Locke kneeled and picked up the vault. Then he looked at Washen, saying matter-of-factly, “The usual payment. That’s what we’re offering.”

  Miocene roared.

  “What do you mean? This is the best artifact yet!”

  No one responded, gazing at her as if she was insane.

  “It functions. It remembers.” The Submaster was flinging her arms into the air, telling them, “The other vaults were empty, or nearly so —”

  “Exactly,” said Till.

  Then, as if it was beneath their leader to explain the obvious, Locke gave the two of them a look of pity, telling them, “Those vaults are empty because what they were holding is elsewhere now. Elsewhere.”

  Till and Locke touched their scalps.

  Every follower did the same, fifty thousand arms lifting, a great ripple reaching the top of the amphitheater as everyone pointed at their minds. At their reborn souls.

  Locke was staring at his mother.

  A premonition made her mouth dry. “Why isn’t Diu here?”

  “Because he’s dead,” her son replied, an old sadness passing through his face. “I’m sorry. It happened eight years ago, during a powerful eruption.”

  Washen couldn’t speak, or move.

  “Are you all right, Mother?”

  She took a breath, then lied. “Yes. I’m fine.”

  Then she saw the most astonishing sight yet in this long and astonishing day: Miocene had dropped to her knees, and with a pleading voice, she was begging for Till’s forgiveness. “I never should have struck you,” she said. She said, “Darling,” with genuine anguish. Then as a last resort, she told him, “And I do love the ship. As much as you do, you ungrateful shit !”

  Mission Year 4895.33:

  From the very top of the new bridge, where the atmosphere was barely a sloppy vacuum, Marrow finally began to resemble a far away place.

  The captains appreciated the view.

  Whenever Washen was on duty, she gazed down at the city-like encampments and sprawling farms, the dormant volcanoes and surviving patches of jungle, feeling a delicious sense of detachment from it all. A soft gray twilight held sway. The buttresses had continued to shrivel and weaken over the last millennia, and if Miocene’s model proved true, in another two centuries the buttresses would vanish entirely. For a few moments, or perhaps a few years, there would be no barrier between them and the ship. Marrow world would be immersed in a perfect blackness. Then the buttresses would reignite suddenly, perhaps accompanied by another Event. But by then the captains and their families, moving with a swift, drilled precision, would have escaped, climbing up this wondrously makeshift bridge, reaching the old base camp, then hopefully, returning to the ship, at last.

  What they would find there, no one knew.

  Or in a polite company, discussed.

  In the last five thousand years, every remote possibility had been suggested, debated in depth, and finally, mercifully, buried in an unmarked grave.

  Whatever was, was.

  That was the mandatory attitude, and it had been for centuries now.

  All that mattered was the bridge. The surviving captains — almost two-thirds of the original complement — lived for its completion. Hundreds of thousands of their descendants worked in distant mines or trucked the ore to the factories. Another half million were manufacturing superstrong alloys and crude flavors of hyperfiber, some of each added to the bridge’s foundation, while the rest were spun together into hollow tubes. Washen’s duty was to oversee the slow, rigorous hoisting of each new tube, then its final attachment. Compared to the original bridge, their contraption was inelegant and preposterously fat. Yet she felt a genuine pride all the same, knowing the sacrifices that went into its construction, and the enormous amounts of time, and when they didn’t have any other choice, a lot of desperate, ad hoc inventiveness.

  “Madam Washen?” said a familiar voice. “Excuse me, madam.”

  The captain blinked, then turned.

  Her newest assistant stood in the doorway. An intense, self-assured man of no particular age, he was obviously puzzled — a rare expression — and with a mixture of curiosity and confusion, he announced, “Our shift is over.”

  “In fifty minutes,” Washen replied, knowing the exact time for herself.

  “No, madam.” Nervous hands pressed at the crisp fabric of his technician’s uniform. “I just heard. We’re to leave immediately, using every tube but the Primary.”

  She looked at the displays on her control boards. “I don’t see any orders.”

