Approaching Oblivion (Jezebel's Ladder Book 4) (35 page)

“Maybe . . . Zeiss . . . Radiation
. . . breaking up . . .” Mercy said between hisses and digital squeaks. The
last words they heard that shift were, “Play nice.”

During flares, not much work could be accomplished in Olympus, so Yuki played with Stu over lunch while Mercy and Lou celebrated their second wedding
anniversary. At fifteen months, the child’s favorite pastime was stacking
wooden blocks and teething on the long orange ones. The little boy was a flirt
and a joy, making Yuki sad she had opted for sterilization. While the toddler
was down for his nap, Yuki paid a visit to the shed. Using the key from Mercy’s
lab coat, she powered up the high-resolution gravity sensors again, trying to
get more details on access to the command cave.

The water levels were lower. Hours
before the ship had shuttered for the radiation surge, the water reserves had
been steady. The flares of Daedalus were linked to the depletion somehow. She
had to tell the others.

Turning off the sensors, Yuki drew
a map and wrote a note on a nearby crate by dipping her untagged forefinger in
a can of leftover blue paint.

Use
shimmer cutter from shop on Persephone in barn to find caves where Magi hide.

Plato

Wiping her finger clean on a diaper,
Yuki slapped the all-hands broadcast button. “Sorry to interrupt date night,
but we have a small emergency. Someone stuffed a lima bean up his nose, and
it’s
swelling
. I couldn’t find the right tools in the shed, so I’m
bringing Stu to Olympus.” She emphasized the variation of her code word.
Hopefully, the Magi wouldn’t just kick her off the ship as they had Yvette.

As she reached to turn off the
lights in the shed, Yuki noticed a folded stack of fabric—the memistor weave
that Elias Fortune had sent on the mission. It contained more than the Library
of Congress—the closest the billionaire could get to the sum total of human
knowledge, including the double-naught files. Lou had been using it for
linguistics research. If Yuki were exiled to the copper mines, the memory cloth
would come in handy. She casually picked it up and used the exotic fabric to
wrap the sleeping Stu.

When Yuki arrived at the patio
outside the saucer, she paused. The airlock was wide open, but she didn’t want
to step inside because Snowflake could freeze anyone in the command area at
will.

Zeiss, Red, Park and Sojiro sat outdoors
in patio chairs, gathered around the round table. Yuki took care to stand
behind Red’s chair so the command crew didn’t recognize the fabric wrapped
around the child.

“Stu doesn’t seem too traumatized,”
Zeiss noted.

“He fell asleep on the way,” Yuki
said. “What’s the big meeting about?”

Park explained, “The copper mine is
behind schedule, and we’re considering a replacement gift to stay on track.”

“I think copper may rely on
numbers,” Zeiss said.

Red read from her slate. “This is
the lesson of pure water. Water is the cornerstone of life. But the river is
wild and can cause sickness. You can tame the river by boiling.”

Sojiro interrupted. “I like this
page because the panda word for boil is an onomatopoeia—bloop-baloop.”

Red continued. “Boil water whenever
people use it. Always make pure first: when you drink, when you wash your hands
before you eat, and must-must when you clean your wounds.”

Zeiss said, “No. To boil water,
they need a copper or tin container.”

“We could make the same argument
about some wine recipes,” Sojiro said. “Yvette wants to cut wine, too.”

“What’s next on the list?”

Sighing, Red said, “For the coming
year, we’ve planned parchment, plows, tin, charcoal, and ceramics.”

Shaking his head, Zeiss said, “Push
tin till the end of the year. If copper took this long, that’s going to need
more lead time as well. We could pull in crop rotation.”

“No, the mindset for fertilization
hasn’t cemented in the panda consciousness yet,” Red countered. “Someone taught
them slash and burn, and we have to get rid of that evil first. Risa wants
ceramics mainly for shingles and pipes—both plumbing and glassblowing.”

Passionately, Sojiro said, “They
need more concepts, not conveniences. What about abolition, no more
infanticide, or rules against rape?”

Yuki said, “Why not all three? They
could each be a paragraph example, combined under an umbrella that couches the
concept in a masculine way.”

“It is the responsibility of the
strong to protect the weak,” Zeiss said.

Sojiro nodded. “I like that. We’ll
work up a first draft and present it once we’re back in contact with
Labyrinth.”

Hearing Yuki’s voice, Auckland ventured out into the late afternoon air. “I see my little patient has arrived.”
Holding up a pair of forceps, he clacked them to demonstrate his readiness to
remove the mythical bean from Stu’s nostril.

