The Burning Dark (29 page)

“Who is she, and what did she say?”

Carter sniffed loudly and wiped his nose with his hand.

“She’s from far away. But she can bring them back.” Carter turned and looked at Serra. She winced again at his too-strong grip.

“For fuck’s sake,” she said. “Who?”

“My parents. I can see them again, speak to them. She’ll bring them here.”

Serra’s heart rate went up by half in less than a second. She shook her head and ran her hands over Carter’s regulation crew cut. “
Nene,
you’ve had a shock. Ever since the security breach. You shouldn’t have gone back to duty so quickly.”

Carter snarled and yanked his head away. Serra wasn’t surprised at the reaction and let her hands fall into her lap.

“She can bring them back,” he said. He stabbed a finger down toward the floor, like his parents could materialize right in their cabin, right now.

But they couldn’t. They couldn’t.

Serra shushed her lover but he flinched, so she got to the point. “They can’t come back, baby. They’re dead. You know that.”

Carter nodded, the snarl replaced with a smile. He sniffed again. “Yes, yes, they’re dead. They’re all dead, all of them. But they can come back. She can bring them back.”

Serra shook her head. Carter had snapped. Spooked by the shadows and the environment failures and the general what-the-fuckery that had gone on for the last two months.

Serra reached down to pick up her discarded clothing. As she moved, Carter hopped from the bed and grabbed her arm. He squeezed and pulled her to her feet, the bedding falling away. Serra snarled at him. “What the fuck are you talking about, Charlie? Your parents are dead. You know that. They’re dead.”

But Carter just nodded. “Yes, they’re dead. They’re all dead—DeJohn, the commandant, the marines. She can bring them all back here. The gift, you gotta use it, for me. You can help me.”

Serra searched his face for any hint of sanity, but saw nothing but eyes wide and wet and a rictus grin. She didn’t like the way he called her wild talent the “gift.” It was the word her grandmother used for her precious Carminita, a description of the raw, hereditary ability the Fleet had enhanced to a finely tuned battle sense. Serra had never called it that, not to Carter. She didn’t like the way the conversation was going.

She pulled her arm free and turned to reach for her clothing again, but Carter grabbed her a second time.

“Charlie, let go!”

He shook his head. “You can do it,” he said. “You can help me. Please, you have to help me. You can use the gift.” He tapped his own temple.

She moved to sit back on the bed, and he let her this time.

The gift? In the middle of all this, he wanted her to reach out and make contact? Even the thought of it made the static in her ears rush in, like a gate had been opened. She closed her eyes and pressed the heel of her hand against her forehead, and listened to the noise.

“Who is ‘she’?” she asked eventually.

Carter sat next to her. “She’s from far away. From the other side of space. She’s dead too.”

Serra gulped and felt faint. She opened her eyes and saw Carter looking at her.

“She’s dead, and she can help us. She can help all of us. She can help
you.
”

Their eyes remained locked.

Help … me?
At this thought, the static swirled, like the machine was listening in on their conversation. Watching from the dark. Giving approval.

Then Serra nodded.

“Okay.”

32

The corridor swam with
static, which made Ida pause, half-in, half-out of the elevator. The space radio had been off when he left his cabin, he was certain of that, and the first thought that jumped out at him was that someone was messing in his private space—again. Ida clenched his fists and his jaw and headed down the passageway.

It took Ida a few moments to realize how cold the air was and that the pain in his knee that had started back at the elevator was ramping up. He stopped mid-stride, his breath catching in a white cloud before him.

Not again.

“Ida? Ida, where are you?”

Ludmila calling, her voice punching holes in the white noise that surged and rolled to fill the gap when she was silent.

“Ludmila?”

“Ida, I can’t stop them, I tried—”

Ida broke into a run, his artificial joint screaming. Ludmila’s voice was different: it sounded even farther away, and the hard edge of fear had returned.

Ida’s cabin was empty and dark, lit only by the half light from the passageway as he stood across the open doorway. The blue light of the space radio was piercing.

“Ludmila? What’s wrong?” Ida moved to his desk, pulled the chair in tight, and hunched over the radio set. He tried adjusting the signal, but the static just popped and crackled and settled back into its usual pattern.

