A Night Without Stars (81 page)

When the floater was three hundred kilometers deep in the atmosphere, the light around it had dwindled away to nothing. It was hard to make out the throat of the wormhole; the gateway was a simple black circle.

“Radiation rising,” Demitri said.

“Systems status?” Paula queried.

“So far, so good.”

At thirty kilometers from the boundary, a faint glow began to appear.

“Gamma radiation fluorescence,” Demitri told them. “And that's going to grow.”

At this depth, it was questionable if the floater was immersed in gas or superfluid. Whichever it was, the density was extreme, and starting to stress the force field. The wormhole terminus was having to push the buoyant floater down—another function that was never included in its original performance specifications.

Paula began to wish the ANAdroids were more human. She was sure if they were they'd be panicking about now, giving her a better indication of progress than Demitri's bland assurances. She was certainly starting to sweat.

The radiation glow was getting brighter, shining out at them like a lime-stained sun. Paula's suit helmet activated several filters, protecting her retinas.

At one kilometer above the boundary, the temperature began to rise fast, as did the gravity. The data in Paula's exovision didn't match any gas giant environment on record; they were truly into the unknown now. Gamma radiation was heating the hydrogen to such an extent that the pressure on the floater's force field was approaching overload. Paula noticed that the others had all backed a couple of paces farther from the gateway and smiled to herself.

Without warning, the dazzling miasma became clear, and she could actually make out the surface of the boundary two hundred meters below the floater. There was an immense circle of relative darkness directly underneath.

Five kilometers across,
Paula realized.
The generator. We're on target.

“Acceleration stress,” Demitri said in surprise. “I'm going to have to—”

The floater suddenly lunged down, its force field slamming into the generator's boundary layer. Paula took an involuntary step back, her arm coming up in instinctive animal protection, warding off the unknown threat. The glare cut off abruptly. But the floater was still intact; she could see its data displays in her exovision.

“Laura?”

“I'm here. I should make a pious first-footprint statement—if I had feet.”

“What just happened?” Paula asked.

“The boundary's gravity field pulled it down,” Demitri said. “I had to let the wormhole expand freely or the anchor connection would have been ripped apart from tidal stress. Frankly, we're lucky it's only seventeen gees. The floater systems are only just strong enough to withstand it.”

“The boundary is seventeen gravities?” Ry asked. “How does that happen?”

“That's how it pulls down the gas to fuel itself,” Demitri said, “and how it maintains such a thick atmosphere. This is the gradient Laura detected when she opened the first wormhole here. It's a lot steeper than any natural one.”

“But everything is intact?” Paula said. Her medical display was showing her heart rate slowing back to normal levels.

“Stable for now,” Demitri said.

She was familiar enough with him now to hear the caution in that tone. “But?”

“The gravity is gripping the floater hard. Attempting to move the terminus will break the anchor connection; it's not strong enough to lift the floater against that force.”

“Can we disengage from this end?” Paula asked.

“Yes, but I don't think we'd be able to reconnect. Not in this environment. Effectively, we're stuck like this.”

“Where did the light go?” Florian asked.

“It's here all around me, but you just can't see it now,” Laura said. “I'm orientated so the wormhole is directly on top of the boundary.”

“I thought the boundary sucked everything through.”

“The ordinary boundary surface consumes and obliterates matter to power itself,” Valeri said. “That's where the gamma energy emission comes from, a tiny back-leakage from disintegrating particles. But the boundary above the generator isn't permeable; it's a protective field. So the floater didn't get sucked through.”

“Did you know that before?” Florian said.

“It was a risk.”

“But…”

“I was prepared to take it,” Laura told him. “I am duplicated in the Ursell floater, so there was little to lose.”

Florian exhaled loudly. “Commonwealth people think so differently.”

“Rationality is a by-product of age and experience,” Paula told him.

“With a few exceptions,” Demitri added ruefully.

Paula grinned, knowing who he was referring to.

