Reality Dysfunction — Expansion

life-support capsules dimmed and sputtered as the one active auxiliary generator powered up the four remaining primary generators. Ion thrusters fired, hosing the dark rock with unaccustomed turquoise luminosity.

A sphere of plasma inflated at the centre of the white shroud thrown across the ring, fast at first, then slowing when it was five kilometres across, diminishing slightly. Black phantoms migrated across its surface. Gramine ’s lower hull shone brighter than a sun as it reflected the diabolical corona seething four kilometres below.

Thousands of fragmented rock splinters flew out of the heart of the fusion blast, overtaking the disbanding plasma wave. They had the same riotous glow of doomed meteorites caught by an atmosphere. Unlike the plasma they left behind, their velocity didn’t fall off with distance.

“Generators on-line,” Sarha called out. “Power output stabilizing.”

Joshua closed his eyes. Datavised displays filled his head with technicolour dragonfly wings. Lady Mac cleared the rock. Her radar started to fire hard microwave pulses at the loose shoal of ring particles, evaporating snowflakes and inflaming carbonaceous motes. Beams of blue-white radiance shone out of the secondary reaction-drive nozzles, rigid as lasers.

They started to rise up through the ring. Dust currents splashed over the monobonded-silicon hull, producing short-lived surf-bloom patterns. Pebbles and larger stones hit and bounced. Ice splattered and stuck, then slipped downwards to fall away in the turbulent glare of the drive exhaust.

A rock chunk crashed into the Gramine , shattering its hull open and decimating the internal systems. Cryogenic tanks ruptured, white gases scintillating from the dying fusion bomb’s energy barrage. Four life-support capsules raced out of the destruction, charred nultherm foam flaking away, emergency beacons blaring.

Lady Mac cleared the ring surface. Fifty kilometres above her a wave of scarlet meteors streaked across the starfield.

“Stand by for high gees,” Joshua said. The fusion drives came on, tormenting the abused ring still further. Lady Mac tilted round, and started chasing down the inside of the tapering orange vector tube in Joshua’s mind. He monitored the displays to ensure their course was aligned correctly as the gee forces built, then datavised an extra order into the flight computer.

“Joshua, what—” Ashly’s startled voice faded away as the bridge trembled softly.

The last combat wasp left its launch-tube.

“Watch it coming, shitheads,” Joshua purred. Jesus, but it felt good to see the vector lines emerge as the submunitions separated. Purple threads linking Lady Mac with the tumbling wreckage.

It took eight seconds for the submunitions to reach the Gramine ’s life-support capsules. A stipple of kinetic explosions boiled above the ring for a few scant seconds before the vacuum absorbed them as effortlessly as it did all human-born pollution.

The inside of the homestead cabin was even worse than Jay Hilton imagined hell must be like. She wouldn’t let any of the other children go outside, so they had to use buckets in the small second bedroom when they wanted to go to the toilet. The smell was atrocious, and it got viler every time they opened the door. To add to their woes, the heat had reached a zenith which even Lalonde had never matched before. They had opened all the shutters as well as the door, but the air was solid, motionless. The cabin’s timber creaked and popped as the frame expanded.

The physical ordeal was bad enough, but Jay felt so agonizingly lonely too. It was stupid, there were twenty-seven children crammed in around her so tight you couldn’t move without nudging someone. But she didn’t want other kids, she wanted Father Horst. He had never done this before, not leave them alone for a whole day, and certainly not at night. Jay suspected Father Horst was as scared by the night as she was.

All this wretchedness had started when the starships had appeared, and with them the red cloud. Yesterday, just yesterday. It should have been a wonderful time. Rescue was here, the navy marines would come and take them all away and make everything right again. The long dragging miserable days out here on the unchanging savannah were over.

The idea was a little bit scary, because there was always some comfort in routine, even one as difficult as the homestead. But that didn’t matter, she was leaving Lalonde. And nobody was ever going to make her come back. Not even Mummy!

They had spent a happy morning outside, keeping watch over the savannah for the first sign of their rescuers. Though the growing red cloud had been a bit frightening.

Then Russ had seen what he claimed was an explosion, and Father Horst had ridden off to investigate.

“I’ll be back in a couple of hours,” were his last words to her as he’d left.

They had waited and waited. And the red cloud had slid over the sky above, bringing its horrible noise with it, as though it was hiding an avalanche of boulders.

She had done what she could, organizing meals and rotas. Things to do, things to keep them busy. And still he hadn’t come back.

Her watch had told her when it was night. She would never have known otherwise. They had closed the shutters and the door, but red light from the cloud seemed to slide in through every crack and cranny. There was no escape. Sleep was difficult, the boomy thunder-noise kept going the whole time, mingling with the higher pitched sounds of crying.

Even now the youngest children remained tearful, the older ones subdued. Jay leant on the window-sill, gazing off in the direction Father Horst had gone. If he didn’t come back very soon, she knew she wouldn’t be able to hold her own tears back. Then everything would be lost.

I must try not to.

But she had been badly shaken by the way the red light had vanished ninety minutes ago. Now ghastly black clouds swept low and silent over the savannah, turning everything to funereal greys. At first she had tried to play the shapes game, to make them less sinister, but her mind’s eye could only conjure up witches and monsters.

Jay turned round from the window, registering the frightened faces. “Danny, the fridge should have done some more ice by now. Make everyone some orange juice.”

He nodded, happy to be given some task. Usually he was a real moaner. “Jay!” Eustice squealed. “Jay, there’s something out there.” She backed away from her window, hands pressed to her cheeks.

There was an outbreak of crying and wails behind Jay. Furniture was kicked and scraped as the children instinctively made for the rear wall.

“What was it?” Jay asked.

Eustice shook her head. “I don’t know,” she said wretchedly. “Something!”

Jay could hear the cows mooing plaintively, sometimes the bleating of a goat. It might just be a sayce, she thought. Several had gone by yesterday, driven from the jungle by the red cloud. She gave the open door a nervous glance, she’d have to shut it. With shivers in each limb she shuffled back to the window and peeked round the frame.

Lightning was playing along the horizon. The savannah’s darkling grass was perfectly still, which made the movement easy to spot. Two ebony blobs jutting up above the blade tips. They were growing steadily larger. She heard a humming noise. Mechanical.

It had been so long since she’d heard any kind of motor that it took a moment to place the sound; and even longer for her to bring herself to believe. Nobody on this planet had ground transport.

“Father!” she shrieked. “He’s back!” Then she was out of the open door and running towards the hovercraft, heedless of the stiff, dry grass slapping and scratching her bare legs.

Horst saw her coming and jumped off the hovercraft as Ariadne slowed to a halt fifteen metres from the homestead. He had told himself all through the trip that nothing had happened to them, that they would be all right. Praying and praying that it would be so. But actually seeing Jay alive and in one piece was too much, and the repressed guilt and instituted fear burst out, overwhelming him. He fell to his knees and opened his arms.

Jay hit him as if she was giving a rugby tackle. “I thought you were dead,” she blubbed. “I thought you’d