The Burning Dark (28 page)

“Hello?”

Nothing. Underneath his feet he saw Zia’s reddish hair approach. He stepped off the ladder, and the others appeared one by one. It was cold—no,
freezing
—up here, Ida’s breath pluming in front of his face and drifting outward, melting into the thin black mist that hung in the air. It was like standing in a walk-in freezer in a ship’s galley.

Ida slowly approached the bridge, his bare feet on fire on the cold floor.

“Ivanhoe? Dathan?” Zia called out.

The passage was well insulated with a soundproof wrapper to keep vibrations from the mining machinery beneath their feet from rattling the crew’s brains to gray paste when they were at work. In the dark, the complete non-echo of her voice was disconcerting. The bridge doorway was just a few meters away, but Ida had the feeling that Zia’s voice had not even traveled that far.

Ida looked back as Zia took a step forward, but Carter held his hand up and shook his head. He raised the sight of his gun to his eye and took aim at the empty doorway. Following his lead, the two marines behind him did the same.

“This is the Fleet Marine Corps. If there are any unauthorized personnel on board this vessel, you are required to approach and identify yourself. Now!”

Carter waited a beat, then raised his head and looked out around his gun with his naked eyes. The yellow light continued to flicker, like someone had set up a campfire in the middle of the flight deck.

Carter sighted the gun again.

“You are in a Fleet-restricted area. We are authorized to use deadly force. We are entering the flight deck in five seconds.”

The two marines clicked the safeties off their guns, the light on their barrels flicking from blue to red. Fathead pointed his weapon at the ceiling and stood back against the wall, ready to let the marines charge in before him.

Ida stood firm next to Carter. He could feel Zia tense beside him; he supposed she wanted to get into the flight deck first in case Carter started shooting her crew. Ida didn’t like what was going on. He was glad the
Bloom County
was so cold, his shivering disguising his fear.

There is no such thing as ghosts. There is no such thing as ghosts.

Zia unclipped the Yuri-G and slipped it from the holster. Ida watched as her thumb flicked the safety off. The barrel of the tiny pistol lit an angry red.

Carter began his countdown. Ida readied himself, knowing this time he really did need to let those armed go first.

“One!”

Carter sprang forward, the two marines at close quarters. Ida waited, but then Zia swore and sprinted forward, the Yuri-G swinging as she ran to overtake Carter. Carter saw the movement out of the corner of his eye and sidestepped to let her pass, swearing as he did so, never once breaking his perfect combat crouch.

“Ivanhoe!”

Ida was at the door as Zia ducked ahead, crouching at the side of her crewman on the floor. He was alive, lying on his back and convulsing.

Carter signaled the marines to fan out and begin a search of the flight deck room as Ida joined Zia on the floor. Fathead rapidly paced about, his huge gun pointed skyward, checking computer readouts and flicking switches.

“Come on, baby, come on…,” whispered Zia. She’d dropped the Yuri-G and was holding her crewmate’s bald head, trying to stop him banging it against the hard decking. Her fingers came away bloody, and his eyes rolled as a white foam trickled from the corners of his mouth and into the edges of his beard.

Ida looked at Zia, then over at the discarded gun. He picked it up carefully.

“Does he have a condition? Medication?”

She shook her head. “No,” she said. “Not that I know of.”

Ida was aware of military boots dancing around the small bridge. He looked up to see the two marines slowing their frantic patrol, Carter stationary in the center of the room. Carter swept his rifle around one more time; then he lowered the gun and relaxed his posture.

“Clear,” he said. He glanced down at Ivanhoe and his two attendants. “What’s wrong with him?”

Ivanhoe’s seizure had stopped, and he now lay flat on the deck, head lolling to one side, breathing heavily and out cold.

Ida stood, hands on hips. “Don’t know. Nothing here?”

Carter shook his head. “Small bridge, only one door out. No one in here except him.”

Ida sighed, and crouched back down next to Zia. “He was fixing the nav pod, right?”

Zia stroked Ivanhoe’s forehead. “Yes. Dathan was supposed to be helping him.”

Ida nodded. Then he froze, his eyes wide. “So where’s Dathan?”

Zia’s head snapped up, and Ida blinked at his reflection. Zia looked back down to Ivanhoe and gently stroked his cheek with the back of her hand.

