Kara and Marc stood in the open airlock. The planet did smell like a burst sewer pipe, and worse.
“Well?” Marc asked.
“Not here,” Kara said, her fingers playing with the lock of Tatia’s hair. “But she has been.” She concentrated, then recoiled slightly. “Something died here. Maybe Tatia killed it, impossible to say.”
They left the planet and went back into netherspace. Either the trail was stronger or Kara had become more psi-sensitive.
< Got it. Back inside.
And they broke into normal space to see a distant sun and a close-by planet gleaming blue and white like Earth.
“First a shower,” Marc said. “then a... Oops!” He caught Kara just before she slumped to the floor. “Food now. And a drink.”
It wasn’t physical exhaustion. Only now could Kara admit – to herself – that she’d been terrified every second in netherspace. Terrified of the safety line breaking so she fell away from the ship forever, never dying. Terrified of a local eating her mind. Terrified of being lost.
They ate a freeze-dried chili then Kara went to shower and change.
* * *
Earth it wasn’t, although inhabited by humans. They landed near a large town, sat in the open airlock, waiting for someone to say hello or try and kill them.
A small crowd gathered several hundred metres away. It looked nervous.
Eventually a lone figure walked towards them.
< Human, male, approx seventeen Earth years old.
As anyone could see.
< Wearing a brightly coloured sack. It could be ceremonial.
Or simple bad taste.
* * *
The young man was nervous and spoke in a strange English dialect. Kara used Ishmael first to understand the initial outpouring and then for the questions she needed to ask.
“Earth unofficial colony. Taken over by the pre-cogs,” she told Marc. “Tatia, or someone just like her, came with an Originator’s ship. Apparently she was meant to be sacrificed – they do that a lot round here – but Tatia decided otherwise. Instead, killed the official executioner and a high priestess. Then the ship took off.”
“You believe him? She’s still alive?”
“I do. He’s terrified.”
After twenty-four Earth hours and three more planets that Tatia had visited, Kara was less terrified by netherspace. It would never be a favourite place, somewhere to visit for a relaxing weekend. Being able to stay alive without protective clothing was counter-intuitive and always a slight worry: what if netherspace changed its mind? In an instant unable to breathe, deathly radiation sleeting through her body. Which was another thing: she’d come to think of netherspace as being aware of her. She had stared into the abyss and the abyss was staring back.
Yet the earlier terrors had faded. Continual exposure had lessened the netherspace effect. Now she could look at it for as long as twenty Earth minutes before her sanity weakened. Marc spent as long outside as he could. Ishmael thought that Marc was either genetically immune, perhaps bred to it; or netherspace liked him and so did no harm.
> Really? Kara asked. Netherspace got favourites?
< You’ve felt something similar.
> I sensed maybe awareness. Not socialising.
< We need all the friends we can get.
And if the price for the lack of fear was visual, a price worth paying. Or so Kara told herself in front of the mirror, staring at the reflection of her face with eyes that glowed in an orgy of rainbows.
She supposed that she’d need to wear very dark glasses back home. One more bloody thing sent to annoy her.
Thirty-six hours after leaving the dying Gliese, the Iron Thrown jerked into real space and Kara knew they’d arrived. It had to be.
“Will you look at that,” Marc breathed.
A giant planet shimmering every shade of blue hung in space. There were three moons, equidistant from each other so the planet was in the middle of a vast triangle.
And also what Marc immediately thought of as tombstones. Hundreds, thousands of vast oblongs in close orbit around the planet. Incredible engineering, far beyond anything humanity had realistic plans to build. He and Kara stared at the main screen, equally fascinated and wary. This had to be the civilisation at the heart of the repcog empire. A line of poetry came into his head: Look upon my works ye mighty and despair.
“Tatia’s here,” Kara said. “I know it.”
“They’ll know we’re here. Anyone who can build that will squash us like flies.”
“They’re probably expecting us,” Kara said. And how does the scenario play out? What am I, what are we meant to do?
< There are several Originator-model craft three point six two thousand kilometres above the planet’s north pole, as we view it.
“Activate weapon systems and go there,” Kara said out loud. “Not too close to those constructs.” And in her head, to Anson Greenaway: I’ll bring her home. I will.
12
Anson Greenaway thought the attack would come in the small hours. Not dawn, since the enemy would be silhouetted against the sunrise. In the small hours, probably trying to infiltrate along the banks of the Severn. He’d been out the previous night, setting traps and trip wires. His enemies were skilled but he’d know when they were coming. In the end, he knew, they’d forget about subtlety and tactics. They’d simply rush the house, either caught up in blood-lust madness or each convinced that the person next to them would die.
It would be sad not to welcome back Kara and Tatia. And maybe Marc, if he’d ever rejoined the real world, Greenaway’s world, the one he’d dedicated his life to saving. Sad that he wouldn’t see the final victory.
There would be a victory. There had to be.
If not, Greenaway would prefer not to wait for people who’d never return...
* * *
“What now?” Cleo had asked three days ago, as they finished a bottle of Oregon Pinot Noir.
“Now I try and rescue what’s left of GalDiv.”
“Berlin has fallen. GalDiv is occupied by the Free Earth Co-operative, whatever that is. There is no GalDiv. You didn’t wipe out all the religious fanatics. People feel fear, resentment
