The Stars Blue Yonder (41 page)

Cohen hadn't been happy about being left behind and she wished
now there'd been room for him. He could have pointed out exactly where in the underground cavern he'd last seen Myell. Then again, maybe that was a detail she didn't need burned into her brain. For all her brave words she was afraid that he really wasn't coming back to her again. Surely the favor of the gods ran out at some point as they went and found new humans to toy with, new fools to send careening across the universe on fruitless quests.

“Are you happy now that you've seen it?” Osherman asked.

“No,” Jodenny admitted.

He put a hand on her shoulder. She didn't swat it away. He said, “Let's go. It'll be sunset soon, and I'm not sure how that thing flies at night.”

Jodenny stared past the archway. “No. I'm not leaving.”

“You're what?” Osherman asked.

“Not leaving,” she said. “Not yet.”

Osherman's confusion deepened. “Why not?”

Jodenny dropped her gaze to her skirt. Her face warmed. “Because I think my water just broke.”

Something rough and hard nudged Myell toward the surface.

“Do I have to do everything for you?” a voice asked.

He broke from water to air and gasped in breath. The back of his head hurt as if it had been cleaved open with an ax. The lights hanging from the ceiling blurred and swung in his vision. Cold water pushed and pulled on him from all sides and he wasn't sure he was even treading water correctly—it kept sluicing up his nose, and his ears were full of it, and he couldn't stop choking.

He was sure he'd heard a voice, though. Even more sure that someone had pushed him to the surface. “Tom?” he asked. Of Cappaletto there was no sign. “Tom!”

No Cappaletto, no Bell. Darling and the rest had also disappeared. The ceiling was still trying to collapse into the lake and more rocks glanced off his shoulders and arms as he tried to protect himself. He knew it would be easier to simply sink into the cold black water but he started swimming away. His legs and arms didn't seem coordinated; they flailed around like the floppy arms of a marionette cut loose from
its strings. The Painted Child telescoped away in his vision, then was so close he could almost touch it, and then his face smashed up against something else entirely.

Anger surged through Myell. All he'd ever wanted was a nice career in the military. He'd fled Baiame not in search of adventure but instead some travel, a steady paycheck, the chance to find himself. The best part was falling in love and marrying Jodenny. The worst part? Moments like now.

His fingers scraped by a metal pole and grasped it automatically. The next thing he knew, he was pulling himself up on the twisted catwalk and vomiting up water. The lights above him were blurry and indistinct; half had gone out, leaving the cavern in shadows. But he could see some kind of movement and that cheered him—Cappaletto and Bell must have somehow survived, because there they were on dry ground, pointing to him.

Myell squinted. Funny how one adult human and one little kid could look like heavily armored Roon soldiers. Behind them, more figures scurried through an opening in the wall, and wasn't it funny that they too looked like Roon.

Still coughing up water, he clung to the catwalk and evaluated his position. The metal wreckage had been pushed by the river to a point halfway between the Painted Child and the Roon's spit of ground. The water was still rising, but the ceiling was no longer collapsing in a hail of missiles. If he stayed where he was, he'd eventually drown. If he swam to the Painted Child and made it inside, he might drown before the ouroboros came. The blue ring wasn't due for several more hours, during which time the Roon would be happy to torture him.

The alien soldiers were now shouting at him in their own language, and some were starting to wade into the water. He didn't think that rescuing him, wrapping him in a warm blanket, and serving up hot soup were part of their agenda.

Myell let go of the catwalk and started swimming toward the Painted Child.

Osherman asked, “Are you sure?”

“I don't know,” Jodenny said. Her skirts were wet, yes, but she was
still two weeks away from her due date. Fear made her shiver. She couldn't imagine giving birth in this dark cave in the middle of nowhere.

Osherman was pale in the torchlight. “Maybe you had an accident. You told me sometimes, near the end, it could happen.”

“I didn't piss myself,” Jodenny retorted. But the Digital Duola was reminding her that it was indeed a possibility. She wasn't having contractions, after all.

“Sit down.” Osherman helped her and looked at her clothing. “You need to clean up, and we need a dry cloth.”

