Not with Tatiana here. I won’t condemn her to that. We’ve still got time.
Bonney’s almost at the plateau.
And we’re almost at the base of the endcap. This carriage can go straight up to the axis chamber. She’s got to climb three kilometres of stairs. We’ll make it easily.
Blue smoke spouted out of the truck’s tyres as Bonney skid-braked the vehicle outside the passageway’s dark entrance. When she jumped down from the driver’s seat her sharp upper teeth were protruding over her lower lip, producing a permanent feral grin. Her painfully red-rimmed eyes narrowed to lethargic slits as she gazed up at the steepening cliff of grey polyp in front of her, as if puzzled by its appearance. Every movement took on a dullard’s slowness. Breath wheezed heavily out of her nostrils.
She ignored the passageway and stood perfectly still, bringing her arms to rest in front of her so her hands crossed above her crotch. Her head drooped, bowing deeply, the eyes closing completely.
What the hell is she doing now?dariat asked. She was frantic to get up there.
It looks like she’s praying.
Somehow, I really doubt that.
The tube carriage reached the base of the endcap and started to sweep up the slope towards the hub. An urgent whining sound permeated the inside. Dariat could feel it slowing, then it accelerated again.
Damn it, I’m getting power dropouts right across the habitat. That’s in the sections of myself I can still perceive. I’m shrinking, boy, there are places where my thoughts have ceased. Help me!
The reality dysfunction is strengthening. Five minutes. Hang on for five more minutes.
Bonney’s khaki suit was darkening, at the same time its texture changed to a glossier aspect. She was starting to hunch up, her legs bowing out and becoming spindly. Pointed ears emerged from a shortening crop of hair. There was no suit anymore, only a black pelt.
She suddenly raised her rodent head and emitted an ear-piercing screech through a circular mouth caged by fangs. Eyes glittered a devilish red. She opened what had been her arms to spread her new wings wide. The leathery membrane was thin enough to be translucent, revealing a lacework of minute black veins beneath the dark amber surface.
Oh, fuck,rubra exclaimed. No bloody way! I don’t care what she looks like, she weighs too much to fly.
That won’t matter anymore,dariat said. The reality dysfunction is powerful enough to sustain her; we’re in the universe of fables, now. If she wants to fly, she will.
Bonney ran a couple of paces across the plateau, then her wings gave a fast downwards sweep, and she was airborne. She beat her wings steadily, rising quickly, her triumphant screeching echoing over the blank polyp. Her flight curved around sharply as she gained altitude, evolving into a spiral as the beats became smoother, more insistent.
She’ll catch me,a stricken dariat said. She’s going to reach the axis chamber before me. I’ll never get Tatiana out.“anastasia!” he cried. “My love, it can’t end like this. Not again. I can’t fail you again.”
Tatiana stared at him in fright, not understanding.
Do something,he begged.
Like what?rubra’s mental voice was faint, lacking interest.
Remember your classics,the kohistan consensus said. Before today, Icarus and Daedalus were the only people ever to fly with their own wings. Only one survived. Think what happened to Icarus.
Bonney was already three hundred metres above the plateau, swooping upwards on a tempestuous thermal, when she noticed the change. The light was altering, which it could never do in a habitat. She shifted her balance, twisting on a wingtip, howling at the sheer exhilaration of the wind buffeting her face. The cylindrical landscape stretched out in front of her, dabbed with curving smears of flushed red cloud. For the first time, the lively sparkle coming off the circumfluous reservoir was absent. The entire band of water seemed to be darkened; she could barely see a single feature on the southern endcap. Yet around her the light was growing. That should never be. Both endcaps were always maintained in a dappled shade. The effect was due entirely to the nature of the light tube, a slender cylindrical mesh of organic conductors which mimicked the shape of the habitat itself. At each end the mesh narrowed to a near solid bundle of cable which suspended the main segment between the two hubs. The plasma it contained dwindled to a mild violet haze eight hundred metres from the hub itself.
She could now see that horn of ions retreating from the southern hub as Rubra increased the power flowing through the cables at that end. The magnetic field was expanding to squeeze the plasma along the tube. At the northern end, he cut the power completely to one specific section of the mesh. Plasma rushed out of the gap, inflating flamboyantly as it liberated itself from the constricting flux lines.
From Bonney’s position it was as if a small fusion bomb had detonated above her, sending its billowing mushroom cloud hurtling downwards.
“All this,” she cried disbelievingly, “for me?”
The air caught in the cup of the endcap was torn asunder by the racing plasma, sending her spinning madly, broken wings wrapping her body like a velvet cloak. Then the wave front of inflamed atoms swept across her like the breath of an enraged sungod. It had none of the fury and strength of a genuine fusion explosion; by the time it reached her the plasma was nothing more than a tenuous electrically charged fog that was rapidly losing cohesion. But nevertheless, it was moving five times faster than any natural tornado, and with a temperature of tens of thousands of degrees. Her body disintegrated into splinters of vivid copper light which trailed contrails of black smoke all the way down to the resplendent desert far below.
A siren started to whistle as soon as Dariat broke the hatch seal; half of the corridor lighting panels turned red, flashing urgently. He ignored the clamour and floated through the small metallic airlock chamber.
The escape pod was a simple one-deck sphere, four metres in diameter, with twelve thickly padded acceleration couches laid out petal fashion. Dariat emerged from a hatch set at their centre. There was only one instrument panel, barely more than a series of power-up switches. He flicked them all on, watching the status schematics turn green.
Tatiana hauled herself gingerly through the airlock, looking dangerously queasy. Her dreadlocks swarmed around her head, their beads making tiny
“Take any couch,” Dariat instructed. “We’re coming on line.”
She rotated herself carefully into one of the couches. Webbing unfurled from its sides to creep over her.
Dariat took the couch opposite to her, so that they were feet to feet. Are the other pods armed?
Yes. Most of them. Dariat, I don’t exist on the other side of the starscrapers anymore; I see nothing, I feel nothing, I don’t even think down there.
A minute more, that’s all.he reached up and pressed the launch sequencer. The airlock hatch hinged down. “I’m going to leave soon, Tatiana. Horgan will be back in charge of his own body again. Take care of him, he’s only fifteen. He’s going to be suffering.”
“Of course I will.”
“I . . . I know Rubra only forced us together to put pressure on me. But I’m still glad I met you.”
“Me too. It laid a lot of old demons to rest. You showed me I was wrong.”
“How?”
“I thought she’d made a mistake with you. She hadn’t. The cure just took a very long time. She’s going to be proud of you when you finally catch up with her.”
Two-thirds of Valisk’s shell was now fluorescing a lambent crimson; dazzling dawn-red light shone out of
