Heaven's Fall (52 page)

In spite of his years of solitude and systematic exploration of the Factory and environs, patience had never been prominent in Dale Scott’s makeup.

After several hours with no further update of the images and sounds in his head, he began to wonder:

Was Keanu finished with him?

He shouldn’t have been surprised. His communion with Keanu had never been consistent; indeed, at times the images and sounds had been absent for days or even months.

But he needed them now.

He returned to the control node and saw that the status screen continued to change. He also found a new panel that showed both “target” Earth, still small and largely in shadow, just a bluish crescent, and the Moon, far closer, half-shadowed, viewed from a completely different perspective; Dale realized he was looking toward its south pole . . . he could make out Shackleton Crater, the landing site for
Destiny-5
more than twenty years ago, a mission he might have commanded instead of Tea Nowinski . . . if not for Zack Stewart.

No, don’t look back. Go forward.

But . . . how? Since he had commanded Keanu out of orbit, the NEO had crossed thousands of kilometers. Its speed had increased dramatically.

It was diving toward Earth! Surely Keanu needed his help with that incredibly dangerous operation—

Then he remembered: Keanu’s systems didn’t always work properly! That had been the problem when the HBs first arrived . . . dead passageways, failed equipment.

And since then . . . the dormant Beehive!

What if the stress of the de-orbit burn had damaged Keanu’s ability to communicate with its human links? Obviously the NEO was saying nothing to Dale. Suppose Sanjay on the vesicle was out of comm, too?

Then what? A missing tweak of Keanu’s trajectory at this moment could be disastrous!

One option was to run back to the human habitat, to see if the Temple node was online.

But that would take an hour . . . and if Jaidev and the others were in touch with Sanjay, or Keanu itself, then Dale’s efforts were not needed.

If not, though, he would have wasted precious time—

He went looking for his communion site.

The scooped-out depression was as Dale had left it. He peeled off his raggedy clothes and lay down, closing his eyes, regulating his breathing . . . all the yogalike techniques he had learned over the years.

Time passed, minutes at most.

Then he felt it—the connection was right there, begging to be made! He opened his mind, reached out, felt it all wash over him, ten or a hundred times more powerful than any link he had previously experienced.

It made him afraid. And it hurt . . . everywhere, chest, brain, legs, arms.

Too much—

Then everything went cold, silent, and dead.

1. (U) MSG NUMBER 51118-47308 (00217) USSTRATCOM/J36
   
2. (U) FLASH SBSS UPDATE 23APR2040 1811ZULU
   
3. (S) KEYWORDS “KEANU” “ORBIT” “MANEUVER” “THREAT”
   
4. (S) Orbital and Earth-based systems recorded propulsive events on NEO Keanu this hour resulting in change-of-orbit maneuver. Delta-V suggests close approach to Earth resulting in threat.
   
5. (SCI) Impact imminent within forty hours.
   

INTERNAL COMMUNICATION, U.S. STRATEGIC COMMAND,
FREE NATION U.S., APRIL 22, 2040, 11:12 MST

“Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” Xavier Toutant said.

“I don’t understand the restriction,” Zeds said.

“I meant, try not to kill or injure anyone. At least, not until I tell you.”

Zeds and Xavier had been separated from Rachel and the others within moments of their arrival at Site A, hustled into a vehicle, and driven deep inside the long, broad building behind the administration center and its helipad. Their guards were human, not just a THE trio but armed military—and de la Vega.

Zeds barely had time to register the surroundings: the backs of giant mirror towers to the north, part of a ring that extended a long way east and west, then appearing to curve. Also the giant mound that blocked a portion of the view north.

Then they were in a tunnel, and within moments through several doors and into a factory floor filled with Reivers working under dim lights.

Xavier was first to comment, when it became obvious that he and Zeds were going to be working here, too. “We can’t see shit.”

“We’ll fix that in a minute,” de la Vega said.

He went off to issue more orders. Only then did Zeds realize that he was surrounded by Reivers of what the humans called the anteater variety, all of them busy at devices that emitted a low, rumbling hum and accomplished nothing Zeds could understand. (His sense of smell told him the walls were crawling with several of the smaller templates, too. His vision was not good enough to confirm this, however.)

He must have reacted in a visible or audible way to prompt Xavier’s comment. “It won’t be easy,” he said.

Xavier slapped him halfway up his back. “Don’t worry, this will all be over soon.”

“And we may be dead.”

“Oh, I know.”

Compared to other sentient races, Sentries, Zeds had been told, were fiery by nature, freakishly quick to take action. These traits had recommended them to the Architects as allies in their war against the Reivers.

They had also been their downfall, as their often-blind attacks—so valuable in early battles—eventually allowed the Reivers to develop strategies that defeated them. The colony within the Keanu habitat had ultimately been marginalized, supplanted . . . held as a reserve for that long-off day when the ultimate battle loomed, but used since then as guards or security.

And given the few new races gathered by Keanu, not often then.

The one constant in Sentry existence, however, was hatred of the Reivers—which was reciprocated. It went beyond their encounters with the half-carbon, half-organic beings in the Architect war; it was something in their nature, dry versus wet, aggregate versus individual, small versus large. They had, in fact, nothing in common, and everything in opposition.

