Bringer of Light (40 page)

That worked. The only problem now was that he was facing the wrong way.

‘Taro! Quick! – you need to go left about twenty degrees.’

‘Whose fucking left, Jarek?’ Taro twisted his head to look behind at the
Heart of Glass
, oriented himself, and shimmied to his right. Just in time, he flew up and away from the box, which sailed neatly in through the open doors, missing the leftmost one by a handbreadth. Taro activated his suit’s forceshield and flew in after it.

The forceshield over the cargo-doors was a lot stronger than the one on the Consensus airlock; going through it was like leaping through a curtain of cold fire.

He curled, tucking in his head whilst telling his implants to bring him to a relative stop.

It worked, sort of: he hit the far wall, rolled up it, then hung there, spread-eagled upside down, getting his breath back. The landing might have gone better if he’d remembered to turn the lifter-harness off first. Better late then never. He touched the controls and felt its embrace loosen.

He grunted and slid down the wall, re-orienting to come up standing on shaking legs. The comabox had gouged the deck plating, then bounced off the wall, leaving a mark on the bulkhead and a dink in the corner of the box, to finally come to rest at an angle against the curving wall.

‘Fuck’, he muttered, and reached out with his mind. The box would’ve insulated Nual from vacuum and forceshields, but it didn’t have any inertial dampening.

Nual’s presence flickered at the edge of consciousness: she was still out of it. She might be injured, but just knowing she was in there, and alive, was a massive relief.

He crouched down to check the readouts on the box. The hacked bots who’d been reprogrammed to move it from storage to the airlock had also been told to start the wake-up cycle.

‘Is she all right?’

Jarek’s voice in his ear broke the faint contact with Nual. ‘Think so. I’m just checking.’

‘Any idea how long before she’ll be in a state to make the shift?’

‘Dunno. Wait a sec.’ He had another look at the control-panel. ‘This readout’s saying, um, twelve minutes before she’s fully conscious.’

‘And she’ll need a few minutes to get herself together after that. Shit. That’s not ideal.’

‘’cos of the mass-driver, you mean?’

‘Amongst other things. They tried to lob a whole bunch of junk at us with the ’driver just after you came aboard, and if we were still on the old vector it’d be hitting us about now. Fortunately we’re not. The bastards don’t realise how fast this ship can go when I really ramp her up.’

Taro glanced at the cargo-hold doors, now closed again. ‘So there’s nothing to worry about, right?’ Of course, if the Consensus
did
score a direct hit on the
Heart of Glass
, Taro wouldn’t know anything about it until it was too late.

‘Your faith is touching – and not misplaced, fortunately. Looks like that glitch you set off is working; none of the weapons are firing on us. Presumably the mass-driver’s intended to accelerate cargo, so it’s on a different system. I think they loaded it up with whatever was to hand and sent it after us more as a
fuck-you
gesture than because it’s an effective weapon.’

‘Sounds like you’ve got things under control.’ Taro hoped he had. There was something he needed to do down here before anything else intervened. He had a promise to keep.

Jarek snorted. ‘Did I mention the ships on intercept courses? Pretty much every vessel within half a light-second is heading this way, Taro – and there’s no way of knowing if any of them are on a suicide-trip.’

‘But we’re accelerating up from the main disc, ain’t we?’

‘Up, up and away. As soon as you and Nual are ready, we’ll shift. Meanwhile, I could use you up here monitoring sensors and getting the comp on the case if we need to take evasive manoeuvres. I need to prep the ship for transit.’

‘Uh, I’m sure you can manage without me—’

‘Look, Taro, I know you’re worried about Nual, but I could really use you on the bridge right now. You can nip back down in ten minutes and check on her—’

‘No! I mean, I have to stay here.’

‘Don’t piss me about, Taro! We’re not out of the woods yet.’

‘I’m sorry, I’ll come up as soon as I can, really I will.’ He cut the connection and blocked incoming com. Jarek might not be happy but Taro’s mission wasn’t over yet.

While they’d been talking he’d been checking out the cargo-hold. Jarek had moved the beacon back from the doors once the Consensus’ bots had got it aboard and passed over the controller for the force-cage.

The v-suit that’d been such a comfort in space felt stifling now he was on the ship. He double-checked the atmosphere, then ran a thumb along the neck seam and peeled back the hood. He took a big gulp of ship’s air and shivered; when he breathed out his breath steamed. The ship’s forceshield might have kept the atmosphere stable, but the ship’d lost heat while the doors were open.

