The Burning Dark (36 page)

Carter shuffled on the hard floor. “Didn’t you say the
Boston Brand
was your ship?”

Ida shook his head. “I was on the
Boston Brand,
but I was assigned to the
Carcosa
. Commodore Manutius and I swapped commands for our attack. The
Boston Brand
had a few tricks the
Carcosa
didn’t, and I wanted the
Boston Brand
out in front.”

Zia’s eyes widened. “So if you’d stayed on your own ship—”

“Yes,” said Ida. He cast his eye over the interior of the hangar they were now in. “If I had stayed on the
Carcosa,
I’d be dead. Or not, as the case may be.”

He raised his hand to the cage wall and felt the tingle of the charge play across his palm.

“Only delaying the inevitable,” said Carter quietly. Ida pulled his hand away from the wall of the cage and turned to the marine. Sitting on the floor behind him, Serra laughed and opened her eyes.

“You okay, marine?” asked Ida.

Serra nodded. Carter uncurled himself to turn around, and peered into her face. Serra smiled again.

“It’s okay,” she said. “She won’t get it.”

Carter jerked back in surprise. “What?”

“The shadow demon. She thinks she has her prize within her grasp, but she doesn’t.”

Carter leaned forward and snapped his fingers in front of Serra’s face. “Hey! Snap out of it. You’ve been funny since we got here.”

Serra blinked, and her smile dropped away. She scooted back on her hands, shaking her head.

“She’s here,” she said, and then she screamed, and then the lights went out.

42

The dark was absolute,
abyssal. Around him, Ida heard the other prisoners murmur and move in their cages.

“What’s going on?” Zia at his shoulder.

“No clue.” Carter in the other cage. From the same direction, Serra’s breathing, quick, fearful.

Ida held his breath as he heard something else. Footfalls. He stood as still as he could, trying to locate the sound in the dark. Someone was walking between their cage and the one holding Carter and Serra’s group.

“Hello?” His voice sounded uncomfortably loud. The footsteps continued, coming around to the front of his cage.

“Who is it?” Zia had her hand on the small of his back. Ida shook his head, then realized nobody could see him.

“Serra? You with us?”

“Yes.” Her voice came softly from the other cage.

“Who’s here? Izanami?” Perhaps Serra knew about her. Perhaps Izanami had made contact with her, a psi-marine. Perhaps Izanami had followed the signal Serra’s mind had sent out into the dark.

Ida’s thoughts turned to another kind of signal. Was … was he responsible?

“Who’s Izanami?” asked Carter, breaking Ida’s train of thought. Ida heard the squeak of Carter’s boots and the rustle of his uniform as he stood up.

The footsteps were soft, rubbery, accompanied by a sliding sound, like someone wearing something bulky.

Ida turned over his shoulder. “Van Buren?”

“I’m here. Koch?”

The
Magenta
’s navigator confirmed he was still with them.

The footsteps stopped, right in front of them. Ida balled his hands into fists, not sure where to plant them and not sure there would be anything physical to hit. He closed his eyes to blot out the disorienting depth of the dark around them and concentrated on the sounds instead.

The buzzing of the cage’s energized mesh walls increased gradually, like someone turning the gain of an antenna up. As the pitch increased, it began to break up into rough noise. White noise, like static, the rolling of an ocean. Ida felt his heart leap at the familiar sound.

The sound of—

There was a click, and then, “Ida.”

A voice, far away but right in front of him. Tinny, thin, coming through an old-fashioned speaker. A female voice, accented. A voice brushed with interference.

Ida let out his held breath and choked in the process. He swallowed the ball of spit quickly.

“Ludmila?”

A ghost ship filled with … ghosts.

“Come,” said Ludmila.

Ida opened his eyes. There was a light, yellowish orange, in front of him. He blinked and watched as the light moved, lighting up the cage. The light blinked, and then a brighter, white beam snapped on. A lantern, fixed to the left breast of the spacesuit.

Ludmila stood outside the cage, her golden visor catching enough light from her flashlight that Ida could see himself and Zia reflected in the mirrored surface, superimposed over other shapes that moved and swirled. It looked like the reflection of stars and a planet spinning beneath. The curve of the Earth.