Yuki looked straight at Park. “It’s
gone further than we thought. The
swelling
is worse.”

“When did that happen?” Auckland asked, confused by the emphasis. The others stopped their conference around the
table to stare at the odd drama.

“As soon as the flare began again,”
Yuki replied.

Auckland came to examine the child,
only to realize that there was nothing wrong with the sleeping toddler. He took
possession of the boy, and Yuki kept the fabric.

Park blinked as something occurred
to him. “According to stardrive theory,
synchrotron
radiation could weaken the gravity-containment fields around the
habitat. The same field would take more energy to maintain during surges.”

Only Zeiss seemed to follow this
babble. “That’s where all the water has been going. Each flare, the generators
have to work harder.”

Red wrinkled her brow. “That can
only continue for so long. Eventually, the habitat will be unable to maintain
and collapse inward. Once begun, that sequence is a death spiral. We’d be dead
in a couple years.” Zeiss shared a look with her that said he’d come to the
same conclusion. Everyone grew quiet.

Park said timidly, “What if we stretch
the orbit wider so we’re in the radiation zone less?”

“We’d have to make the loop at
least twenty times longer to have a prayer of finishing the test and escaping,”
Red said.

Zeiss sighed. “We wouldn’t be able
to communicate with Elysium very well. Our part in the gifts would be reduced
to an advisory role once a year.”

“Other than Lou, none of us are
contributing much now,” Red admitted. “At the same time, it takes more and more
eavesdropping to get each new word.”

“We could still help with the
harvests,” Sojiro offered.

“
Actually, with the reduced irrigation and our current surplus stored in
the caves, the Llewellyns will really only need us once a year for the rice
crop,” Zeiss said.

Red
looked from person to person. “As nonessential personnel, we could all be frozen
for the other fifty-one weeks a year.”

“Creepy,” Sojiro said.

Decided
on this course of action, Zeiss began filling in details. “Personal allotments
on the fabricators will no longer accrue, but you can put in departmental
requisitions.”

Yuki felt terror boil up in her
gut. The Magi might not wake them after a year. As irrelevant crew, Snowflake
might keep them frozen until the ship crashed. After a moment of panic, her
natural survival skills kicked in. Looking at the memory fabric in her hands,
Yuki realized she had been plotting escape for the past hour. She had to get
herself and her husband out of this hostage situation. First, she needed an
excuse to fly to the surface without triggering Magi suspicions. “We’re not all
useless. I think Pratibha’s management skill can break the logjam Labyrinth is
having with copper.”

“I’d get lonely without her,” Auckland admitted.

“You’ll be frozen,” Zeiss said.

Red nodded. “Then they can build a
launcher on Elysium and send us frozen water whenever we’re close.”

“Elysium can only manufacture about
1200 liters of ice per L week,” Zeiss said. “Putting seven or eight people in
stasis will probably free up more than that in drinking and agricultural water
over the course of a year.”

“There’s my little food explorer,”
Mercy said, arriving by elevator. She scooped Stu into her arms immediately,
placing his sleepy face on her own shoulder. “Everything come out okay?”

“He’s breathing normally now,” Auckland said carefully.

“Yuki, you have a little squash or
spit up on your shoulder. Why don’t you clean up?” Park said.

“Oh, dear,” Yuki said with
exaggerated concern. “I’d better change.”

“Welcome to my world,” Mercy said.

Behind her, Lou asked, “What was
that about long-term freezing?”

“With the water crisis, only you
and Mercy need to be awake,” Zeiss said.

“I already explained this to
Snowflake—no one is freezing my baby,” Mercy said grimly.

Zeiss lifted both hands in
surrender. “I meant from the crew.”

As Yuki hid the memory fabric in
her bedroom, the commander explained their predicament to the returning
parents. When Yuki hurried back out to the patio, Mercy was explaining how she
could adjust gravity to a minimum everywhere except Garden Hollow. “That will
further stretch our resources. When we’re asleep, maybe I could set the Hollow
controls even lower to conserve, like the thermostat in winter.”

“But you agree that we need to
lengthen the period of our orbit?” Zeiss asked.

“Yes,” Mercy said. Her vote
virtually guaranteed passage of the measures.

Yuki put her arms on Park’s shoulders.
“I still think we should make one last run of goods and our specialist to
Labyrinth before the shutdown. Since the Zeisses will be needed for the
Sanctuary
trajectory calculations, Park could make the drop.”