She knew what he had in mind. While Tulip and Osherman both turned away, she wiped herself. In the meager light she couldn't tell if the liquid was urine or amniotic fluid, though it smelled more like urine. Jodenny ripped off part of her skirt and folded it several times to form a pad. She lay back on the rock, waiting to see what slid out next.

“Maybe Tulip can go get help,” Osherman said.

Jodenny knew then that she wasn't the only one who was frightened. “Middle of nowhere, remember?”

He sat down beside her on the rock. “Contractions?”

“No.”

“Pain anywhere?”

“No.”

“Can I get you anything?”

“Sam,” she said, as patiently as she could. “Go walk around. Explore. Bond with Tulip. I'm not going anywhere.”

He didn't go far, but at least now she had some breathing room. Jodenny turned all of her attention into her own body. junior wasn't moving much so she prodded her belly and got a tiny squirm in return. Maybe junior was conserving energy for the ordeal to come. She certainly didn't seem in any hurry to come squeezing between Jodenny's legs.

Stay in there
, Jodenny thought.
Now's not a good time
. Not in this dirty place where Myell had drowned, or would drown in the future. For all her faith, now that they were actually here looking at the Painted Child, she couldn't make herself believe he had survived what Cohen had seen. Not with rocks raining down on his skull and the whole cave collapsing into rubble.

She wasn't carrying a watch, and there were no convenient clocks hanging on the walls. Jodenny had no way of telling time. Maybe twenty minutes or so passed before she dared prop herself up and check the pad. No more fluid had come out.

“What do you think?” Osherman asked, returning.

“I think it's okay,” she said.

He grinned in relief. Jodenny smiled back, her anger forgotten.

Tulip, who'd been sitting on a rock contemplating the Child, abruptly stood up and walked toward the part of the cave that led upward. A moment later, Jodenny heard the scrape and patter of approaching footsteps. She sat up with Osherman's help and turned to watch. Seven Aboriginal men in traditional dress—which was not much dress at all, mostly paint and belts—had climbed down the ropes and vines. Tulip went to them, and held an animated discussion before he returned to Jodenny and Osherman.

“These are my brothers and cousins,” he said. “They dreamt of the gods. They say it's time.”

Osherman asked, “What time?”

“Someone's coming.”

Which is when Jodenny heard the low, haunting sound of an approaching ouroboros.

“Right now,” Myell said into the darkness of the Painted Child, “I'll go anywhere you want. Whatever year. I mean it. But it would be especially helpful if you send me where Jodenny is.”

If it were just a question of using the blue ring, he'd carve her name on his arm. But this was the Painted Child's ring, and if dozens of Australian scientists couldn't figure out how to direct it, he didn't have a chance in this freezing darkness, with the water pushing him up against the ceiling. The Sphere wasn't impermeable: somewhere air was being pushed out of cracks or tiny holes. In a few moments he'd be underwater and a few moments after that he'd drown.

He guessed that left him alone with the gods. Certainly the children had disappeared, as had the abandoned machinery that had been on the floor.

“I don't think I'm asking for much,” he said, and in his mind he was
directing the words to Kultana. He reconsidered. Maybe asking for anything at all was like lifting planets or extinguishing stars; maybe because it was so easy to do, he never considered the actual enormity of it.

Still, he didn't have much choice. If the ring came, it was going to take him away
somewhere
. Better to Jodenny and junior, wherever Homer had stashed them.

Homer. Wind-not-sea. He hadn't had much time to think about having a half-human, half-crocodile son, and there wasn't much time left to worry about it.

The water kept pushing him higher. The ceiling that had been an arm's length away was now so close he had to tilt his head back, and still the stone pressed against his nose. He only had a few gulpfuls of air left. He couldn't calm his own panicked breathing. His legs felt like useless blocks of wood, long tired of treading water. There was no grip for his hands, nothing to hold on to. When lights appeared in the water around him, he thought it might be the ouroboros. But they looked more like beams of flashlights. Roon flashlights. He could see bulky shapes in their illumination, all of them moving in menacing silhouettes.

Water engulfed him.

Time ran out.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Osherman said, “It's not him.”

