A Night Without Stars (61 page)

“Six hours,” Adolphus said, and turned his back on Stonal. He twisted about awkwardly, nothing more now than an ungainly old man, trying to clamber inside the space machine. The door contracted in a single smooth, silent motion.

“Crudding Uracus,” Stonal muttered through clenched teeth. The prime minister, the man who controlled all of Bienvenido, was captive inside a Commonwealth artifact. The kind of event he'd dedicated his entire life toward preventing.

He glared with a hatred he hadn't known in years at the intruder he himself had brought into the very seat of power.

Clearly Joey's medical ability had been gnawing at the prime minister's thoughts for some time.
And I was the one who told him about that ability. My fault. If I'd just kept my mouth shut…

“Oh.” Stonal exhaled as realization struck with the force of a runaway Faller monster.
Father always said they were smarter than us, that their huge long lives give them so much knowledge-power. I never appreciated how true that was. Nobody negotiating for their life would declare that medical ability right at the start; it's a perfect bargaining chip, the kind you play much later in the game. And I was the one who delivered the information.

He gave the space machine an altogether more cautious look. “Well played,” he murmured in reluctant admiration, and left the crypt.

Faustina was in her office. She looked up in surprise as Stonal came in.

“Have you been talking to the space machine?” he asked.

“Only to facilitate the sensor data you asked for.”

“Before that,” he said. “Before you called me in. When it first started communicating. What did you tell it?”

“Only some very basic information.”

“Such as?”

“Where it was. Who I was. That's all.”

“Did you tell it about me?”

“No. I just said I'd have to call a senior government officer to talk to it.”

“What about the prime minister? Did you tell it he was ill?”

“He's ill? What's wrong with him? What's happened?”

He stared at her face, trying to find a hint of treachery.
Nobody this smart can truly be naïve. It has to be an act to keep her out of palace politics.
Yet all he could see was an old woman starting to get very uncomfortable, not understanding what was wrong.

“Nothing's happened,” he said smartly. He turned to the guard outside. “Science Director Faustina does not leave this office until I return. Is that clear?”

“Sir.” The guard saluted, showing just how dedicated to his duty he was.

Twenty minutes later Stonal was shown into Terese's office. Unlike Adolphus, she hadn't spent the last few days sheltering in the emergency bunker. However, his staff had informed him that she kept three armored Zikker limousines in a palace garage ready to drive her to the Air Force Command airfield just outside Varlan so she could evacuate for Byarn at a moment's notice—and her family was already at the base.

“Thank you for seeing me at short notice, Deputy Prime Minister.”

“I'm always happy to see the head of section seven,” she replied courteously. “What can I do for you?”

“We may have a slight problem.”

Florian wasn't used to the sun being so low in the sky at midday; he hadn't expected it to be so bright this far south, either. Everyone on deck wore sunglasses as they stared out across the calm water to the ice cliffs that marked the top of Macbride Sound. The air blowing off the glacier lowered the temperature even farther; Florian could barely believe that was possible. He was wearing two sets of full-body thermal underwear along with two sweaters under his goose-down parka; cotton gloves and thick waterproof overgloves; fur-lined boots and triple-layered socks; a scarf over his mouth and nose; visor-like sunglasses to stop his damp eyes from freezing up—and he was still cold. But the polar continent was amazing. Its coastline alternated black rock with dazzling ice. And it was so clean, as if Giu had only just created it.

He saw a tall section of ice and snow tumble in slow motion down into the sea, sending up a crown of spume. Gloved fingers struggled to lift his sunglasses off so he could get a better look. He blinked against the biting cold gusting over exposed skin.

“It's blue,” he muttered.

“What is?” Jymoar asked.

“The ice,” Florian said, nodding at the distant cliff. “It's blue.”

“Pristine water,” Jymoar explained. “There are no contaminants here, no factory chimneys churning out crud. It gives you the purest water on the planet. So when it freezes, and the sun shines on it just right, it has a blue tint.”

