Realms of Light (25 page)

I knew that surrender wasn’t going to happen,
though, not the way they were discussing. It was a decoy.
Shinichiro didn’t know we had a copy of the old man running; he
thought he was talking to Yoshio-
sempai
, and as long as they
were talking, the upload wouldn’t expect to find the old man
anywhere else.

“Clever,” I said, as Yoshio-
kun
argued
with Shinichiro about which members of the family would be allowed
to remain in the compound. “But it’s going to figure it out
eventually. We need to get out of here, get you somewhere safe. It
knows you shut down those floaters, it knows you’re up to
something...”

The old man raised a finger. “It is not
certain of the floaters. The ship’s firewall recorded their last
second or so of output and looped it, so my false son is still
receiving transmissions, even if those transmissions don’t make
sense. It can’t be sure of what happened; it is receiving error
messages, not silence.”

“That’s clever, too,” I acknowledged. “But it
still controls everything outside the ship; are you planning to
live in here indefinitely?”

“No,” he said. “I am going to take back my
home.”

“How?”

“Mis’ Hsing,” he said, “do you think I
survived this long without learning to take precautions?”

“I know that whatever precautions you took,
that piece of gritware seems to have gotten past them and hacked
the whole place.”

“Shinichiro has indeed compromised the family
nets. That can be dealt with.”

“How? You can’t shut off access the way you
would for an outside attack; it
lives
in the net! And it’s
not stupid—it must be distributed all through the place, with
back-ups everywhere, you can’t just cut its server out of the
system.”

“Nonetheless, I can deal with it.”

“How?”

“You will see. I dare not be too specific,
lest Shinichiro might somehow overhear. Now, can you spare me some
clothing? I prefer to be less recognizable.”

I still had no idea what he was up to, but it
was obvious I wasn’t going to talk him out of it. I decided to go
along for the moment.

My spare worksuit was small even for
Grandfather Nakada, and he asked whether perhaps Minish Singh might
have something he could wear. I explained that none of my
passengers had had an opportunity to pack anything, that all three
had come aboard with nothing but what they were wearing—which was
nothing, in my father’s case.

“Then this will have to do,” he said,
starting to pull on the garment.

I left the cabin, ostensibly to give him some
privacy, but then headed to the control deck to talk to Perkins,
and convince him to get us the hell out of there.

He listened to me calmly, then said, “I’m
sorry, Mis’ Hsing, but I take my orders from Mis’ Nakada. If he
doesn’t want to go, then we aren’t going.”

“But he’s going to get himself killed!”

“That’s his privilege.”

“Death isn’t a privilege, you blue-eyed
fool!”

“I hardly think racial epithets are called
for, Mis’ Hsing.”

I glared at him, and was about to say
something else, when the old man came up behind me. He had Singh
with him.

“What’s going on?” Singh asked.

“You are about to earn yourself a lucrative
position with Nakada Enterprises,” Yoshio told him.

“He is?” I asked.

“He is. And you, Mis’ Hsing, are about to
earn your fee and a generous bonus.”

“How?” I asked.

“By serving as my bodyguards while I put an
end to this insurrection.”

I looked at Singh. “Has he told you what’s
going on?”

“No,” Singh said.

“There is a severe software problem,” the old
man said, before I could speak. “I am going to deal with it. You
two are going to defend me while I do it.”

“Defend you from what?” Singh asked.

“Floaters, probably,” I said. “Maintenance
equipment, household security systems, that sort of thing.”

“Precisely,” Grandfather Nakada said. “Mis’
Hsing has her own weapon, but I believe Captain Perkins can provide
you with a sidearm, Mis’ Singh. The ship will be using its own
armament, such as it is, to assist us.”

“It will?” Perkins asked.

“The ship has armament?” I asked.

“It does, and it will.”

Perkins and I exchanged glances.

“My personal floater will also be aiding us,
as it has not been compromised,” the old man added.

“You’re sure of that?” I said.

“I am.”

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“There is a service tunnel beneath my
personal apartments.”