“So the boundary over the generator is like a force field?” Florian persisted.

“A very powerful one,” Demitri said.

Paula turned to face the towering yellow cylinder. “Is this connection good enough for you?” she asked the Planter.

“Yes. We will require you to allow me through your force fields so we may physically touch the anomaly.”

“Show me what you want,” Demitri said. “I'll adjust as we go.”

A mound of Trüb's shiny purple surface expanded right in front of the gateway machine. The top rippled and darkened. A thick strand of dark-gray material snaked up and bent horizontal to touch the gateway's force field. It flowed through and kept going, probing down to the lightless boundary.

Paula realized she was holding her breath.

“Your assumption was correct,” the Planter said. “This is the generator. It comprises quantum phased matter formatting a specific warp within local spacetime: the boundary around a zone of zero-temporal flow.”

“They're in stasis,” Paula mused. “That figures; the Void was constantly manipulating its internal time flow.” She took a deep breath, coming as close to praying as she ever had. “Can you switch it off?”

“No. We would have to manipulate a vast quantity of energy to override the warp—greater than the amount the boundary is producing. We do not have that quantity of energy.”

The atomic bomb was curiously innocuous—not that Chaing could actually see the mechanism itself. The casing was an olive-green metal trunk, two meters long, with small yellow alphanumerics stenciled on—the same as every munitions box ever made by the state armories. It sat on the marble floor beside the prime minister's wide desk as if someone had dropped it there by mistake.

Even though he was growing used to the scale of the palace, Chaing was awed by how ostentatious the study was.
A room bigger than a football pitch for one person to work in? Crud, those old Captains were decadent. And our prime ministers are so different. Yeah, right.
Dawn light was shining in through the tall arched windows, illuminating the long wall paintings of the Air Force planes; regiment troops sweeping vigilantly through jungles and farmland; and heroic workers building Bienvenido's new factories.

There were eight section seven guards on duty in the anteroom that led into the study at the opposite end from the desk; a further three secured the private corridor at the other end of the study. A major from the atomic weapons division had been waiting beside the bomb. He showed Chaing the keyholes under a small lid on the side. “You have to turn them simultaneously. Ninety degrees arms it. Wait thirty seconds for the trigger power sequence to run, then turn another ninety degrees.”

“That's it?” Chaing asked in surprise.

“Yes.” The major saluted grimly and left.

As he went out into the anteroom, Corilla and Jenifa came in. Corilla had looked around in amazement as she walked the length of the study, shaking her head at the garish artwork, then recoiled as she saw the Faller skulls in the alcoves. She caught sight of the desk and hurried around to the polished leather chair behind it. “Got to do it once in your life,” she declared happily as she sat down. “You”—she pointed at imaginary aides—“have my opponents assassinated. You, fetch me strawberries and champagne.”

“Grow up,” Jenifa grunted.

“Never going to happen,” Corilla retorted, and all the humor drained from her face. “Not now. No time.” She spun the chair around to face the cheap wooden bookshelves along the back wall. “So what does a prime minister read?”

Jenifa ignored her and walked over to one of the big windows. She frowned as she looked down into the Rose Courtyard. “Why is the space machine down there?”

Chaing limped over to stand beside her and peered down to see the space machine in the middle of the courtyard, its unmistakable cylinder shape illuminated by the dull light creeping over the high walls around it. A couple of the white-coated staff from section seven's advanced science division stood idly beside it. As he watched, a small tractor drove into the courtyard, towing a flatbed trolley. This one had a metal sphere on it, with a large viewport on one side and an open hatch on the other; a lot of segments were missing. He just knew it was some kind of Commonwealth artifact; it was too sophisticated for Bienvenido to manufacture. The thing put him in mind of a Liberty capsule, only bigger and better. “Being taken to Byarn?” he suggested. One of the women down on the cobbles was Faustina, directing more of her colleagues who were arriving with small boxes. It certainly looked like she was preparing to go somewhere.

