“How do you feel?” he asks.
It’s a good question. She struggles to come up with an answer. Only to find she can’t.
“I found everything I needed to,” he says. “I’m done.”
“So am I,” she whispers.
“No,” he says. “You’ve just begun. Go back to sleep.”
She drifts away.
Drifting in toward the heart of SpaceCom power: the transport’s passed through four parking orbits, each one tighter than the one before. It’s now well within L2’s outer perimeter. Stars fall past the window. Ships are everywhere.
“Welcome home,” says Lynx.
“Looks like it did when I left it,” says Linehan.
“You’ve only been gone a couple weeks.”
But that was all it took to come full circle. L2 set him in motion. L2 has pulled him back into its maw. He seals his visor in place, grabs onto the wall as the ship fires motors, leaves its latest orbit.
“So what’s the first step?” he asks.
“We do some honest work,” says Lynx.
The ship’s turning. A webwork of metal scrolls past the window, so close that Linehan can see numbers and lettering painted upon it.
“Jesus,” he says. “We’re right up against it.”
“Try inside it.”
“What the hell?”
But as he stares through the window, he sees that Lynx isn’t kidding. The transport has entered the hollow of a much larger, half-built ship. It stretches all around them, like the bones of some vast animal. The rest of the L2 fleet flickers beyond it. Linehan whistles.
“One of the fucking colony ships,” he says.
Lynx laughs. “That’s a strange thing to call them.”
“That’s what they are.”
“That’s what they’re
“That’s what they’re built for, man. Straight shot to Mars.”
“By way of Moscow,” says Lynx.
“Meaning what?”
“Meaning
Which don’t look small. They also don’t look like they’d be visible from beyond the construction.
“That’s why they’re building them in here,” continues Lynx. “Armaments to augment the L2 fleet, unreported to Zurich or anybody else. Soon as the shit hits the fan, they can blow the hatches and start laying down the law.”
“Don’t the Eurasians have some of these things, too?”
“Over at L4, yeah. Ours and theirs make for one more piece of glorious joint infrastructure in the wake of Zurich. The next great pioneering fleet. How much do you want to bet that the East is working to rig its behemoths with similar enhancements? Who knows, they might blow the top off Mons Olympus. But I’ll bet you the real target’s a damn sight closer.”
“I don’t take bets I can’t win.”
“Then you’ve come to the wrong place,” says Lynx. The ship’s speakers start barking orders. “Let’s go.”
“We’ve got everything we need?”
“We’ll pick it up as we go.”
Linehan shrugs. They open the interior hatch of the room they’re in, climb through into a corridor, pull themselves along it and into the transport ship’s spine. Right now there’s a lot of traffic. Supervisors are herding the workers out of their quarters, into the spine, and then out through where the nose has been peeled back. Lynx and Linehan head the other way. Crew members pass them. So do supervisors. But no one challenges them. They exit the spine, proceed through more hatches, exit the transport.
They’re moored against some of the more complete parts of megaship infrastructure. Two other transports are tethered alongside. Workers and supervisors are everywhere. One of the supervisors challenges them.
“Who the hell are you guys?” she asks.
“Engineers,” says Lynx. “Who the hell else would we be?”
Linehan doesn’t see the codes get transferred. But it must have occurred. Because the supervisor turns away—and he and Lynx keep on going, alight on the interior of the giant craft. Scarcely ten meters away is the nearest of the cannons: what’s clearly a medium-grade particle beam. Heavy lifting’s easy in the zero-G— workers are maneuvering the weapon into place by hand. Lynx and Linehan move past it.
“Those guys had better pick up the pace if they want to make a difference,” says Lynx.
“You seem so sure it’s gonna happen.”
“Lightning doesn’t strike twice, right? It was a fucking miracle we evaded Armageddon back when you were going head-to-head with the Jaguars. We’re not going to beat the bullet this time.”
“Even if we take out Szilard?”
“That’s all I want to do, Linehan. Take him out. After that, the whole of this can go to hell.”
They head into the enclosed portions of the colony ship’s interior. No one pays them the slightest attention. Lynx leads the way through a labyrinth of weightless corridors and half-installed machinery.
“Let me guess,” says Linehan. “Szilard’s somewhere in here with us.”
“Yeah right. Far as I can make out, he’s on the
“He went back to the flagship?”
“Apparently.”
“And how exactly do you propose we get from here to there?”
“And we’ll be that someone.”
“And how.”
The jet-copter streaks in amidst snowcapped peaks. Valleys drop away at impossible angles. Slopes are like walls that are way too close. The craft is buffeted as it hits turbulence.
“Getting close,” says Sarmax.
“We’re pretty much there,” says Spencer.
“You’ve found what we’re looking for?”
“I’ve found where we’re going to look.”
Abruptly, the jet-copter slows perceptibly, banks. Spencer finds himself staring straight up toward some higher peaks. He sees something stretching between two of them. Something that’s clearly man made. The craft arcs up toward it, decelerating all the while. There’s a rumble as the landing gear lowers.
“We’re landing on that bridge?” asks Sarmax.
“Not exactly,” says Spencer.
Because he can see things that Sarmax can’t. Like what’s really going on. They’re not the only vehicle about to hit this bridge.
“A rendezvous,” says Sarmax.
“Roger that,” says Spencer.
