The Machinery of Light

“Of course.”

“He doesn’t like to be kept waiting.”

“I’m ready when you are,” says the Operative.

The door opens. Lynx and Linehan head on out, finding themselves in a maze of passages. They head along them, turning left, right, left again. They climb up stairs.

“Notice something?” asks Lynx.

Linehan’s noticing all sorts of things, but most of them are doing a magic-lantern act in his head. He’s feeling like these corridors are merely part of some labyrinth within his own mind. Maybe Szilard shoved him into a virtual reality construct and all this is merely the SpaceCom admiral toying with him. He scans the corridor they’ve just turned into.

“This place is empty,” he says.

Lynx chuckles. “It looks that way on the screens too.”

The vehicle’s a standard minicrawler, optimized for low-gravity assault by virtue of its magnetic treads. It’s about four meters long. Jarvin is releasing the deadbolts that hold it in place.

“Get in,” he says.

But Spencer and Sarmax are already doing so. It’s a tight fit. It gets even more so when Jarvin joins them. He seals the craft, gestures at Sarmax.

“You’d better drive,” he says.

“Why?”

“You’re the better driver.”

“Sure,” says Sarmax, “but where?”

“We were talking about the cockpit,” says Jarvin as part of the wall slides back.

There’s no way out of this. She’s checked that six billion times in the last second. The fact that she hasn’t given up yet is more a matter of sheer stubborness than any rational consideration. Control’s grip is ironclad. He’s covering all the angles, using her like a battering ram now, propelling her forward in spite of herself. She’s almost cracked the Redeemer’s inner enclave. She’d better finish the job quick, before Carson reaches his destination. She knows she’s in denial that he’s about to die, even though she feels that he may as well have bitten it all those years ago—that the man she thought was telling her all his secrets was actually holding out on her, maybe even on himself. He’s become ensnared in the web of his own schemes, and he’s going under. But she’s got a feeling he’s going to go down fighting, and she’s going to have to watch it. Live with it, too, though she doubts she’ll have to do so for much longer. Deep in the Redeemer’s zone, she watches on one camera in particular, one hangar bay among so many—

The Operative emerges from the shuttle, takes in the moon-and-eagle banners of SpaceCom emblazoned on the hangar walls. Marines are everywhere. Two of them trundle the faux Haskell down the ramp behind him. Her face remains exposed behind plastic. The Operative stares at it as it passes him.

“Everything okay?” asks Szilard’s public relations officer.

The Operative turns back to him. “Of course.”

“Then follow me.” The faux Haskell is pushed along behind the Operative and Sullivan, through the hangar bays, and deeper into the Redeemer. At every intersection, the Operative catches glimpses of marines blocking off all other access to the route that he’s being led upon. They reach an elevator bank containing several lifts. One of those doors slides open.

“After you,” says Sullivan.

Hurry the fuck up,” says Lynx. Linehan’s doing his best, but it’s tough when Lynx keeps changing the route. They’ve doubled back once already. Now they’re doing it again.

“Can’t you get this straight?” asks Linehan.

“They’re taking another way in,” says Lynx. “Now open this fucking door.” He gestures at the blast-door they’ve stopped at, but Linehan’s already on it. A flamer protrudes from his shoulder, swivels, starts up. Linehan glances over at Lynx.

“You’ve got the zone behind this door covered, right?”

“I will by the time you get there,” says Lynx.

Holy shit,” says Spencer.

“Shut up,” says Sarmax. He hits the gas and starts piloting the crawler into the Hammer’s hull. It’s a real maze. There are several layers of armor. Even Jarvin’s hacking at the failsafes can’t open all the doors at once. Each one opens to admit them, then slides shut behind the crawler in succession as the craft moves on through. Finally bolts extrude, and the largest door of all slides back—

“Ah fuck,” says Spencer.

“Hold on,” says Sarmax.

Closing,” she says.

“Good,” says Montrose.

Strange conversation: Haskell feels like some kind of underwater creature that’s protruded an eye-stalk above the surface. Her mind swings in behind Lynx while she locks in on Carson, Control increasing the pressure as Montrose sits in her command chair and presides over it all. Haskell can see that face so clearly now—gritted teeth, aquiline nose, resolute eyes. She feels that under different circumstances, she might have even liked this woman. But given how it’s all turned out—

“You’re not going to pull this off,” she says.

“No,” says Montrose, “you’re going to do it for me.”

The Operative spares scarcely a glance at Sullivan and the two marines in the elevator with him. It’s a tight fit, to say the least. Particularly with the contraption that’s taking up most of the room.

“So how did you get your hands on her?” asks Sullivan.

“Long story,” says the Operative.

The elevator stops going down, starts going sideways. It’s all relative anyway. The ship’s got several sections, some of them rotating, others in zero-G. The Operative maximizes the magnetism of his boots, braces himself in a corner, and leans back. Looks at Sullivan.

“So what do you do every day?” he asks.

“I’m sorry?”

“You said you were his PR man.”

“Sure.”

“So what do you do?”

“Manage his image.”

The Operative snorts. “He keeps a pretty low profile.”

“That’s the idea,” says Sullivan.

Linehan’s flamer cuts out. The blast-door’s still intact, but it’s sporting a hole wide enough to crawl through.

“After you,” says Lynx.

“Figures,” says Linehan, but he scrambles through anyway, triple-scans the corridor on the other side. It’s empty. It’s becoming increasingly apparent to him how this is working. Szilard’s cleared as large an area as possible inside his perimeters. Anything moving within them is a problem by definition. Though that logic falters if you lose your view and don’t know it. Linehan assumes that Lynx has that one covered. He wonders when Lynx will decide he no longer needs a mech—resolves to be one step ahead of that moment.