“Ivanhoe? Ivanhoe, where’s Dathan? Where did Day go? Can you tell me, honey?”

Ivanhoe twitched, and his eyes flickered open. He licked his lips and looked around the flight deck, but his eyes were dull and unfocused. Zia pointed somewhere across the room and clicked her fingers. She looked insistently at the nearest marine when nobody moved.

“Water, over there!”

The marine went to investigate, and after fumbling with a wall-mounted dispenser, returned with a small plastic bag of water. Zia took it, uncapped the tiny spout at the top, and offered it to Ivanhoe’s lips. He sucked greedily for a few moments, but then pulled away.

Zia leaned over him again. “Ivanhoe, where’s Day? What happened?”

Ivanhoe coughed and rolled his head around. His lips moved, mumbling something, but Zia just shook her head and continued to stroke his cheek, repeating her question.

Suddenly he jerked and grabbed her wrist. Zia cried out in surprise as Ivanhoe pulled himself up on an elbow, pushing his face to within an inch away of his employer’s. His eyes were wide, wide, wide.

“They took him, Zia, they took Dathan. They took him.”

Then he flopped back down, agitated, flexing his free hand while the other continued to grip Zia’s wrist.

Then his expression changed, and he looked … sad. Ida folded his arms and watched, uncomfortable, as the man’s face twisted into a grimace and he began to cry and shake his head.

Zia pulled his fingers off her wrist. “Who took him, Ivanhoe? What happened?”

Ivanhoe sniffed and wailed, his sobs choking any attempt to speak. Finally he took a deep breath and said it.

“They came. Zia, they came. All of them. All dead. They came and took him. They took him. They took Dathan.” He twitched and grabbed at Zia’s arms, eyes wide. “Where’s Momma? Tell me, please, where’s Momma? When can I see Momma?”

Behind him, Ida heard two guns being released from their safeties. Turning around, he saw the indicator on the side of Fathead’s absurd cannon light up as he began sweeping it back and forth into the dark corners of the bridge. Carter had raised his rifle again, but not to eye level. The marine stood, face bleached of all color. When he met Ida’s gaze, his jaw was slack.

“The fuck is going on?” the marine asked.

Ida shook his head. That was a very good question.

30

They carried Ivanhoe to
the infirmary and hooked him up to a monitor, one of the marines, Ashworth, volunteering to keep an eye on the otherwise automated systems as the others returned to their stations. Ida went back to his cabin to get dressed; while there, he tried to raise Izanami on the station’s comms, thinking she should really go take a look at Zia’s crewman. But there was no response, just more interference. When Ida returned to the infirmary he found Fathead and Zia by Ivanhoe’s bedside, Ashworth still by the monitor. Fathead held his cannonlike weapon in both hands, the lights on the barrel an angry, dangerous red.

Zia watched her crewman sleep for a few minutes, then turned and left the infirmary at practically a run. Ida glanced at Fathead, but the man didn’t seem to notice his boss’s departure.

Ida quickly ducked out and found Zia farther along the corridor, marching with some determination. She looked back at him as he approached but said nothing. Ida didn’t know what to say either, so he kept his mouth shut. She was going to see the marshal, that much was clear; standing in the elevator, Zia waited impatiently as Ida realized she needed him to punch the access code to the bridge.

Her meeting was brief. Provost Marshal King sat alone in the middle of the ready room, computer pad on his lap. Marines guarded the door on the outside, but not within. Ida thought maybe they should be.

The marshal looked at his computer pad but his eyes were unfocused. He looked ill to Ida. So did everybody else left on the
Coast City
.

Zia stood and shivered. The room was cold and her face was white and shiny. The famous pout was gone, her once ruby red lips dull and dry.

King glanced up at her, flexed his fingers, then looked back to the computer pad.

“I’m sorry for the loss of your crew member, Ms. Hollywood.” His voice was low, quiet, not a whisper but close enough. “All attempts will be made to locate him. For the moment, I’m assigning you a Fleet security detail—”

Then she spoke. She said: “We’re leaving,” and then turned on her heel and walked out.

King didn’t reply, his gaze fixed somewhere beyond the computer pad. He flexed his fingers again. It was an odd, mechanical motion, beginning with the little finger and ending with the thumb. Ida hadn’t noticed King do it before.

