Event Horizon (Hellgate) (17 page)

“And this new data confirms what we learned from the listening device we picked up on Celeste,” Jazinsky added. “We’ve got a line to them. I can’t tell you the absolute course to fly, to take us right to the Zunshu homeworlds – and no way can I put a distance on it for you. But Mark and I are sure of this. We can get us there.”

“Even if we can’t,” Mark said with a definite fascination, “We can explore. This was the purpose for which Lai’a was designed, and it’s eager to leave. At the moment, as I told you, it’s committed to the analysis of every particle of information we have appertaining to Elarne, and the development of an effective transspace navtank, preloaded and configured for the use of
human
pilots. It understands the critical nature of this.”

“Then, we’re 22 days from launch.” Shapiro’s eyes closed for a moment and a trace of color faded from his face. “The
Wastrel
will be good to go in 16 hours; we’ll be on the
Kiev
in four days.” Again, he looked from face to face. “If anyone has issues, now is the time to voice them.”

“Just one more thing.” Vidal leaned closer, over the table. “You know we’re working on the pilot trainer, the transspace simulator.”

“I saw the preliminary reports.” Shapiro took another glass of wine. “Problems, Michael?”

“Yes and no.” Vidal looked along at Grant. “We need a second cryogen tank, to be modified for the purpose. If you saw our data, you’re fully aware how this simulator depends on being flown from complete sensory-deprivation, virtual reality rigs. By far the best solution is to cannibalize a couple of cryotanks … we have one. We
need
two.”

Shapiro’s brows rose. “And the problem is –?”

“The problem is,” Bill Grant said sharply, “I don’t have another one to spare. Very soon we could need every tank we can get our hands on.”

“He makes a good point,” Vidal sighed, “but … priorities, Bill. We believe the pilot training program is critical, and we don’t have a lot of time to spare.” He was looking at Shapiro as he spoke. “One more human survivor could be measured against the security of a whole world. And I know where Bill’s coming from. What if the one life was mine, or yours, or Jon’s.” Vidal’s eyes flicked aside to Kim, and back to Shapiro. “It’s a nasty call to make … but I’d make it. We need another tank, or the transspace simulator isn’t going to fly properly. And – without saying a word against Lai’a,” he added with a glance at Mark Sherratt, “we need backup pilots.”

The golden-maned head nodded assent of Vidal’s argument, and Travers waited. In fact, Shapiro did not hesitate. “You have your tank,” he said at once. “Doctor Grant, I appreciate your position, and it’ll be a matter of record that you released the tank under protest. Rest assured, if a life is lost due to the deficiency, the responsibility will land on my desk, not yours.”

“All right.” Grant’s face was a study in neutrality; even his voice was without inflection. “I’ll break a tank out of storage tonight. You’ll have it by morning.”

“Thanks, Bill.” Vidal hesitated. “And don’t imagine I disagree with the instincts of a doctor. It’s just a question of priorities.”

“I know.” Grant drained a schooner glass in one pull. “Well, if you know any soldiers’ gods, light a candle. We can get lucky again, right?”

“I believe we can.” Shapiro’s mouth compressed. “I think this concludes business. Anyone else?” But the table was quiet and at last he graced the assembly with an almost paternal smile. “Then, I’d be glad to call this briefing closed and take dessert.”

A shiver passed through Travers’s nervous system, head to foot, as memory replayed Shapiro’s bald words over and over.
We’re 22 days from launch … 22 days.
Elarne waited for them. They would launch into the roiling, seething maw of a Hellgate storm, the very monster he had spent years trying to avoid; and at the other side of the transspace ocean –

Zunshu.

Marin had spoken to him for the third time before the words made it through to the part of his mind where thought had rekindled after moments of utter blankness. “Neil, you all right? Neil?”

He shook himself as if he had just walked out of a lake of tepid, viscous glue which plugged his ears and sealed shut his eyes. The room was too bright; he could actually hear the beat of his own heart as he took a long deep breath and focused on Marin’s voice. “I’m okay,” he lied.

“You’re not,” Marin said, as quietly as he had spoken before. “Bill’s going to be calling it ‘Elarne syndrome,’ or ‘
transspacephobia
.’ He could write his dissertation on it.”

The humor was tenuous but Travers appreciated it. “I guess it just smacked me in the face … it got very
real
, if it makes any sense. Before, the whole Lai’a expedition’s been like…”

“Like an abstract concept,” Marin agreed. “Out there like a storm over the horizon that might never come this way. Now we’re on countdown to a rendezvous with a Class 6 or 7 event, and we’re gone.” He gestured at the rest of the company. “I think it hit everyone else at this table the same way. You didn’t see it run through Harrison?”

“I did.” Travers sat back and deliberately shepherded his thoughts to order, and his composure. “Christ, what are we doing?”

“What the Resalq did, about a thousand years ago,” Marin said philosophically, “but with better reason. They went out to explore Elarne for its own sake, pure research. We have bigger fish to fry.”

“Zunshu.” Travers looked up as Perlman called his name with a wave. The group representing Bravo Company was leaving, and he heard the mention of a folgen deck and a bottle of cognac. He returned Perlman’s wave with a forced smile that felt stiff, wooden, to his own facial muscles.

“You two colonels want to join the game?” Judith Fargo offered. “Ten bucks a point and a grand prize – a fifth of Marcel Gilbert, best cognac out of Velcastra in the last century.”

“Thanks, but we’ve a party to go to,” Marin told her. “We might join you later, if the game’s still on.”

