Com couldn't do a damned thing without Engineering.
Chief Engineer Ng was selfishly glad that he was going to be gone before things got any worse.
Rien came back to herself in a snap. The peach pit was clenched in her hand; Mallory gently uncoiled her fingers, knelt down—while Rien stood shaking, wishing she could lick the stickiness off her fingers and not daring—and nudged the moss aside to plant the pit beneath.
"He's dead," Rien said, when she had gathered herself. Her voice startled her. It sounded so strong, and so calm.
Mallory glanced up, sunlight catching on the edges of that mess of dark brown hair in a tawny halo, and answered with pursed lips and a shaken head: "I'm a necromancer, sweet. What did you think that meant?"
12 the opposite of dying
Love does not help to understand
The logic of the bursting shell.
—EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY
In comparison to what had come before their interlude in the Heaven, the next stage of their journey was almost pleasant. Which said more for the hardships of plunging directly from captivity to space and from space into a running gun battle than for any luxury of the current situation, because when Mallory had offered them a guide and a map, nothing had been mentioned of the first kilometer-and-a-half of the journey being a crawl through abandoned access tunnels.
Perceval sheathed herself in her parasite wings— deployed, they were bulky and awkward in the confined space—and pulled herself onward doggedly on her elbows behind Rien and the basilisk. Rien had it better: she was shorter, and could scoot forward on her hands and knees, although trying to avoid crushing Gavin's tail looked like a challenge.
The shafts had not been designed for long-distance travel, and frankly, had only been meant to be entered by human agents in catastrophic emergencies. In the moving time, the ancestors of evolved nanotools like Gavin would have performed the bulk of the maintenance.
Now, the tunnel was a dark, irregular tube, its sides laced with bruising protrusions under the colonies of pale parasitical bromeliads that grew from the pressed and extruded walls. It was impossible to move without breaking the waxy leaves of the plants. They popped and snapped under Perceval's hands and feet, releasing a clear, slightly gelatinous fluid with the green smell of aloe. Small things scuttled or hopped away, startled by the noise of their passage, or the blue radiance shed by Gavin and by Pinion, which allowed the travelers to see.
"Isn't it odd," Rien said, when they had been alternately climbing and crawling for a while, "that things have evolved to take advantage of every niche in the world? It didn't happen like that back on Earth, did it?"
Perceval bit her lip when she would have hushed Rien. Of course, Rien was not an Engineer. Earth was nothing to her but a name, something she might have been taught about in ecology. She didn't know how close to the heresy of the Go-backs she trod. "They were helped," Perceval said. "Camael and the bioengineers gave some colonies a special program, when they still could. Before Metatron died. It force-mutates. Not humans, of course—"
"Funny you should mention Metatron." Rien spoke between small grunts of effort as she levered herself over a humped obstacle. It was impossible, under a layer of ridged tree-ears, to tell what the shape might once have been. But now, it was covered with rather more edges than it had once been. "Mallory did, too."
"Your brain is optimized for pattern-sensing," Gavin commented. "And chatter."
Whether the basilisk meant her to or not, Perceval laughed. And after a moment, Rien—unsulky—laughed as well. Perceval reached forward and patted her sister's ankle in praise, surprised when Rien pulled it forward quickly. Perhaps her feet were ticklish.
"What were you in the before?" Rien asked—obviously of Gavin, not Perceval, who had not been born then. "A welder?"
"Laser-cutting torch," Gavin replied, fluttering his wings as he hop-flapped to the top of the next obstacle. "Ah. There's the halfway point, fair maidens."
Perceval groaned. "Gavin, I don't mean to complain. But why are we going this way?"
"Because I was instructed by the necromancer to lead you astray, exhaust you, and then gnaw your bones," he answered, hopping down the other side of the bulge he'd been perched on. "Unfortunately, I only have a beak, which makes it hard to gnaw, so I'm trying to scrape you to death, and in the meantime wasting power so you can see where you're going. Why do you think we're going this way?"
"Direct route," Rien said, promptly.
"And cannibals," Gavin said. "Socially irresponsible, but there you have it. This is the best way around their levels, and as far as I know there's oxygen and gravity the whole way."
"I could do with a little less gravity," Rien said.
Perceval laughed again, feeling better. At least she wasn't the only one whining.
This time, Rien tried to kick her.
By the time Gavin popped open a hatch with a clever twist of his beak and led them blinking out of the stuffy, musty access tube, both Perceval and Rien had come to the conclusion that it was better to save their breath. They clambered into a small compartment gratefully, and Perceval spent the next several minutes attempting to un-kink her spine. Gritting her teeth, she unfolded Pinion and allowed it a slow stretch, which did more for her abused shoulder muscles than all the twisting she'd done before.
There was no justice.
"Where to now?" Rien asked, while Perceval checked her display for the next twist in the map Mallory had uploaded.
"Twenty-minute lunch break. Praise Zakkiel, Angel of Electricity," Gavin said, and plugged himself into the wall.
Rien wasn't certain if she was grateful or disappointed that Mallory had not packed them any of the orchard fruit. She still had the plum, however, tucked inside the vest Mallory had given her, and she slid her fingers into the concealed pocket and touched its body-warmed surface. After the peach, she wasn't sure she'd taste it before it rotted, whatever Mallory said about only that one tree growing the dead.
The plum comforted her; she imagined she could smell it on her skin, like Mallory. She pulled her hand from her pocket and accepted the bread, soy cheese, and onion jam Perceval offered.
While they ate, and Gavin recharged, Rien studied the maps in her head. It seemed like where they were going wasn't far—some kilometers, if they could take the gangways instead of crawling through warrens. "We could be there tonight," she said.
Perceval looked at her in surprise, and spoke through a mouthful of bread. "How do you know?"
"Look at the map," Rien said. "I think there used to be a side corridor ..."
"There's nothing on the map," Perceval said, and then turned completely around, not just her head. "How would you know where a side corridor used to be, Rien?"
But Rien had pressed one hand to the side of her head, feeling the hair escape between her fingers. "Ng knew," she said. Then Perceval was staring at her, and for all she could tell Gavin might have been, too, except he never opened his eyes.
She set the bread carefully on the decking beside her and buried her face between her knees. She covered her mouth with her hands, but couldn't stop hyperventilating, and couldn't even begin to express why.
Perceval put a hand on her shoulder. "Rien, what's wrong?"
He just wanted to die, Rien wanted to say. He just wanted to die and now he's in me, and Mallory won't let him die. That could happen to anyone.