Infinite Day (89 page)

“Two!”

“Three!”

He flung himself forward and down into the water. As he dived, he twisted slightly so that he was partly looking upward.

The blue sky turned a livid, brilliant orange. It was so brilliant that even under the water Merral found himself blinking. The water shook with a pounding series of deep vibrations as if the surface were being smacked ferociously by a giant hand.

He saw an orange light—dark edged—that seemed to roll over the surface of the water.

Merral's shallow dive had left his feet close to the surface, and he was suddenly conscious that they were getting warm. He tucked them down so that they touched the sandy floor just beneath him.

Now there came a new, rapid, and higher-pitched series of thuds. All about him the water seemed to be churning with bubbles.

Above the water he could see that the blue was returning, but in it was something very dark and solid.
Like a low thundercloud over the water
.

Merral felt his lungs tighten.
I will have to surface
. The cacophony of sound, oddly muted and distorted by the water, continued.

Eventually, he could hold his breath no longer. He shot to the surface, his lungs ready to explode.

Voraciously gulping air that was strangely warm and metallic, Merral looked up to see a massive disk floating in the sky above him. From it, great bursts of flame were spurting out with a deafening hammering noise.

Merral spun round and looked back toward the beach.

The scene was astonishing. Clouds of black smoke, edged with flame, bubbled and steamed upward from a tormented water surface, whipped into a fury of tiny columns of foam by an endless hail of bullets. Only a handful of Krallen were visible, and as he watched, they disintegrated into fragments.

There was a roar from the machine above, and a blast of turbulent, oily flame raced across the waters and onto the beach. In its wake, steam rose from the sea.

“Well, glory!” said Vero, next to him. “Someone is enjoying themselves.”

“Get on board!” said the voice.

Merral looked at Vero. “That sounds like—”

“Lloyd?”

They looked upward to see a wire ladder unraveling down toward them.

A new wave of firing was unleashed with such force that they could see the ship shuddering under the recoil. Above its fury could be heard maniacal cries of delight.

“It
is
Lloyd.” Merral grabbed the ladder. “And he
is
enjoying himself!”

As he clambered up the ladder, Merral remembered the two attack skimmers in the hold of the
Sacrifice
.
I
can piece together the rest.

As he and Vero clambered through a narrow hatchway, the ship began to swing round.

Dripping water, Merral walked forward into the rear of the narrow cabin.

Laura was piloting and she didn't look up. “Welcome aboard, Commander, Vero. Don't get water on the equipment.
Please
.” The pleasure in her voice was unmistakable.

The hull vibrated violently as a thrashing, percussive noise echoed through the ship.

Laura threw Merral a smile. “Lloyd's been waiting for this for some time. Sergeant!” she ordered. “Playtime is over. Time to go home. And this one is mine.”

The tower had come into view. The devastation in front of it was enormous; through the smoke Merral could see that the sand was pockmarked with craters and littered with burning Krallen.

The landing strip with Lezaroth's squat vessel came into view.

“Now, watch,” Laura said, tapping keys and glancing at a screen.

The vessel gave a tiny lurch, and two black points on trails of flame raced out from below them. In a second, the vessel and landing strip erupted in a blooming chrysanthemum of smoke and flame.

“Nice.
Very nice,
” Laura murmured. “You could get a taste for that.”

Then she tugged on the control column and the vessel began accelerating upward.

“Did I say,” Merral said quietly, “how pleased we are to see you?”

“The feeling is mutual. Sorry about the delay. Lloyd was busy reading the manuals.”

“Lezaroth's ship: isn't that around?”

The G-force was building up and Merral found a seat.

“We snuck up on it half an hour ago and hammered some holes in the hull. It's fled into Below-Space, but it's in a bad state of repair. We don't think it's going to trouble us.”

Merral fastened the seat belt. “So how did you find us?”

“We didn't leave Jigralt. We hung around in Below-Space listening in with Betafor.”

“Of course.” Delastro wouldn't have realized that was possible.

“Anyway, he posted a flight plan with the Gate Station. So we just found the coordinates and headed off through Below-Space. We arrived about five days ago. We were trying to find you when Lezaroth turned up.”

The sky was turning dark blue, and the first points of starlight were appearing.

“Where are we?”

“He didn't tell you? Lathanthor.”

“Lathanthor? Ah yes. I've heard of it. A late-stage seeding world. So how far are we from Earth?”

“About a hundred and five light-years.”

Abruptly the rear door opened and a large-framed man entered. Lloyd moved slowly against the G-forces and sank gratefully into a spare seat. Merral smelled the smoke lingering on him.

There was a happy nod. “Good to see you, sir. And you too, Mr. V.”

“Sergeant, good to see you. Thanks for the rescue.”

“My pleasure. This thing packs some firepower.” He waved his palms wide. “I have blisters on my hands.”

“Did you get Lezaroth?”

“That's not confirmed. If he was smart he'd have taken cover.”

“Well, you can't have everything.”

In the darkness of the sky above, a silver object that was too angular to be a star was growing closer.

