Grail

Tristen rubbed his hands together. “So the implication of what you are telling us is that whoever sabotaged your vessel did so in a spirit of complete rationality?”

“Yes,” Amanda said. “And in the spirit of the public good.”

“That is useful information.” Perceval inclined her head like a queen, leaving Tristen to wonder what the squat, earthbound alien couple made of her. “Please, I must address the crisis now; Samael will see you are made comfortable. Now that the autonomous response is complete, there will be decisions that require my full attention.”

Amanda looked at Danilaw, seeking support, Tristen imagined, for whatever she would say next. His nod must have offered it, because when she turned back she spoke directly—and passionately—to Perceval.

“Captain,” she said. “I understand that you have exceptionally good reasons not to trust us currently. But I beg of you—you must have wounded, and I feel a grave responsibility for their pain. As a Legate and ship’s Captain, I have some medical training. Will you allow Danilaw and me to help in your recovery efforts?”

“Wounded?” Perceval thought for a moment. “We have facilities for them. But if you would care to observe, you are welcome to join us. I would recommend you allow us to provide you with armor before entering the damaged zone.”

“That would be welcome,” Danilaw said.

The Captain nodded. “All right then. Mallory, Tristen? You’re also with me.”

   The pressure suits provided for Danilaw and Amanda were not at all what Danilaw was used to. But having observed Tristen’s “armor” in action, Danilaw was confident that it was a superior technology—as long as it wasn’t prone to catastrophic, untelegraphed failures.

Instructing him and Amanda in its use, Mallory seemed confident that they could handle it. “Even young children have no problem adapting to armor. The armor will take care of you. All you have to do is trust it.”

Danilaw wiggled his fingers in the gauntlets, trying to accustom himself to the feel of the sticky-cool colloidal lining, and eyed the necromancer dubiously. “Trust it?”

“Danilaw,” Mallory said, “this is armor. Armor, this is Danilaw. He is in your charge.”

“I am pleased to be of service, Danilaw.” The armor spoke through pinhole speakers in the neck aperture. Based on Amanda’s jump, she was hearing something similar, which told him the voice response was directional. “Are you familiar with my operation?”

“No,” Danilaw said, finding his voice. He was grateful for his rightminding. He could feel his body’s adrenaline response, the atavistic desire to panic, but he was aware of it as a chemical response, and he controlled it. “I’ve never seen anything like you before.”

“Shall I place myself in training mode?” the armor asked.

“Affirmative,” Danilaw said.

“Normally phrased commands will suffice.” Was that his own embarrassment causing him to imagine a comforting tone in its speech? Or a touch of hesitancy?

“Thank you,” Danilaw said, concealing his stress and irritation that they were not yet moving to relieve the inevitable wounded. He did not know the disaster protocols on the Jacob’s Ladder. Captain Perceval’s apparent air of leisureliness might mean only that the situation was under control, and she was too much of a professional to act in haste. But Danilaw’s adrenaline response urged at him nonetheless. Do something, and do it now.

He raised his eyes, straightening his spine. Around him, the others seemed garbed and ready. Danilaw was grateful that he still had his q-set; like Amanda’s, it was modular. Now he wore it under this “armor” as he had worn it under the pressure suit, and it gave him a direct link to Amanda.

Probably not a secure one, given the armor’s sensitivity to voice commands. But a way to speak with her, at least. Amanda’s Free Legate status meant she could transmit anything she experienced as it happened, and Danilaw hoped she was doing so. Back on Fortune, Jesse and Gain should be going over the data already.

If Danilaw had thought Samael was giving them a grand tour (or a bit of a runaround) on the way in, the trip back disabused him. It was easier in the alien armor—it did some of the work of walking for him—and they traveled fast now. But the scenery was the same—although, as they moved through it, Danilaw was unsurprised to find it increasingly ravaged.

The scenery also stopped more abruptly than it had before.

They passed into the final air lock, still some ways from where the docking cradle had been, and Tristen turned and said, “Seal up now.”

All five sets of armor answered his command, helms scrolling shut in unison. Danilaw expected a pressure change, but there came no sense of a difference in atmosphere.

“Sealed,” his suit responded, as Danilaw found himself staring through the gold-tinted mask of Tristen’s armor. Tristen nodded—the armor telegraphed the motion—and turned back. When the First Mate cycled the air lock, Danilaw felt his heart squeezing in short rhythm as if it were lodged in the base of his throat. He gasped once, careful not to hyperventilate, and felt the thundering ease.

What he saw beyond the hatchway was exactly what he had anticipated. From the expressions behind the faceplates of the evolved and yet atavistic humans surrounding him, he imagined they were experiencing a more complicated emotional journey, but his own response was first the terrible sorrow and acceptance, and second the cataloging of what must be done to alleviate the situation.

The delicate docking cradle that had so gently webbed in the Quercus was reduced to writhing shards. The limbs that had surrounded it had been deformed by the force of the blast. The debris of the research scull itself was secured within a sort of silvery cargo net. Danilaw could not immediately identify its manufacture. As he watched, it writhed and grew, and spread itself across another few meters of scrap.

The damage was just as the animation had led him to believe, but other elements of the scene seemed wrong.

Danilaw expected salvage equipment, men and women in these shells of strange pressure armor—hardened by its own molecular bonds rather than by programmable fields—working feverishly. He expected medical teams and docbots—and what he saw was a strange absence of most of these things.

Before his eyes, the damage was unknitting itself, the world remade as if someone were running the animation of the explosion in reverse. It was the sort of effect one expected to see in an entertainment, and it stopped him cold where he hung.

He drifted silently for a moment, then opened his mouth and said, “Mallory? Who is effecting those repairs?”

“The Angel,” Mallory said, as if it were a perfectly everyday sort of sentence. “She says there are six crew members mind-dead, a few dozen crew and organisms injured, and the ladder tree was destroyed beyond salvage.”

“Oh,” Perceval said. “That is a pity.”

Mind-dead? Danilaw wondered. But it seemed like an inopportune time to ask.

“Can we clone her?” Tristen asked.

“There should be salvageable cellular material,” Mallory said. “If any of it has an intact nucleus, we can replace the ladder tree. It won’t bring back her experiences, but we have a recent backup. But … it will take centuries for her to grow so large and knowledgeable again.”

“We don’t have centuries,” Perceval said. Danilaw had the distinct sense that quietly, contained within herself, she was grieving.

“Not if Danilaw lets us land,” Mallory said. “But then that begs the question—what would we have done with her when we got to Grail, anyway? What will we do with all our biodiversity?”

“Grail?” Danilaw asked, to cover his flinch. It was an excellent question.

“Your world,” Perceval said, floating before that enormous emptiness. “What do you call it?”

“Fortune,” Danilaw said. “And the sister world is Favor.”

Perceval turned to him and extended an armored hand. “Thank you, Administrator,” she said. “There is little else we can accomplish here. Will you and the Captain join us for dinner?”

   She’d asked them if they would prefer a formal dinner and a full presentation to the senior crew, but Administrator Danilaw and Captain Amanda had argued gently for a little more privacy. “The flower of diplomacy