“It might be,” Fargo judged. “Jim won’t be playing. Our resident card sharp has to be on the
Wastrel
, him and Tully need to image some machine parts and get ’em fabricated.” She sketched a salute with only a shred of similarity to anything military, and drifted away with Perlman and Fujioka.

“A party?” Shapiro echoed. “I didn’t get an invitation.”

Vidal gave a hoarse chuckle. “Wasn’t sure you’d want one. It’s the Return from the Dead party. Me, Jo, Ernst, being alive and all. Fancy dress is optional, but I might go as a zombie. God knows, I don’t need a costume.”

“You’re very harsh with yourself,” Shapiro said quietly.

“Realistic,” Vidal argued as he pushed back his chair. “In fact, we better go get set up for this thing. Guys?” He looked down at Queneau and Rabelais.

Rabelais was the first one on his feet. Of the three, he had come through the ordeal the best, because the bigger, stronger pair had protected him, the only way they could. If there was rest, warmth and food, he got it, because he was ten years older, with frail, unengineered human genes, and he had broken bones. And, Travers thought, he was
Rabelais
. The legend. Little wonder he felt beholden, and that Vidal and Queneau were closer to him than his own family had ever been.

The legend spread his arms expansively and looked around the table. “Party in my quarters, half an hour. Come as you are, dress if you like. Jo and I just got the clean bill of health from the redoubtable Doctor Grant, so we’re buying.”

“I knew,” Grant muttered in an audible grumble, “I’d regret saying you guys were good to go. You’re still underweight and way under par. If you reckon you can booze the night through, you’ve got a bloody nasty surprise coming – and I’ll see you back in the Infirmary tomorrow!”

“Hey, Doc, relax.” Rabelais gave Grant a rueful look. “We’re not totally
wuzhi
, or do I mean woozy?”

“Both,” Queneau decided. “Either.”

“Whatever.” Rabelais made dismissive gestures. “Half an hour, my quarters. If I don’t see you guys there, I’ll catch you tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow,” Shapiro reminded, “we’re en route to Omaru.”

“The
Wastrel
,” Rabelais with the same expansive spirit. “We live there, eh, Jo? Might even continue to live there after the war, if Rick’ll have us aboard.”

Marin sounded surprised. “You don’t want to go back to Velcastra?”

The question seemed to perplex Rabelais, and it was Rusch who said, “It’s been two centuries. Velcastra isn’t the same place. The family he knew are either deceased or so geriatric, they’re older than Charles and spending their twilight months in institutions. There’s no way back, is there, Ernst?”

The bonhomie swiftly settled into introspection. “No. I can’t make sense of Patrick and Mei Ying. Charles is getting close to the end of his life … then there’s Elaine, who’s left, and the daughter who was killed. Mick and you, Lex, are right here beside me. The rest are strangers. It’s just their arrogance to trace their ancestry back to the lunatic who went out charting the space around Hellgate. Me? I was doing a job, and I thought I’d be home in a year and a half with the ship and the drones intact and a nice, fat paycheck waiting for me. All this
legend
stuff happened later, while I was drifting around a stable zone of transspace that I pretty soon learned to call hell. You think there was something heroic about it?” He barked a self-mocking laugh devoid of any humor. “I’d have done anything, paid anything, to get out of there.”

“And here you are.” Alexis looked up at him with a curious frown. “Don’t knock it, Ernst.”

“I never do.” He seemed to shrug away the introversion. “And I
am
smart enough to know when to drink to my own health in some very good booze, even if I did come back as the family ghost. And Mick’s right – if we’re having a party, we better go get set up.”

The trio strolled out in the wake of Bravo, and Travers pushed his own chair back from the table. “I’ll feel almost like an intruder. It’s a very private club they’re running.”

“Not for much longer,” Marin said thoughtfully. “Right now they’re the only transspacers in existence. Twenty-two days changes everything.” He shivered visibly and stood, following Travers. “You ought to be there,” he added, to Grant.

“Oh, I bloody intend to be,” the Lushi said, the Australian thickening in his voice, “if only to put the brakes on them when they forget. You have no idea what booze will do to them.”

“Yes,” Marin whispered, “I have.”

Grant considered him bleakly. “Yeah. I, uh, ran your records. Sorry.”

“Don’t be.” Marin clasped the medic’s shoulder in passing. “And credit those three with a grain of sense. If they were completely
wuzhi
they wouldn’t even be here.” On the way out of the conference lounge, he turned back to Mark. “Will you be there?”

“I’ll pass through, if I can get away,” Mark promised. “I’ve a lot to do, since we got the deep scans of the abomination.” His face was like dark amber. “Our ancestors called them the
djeronzjim mat’che
.” He glanced down at Curtis. “You know the term? It hasn’t been heard for centuries. In the end few people would even speak it aloud, since it sounded like a curse.”

“Not the term itself,” Marin said slowly, “but I can translate the parts of it.
Djer
, meaning go away, or go into.
Onzjim
, infinity, or perhaps forever if a better choice of word, given the context.
Che
is malice, and
mat
… would that be from
matub
, some kind of spirit, or sprite, from the old mythology?”

The lion-maned head nodded. “Kes Matub was the goblin in the story of Jagreth, the champion whose quest took him into improbable realms in search of his true love. The old, old story.
Kes
was beyond wicked. He was pure evil, and he became the archetype of the goblin in our mythology. So
mat’che
carries the weight of double meaning.
Djeronzjim
– gone forever. In the old Resalq the word means extinct. Hence, the wreaker of extinction:
Djeronzjim mat’che.
”