“I tried to stop them, I tried to stop them, Ida, but I couldn’t, I couldn’t—”

Another noise now, a chirping or clicking. Ida frowned and closed his eyes. Then he realized what it was, distorted by the bad signal. Ludmila was crying.

“Stop who? Ludmila, tell me what happened.”

Ludmila sniffed, the sound of dry paper being torn.

“They’re coming. It’s sooner than I thought. I’ve tried to hold them back, but it’s not working. They’re getting stronger.”

“Who is?”

“Ida, you must stop them.”

Ida sighed and rubbed his face. “Who?”

“Your friend, Carter. And the others. They’re going to try to bring them in. It’s too soon, too soon.”

Ida sat up. Carter? Friend was not the first term that came to mind. But, more important, how did Ludmila know what the marine was doing? How did she know anything about what went on in the
Coast City
outside of Ida’s cabin?

“What’s Carter doing?”

The rush of white noise snapped like a gunshot, making Ida jerk back instinctively from the radio set. When Ludmila spoke again her voice was loud and crushed.

“Stop him! Stop them all!”

Ida hopped to his feet and looked around, searching. Then he saw it. The Yuri-G was sitting on the bed. In the confusion aboard the
Bloom County,
Zia hadn’t seen him pick it up. He grabbed it and checked the charge, almost telling Ludmila to wait there. He stopped, and had the oddest feeling that she really was in the room.

“Go,” she said. “He’s on Level Twelve, Mess Deck.”

“How did you—?”

“Go!” Ludmila screamed. Her voice, meshed with the interference across the radio, was like a banshee’s cry. Ida felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.

Without saying a word, he sprinted out.

*   *   *

In the empty cabin,
the static died down to a baseline level, punctuated by the occasional pop as Ludmila cried. Then it snapped again, as it had before.

“Contact has been established … contact has been established,” Ludmila whispered to the empty room.

33

Knock-knock-knock-knock-knock-knock-knock.

Hands clenched.

“It’s not working—”

“Marine, shush.”

“Sir.”

Knock-knock-knock-knock.

“You really know what you’re doing?”

“It’s fine. It always starts like this.” Serra fidgeted on her chair. Carter’s hand was like sandpaper in hers.

Knock-knock-knock-knock.

“This is fucked up.”

Someone else moved, knocking a knee against the table, rocking it.

“Carter, shut the fuck up. You were the one who asked me to do this.” And now, sitting in the dark, in the circle, she wondered why she’d agreed so easily.

Then the machine sound was there, creeping in at the edge of her mind, and she knew she’d made the right decision.

“Fine,” Carter whispered.

Knuckles white. More knocks.

“Carter,” said Sen, thrown out of bed by Carter to complete the circle, “you are so fucking full of shit.”

“That so, gunner?”

“It sure is. Just wanted you to know.”

“Duly noted.”

Someone snickered. Serra’s eyes flicked open but the canteen was lost in pitch black. It was amazing, breathtaking, how dark they had managed to get it. Not even the night-lights in the passageway outside sent a single sliver sliding under the canteen door.

She closed her eyes again and concentrated. She wasn’t that familiar with the rituals of Santeria, and she hadn’t done this for … well, forever, really. And only one time before that, when she’d been six. Her mother had been furious, but even she bit her tongue. Her mother had been scared of Grandmother, always, of the things she could do. But it was working. The white noise in her head was clearing, slowly.

“This better work.”

Serra’s eyes snapped open again. It was ridiculous. Just an hour ago Carter had been a wreck in her cabin, crying for his mother. Now he was acting like she was
making
him do this.

“Are we going to keep trying, or do you children want to go play somewhere else?”

Someone yawned, and someone coughed. The blackness was like a blanket, enveloping, soft.

Nobody said anything for a few seconds, but nobody let go of her hands either. Finally Carter hissed; Serra could just imagine his face, teeth clenched, lips drawn, ready for anything the enemy could throw at them.

“Do it,” he said.

