Spear of Light (52 page)

Farro and Jean Paul came up beside him, both breathing heavily. They were silent for a while, perhaps catching their breath. Farro spoke first. “Do you know where they're sending us?”

Charlie wished he didn't have to reply; he was too damned tired to talk. But he answered. “Away from town. Otherwise, they haven't said.”

Jean Paul fell in with them, on Cricket's far side, Farro outside of Jean Paul.

Here and there, starships and skimmers sat tall or thin or fat on the tarmac. But mostly it was open space.

Charlie found the strength to ask, “Are others from the port coming?”

“They're filling in behind us,” Jean Paul replied. “We jogged up here since I suspected you would be at the head.”

Machines scuttled past them. A few wore the large bodies the Jhailings liked, and a few others weren't humanoid at all. In spite of the fact that he'd known they took different shapes, it startled him. “They're clearly on their way to town,” he told Manny, as much because he had to say something as anything else.

Manny's voice was clipped with anger. “They're protecting us.” As if he hated the idea. Maybe he did. Charlie's mouth felt lined with dust; he wished he'd refilled the small canteen at his belt. Too late now. He said nothing; the others were probably in no better shape.

He was sure they had been walking for far longer than twenty minutes when Yi Two came up beside them and said, “You can rest soon. We've built a place for you. Follow me.”

He had liked being in front. An illusion. He followed Yi's slender form for about five minutes. Yi got a bit ahead. He turned and gestured for Charlie and Manny to speed up, but Charlie shook his head on Cricket's behalf.

“We're going to go back and check in with the others from the port.” Farro put a hand on Jean Paul's arm and pulled him after her. He didn't look happy to go, and Charlie wasn't even sure he had a choice.

Shortly, they arrived at a wide open place near the edge of the spaceport where there were no ships. A small city had been assembled. Simple shelters, beds, shared toilets. Lighting. Chairs had been set around. If Charlie weren't so tired he would marvel at the speed and the thought that had gone into this.

Yi looked proud. “We designed this for you.”

“And built it. When did you start?”

“This afternoon. We understood there was a greater than half likelihood we would have refugees.”

The word struck him in the stomach. He resisted. “We're not refugees in our own home. We'll rebuild.”

Manny was more diplomatic. He held his hand out to Yi Two and said, “Thank you. We will need a place to sleep tonight.”

There were some chairs on the far end that had been built on a small dais, and Yi Two led them to this. Charlie collapsed into one, the smooth seamless surface cool and surprisingly comfortable. Cricket wrapped herself around his feet.

He felt certain that his heart or his brain might break at any moment.

Yi brought them both water, setting a jug and some glasses down near them. Charlie poured some of the water into his palm and Cricket lapped it, again and again touching him with her wide, rough tongue.

Yi noticed and brought him a bowl. Charlie poured a finger or so into the bottom, wanting to be sure Cricket didn't drink too much too fast.

Another soulbot he didn't remember ever meeting brought plates of sandwiches and cookies. He wasn't hungry until he took a bit of sandwich to be polite, and then he finished three halves and a cookie, plus two bottles of water.

People poured in quietly, taking food and drink and talking in low, shocked tones. The man with the little girl on his shoulder was almost last.

An hour must have passed since they left.

A pair of women came up to them and asked, “Was that the Next? Killing all the ships?”

Before Charlie could answer, the low pop of ground explosions began going off in Manna Springs.

People stopped mid-sentence, stood on tiptoe, looked. Charlie and Manny had the highest seats in the little makeshift town. Charlie spotted a smudge of smoke threading through the pale light that came from windows, and then a darker column of smoke. Shortly after that, fire crept up over the tallest roofs.

A growing crowd surrounded them, pressing close. The fire grew, became taller than the buildings, burning an angry red-gold.

Some of the smaller women climbed on the bigger men's shoulders, looking back toward their homes. Even from so far away, firelight danced in their eyes, a brightness illuminating tears.

Everything had changed. How many times would he need to think that thought? How many times would change wrack him and force him to find some new strength, some new reserve?

When would he run out?

CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE

SATYANA

Satyana surveyed the entirely full habitat bubble. Beside her, Gunnar waited for her to assess his work as self-appointed chief of hospitality for her election night party. He must have spent a fortune on gardeners alone. Colorful flowers filled pots in tall containers, sending cascades of blooms hanging down above the heads of the well-dressed. Although people wore a wide variety of styles, the most common current fashions were diaphanous, flowing dresses and coats in pastel patterns with contrasting dark hair. It made the audience look like butterflies. Tables full of food and drink filled the open spaces, with fountains of wine and water in the corners. She turned to him. “It's beautiful. Thank you.”

“You're welcome.”

Both she and Gunnar were dressed in neon blues that matched her eyes. She had added bright pinks and yellows, so that she would stand out beside Gunnar's great bulk. He reached down and took her arm. “Are you ready?”

“Only if I lose.”

He laughed. “You won't lose.”

She wasn't nearly as sure but took a deep breath and plunged into the crowd beside him, watching people both part to leave them room and swing toward them, gathering close, wanting to be seen. She did her best to touch almost everyone with a hand or even a look, to acknowledge them.

A number of her performers were here, some as guests and others with planned half-hour gigs on a high stage that Ruby had once used at one of Gunnar's parties.

It was hard to believe that there was only fifteen minutes until the election returns, which came in all at once. She hadn't been sure she wanted to win, but in this moment she knew she did. Maybe she wouldn't want it again tomorrow, no matter who won. But right now? She could hardly wait for news.

Gunnar split away from her, working the crowd his own way, looking for ship captains. Through this whole process, he had backed off in favor of showcasing her, and generally he even looked graceful about it. They hadn't argued about anything for a week. She reached one of the fountains and held a glass under the cool water.