“Why bother?” Jenifa said quietly. “We all know how this is going to end.”

Chaing turned away from her and walked across the study to the windows that looked out along Bryan-Anthony Boulevard beyond the palace's sturdy perimeter wall. Troops and vehicles were mustering on the big parade ground, while civilians were starting to gather at the front gates. There were a lot of children out there, Chaing saw; everyone was staring up at the palace's façade, not chanting slogans or shaking their fists. Just staring. Waiting.

“They're expecting salvation,” he said in wonder.

“Then they're fools,” Jenifa retorted bitterly. “They've only got a few hours left now. They should be at home with their families.”

Chaing could see smoke and flames rising across the city. The largest conflagrations were coming from the waterfront. “I'm not sure we've even got that long.” The faint sound of firearms was audible across the rooftops.

The palace gates opened and a convoy of tracked trucks drove out, racing down the slope.

Jenifa glanced back at the bomb. There was perspiration on her forehead. “This is stupid. We should just get it over with.”

Chaing shook his head. “Not yet. There's still time for the Warrior Angel to contact us.”

“You're pathetic, you know that?”

He drew himself up as best he could; the pain in his leg seemed to be a lot worse today. “Carrying out
this
order correctly takes more strength that you'll ever have. As you've just demonstrated.”

“I am strong!” Jenifa snarled at him.

“Then have the strength to wait for the Warrior Angel.”

“Eliters have faith in their reactionary idol, not PSR officers.”

“I have faith in people.”

She smiled mockingly. “You can tell me now. It won't make any difference; we're all about to die one way or another. Come on, Chaing, I think you owe me that much.”

Just for a moment he actually considered it, but even now he held back.
Never trust a PSR fanatic.
“I know what I am, and I am completely comfortable with that. Isn't that the goal of the world we're trying to build, comrade? Justice and equality for everyone.”

“I'm not a politician. I just keep this world safe.”

Chaing laughed quietly. The convoy of tracked trucks had disappeared from view, and the palace gates were closing again. He saw more people coming out of the junctions along Bryan-Anthony Boulevard, turning to march toward the palace. “Well, you and I have both failed spectacularly on that front.”

“We can still save people from the Fallers,” Jenifa said urgently. “And we can take a crud-load of the bastards with us. End this, Chaing. Be brave, and you and I will go shout at Uracus together.”

“These people are frightened, that's all,” Corilla said staring out at the approaching crowd. “We know the nests are moving into the city; we're just trying to keep ahead of them.”

Chaing looked from the throng hurrying along Bryan-Anthony Boulevard, to Corilla, then back again. “They're all Eliters?”
There's thousands of them.

“Yes,” she said softly. “We're people, too, you know. And there's nowhere else to go. This is the center of the city. The safest place.” She frowned. “There's also a message in the general band saying children will have protection from the egg bombardment if they come here.”

“Stonal and Davorky aren't going to like that,” Jenifa said flatly.

Chaing watched anxiously as palace guard squads hurried across the parade ground to line up on the high walkway behind the wall. They weren't leveling their weapons. Yet.

Corilla let out a gasp of shock and gripped the edge of the desk.

“What's the matter?” Chaing asked; she looked as if she was about to be sick.

“Link,” she grunted, and pushed off from the desk to stagger over to the first of the great arching windows. “It's so strong.”

“Are you in contact with that rabble?” Jenifa asked suspiciously. She took the link detector from her uniform pocket and frowned. The red bulb on top was glowing brightly.

Corilla was pressed against the glass, staring in reverence up into the clear sapphire sky. “No,” she breathed as her eyes watered. “It's not the crowd. This is coming from space.”

Paula stared at the dark center of the wormhole for a long moment, refusing to let the despair rise. Working the problem—as always. “But if you had that kind of energy, could you do it?” she asked the Planter. “Could you switch off the generator?”