Following her lead, Park agreed.

Zeiss turned his head at an angle
and narrowed his eyes. He could tell from months of sparring with her that Yuki
was planning something.

Mercy said, “If Auckland goes with
you, when he returns we can set his pod to do a deep cleanse to fix the
hemoglobin damage.”

Yuki examined her nails. “And I
could work the secondary instruments for Park.”

She watched Zeiss’ face as he
figured out the escape and nodded slowly.

“There could be another surge at
any time,” Red warned.

Zeiss shrugged. “From the rotation
patterns, we have at least an L week. We can put
Ascension
back together
in a day, and if a flare hits when they’re planetside, the shuttle will be
safer on Labyrinth than here.” The commander seemed to understand and approve
of the unspoken plan. When Red looked confused, he whispered, “Trust me.”

Doctor Ahunga O Te Ika Whenau Whanganui, known by everyone
but his wife as Auckland, didn’t pack for a prolonged stay in the landing bay.
His intent had been to climb into a pod as soon as the shuttle was gone. At the
last moment, engines ready for takeoff, Yuki appeared in the airlock of
Ascension
.
She beckoned him closer. “What?” he asked on the radio.

She tapped her mouthpiece and
shrugged. He’d have to stand helmet to helmet to hear her final words. When he
stood on the threshold, his visor clunking against hers, Yuki mouthed the
single word, “Freedom.” She tugged his arm gently with one hand and placed the
other on the door controls to close the airlock.

He had to choose: being healed by
the Magi to endure years of stasis, or being with his wife and friends on a
world that would eventually kill him. His Maori ancestors would roll over in
their graves if he opted for slavery over a good fight. He pressed the back of
Yuki’s glove, closing the door.

Over the radio Yuki said, “Good
luck, Doc.”

Park lifted off a little early, no
doubt to compensate for the extra weight and any security procedures that
Sanctuary
might enforce. When nothing shot them out of the sky in the first minute, Auckland let himself breathe again. Opening the airlock into the main cabin, Yuki rushed to
help Park navigate. He wandered to the few chairs in the cargo area where
Pratibha waited.

His wife was rigid with anxiety. “I
was afraid you wouldn’t come. When you did, I was still afraid.”

He sat next to her and strapped in
as they accelerated toward the inhabited moon. Placing an awkward, crinkling
arm around Pratibha’s shoulder, he said, “This is the adventure we signed up
for. I’m not going to let you have all the fun.”

Counter to earlier landings, the
shuttle didn’t stop at the Elysium colony. Instead, Park flew in low over the
desert so no natives could see. A dust devil churned in their wake, but this
was no different than any other day in the dunes. The landing bay of Lincoln Copper Works was a recessed area extracted as part of the mining operation,
which gave them partial shade from the blistering suns.

Yuki announced, “You may now remove
your helmets and other safety equipment.”

They could hear clicks in the
background and the whir of an engine dying. After so many flights, Auckland looked at space travel as glorified first-class jet service. Feeling ten kilos
heavier, he staggered toward the airlock.

Dressed in his Hawaiian shirt and
shorts, Herk came out to greet Auckland and his wife personally, holding a
ridiculous, green golf umbrella out for the former mayor. “
Both
of you,
welcome to Lincoln.”

“It’s hotter than Bombay,” she
said, ducking into the shade of the umbrella.

“But it’s a dry heat,” replied Herk.
“I wear my spacesuit when I’m working just for the coolant. Hurry inside while
we unload. Doc, Risa will be glad for a fourth for bridge. With all the
problems we’ve been encountering, there’s a rumor we’ll be here for another
six-year stint.”

Shaking his head, Park said, “Not
likely.”

Yuki came out of the airlock next.
“Where do you want the supplies?”

Herk stopped in his tracks. “What
the hell is she doing here?”

Auckland said, “Careful. She helped
me escape the Magi and convinced Park to steal the shuttle. We’re not going
back to
Sanctuary
.”

“She can’t be trusted. Plato says
the Magi have her bugged,” Herk warned.

“Yeah, I wrote that note,” Yuki
asserted, certain that the Magi couldn’t eavesdrop on Labyrinth. “Have you dug
up the secrets of Meteoropolis yet?”

Herk pulled back. “Um . . . we
don’t talk in the open. Assume the shuttle is monitored.”

Yuki said, “If you need time, wait
four hours until the ship is out of range. I’ll wait out here.”

