transit – if the lattice was working, of course.”
Delia looked at the Indian. “And what do you think the chances are of the lattice functioning as required?”
Javinder tipped his head back and forth. “I’ll have a better idea of that once I’ve spoken to Charlton. Then, of course, there’s the nuts and bolts engineering of getting the rig fixed to the shuttle – though with the help of a hundred eager Fahran, I’m sure we’ll manage.”
“But we have to find your life-raft, and its ion-exchange unit, to make any of this achievable,” Oma said.
Delia took a deep breath. “Well, I hope the Skelt have vacated Alkellion, and left the life-raft where it was.”
“I have your co-ordinates,” Javinder said. “I’ll give the auxiliaries a test burn, and I reckon I’ll be with you by noon.”
He cut the connection and his image vanished.
“Shall we return to the esplanade and see how Chalto is wooing the masses?” Oma said. “And then tell him there’s an outside chance that he’ll yet see planet Earth?”
Still dazed, Delia followed the South African. They left the smartcore nexus and took the elevator to the cavernous hold, then passed through the archway onto the esplanade.
Edward Charlton stood on a raised dais at the front of the concourse, addressing his followers. The priesthood had rigged up a speaker system from the Orpheus, and Charlton’s translation device – an external unit clipped to the lapel of his uniform – relayed his words in Fahranese out across the valley.
Mahn and Var stood to one side, staring up in awed silence as Charlton’s words rang out.
Delia and Oma crossed to where they stood, and Delia placed a hand on Mahn’s shoulder. He looked up at her, tears filling his huge eyes.
“And a time of change has come to Valinda,” Charlton was saying. “The time I prophesied has come to pass. I have been joined by more of my kind, beings from the stars beyond – and with their help, and the hard work and faith of the Fahran, we will enter an age of peace for all Valinda, a time of peace between the races, though first we must deal with the Skelt. And this will be no easy undertaking; there will be days and weeks and months of hardship, and sacrifice, but I vow that I will do all within my power to aid the Fahran in the long fight against your oppressors.”
A strange sound welled up from the watching crowd, a sigh like a tidal wave, a mass exhalation of approval and hope.
Charlton went on. “The time of change starts now, for unlike on earlier occasions when I have returned to the ship to sleep the winter out, that is no more. From now on I will remain awake, and active, and I will come among you – me and my kind – and instruct you in the way forward.”
A ragged fluting came from the audience, a Fahranese cheer, and Mahn shook his head in wonder.
“There will follow a day of rest, and then I will come here again and make a further pronouncement, and then I exhort you to go among your people and spread the word, that Chalto has Risen, and that the time to fight against Skelt oppression is drawing close.”
He turned to his right and left, and raised a hand, and a whispering cheer greeted his words as he stepped down from the dais and crossed to where Delia and the others stood.
He wiped sweat from his brow, then smiled and hugged first Oma, and then Delia – a god made very human by the simplicity of the heartfelt gesture.
“And now the hard work begins,” he said. “We need to talk, to plan the way ahead. I’d value your opinion.”
Delia glanced at Oma, who gestured for her to go ahead.
“There have been developments,” Delia said. “Our engineer, Javinder, has examined the Orpheus’s quantum lattice, and there is a chance that we might be able to utilise it on our shuttle.”
Charlton looked from Delia to Oma, and back to Delia, his eyes wide. He shook his head. “But... but I thought you said you were stranded here?”
“We thought we were,” Oma said, “before we learned of the lattice.”
“You see,” Delia went on, “our shuttle was disabled, but Javinder has managed to repair its auxiliary drives. And if we can couple the lattice to the shuttle...”
Mahn looked up at her. He gripped her hand. “You mean that you might, after all, be able to return to Earth?”
Delia smiled. “Perhaps. It is a long-shot, with many hurdles in the way. But I promise you that, if we do return to Earth, then we’ll be back to help your people in their struggle.”
“But perhaps,” Mahn said, his tone awed, “perhaps we – Var and myself – perhaps we could journey with you to the stars?”
Charlton reached out and touched the Fahran’s shoulder. “If it is achievable,” he said, “if we can indeed return to Earth... I could think of no more suitable travelling companions than yourselves.”
Oma said, injecting a note of caution, “Of course, before then, there’s the small matter of retrieving the requisite part from the life-raft at Alkellion.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
DELIA STOOD BEFORE the shuttle’s viewscreen and stared out at the alien city.
The northern fastness of Alkellion had undergone a dramatic transformation since Delia and Mahn had escaped the clutches of the Skelt. Where just two weeks ago the city had been gripped by ice, surrounded by vast plains of tundra, its soaring architecture coated in frozen slabs which had added a frigid grandeur to the place, now the ice had melted with the onslaught of summer. The city was revealed as more ethereal than Delia recalled, the towers slighter and more delicate. All around, the plains were brilliant with a carpet of multi-coloured plant-life, and tenacious tendrils and vines were creeping up the foothills and the ramparts of the city itself.
Seen from the elevation of the approaching shuttle, the city appeared deserted.
Oma, jacked into the pilot’s sling, guided the ship over the pit of Vo bones through which Delia and Mahn had fled, what seemed a lifetime ago now.
The city lay straight ahead, silhouetted against the fiery ball of the rising sun. Delia saw no movement on the approach roads rising like ramparts, and none on the narrow streets between the rearing buildings.
Mahn and Var stood beside her as the shuttle powered slowly over the pit.
