The Machinery of Light

she sees it rolling in toward her anyway—sees the door slide open.

Szilard enters the room.

“Figured you’d come eventually,” she says.

A rec room aboard the American cruiser Spartacus: a lot of off-duty personnel here, biding time between shifts. Everyone’s looking pretty tense. Those who aren’t might be suspected of downing a little bootleg booze. The MPs keep on busting up the stills hidden all over the ship, but they can be certain they’re failing to find them all.

The Operative and Lynx have a whole different set of fish to fry. They enter the room and head over to where three men are playing gin rummy.

“Can we interest you in a game of Shuk?” says Lynx.

“Why not,” Maschler shrugs.

“You guys have been gone for half an hour,” says Linehan.

“So?”

“So where the fuck were you?”

“Eating out your mom,” says Lynx.

“Everybody relax,” says the Operative.

Riley starts dishing out the cards. “They’ve been scoping out the next move, of course.”

“Of course,” says Lynx.

“Namely?”

“The next shuttle out of here.”

Maschler checks the schedule. “The 22:10?”

“That’s the one.”

“But what’s the plan?” says Riley.

The Operative laughs. “You’re all still alive, aren’t you? Still under our zone protection, right?”

“For now,” says Maschler.

“For as long as it suits them,” says Linehan, and flicks a card onto the table. “Look, no offense, but I’m sick of this. We’ve been bouncing around this goddamn fleet like a goddamn Ping-Pong ball for two days now, and the two of you haven’t given us a clue as to what’s really going down.”

“You know exactly what’s going down,” says Lynx.

“We are,” says the Operative. “Trying to get to the Moon.”

“So why haven’t we done it yet?”

“These things take time. We’re in a war—or didn’t you notice?”

“Oh, we noticed,” says Maschler.

“Caught the president’s speech,” says Riley. “Good stuff.”

“You’re talking about the man who fed your last boss to the sharks,” says Linehan.

“Gotta stay flexible if you want to stay afloat,” says Riley.

This I can’t wait to hear,” says Sarmax.

“I’ve got a way off this ship,” says Spencer.

“There is no way off,” says Jarvin.

“All crew are confined,” says Sarmax.

Spencer looks at the two men—looks at all the designs unfolding in his head. He feels almost reluctant to tell them what he’s about to, feels like he might be saying too much. He’s tempted to just steal away in these shafts and go for it himself. But he’s figuring he still needs these men. He’s all too aware of the delicate balance. As soon as one of the three gets killed, that’ll leave the second utterly in the power of the third. Spencer’s already gone through the scenarios: if he gets taken off the board, Sarmax will be at the mercy of Jarvin—and the mech will be in a similar position vis-a-vis Spencer if Jarvin bites it. Yet Sarmax is also the only counter Spencer has to Jarvin himself. It’s complex enough to make one’s head spin. But together, the three of them might be able to take on whatever’s going on in the next megaship. Spencer knows that once they start moving again, the stakes get raised even higher. But he also knows they’re running out of time. That he should have thought of all this half a day back. That it’s just too bad he wasn’t quicker.

“Well,” he says, “it’s like this.”

Where are we now?” she asks.

“Heading for the South Pole,” says Szilard.

“You don’t need to go aboveground to do that.”

“Somewhere nearby, then.”

“Prime real estate, huh?”

Jharek Szilard laughs. Unexpectedly, he sits down on the floor in front of her, folds his lanky body up in a movement that’s almost sinuous. He gazes up at her.

“You’re quite a woman,” he says.

She looks at him without expression.

“Oh don’t worry. My tastes don’t run that way. Doesn’t mean I can’t express admiration for the girl around whom it’s all spinning. Especially with all that art you’ve adorned yourself with—”

“Let’s cut the bullshit,” she says.

“Who said it was bullshit?”

“To you I’m just a tool.”

“Wrong. That’s the mistake that Montrose made.”

“Among others,” says Haskell.

“And I took advantage of most of them.”

“Do you have a back door to me?”

“No.”

“Then how did you beat Montrose?”

“Never ask a magician to reveal his secrets.”

“Control was your creature, wasn’t he?”

“I suppose that’s one possibility,” says Szilard.

“There are others?”

“Stephanie started something she couldn’t finish.”

“Me.”

“Exactly. She couldn’t figure you out.”

Haskell makes a face. “I’ve got the same problem.”

“That’s the way Sinclair set it up.”

“And you really think you can beat him?”

“Do I need to? If he’s still alive, the Chinese have him.”

“If that’s so, that’s only because he wants it that way.”

“You think he’s that good?”

“I think you need to stop thinking of him as human.”

Szilard sighs. “Look, Claire, I get it. Okay? This war is mere veneer on the real war that’s raging. And to seriously answer your question: I can’t be sure of beating him unless I’ve got you. Will you help?”

“My answer makes no difference.”

“Of course it does.”

“You can’t afford to let me go—ever. Nor can you afford to venture into my mind without the proper key.”

“Let me get back to you on that,” says Szilard.

Time to go,” says the Operative.

“Just when I was winning,” says Linehan.

They troop out of the rec room. They’re all dressed as SpaceCom marines—as is virtually everyone else they