The Mirrored Heavens (42 page)

“That’s where it is,” says Haskell.

“So now what? We just walk in?”

“It knows we’re here. We know it’s there. Why the hell not?”

They stride between the open gates and into the temple. The corridors within are bereft of light. There’s no electricity. There’s no zone either, though it was there a moment ago. And it’s still live outside the temple. Haskell can see it dimly, like light through some distant prism. Which can only mean they’ve entered the Manilishi’s domain. They’re right on top of what they’re seeking. They turn a corner and find themselves approaching walls lined with candles.

Something suddenly comes alive in the zone all around them. Haskell feels it enveloping them: she feints, buys herself a moment, reconstitutes her and Marlowe’s shields as the vise closes. She gets in under its guard, turns it back. The inner sanctum of the temple lies straight ahead.

“That’s where it is,” she says on the one-to-one.

“Ten meters,” he replies.

They reach the end of the corridor. They reach a doorway. Marlowe hurls a concussion bomb inside. It practically takes out their eardrums.

They rush within.

T
hey’re making all the haste the terrain will allow them. Which isn’t much. Linehan’s gazing down thousands of meters. Spencer’s right up against the side of mountain. The whiteness encloses them on virtually all sides now. They can’t see the top of any of the mountains.

“It’s almost on us,” says Linehan.

Spencer doesn’t reply. He’s maneuvering along a road so narrow it can barely contain his wheels. He’s starting to wonder if he made a wrong turn—if he’s going to have to go through this in reverse too. He rounds another corner.

Only to find that the road forks. One route continues along the mountainside. The other follows an outcropping that juts into the valley below—and continues across that valley in the form of a very unstable-looking bridge that ends in a tunnel. Spencer starts heading for it.

“You sure about this?” says Linehan.

“Not even vaguely.”

“That thing is made of fucking
rope
.”

“If you want to get out and lighten the load, feel free.”

The truck dips alarmingly as it trundles down the bridge—shifts gears as it powers its way up the other side and into the tunnel. Spencer switches on the headlights while they traverse its length—and then they emerge onto the other side and onto another bridge. Only this one’s a little more stable. It ends in another tunnel. As they emerge from that tunnel and onto yet another bridge snow flurries start to swirl around them.

Two bridges later and the flurries are trending toward near-total white. They creep along another mountainside.

“Glad we found that fork before this hit,” says Spencer.

“We’ve almost reached the unoccupied territories,” says Linehan. “The border’s ten klicks away. Shouldn’t we be talking strategy?”

“What’s there to talk about?”

“I’m figuring we’re not just going to show passports and get waved across.”

“We don’t have passports, Linehan. Hate to break it to you, but all we are now is Andean peasants. One of the few forms of life remaining that’s not keyed to IDs in some database.”

“Database be damned,” snarls Linehan. “They don’t need databases when they have all of space to watch you. Every road that leads south is scanned, and you know it. So how are we going to get across that border?”

“We’re going to start,” says Spencer, “by not falling off a fucking cliff. Get out and walk ahead of me.”

“What?”

“At least that way I’ll be able to see
something
.”

Linehan opens the door, practically disappears into the white—and then his bulk reappears in front of the truck. He trudges forward. Spencer trundles after him, lets the map of this section of the mountains unfold in his head. The map’s the aggregation of more payoffs than he ever thought he’d have to make. And knowing what map he’d need was the aggregation of even more.

They enter another tunnel. This one’s a little wider than the ones to which they’ve become accustomed. Spencer’s watching the odometer, marking distance. He starts up the one-on-one again.

“Get back in here.”

Linehan stops, sidesteps the truck as it rolls past him, opens the door, swings inside. Spencer drives for another twenty seconds, then swings the truck in toward the tunnel wall, brakes to a halt. Linehan looks at him.

“What now?”

“Now we walk.”

“And leave the truck?”

“Unless you feel like dragging it. Someone will be along to collect it. It’ll look like we just took shelter in here.” He gets out and Linehan follows him. They trudge along the tunnel.

“None of this makes any sense,” says Linehan.