He walked slowly around the cargo-hold. Despite the need to hurry, he wasn’t eager to get close to the beacon. That might be down to more than an over-active imagination; beacons were shit-powerful artefacts and even enclosed in a force-cage, some of that power could leak out. Still, this one wasn’t fully active yet – Vy’d said beacons didn’t come online until they’d taken their first trip through shiftspace. After that, getting too close to one would probably be fatal – and it would be too late to carry out Vy’s last wish. Right now the consciousness-fragment of whichever male had imprinted on the beacon was dormant; this was the only time it could be overwritten.

Looking at the force-cage made Taro’s eyes water – forceshields hurt the eyes; he knew that ’cos Khesh City was enclosed in one – though in this case the effect might be partly down to the beacon itself, a perfect sphere floating in the centre of the glowing orange cube. The swirling, multi-coloured surface made him feel sick whilst at the same time beguiling him;
keep looking
, it seemed to be saying silently,
keep looking and get sucked in
. . .

Taro tore his gaze away; blobby after-images danced across his vision. He checked the floor for the cage controller, but there was no sign of it; Jarek must’ve taken it up to the bridge once he’d stowed the beacon. Taro wasn’t sure how much use it would be anyway.

Did he really have to do this? If the Minister asked him, he could always say he tried – if he just flushed the chip, no one would know any better.

But he’d know, and Nual too, of course; he didn’t keep secrets from her. She wouldn’t condemn him – she’d understand. That would make it even worse.

He’d come too far not to finish this.

Vy had said an inert beacon couldn’t harm him, provided he didn’t actually touch it, but a forceshield strong enough to contain a beacon was another matter. Good job he had his own forceshield, though it was a pretty fucking feeble one in comparison. It’d just have to be strong enough—

He rolled the hood back up, guiding the smart-fabric over his head. The visor hardened as it slid down over his face. He opened his cache, shaking his arm until the empty dataspike fell onto the floor, then shaking it some more until the fingernail-sized gold chip dropped out. He caught it, wrapping his hand protectively around the tiny object, and made himself walk towards the force-cage. He refused to think about what he was about to do, but found himself wondering about the female component in the beacon: was it conscious? If it was anything like the transit-kernels, whose pain Taro could feel first-hand when he and Nual were together in the shift, then it was insane, beyond sense or salvation.

He stopped when he saw the bottom of the force-cage, his guts loosening and his heart thudding. Even through the v-suit, the power leaking from the shield was tickling the nape of his neck and making his teeth ache. He focused on his hands.
Do it quick and smooth, no hesitation.

He turned on the suit’s shield and thrust his hand through the force-cage.

He heard himself scream, but before he could register the pain he opened his hand, exposing the chip.

Afterwards, he decided he must’ve imagined the tickling sensation across his hand – after all, he was wearing a v-suit and had hardened palms. Vy had said something about ‘strange attractors’, laughing when he mentioned the phrase, like it was a joke. It was no joke now; Taro could sense it for himself; he could sense the chip being drawn into the beacon.

Something threw him back, hard.

His mouth was open and his head hurt. His hand hurt too. His head and hand hurt because . . . because . . .

He made himself close his mouth and open his eyes. No time to rest. He was too uncomfortable to sleep anyway, what with the headache and the pain in his hand, and the unpleasant squishy warmth lower down.

Nual was bending over him. He managed a smile for her.

She projected,

Mind-speech didn’t allow for evasion. Nual picked up the edge of his returning memories and dived straight in. Taro rode the sudden, disorientating rush as she absorbed a brief summary of his insane mission to the Consensus and his encounter with the beacon. Then the cargo-hold, and the pain, came back. He realised what the unpleasant sensation around his groin was: he must’ve crapped himself when the beacon knocked him out. Well, nothing he could do about it now. Good job he was still wearing the v-suit.

Nual’s voice was gentle in his head.

Taro didn’t feel ready, and Nual didn’t look it, but they didn’t have much choice.

Before he made the call, Nual helped him stand; she was using a mixture of Angel implants and Sidhe control to keep going. He used his own flight ability to take some of the strain as soon as he was upright. He avoided using the hand he’d put through the forceshield, though it didn’t hurt so much now. That was probably down to her, too, blocking the pain. All that mattered right now was that they manage to initiate transit before the Alephans took them out. Once they were in the shift their messed-up bodies wouldn’t matter; when he made a transit in unity with Nual, Taro lost all awareness of the physical world.

There would be hell to pay later, of course; there always was, one way or another.

When the suit put him through, Jarek responded at once, ‘I don’t know what the fuck you’ve been playing at down there but we need to go, now!’

‘I know, I’m sorry; I’ll explain later. Nual’s ready and so’m I. Just start the countdown: we’re on our way.’