Context (106 page)

MU-SPACE
CONTINUUM

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2143

<Story>>

[20]

It
had an aura of confession, amid the miraculous amber glow flowing like a
viscous river through the cabin. Odd, fractured visual echoes stuttered around
them, and when Ro spoke, her words rippled and reflected like waves breaking
upon a shore.

‘I think we’re in danger, Pilot.
I’ve made enemies among the Zajinets.’

With silver cables depending from
her eyes, the Pilot’s smile looked grim, disturbing.

‘I know.’

Golden space, and the fractal
stars of darkness.

‘They’re capable, I think, of
mu-space travel.’

‘I’ll say. There are two vessels
following us right now.’

Hunting me?

If they wanted to rid themselves
of humans—of Ro McNamara—an accident in mu-space would place them beyond blame.
She had placed everybody in danger.

No. It wasn’t my choice to be
here.

‘Do we have weapons?’

‘We thought we had no enemies.’
Again, the I/O cables drew unsettling curves across the Pilot’s smile. ‘Not out
here.’

‘Can you lose them?’

‘I haven’t managed it yet.’

Damn, damn...

‘Drop out into realspace?’

‘We’re still not armed. I suspect
they are.’

There was a control pad, used by
ground crew for status checks and diagnostics, and Ro waved it into life,
though her hands seemed to move through pale amber water.

Am I going to die here, Father?

But the place of his death was
not exactly here: in fact it was some considerable energy-expenditure away.
(Despite her grasp of fractal physics, there was no adequate labelling of
spacetime separation, of length, in a milieu where the distance between two
points grew larger the closer one looked.) For she remembered every detail of
the story, told so often by Mother and Gramps that she could visualize
everything that had happened.

‘These coordinates . . .’ Ro
concentrated on setting fractional variables. ‘Is that location accessible from
here?’

‘Not easily. I’m going to have to
push things hard, and the event-membrane may not hold back some of this
continuum’s odder phenomena.’

It was another reminder that this
place was very different.

Amber sea
...

Magical beauty tugged at her.

It was so peaceful in this place,
in the wondrous continuum where she belonged, that danger was hard to believe
in. But the status display showed two sparks of light following, and the Pilot’s
word was good enough for Ro.

But how to persuade her to
abandon any sensible route, and strike out for such a far location?

Yet already the quality of golden
spatial flow seemed different, harder and more turbulent, and it came to Ro
that perhaps the Pilot was already following her suggestion.

‘Why are you—-?’

‘You didn’t have to explain.’ The
Pilot’s body shuddered, then her voice grew dreamy, suffused with a reverent
awe: ‘Any one of us would recognize those coordinates.’

Once,
when she began to lose focus, Ro felt herself drifting
into
the deck,
while the cabin and the stars outside receded in all directions, and she
snapped herself out of it before she was lost.

They continued to arrow through
golden space.

Pilot Vaachs was deep inside
herself now, one with the vessel, as she charted a course no unaltered human
being could ever understand. Brain virally rewired to cope with this continuum,
blind in the cold reality of her homeworld—yet here she was a bird in flight,
mistress of the elements, at one with the golden flow of a universe that was
not her own.

Amber, flowing
...

And Ro was able to follow the
Pilot’s calculations, tracking through the infinitely recursive dimensions of
the mu-space continuum, to the place she had dreamed of all her life.

Vessels,
following.

Closing.

‘Soon now.’

The Pilot’s voice was a prayer as
much as a promise.

Closing...

Their
destination was close, measured in the remaining effort to get there, when
suddenly the ship shuddered. Violet lightnings splashed past outside, and Ro
knew they were under attack.

‘Whatever you’re going to do’—Pilot
Vaachs, her voice tight with tension—‘now’s the time.’

Diving inwards, fractally
smaller, but the enemy vessels were following.

‘It’s been an honour—’ the Pilot
began.

But Ro was already broadcasting,
forcing the control pad to spew out its recorded message in all dimensions,
pushing the transmission’s gain all the way.

++ HELP ME, FATHER ++

The ships came closer.

Father... Am I insane?

Violet lightning fell again, but
the Terran ship held, though it felt as though it would shake asunder.

Praying to a dead man I’ve never
known.

Was her old delusion going to
bring death to them all?

And then—

Yes... No.

Nothing.

Yes.

A presence grew.

It shimmered without light; it
sang beyond sound. It coalesced, yet there was nothing to see or feel but an
invisible blazing of energies, of a
presence
beyond understanding or the
limited filters of human perception.

Golden space, mirage-like,
twisting
...

A sense of warmth.

‘They’re going to fire! Watch—’

Lightnings sparked towards them
as their pursuers opened fire. Ravening gouts of violet and orange energy—

Faded, flickered.

Father?

Were gone.

The attackers’ weapons no longer
functioned.

‘Oh, no ...’

Was this what she had wanted? But
it did not matter, as she watched the shivering of space itself, for the
process which was occurring was implacable. And the power behind it was
unimaginable.

The Zajinet ships rippled
apart...

Oh, God.

And then they were gone.