In Heaven and Earth (11 page)

This time they both went
sprawling gracelessly across the bed, Vairya’s head tucked against
his shoulder and their legs splayed.

Reuben wasn’t sure how
long they lay there, but suddenly, the ship shook beneath them, a
long grinding roll that made their discarded clothes go sliding
across the floor.

“
What the
hell?” Reuben said.

“
The city just
shifted to start approaching the sun,” Vairya said, sitting up.
“‘This is how the world ends.’”

Chapter Eight

“‘
NOT WITH a
bang but with a whimper,’” Reuben murmured. “I wouldn’t have
thought Eliot was to your taste.”

“
Nonetheless, I
remember it.” Vairya’s eyes were sad again. “I remember
everything.”

The com buzzed. “Dr
Cooper, we’re all gathered on the bridge.”

“
We’re on our
way,” Reuben said, reaching for his clothes. He tossed Vairya the
pile he had got out earlier and then changed his mind, dropping
back to the bed to kiss Vairya hard.

Vairya locked his arms
around Reuben’s neck and returned his kiss with equal force. Then
he pulled back enough to say, “‘The game’s afoot.’”

“
And we stand
‘like greyhounds in the slips’?” Reuben inquired dryly and pulled
his clothes back on as Vairya broke into a delighted
smile.

“
Oh, Dr
Cooper,” he said, wriggling into a set of Reuben’s spare clothes,
“I do wish I had more time with you.”

Reuben’s throat tightened
and for a few wild seconds he indulged in might-have-beens, vague
colourful dreams of gardens and pageants and Vairya’s sly, bright
smile. Then, because he was a realist, he put his dreams aside and
said, a little self-consciously, “It’s mutual. Pass me my
shirt.”

“
Such romance,”
Vairya muttered and surprised him by offering him the gleaming cord
from his chiton. When Reuben looked puzzled, Vairya sighed and
looped it over his belt. “There. My token, before you ride into
battle, Sir Knight.”

“
Shouldn’t you
have something of mine as well?” Reuben asked with that same warm
clutch of his heart.

Vairya raised his
eyebrow. “Besides the fact I’m wearing your underwear?”

A laugh cracked
out of Reuben, surprising him, and he shot back,
“
Such
romance.”

Vairya met his gaze with
such warm amusement that Reuben couldn’t help smiling back, despite
the fact that the world was collapsing around them, his spirits
lifting against all sense and reason.

Damn it. Not here, not
now, not this impossible man.

“
We should go,”
he said.

“‘
Once more
into the breach,’” Vairya agreed, and they headed up towards the
bridge, Vairya reciting Shakespeare with relish.

Once they were there, the
mood turned sombre. Eskil was tucked into his pilot’s chair,
looking miserable, and the other two were standing by the window,
staring down at the city from where they were docked on the edge of
the upper shell.

“
Took your
time,” Meili said.

“
Sorry,” Reuben
said to forestall the argument. “We’re on the move.”

“
Yes,”
Chanthavy said. “How long do we have?”

“
The city has
no hyperdrive,” Vairya said. “It will take three days before we’re
close enough that there can be no escape.”

“
Is there any
way they can escape the city in that time?” Reuben asked. The
others turned towards him and he shrugged. “That has to be our
first priority. I’m surprised they haven’t tried to move
yet.”

“
They’re not
intelligent,” Vairya said, “not in anything more than the most
instinctive way. They multiply, and they assess everything they
come across to see if it can be utilised to help them spread. If it
cannot, they transform it. They don’t strategise beyond that. They
wouldn’t think to seek out a different ship, for instance, but if
they came across one, they would put it to use.”

“
Why haven’t
they mended their original ship?” Meili asked.

“
We must have
completely incapacitated it. They can’t create, only replicate and
imitate. If they reach the city engines, they could copy
them.”

Reuben nodded. “And the
same with any ships, I presume? We need to leave our dock and put
some clear space between us and the city.”

“
They can build
bridges, so it will need to be a significant distance.”

“
How many other
ships are docked here?”

“
Only about
twenty. We’d just had a large trade convoy leave, and we put out a
quarantine signal as soon as I realised what had
happened.”

“
Eskil,” Reuben
said. “Can you get onto those ships and fly them out of the
dock?”

Eskil nodded. “I can
transport in and out. Might take a few hours, though.”

“
Get started,”
Chanthavy told him. “Can we keep them from the main
engines?”

“
Only by
slowing their progress. If they’re following their normal pattern,
they’ll be moving along the surface of the city and only digging
into underground areas in the second stage. If we c-could e-expose
those areas, they will go back to convert them again.”

“
By expose, you
mean…?” Eskil asked.

Vairya clenched his fists
into the hem of his shirt. “There are more warheads, if we can
access Defence Command. We can—” He swallowed hard.

Reuben reached out and
took his hand. “Your people are safe in your memory. What is left
is just bricks and steel.”

“
How do we
access Defence Command?” Chanthavy asked, eyeing Reuben with a
faint air of disapproval.

“
I can get you
into the network from here. Do any of you have any experience with
long-range weapons?”

“
We have the
ability to defend ourselves,” Chanthavy said. “If we cannot access
your missiles, we have some of our own, although not of similar
strength. I can fire them.”

“
Good,” Reuben
said, looking at Vairya. “What else?”

“
It’s
dangerous.”

“
I don’t
care.”

Vairya’s hand tightened
around his. “I do.”

Meili sighed impatiently.
“And that’s very sweet, but we’re dead anyway, and I want to come
back as a lion next time, not a virus. Give me something worthwhile
to do so that actually happens.”

Vairya squinted
at her. “
That’s
your theology?”

“
Works for
me.”

