Requiem (78 page)

'Wait,' said
Seline.

'What do you
mean, wait?! Find some cover before that thing blasts you!' said
Therin.

Sear reached
out to her.

'No,' she said
and she moved away toward the incoming sentinel. She stared
directly at the centre of its eye, watching it carefully as if she
expected something familiar to suddenly appear.

'What the fuck
is she doing?' said Carex.

Seline couldn't
be sure if it was a trick of a tired mind or if the red iris was no
longer as threatening as it once was.

Oxygen at 13
percent.

The exhaustion
in her lungs and heart was almost too much to bear. As she moved
closer the sentinel's red iris diminished. It became softer, less
intense until the redness transformed completely. It flickered off
and in its place shone a gentle, blue light. The sentinel continued
to approach. Seline held out her hand and placed it on its glassy
shell.

'It's alright,'
she said to the others. 'It's not going to hurt us.'

The sentinel
pulled away slightly and turned to look down the length of the
chute.

'It wants us to
follow it,' said Seline. She looked back at her companions. 'Come
on. There isn't much time.'

They
reluctantly left their cover and joined Seline. Carex kept his
rifle trained on the sentinel. The eye turned and guided them
upward.

Oxygen at 10
percent.

'How much
further does this damn chute go?' said Carex.

'I'm more
concerned with how we're supposed to get out of here,' said Therin.
'There was only one entrance into Icarus and that was through the
gate that we came through.'

'We don't have
much of a choice in the matter,' said Sear. 'We have to trust that
this thing knows what it's doing.'

They approached
the first wall – the middle layer of Icarus which Seline had
pierced on their way to its centre.

'Don't suppose
you've got any strength left in that arm?' Therin said to
Seline.

'No,' she said.
'The pistons are shot anyway. I'm not sure h-'

A flash of
light burst from the sentinel and fired off towards the wall.
Another shot then another, then another, until a shredded hole had
been formed in the wall.

'I wish we had
one of these before,' muttered Carex.

The sentinel
passed through the wall first, followed by the others. They
continued up. They stuck close to the wall of the chute to avoid
the bramble of pillars and tubes that stretched on as far as they
could see.

'We should have
scouted ahead,' said Sear. 'On our way in, we should have spent the
time checking for an easier way. Following this chute would have
saved us so much time.'

'Maybe not,'
said Therin. 'We still would have had to travel all the way up here
in the first place, we still would've had to break through that
shell, and we still would've had to fight off whatever sentinels
were on patrol. My bet would be that this place would've been
crawling with them.'

'The route we
took was the right one,' said Carex. 'Given the information
available and the circumstances.'

Sear said
nothing.

Oxygen at 8
percent.

The shaking had
decreased considerably as they approached the surface. A good or a
bad sign? Seline had no way of knowing.

Sear pointed to
a patch of stars, shining through a jagged hole in the far off wall
before them. There was a group of sentinels gathered around as if
to see them out. 'It's the surface,' he said. 'The sentinels have
already given us a way out.'

They emerged,
one by one from the hole and into the open space. First the guiding
sentinel then Seline, Sear, Therin, and Carex. The light from the
star was almost blinding. Seline turned off her night-vision and
turned her back to it.

They looked
down at the crown of Icarus. Slow and lumbering at first, the
entirety of its impossible bulk moved away beneath them and merged
into the endless wave of sentinels that moved about it, swarming
and swimming through empty space like piranha.

The shadows
passed around them, blocking out the star. So close Seline could
reach out and touch them.

Oxygen at 7
percent.

As Icarus moved
away so the shadows moved with it and the light was visible again.
But the blue eyed sentinel remained, hovering restlessly next to
Seline. She held her hand out to it and once again touched the
glassy surface. The warmth ran through her suit, into her skin. She
could hear her mother's voice.

I love you,
Seline. I always will.

'I love you
too,' she said, not knowing if her mother could hear her or
not.