  “I know —”

  “Is this another drill?” If the reinforced crust under them ever began to subside, they might have only minutes to evacuate. “Because if it is, we need a better system than having you walking about, tapping people’s shoulders.”

  “No, madam. It’s not a drill.”

  “Then what —?”

  “Miocene,” he blurted. “She contacted me directly. Following her instructions, I’ve already dismissed the others, and now I am to tell you to wait here. She is on her way.” As proof, he gave the order’s file code. Then with a barely restrained frustration, he added, “This is very mysterious. Everyone agrees. But the Submaster is such a secretive person, so I am assuming —”

  “Who’s with her?” Washen interrupted.

  “I don’t think anyone.”

  But the primary tube was the largest. Twenty captains could ride inside one of its cars, never brushing elbows with one another.

  “Her car seems to have an extra thick hull,” the assistant explained, “plus some embellishments that I can’t quite decipher.”

  “What sorts of embellishments?”

  He glanced at the time, pretending he was anxious to leave. But he was also proud of his cleverness, just as Washen guessed he would be. Cameras inside the tube let them observe the car. Its mass could be determined by the energy required to lift it. He pointed to the pipelike devices wrapped around its hull, making the car look like someone’s ball of rope, and with a sudden dose of humility, he admitted, “I don’t seem to quite understand that apparatus.”

  In other words, “Please explain it to me, madam.”

  But Washen didn’t explain anything. Looking at her assistant — one of the most talented and loyal of the captains’ offspring; a man who had proved himself on every occasion — she shrugged her shoulders, then lied.

  She said, “I don’t understand it, either.”

  Then before she took another breath, she suggested, “You should probably do what she wants. Leave. If Miocene finds you waiting here, she’ll kick you down the shaft herself.”

  The Submaster had exactly the same face and figure that she had carried for millennia, but in the eyes and in the corners of her voice, she was changed. Transformed, almost. On those rare occasions when they met face to face, Washen marveled at all the ways life on Marrow had changed Miocene. And then she would wonder if it was the same for her — if old friends looked at Washen and thought to themselves, “She looks tired, and sad, and maybe a little profound.”

  They saw each other infrequently, but despite rank and Miocene’s attitudes, it was difficult to remain formal. Washen whispered; “Madam,” and then added, “Are you crazy? Do you really think it’ll work?”

  The face smiled, not a hint of joy in it. “According to my models, probably. With an initial velocity of five hundred meters per —”

  “Accuracy isn’t your problem,” Washen told her. “And if you can slip inside your target — that three kilometer remnant of the old bridge, right? — you’ll have enough time to brake your momentum.”

  “But my mind will have died. Is that what you intend to say?”

  “Even as thin and weak as the buttresses are now I would hope you’re dead. Otherwise you’ll have suffered an incredible amount of brain damage.” Washen shook her head. “Unless you’ve accomplished a miracle, and that car will protect you for every millisecond of the way.”

  Miocene nodded. “It’s taken some twenty-one hundred years, and some considerable secrecy on my part but the results have been well worth it.”

  In the remote past — Washen couldn’t remember when exactly — the captains toyed with exactly this kind of apparatus. But it was the Submaster who ordered them not to pursue it. “Too risky,” was her verdict. Her lie. “Too many technical hurdles.”

  For lack of better, Washen smiled grimly and told her, “Good luck then.”

  Miocene shook her head, her eyes gaining an ominous light. “Good luck to both of us, you mean. The cabin’s large enough for two.”

  “But why me?”

  “Because I respect you,” she reported. “And if I order you to accompany me, you will. And frankly, I need you. You’re more gifted than me when it comes to talking to people. The captains and our halfway loyal descendants well, let’s just say they share my respect for you, and that could be an enormous advantage.”

  Washen guessed the reason, but she still asked, “Why?”

  “I intend to explore the ship. And if the worst has happened — if it’s empty and dead — then you’re the best person, I believe, to bring home that terrible news ”

  Just like that, they escaped from Marrow.