The wide security chief took a
remote off his belt, guided the cargo dune buggy up to the airlock, and handed
her the controls. “I’ll get Auckland settled someplace cool. Then we’ll put
things on the buggy and haul them into the storage area in the mine. Later
we’ll decide what gets flown back to Elysium, depending on the space left on
board.”

“What else would we be carrying?”
asked Park as he emerged from the lock.

“That, you’ll have to see for
yourself.” Smiling, Herk led everyone but Yuki down a ramp. “This grotto was
amazing when we arrived. There were blue-tinted geodes and twenty colors of
sand in these caves. We gutted it, but I took pictures.” He stopped when they
reached a crude bamboo garage door set in a wall of tan, glass bricks.

Risa was waiting for them at the
door. She shook everyone’s hand. “We live by two rules: no mention of this in
the open, and no one who sees this can go back to
Sanctuary
until the
test is over.”

The newcomers all nodded. They were
committed. When Herk opened the door, the garage contained two slabs of Magi
hull material. Together, they were the size of a Volkswagen. “We have to wait
until the shutters are closed to move this stuff, but we have enough for
several suits of armor or a vehicle. What do you think?”

The doctor and his wife were awed.
“On this planet?” asked Auckland.

Park shrugged. “Figures. They had
to crash-land when the system went into a death spiral.”

“What?” Risa asked. So Park
explained everything they deduced about the diminishing water supply of
Sanctuary
and the hiding place of the Magi. He even drew a map with a charcoal stick the
materials engineer loaned him. Afterward, Risa said, “Wow. If that last Magi
mission had this problem, why didn’t the new ship fix the problem?”

“Maybe they never figured it out.
Interstellar distances make information difficult to pass,” Park said. “Yuki
thinks the Magi value their secrecy more than our lives.”

“You think Z is going to allow you
to stay for the sake of the shuttle’s electronics?” Herk asked.

“I just knew I couldn’t risk Yuki’s
life there a day longer,” Park said.

“We might be able to help with
that,” Risa said. “We didn’t call this place Lincoln because of the pennies. We
named it that because he wrote the Emancipation Proclamation.”

Herk said, “Maybe you should ask
your friend Toby about details of the Pandanese culture we neglected to mention.”

“He’s here? Why?” asked Auckland.

Herk waggled his hand. “Officially
it’s to see if we can grow food here. Unless we use hydroponics and retractable
skylights, that’s not likely. The other choices are probably mushrooms, tequila,
and ants.”

“If you knew that, why did you risk
him?” Pratibha asked. “You have two other potential mine sites that are more
hospitable.”

“They needed this location to scout
the crash site,” Park deduced.

“We bent the rules to tap a deep-enough
well to make this mine work,” Risa admitted, “but once you find out what the
lake tribe is really about, there’s no way you’ll want them to have access to
weapons-grade copper.”

As Herk led the group through a
tunnel to a man-sized door, he announced, “This is the bunkhouse. We have one
bathroom and one big bedroom. There’s a ladder up to the operations center
above ground. It’s simple, but homey.”

As he opened the door, Auckland saw four sets of honest-to-God wood-frame and straw-mattress bunk beds. The
sheets, however, were fine linen, clearly made on the Elysium microfabricator.
On the bottom bunk nearest, them Toby lay with a disposable surgical mask over
his nose and mouth. The nanobiologist was sweating and pale.

Auckland rushed to his side. “What
happened?”

“While the shutters were drawn on
the Magi, he played freaking Indiana Jones, that’s what happened,” Herk strode
over, made a fist, and bumped knuckles with Toby. “My man took a spear to the
back and still made it out with the treasure.”

Toby laughed weakly, which turned
into an ugly, wheezing cough.

“The wound is infected, which
shouldn’t happen easily here,” Auckland muttered after touching Toby’s
forehead. “The strains are sufficiently different and our antibiotics are
strong enough that nothing from Labyrinth should harm you. Did it perforate
your bowel?”

“Too shallow. Just a scratch,” Toby
replied. “I had to wait for the hunting parties to move on before I could ride
the aqua sled back to the rendezvous spot. I could have picked up contamination
during either phase. I don’t have a microscope here, and it’s too far for me to
ride the buggy back to Elysium.”

Rolling his patient over, Auckland examined the crude field patch. Toby couldn’t sew his own wound closed, and
neither of the Herkemers had the skill. The wound appeared a little angry but
not pus-filled. “Looks like our short-term cover story will be hauling your
sorry butt back to Elysium for emergency surgery. We’ll miss the window for our
return.”