Ida sighed. She was real, solid, a person in a spacesuit. The suit was some kind of metallic silver cloth, quilted in fat bands, with the red letters
CCCP
boldly printed across the chest. In one hand she held Ida’s space radio, the light on the silver box a bright baby blue. With her other hand she reached forward to touch the cage. Ida watched, spellbound, as the silver fabric of her suit creased at the elbow as her arm moved, as her hand raised to show Ida the black fabric that covered the palm and underside of each finger—

Zia called out just as Ludmila’s gauntlet touched the cage. There was a pop, and the entire framework of the cage flashed blue for a second. Zia flinched, but Ida stood rock still, watching himself in Ludmila’s helmet.

Was there anyone there, behind the curve of the visor? Did Ludmila exist?

She withdrew her hand and turned, heading back to the holding bay entrance. “Come,” she said, her voice crackling through the space radio.

Her pool of light was small but the floor was reflective enough for it to light a wide stretch of the hangar. Ida glanced over at Carter and saw the marine was watching Ludmila too. He could see her. They all could.

Ida pushed at the front of the cage. The mesh was warm and rough. He pushed again, and the door flicked open silently.

“Hey!”

Ida turned. Carter gesticulated at the cage around his group. Serra stood at his shoulder.

Zia pulled on Ida’s sleeve. “We’re going to need all the help we can get.”

She was right.

“Ludmila!” he called. The flashlight’s beam turned slowly until it was directed at them. Ida pointed at the other cage as the prisoners shielded their eyes.

“Can you release them?”

The light bobbed forward slowly. It was like she was walking against a high wind, or in low gravity. Maybe that was exactly what it was like, moving through a world you were not supposed to be in.

When she got to the cage, Ida watched as she touched the mesh. There was a flash, and Ludmila stepped back. Carter wasted no time in shoving the door open and releasing his squad.

“Come,” said Ludmila. “There is not much time. The harvest has begun.”

“What about the rest?” Carter gestured to the other cages that filled the holding zone. The shallow light of Ludmila’s lantern caught the glittering eyes of those prisoners closest.

“We have no time,” said the voice from the crackling speaker.

Carter began to protest but Ida raised his hands. “We’ll come back for them. Let’s just do as she says and see if we can’t figure this mess out first.”

He turned back to Ludmila, who was walking away at her infuriatingly slow pace. Ida, Zia, and the others followed, forming a single file as they quietly left the cells. Behind them, shouts erupted, the other prisoners protesting at being abandoned. Ida ignored them. He had no choice. None of them did.

*   *   *

They walked in the
dark, Ludmila’s lantern lighting the way, illuminating metal corridors in an eerie white yellow glow that bobbed up and down and left and right as she walked in her bulky suit. It felt like walking into a tomb, ancient and cold, except for the occasional wall panel with bright LED lights. Their footfalls were soft but they echoed oddly. It was as though the whole of the
Carcosa
had powered down to system minimum, the ghost hulk drifting toward its destination.

But it was real, all of it. It might have been dark, but it was solid. The metal floor, the walls. The same as any other Fleet U-Star. Ida touched the walls, trailing his fingers along the metal and plastic panels. Cool to the touch, as they would be on any ship. The metal was hard and shiny, with the finest of grains running horizontal to the floor. The rivets were perfect, almost seamless at the panel edges.

It was real. The
Carcosa
was part of the First Fleet Arrowhead. They’d all entered quickspace near Atoomi, and they’d all exited near Tau Retore—all, that is, except for the
Carcosa
. There was no engine failure. The ship had been taken, wholesale, as it sailed close to Izanami’s domain. Ida’s escape on the
Boston Brand
had been coincidental and, as he now realized, only temporary.

And Ludmila? She was right in front of him. He could reach out and touch her. He raised his arm to try but then changed his mind. She was real, as real as the passageway along which they now crept. A real person, taken a thousand years ago.

Zia’s question resonated in Ida’s mind: How many had been taken, and for how long? And the ultimate question—for what?

Ludmila’s lantern beam diffused suddenly, and she stopped. They’d come to a larger space, a wide, low room. Ahead were a set of heavy doors. An air lock. Ludmila turned around, and Ida stared at himself and Zia and the rest of them in her golden visor. Her chest radio popped.