“So much the better,” replies Spencer. He’s been counting off steps. Now he stops at a certain point and starts tapping on the wall. He presses a particular ledge in a certain way and a section of the wall slides away.

“Those look like stairs,” says Linehan.

“They do more than just look.”

They start to descend into the root of the mountain.

T
he mountains passing beneath the shuttle are as remote as any in this part of the solar system. The Operative watches from the window as they reel by. It’s been an hour since they left Congreve. It’s been half an hour since they got into the thick of these mountains. They’re starting their final approach into Nansen. The Operative sees lights scattered on adjacent hills. He catches a quick glimpse of gun-studded domes. He watches a rail yard spread out beneath them, then disappear as they sail past it. The shuttle turns sharply: all the Operative can see is a rocky slope that looks to be the final resting place for shuttles whose pilots get a little too careless as they make their landing. The slope gives way to a massive platform. The shuttle settles down upon it.

“Check seals,” says a voice.

But everybody already has. And even as the shuttle powers down, its doors are opening and suited SpaceCom marines are piling through them. The Operative gets in on that crush. The platform onto which they’re all emerging juts out of a larger hangar that’s cut into the mountainside. The lights atop the mountain’s summit are dimly visible far above. And yet even this platform’s far higher than most of the mountain-tops around it. It makes for quite a view.

“Don’t just stand there,” says the voice.

The squad forms up behind the sergeant, moves in casual formation into the hangar. Small craft are everywhere—on the floors, hanging from the ceiling, along the walls. Mechanics are working many of them over. Adorning the entirety of the far wall are the moon and eagle that comprise the SpaceCom insignia.

“Move it,” says the voice.

They’re making their way into the cages of freight elevators set beneath that insignia. Grilled doors slide shut. The Operative counts levels as they descend. He sees in his mind’s eye his position within the mountain.

The elevator stops and the marines head out the open doors, transition through an airlock. But no sooner has he stepped past that airlock than the Operative finds the squad’s sergeant standing in his way.

“You,” he says.

“Sir,” says the Operative.

“You’re wanted in level control.”

“At once, sir.”

The Operative proceeds through several barracks, moves through the corridors beyond them. Marines challenge him on more than one occasion but he somehow finds that he’s always got the requisite IDs. Finally he arrives at a door that’s at the end of one of the farther corridors. Guns mounted in the wall around it triangulate on him. A voice challenges him.

But then the door opens.

And shuts behind the Operative as he goes through into a room that’s lined along three walls by consoles. A fourth wall is sliced through by a window that seems to look down upon the level below. Three persons are in that room. None wear suits. All are officers. They regard the suited Operative. They look puzzled.

“How the fuck did you get in?” asks one.

“Orders, sir,” replies the Operative. “Here’s my clearance.”

A gas bereft of color and smell sprays from valves set along his shoulders. The men convulse. The Operative puts a bullet in the back of each of their heads for good measure. He goes to work on the comps. He enters the codes.

“Proceed to Elevator H3,” says the voice of Stefan Lynx.

The Operative says nothing. For a moment he looks out the window—the room is set almost at the ceiling of a massive cavern whose floor is a chaos of rails, digging equipment, and tunnels. He turns back to the consoles, types more keystrokes. He hits execute. The door slides open. He goes through, proceeds from there to what’s designated as H3 on the map in his head. A suited marine stands before the elevator door. The Operative flashes clearance.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” says the soldier.

“It means I get to use this elevator,” replies the Operative.

“This elevator’s restricted to the brass.”

“I got a battlefield promotion,” says the Operative and suddenly pivots forward, plunging a knife into the man’s visor. All of the myriad tiny blades that comprise that knife are whirring at high velocity as they sear through visor, skull, helmet, and the elevator door behind. The man jerks as his blood streams down the Operative’s arm; the Operative’s arm jerks with him. He pulls the knife out, lets the suited figure flop onto the floor, drags the body into a nearby storeroom. He enters the elevator and the door shuts behind him.