The sentinel
moved silently away. It turned into the darkness, to join the
others.

Seline's hand
fell to her side. There was a bitter taste in her mouth and she
wanted badly to wipe the tears and sweat from her eyes.

She looked
across at Sear. Starlight lit up his half turned face. She could
see the smile on his lips and the colour in his eyes – the life and
strength that they held. She saw relief, happiness, sadness. She
saw everything she needed to see. She moved closer to Sear. She
wanted to kiss him again, to hug him at least but their suits and
helmets stood between them. She simply held out her hand to him and
he held it in turn.

'Where is it
going?' asked Carex.

'The black hole
in the Yeta system. She's going to throw Icarus into it.'

'She?' asked
Sear.

'My mother...
Florence.'

'You found
her?'

Seline nodded.
She kept her eyes fixed on Icarus and its sentinels. She knew the
others had questions, that they needed to understand what had
happened. For now, their trust in her had been repaid and so they
gave her a quiet moment of grace.

Sear was the
first to look back towards Darinus and Saranture. The others' eyes
soon followed. The moon was too far away to make out any real
detail but there were large blotches of orange light on its night
side.

'The cities are
burning,' said Sear.

'Were we too
late?' asked Carex

Therin turned
on her comm but it only fed back static. The others tried with the
same result.

'The
communications would have been the first thing Icarus targeted,'
said Sear.

Oxygen at 5
percent

They remained
silent for a long time. Seline was the only one who turned to watch
Icarus and the sentinels but she could barely see them now.

'Icarus is
almost at the Gate,' she said but the others didn't turn to look.
Seline watched as the Atlas Gate's light dimmed and then was
blocked out by Icarus and the sentinels. She kept her eyes fixed on
the patch of darkness until the glint of light returned.

Icarus had
departed.

Florence Esher,
once again, had departed.

Sear's hand
stretched out. He pointed back towards Saranture.

Seline turned
to see and noticed a small white speck moving across space, towards
the gate.

'It's a probe,'
said Sear. 'It's following Icarus.'

'That means
someone must still be alive down there, right? Someone had to send
that probe,' said Seline.

Sear said
nothing. He continued to look forward. Seline followed his eyes.
There was another, larger, white speck behind the probe but it was
following a different trajectory. It was heading towards them.

'What's that?'
asked Seline.

'Our ride
home,' said Sear.

Seline's hand
tightened around Sear's.

The vessel
pulled up next to them. It looked like a much smaller version of
the cruiser. About half its length and width. The ship rotated and
the lights around the exterior airlock door lit up. The group said
nothing and moved towards the hatch. It unlocked from the inside
and a swung outwards. Seline was the last to enter. She looked once
more at Saranture and then at the Atlas Gate. She wanted
desperately to follow Icarus. The thought was burning inside her.
Her heart was still beating hard in her chest. This wasn't over.
She knew that much.

She moved into
the airlock, closing the door behind her. Streams of air hissed
from the walls of the small chamber. It was not a pleasant sound
but Seline enjoyed it nonetheless. Not being able to hear the
surrounding sounds had made her feel oddly claustrophobic, had
given her a sense of separation from anything external to herself.
But hearing that air rush past her, even subdued from the helmet
she wore, brought the world back to her.

She let the
sound wash over her and the chamber fill. When the light on wall
flicked off she undid the seals and yanked the helmet from her
head. Sear had done the same. He dropped his helmet and let it
float freely in the zero gravity. He moved closer to Seline and
wrapped his arms around her and held her body against his.

Seline's hands
reached behind Sear's neck. Her fingers held on tightly and she
pressed her lips to his. She let the taste and the warmth calm the
beating of her heart and sooth the ache in her head. She held onto
Sear, parted her lips from his but held her face close to his.

Finally, the
inner hatch opened. The first thing she saw, looking over Sear's
shoulder was the face of Belameir. There was a thick ream of
bandages covering the left side of his face. He was smiling that
wide, toothy smile.