“
The dangerous
task?” Reuben prompted before they got distracted.

Vairya sighed. “They
spread by two means. The first you have seen. Cell by cell, they
transform matter, drawing out what they need to replicate
themselves before they turn it into diamond and sweep onwards.” He
quirked a humourless smile at Reuben. “‘Breeding lilacs out of the
dead land.’”

“
And the other
means?”

“
They have—
well, I hesitate to call them either humans or cyborgs. They were
human once, centuries ago. When they became diamond, they kept
their form but became servants of the controlling impulse,
automatons with no minds or will of their own. They roam ahead of
the tide. Whatever they touch becomes infused with fresh nanites,
and the tide grows again.” He closed his eyes, swallowing hard.
“That was how my creators fell, and my brothers and sisters who
never escaped Earth.”

“
Zombie
apocalypse,” Meili said, nodding sharply, even as Reuben murmured,
“Hollow men.”

“‘
Shape without
form, shade without colour,’” Vairya agreed.

“
How do we kill
them?” Meili demanded.

“
How did
someone as bloodthirsty as you ever become a doctor?” Reuben
asked.

“
I like
eradicating bad things, like plagues. What’s your
excuse?”

“
Pretty much
the same,” Reuben said. “Vairya, do they have a
weakness?”

“
If you hit
them hard enough, they’ll shatter.”

“
How hard are
we talking?” Meili asked.

“
There’s an
armoury on the lower rim where we keep shoulder-mounted grenade
launchers.” At Meili’s wide-eyed stare, he added defensively, “We
had some problems with pirates sending remote drones into our
atmosphere to hack our defences.”

“
No excuses
needed,” Reuben said. “Eskil can beam Meili and me down
there.”

“
I’ll come
too,” Vairya said.

But Reuben had been
thinking about this. “No. You have your entire people inside your
head, and we need someone up here who can have an overview and
transport us out if we need to change our strategy.”

“
And send you
down there
alone
?”

Reuben dragged a smirk
out. “I won’t be alone. I’ll have Meili.”

“
But—”

“
If we’re going
to do this,” Meili interrupted, her voice harsher than her
expression, “can we do it now, before I lose my nerve? Cooper, kiss
your boy toy goodbye and get your mind in the game.”

Vairya was afraid again;
Reuben could see it in his eyes. There was nothing he could do to
solve that, so he kissed Vairya, ignoring Chanthavy’s pursed lips,
and then stepped away to suit up as Eskil transported out to the
first ship. He and Meili checked each other’s suits, the familiar
routine calming him a little. When they were ready, he turned back
to Vairya. “We’re on coms. Can they hear us?”

“
No,” Vairya
said, not looking away from him. “And they wouldn’t understand if
they could.”

“
Then keep
talking to us,” Reuben said and moved to stand beside Meili. “Ready
when you are.”

“
I’m ready,”
she said. He couldn’t see her face through the screen of the
helmet, but he could hear the determination cracking her
voice.

“
Transporting
you on three… two… one…”

The bridge of
the
Juniper
blurred and went milky around them, fading into white light as
the transport disassembled and remade them.

The light faded into
shadows, and Reuben breathed in quickly as the cold and broken
landscape of the real city came into focus around him.

He had forgotten, lost in
Vairya’s gardens, just how bad it was down here. The city had
turned towards the sun, noon local time, and white light spilled
across an airless landscape that glittered with ice. They stood
before a high door, cracked cobbles stretching out before them to
fill a courtyard which must have been pleasant once: there was an
iced-over fountain in the middle of it, and blackened vines covered
one wall.

“
I have you on
camera,” Vairya said. “You’ll need to go through the door behind
you. Normally it would need a DNA scan and a keycode, but I’m
adjusting the programming. You should be able to get inside in a
few seconds.”

“
No rush,”
Meili said. “It’s not as if, oh, our air supply was
limited.”

“
Patience,”
Vairya said, and the door slid open. “You need to go to the end of
the corridor and enter the room on the right. You’re looking for a
Thierry-Ng Mk 12 Propulsion Unit and the accompanying ordnance. I
can try describing what it looks like.”

“
I’ve seen them
before,” Reuben said and started into the armoury trying to keep
his steps as short as possible so he could check the entrances to
the other rooms.

“
The place was
locked,” Meili pointed out, bounding past him. “Stop being so
paranoid.”

“
Better
paranoid than dead.”

“
Don’t bicker,
children,” Vairya said.

Reuben glimpsed a body in
one of the rooms they passed, slumped in front of a dead
wallscreen. His first instinct was to go in, discover who it was,
and how she had died.

But the time for counting
the dead was over. This was war now.

He found the grenade
launchers easily enough and helped Meili strap one on. There was
plenty of ammunition for them too, and he slung two extra ammo
packs around his waist.

“
Lighter than I
was expecting,” Meili commented, hefting it.

“
It’s designed
to be lightweight, and we’re in reduced gravity. You’ll find the
recoil is worse than you’d expect in normal gravity.”

“
You ever shot
one of these before?”

“
Only on the
practice range.”

“
Oh, this is
going to go well,” she muttered. “Vairya, any idea where we should
start?”

“
I’ve lost
cameras in the transformed areas, but I’m picking up some movement
at the city centre end of Commercial Avenue. I can put you down on
a side road about a quarter of a mile off.”

“
Sounds good,”
Reuben said.

“
Be
careful.”

The world blurred around
them again, and then they were in an alleyway. It contained the
first graffiti Reuben had seen in Caelestia, an inevitable cock and
balls sprayed onto the side of a dumpster. Carefully, Reuben crept
to the mouth of the alley, trying not to kick up any trash which
might drift out to betray their position.