Infinite Day (21 page)

And there were other issues. As he walked round on a tour of inspection with the engineer, Merral felt that the mood of the ship had changed. The shadows seemed more prevalent, some where, by every rule of optics, they ought not to be. There were pockets of cold, too, where men and women shivered and walked on swiftly. A single recurrent thought tugged at Merral's mind: We are in enemy territory.

Yet as time passed the pattern established on the second day stayed in place and deepened. Framed by morning and evening fellowship and broken up with exercise and regular meals, the training and planning continued. The snipers practiced on long- and short-barreled weapons in a specially modified room on level 2, and in another series of compartments the general soldiers rehearsed an assortment of maneuvers from the ancient manuals, including storming rooms, rescuing hostages, and taking prisoners. Some procedures remained theoretical—no one dared to fire the armor-penetrating bullets or explode the neuro-stun grenades they had recreated from ancient designs from the Library. But they studied as many weapons as possible. Merral, who joined in as much of the training as he could manage, expressed the rule of practice thus: “Because we cannot be sure of the specific setting we will have to fight in, we will practice as many techniques as we can.”

During spare time, everyone kept active. Merral turned his attention to learning enough Saratan to pass as the captain of a medical ship. Others also studied Saratan, while some played chess or took part in a basketball league.

At lunch on the third day, Merral noticed a number of crew clustering around one of the soldiers. He walked over to find that Slee Banias, a muscular, sharp-eyed man with wild curly hair that seemed oddly at variance with his neat, pointed beard, was passing round a sketchbook filled with crisp black-and-white caricatures of the crew. Merral glanced at them and found himself impressed at the wit and skill of the drawings.

“These are good, Slee.”

“Thanks. I was training as an artist.” The voice was quiet and sadly reflective. “Then everything changed, and here I am.”

I can sympathize with that.
“Here we are.”

Slee nodded. “Sir—Merral. I was wondering . . . the ship is awful bare. The gathering room has that large white wall. I was thinking about a mural.”

“Of what?”

“Of us all. The team. Like these sketches.”

“Good idea. Do it.” Then an idea struck Merral. “But don't let's have us in uniform. Show us as we once were. And as, by God's grace, we may yet be again.”

Slee gave a smile and a salute and left.

There were many responses to the changes on the
Star
. Luke took over the internal communication system and filled the ship with recordings of bright and cheerful hymns, songs, and Bach cantatas. And no one could say whether it was a coincidence, but while the music played, the forms seemed to be rarer and less substantial.

But the manifestations still continued. Merral talked with Azeras about the phenomena. “Are they likely to get worse?” he asked.

“Commander, I do not know.” The drawn gray face appeared tired, but Merral felt it hard to judge such things in the strange monochrome world they now existed in.
We all look like corpses now.
It was a thought he wished he hadn't had.

“We are about as deep as I have ever been. So far things seem fairly mild.” Azeras scowled. “Rumor has it that only a little bit lower the manifestations start to notice
you
are there.” He made the gesture of warding off evil. “But there is no consistency about the Nether-Realms. Things may change in seconds. So far, you have been spared; the effects have been minor. But we are heading deeper by the hour. Let's see what happens.”

That afternoon, Merral and a few others looked at the armor suits that had been brought up out of the hold. As Merral examined the helmets, jacket, leggings, and boots, he remembered having seen men clad in this at Fallambet. Then he had assumed it was heavy; now he realized that it was surprisingly light. As he held it, he was unable to decide whether the fine-spun material it was made of was metal or synthetic or some hybrid of the two. Tilting it, he saw how the gray tone changed.

Azeras caught his gaze. “An active surface; it changes color in the light. There's a lot of circuitry. Active patches, so you can put your name on the back and sides. Note the biometric sensors. They work better if you have bio-augmented circuits built in.” He flexed his left wrist and the back of his hand came alight. “But they emit signals indicating whether you are dead or alive or in trouble.”

Merral found a jacket and leggings that fitted him and tried them on. Although stiff, they adjusted to some degree, and Merral was pleased how little they impeded movements of his arms and legs.

“So what else does the suit do?” he asked Azeras.

“It absorbs impacts and diffuses heat very quickly. There is also an active wound-sealant system.” Azeras picked up a helmet and handed it over. “Try this.”