Tialus and the
Doctor were standing next to Belameir. Looking as stern as ever but
neither showing any wounds such as Belameir's. Tialus stood behind
Belameir and the Doctor. She looked like she was waiting patiently
for something, like she'd been waiting her entire life for it.

Seline let go
of Sear and moved towards Belameir. He said nothing at first, just
looked her up and down as if he didn't know what to do.

There were
bandages on his head. Tufts of hair poked out between the folds in
the fabric.

'You look like
shit,' she said.

Belameir
smiled.

They hugged. As
exhausted as she was, Seline still wanted to squeeze him as tight
as she could but knew that if she did, she'd probably break him in
two. She kissed him on the cheek as she pulled away. Belameir
quickly wiped what he would claim was sweat from his eyes.

'Mercer?'
Belameir asked.

Sear and Seline
shook their heads.

Belameir said
nothing. The look in his eyes and the smile that was stricken from
his face said everything that he couldn't.

When Therin
stepped from the airlock, Belameir wrapped his arms around her
before she could stop him. She actually returned the gesture with
her one free arm before he pulled away.

'What
happened,' asked Tialus, her dark eyes sweeping over Therin then
Sear and Carex as they stepped into the ship and exchanged
handshakes with Belameir.

'We need to
follow Icarus,' said Seline.

'Why? Where is
it going?'

'To the Yeta
System. To the black hole,' said Seline.

'Why? What is
at the black hole?'

'We found the
mind of Icarus... Seline did anyway,' said Sear.

All eyes
shifted back to Seline.

'I went inside
its mind,' she said.

'By yourself?'
asked Tialus.

'Yes. It was
just like when the sentinel first spoke to me. I heard the voices
again and I... I found the source of my mother's voice.' Seline
spoke quickly, conveying what she knew with as few words as
possible. She needed to be moving again but she also knew that she
was the only one who knew what had happened. The others had trusted
her and she needed to show them how thankful she was for it.

Seline
described how she touched her hand to the surface of the miniature
star in the heart of Icarus and how her mind was pulled inside. She
explained how she had found her mother and that Icarus had kept her
mind sequestered from the others, that it had been trying to
understand consciousness, to understand what use it could put it
to. Seline explained where Icarus came from, that its creators were
a dying race, that they uploaded their minds to save themselves but
failed. She explained that her mother had inadvertently led Icarus
into the Milky Way and that she'd been imprisoned ever since. She
explained how she uploaded the virus into Icarus allowing the minds
of all the humans it had taken to break free and distract it while
Florence took control and directed it towards the black hole.

Apart from the
quiet hum of the on-board computers the ship was silent as Seline
retold her story. It wasn't until she stopped speaking that she
realised her head was throbbing. She had given the abridged version
of events, skipping over a lot of the conversation with her mother
just as much for brevity's sake as for her own comfort. The
memories were far too raw to touch. She needed to at least a moment
for fresh cuts to close.

'It isn't
over,' said Tialus.

Seline shook
her head. 'My mother still has to make it to the black hole.' There
was urgency in her voice now. The more she thought about it the
harder it became just to stand in one spot. 'If Icarus's mind
recovers before she can get there... then I don't know what will
happen. By herself, I don't think she can fight it off. I don't
know how she could.'

There was
silence. The computers ticked and thrummed beneath it.

'We've sent a
probe to follow Icarus,' said Tialus. 'We can check the feed on the
holo-display at the debriefing station.'

Seline imagined
her mother inside the darkness of Icarus's mind. She would be
struggling, alone, trying to keep from drowning. All the while
steadily pulling a gun up to her own head, to pull the trigger on
herself and every other person that shared that head with her. Even
with a galaxy worth of voices around her she was alone and Icarus
would be coming for her. The aching in Seline's head grew worse.
She winced and raised a hand to her head.