A news alert klaxon stopped her. Here? It had to be a station-wide message.

Surely it was still too early for election results. She'd never heard those delivered this way anyway.

She stopped; trying to remember the last time she had heard a station-wide alarm. Surely it had been a test. Years ago?

Everyone else around her stopped as well, glasses lifted part way or food held waiting on plates.

A voice used all the speakers in the station, so it spoke at them from many angles, echoing. “The Next have destroyed almost every ship orbiting Lym.”

She grew cold. She was too short to see over the crowd from here and find Gunnar.

He was apparently doing something. The screens in the room came up one by one, the same news story on all of them. Ships died from the inside, some form of explosion going off one by one by one. Each ship turned to a ball of light, and then trails of light, and then nothing.

At first, the crowd made noises as each death happened. As Satyana made her way through, still clutching her water glass, they grew steadily quieter.

She only glanced at the screen from time to time. Finding Gunnar was more important.

It took her nearly ten minutes to make her way to his side. “Your ships. Are they okay?”

He nodded. “So far. They're traumatized from watching that, and the debris field must be something. But they were warned away from the docking lines and from other ships.”

“You knew?”

He gave her an incredulous look. “Of course not. Not . . . not that anything like this even could happen. Who would have imagined? But they did tell us to stay away from other ships and drift into higher orbits.”

Her mind raced. “Those can't all be revolution ships. They don't own that many.”

“No.”

Her jewelry buzzed, a warning that the election results would be in soon.

Had the attack started before the last moment to change votes? Would anyone care anyway, or would they just be watching the news? How could she be thinking such a thing while ship after ship was blown out of the sky?

People died above Lym in droves.

Gunnar tapped her shoulder. At first she didn't know what he meant. He had to turn his hand a certain way for her to remember. They had practiced a move for the election results, at least if she won.

Did he know?

She took his hand and let him spin her up and onto his shoulders. From so high, she could see twenty screens showing the fireworks of ship deaths, each of them making her shudder. The crowd, which had been a chaos of movement swirling to the song of conversation had stopped and quieted. The hanging vases full of cascading multicolored flowers looked like a lie.

The announcer stopped talking about Lym and said, “In current news, Satyana Adams has won the position of Headmistress of the Diamond Deep.”

Eyes turned toward her.

She swallowed, the reality of it washing over her, both the victory and the disaster mingling, fighting each other. She tapped Gunnar's shoulder. “Take me to the stage.”

He walked her to a spot just below it, and she grabbed a rope ladder designed for repair access, kicked her heeled shoes off, and climbed up.

From the edge of the stage, the people below her looked foreshortened, their faces thinner. She recognized the fluttering stomach of serious stage fright she hadn't felt for decades. A deep breath banished it. Someone recognized she wasn't wearing a microphone and dropped one from the ceiling. She grabbed it and spoke into it. “Thank you. Thank you for your votes and for supporting me. I know I don't take office officially for two days, but the position is vacant. So I am calling the High Council together to meet tomorrow, and calling for a vote to anoint both me and the newly appointed Historian,” she glanced down at her wrist to make sure she got the name right, “Julianna Duncan, to join the leadership of the Diamond Deep two days early.”

She watched the crowd, looking for reactions. Most were positive. Gunnar set his glass down and clapped, and then two of the people next to him did the same, and then more. She watched closely, the stage a great vantage point to determine how many people supported her. Most of them. She was careful not to force those who weren't clapping by staring down at them, but she noted their faces and when she knew them, their names.

After the applause died down, she started again. “In the meantime, we will closely monitor the situation on Lym, and we will increase our defenses as much as we can. I ask that the military command of the Diamond Deep come meet with me in an hour, and we will talk together about what this means.”

Hopefully they would come. When the military kidnapped her before Deep's decision to help the Next, they had been angling for martial law. As far as she knew, they still were, and they'd see this situation as military. She would need to deny them that idea immediately, to show her own strength. She took in a deep breath, feeling it. This was a little like flying a ship through a problem; you stayed at the helm, and you rode it out.

“For now, let's bow our heads and have a moment of silence for those who we just witnessed pass from this world. Whether they were rebels or innocents, they deserve our respect.”

Someone was clever enough to start appropriate music. She bowed her head and let her heart fill with empathy for the lost while she calculated her next move and the next one after that, and worked out the various things this new development might mean for the Deep.

She could do this. She looked down and found Gunnar, the two of them sharing a look that drove heat through her very core. They could do this together, the two of them. He was a wily bastard and mercenary as hell, but he eventually came to the right decisions. She could live with that.

CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX

NONA

Jason handed Nona into the elevator, essentially a dark-gray metal box that didn't register their weight at all. It felt like stepping onto another part of the floor. He stood in the doorway for a moment, head cocked, and then said, “We haven't taken a human down this yet. We are going two hundred meters down, which should not put undue strain on your bodies. Please tell me if you feel ill for any reason at all, and we will slow down or stop.”

“Of course,” she said.

Neil's hand found hers. She allowed it, remembering the night they had spent in custody, curled up close to each other in a large group of other political detainees on the Deep. That had been right after the last time she had seen Chrystal before her death.

And now, Chrystal waited for her. She had been both glad and disconcerted that they took Chrystal with them. Seeing her friend—part two—unsettled her, but it was also something she needed to face and get past.

Jason touched a spot in the featureless elevator wall, and they began the descent. Her stomach floated up toward her throat. The only light now came from above, a whitish light shining down on them, turning their faces pale and brightening the deep purples of Jason's hair. She began her mantra of the moment. “I will be safe in here. I will be curious in here. I will be helpful in here.” Over and over she repeated it, feeling the thick rock walls above and all around them, sensing the darkness in spite of the spears of light they held in their free hands.