Susan tapped up the feed on her own console and pursed her lips, whistling in surprise. The relay telemetry showed three ships erupting from the aperture, engaged in a long-distance missile duel. All three of them popped up on the display with the familiar collection of Khaid glyphs. The pursued-a light cruiser tagged “ Kader ” by shipnet from the ’cast traffic they’d captured during the initial fighting-was taking a beating, shedding a coiling cloud of debris and weaving drunkenly. In comparison, the two pursuers seemed sleek and fast, shrugging aside any counter-fire with contemptuous ease.
“A clan dispute, kyo? Did one of the ship commanders try a coup?” Oc Chac peered at her display.
“No.” Susan’s hand clenched on the armrest beside the shockchair. He tried to reach me.
“No,” she continued. “This must be the Khaid ship captured by Chu-sa Hadeishi. He found himself in the same predicament as we did-and passed through the Pinhole as well.”
“To no avail, Chu-sa.” The Mayan shook his head sadly. “See, they’ve lost that last drive-they’re ballistic now. If they don’t lose containment, the Khaid will finish them off with a single shipkiller.”
Kosho nodded, feeling sick. The Kader ’s maneuvering drives had sputtered out, leaving the cruiser a hulk coasting into the void. A cloud of tiny pinpoints popped, spilling away from the dying ship.
He’s ejected pods, she thought, feeling an enormous distance open in her heart. Reactors are off-line. She’s just scrap metal now, falling into infinity. Not even worth The two Khaid destroyers cut their drives as well, and on the plot, the paths of the three vessels began to converge.
“Why are-” Pucatli fell silent, seeing that Oc Chac was nodding to himself.
The Mayan scratched at a tiny fringe of beard he’d started to accumulate. “The coil on that ship might still be intact, Thai-i, and her reactors are still working-even if they’ve had to shut them down. Some quick work by the engineers on those two Mishrak -class boats might salvage the whole ship. No reason to waste a shipkiller and a working starship.”
Oc Chac looked to Kosho, a speculative expression on his face. “And the captains of those two destroyers haven’t read Chu-sa Hadeishi’s service jacket, have they?”
“No.” Susan sat up, feeling an enormous, crushing weight begin to dissipate. “They have no idea the evacuation pods are empty. No idea at all.”
Then she scowled forbiddingly at the Sho-sa and the rest of the crew. “Back to work! We need our drives back on line, missile racks refreshed, guns working!” She clapped her hands sharply, making a fierce explosive sound that made everyone in Secondary jump in alarm. “ Banzai! ”
THE PYLON OF THOUGHT
Burning shapes impressed themselves upon Gretchen’s perception, even with her eyes squeezed tightly closed, even without the power of the bronzed tablet flowing through her nervous system. A shining rainbow streak coiled around the Thread tethered at the center of the shaft. The low consoles and the floor itself were filled with quiescent corkscrewlike patterns of brass and silver. Far above, the roof of the enormous room was flowing with filmy curlicues drawn in white, rose, and violet. Dimly, she felt these were the sleeping patterns of control systems, comp nodes, and other undecipherable systems.
In her ghost-sight, the phantasmal bodies of uniformed Hjogadim congealed from the air, busy at the control consoles on either side of the platform. There were other beings with them-slighter of form, indigo-blue-pelted, with thin, ancient-seeming faces and depthless eyes. These creatures stood apart from the Hjo operators though they were intensely focused on the work underway.
Are those the Vay’en themselves? she wondered for an instant, before something else climbed onto the platform. The powerfully built physicality of the Hjogadim was barely visible as a vaporous skeleton. The organic frame was obscured by the scintillating golden glare of something coiled at the top of the inhuman spine.
A serpent of fire, was the first image springing to mind. Naga-kanya, the bringer of wisdom. Where are the five heads?
