no fear.
With a huge, broken jolt, the world fell on its side. They fell fifteen feet to the hard, cold windows on the other side of the train. Screams in many different tones punctuated the bass thrumming all around. He didn't hear his mother's screams. He lay crumpled against the cold glass and felt his hand under his upper arm in a funny way.
The thudding grew less. It was over, he knew. Again, the thing he wanted to do most was go outside. The screaming resumed for a moment, two or three voices, then subsided. 'Fucking shit,' said his father. He rolled onto his back and looked up at the topsy-turvy train, the seats and blank windows above his head. His father was kneeling over a form that he easily recognized as his mother. Her head was turned away.
'She's dead. Her neck's broken.' His father didn't look at him. A muzziness overtook him, but he still wanted to get out. He stood up and then fell down.
In the now, with Beth inside him, he felt strong, yet almost unconscious. A quiet sense of communion and change was encompassed.
It had to be over. The GAM needed to modify its OS.
John stood cautiously, hoping that the cold had not made his suit brittle. He felt exhausted, and frozen through, more likely from pressure-inhibited circulation than actual cold . . . and joy was there as well. Again, he thought to her, knowing the answer: 'Why?'
'It was time. I overcame the fear finally. It had to be done.' She made a picture for him. It was the last meeting they'd had. It was the picture of his uncertainty, his sense ofmanifest failure.... It was another hand on his own, comforting, uselessly. . . .
He looked at the sun and up at the transport. It took a moment for him to remember where he was and what he'd been doing. 'I'm coming back. Maybe we'll have more strength now.' And he jumped up onto the craft.
THREE
Sealock was filling a pita with a variety of ersatz meats, cheeses, and sauces, as Jana came up beside him. When he ignored her, she thumped him softly in the back with her small fist. 'Talk to me.'
'Yeah.' He stepped off the edge of the floor and executed a graceful fall into the room below, beginning his next stride before he hit the deck. The step pushed him across the room to a couch that had been called up near a clear section of wall. Hu followed and stood before him. 'Want a bite?' He held the sandwich out to her.
She nipped out a small mouthful and almost gagged at the rotten-milk flavor of the strong cheese he'd chosen. 'Now. Tell me why I can't go. And don't give me any shit. I can get along with you and Krzakwa well enough if I have to. It won't be any different from taking Prynne along in the
'Damn you, Brendan! I want to go!'
'You can go next time. This trip is something special— something private between me and Tem.' He grinned. 'Besides, do you really want to have to handle the both of us at the same time?' The anger built and subsided, as she thought. This is all a bad joke. A small voice inside told her to answer, and she said, 'Is that the price of passage?'
'What if I told you it was? Can I try you out now?'
A cold bit of imagery tightened the muscles of her stomach and groin. 'I . . .' The voice wanted her to say Yes!, to buy her way into the trip with her body. It seemed like such a little thing. . . . For some reason her vocal cords were refusing to obey the commands that she sent them. Brendan was leaning forward now, his smile a hideous, bloated thing. He was running his fingers along the inside of one of her thighs, tickling her. 'Well? What's the verdict? Going to peddle it in the streets?' He slid his hand further up, rubbing the space between her legs.
She recoiled from him, shivering, and raised a hand as if to strike him in the face, then let it fall to her lap. Finally she whispered, 'Take me with you.'
Sealock suddenly stood and, clutching her by the collar, forced her against the wall. She made a thin cry and tried to push him away, but he hooked his fingers under the waistband of her pants, jerking sharply downward so that the seams of the cloth parted and fell away. She gasped sharply as his hand slid across her abdomen to grasp her by the mons, his fingers nearly entering her. Sealock stared into her face, his eyes like mirror pools, then he let her go and said, 'No.' He turned and walked away.
The two men had their moonship put together in less than forty-eight hours. They recharged one of the Hyloxso matrices and attached an H2/O2engine to one end. They made landing struts with the beambuilder machine, thin, spiderythings suitable only for this environment, and soon a tall, slender rocket ship stood on the ice, towering out of their dreams.
The command module was a more difficult task, one which took up most of the work time that they put into the project. After mounting a cylinder of avionics, an airlock, and a small Magnaflux generator for attitude control, they