DSA, Zeds’s direct connate, suggested that the mutual hatred might have roots in an earlier conflict, when some form of the Reivers invaded the watery Sentry world. “We used to live on land as much as water,” DSA had said, itself a troubling thought. Zeds found it impossible to think of his people living on land by choice; certainly his experiences of the past few days had not caused him to think better of that idea.

This also suggested that the Reiver-Sentry conflict was far older than even the ancient Reiver-Architect war.

All of it made Zeds eager for a fight. Instead, he was locked inside this increasingly uncomfortable environment suit and forced to accomplish tasks better suited to humans.

As Xavier began setting up the proteus, doors kept opening and other vehicles arriving with pieces of equipment, some of them blackened and burned.

Other humans were brought hard copies of documents, something Zeds had only heard about.

Still other humans arrived and began setting up data displays and a communication link.

De la Vega directed all this activity with precision and threats of violence. He was almost Sentry-like in his methods.

And he left Zeds alone, freeing the Sentry to take small steps in each direction, his natural way of judging the size and nature of his environment.

From somewhere nearby he smelled salty water. The mere idea of being freed from the suit and able to submerge for even a short time was maddening. He looked at the many doors—one of them obviously led to that water.

“Hey, I need you,” Xavier said. “We’ve got a lot of work to do and you may have noticed, we have unpleasant supervisors.”

Zeds was ordinarily fond of the rotund, smart-mouthed man, but prolonged exposure had reduced his affection, at least for Xavier’s dogged methods. Laboring with the proteus printer was not fit work for a Sentry.

Killing Reivers was better.

In the next hour, several good things happened. He and Xavier made direct contact with Keanu, specifically with Jaidev Mahabala. After several moments devoted to pleasantries and catch-up (as well as veiled forebodings), they had uploaded schematics, imagery, and documents to Keanu. “Even after twenty years, I can’t predict what or when something will emerge,” Jaidev reported. “But I’ll ping you the instant we have it.”

For a moment, then, Zeds and Xavier were alone and unmolested. De la Vega had departed some time earlier, no doubt to exercise his particular form of leadership on other humans.

A signal sounded within the factory; the machines stopped, and the ranks of Reiver Aggregates separated from them, formed up, and marched out.

Zeds and Xavier were kept company by a THE trio and as many human guards. “Hey,” Xavier shouted, “since we’re waiting and you’re giving the aliens a coffee break, how about some nourishment?”

The three from THE conferred; two of them exited.

“This is the thing people never seem to realize,” Xavier said. “And when I say people, I mean humans, because maybe Sentries are better about this.

“Nothing gets done without logistics. You can’t fight wars without bullets, you can’t build machines without materials or factories, and you sure as shit can’t get any of that done unless you’ve got people in the right place . . .” And here he smiled and patted his ample middle. “And they’ve been fed.”

“Sentries have no experience with logistics, as you describe it,” Zeds told Xavier. “My connate once compared us to humans who live in tropical zones. We would essentially be subsistence fisherpeople willing to spend our days in or near the water, eating and breeding and little else. Perhaps occasional fights.”

“Add some music, and you’ve got New Orleans.” Zeds knew little of Earth geography but had learned that his friend Xavier had grown up in this near-tropical American city. “But, come on, you built spacecraft!
Adventure
was so durable we were able to fly it, more or less, after it had been sitting for several hundred years!”

“Vacuum preserves,” Zeds said. “And there have always been a fraction of my people who are more ambitious and active. Or we would never have left the sea.” Or before that, the land.

“That’s true of humans, too. And I am proud to say that I would
happily
be one of those subsistence fisherpeople you mentioned. That’s one of my problems with life on Keanu . . . it’s just too fucking hard.” He smiled again as the two THE officers approached carrying cups and trays of food. “And that was before we decided to turn the NEO into a warship.”

It was all human food, of course. Before Zeds could say anything, Xavier snapped to the agents, “Did you happen to notice the fact that he’s an alien? With different dietary needs?”

One of them looked chagrined. Again, Xavier spoke: “Show me where you got this stuff and let me pick something I know he can consume. Jesus.”

So Xavier went off with the pair that gathered food, leaving Zeds even more alone in the Site A factory, except for a lone THE counselor and the guards, all of them off at a distance.

He decided to investigate the pool. Careful to keep himself within view of the guards—though they must have known there was no possible escape for him—he systematically investigated each door. Naturally, upon reaching the last one, he was finally able to see to a loading dock, and beyond that, a glistening pool of water—not salty in a way he recognized, but still wet and likely restorative. It appeared that the pool existed for equipment of some kind, but that wouldn’t bother Zeds . . . as long as there was room enough for his body.

He hoped he would have a chance to test it.

As he turned, he was surprised to see a single Reiver Aggregate, anteater variety, standing in his way.

Anticipating attack, he raised his two upper arms. The Reiver made no motion; it seemed frozen, staring with its blank, faceted eyes. The sight and smell of the creature was so overpowering that Zeds wanted nothing more than to grab the nearest portable object and smash the Reiver into its component units.

Then squash each one.

But he could not attack without some provocation, however slight. And none had been offered. So he said, “What do you want?”