As Merral put it on, he was disconcerted to feel the neck section unroll downward and fuse with the jacket and something slide out to press against his ears. Azeras touched the side of the helmet and the visor slid down. As it dropped Merral saw a stream of numbers and letters appear along the top of his vision.

He was aware that sounds were sharper and clearer.

“The visor is active. There are various data readouts and the usual mouthpiece communications. It also darkens against brilliant light and protects your vision. The earpieces can boost quiet sounds and enhance your hearing as well as blanking off loud noises.”

Merral moved his head, feeling uncomfortable. He hadn't cared for the space suit, but this was even more claustrophobic. Azeras was tapping the back of his suit. “You've even got help in the event of vacuum exposure or a gas attack. The suit seals up and you have enough oxygen in the small tanks to give you twenty minutes' air.”

With Azeras's aid Merral took the helmet off. “Whoever invented all that is clever.”

Vero, sitting on a crate and watching, gave a sour shake of his head. “Whoever invented that is long dead. What you're looking at is something that has evolved over twelve thousand years of battles. There, survival of the fittest really does count.”

Merral stared at the helmet, aware of his distaste for it and all it stood for. Then he took off the jacket, noticing for the first time the weird serpentine symbol of the Dominion high on the left-hand side.

“Very well, let's use them. But first let's cancel out that horrid emblem.”

For Merral, thoughts of arms and armor briefly receded that evening. The musical event was four songs by a duo and some tunes from a small jazz group and a Mozart string quartet, and the evening was rounded off with Charlie Chaplin in
City Lights
. Betafor joined them for the music and the film and commented afterward that though she found both interesting, as an Allenix unit she didn't “need a diversion.”

“Do you like music?” Merral asked.

“It is just vibrations.”

From the seventh day new and alarming phenomena were reported. For the first time there were noises: a barely audible faint rustling as if paper were being crumpled. Then came a faint, untraceable whispering and the sound of tiny footsteps that came and went. Some claimed to have heard far-off cries.

As if this were not enough, the manifestations seemed to become deeper and more solid. In the midmorning, Merral and Vero came across a hooded figure standing in a corridor that, had it not been faceless, might have been staring at them. And that night something that might—or might not—have been a dog wandered through the bedroom and had a bleary-eyed Lloyd reaching for a weapon.

Slee started work on his mural and soon drew attentive admirers who tried to guess who was being depicted. Merral was portrayed early on as a man in muddied clothes holding a small tree in one hand and a trowel in another.

For several days, the manifestations faded and were rarely seen. Instead, the effects seemed to be psychological. On the morning of the ninth day, Merral woke with a strange and terrible sense of desolation. He felt with an unshakable certainty that the mission was doomed and resolved to meet with Luke after the morning service to see how they could give up and return. As he stood there at the service wrapped in despair, the chaplain walked to the front.

“Who here has in the last few hours felt overwhelmed by dread or fear?” Luke asked.

At first, with slow reluctance and then with ever-increasing speed, three quarters of those present put up their hands. Without expression, Luke cast his dark eyes slowly around and nodded. Then he put his own hand up. “And what's wrong with the rest of you?”

Amid relieved laughter, he ordered the singing of the most triumphant hymns in the Assembly songbook, and the darkness lifted.

That evening someone reported hearing a child crying. When he slept, Merral had new dreams, but these were graphic and potent ones, centered on Anya. They left him feeling both guilty and vulnerable.

The loss of color began to weigh on minds. Soon, the very idea of color began to be no more than a fantastic memory. Indeed, sometimes Merral wondered whether he really had known such a thing. Had it all been a myth? Even with closed eyes, it became hard to imagine reds and yellows, pinks and oranges, and all the innumerable shades of green in leaves. Others apparently felt the same. Fortunately some of his dreams were peaceful and in color, making sleep a blessing.

Some people became irritable, others depressed. There were complaints about the food. By day eleven, emotions were running so high during a basketball match that angry shouting erupted between the two sides. As a result it was agreed that it would be better to do things that united rather than divided, and the tournament was dropped.

Yet Azeras grunted to Merral, with apparently genuine amazement, how remarkably limited the effects were. He seemed to think about something and said quietly, “I might almost believe—only almost, mind you—that you have someone looking after you.”