Empyrion II: The Siege of Dome (58 page)

The escape from Dome—Yarden, Pizzle, Crocker, Calin, and himself—traveling by skimmer over the bleak hills. Three days into the journey, Yarden had insisted that they all take off their helmets. Treet had done it, accepting and suffering the necessary pain.

And now, having once experienced sudden exposure to the rarefied air of Empyrion—with its dramatic side effects—having breathed the air and survived, Treet's pain subsided rapidly. It was nowhere near as bad as the first time. In a few moments his vision cleared, and he was able to stand upright and walk again.

The Dome dwellers were not so fortunate. Untold generations of life inside the closed and controlled atmosphere of Dome rendered them absolutely helpless in the free air. They lay unconscious in moments.

Panting just a little, Treet retraced his steps back to the tunnel's entrance, carefully threading his way over and around the still-quivering bodies of the stricken.

Upon emerging from the tunnel, he stood blinking in utter disbelief at the scene that met his astonished gape.

Clear light from the unfiltered sun streamed into the shadow-lands of the Old Section, stripping away the pall of gloom. The battlefield was a glittering plain of shining crystal. It looked as if a winter ice storm had dumped frozen rain in sheets upon the land—as if Dome itself had been transported to the Arctic and set down upon the frigid silver floes.

Everywhere he looked, he saw the rainbow shimmer of broken crystal. Dome was buried in a thick layer of the stuff—like a plate-glass snowfall, making it appear eerily open and brittle. The landscape gleamed with such harsh bright light that Treet had to squint and cup his hands around his eyes as he surveyed the wreckage.

Most of the Old Section's tottering ruins were erased, flattened by the fallen remains of Dome's vast sky-shell. Broken spars jabbed up from the debris trailing snapped support cables, or lay like felled sequoias entangled in fouled fishing line.

Off to his right, he could see the ragged skyline formed by the few structures still standing in the Hages. To his left, beyond the tumbled walls, was the green rolling sea of the barren hill country, startling in its nearness.

Above, and this surprised him more than anything he'd seen so far, was the glowing blue sky of Empyrion—scintillating, radiant, so bright that Treet had to turn his eyes away. And hanging soundlessly in that infinite, empty blue sky was a multicolored fleet of Fieri balons.

Pizzle
was beside himself with joy. He jumped up and down, embracing Bohm and Talus and Preben all at once. He hooted and screeched in utter ecstasy. “We did it! We did it!” he cried. “Look at that, will you?” He pointed out the observation window at the collapsed mess of Dome, which from above looked as if someone had dropped a tray of crystal bowls and stemware onto a slab of concrete.

Unlike smashing dinnerware, though, Dome's destruction took place in slow motion. First, cracks had appeared in the smooth shell of the large central dome—cracks which shifted and widened, snapping support cables and fracturing huge panes, which in turn unbalanced the gigantic supporting pillars, causing more crystal sections to break and the support poles to give way altogether.

The crazy rippling motion of the heretofore solid structure reminded Pizzle of a holofilm he'd once seen in which a circus tent had had its centerpoles yanked out from under it. The great expanse of fabric held its shape for a split second and then began to sink—not all at once—but in sections, the higher sections plummeting more rapidly, dragging the lower sections down with them, plunging from the center and working out to the edge in undulating waves.

Dome fell like that.

It was a solid shape defining an absolute space one moment, and the next a fluid mass, rippling, churning, and sinking under its own weight. One section went, pulling down another and then two more, all of them sliding, toppling, tumbling, crashing down—all of them, every cupola and mound and bubble, breaking up and falling.

Pizzle's inspired idea of using the Fieri balon engines to set up crystal-shattering sonic vibrations had succeeded. Dome was an immense fragile crystal bubble waiting for the right touch to break it. The Fieri had provided the precise touch required.

“We did it, Bohm! Did you see that? Kerplooey! Humpty Dumpty had a great fall! Splat! Now you see it, now you don't! Fantastic!” He danced from window to projection table and back, hugging all the others in jubilation.