“Amazing.” He could have gotten the same information from his files, but it was more fun to listen to Jymoar.

In truth, Florian had found it hard to dislike the captain. There was something massively engaging about the man's happiness and humor. The captain was always so positive about everything. Florian had never heard him raise his voice in anger at any of the crew.

I was that happy, too, when Kysandra was in my bed every night.
He almost wanted to ask—man-to-man—
do you ever get dejected when she leaves you behind?
Somehow he couldn't imagine Jymoar moping around the ship when she wasn't on board.

For himself, he still hadn't absolved Kysandra for her total disregard of his feelings. And to be honest with himself, he really missed her and the comfort of being with her, that smile as bright as any polar ice when it was directed at him. Knowing Jymoar was now receiving all that attention—and sex…Well, most of his time on board had been spent alone and sulking; it was like being back in Opole after his discharge from the regiment. He'd gone back home, thinking everything would finally be better, only to discover he was even more miserable as he realized how alone he was, and probably always would be. Back then he'd run away to Albina Valley; here on the
Gothora III,
there was no escape.

“Come on.” Jymoar put his arm around Florian's shoulders. “Now that we can see land, we're ready to free the ge-eagles.”

“Free them?”

“Yes!” Jymoar laughed. “Well, unpack them.” Another cheery grin and he was striding toward the mid-deck cargo hold.

The thick lime-green canvas cover was being rolled back off the top of the cargo hold. Florian peered down into the shadowed space below, seeing barrels and big crates with their
SOUTH COAST WIDE SHIPPING
labels prominent, arranged neatly across the floor like some strange city layout model. Valeri and Marek had been going through the contents since they came on board, checking that everything was working.

Five crates had been opened up, their sides lying flat like square wooden petals. They exposed the stacked metal grid shelves inside, holding inactive ge-eagles. The big avian devices were semi-organic copies of a bird that existed on Querencia, Paula had told him—another planet in the Void, and the one Nigel had thought he was heading for. In storage they were curled up tightly, with a slim electric cable snaking into their open beaks to charge up their power cells. The ANAdroids were moving between the crates, removing the cables.

One by one, the ge-eagles activated, testing their synthetic muscles with lazy twitches and spasms. Heads turned from side to side, allowing sensors to run through their analysis routines. Wings extended. Even though Florian knew their technical specifications, witnessing their actual size was impressive.

They began to take off, flying up out of the hold with swift powerful beats of their wings, circling higher and higher above the
Gothora.
Now it was their speed that struck him; the impression of supremacy was inescapable. He didn't know what kind of birds lived on Lukarticar, but they wouldn't be challenging the ge-eagles. Not that they'd ever be flying low enough to attract the attention of local wildlife; their cruising altitude was four kilometers.

Paula walked over to him. “Quite a sight.”

“Yes.” His u-shadow was processing links from the ge-eagles, allowing him to look down on the
Gothora III.
The visual and thermal image was phenomenal, with every detail clearer than any human iris could ever produce. As the first ge-eagle gained altitude, so the view of the ice-locked land grew. There was very little rock or solid ground visible amid the expanse of smoothly rumpled snow. Somewhere to the southeast, a range of low mountains cluttered the horizon. Directly south, the vast mouth of Macbride Sound signaled the start of the deepwater channel that extended another 130 kilometers south. The western headland was a cliff even bigger than the glacier wall currently off their starboard bow.

“How long are they going to take to scan the whole continent?” he asked.

“Three weeks for all of it. So statistically a lot less, until they find the
Viscount.
”

“If we guessed right.”

“Yes. If we guessed right; but then it's a fifty-fifty choice, isn't it?”

He saw Kysandra emerge from the superstructure with Valeri. Both of them stopped for a moment to look down into the midship hold. Ge-eagles were still flapping their way upward—more than twenty now, out of their total of fifty.

