Heaven's Reach (80 page)

“T-time to buckle up-p!” the pilot commanded. Soon, a different kind of flame would surround them. If they survived the coming plummet, it would not be long before their feet stood on solid ground.

Yet, Harry and the others remained transfixed for a moment longer, watching the rocket as long as possible. The computer calculated its estimated trajectory, and reported that it seemed aimed at Jijo's biggest moon.

At last, Rety commented. She stomped her feet on the deck, but this time it was no tantrum—only an expression of pure joy.

“Uttergloss!” she cried. “Do you know what this means?”

Harry and Dwer both shook their heads.

“It means I'm not trapped on Jijo! It means there's a way
off
that miserable dirtball. And you can bet your grampa's dross barrel that I'm gonna use it.”

Her eyes seemed to shine with the same light as that of the flickering ember, till their orbital descent took it out of sight. Even when Harry ushered her to a seat and belted her in for landing, Rety's wiry frame throbbed with longing, and the grim inexorability of her ambition.

“I'll do whatever it takes.

“I'm headin'
out
again, just as fast an' as far as this grubby ol' universe lets me.”

Harry nodded agreeably. One of the last things he ever wanted to be was someone standing in Rety's way.

“I'm sure you will,” he said without the slightest doubt or patronizing tone of voice.

Soon the windows licked with fire as Jijo reached out to welcome them.

Home

T
ERRIBLE WOUNDS MARRED THE HAGGARD
vessel as it prepared to drop back into normal space. Most of
Streaker
's stasis flanges hung loose, or had vaporized. The rotating gravity wheel was half melted into the hull.

As for the protective sheathing which had safeguarded the crew—that gift of the Transcendents now sparked and unraveled, writhing away its last, like some dying creature with a brave soul.

Gillian mourned for its lost friendship. As she had mourned other misfortunes. And now, for the loss of hope.

Our plan was to avoid destruction, leading the enemy on a wild chase away from Earth.

Our foes planned to thwart and destroy us.

It looks like we each got half of what we wanted.

Suessi was down in the engine room, working alongside Emerson and the rest of their weary team, trying to restore power. As things stood, the ship had barely enough reserve energy to reach the one level of space where there weren't swarms of mines—or other deadly things—converging from all sides.

No, we're headed back to face
living
enemies. Oxy-beings, just like us.

At least it should be possible to surrender to the battleships, and see her crew treated as prisoners of war. Assuming the victors did not instantly start fighting over the spoils.

Of course, Gillian couldn't let herself be captured.
The information in her head must not fall into enemy hands.

She let out a deep sigh. The ninety-second battle had been awfully close. Her tactics had almost worked. Each time a mine went off, or a quantum horde attacked, or a chaos aftershock passed through, it disrupted the neat volley of converging missiles, shoving their careful formations, reducing their numbers, until the detonation—when it occurred—was off center. Inefficient.

Even so, it was bad enough.

As
Streaker
finished its last, groaning transition into the normal vacuum of home space, surrounded by clouds of blinding debris, she knew the grand old vessel could not defeat a corvette, or an armed lifeboat, let alone the armada awaiting them.

“Please transmit the truce signal,” she ordered. “Tell them we'll discuss terms for surrender.”

The Niss Machine's dark funnel bowed, a gesture of solemn respect.

“As you wish, Dr. Baskin. It will be done.”

While the hardworking bridge crew worked to replace burned-out modules, all the monitors were blinded by a haze of ionized detritus and radiation. The first objects to emerge from the fog were a pair of large gravity wells—modest dimples in spacetime.

Earth and Luna
 … she realized.
We came so close.

Soon other things would show up on the gravity display, objects rivaling moons, majestic in power.

The tense moment harkened Gillian back across the years to the discovery of the Ghost Fleet, so long ago, when she and Tom had been so young and thrilled to be exploring on behalf of Earthclan, in company with their friend Creideiki. It had looked a bit like this. A haze surrounded them as
Streaker
worked its way slowly through a dense molecular cloud, in that far-off place called the Shallow Cluster.

An interstellar backwater.

A place where there should not have been anything to interest starfaring beings.

Yet, the captain had a hunch.

And soon, emerging through the mist, they glimpsed …

Nothing.

Gillian blinked as stark, astonishing reality yanked her back to the present. A nervous murmur crossed the bridge as crew members stared in disbelief at emptiness.

Laboring mightily,
Streaker
's wounded engines managed to pull the ship free of its own dross cloud, clearing the haze far enough to reveal more of nearby space.

There was no sign of any vast, enclosing formation.

No fleet of mighty battleships.

“But … I …”

Gillian stopped, unable to finish the sentence. Someone else had to complete the thought.

“Where did everybody go?” asked Sara Koolhan, whose hand clutched Prity's with a grip that looked white and sweaty.

No one answered. How could they? What was there to say?

Silence reigned for several minutes while sensors probed gradually farther.

“There's a lot of debris, but I don't see any big vessels within a cubic astron of here,” ventured the detection officer at last. “Though I guess they could be hiding behind Luna, getting ready to pounce!”