The Fieri shared his relief and joy, if not his enthusiasm. Talus beamed and Preben laughed out loud, while Bohm just shook his head in wonder. The women were more subdued. Jaire gazed out the window at the dreadful destruction, biting her lip. Yarden stood by her saying, “When I reached him, I had a brief image of a tunnel. He was inside it, kneeling.” She looked at the awful destruction they had wrought below and said, “I think he'll be all right. I know it.”

“Well, what are we waiting for?” exclaimed Pizzle. “If I'm right, our Dome friends are enjoying some fresh air, which means that we have about a half hour or so to get established before people start to come around.”

“We've got to locate Orion first thing,” said Jaire, turning away from the window.

“Fine,” said Pizzle, “but that's not going to be easy. He could be anywhere.” He turned to Yarden. “How about it, Madame Mindreader?”

Yarden closed her eyes and touched her forehead with the fingertips of her right hand. She stood motionless for a few seconds and then announced, “It's Saecaraz! I couldn't hold him; he's scared, and his awareness is shifting all over the place. But there's a huge square right in the center and this massive pyramid—all these tiers stacked atop each other—Threl High Chambers. I think he's heading for Saecaraz. I'm almost sure of it.”

“That makes sense—he must be doing okay breathing-wise. Now where is Saecaraz?”

The Fieri looked at one another, and at the Travelers. “Don't look at me,” said Pizzle. “I spent most of my time down there knee-deep in, ah ... effluent. I don't know where Saecaraz is.”

Yarden scrunched up her face in thought. “I went there once with the Chryse. I think I'd recognize it if I saw it again. From this vantage, the square and the pyramid should be fairly obvious.”

Bohm said, “I will instruct the fleet to remain suspended in formation. We will go down for a closer look.”

“We'd better find him fast,” warned Pizzle. “It's going to be chaos down there once people start coming around.”

Treet made his way
as quickly and carefully as possible through the debris and wreckage of the Old Section. He had only one hope: to reach Jamrog as swiftly as possible and take him prisoner. Then he would force the Supreme Director, on pain of death, to call off the Invisibles and stop the war. Toward that end, he had secured a large and extremely lethal-looking weapon from one of the dead Invisibles on the battlefield.

His first thought was that every one of the enemy troops had been killed by falling chunks of crystal—some of which were fifty meters or so on a side. But upon investigation, he was amazed to discover that many had survived. His next thought was to disarm the survivors so that when the rebels came around they'd have the upper hand. The only problem with that idea was that it would take far too long to find each and every Invisible survivor and collect all the weapons—what if they started waking up before he got finished? Also, it was highly unlikely that all the Invisibles were on the battlefield when Dome collapsed. There was sure to be a central command post close by with reinforcements waiting to go into battle. And what about all the other Invisibles scattered throughout the Hages?

Then Treet hit on the solution of reaching Jamrog before the effects of free-breathing Empyrion's atmosphere wore off. Bypass the chain of command and go right to the top. Jamrog, he guessed, would be found in the Supreme Director's kraam.

How to get to Saecaraz in time, though, was the problem. The devastation was almost certain to be worse in Dome's interior: whole buildings and Hageblocks demolished, galleries, commons, and arcade areas crushed beneath tons of rubble, wreckage choking the streets ...

But he didn't have to go overland—he would go
under:
the tunnel leading to the Saecaraz refuse pits. That would take him very close to his destination, Threl High Chambers.

He scrambled as quickly as possible over the battlefield, which was littered with jumbled slabs of crystal tossed in an infinity of angles. He kept calm, telling himself that if he broke his neck hurrying, Jamrog would have the last laugh. So he went quickly, but cautiously enough to keep from impaling himself on the jagged shards.

Once, as he was clambering over a heap of fallen brickwork, he heard the throb of a balon's engines and caught a glimpse of a Fieri airship plowing past, too far away to notice him. It disappeared among the ruins to the north, stirring up the old frustration of watching salvation drift lightly and casually by, a reminder of the bleak hopelessness he'd felt in the desert when the balons had sailed right over him and his companions without stopping.

