Ashes of Candesce: Book Five of Virga

8

MAERTA WAS WAITING in the glass-walled gallery. Both her bodies were here, and six other large multi-armed shapes hovered in the dimness behind her. 'Keir, what are you doing?' she asked.

The Virgans all stopped, looking around uneasily. Keir stepped up, meeting Maerta's gaze with a level look of his own. 'This is their only way out,' he said defiantly. 'If they can break through the cordon on the other side, they'll be home-free. The guard bots won't be able to follow them into Candesce's field.'

'I understand that,' she said gently. 'That's not what I asked. What are you doing?'

He swallowed, feeling the panic starting to return. 'I'm leaving,' he said; then, realizing that he hadn't yet talked to the Virgans about it, he turned to them. 'If you'll have me.'

Leal and Piero glanced at one another. 'We would,' said Leal, 'but it's not for us to decide.'

Maerta shook her head. 'It's too soon, Keir. There's no telling what will happen to you if you enter Candesce's influence before the process is complete.'

'What process?' He wanted to tear at his hair in frustrated anger. 'What's happening to me,' he demanded, 'and who did it?'

Maerta opened her mouth, closed it, and for the first time, looked genuinely distressed. 'Keir,' she said hesitantly. 'You're ... Dear, you're de-indexing. And ... you did it to yourself.'

De-indexing? He polled scry, but the data was inaccessible--doubtless one of Maerta's 'child-proofing' locks. He shook his head in confusion.

'I don't understand! None of this is making any sense.' He backed toward the glass passage that led out of the city. 'But you can't keep me here. I won't stay.'

'It's suicide!' Maerta appealed to the Virgans. 'Hasn't he told you what's waiting on the other side of the door? Stay here, we'll keep you safe until we come up with a better option.'

To Keir's relief, Leal shook her head with a frown. 'I have to deliver my message. I'm overdue.'

Maerta took an angry step in Keir's direction; he backed away. 'What message could be so important that you'll risk your own lives to bring it back to Virga?'

Leal just stared at her in disbelief. From the look on her face, Keir expected some outburst from her, but what she said was 'I've been wondering something ever since we arrived here, Maerta.

'How is that you and your people are still human?'

Maerta said nothing.

'You're not from Virga,' Leal went on. 'Keir said he's from a planet named Revelation. Are you as well?' Guardedly, Maerta nodded. 'And is Revelation within Artificial Nature?'

Another nod.

'Yet you fled here. You're hiding here. From what? What happened on Revelation?'

Maerta looked at Keir, then away. Finally she said, 'Revelation was ... a little bubble of humanity in the larger universe. Outside of the arena, you understand, where truces hold between the various forces that contend inside A.N. Then ... the balance of power shifted, several years ago. Revelation's protection evaporated. The planet ... fell.

'We came here because Brink was an obscure place, a secret place, and right next to Virga.'

'You came to study Candesce,' said Leal.

'Yes. To try to find a way to defend ourselves.'

'Then let us go,' Leal commanded, 'because you are not the only ones with this goal. And if I succeed, I may be able to give you direct access to Candesce, to study it from the inside. --And besides,' she added, 'if you can rescue the rest of our people from the plains below the city, they can stop this assault. Half of them are Home Guard people, anyway; if the others try to land they'll put a stop to whatever lies Loll's told to incite them. Take care of them, and I promise you, we will take care of Keir Chen.'

Maerta looked at Keir. Again he held her gaze defiantly. Her shoulders slumped. 'Then go,' she said. 'And yes, Leal, we'll find your men.'

Keir turned and, without a look back, raced up the crystal passage that led from Aethyr, Brink, and Complication Hall to Virga.

* * *

FOR A FEW minutes, Leal thought they would make it. Yet as the mysterious blockhouse that hung in the precise black between the worlds came nearer, she heard muttering among her companions; Piero and the other men were slowing. Leal peered ahead, and she, too, faltered.

John Tarvey was waiting for them at the end of the crystal tunnel.

The lads were drawing their guns, both the ones they'd brought and the new ones Keir Chen's people had made for them. Tarvey just stood there, his hands up and his face half-turned aside--not a gesture of surrender, but a pose that said hear me out.

Keir had come abreast of Leal and now he sent her an uneasy frown. She guessed what he was thinking. They could go back; he could summon his people to help. She shook her head minutely. If the firepower they had with them wasn't sufficient to deal with this thing that had taken on the shape of her friend, whatever force would be enough might also be enough to shatter the crystal tube, and kill them all through exposure to the vacuum.

She brought her party to a halt about thirty feet from the creature. 'We shot you before,' she shouted. 'What makes you think we won't do it again?'

'I'm absolutely sure you will,' he said. Still with his hands up, he continued, 'But I'm not out to stop you. I can