Dumbfounded, Ida turned and watched, through the still-open door of the ready room, Zia stride across the bridge, toward the elevator.

“What just—?”

“Thank you, Captain. Dismissed.”

Ida stared at the marshal for a second. Then he went to follow Zia. But when he stepped out onto the bridge, she was already gone.

*   *   *

As the door to
the ready room closed, the marshal twitched in his chair, eyes flicking to his left, toward a shadowed corner of the ready room. But it was a movement driven purely by his autonomic nervous system. If Ida had been able to look him in the eye before he walked out, he would have seen the marshal’s pupils contracted to pinpricks, his eyes glazed, unfocused.

Out of the shadows stepped Izanami. As she moved, the shadows seemed to kick up around her like dust.

She laid a hand on King’s shoulder, and the marshal twitched again, flexed the fingers of his empty hand, and stared at his knees.

Izanami smiled. In the dark her eyes burned blue as she bent down, her lips almost touching his ear.

“You can’t keep him from me forever, my dear Roberto. Not now that I took your book away, your precious book of secrets and codes. Did your commandant really think that would be enough, that if he wrote it all down in cipher like a child, that someone like you would be able to understand it? Would be able to carry on, as if the secrets in the book were enough? Perhaps he did.” She laughed. “The Fleet is indeed full of the weak and the foolish.”

King’s eyelids flickered, but he did not respond. Izanami straightened and watched the main door. She stroked King’s head with her hand, her smile widening.

31

Serra had been sleeping
when Carter returned. It was real, uninterrupted sleep; a rare thing, sleep to be treasured, free of shadows and purple light and the voice of her grandmother and from the
other
thing, the noise, the roaring of the ocean that filled her head—the sound of the Spiderbaby sleeping in Zia Hollywood’s hybrid ship. It was a sound Serra was familiar with from dozens of sorties where she had to infiltrate and disrupt Spider networks with her mind. But out here it was different. Spiders were never alone, and they never slept. And this one … this one was
dreaming.
And this close, the Spiderbaby within touching distance, Serra could see into those machine dreams and hear the sound of—

She rocked on the bed as Carter jogged her shoulder. She tried to ignore it until Carter did it again.

And then he said, “I saw her,” and Serra was bolt upright in a second, as alert and ready for action as when the gunnery sergeant blew the trumpet to announce incoming Spiders.

Carter paced the small cabin. Serra watched as the sweat glistened on his forearms as he walked under the fluorescent strips. He moved his hands as he paced, like he was sculpting the description out of thin air. But Serra already had a fair idea of what he was talking about.

“On their ship?”

Carter nodded vigorously but didn’t stop walking. “It was there, on the bridge. Back in the corner, against the wall. The shadows hid it—” He moved his hands as though kneading dough. “—like smoke, or dust.”

Serra swung her feet to the decking and pulled the sheets over her lap. “Why the fuck didn’t you challenge, or tell the others?”

Carter stopped and looked at her. He was pale and his eyes were wide, his brow creased as he struggled with what she’d just said. “What do you mean?”

“You found the intruders, why didn’t you challenge them?”

Carter’s mouth twisted into what might have been a smile. Serra didn’t like it.

“No, no,” he said quickly. “They weren’t there. That’s the whole fucking point. Nobody else could see them, only me, because they weren’t there.”

He stopped, and Serra saw that he was shaking. His bottom lip began to quiver; he looked like a lost child.

Serra stood and took his cheek in her hand. “What is it, baby? Tell me.”

Carter took her hand in his, and she winced, just a little, as he squeezed too hard. He looked into her eyes, and she saw them wet with tears. “She said I could see them again.”

Serra blinked. “She? The intruder spoke to you?”

Carter nodded. “It’s a woman. She’s from far away. She said I could see them again.”

The final barrier came crashing down, and Carter sobbed into Serra’s shoulder. She brushed his hair and pulled him backwards toward the bed. He was leaning on her, and he was very big and very heavy but he moved without resistance when she pushed him to one side to sit on the bed next to her. His sobbing died but the lost look on his face remained. Serra was frightened and her thoughts were being drowned out by the white noise of the Spiderbaby dreaming. She focused, trying to cut the sound out before it gave her another migraine.