Very conscious a G8Turing security routine would be monitoring her closely now, she said: ‘It is what we’ve been working towards.’
‘It’s magnificent, Gwendoline! The Deliverance ships have all gone. The London shield isn’t under attack any more. There’s no sound, no devil-sky light – not any more. I’ve got people here in the community centre crying their eyes out. We knew the settled worlds would help us. I’ve always kept telling everyone that, but it’s been such a long two years. You should see the party that’s kicking off down here.’
‘I’m so glad,’ she said. For some reason her eyes were tearing up.
‘The government’s opened some visual feeds from orbit. We can see the Olyix ships retreating. Are your forces going to invade the Salvation of Life?’
‘I have no idea what’s going to happen next. And if I did . . .’
‘You wouldn’t tell me.’
‘Damn right.’
‘Good for you. God, I am so happy right now. I wish you were here, just for today. You have no idea what it was like seeing those bastard Deliverance ships turn tail and run.’
‘I miss you,’ she said. ‘Really badly.’
‘Yeah, so much likewise. But this helps, right?’
‘Helps?’
‘You and me,’ he said. ‘I know it isn’t the victory people here think it is right now. I’m guessing we can’t even switch off the shield, the Olyix have ruined the climate so badly. Which means everyone has to leave.’
Gwendoline couldn’t do it, couldn’t tell him. There was no ice left anywhere on land, not any more – no glaciers, not a single mountain left that was crowned in stately white. What was left of the Arctic ice cap was shrinking rapidly, while the massive Antarctic ice shelves that had so slowly thickened again after the twenty-first century’s anthrochange had finally fractured, breaking off so the remaining country-sized bergs were melting fast. Rising sea levels would soon add to the misery of the surviving cities, as dangerous as the overheated atmosphere tormented with its single world-throttling storm. ‘They do, yes,’ she said softly. ‘We think the Olyix will be back. And you don’t want to be around when that happens; nobody does.’
‘I want to be with you when that happens, to go . . . wherever. The two of us together.’
‘You can be here inside of a minute, you know that. You have the portal.’
‘Yeah, but in the meantime I have to be here. I can’t abandon my people, not now. I’m doing so much good here, Gwendoline. I’m helping.’
And it’ll all be for nothing. ‘I know. I’m so proud of you.’
‘You’re keeping your end of the bargain, as well, aren’t you?’
‘I am. Of course I am. We’re going to build hundreds of exodus habitats – thousands if we get the time.’
‘Thank you. Love you.’
‘Love you.’
FinalStrike Mission
Flight Year 9
Yirella was already yawning when she and Dellian walked into the hibernation compartment. There was something about the place that was simply restful: its size, the quiet efficiency of all the sarcophagi-like suspension chambers, the reduced lighting, and a temperature several degrees below the rest of the Morgan. She suspected this was the way temples and churches had felt on old Earth.
They went into the washroom together and undressed, smirking as if they were back in the senior year on the Immerle estate.
‘We had last night,’ she said coyly.
‘I know.’
Being together for the last fourteen months had been good. Everyone who’d been revived for the Captain’s Council had been active while the fleet accelerated up to relativistic velocity.
Yirella had relished contributing to all the review-group meetings about the Signal from Lolo Maude, speculating on what had happened and where the original Strike mission had gone – if it had. The Morgan had constructed new sensor arrays to study the K-class star, but that had added nothing to their knowledge. All they had were assumptions and guesswork, which put her in her element.
Outside of the meetings and official watch duties, she and Dellian had treated the time like the holiday they’d never had on Juloss. So much so that, during the last month, she’d found herself resenting the approaching day when they’d be back at point-nine lightspeed. The interlude had given her a chance to relax in a way she never had before. From their perspective, the goal they were heading for was so remote it could be comfortably ignored, giving her a degree of freedom that was unique in her experience. Limited freedom, maybe, but the Morgan had centuries’ worth of music and drama and literature on file that she could dip into whenever she wanted, and it had Dellian, who for once wasn’t stuck in an eternal cycle of fitness routines and combat training sessions. It was like finding out what being human was actually like – a year of living what they’d always been promised.
By the time they stood beside his suspension chamber and she kissed him goodbye, she was struggling with a tangle of emotions.
‘See you in a heartbeat and three years,’ he said tenderly.
‘That’s a date.’
Yirella refused to look back as she walked over to her own chamber. A medical technician was waiting for her. ‘I can manage,’ she said, slightly irritable, as sie offered her an arm.
There was the inevitable moment of coffin fever as the transparent lid slid shut. On the other side of the glass, the med tech gave her a thumbs-up, and she nodded, taking an apprehensive breath. Slim robot arms slid out of the padded sides of the chamber and carefully plugged umbilical tubes into her abdominal sockets. She closed her eyes and activated her neural interface.
The little biotech unit hadn’t been removed after she’d helped with Dellian’s treatment. She’d told Alimyne it would help her work, designing the neutron star civilization, allowing her to access and direct the G8Turing formatting routines a lot faster than through a standard databud. Alimyne had reluctantly agreed.
And she’d been right; it had proved incredibly useful in crafting the directives that the seedships would use as a