Several of the crew started cheering. Florian looked over toward shore where they were pointing, and zoomed in. A seibear had broken surface to clamber onto the ice beach at the foot of the glacier. Almost as large as a terrestrial elephant, with gray-white fur, the animal normally weighed in at about five tons supported by four legs with wide webbed paws that oddly reminded him of a Vatni's limbs. With a flash of guilt, he realized he hadn't even thought about Mooray for weeks. He wondered how he was doing, if the Vatni village by the lake was okay.
How would they face up to the Faller Apocalypse?

The seibear had a big coiran clamped between its jaws; the poor fish was still thrashing about. Florian winced as the seibear bit the fish clean in half. The two chunks flopped down on the ice, dark carmine blood gushing out.

“That is one brute of an animal,” Paula said. “Funny how polar continents always evolve the most menacing creatures.”

“Penguins are menacing?” Demitri said.

Paula gave him a thoroughly disapproving glance.

“Always?” Ry Evine asked.

Florian hadn't noticed the astronaut approaching.

“Rule of thumb,” Paula told him.

“Have you seen many?”

“Enough to know never to get close.”

“That sounds like good advice,” Florian muttered as he watched the seibear eating, its jaws making short work of the coiran.

“Let's hope they haven't turned the
Viscount
into a lair,” Ry said.

“If the
Viscount
did crash here, those things would certainly go a long way to explaining why there were no survivors,” Paula said.

“About our force field skeletons…” Florian began nervously.

“Don't worry,” Paula told him. “I was exaggerating. Your suits are easily strong enough to stand up to anything an animal can do to you. If a seibear tries to bite you, it'll break its teeth.”

“Fangs,” Ry corrected with a grin.

“Oh. Nice. Thanks,” Florian grunted.

The last ge-eagle flew away into the frigid cloudless sky. Florian could already see the rest soaring up into their scan formation. Ultimately they would hold position two kilometers apart, producing a line a hundred kilometers wide. Then they would fly back and forth across Lukarticar, scanning every square meter of the surface.

“Ah,” Paula said. “They'll launch the com-drones now.”

A dark-gray flattened teardrop shape three meters long ascended vertically out of the hold, emitting a faint whirring sound as its internal fans spun at full power. Flexible vents in its trailing edge flipped down and it began to accelerate upward, climbing at a much shallower angle than the ge-eagles. It was followed by a second. As they rose above the ship their wings began to extend, plyplastic flowing out and becoming thinner. Within a minute, the wingspan measured over twenty meters, and it was still expanding.

The drones, like the ge-eagles, had been manufactured in the remaining semi-organic synthesizers below Kysandra's farmhouse. They would operate at twenty-five kilometers altitude, far above any possible bad polar storms, where they would fly a slow holding pattern above the
Gothora,
acting as a link relay between ge-eagles and ship.

“Are we going down Macbride Sound now?” Ry asked.

“No,” Paula said. “If the
Sziu
found us in there, they'd have us cornered. It's always harder to find a moving target, so we'll sail along the coast at random. And if the
Sziu
does come close, the drones will spot it long before it sees us. We'll be able to stay out of sight and range.”

“Makes sense,” Florian admitted. Part of him wanted to confront the Fallers. He knew Paula and Kysandra would be able to take out the
Sziu,
yet at the same time he was anxious to find the
Viscount.
To actually see a real Commonwealth starship.

And when they did travel over Lukarticar to see if any of the equipment still worked, Jymoar would be staying here on the ship.
Not that that's important.

Tumors were the easy part. A mass of filaments thinner than human hair slid into Adolphus's body, surrounding the lethal cancer cells like a conquering army, breaking them up and syphoning away the constituent molecules, repairing the tissue damage left in their wake.

The prime minister's brain was an altogether more complex problem. That required a very different set of filaments, even more intrusive. These sought out critical path synapses, carefully infiltrating the electrochemical exchanges in order to manipulate the unconscious personality.

Memory downloads were an old Commonwealth medical technology, developed in tandem with rejuvenation and re-life procedures millennia ago. Extracting Adolphus's memories was no problem for the medical capsule. It took two hours to successfully download his mind into a secure store.