Var stared down, her eyestalks rigid. “I’ve heard terrible stories of what the Skelt did to my people,” she said. “I heard that we were enslaved, that the Skelt used us as pack animals, and sacrificed the weakest and the lame when we had come to the end of our usefulness. But, to be honest, I never really believed these stories...”
They stared down at the vast pit piled with its macabre collection of chitin, and the stone pier projecting out into this charnel sea, where the Skelt guards had brought the weakened Vo and despatched them, slicing off legs and pincers and eyestalks and pitching the pieces to their final resting place.
“Until now,” Var finished.
Mahn said, “The deaths of all your people, the enslavement of your race and the subjugation of mine, will be avenged in time, my friend. As Chalto said, the time of change is here.”
Javinder sat cross-legged on the deck, his occipital implant jacked into a diagnostic readout as he monitored the drive. He looked up and smiled at Delia. “Running smooth,” he said.
Edward Charlton stood beside Delia; he had broken out a store of weapons held in the Orpheus, and they were armed with laser rifles and stun grenades. To the rear of the bridge, a dozen hand-picked Fahran guards chattered excitedly amongst themselves; Charlton had distributed the lasers before lift-off and instructed the aliens in their use.
“I know you said that the Skelt vacate the city in high summer,” Charlton said to Delia, “but I must admit that a part of me is itching for a fight.”
“We might have one yet,” she said. “The city may be deserted, but the Skelt might have taken the life-raft with them. The difficulty, then, will be tracing it.”
Mahn said, “The catacombs and caverns beneath Alkellion are vast and limitless. We could be searching them for days.”
“But surely the Skelt can’t have gone far, dragging the life-raft with them,” Charlton said.
“They used a captive Vo to drag the raft to the city, from where we came down on the plain,” Delia said. “They’ll have used the same method to transport it underground. The thing is, how long ago did they set off, and how will we trace them?”
“Of course,” Oma said from her sling, “they might have left the raft where it was.”
“They intended to move it from a temporary garage to what they called a machine shop, on the day Mahn and I escaped,” Delia said. “Fortunately, Mahn knows the location of the machine shop.”
The Fahran looked up at Charlton, timidly, still in awe of his god. “I was taken by the Skelt and forced to work as an interpreter,” he explained. “The Skelt used hundreds of my people as slaves in the city, and rather than learn our language they used interpreters.”
“Your story of how you and Delia escaped from the Skelt and fled Alkellion will be told to the Twelve Story-Tellers,” Charlton promised, “and disseminated far and wide across the face of Valinda. It did, after all, bring about what we are doing now.”
Weak at the knees upon this pronouncement, and speechless, Mahn settled himself on the floor beside Javinder and stared up at Charlton in silence.
They left the grave pit in their wake and came in over the city, hovering. Delia peered down, pointing out the wide boulevard, clear of ice now, along which she had approached the city two weeks ago. “And beside that tall building, like a cathedral, is a square where we can land. The temporary hangar is nearby.”
Mahn climbed to his feet and joined her, peering down. “And the machine shop is a little way off along a street that leads towards the Vo pit.”
“Here goes,” Oma said, and closed her eyes.
Delia noticed Charlton, watching Oma with an amazed expression. Technology had progressed exponentially in three hundred years, and gone was the hands-on approach to piloting. Oma, her cortex integrated with the shuttle’s logic matrix, controlled its flight with the power of her mind alone. Delia could see the realisation, in Charlton’s eyes, that the next few months would be a steep learning curve as he sought to understand the scientific advances that had outstripped his limited knowledge.
The pitch of the shuttle’s auxiliary drive diminished as Oma turned the ship on its axis and brought it down between the buildings.
The craft settled on its ramrod landing legs and Oma cut the drive.
Charlton, as agreed before lift-off, took command. “We’ll proceed with caution,” he said. “The guard will alight first, secure the square and signal when the way is clear.”
The Fahran guard came to attention, fingering their new weapons. Oma lowered the ramp and Delia watched as the Fahran moved circumspectly from the ship and fanned out across the square.
She scanned the buildings. They appeared very different, now. She had only seen them before in the twilight of winter, the steely-grey light lending the buildings a sombre aspect. Now the grey stone glittered with rouge highlights as the summer sun rose.
She made out the double-doored building where the Skelt had taken her life-raft, and hoped that their task would be made easy by finding the vessel still in situ.
A tiny Fahran guard hurried back to the shuttle and gestured that the square was safe.
Charlton led the way, followed by Delia, Javinder, Mahn and Var. Oma remained jacked into the shuttle in case a quick getaway was required.
Delia gripped her laser and gestured across the square to the double doors. The cobbles before the doors were excoriated, but whether that indicated the passage of the raft as it was brought here – or taken away – she could not say.
The door was locked, but a brief pulse of laser fire shattered the mechanism. Charlton applied a boot to the door and it swung slowly open to reveal a yawning, empty space where once the life-raft had stood.
He turned to Mahn. “Very well, if you could lead the way to the machine shop...”
Charlton detailed six Fahran guards to remain in the square with the shuttle, and the remaining six to accompany the foray to the machine shop.
Flanked by two guards, Mahn led the way through the streets.
Delia found herself advancing in a circumspect crouch, half expecting to be ambushed by a Skelt hunting party. The streets were unnaturally quiet, the only sound her breathing and the skitter of Var’s claws on the cobbles.
Delia said to Var, “You can see where the raft was dragged along the street.” She pointed to the gouges and scuff marks engraved in the cobbles.