As the elevator trundles downward, the Operative’s thinking furiously. He knows that Lynx and Sarmax have either entered the base by now or the entire mission’s blown. He has no idea how they were planning to gain entry. He’s not supposed to know. He’s the spearhead of the entire operation—with Sarmax acting both as handler and second mech and Lynx providing tactical coordination and on-the-spot zone coverage. To have razor, mech, and handler in physical proximity on the same run is highly unusual. But the team now hitting Nansen never had much patience for procedure. It’s been many years since they did the runs together. Yet somehow it seems like no time has passed at all. The elevator stops. The doors open. The Operative emerges, moves down the corridor thus revealed, cycles through another airlock. He encounters more marines, but no one challenges him. He hears Lynx’s voice once more.

“Change up,” it says. “Alter route as follows.”

The Operative tries to envision Lynx’s calculations. The garrison of the Third Marines has set up three levels of defense. The Operative breached the outer perimeter when he landed. He snuck through the inner perimeter by way of Elevator H3. Now he’s down in the core of the operations. All that’s left to hit is the inner enclave. And Lynx is making last-second changes to better enable its penetration. The Operative reaches another doorway. He looks out on a large cave that looks to be an offshoot of the cavern he glimpsed from the control room. Steps lead down from the door in which he’s standing to a floor where walkway crosses rails. The Operative heads down to the walkway, crosses toward a train that’s moving silently in toward him—but he stops as it picks up steam. He lets it rumble by, beholds scores of suited miners staring down at him. He stares up at their visored faces—watches as those faces give way to equipment and cargo and finally to nothing. Tail-lights flicker red as the train moves farther down that tunnel.

The Operative’s already moving—over rails that are still quivering with vibration and through a doorway cut into the far wall. He goes through another airlock. Scarcely has he come out its other side than lights begin to flash. A siren starts up. The voice of Stefan Lynx echoes in his helmet once again.

“We’re rumbled. Kill everything you see and don’t stop killing until we’ve won.”

The Operative hits his suit’s thrusters.

T
he inner sanctum of the Kanheri Temple of Great Peace is vacant save for an altar. The banners hung from the ceiling have been torn by the blast that’s just rocked the chamber.

“Where the fuck is it?” yells Marlowe. He’s got his guns out.

“I don’t fucking know,” screams Haskell. She opens up on the altar, destroys it in a barrage of explosive rounds. In the zone she catches a glimpse of some presence receding.

“It’s running,” she says.

“Then so are we.”

They start to race down the corridor. They leap bodies, sprint around corners. They charge through what’s left of the temple. Even now they don’t lose their formation. They’re on guard against the oldest gambit of them all—when the hunted doubles back on hunter. So Marlowe leads and Haskell covers him, covers the zone too. She can see nothing at all. But she knows full well that something’s there. Something that’s gone lights out and hell for leather. Something that couldn’t be that far ahead of them…

“We’re out of the temple now,” says Marlowe.

“Some kind of back entrance,” confirms Haskell.

One that’s sloping down. They’re dropping well below the level of the Seleucus Flats now.

“Are you sure this is the way it went?” asks Marlowe.

“It’s right ahead of us,” she says.

She can’t see it on the zone. But she knows it’s right there. She fires on long-range. Tracers streak past Marlowe, explode in the depths of the tunnel. The walls around them shake.

“Easy,” says Marlowe.

“Goddamn it,” mutters Haskell.

She keeps expecting to stumble upon its smoking wreckage, keeps waiting for it to leap from the very rock around them. But it’s not going out easy. She knows it’s got special powers. But as to how those manifest in tactical combat situations, she can only guess. She detects a heat signature farther down the tunnel. It’s moving away quickly.

“Thrusters,” says Haskell.

“Must be,” replies Marlowe.

They ignite their own, give chase. If they’re heading into a trap, they could be in a precarious position. But they’ve got no choice. They’re ready for anything. But nothing moves save the shadows cast by their own flames. The heat signature in front of them is very faint. As is the zone presence. They’re pursuing it as fast as they dare.

“Where the fuck are we?” says Marlowe.