Jodenny started toward the Painted Child. “You don't know that.”

“It can't be him,” Osherman said, cutting her off. “It's probably Homer. Whoever it is, it's not safe.”

She pushed past stalagmites and slippery stone. “Stay here,” he ordered, and hurried pell-mell across the jagged floor toward the arch.

The Aboriginals from Tulip's tribe had formed a circle and were chanting something loud and repetitive. Tulip had not joined them, but instead was there to help Jodenny.

“Sam!” She took a few more steps forward, but her legs were weak
and she couldn't get far. If not for Tulip's sudden assistance, she would have collapsed to her knees. “Sam, who is it?”

Silence from inside the Painted Child. The cavern filled with chanting, swelled up with it, and Jodenny's heartbeat stuttered in her own ears. If the visitor was Homer, she was going to kill him. If it was someone unknown from the future, she was going to tear her hair out with frustration. If it was—

Water poured out of the Painted Child. Cold water, rushing out from somewhere inside in a surge. The sudden tide chased after Jodenny as she retreated. For a moment she nearly panicked, thinking the entire cavern would flood, but the displaced water from the future spread itself out and trickled to a stop. Carried out on the last of it was Osherman, with Myell's limp body in both arms.

Jodenny was on her knees now, her skirts and hands wet, though she didn't remember falling forward. Osherman spread Myell on the ground before her. His clothes clung to him like icy pajamas and his lips were blue.

“He's got a pulse,” Osherman assured her. He put his lips on Myell's mouth and blew air into his lungs. No response. More air. Myell jerked, began choking. His eyes flew open. Osherman rolled him onto his side and more water came vomiting out of him.

“You're okay, you're okay,” Jodenny told him, close to his ear, her hands patting him all over. Her face was wet. She wasn't sure if she was dreaming or had gone totally insane, because here was the only thing she'd wanted all this time, and he was alive and breathing and throwing up against her legs, which was okay, more than okay, super okay, extraordinarily okay, and she was kissing his cheek and jaw and neck, anywhere she could find skin, only peripherally aware of Osherman leaning back on his haunches and exhaling shakily, as if he were the one who'd drowned.

Myell finally focused on her, and his hands found hers in a crushing grip. “You're here? You know me?”

“Of course I know you.” The words came out bubbled with a laugh and a sob. “It's about time.”

He arched up and kissed her, and she wasn't aware of Osherman at all anymore.

His lips were cold; all of him was cold. But he was heedless of it, because here was Jodenny in his arms, just as he'd prayed. She was much bigger than the last time he'd seen her, and somehow she managed to look beautiful and exhausted at the same time. Myell put his hand on junior's bump and was rewarded with a kick.

“She knows you're back,” Jodenny said, her eyes moist.

Myell forced himself to sit upright and look around. The cavern looked a lot different when it wasn't covered with catwalks or filling with water. The Painted Child looked dustier than it had in the last eddy. Sam Osherman was standing nearby with a tall Aboriginal man, and the expression on Osherman's face was inscrutable. A half-dozen other Aboriginals were gazing at Myell as if he were someone they'd been expecting.

“What year is it?” he asked.

Jodenny couldn't stop patting his cheeks, as if proving to herself he was really there. “1855.”

“Homer?”

“Haven't seen him.”

Myell turned his attention back to Jodenny. “You climbed all the way down into these caves?”

“Thought I'd go sightseeing,” she said, and buried her head against his neck.

He held her for several minutes, rubbing her back, murmuring in her ear any words he could think of to ease her trembling. It wasn't about words, of course. It was about holding and being held, and of tragedy nearly averted. Again.

Myell swung his gaze to Osherman. “Thank you.”

“Part of the Service,” Osherman said brusquely.

That Osherman could talk surprised him. It took a moment for him to remember the neural plug he'd been told about on the
Confident
. Tulip reminded them that sunset would be coming on fast aboveground, and it was best to get moving soon. Myell was still cold and soaking wet, and he was going to have spectacular bruises in the morning, but he was an enthusiastic supporter of any plan that got them out of the caves and up to fresh air and open skies.