“Sergeant, I do have to say I gave you express orders to head to Earth. You disobeyed. All of you.”

His aide looked thoughtful and then winked at him. “We thought about it, sir. And then we realized that if we didn't go after you, we really wouldn't be Assembly, would we?”

“Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery,” Vero observed.

In twenty minutes the attack skimmer had docked and been drawn inside the cavernous vessel hold of the
Sacrifice
.

Anya was waiting beyond the air lock, trying—and failing—to conceal her joy. Ignoring Merral's still-wet clothes, she hugged him. “Well, Tree Man, how surprising; you went to ground in the forest.”

“I was in my element.”
It's good to be back. Very good
.

She turned to Vero. “How was it?”

He gave a dismissive shrug. “A walk in the park.”

29

P
ausing only to change his clothes, Merral headed to the bridge. After consulting with Laura and the navigator, they decided to head to Hamalal, a world ten light-years away where there was a Gate.

Then, as they headed down into Below-Space, Merral and Vero ate.

Afterward, feeling almost elated, Merral set about checking up on the
Sacrifice
. As the colors were ebbing away he found Jorgio in his room. The old man could barely contain his pleasure and kept hugging him. “I'm so glad to see you, Mister Merral. I've spent long hours praying for you.”

Merral threw himself into the spare chair. “Your prayers are answered. I—we—survived.”

“More than survived, it seems to me. You've lost a burden.”

“Yes, I have. It was what I needed, Jorgio. A chance to sort myself out, deal with my pride.”

They shared smiles and then Merral asked, “How are things with you?”

Jorgio gave him a shake of the head. “I'm fine, but there's trouble brewing, Mister Merral. I can feel it. Evil's growing in the Assembly.” He ran his tongue round his lips in an odd, almost animal gesture. “At times I think I can taste the evil. There's something rotting.”

Jorgio's gloomy diagnosis was confirmed later when Merral and Vero saw some of the material that had been collected from the various transmissions monitored at Jigralt. It included broadcasts by the prebendant and a compilation of older speeches. After an hour's viewing of the material, Merral realized that Delastro and his Guards of the Lord were now a major and growing factor in the Assembly.

“Vero, does he want power?”

“Yes. But I think only as the means to an end. He genuinely wants to destroy the Dominion. This is just the byproduct.” Vero sighed. “But, my friend, if a man becomes a tyrant, does it matter if it happens by accident or design?”

Later, Merral's unease acquired a new focus when he talked with Betafor. After thanking her for her work in facilitating his rescue, he asked her if there was anything new he ought to know.

“Commander, after a lot of work, I have managed to decrypt the files of Professor Habbentz.”

“I had almost forgotten those. Tell me about them.”

“I will show you the diagrams on the screen.”

After a few minutes, Merral stopped Betafor, summoned Vero, and made her start all over again. After she had finished, Merral dismissed her so that he and Vero could talk alone.

Merral ordered the main diagram to slowly loop so that the screen showed endless explosions of a gray sphere expanding in a tidal wave of white light.

“Vero, what do you think?”

After a considerable silence, he answered. “It's too big to take in. A sun—whole worlds—being consumed. It's g-ghastly.”

“I am shocked. I need to think about it more and order my thoughts, but I can't believe that a weapon like this is for us to use.”

Vero put his head between his hands for long moments and then looked up. “You're right. But if we can get to Earth, you will have to argue it, and argue it well.”

“I will pray and think exactly how, and what, to say.”

“You will have to come up with an alternative, you know.”

“
No
. We need no alternatives for evil to be rejected. There may be no alternative except fight until we drop.”

“That is an easy phrase.” Vero rose to his feet, switched off the image, and then turned to Merral. “But you're right. The attractiveness of this weapon is that, to fearful men and women, it appears to be an easy solution.”

“Easy solutions are not necessarily the right ones.”

Suddenly Merral saw Vero give him a strange, almost admiring, look. “You know, my friend, you have grown. You have often fallen and come close to disaster, but I think you now see things more clearly than I do.”

“Vero, I doubt that. But I have no option but to oppose this. For another reason.”

“Which is?”

“I made a promise that I would do all I could to protect Slabodal and, if possible, to rescue him from Nithloss.”

“Yes. At the time I thought it a typical piece of Merral rhetoric. Noble but impractical. Do you think he would keep the promise were the shoe on the other foot?”

“The other . . . ? Oh, never mind; I get the sense. No, but that's irrelevant.”

“True.”

“But surely the Assembly will not agree to this weapon? The sentinels, the stewards, the Custodians of the Faith? Won't they oppose it?”

“A few weeks ago, I would have said yes. But now?” Vero looked troubled. “The fact is, my friend, we have been caught out by evil throughout. Things that we thought unthinkable have happened.”

“You think Delastro can push this through?”

“Not alone. But
fear
and Delastro might.”

“That just confirms that we need to get there soon.”

“And that may be easier said than done.”

For all the urgency, it still took another four days to get to Hamalal. The time did, however, allow Merral and Vero to somewhat regain their strength, although neither put on weight.