He reached New America Square, although he had to take a good look around in order to be certain that was indeed where he was. The nearly collapsed buildings were gone, and the entire area was covered by a single flat pane of crystal over which one of the gigantic support poles had fallen. Treet grappled to the top of the pole and proceeded on. The pole was grooved, so his feet didn't slip, and he was able to run easily along the top—like jogging on a giant redwood log or tubetrain conduit.

A few minutes later, owing to the fact that he was able to travel in a straight line above the wreckage, he arrived at the entrance to the Saecaraz tunnel. Don't let it be caved in, he muttered between clenched teeth as he climbed down the side of the fibersteel pole.

It was not caved in, but the entrance was blocked by a vehicle which had been caught halfway out of the tunnel; the whole back end was smashed flat by a section of wall. Treet squeezed by the junk and was able to edge in. Once inside the tunnel, he found another vehicle—this one intact, with four unconscious Invisibles inside. He hauled them out, jumped behind the wheel, put his foot to the pedal, and sped off. The tunnel had been repaired since the rebels destroyed it, so the Invisibles could bring vehicles through. Treet had very little difficulty in navigating the conduit, although it was pitch dark most of the way.

Upon reaching the Saecaraz refuse pits at the other end, however, he almost despaired of ever making it to Jamrog's kraam. He emerged from the refuse pit to look upon a scene reminiscent of the Great Tokyo Earthquake: an entire city shaken, stirred, and ground to tiny pieces fit only for landfill.

But ahead, rising from the wreckage like a building-block pyramid that had somehow escaped being toppled when all the other building blocks fell, stood Threl High Chambers, massive and gray and looking distinctly shabby in the dazzling light of day.

In fact, the whole of Dome—that is, those few structures remaining at least partially intact—had taken on a decidedly declasse appearance. While it was never a cheery place to begin with, true, unfiltered daylight revealed its flaws. Treet was struck by the incredible dullness and sameness and meanness of its architecture. Dome appeared, as never before, what it truly was: a place designed by petty, brutish men in whom the love of life, of goodness, beauty, and vitality had long since vanished.

Funny, he thought, it had always been so well hidden before. Now, however, as pure light washed over the exposed interior, the baseness of Dome was revealed in all its perverse grandeur.

Treet puzzled over this as he made his way to Jamrog's kraam. Off in the distance he could see several sections of Dome's roof that had not caved in. They arched over the ruins, ragged edges glinting in the sun, looking very fragile—as if one touch, one breath might bring them crashing down to make the destruction complete.

The Fieri balons still hovered above. What were they waiting for? he wondered.

Threl Square lay buried under a solid mass of splintered crystal, fallen with such force that it had pulverized the stone beneath. Several of the great banners bearing Jamrog's imposing image remained upright, although they were shredded beyond recognition. He hurried across the square and ducked under the columns, glancing apprehensively upward. The lower tiers of the building had caught the most damage, many of the upper terraces having been torn away to fall on the ones below.

Once inside, however, he forced down his fear of the building's collapse and made his way to the lift. He remembered the Supreme Director's kraam as being on one of the upper levels, but didn't remember which one. It took him a few minutes, and a few false tries, to find it, only to discover that it was empty.

Now what? he wondered. Time was running out. Everyone would come to any minute. He couldn't count on being able to move around freely much longer.

Jamrog must be nearby. If not in his kraam, then where?

Treet decided to take the lift to the top and start down from there. The minute he stepped out of the capsule onto the uppermost level he knew he'd guessed right. The garden looked as if a hurricane had swept through. The miniature trees were broken, the shrubbery tattered, the grounds strewn with anomalous junk. But there, in the center lay two bodies—and one of them was Jamrog's.

He approached cautiously.

The Supreme Director was quite dead. Even without the knife handle sticking out of the chest, Treet knew at a glance. The filmy, blank stare, the slack, open mouth, the utterly vacant appearance—like that of a birdcage whose feathered inhabitant had flown—the look he'd come to know so well in the last weeks, told all. Wherever Jamrog was, he was no longer among the living.

He sighed and tossed aside his weapon. How do you threaten a corpse?

Treet was so immersed in the quandary of what to do next, he failed to notice the shadow creeping toward him over the broken ground. But he heard the rustle of clothing and the whistling sound of something flying through the air toward him, and ducked.