Gillian shook her head. That armada of giant dreadnoughts would scarcely
fit
behind the moon's disk. Besides, why set a trap for prey that lies helpless, already in your grasp?
Streaker
could not run, and a puppy would beat her in a fair fight.

“I'm detecting a lot of fresh hyper-ripples in the ambient background field,” added Akeakemai. “Engine wakes. Some really big ships churned things up hereabouts just a little while ago. I'm guessing they tore outta here awful damn fasssst!”

While
Streaker
's crew continued laboring to repair sensors, the Niss Machine remanifested its whirlpool shape near Gillian.

“Would you care for a conjecture, Dr. Baskin?”

“Conject away!”

“It occurs to me that your little holographic message might have had unexpected consequences. It was meant to enrage our enemies, but please allow me to submit another possibility.

“That it scared the living hell out of them.”

Gillian snorted.

“That crock of bull-dross I cooked up? It was sheer bluff and bluster. A child could see through it! Are you saying that a bunch of advanced Galactics, with all their onboard libraries and sophisticated intelligence systems, couldn't penetrate to the truth?”

The Niss spiral turned, regaining a bit of its former insouciance.

“No, Dr. Baskin. That is not what I am saying. Rather, I am insinuating that a primitive wolfling like yourself, caught up in the emotions of a transitory crisis, cannot see the essential truth underlying all your ‘bluff and bluster'.”

“The Galactics
did
perceive it, however. Perhaps only instants after they fired upon
Streaker.
Or else later, when they sensed we were returning, having survived the unsurvivable … and began broadcasting a simple offer to discuss surrender.”

“But that was—” she stammered. “I didn't mean
their
—”

“Either way, the alliance shattered—it flash-evaporated—as each squadron fled for home.”

She stared. “You're guessing. I don't believe it.”

The Niss shrugged, a twisting of its dark funnel.

“Fortunately, the universe doesn't much care whether we believe. The chief question now is whether our foes were sufficiently terrified to completely abandon their goals, or if they have merely withdrawn to reassess—to consult their own auguries and prepare fresh onslaughts.

“Frankly, I suspect the latter. Nevertheless, it seems that something noteworthy happened here, Dr. Baskin.

“By any standard, you must accept history's verdict.

“The word has a strange flavor, spoken aboard this
ragged vessel. So I can understand if you have trouble speaking it aloud.

“Let me coax you, then.

“It is called Victory.”

The forces of Terra emerged, climbing slowly, tentatively from their last redoubts, as if suspecting some deadly trick. Out of seared mountain peaks and blasted lunar craters, stubby ships nosed skyward, bearing scars from countless prior battles. Together they cast beams of inquiry toward every dark corner of the solar system. Distrustfully, they threw intense scrutiny toward the one remaining intruder, whose tattered outlines were not at first familiar.

“Keep well back,” Gillian ordered her pilot. “Make no sudden moves. Let's be patient. Let them get used to us.”

Akeakemai agreed. “We're emitting
Streaker
's transponder code. But it'll take a while to get other messages out. Till then, I'd rather not make those guys nervoussss!”

It was an understatement. Those tattered-looking units had managed to keep the terrifying Tandu, and many other allied warrior clans, at bay for two years. All told, Gillian would rather not be fried by her own people, just because they had jittery trigger fingers.

After all this time, she could wait just a little while longer.

Jake Demwa isn't going to be happy with the condition I'm bringing
Streaker
home in
, she mused.
Without two-thirds of its crew, or the Shallow Cluster samples. He'll grill me for weeks, trying to figure out where Creideiki and Tom went off to, and what strange matters may have kept them busy all this time.

On the other hand, she did come back to Earth bearing gifts.

The secret of overcoming Jophur master rings, for instance.

And information about the Kiqui of Kithrup, whom we may claim as new clients for our growing clan.

And the rewq symbionts of Jijo, which help species understand each other. Plus everything the Niss and I learned by interrogating our captured Galactic Library branch.

And there was more.

The Terragens Council will want to know about the lost colony on Jijo and the
Polkjhy
expedition. Both groups face great dangers, and yet they seem to offer something the council long sought to achieve—offshoots of Earthclan that might survive beyond reach of Galactic Civilization, even if Terra someday falls.

There were plenty of other things to talk about, enough to keep Gillian in debriefing for years.

Everything we discovered about other life orders, for instance. Especially the high Transcendents.

As powerful and knowing as those godlike beings appeared, Gillian had come away from her encounters with a strange sensation not unlike pity. They were, after all, not the eldest or greatest of life's children, only the ones who stayed behind when everyone else dived into one-way singularities, seeking better realms beyond.

Cowards
, she had called them in a moment of pique. Not a fair characterization, she admitted now, though it held a grain of truth.

They seem trapped by the Embrace of Tides. And yet they are unwilling to follow its pull all the way—whether to a higher place or to some universal recycling system. So they sit instead, thinking and planning while time wafts gently by. Except when it seems convenient to sacrifice myriad lesser life-forms in order to accomplish some goal.