  Miocene’s car was cramped and primitive, and the swift journey brought little hallucinations and a wrenching nausea. But they survived with their sanity. Diving into the remains of the first bridge, the Submaster brought them to a bruising halt inside the assembly station, slipping into the first empty berth, then she took a moment to smooth her crude, homespun uniform with a trembling long hand.

  Base camp had been without power for nearly five millennia. The Event had crippled every reactor, every drone. Without food or water, the abandoned lab animals had dropped into comas, and as their immortal flesh lost moisture, they mummified. Washen picked up one of the mandrill baboons — an enormous male weighing little more than a breath — and she felt its leathery heart beat, just once, just to tell her, “I waited for you.”

  She set it down, and left quietly.

  Miocene was standing on the viewing platform, gazing expectantly at the horizon. Even at this altitude, they could only see the captains’ realm. The nearest of the Wayward cities — spartan places with cold and simple iron buildings fitted together like blocks — were hundreds of kilometers removed from them. Which might as well have been hundreds of light years, as much as the two cultures interacted anymore.

  “You look as if you’re expecting someone,” Washen observed.

  The Submaster said nothing.

  “The Waywards are going to find out that we’re here, madam. If Till doesn’t already know, it’s only because he’s got too many spies, and all of them are talking at once.”

  Miocene nodded absently, taking a deep breath.

  Then she turned, and never mentioning the Waywards, she said, “We’ve wasted enough time. Let’s go see what’s upstairs.”

  The long access tunnel to the ship was intact.

  Tube-cars remained in their berths, untouched by humans and apparently shielded from the Event by the surrounding hyperfiber. Their engines were charged, every system locked in a diagnostic mode. The com-links refused to work, perhaps because there was no one to maintain the dead ship’s net. But by dredging the proper commands from memory, Washen got them under way, and every so often she would glance at Miocene, measuring the woman’s stern profile, wondering which of them was more scared of what they would find.

  The tunnel turned into an abandoned fuel line that spilled out into the leech habitat.

  Everything was exactly as Washen’s team had left it. Empty and dusty and relentlessly gray, the habitat welcomed them with a perfect silence.

  Miocene gripped her belly, as if in pain.

  Washen tried to link up with the ship’s net, but every connection to the populated areas had been severed.

  “We’re going on,” Miocene announced. “Now.”

  They pressed on, climbing out of the mammoth fuel tank and into the first of the inhabited quarters. Suddenly they were inside a wide, flattened tunnel, enormous and empty, and looking out at the emptiness, Miocene said, “Perhaps the passengers and crew perhaps they were able to evacuate the ship do you suppose ?”

  Washen began to say, “Maybe.”

  From behind, with a jarring suddenness, an enormous car appeared, bearing down on them until a collision was imminent, then skipping sideways with a crisp, AI precision. Then as the car was passing them, its sole passenger — an enormous-whale-like entity cushioned within a salt water bath — winked at them with three of its black eyes, winking just as people did at each other, meaning nothing but the friendliest of greetings.

  It was a Yawkleen. Five millennia removed from her post, yet Washen immediately remembered the species’ name.

  With a flat, disbelieving voice, Miocene said, “No.”

  But it was true. In the distance, they could just make out a dozen cars, the traffic light, but otherwise perfectly normal. Perfectly banal.

  Pausing at the first waystation, they asked its resident AI about the Master’s health.

  With a smooth cheeriness, it reported, “She is in robust good health. Thank you for inquiring.”

  “Since when?” the Submaster pressed.

  “For the last sixty thousand years, bless her.”

  Miocene was mute, a scalding rage growing by the instant.

  One of the waystation’s walls was sprinkled with com-booths. Washen stepped into the nearest booth, saying, “Emergency status. The captains’ channel. Please, we need to speak to the Master.”

  Miocene followed, sealing the door behind them.

  A modest office surrounded them, spun out of light and sound. Three captains and countless AIs served as the Master’s staff and as buffers. It was the night staff, Washen realized; the clocks on Marrow were wrong by eleven hours. Not too bad after fifty centuries of little mistakes —

  The human faces stared at the apparitions, while the AIs simply asked, “What is your business, please?”

