* * *
FOR A FEW minutes, Leal thought they would make it. Yet as the mysterious blockhouse that hung in the precise black between the worlds came nearer, she heard muttering among her companions; Piero and the other men were slowing. Leal peered ahead, and she, too, faltered.
John Tarvey was waiting for them at the end of the crystal tunnel.
The lads were drawing their guns, both the ones they'd brought and the new ones Keir Chen's people had made for them. Tarvey just stood there, his hands up and his face half-turned aside--not a gesture of surrender, but a pose that said hear me out.
Keir had come abreast of Leal and now he sent her an uneasy frown. She guessed what he was thinking. They could go back; he could summon his people to help. She shook her head minutely. If the firepower they had with them wasn't sufficient to deal with this thing that had taken on the shape of her friend, whatever force would be enough might also be enough to shatter the crystal tube, and kill them all through exposure to the vacuum.
She brought her party to a halt about thirty feet from the creature. "We shot you before," she shouted. "What makes you think we won't do it again?"
"I'm absolutely sure you will," he said. Still with his hands up, he continued, "But I'm not out to stop you. I can help."
The lads exchanged suspicious glances; then their eyes turned to Leal. She moistened her lips and thought about what to say. "What do you mean?" was all she could finally summon.
"We can end that primitive bombardment that's threatening your friends," said Tarvey. "It's just chemical weapons, after all--primitive airships. They could be swept aside in seconds. All I have to do is make the call."
"Make the call?" She shook her head, uncomprehending. "To who? Who's this 'we' you're talking about? I thought we were your friends."
A look of distress flickered across his face then, to be quickly erased by the uncanny serenity that was so unlike the John Tarvey she knew. "You know us as the virtuals," he said. "We're a vast and ancient civilization--the inheritors of humanity's original spark of consciousness. And we want to help you."
"We don't want your help!" shouted Piero Harper. He raised his pistol. "Stand aside. Now!"
Leal touched her hand to Piero's wrist. "Wait," she said. "Tarvey, we don't need the help of the virtuals right now. But we could use your help."
Tarvey tilted his head to one side, minutely. "What?" he asked.
"You said that all you have to do is make the call." She had some notion of what that meant: there had been telephone stations on some street corners in Sere. You could pay the vendor and shout into the staticky roar of the handset, and with luck make out the gist of what the person on the other end was saying. Here, where Candesce's influence was barely felt, such long-distance communication must be easy. "Do you mean to say that you haven't yet told this civilization of yours what's happening here?"
Now it was Tarvey's turn to look suspicious. "They know I've been following you. They know about Brink."
"But do they know about this?" She nodded at the blockhouse behind him.
Tarvey looked aloof. "I can't find any record of this door, but--"
"Don't. In the name of the friendship we had, John, I beg this of you. If it's in your power to hide this door from your ... friends ... if you can do that, then you can help. You. Not Artificial Nature, John. You."
He slowly lowered his chin, and she could see he was troubled. "All I want," he said, "is that you not die. That we can be ... together."
Leal felt a prickle down the back of her neck at the sudden realization of what he was offering. When John said not die, he meant never die. --And that would have been the most wonderful of offers she could ever have heard, were it not for one thing: his reasons.
"John," she said with quiet sadness, "I can't help you now."
He looked up again, and she saw it in his eyes: the prospect of an eternity outside of Virga, of outliving his friends, his family, his country and even the language of his birth. The loneliness of the image made her shudder. If such loneliness was possible, Leal didn't want to be immortal.
"Please," she said again. "Do this for us. For what you once were. And for what we still are."
John Tarvey crossed his arms and, with the slightest push of his toe against the crystal, drifted to the side. Leal and her lads filed past him, until all that was left to him was silence.
* * *
IT LOOKED LIKE nothing so much as a bush made of knives. It even shone as if it were made of metal, but it moved as though alive--and as it advanced on Jacoby and his men, its blades fanned open like deadly flowers.
Jacoby grabbed a pedestrian rope and drew his sword. "Maybe we can..." But his men were diving away through the bodies; Antaea looked at them, looked at Jacoby, shrugged; and followed the others. To buy time, Jacoby drew his pistol and fired it at the center of the shapeless jagged thing that was advancing on him.
Jacoby's shot struck the knife thing in its knotted metal heart, but it simply pulsed like a steel jellyfish, jetting backward, then opened up multiple arms and came on.
A jumble of bodies and whirling lanterns ricocheted down the passage. His men were shouting to one another and somebody kept on firing, the bullets narrowly missing Jacoby as he struggled to catch up. Behind them, loud cracking noises signaled the birth of more of the dagger-balls.
In the tangle of the corridor Jacoby had to jump from rope to rope, or bounce his shoulder or hip off the walls, then plow through clouds of debris. The dagger-balls simply cut through the lines and batted any obstacles aside.
"Wait, maybe they're friendly!" Antaea shouted, then she laughed wildly. But she was hanging back, waiting for Jacoby. "Come on!" She let go of the lantern she was holding and extended a hand to Jacoby. The lantern spun lazily, sweeping shadows across the bladed thing on Jacoby's heels. They weren't going to get away from it.
In desperation he kicked the lantern. It sailed straight into the snicking complex of blades and exploded. He and Antaea dove away from it; they'd made several jumps from rope to rope before Jacoby realized that the burning thing wasn't following.
"Hold." He grabbed a line to steady himself and looked back. The dagger-ball hovered motionless in the center of the passage, its brothers crowded behind it but unable to get past. "Did we kill it?"
Antaea shook her head. "I think it's too clever for that. Look!"
In zero gravity, fire needed moving air to sustain it. Even as Jacoby realized what the dagger-ball was doing, the globe of flame enveloping it exhausted the available oxygen, flickered, and went out.
"Hell!" They fled as the monsters surged forward again.
A hundred feet on and Mauven had stopped dead. He was waving his lantern in frantic puzzlement at a branching of the passage. "Which way?" Antaea shouted.
Jacoby cursed again. "Just pick one!" It was too late as scything blades filled the air between them. "Fall back!" he shouted, but Desick, his boatswain, drew his sword and leaped at a monster. Desick had fought in three wars and was the best swordsman on the Page, but he couldn't parry the six blades that found him and he tumbled backward, silent and trailing red beads.
The dagger-balls had split the party, with Jacoby, Mauven, and Antaea on one side and the others on the other. There was a passage open to each group, so Jacoby yelled "Go!" across the bladed air and dragged Antaea with him into the dark way.
* * *
"MY MIND WON'T be able to go with you." It was the little golden doll speaking from its perch on Maspeth's shoulder. "The interference from Candesce will drive me mad again."
Maspeth nodded. "We knew you'd have to leave us before we got home. I guess it's good-bye?"