The crack of assault rifles and the darting transparencies of the Prince’s marines were ephemeral to her. The shapes of the ancient past were far, far clearer. She rolled to her knees, taking in the valley-sized chamber below in one sweeping glance. Hundreds of thousands of ancient ghosts thronged the rows of platforms. Countless golden- haloed Hjogadim lay within the crystalline cradles, while swarms of slightly built blue-black creatures tended to the machines. Platoons of armored Hjo-massive in powered red-and-black battle armor-stood ready at the intersections between the triangular sectors. The hiss of her suit atmosphere escaping failed to register upon Anderssen’s conscious mind. Despite the cold pricking her chest as her clothing turned brittle in the near-zero atmosphere, Gretchen crawled unhindered to the edge of the shaft at the center of the pylon.
Far below, the singularity swelled in her sight: a pulsating void streaked with fire as a constant, thin stream of matter plunged down to annihilation. The Thread descended beyond the limit of her sight, a cable of nine atoms stretched enormously thin, forming an unbreakable path into the abyss. The wavering mercury-sheen of some kind of force field blocked the full glare of annihilation from blinding her. Is this their heaven? They are below, somewhere between here and the event horizon. Millions of them, basking in the crucible of creation-are they healing? Giving birth to a whole new generation? Sleeping until it is time to wake again? Is this a natural cycle? A serpent’s egg warmed by the cascade of dying mass from three carefully-balanced suns?
The stuttering roar of an assault rifle firing wildly only meters away broke her concentration. Gretchen scrambled back into the shelter of a console, gasping as bones ground raw in her chest and side. A Fleet marine staggered across her field of view, blood hissing to vapor from rents in his armor. Across the gaping maw of the shaft, she saw Prince Xochitl and Sahane crouched behind another console. The Prince’s attention was on his attackers, his visage grim, teeth bared in a snarl of defiance. As she watched, he ejected an ammunition spool from his rifle and slammed in a fresh one. The Hjogadim, its long snout wrinkled up in fear, stared wide-eyed across at Gretchen. Is he capable of pleading for mercy?
A priest, she remembered. Like those toiling on the field of abandoned husks below. But that isn’t right… a technician. A medical technician?
Xochitl nosed his rifle around the corner of the console and squeezed off a burst of flechettes in the direction of the stair.
But the cubbyholes in the halls were all empty, Anderssen thought, her mind drawn inexorably back to the puzzle at hand. Wheezing, she lay back and fumbled quickseal from a thigh pocket. Even in her elevated state, she could now feel bitter cold biting at her heart. Where did all the Hjo bodies… oh, the garbage disposal port. Outside, then, and into the maw of the black hole. Discarded servants.
A little black cylinder bounced up onto the platform and before anyone could react, exploded. A web of glittering silver filaments sprayed out, tangling Gretchen, Sahane, and the Prince. Xochitl cursed in two languages as he struggled to draw a monofilament knife.
The gray-eyed navigator from the Moulins appeared in Gretchen’s field of view. Absurdly, she was relieved to see no trace of a golden glow emanating from his helmet. A regular old human, thank Christ the Sacrifice!
Piet gave her an evaluating look, swinging a short-barreled assault rifle in her direction, but when his eyes fell upon the Mexica-still struggling to cut away the webbing-his face contorted into open hatred and the Frisian squeezed off a burst into the Prince’s faceplate. At such short range Xochitl’s glassite faceplate shattered as the armor-piercing rounds struck, spraying blood across Sahane’s helmet. The Prince’s corpse contorted violently, but the Mexica’s last movements barely moved the tangleweb. The Hjo squealed, as though he were the one who had been murdered. Gretchen felt a paralyzing shock run through her body.
That was as cold and calculated an execution as I ever pray to see.
Two more crewmen from the Moulins appeared. They quartered the platform, checking the bodies of the fallen marines in a businesslike way. Their battle-armor was scarred and pitted, but seemed to have held up far better than that of the dead Imperials. Their insignia-a red cross formed of three smaller crosses surmounting a descending spike-gleamed hot in the pale light of the accretion jet. Now, seeing them in motion with arms, armor, and heraldry revealed, Anderssen grasped who they were: Knights of the Order of the Temple of Jerusalem-the Templars of New Malta! But-they’re allies of the Empire, servants of the Emperor-aren’t they?
Though her abdomen was beginning to warm, her z-suit working overtime to replace the heat lost through the punctured chestplate, she felt a chill memory surface. The Jehanan warred upon one another, each clan seeking