“I’m sure there is. So what?”

“I will show you when we get there.”

Again, I looked at the others, but they
seemed just as unenlightened as I was.

“We should go, before Shinichiro can prepare
further defenses.”

I suspected it had all the defenses it
needed, but I didn’t see any point in arguing. I was either going
to go with the old man now, or I was going to quit entirely.

And I didn’t think it was too late to quit.
The Shinichiro upload might let me go; I sure didn’t think my odds
of survival were any
worse
if I told Grandfather Nakada to
flush his job.

But I didn’t. I checked to be sure my gun was
loaded and powered up, and then I said, “Let’s go.”

We went.

Singh and I came out the airlock door first,
so that the old man would be behind us, harder to see. He had a
holofield up to hide his face, but we didn’t think that would fool
anyone for long, especially not in the daylight. The sun was low in
the west, but still brighter than I liked; I blinked. A lot.

There were long black shadows stretching
across the landing field, looking ominous and alien.

The blue-and-silver floater was waiting for
us, and the four of us, three humans and the floater, moved down
the ramp in a group.

The cloud of floaters had surrounded the
ship; now a couple of dozen of them came swooping around to
intercept us. I tried to look innocuous, and hoped the others would
follow my lead.

“Hold your fire,” the old man whispered.

“Excuse me,” Shinichiro’s voice said from one
of the larger floaters, one with a red-velvet finish and a single
gleaming, copper-colored hand. “Where are you going?”

“Mis’ Nakada ordered us off the ship,” I
said. “He told us to go to his quarters and wait there. Care to
point us in the right direction?” I kept walking as I spoke; the
floater turned to keep pace with us.

“Mis’ Hsing, your employment is done,” it
said. “You should leave.”

“Tell the old man,” I said. “It’s his ship,
and he ordered us off.”

“Please identify yourselves. I do not
recognize two of you.”

“This is Minish Singh,” I said, pointing as
we walked. “He used to work for Seventh Heaven Neurosurgery. And
this is Zarathustra Pickens; he was involved in my little quarrel
with your grand-niece Sayuri awhile back.”

The floater’s camera lens swiveled, and then
the upload said, “Father, that’s very clever. Who am I really
speaking to on the ship?”

The old man didn’t answer it; instead he
tapped me on the shoulder and said, “Fire. Then run.”

I didn’t need to ask what he meant; I brought
the HG-2 up, pointed it at the big red floater, and pulled the
trigger.

I hadn’t had a chance to brace for the
recoil, and the gun jerked in my hand as it locked on the target
anyway, so it wasn’t pointing quite where I’d expected and I
probably wouldn’t have been ready anyway. It knocked me off my
feet. I hit the ground as the floater exploded, and kept rolling.
I’d shot the thing at close range, and the HG-2 was designed to
take out anything you’d find living in a gravity field up to three
gees, so I’d expected some shrapnel, but apparently that floater
had been carrying something combustible. It went off like a bomb,
spraying glass and metal and plastic in all directions.

Hell, maybe it was designed to, as a
defensive measure.

The blast left me slightly stunned; my ears
were ringing and a sort of blurry after-image had me half-blinded.
I rolled until I was on my belly, arms guarding my eyes, and I lay
there for a moment while my symbiote started repairing the
damage.

When the rattle of falling debris ended I
uncovered my face and looked around.

The explosion had taken out several other
floaters, but there were still plenty—but as I watched, most of the
ones nearest the ship made fizzing noises and fell. I didn’t see
anything, but I felt my scalp tighten and the skin on the back of
my hands crawled, and I guessed it was some sort of electromagnetic
pulse from
Ukiba
.

The blue-and-silver one that was supposed to
be on our side was zigzagging, trying to knock away more.

And Singh had scooped up Yoshio and slung him
over one shoulder, and he was running toward the door the old man
had aimed us at. He was holding his passenger in place with one
hand, and the other was waving the gun Perkins had supplied, but he
wasn’t firing. He probably didn’t know how the thing worked.