Serra screwed her eyes tighter and tried to remember what her grandmother had taught her, twenty years ago. That it had been in the old house in Puerto Rico and she was now on an old station a thousand light-years away shouldn’t matter. Carter had made direct contact. That was much more than her grandmother ever had, and she’d made a living out of the “gift.”

She was old by the time Serra hit recruitment age, but cane in hand she’d stood by her beloved Carminita as she took the oath, as tall and as proud as her bones would allow. Next to her, her mother was also proud, but there were tears in her eyes and her hands shook. She was scared for her daughter. Service with the Fleet was honorable, but with Spider aggression increasing daily, the survival rate was enough to make any mother weep.

A sigh in the dark, from her left. Someone jumped in his or her seat and someone snickered again. This wasn’t going to work. They needed a focus. They needed a light. They needed gifts.

*   *   *

Ida’s booted feet pounded
the crosshatch decking. It made a racket, which was fine by him. If the marines were in trouble, he had no problem letting them know someone was coming.

He came out of the elevator and headed left. The canteen was a quarter-way around the hub, between him and the next elevator lobby. For a change the passage lights were operational, the night glow flaring to regular operational white as Ida raced around the curved corridor. The environment control was holding as well.

Neither of these facts entered Ida’s mind until the lights failed. He careered to a halt, animal instinct stopping his run as the darkness of the next passageway section reared up at him like a physical object.

Ida swore and, arms swinging, carried on.

*   *   *

It was all they
had, but it would do. The lighter—illegal on the U-Star, but smuggled on board by someone—provided a tiny flame but one that burned with a yellow so dazzling in the complete dark of the canteen that even with Serra’s eyes closed, the shapes moved brown and red behind their lids. Next to the lighter stood a plastic cup of canteen coffee, the steam rising in mesmerizing waves in the flickering light. The only thing missing from the offering was a cigar, but Serra was amazed enough that someone in the circle had produced the lighter. The gifts were better than she could have hoped for.

Serra exhaled, shook her sweaty hands, and then completed the circle again. All at once, everyone around the table jolted, like a circuit had been completed and an electrical charge conducted.

“What the fuck—?”

“Quiet,” whispered Serra. Behind her closed eyes she watched the flame dance.

Knock-knock-knock-knock.

“This still ain’t working. I gotta be on shift soon.”

KNOCK-KNOCK-KNOCK-KNOCK.

Everyone jumped as the rapping sounded on the table in front of them.

“What the fucking fuck?”

The knocking continued, fainter. Serra leaned down toward the table, concentrating.

“Please, we have a code. One for no, two for yes. Do you understand?”

Knock-knock-knock-knock-knock.

Serra felt Carter’s grip relax. He moved his fingers, threatening to break the perfect circle. They were so close.

KNOCK.

“What?”

“Wait.”

KNOCK-KNOCK.

“Do you understand us?”

KNOCK-KNOCK.

Someone on the opposite side of the table drew a breath in sharply. One of the marines, another woman. Serra didn’t really know her. She seemed quiet and timid, but she had more Spider kills notched on her rifle butt than the rest of the squad put together. Always the quiet ones.

“Is someone there?”

KNOCK-KNOCK.

Backs straight. Knees together. A gasp in the dark.

“You asked us to come, didn’t you?”

KNOCK-KNOCK.

Serra opened her eyes, just a crack. Lit by the steady flame of the lighter, Carter’s face was a grimace, sweat dripping down his forehead. Serra licked her teeth and watched Carter’s eyeballs moving rapidly behind his eyelids.

“Is there someone there?” she asked. “Is someone coming?”

Nothing. Serra repeated the question, and then closed her eyes. As soon as she did, the red and black shapes reappeared, dancing with the flickering flame.

She took a breath and held it; then she opened her eyes again. The flame was still, steady, strong.

Then she looked up. Standing behind the group, in the gap between Carter and the protesting Flyeye, stood DeJohn.

Except … maybe it was the light, the way he was illuminated in yellow from the front and from down low, maybe it was the way the light flickered even though the flame was steady and true. Maybe it was the way that the blackness behind him moved. Whatever it was, the figure looked less like DeJohn and more like a photograph, or some weird mannequin. She realized DeJohn had his eyes closed.