“This ship is now attached to the auxiliary docks of the space station. This will lead you back to it.”

Zia stepped forward. “What? We can’t just leave. We gotta spring the others, and find the ones they’ve taken away.”

Ludmila said nothing. Zia’s reflected face loomed as she leaned toward the cosmonaut, and then turned to Ida. Ida studied the reflection, lost in thought.

“It’s not that easy, is it?” he said at last, eyes still on Ludmila’s visor.

“The harvest has begun,” said Ludmila. “She has enough power now to make her last moves before she returns. Time is short. We must act soon.”

Carter gestured over his shoulder with a thumb. “We’ve got enough personnel locked away down there, and enough weapons on the station, to take this ship over from any hostile alien force, easily.”

Ida watched it all in the helmet reflection.

“Ludmila?” he asked quietly. “They’re not aliens, are they?”

“They are not anything,” she said, the radio spitting the words out in a trebly squawk. “The Funayurei are neither alive nor dead. They are the souls of those lost at sea. They are her army. They wait, trapped like her, eager for release. And soon she will be free. She will, in turn, release her army, and her army will march.”

Carter frowned. “This is no time for riddles, ma’am.”

Zia exhaled softly. “Hellspace. She’s talking about hellspace. That’s where her army—these
Funayurei
—are.”

A hundred thoughts entered Ida’s head, all of them bad, all of them leading to the same conclusion.

“So that’s where she takes them.” He stared into the visor. “She’s built an army, pulling people down from our world into hellspace. The souls of those lost at sea.”

Zia caught his eye in the reflection. She looked very pale.

“I told you they were real.”

Carter looked between Ida, Ludmila, and Zia. “What the hell are you talking about? Who is building an army? And what for?”

“
She
is,” said Ludmila. Carter blinked and the crackling voice over the radio continued. “Izanami-no-Mikoto. She is almost here.”

Ida shook his head. “But Izanami was my medic. She was on the station, looking after me.”

“Shadow is
Ame-no-ukihashi,
the bridge between subspace and this universe. Here she could wait—still imprisoned, but able to move among you as her power grew.”

Ida’s heart raced. “How?” he asked. “How does her power grow?”

The radio clicked. “Before, she was nothing. A thing from subspace. Centuries ago she fell to the Earth and became Izanami-no-Mikoto. Others of her kind followed. Then she died, leaving only an echo in subspace where her husband, Izanagi, found her. She begged him to take her back into the world. She grew angry and tried to follow Izanagi out, but he sealed the gateway, trapping her forever.”

“This is some fairy tale,” said Carter. He huffed and folded his arms.

“Izanami vowed revenge. To rebuild herself and escape, she needs to eat a thousand souls a day. They nourish her, provide her with the energy to cross the bridge, to return.”

Silence. The space radio crackled and Ida realized the truth. He turned to the others.

“The Fleet. They’re in on it—they sent me here. You were tricked into coming,” he said, looking at Zia before gesturing to Carter, Serra, Van Buren, Koch. “They were sent here too, as part of their tour.” He turned back to Ludmila and looked at his own reflection. “We were
all
sent by the Fleet. The Fleet, who placed this station around a very particular and unusual star.” Ida rubbed his chin. “And the war isn’t going so well.…”

The space radio hissed and Ludmila spoke. “Izanami wields the power of subspace, if only she could be released.”

“Are you out of your minds?” Carter stepped forward. “Are you saying that the Fleet sold us out to whatever it is trapped behind the star, in exchange for victory against the Spiders?”

Ida nodded. “The Psi-Marine Corps. Commandant Elbridge is from the Psi-Marine Corps. So are all the Fleet Admirals. The … whatever they are, the things that live in subspace, they escaped into the world once before, right?” He glanced at Zia. “And then the Fleet banned all subspace technology. But it was too late. They knew about what lived in subspace. They knew about Izanami.”

Carter frowned. “So the Fleet cut a deal? This is insane.”

“The souls she consumes become her army,” said Ida. He looked up at the ceiling. “They even gave her a ship.”

Zia swore, but Ida was already nodding. “And,” he said, “the only Spider tech in human hands. The
Bloom County
.”