  “I want to see her!” Miocene thundered.

  The captains tried to portray an appropriate composure.

  “I’m Miocene! Submaster, First Chair!” The tall woman bent over the nearest captain, saying, “You’ve got to recognize me. Look at me. Something’s very wrong —”

  The AIs remembered them, and acted.

  The image swirled and stabilized again.

  The Master was standing alone in a conference room, watching the arrival of a small starship. She looked exactly as Washen remembered, except that her hair was longer and tied in an intricate bun. Preoccupied in ways that only a Ship’s Master can be, she didn’t bother to look at her guests. She wasn’t paying attention to her AI’s warnings. But when she happened to glance at the two captains — both dressed in crude, even laughable imitations of standard ship uniforms — a look of wonder and astonishment swept over that broad face, replaced an instant later with a piercing fury.

  “Where have the two of you been?” the Master cried out.

  “Where you sent us!” Miocene snapped. “Marrow!”

  “Where ?!” the woman spat.

  “Marrow,” the Submaster repeated. Then, in exasperation, “What sort of game are you playing with us?”

  “I didn’t send you anywhere !”

  In a dim, half-born way, Washen began to understand.

  Miocene shook her head, asking, “Why keep our mission secret?” Then in the next breath, “Unless all you intended to do was imprison the best of your captains —”

  Washen grabbed Miocene by the arm, saying, “Wait. No.”

  “My best captains? You?” The Master gave a wild, cackling laugh. “My best officers wouldn’t vanish without a trace. They wouldn’t take elaborate precautions to accomplish god-knows-what, keeping out of sight for how long? And without so much as a whisper from any one of them !”

  Miocene glanced at Washen with an empty face. “She didn’t send us —”

  “Someone did,” Washen replied.

  “Security!” the Master shouted. “Two ghosts are using this link! Track them! Hurry! Please, please!”

  Miocene killed the link, giving them time.

  The stunned ghosts found themselves standing inside the empty booth, trying to make sense out of pure insanity.

  “Who could have fooled us ?” asked Washen. Then in her next breath, she realized how easy it would have been: Someone with access and ingenuity sent orders in the Master’s name, bringing the captains together in an isolated location. Then the same ingenious soul deceived them with a replica of the Master, sending them rushing down to the ship’s core

  “I could have manipulated all of you,” Miocene offered, thinking along the same seductive, extremely paranoid lines. “But I didn’t know about Marrow’s existence. None of us knew.”

  But someone had known. Obviously.

  “And even if I possessed the knowledge,” Miocene continued, “what could I hope to gain?”

  An ancient memory surfaced of its own accord. Suddenly Washen saw herself standing before the window in the leech habitat, looking at the captains’ reflections while talking amiably about ambition and its sweet, intoxicating stink.

  “We’ve got to warn the Master,” she told Miocene.

  “Of what?”

  She didn’t answer, shouting instructions to the booth, then waiting for a moment before asking, “Are you doing what I said?”

  The booth gave no reply.

  Washen eyed Miocene, feeling a sudden chill. Then she unsealed the booth’s door and gave it a hard shove, stepping warily out into the waystation.

  A large woman in robes was calmly and efficiently melting the AI with a powerful laser.

  Wearing a proper uniform, saying the expected words, she would be indistinguishable from the Master.

  But what surprised the captains even more was the ghost standing nearby. He was wearing civilian clothes and an elaborate disguise, and Washen hadn’t seen him for ages. But from the way his flesh quivered on his bones, and the way his gray eyes smiled straight at her, there was no doubt about his name.

  “Diu,” Washen whispered.

  Her ex-lover lifted a kinetic stunner.

  Too late and much too slowly, Washen attempted to tackle him.

  Then she was somewhere else, and her neck had been broken, and Diu’s face was hovering over her, laughing as it spoke, every word incomprehensible.

  Washen closed her eyes. Another voice spoke, asking, “How did you find Marrow?” Miocene’s voice?

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 301 302 303 304 305 306 307 308 309 310 311 312 313 314 315 316 317 318 319