There was blood on the plastic surface of the
landing field, but I didn’t know whose. The explosion must have cut
someone up, I thought, but whether it was the old man, or Singh, or
me, I couldn’t tell right away.

The surviving floaters, other than ours,
seemed to be disorganized at first, drifting about aimlessly, but
as I got to my feet they began to reorient themselves, heading for
Singh and his burden.

I took a step while I checked my gun, then
broke into a run, following the others.

Singh batted a small floater aside, but
didn’t use his weapon the way it was meant to be used. I was
gaining on the big man; he wasn’t in great shape and he was
carrying a passenger, which more than compensated for his longer
legs. I could hear him panting, and I could hear the old man saying
something, but I couldn’t make out the words.

A big black floater with a golden badge
emblem was approaching—a security bot. Singh wouldn’t be able to
swat
that
one away. I lifted my gun and said, “The black
floater.” I saw how close to Singh it was, and added, “Minimize
collateral damage.”

I heard the gun whir slightly as it readied
itself. Then I squeezed the trigger.

I don’t know exactly what sort of round the
gun had selected, but it was a tracer—I saw the red streak as it
punched a neat hole through the center of the security floater.
Then I was sitting on my ass again; the HG-2’s recoil was more than
I could handle while running no matter what it fired. I got back up
as the black floater hit the ground; it hadn’t just dropped, it had
veered off at an angle, still under power but no longer controlled.
It bounced, hit again, then scraped along, twisting over onto one
side.

Singh had reached the door, but it didn’t
open until Grandfather Nakada reached around and did something, I
couldn’t see what. Then the comforting glow of artificial light
appeared, gentler and more even than the harsh glare of Eta Cass A,
and I ran for it, hobbling slightly—I’d injured my right hip
somehow, probably from landing badly after I fired the gun.

I caught up to Singh about three meters
inside the passage, at the top of a metal staircase.

I hadn’t seen a stairway like that in years,
and with my hip not wanting to cooperate I was pretty awkward
clambering down; Singh did better, even with the old man on his
shoulder, and at the foot of the steps he set Yoshio back on his
own feet.

I was close enough now to see that Singh had
a long cut on his face, from just above his left eye back to his
left ear; a piece of that red floater must have gouged him there.
Grandfather Nakada had several small gashes, as well.

“This way,” the old man said.

I glanced up and saw a line of four floaters
approaching the steps. I started to say something, then saw that
Yoshio had spotted them, too.

“Through here,” he said, pointing at a door.
Singh hurried over to it.

It didn’t open. He looked for a panel or
sensor and didn’t find one, but there was a round metal handle.

“Turn the knob,” the old man said.

Singh turned to look at him as if he’d gone
mad; apparently he’d never heard of doorknobs, or maybe he just
couldn’t imagine he was actually seeing one. I pushed past him,
grabbed the knob in both hands, and turned.

It turned easily, actually, and I heard a
mechanism click, but the door still didn’t open.

“Push on it,” Yoshio said, exasperated.

I pushed on the knob, and the door swung open
on hinges. The three of us hurried through, and I realized we’d
lost our floater. It was probably still upstairs, trying to block
the entrance.

When we were through the door the old man
turned and pushed it shut, then ordered Singh, “Hold it closed.
Lean on it.”

Singh nodded, and threw himself against the
door, pressing his weight onto it.

Yoshio nodded, then beckoned to me. “This
way,” he said.

I didn’t need directions; we were in a
corridor that only went one way, straight ahead. I followed on the
old man’s heels.

We stopped in front of a metal panel in one
wall. The old man worked a mechanical latch, and the panel swung
open; he reached inside, grabbed a lever, and heaved.

There was a loud clank, and the corridor
abruptly went dark, utterly dark. Then there was a series of thuds,
not quite like anything I’d ever heard before, marching away into
the distance.

And after that, the sound—I’d never heard
anything like it. All the humming and whirring that was always
there, everywhere I ever went, suddenly dropped in pitch and then
died away completely.
All
of it.

And there we were, in complete blackness and
total silence, the most absolute silence I ever experienced.