“Glad to be of assistance,” Toby
said with labored breathing.

“Did you take samples of everything
while you were running for your life?” Auckland asked.

“Of course.” Toby seemed almost
offended by the question, pointing to the chest at the end of the bunk. “It’s all
in there, even the armor. Wouldn’t let them open it without hazmat procedures.”

“Good man,” Auckland said. “Herk, get
him and that trunk on the shuttle as soon as you can.”

Herk handed the biologist a pillow
and cocooned him in linen sheets. Then, he carried the man out of the room like
a carpet roll. Park accompanied him to speed their departure and make excuses
to Olympus. Pratibha went as well to clear cargo out of the hold to make room.

When the others were gone, Auckland hissed, “What possessed you people to risk him like that?”

Risa raised a hand. “The lake people
have formed a very aggressive empire. All the roving Green gatherers work for
them. Pacino told us they completely wiped out the Black tribe a few decades
ago, the ones with the obsidian spears. The remaining resistance is scattered. They
call the slave lords hiding in the lake caves the Bloo—that’s a Pandanese word,
not the color. We don’t have a translation.”

“We never heard anything about
this,” Auckland said.

“Any time we ask him questions
about Magi-infected territory, we don’t forward the recordings,” Risa
explained, “or we might have an accident.”

“That’s ridiculous,” the doctor
replied.

“Come on up to the control room and
watch the recording from his helmet camera on Crown Island. Then you can judge,”
Risa said.

Slowly, he climbed the rungs up to
the high-tech center. All nonmobile evidence of high-tech was confined to one,
easy-to-obliterate room. Risa sat him in the corner on an older computer. “This
is disconnected from the network so the Magi can’t sneak peeks. We edited the content
down to show folks back at base. Just hit play.”

Auckland did so and watched a rare
glimpse of the great lake from above, with no fog to interfere. The walls
dripped from the aftermath of a storm, and the camera used ultraviolet filters
near sundown. During one freeze-frame, someone highlighted the rings and
streaks with a light pen. He could see the swath that the starship had cut
through the landscape as it crashed. Toby said, “Nadia confirmed these regions
are definitely energy signatures from an Icarus event. She’s seen the original
crater at the testing facility in New Mexico, and they had the same glow to her
special senses.”

An island in the center was a ring
of jagged, stone teeth. Something had plowed a notch in the high point and
flattened the back of the island down to sea level. When the lens shifted to
normal spectrum, he saw that the center of the island was spotted with a
variety of trees and grasses, some of which had a distinctive, red tinge. “Crown Island has flora different from anywhere else on the planet. If we can’t find
evidence there, I’ll go diving. For anything below ten meters or so, I’ll want
to come back next flare with a pressure suit.”

The scene shifted to a view of the
island from the water’s surface. The view from above hadn’t done justice to the
formidable barrier of rock surrounding the spit of land. The only place the
aqua sled could land was a small beach covered with colorful pebbles. Toby picked
up several samples and dragged the sled ashore. Grunting from the effort, he
explained, “Sometimes the natives come here by raft. I don’t want to block
their access.”

He tucked the sled into a small
alcove behind one of the toppled stone pillars. Then Toby moved to the only gap
in the defenses. Glancing up, he could see a narrow, stone staircase flanked by
two artificial pillars—stacked layers of shale that resembled the corners of
the bamboo plantation fences. At the very top of each corner post sat a thin,
gray fragment that was more regular than the rest. Two of the angles were
perfectly square. Toby said, “Those are pieces of antigravity domino. What else
fell out of the forerunner ship as it broke apart?”

The next scene showed a cave with
an odd skull mounted over the opening. Torrential rain had resumed, keeping the
panda guard in his stone shack off to one side of the cave. There were ruts in
the ground showing a patrol along the perimeter of the island. Toby snuck past
the guard huddled over a fire and crept into pitch darkness. After a few steps,
even UV and thermal overlay didn’t help.

Toby pulled out an LED flashlight.
An altar decorated the far end of the room. The shrine had been built from a
box of heavy stone and topped with the high-tech dominoes. Toby flicked off the
light and crept up to the stone box by memory. When he bumped into a step, he
clicked the tiny light back on. By the pool of weak light, he removed one of
the dominoes. The box was filled with bones. Toby took high-resolution stills
of the interior.